Talking-up Scotland

8 February 2017

See this from BMG:

‘The latest BMG poll for the Herald reveals that support for Scottish independence has increased since the Prime Minister suggested that the UK would leave the single market.

The results found that with “don’t knows” removed, 49% of Scots now support independence, up 3 percentage points since BMG last poll for the Herald in December 2016.

A closer look at the data reveals that support for independence remains strongest among the young. A majority (56%) of those aged 16-34 are in favour of independence, up 5 percentage points on December, whereas just 25% of those aged 65 and over share the same view. Support for independence is also up among Remainers from 45% to 51%.’

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/support-independence-increases-brexit/

The full report including methodology can be scrutinised at: http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BMG-Opinion-Poll-for-The-Herald-Methodology-Sheet-080217.pdf

Here’s some of the the methodology and it’s this that makes me optimistic for the future:

Data Collection Method: Fieldwork was conducted online. Invitations to participate were sent to members of online panels. Non-response from different demographic groups was taken into account during the fieldwork phase and post-fieldwork adjustments.

 Sample: All residents aged 16+ in Scotland. The sample size is 1,067 respondents.

 Weighting: Results were weighted to reflect the profile of people aged 16+, in Scotland.

Targets were: Age/Sex, Scottish Parliamentary Region, Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), the 2014 Independence Referendum Results, the 2015 General Election results and the 2016 EU Referendum Results.’

This looks reasonably like the ‘real deal’ in research terms. There’s obviously some scope for subjectivity and thus bias in the choice of ‘online panels’ and the sample size is surprisingly small given the low cost of online data collection by contrast with say, telephone interviews.

I’ve already written attacking polls based on telephone interviews which mostly suggest no increase in the Yes support since 2014. Here’s what I said back in January:

____________________________________________________________

First see these reservations, from YouGov, about telephone interviews from the opinion polls which got the EU Referendum so wrong:

‘There’s a big difference between the online and telephone polls on the EU referendum – with online polls showing the sides neck-and neck and telephone polls showing about a 15% gap in favour of ‘remain’. Why? It’s striking that both methodologies right across the different polling companies give about the same number to the ‘leave’ campaign, around 40%. The difference is in the ‘remain’ number, which is around 52% from the telephone polls but only 40% for online polls.’

So, commonly, telephone surveys generate conservative, negative or status quo returns. Respondents are more likely to say no to a question about a big change of some kind. I don’t know what effect an English accent would have.

In another YouGov report we read:

‘Now however we can reveal a real, significant and evidence-based difference between the two methodologies that explains why they are divergent and why it is online that appears to be calling it correctly.’

See this online survey report from the, far from sympathetic to Scottish Independence, Scotsman newspaper in June 2016:

‘Nearly six out of 10 Scots say they’d vote Yes in a second independence referendum. In a clear reflection of the growing backlash north of the Border to Thursday’s Brexit result, a ScotPulse online survey of 1,600 Scottish adults on Friday (24 June) showed that 59% of Scots now back leaving the UK.’

Further, not everyone has a landline to be called on. Roughly 20%, especially younger and economically disadvantaged citizens do not have one so cannot be surveyed. As the Herald report points out, the young and the less-well-off are more likely to prefer independence.

Here’s an even more interesting thought, from the USA admittedly:

‘There now may be something unusual about people who are willing to answer the phone to talk with strangers, and we should be sceptical about generalizing from the results of these surveys. It is possible that the new habit of non-phone-answering is evenly distributed throughout the population (thus reducing this as a sampling confound), but this seems unlikely.’

Now, are NO voters more unusual than Yes voters?

 

So based on the above evidence this recent 49% might well be pretty accurate. Why does that make me optimistic? I guess it’s obvious to many of you. To start a campaign for a Yes vote in the next referendum from a starting point of almost equivalence would be a dream for us Yessers. Think of the extra nearly 200 000 16 years of age plus voters who have arrived on the scene since September 2014. As an auld yin myself I won’t say too much about the older No voters, many of them English settlers who retired up here and voted to keep us in the UK in large numbers. That wouldn’t be nice. More important, think of all the feet shoved sideways in Tory politicians’ mouths over the next few years. They can’t hide their contempt for us. They’re going to feed us so much evidence we’d be better apart. Think of all the non-native but welcome Scots who now know all too well what the English Tories think of them and their right to stay in the UK. Think of all the Union-first Labour supporters who voted Tory recently who find out just what that is going to mean for their employment rights, their families and their unemployed or disabled friends. They’ll be back.

