From a parliamentary question on Thursday, we see the comparative cost of the Council Tax bill for a Band D home, which is the average size and cost of a home across the UK, is much lower in Scotland than in England and considerably lower than in Labour-run Wales.
From YouGov with fieldwork done on the 2nd and 3rd April and with a sub-sample of 152 adults living in Scotland:
Conservatives 20%
Labour 18%
Lib Dem 5%
SNP 48%
UKIP 3%
Green 1%
Brexit Party 3%
This is the fifth out of six sub-polls to put SNP support between 45% and 50% in the last month or so with only one returning to the previous norm at around 41%. 48% in this FPTP system would mean almost complete dominance for the SNP.
By email from David Roberts:
Earlier this week we enacted a progressive piece of legislation on Domestic Abuse, it was reported that re-offending rates fell to a 19 year low and today we learn young women – having taken preventative action have all but wiped out a very cruel cancer. There is no shortage of things to talk up Scotland about. I attach a note based on press coverage of business investment in Scotland, primarily reported in late 2018. I don’t know if it is of value, it interests me as retired economist, that I have to search to find such news – back page of The Herald excepted . I’ve not mentioned the vital third sector – I live in rural Argyll and with it we would be missing c £20 million of investment raking place right now.
Half the countries in the world have fewer than 5 million people. We sit in the north of a small island off continental Europe and ….
News in Autumn 2018 all tracked from The Herald’s Business Section and other press:
Ed: First submission by email. If you have something in line with the TuS philosophy, send it in. More reliable than me judging if a comment under one of my posts needs front-lining.
Thanks to a parliamentary question last Wednesday, we can see that police staffing is more than 50% higher than in England & Wales. Prison staffing is nearly 18% higher.
https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190403.pdf
Some, of course, will say this is Scotland being subsidised by the UK when it is really the effect of different policies. England & Wales would be better staffed if Tory decision-makers valued their constituents more than the affluent few, like their backers and themselves.
The consequences of these differences may be seen in the evidence presented in earlier reports here:
Police Scotland more than fifteen times better at clearing up robberies than English forces!
Suicide rate in Scottish prisons lower than in much of Europe
Despite the torrent of ill-informed and petty bile aimed at one the Scottish Government’s several compassionate acts, 93% of parents asked their midwife to register for the ‘inflammable’ ‘SNP baby box.’.
There are typically around 50 000 births per year in Scotland so in the 19 months since the beginning of the policy in June 2017 to March 2019, there will have been around 87 000. In the same period, based on the answer to this parliamentary question below, nearly 81 000 baby boxes were delivered. Boxes went to those who asked their midwives to register them for it. So, the uptake has been 93%.
https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190403.pdf
A year after the launch (They weren’t seaworthy neither!), as the heat from the burning boxes hypocrisy farce died down, we read:
‘The Royal College of Midwives has published a new position statement setting out its support for universal roll-out. It says the boxes can be a “positive significant investment” in early years and may contribute to reducing inequality. Baby boxes were made available to all expectant mothers in Scotland from August last year.’
https://stv.tv/news/politics/1425638-midwives-call-for-universal-baby-box-roll-out-across-uk/
On Wednesday 03 April 2019, in the Economy committee, Lewis McDonald, not MSP for Lewis, asked 7 questions about wading birds with 5 of them picking out the Curlew specifically. Now, I’m all for conservation and often observe a curlew or two on my daily dog-on-the-beach walks but could this not have been made a bit more concise, reducing time spent by civil servants?
https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190403.pdf
Is this really some Old Labour scheme to logjam committee business? Young Colin Smyth did his business in one question. Why can’t Lewis?
Or is Operation Curlew, like Operation Yewtree, for example, cover for something else? Are these apparently innocent questions triggers for action by MI5? Does CURLEW stand for Conservative Unionist Reconciliation Labour England Wants? Is this all about preparing beach-heads for English landing craft in the event of Scottish UDI post-Brexit?
Take my medication?
We heard this morning in the Reporting Scotland insert at 06:26am, when we’re all feeling a wee bit fragile:
‘There are warnings that a shortage of specialist cancer doctors to analyse scans is compromising patient safety in Scotland. A report by the Royal College of Radiologists published today found almost 80% of the clinical leads believed they did not have enough staff to run a safe and effective service.’