Sources:

https://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Bmg-Research/reviews

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/23/commentary-what-explains-difference-between-phone-/https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/23/commentary-what-explains-difference-between-phone-/

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/05/20/revealed-evidence-greater-skews-phone-polls/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/386778/share-of-calls-enabled-landlines-in-uk-hoseholds/

http://www.scotsman.com/news/poll-puts-support-for-scottish-independence-at-59-1-4163338

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/09/20/what-if-the-problem-with-phone-polls-is-that-they-are-phone-polls/

How can you blow up something that is already rigid? That’s my mind blown too. Easily done.

For the second time, I thought I’d tell some good news stories for a change though I get far fewer readers when I do. Regular readers will have noticed I had to respond to the BBC’s fake news about ‘buckling’ midwives. Isn’t it the pregnant mothers more at risk of that? I haven’t seen these in the national mainstream media. I certainly haven’t seen them on Reporting Scotland. Anyhow, they’re worth spreading I think. Here are some extracts with the references for the full reports:

Scottish Universities continue to welcome students from Europe despite threat from Brexit.

‘Scotland’s place as a destination of choice for EU students to undertake higher education is threatened by the hard Brexit model outlined by the UK Government, Higher Education Minister, Shirley-Anne Somerville said today: ‘We have the highest percentage of international and EU combined university students of the four UK nations with 21.6% in 2015-16… While we take some comfort from the fact that the drop is lower in Scotland – 4% compared with 7% in England – these new figures offer just one more indication of the damage being done by the decision to leave the EU. Encouragingly, the UCAS stats also show that the number of applicants to Scotland’s universities from outside of the EU is up 4% this year compared to last.’

http://news.gov.scot/news/scotland-is-top-of-erasmus-class

 

Abandoned harbour buildings to be rebuilt as Wick gears up for Beatrice boom

‘Long-abandoned buildings at Wick harbour are to be rebuilt to serve a predicted business boom during construction of a massive offshore windfarm. Two buildings in the town’s Lower Pultneytown are to be turned into an operations and maintenance base for the construction of the Beatrice development in the Moray Firth. Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (Bowl) already have planning permission to redevelop the listed buildings.’

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/business/north-of-scotland/1160313/abadoned-harbour-buildings-to-be-rebuilt-as-wick-gears-up-for-beatrice-boom/

World first for Moray boat builder could triple turnover

A Moray based boat builder is to become the first in the world to build and supply a new type of rigid inflatable boat (RIB). The move will create six new jobs and treble the company’s turnover in the next three years. Probond Marine Limited (PBM) in Buckie was formed in 2015. In partnership with boat designer Barry Carson they are now building the renowned Carson range of commercial and military RIBs. The company has secured a £65,000 investment from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) towards the development costs of the new Interceptor Class demonstrator RIB and showcasing this at trade shows.’

‘The hull of the Interceptor Class is unique in being the first to use delta shaped multiple steps to reduce friction thus enabling higher all round performance for a given horsepower. Because of their configuration they also remove some of the potential drawbacks sometimes associated with stepped hulls. A straight unbroken keel line means easier trailer launching and push off after beaching. The hull is believed to be the first of its type in the world to offer water jet propulsion with a stepped hull.’

https://www.sbnn.co.uk/2017/02/06/world-first-moray-boat-builder-triple-turnover/

I hope that cheers someone up even if the last one leaves you, like me, utterly confused.

(c) http://www.snopes.com/

7^th February 2017

The Mainstream Media like to pretend that fake news is only found on social media or on Russia Today but BBC Scotland News do it like no other.

This morning we heard:

‘Maternity services in Scotland are “beginning to buckle”, according to a new report by the Royal College of Midwives.’

Remember the Royal College of Midwives is a trade union just like the RMT or Unison. There is no report in the sense of empirical research providing evidence to justify claiming anything like the headline. Indeed there is only a news release. Notice the use of the word ‘beginning’. We had such language last year predicting crises in NHS Scotland over the Christmas/New Year peak demand period. No such crisis happened in Scotland though many did in England.

Previously, I’ve requested under the Freedom of Information Act, full details from royal colleges only to be told that, like the BBC, they are not subject to the act so can say what they like unscrutinised.

I’ve written twice recently about so-called impending crises in Scotland’s maternity services so let me just give a few quotes and the references so you can look back at them. The arguments remain the same. This is another BBC/Royal College scare story to undermine the SNP. The local elections are coming of course.

See these from this year and in 2016:

Today the Scottish Government has published its national maternity review ‘The Best Start – A Five Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland’. Commenting on the Plan, Mary Ross-Davie, Director for Scotland at the Royal College of Midwives, said; “This is a very welcome report and one that has the full support of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).’

https://www.rcm.org.uk/news-views-and-analysis/press-releases

‘The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said services were not currently under threat, but may not be safe in future. The Scottish government said Scotland had the recommended midwife numbers and it would continue to ensure the right numbers of midwives were training.’

 https://www.rcm.org.uk/news-views-and-analysis/news/birth-injuries-compensation-scheme-announced

‘The Scottish government pointed out that in 2015 the country had recorded its lowest level of stillbirths. Health Secretary Shona Robison also said that there were fewer neonatal deaths and fewer maternal deaths.’

 http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2014/01/8489/8

Fuller stories at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/01/22/seismic-shift-in-maternity-services-say-midwives-on-scottish-national-maternity-review-this-is-a-very-welcome-report-and-one-that-has-the-full-support-of-the-royal-college-of-midwiv/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/10/17/england-has-the-poorest-safety-record-for-infant-mortality-of-almost-any-other-developed-country-is-scotlands-any-better/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/22/the-power-of-early-morning-nightmares-and-expectant-mothers-bbc-scotland-callously-undermines-the-morale-of-midwives-their-patients-expectant-mothers-and-their-relatives-with-highly-selective-and/

(c) bbc.co.uk

That’s the BBC’s own headline from their website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38853700

It was the 17^th item if you were reading the page from top to bottom and left to right. It was the 8^th NHS item. All bar this one were about NHS England. It’s not on the BBC Scotland News website at all. Surely that would be interesting for Scottish readers?

I’d already browsed the Guardian and Independent newspaper websites and had been hit sharply in the face (heart?) with these frankly awful news headlines about NHS England:

‘One in six A&E departments at risk of closure or downgrade.’

 ‘The number of patients on hospital wards in England has been at unsafe levels at nine out of 10 NHS trusts this winter, BBC analysis shows.’

‘Upfront charges for NHS foreign patients in England.’

Can you imagine Jackie Bird’s face and tone if these were about NHS Scotland? There’d be calls for resignations and Ruth Davidson would be condemning them as evidence of the SNP’s failure to govern, conveniently forgetting they’re all evidence of her own party’s catastrophic and psychopathic lack of care in England.

In NHS Health Check: Which part of the UK is doing the best? They do their best to delay what we in Scotland know must be coming by opening with this selective and dishonest opener:

‘No matter where you live in the UK, you will find local NHS services are under immense pressure. None of the four nations is achieving any of its three key targets for A&E, cancer or routine treatments, such as knee and hip replacements. All have developed plans and strategies to deal with the common challenges – rising demand, squeezes on funding and the ageing population. But each has found this winter to be particularly difficult.’

However, unlike the TV and Radio news, the online version does seem to have some sense of journalistic honesty and pride in what it does so tells the truth with this:

 ‘Out of all the four nations, hospitals in Scotland seem [seem?] to have fared the best.

Weekly data shows four-hour performance in major units hovering around the 90% mark during January.

Much of the credit has been given to the way councils and the health services are working together.

Budgets have been pooled, encouraging a close working relationship to help get frail patients out of hospital by providing extra rehabilitation services in the community.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38853700

This is bound to be on Reporting Scotland tonight, eh?

Ms Donalda MacKinnon

Director of BBC Scotland

Pacific Quay

Glasgow  G51 1DA

5^th February 2017

Is BBC Reporting Scotland’s over-reporting and construction of fake crises in NHS Scotland likely to actually increase both physical and mental health problems?

Dear Ms MacKinnon,

I’m writing to you directly as the BBC complaints site is not fit for purpose – short word limits, long delays and a lack of the interactivity required for intelligent debate. The responses I receive are always defensive, evasive, confused and in denial of any possibility of meaningful criticism. I hope you will feel able to respond to this serious topic personally. I note your expressed good intentions:

‘However, there is a significant number still in Scotland whose trust we lost and I think there’s still a bit of work to be done in that regard. I think it’s part of my mission to try and address these perceptions, which may have led to that loss of trust.’

My concern is that Reporting Scotland’s tendency to report frequently, negatively and in an often exaggerated even inaccurate way about NHS Scotland may actually be doing damage to the health of potential patients, actual patients, relatives and staff.

In January alone, Reporting Scotland reported 18 times on supposed problems in NHS Scotland likely to affect patients or potential patients. In the same time, STV News found only 7 such stories. Often the BBC stories had been fed to them by Labour or Conservative Party Freedom of Information requests feedback. I have recorded the details here:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/01/bbc-18-stv-7-weaponising-scotlands-health-service-how-bbc-scotland-is-developing-a-new-project-fear-part-3-1st-to-31st-january-2017/

Please see below, the scientific evidence for my question:

‘So not only are negatively valenced news broadcasts likely to make you sadder and more anxious, they are also likely to exacerbate your own personal worries and anxieties. We would intuitively expect that news items reflecting war, famine and poverty might induce viewers to ruminate on such topics. But the effect of negatively valenced news is much broader than that – it can potentially exacerbate a range of personal concerns not specifically relevant to the content of the program itself. So, bombarding people with ‘sensationalized’ negativity does have genuine and real psychological effects. Given this ‘cascading’ effect of negativity into people’s personal lives, should TV schedulers be required to consider such effects when preparing and scheduling programs containing emotively negative content?’ 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/why-we-worry/201206/the-psychological-effects-tv-news

This opening quote from Psychology Today in 2012, in some ways, makes the rest of my article redundant such is its impact but I want to go on to make more clearly my critique of BBC Reporting Scotland’s current reporting of NHS Scotland. First though it’s worth dwelling on the word ‘valenced’ above.  What this tells us is that the way the report is phrased is very important. Where words like ‘crisis’ and ‘risk’ are used as they often are by BBC Scotland to dramatise the reports, this can exacerbate the negative effects beyond what a more restrained report on the same issue might do. BBC Scotland might claim it is their duty to report on problems in NHS Scotland but what is key here is how they do so.

What further evidence do I have that long-running and frequent reports of alleged crises can be damaging for both physical and mental health. Well, for the former, I only have today’s (12.1.17) Herald report of new research linking stress to heart attack and stroke:

‘The part of the brain linking stress to the risk of heart attack and stroke has been identified for the first time, researchers say. The findings could indicate that reducing stress has an important physical as well as psychological benefit, scientists said.’

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15018416.Stress_link_to_heart_attack_identified_by_experts/

However, with particular regard to the effect of news media and psychological distress, the evidence is extensive and should give editors pause for thought as I hope the opening quote would. There is more:

Also from Psychology Today in 2012:

‘Negative news on TV is increasing, but what are its psychological effects?’

‘We found that those people who had watched the negative news bulletin spent more time thinking and talking about their worry and were more likely to catastrophise their worry than people in the other two groups.’

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/why-we-worry/201206/the-psychological-effects-tv-news

Further this report from Psychiatry, based on research in Israel, is particularly concerning:

‘The results suggest that a vast majority (87.2%) of the population tuned in to the newscasts and the majority (76.7%) of viewers increased their news consumption compared to normal. Increased frequency of viewing newscasts was associated with reported anxiety reflected in uncontrolled fear, physiological hyperarousal, sleeping difficulties, and fearful thoughts. A regression model revealed that viewers watching the constant newscasts more than usual are 1.6 times more likely to report at least one anxiety symptom compared to those watching at the same frequency or less, standardized to gender and age…… Increased viewing patterns of televised traumatic content, as well as negative perception of such broadcasts, are associated with the report of anxiety symptoms or psychopathology.’

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26391834

The particular worries triggered by health reports as opposed to the more obviously traumatic images from war zones has also been demonstrated in Media Psychology in 2014:

‘Results showed that the report with mutilations caused by bacterial infection elicited more fear than the report with mutilations caused by land mine explosions. This effect was mediated by the dimensions of suddenness, unpleasantness, personal relevance, and coping potential.’

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2013.826588

To conclude, please think about the ethical basis for your current reporting on NHS Scotland. Surely, you do not want to be associated with this collateral damage?

Professor John Robertson

5^th February 2017

Here’s how the online version, on World Cancer Day, opened:

‘Health Secretary Shona Robison has marked World Cancer Day by urging women to get screened for cervical cancer in a campaign to boost survival rates. Ms Robison said strides had been made over the past year to help reduce cases of cancer.’ Overall cancer mortality rates have decreased by 14% in males and 6% in females in the last 10 years.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38859172

Here’s how the TV broadcast on Saturday 4^th February opened:

‘Health trends show that more people in Scotland are being diagnosed with cancer but fewer people are dying from the disease. Within those trends though some cancers are becoming more stubborn [can cancers become more ‘stubborn’?] and waiting time targets are being missed.’

There’s more but let’s just consider the above first. The online version leads off with three positives while the broadcast headline has three negatives and a bit of a positive inserted. The online version shows some respect for the government’s engagement with the issues and headlines the overall achievement in, roughly, the period of its rule. The broadcast goes on to allow the Health Secretary only a few words almost at the end of the report after a long, emotional and personal interview with a sufferer and an equally full interview with McMillan Cancer Support. Both of these make much of the apparently un-met need for emotional support. It’s not at all clear from the interview with the sufferer that this has anything to do with the news being reported but is a consequence entirely of personal problems including a lack of empathy in some friends. We briefly hear, again at the end, some context with:

‘In Scotland the death rate from breast cancer, the most frequent cancer diagnosed in women is down 21% however, Cancer in the liver deaths in men are (sic) up 46%.’

We don’t hear, however, the crucially important contextual information that this increase has nothing to do with NHS performance, that these are not strictly-speaking cancer mortality figures, but rather are the consequence of a massive increase in cases emerging from an aging population addicted to and being killed by alcohol and by hepatitis B and C before the cancer can kill them:

‘Survival from liver cancer is poor in most cases. The main risk factors are alcohol and infection with hepatitis B and C.’

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/725134/Liver-cancer-death-rate-Scotland

Finally, the broadcast report reminds us that:

‘The target set of 62 days from urgent referrals to first treatment is not being met by the majority of health boards.’

This target was neither mentioned in the ‘World Cancer Day’ announcements from Cancer Research UK nor even in the BBC Scotland online report which was quite long. When I complain about Reporting Scotland, the answer is often along the lines of: ‘in a sixty second report we had no time for whatever’ yet they always have time to harp on about the Scottish government failing to meet its own incredibly high targets.

Remember, good journalism has some ‘personalisation’ to interest and perhaps to draw empathy from the viewer but must also have sufficient ‘context’ to put things into perspective for, to inform and to educate, the viewer. This report was about 95% personalisation. See the online version for much better journalism. Might a staff exchange help?

According to the Health Secretary in the Scotsman, otherwise hostile but with this point left un-contradicted, of January 8^th 2017:

‘Health secretary Shona Robison said more than 95 per cent of [cancer] patients had met the 31-day target.’

http://www.scotsman.com/news/more-than-1-000-scots-wait-60-days-to-start-cancer-treatment-1-4334365

 According to the BBC itself on 15^th January 2017:

‘In November 2016, the latest period which NHS figures are available for, the 62-day target for treatment to start was missed – with 83.5% of patients being treated in that timeframe instead of 85%.’

 That might have been another piece of useful context for both the broadcast and the online version.  Are such comparisons of no meaning or tasteless in the context of health? They are regularly used in other contexts:

‘Scotland’s unemployment rate now stands at 5.1%, while the UK rate is 4.8% – its lowest rate for more than 10 years.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-38662513

Finally, the online version had this:

 ‘Cancer in Scotland: The statistics

• Overall cancer mortality rates have decreased by 14% in males and 6% in females in the last 10 years.
• In men, the largest falls in mortality among the top 10 causes of death from cancer have been in stomach, lung and colorectal cancer (36%, 23% and 21% respectively).
• Death rates from prostate cancer, the most frequently diagnosed cancer in males, have decreased by 5% over the 10 years to 2015.
• The death rate from cancer of the liver has increased by 46% in men over the last 10 years.
• For women, the largest falls in mortality rates among the top 10 causes of death from cancer were observed in breast, ovarian and oesophageal cancer (21%, 14% and 13% respectively).
• Death rates from breast cancer, the most frequently-diagnosed cancer in females, have decreased by 21% in spite of the increase in incidence of female breast cancer.
• Cervical cancer deaths have decreased by 14% over the same period, in keeping with a longer-term trend.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-38859172

So, nine cancers with falling mortality rates and only one with a climbing rate which requires proper context revealing it to be, unlike the others, little to do with NHS performance at all. Remember the TV broadcast chose just one bad and one good – balance?

Isn’t this a whopping great good news story and something the Scottish Government can take some pride in?

Back to my opening question: ‘Why are BBC Reporting Scotland’s TV broadcasts and BBC News (Online) Scotland’s posts so different? ‘

I think I know but I can’t prove it. The TV broadcasts, I suggest, are aimed at the older captive audience that can be thoroughly scared into voting for the status quo ie the Union or Better Dying Together. The online posts are written in the knowledge that the Yes campaign dominates the cyber-sphere so there’s little point lying to them.

There is some evidence emerging to support the above case at:

‘Social media has overtaken television as young people’s main source of news, according to a report. Of the 18-to-24-year-olds surveyed, 28% cited social media as their main news source, compared with 24% for TV.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36528256

I suppose it could be different staff writing and editing the two domains? Does anyone know if there’s anything in that theory?

‘What does successful, community-led rural development look like in the globalised, networked world of the 21^st Century? This question faces rural communities and governments I meet around the world and I often respond with the suggestion that they look to learn from Scotland.’

http://www.scottishruralparliament.org.uk/21st-century-rural-development-learning-from-scotland-prof-mark-shucksmith-obe

The above opening quote from Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE in a report I suspect we all missed on November 17^th 2016 caught my attention in the same way as the Carnegie-funded reports praising Scotland’s approaches to public policy reform which I reported on (2.2.17) in:

‘Only in Scotland! ‘A review of small country’s approaches to public policy reform in response to economic, demographic and other pressures found that only in Scotland could this ‘golden thread’ be so clearly discerned’

at:

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/02/02/only-in-scotland-a-review-of-small-countrys-approaches-to-public-policy-reform-in-response-to-economic-demographic-and-other-pressures-found-that-only-in-scotland-could-this/

 Is this another strand in the ‘golden thread?’

We rarely if ever hear of this kind of news in our mainstream media. Clearly it doesn’t fit with a Unionist agenda plus the documents are often quite long and complex. So once more, I feel it’s my duty to spread the good news as far as my blog will allow. Do share if you can. Once more, if Reporting Scotland gave this due attention, I’ll eat my something.

If you have time, reading the original makes more sense but if not, Professor Shucksmith’s case for Scotland as a model is based on these points.

In the past, control was too far away (in London or with a London-controlled party in Edinburgh?) and decisions were made in a top-down way with little input from locals. Now with an ‘enabling state’ (Devolved Scotland), land reform leading to greater community land ownership and especially the creation of a Scottish Rural Parliament (SRP):

‘Now the SRP functions at one level as a means for the people of rural Scotland to collectively articulate and present their manifesto to government and other authorities, calling for the state to play its part in enabling a better future for all parts of rural Scotland. At the same time, the SRP is a network for sharing and celebrating ideas and experience, which local people can then take back to their own communities to consider and to weave into their own strategies and actions.’

Although at first inspired by developments in Sweden, the Scottish model is now an inspiration elsewhere:

‘Around the world many people in rural areas are interested in these ideas and Scottish experiences of networked rural development, and they draw strength and inspiration from them. But this is more than bottom-up rural development or self-help. A successful approach requires an enabling state, not an absent state leaving each community to sink or swim in a neoliberal world which would inevitably lead to widening inequalities and a two-speed countryside. Scotland is fortunate in having had successive governments which recognise that they must play their part.’

I ask the obvious question. If devolution can lead to this, what could full control do?

There’s no point in my writing the same answer I gave last year as to why the above headline is largely meaningless in the Scottish context as so many of our students enter Higher Education via articulation schemes between FE colleges and universities. This approach, not available in England, actually improves access to Higher Education by cutting the travel and accommodation costs for up to two years, thus overall debt, of Scottish students. Here’s the link to what I wrote last year:

http://newsnet.scot/archive/disadvantaged-students-lack-scottish-english-evidence-means-no-firm-conclusions/

Nothing has changed.

Editorial Complaints Unit

Broadcast Centre

BC2 B4

201 Wood Lane

London

W12 7TP

email: ecu@bbc.co.uk

Re: CAS-4195021-477PMB

I write to make my third complaint on the above case. The central point is that in reporting a Bank of Scotland study of optimism in Scottish business, Reporting Scotland on 11 January 2017 at 6.30am selected one negative factor to add to two other negative factors from the Federation of Small Businesses. I suggested that this gave an unduly negative and unrepresentative report as the Bank of Scotland had many other more positive points for Scottish Business. Here they are:

‘Scotland has managed to withstand a sharp decline in the number of start-up businesses in the last five years. The findings of a Bank of Scotland study reveal that 3% fewer new businesses were started in Scotland in November 2016 compared to November 2011, while the UK figure dropped by 19%. (See table 1) Regionally, the data from BankSearch shows that Wales has seen the largest decline in new start-ups, falling by over a quarter (26%). England has also been hit hard, declining by a fifth (20%). As this is where the greatest volume of new start businesses are launched, this equates to nearly 100,000 fewer new businesses created in 2016. In contrast to England and Wales, the view in Scotland is much more encouraging, with almost half (14 of 32) of Scottish regions seeing growth in the number of start-up businesses over the last five years.’

Here’s the table:

Table 1: Total Number of Start Ups in the UK over the last 5 Years – UK
Ranked by 5 Year % Change
UK Mainland	Nov ’11	Nov ’16	5 Year Change	5 Year Change %
Scotland	29,132	28,222	-910	-3.1%
England	494,614	395,088	-99,526	-20.1%
Wales	23,195	17,089	-6,106	-26.3%
UK Mainland	549,028	443,805	-105,223	-19.2%
12 Month Rolled Data Source:  BankSearch Business Start Ups

In his second response the Reporting Scotland Editor insists:

‘the writer – correctly, in my view – decided to run with the single most important point being emphasised by the compilers of each of the respective reports. In the case of the Bank of Scotland that was that start-up numbers had suffered a five-year fall. The essence of journalism is that stories are written with skill to accommodate boundaries of time or space (according to the medium), while being fair, accurate and impartial.’

This is patently untrue. He chose the only negative factor and presented it out of context.

I hope you will support my complaint and arrange for an apology

Professor John Robertson

jupitergreen61@gmail.com

 

(c) http://www.stuartwilde.com/

The above quote is from a January 2017 Carnegie-funded, UK-based, Alliance for Useful Evidence report. I haven’t seen it mentioned in the Scottish mainstream media. We’re well used to hearing in our mainstream media how dire things would be if Scotland had voted for independence in 2014. We rarely hear, of course, the obvious answer that these negatives in our economy and society are the consequences of centuries of Westminster policies and that a Scotland with full control might well be a very different kind of country in the future. The report mentioned above and another carried out by Cardiff Business School in 2012 suggest that the Scottish Government is well on the way to the kind of policy reform system that would make Scotland one of the best prepared to thrive even in these difficult times.

https://www.alliance4usefulevidence.org/assets/AfUE-The-Scottish-Approach-to-Evidence-v7-1.pdf

In 2012, a Cardiff Business School study of how small countries are working to make sure they can weather the storm of austerity facing them was published. Here’s the opening statement:

‘A perfect storm is brewing. Fiscal austerity, demographic change and other pressures will mean that business as usual for our public services will no longer be enough. Innovative responses will be required. In Wales the pressures facing the rest of the UK are likely to be a more intense storm: poverty is greater and the proportion of over 65s will be higher. How are other small governments in Scotland, Quebec, New Zealand, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands responding to these challenges? Can Wales learn from the approaches being taken in these countries?’

This quote also appeared on page nine of the Cardiff report:

‘Scotland was the only jurisdiction where we were able to clearly observe a strategic approach and trace it to a series of cross-cutting policies.’

There is too much detail to report here and you can read it yourself starting on page 16 of the Cardiff Report but this statement captures the serious and well thought-out intent:

‘Scotland’s transition towards outcomes management dates back to before the recent fiscal crisis, but has been re-emphasised in the light of the recent budget squeeze. In 2007, the Scottish National Party was in power for the first time as a minority government. They established a National Performance Framework to set out the longer-term aims of the government, including its agencies, and track performance. Crucially, the framework does not ‘cherry pick’ key government policies, but instead takes a wellbeing approach by covering a wide range of outcomes under 15 national outcomes which they would like to achieve within 10 years (see box 3.2)35. In 2011, responding to stakeholder views and the Christie Commission analysis, a national outcome on older people was added. Scotland’s approach to outcomes management has been closely observed in New Zealand, and Scottish advice has informed their model (see chapter 4).’ (16)

http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/weathering-the-storm-full-report/

It’s clear that the Scottish Government was, even in 2012, best placed of all those listed and a subsequent independent Scottish report published on the 27^th January 2017 provides the details of its further advances. I haven’t seen it mentioned in any of the Scottish mainstream media.

Nearly five years later, here’s how the Alliance for Useful Evidence report opens:

‘Using evidence in policy has never been more important. To make the best use of scarce resources, it makes sense to invest in policy and practice that has been shown to make positive differences. Equally, when trying out a programme or policy, independent evaluation is important to share the learning. For example, the Troubled Families Programme in England had been claimed to be a success, but the recent evaluation has shown that the programme didn’t make the difference to people’s lives it was aspiring to.’ (3)

We hear a lot of talk of evidence –based policy-making but less of the action. In my 30 plus years in Higher Education, I saw seven re-structures, none of them really based on a proper evaluation of the previous structure but rather the product of a new boss inspired by the latest fashion. None improved things so I’m all for this:

‘The importance of participation and service improvement has been played out in practice in some interventions, such as the Early Years Collaborative.17 This ‘golden thread’ linking strategic approach through to delivery is significant. Weathering the Storm – a review of small country’s approaches to public policy reform in response to economic, demographic and other pressures found that only in Scotland could this ‘golden thread’ be so clearly discerned.’ (7)

Again the report is too large to detail here and you can read it yourself but again, this optimistic yet realistic conclusion gives me hope.

‘We conclude that the Scottish policy and evidence landscape shares commonalities with other parts of the UK, in terms of policy directions (along with a shared failure to fully realise the rhetoric in reality). But, in Scotland, there appears to be a particularly strong sense of shared ownership of the strategic direction built on the pillars of participation, prevention, partnership and performance as set out in the 2011 ‘Christie Commission’ report and recently strengthened by the enshrinement of the outcomes based National Performance Framework in legislation. We think this places Scotland in a strong position to develop expertise on participative, outcomes-based approaches to government and evidence, which could be applicable to other jurisdictions too. To realise this position, however, the evidence base must catch up with the policy direction. Decision makers need access to robust, relevant and appropriate evidence. Tensions between communities as both users and producers of evidence will have to be worked through.’

Remember Scotland’s strategy was being compared objectively with those of Quebec, New Zealand, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands. These are successful developed regions and countries with already high standards of living so we can be pleased with the results.

https://www.alliance4usefulevidence.org/assets/AfUE-The-Scottish-Approach-to-Evidence-v7-1.pdf

Finally, have any of these delivered outcomes already? Well try these:

http://newsnet.scot/archive/praise-for-flooding-prevention-work/

http://newsnet.scot/citizen/despite-deluge-flood-protection-stronger-better-funded-scotland/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/10/28/nhs-scotland-bucking-the-uk-trend-despite-media-attacks/

http://newsnet.scot/archive/police-numbers-show-scotland-makes-its-own-decisions-better-than-westminster/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/02/06/good-news-about-police-scotland-and-by-association-the-scottish-government-why-might-that-be-low-on-the-bbcstv-agenda/

https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/10/28/the-job-of-protecting-scottish-poor-from-excesses-of-tory-austerity/

I could go on.