So, once more a single source from a partisan group, contrary to BBC guidelines for editors, with many research methods questions to be answered. What was the sample? Was it just an email to the whole of NHS Scotland with an utterly unreliable self-selecting sample? Was that 80% of all the clinical leads in Scotland or only 80% of the 10% who bothered responding? Were they asked a leading question?
Leaving these concerns for the moment, what else did Reporting Scotland’s team of researchers not provide that might have made this a better piece of journalism? Context? Here’s some:
Radiology workforce across UK:
Scotland has 8% of the population of the UK but almost 9% of the radiologists and almost 10% of the trainees.
Recruitment sustainability:
Scotland is less reliant on migrant recruits because it trains and retains more staff (see below).
Less outsourcing:
NHS Scotland outsources far less per head of population than the other parts of the UK because it doesn’t need to and because it is better staffed and better run. Wales and N Ireland have smaller populations yet spend more. England has 10 times the population yet spends 13 times as much.
https://www.rcr.ac.uk/system/files/publication/field_publication_files/bfcr185_cr_census_2017.pdf
More training and retention:
The number of radiologists working in Scotland’s hospitals has increased from 223.5 to 325.0 in the period 2006 to 2018 and the number training has gone up 20%. In addition, many current radiologists are expected to continue to be available to NHS Scotland, on a part-time basis, after retirement.
http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?
Are radiology consultants too busy with private work?
This will be unfair to some. I apologise to them. Evidence of this is unlikely to be easily established but Dr Giles Maskell, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, said:
‘The NHS should be doctors’ top priority because “in no other healthcare system can a patient be so confident that a doctor’s advice will not be influenced by considerations of what the patient can afford or what the doctor will gain”. Radiologists do about £60m worth of private practice a year (£16 400 pa on average each), Maskell said. “Because the NHS has not trained or employed enough radiologists to keep up with demand, there has been rapid growth of outsourcing companies who mostly employ NHS consultant radiologists in their ‘spare time’ to report the backlogs of images which are building up waiting for reports.” “Clearly there are potential conflicts between NHS work and ’extra work’. A radiologist who is working long evenings for an outsourcing company might be fatigued and less productive in his or her daytime work for the NHS. As a college we have been very keen to emphasise the need for individuals to guard against this.”
Does the NHS not pay them enough?
‘As a trainee at specialty level you can earn between £36,461 and £46,208. Salaries for specialty doctors (staff grade) range from £37,923 to £70,718. The salary for newly qualified consultants starts at £76,761, rising to £103,490 for consultants with 10 to 19 years’ experience.’
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/clinical-radiologist
Plus, on average, an extra £16 400 pa each! UK national average wage is £35 423 pa.
Of course, all suicides are deeply tragic, inside or outside of prison, but it’s important that they are represented in the media accurately and tastefully, in the interests of all: prisoners, warders, relatives, decision-makers, all of us. Contrary to the image presented by Reporting Scotland and even by the National, suicide is relatively low in Scottish prisons and is falling. See this earlier report regarding the level:
Exploiting one tragic prison suicide to fake a crisis. Yes, it’s Reporting Scotland again.
As for geographical comparison, I’m grateful to reader: 
for providing a useful link in a response to the above report. Based on this 2017 research:
We can see that, suicide in Scottish prisons, 69 per 100 000 prisoners is less common than in most European countries, including England & Wales, at 83 per 100 000 prisoners:
There’s clearly something to be learned from Northern Ireland, Ireland and Poland – Catholicism? We can also see, below, that the rate in prison is only slightly higher than that out of prison suggesting that prison conditions are not so harsh as to be exacerbating it:
You can see in the above that the suicide rate for men in Norway is notably higher than for the general public whereas for Scotland it is almost the same.
Less clear in its meaning to me is the fairly strong correlation in this data between the suicide rate in prisons and the overall incarceration rate suggesting that the higher the percentage of the population you put in jails the lower the suicide rate in prisons! Of course, many other cultural factors will be influential here. The outliers such as Norway and France are the most intriguing and puzzling. Could it be that in a country where incarceration is rare, it is more shocking, shameful, isolating, to be punished in this way?
The more people you put in prison, the lower the suicide rate there?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066090/
Despite nearly 1 300 more planned operations in February 2019 than in February 2018, a 5.1% increase in one year, the number cancelled has continued to fall for the fourth quarter in a row. 8.9% overall were cancelled in February 2019 compared to 10.3% in February 2018.
Most important, only a tiny number, 132 (0.5%) were cancelled because of lack of capacity in the system.
But for the spike in November 2018, caused by the unplanned, temporary closure of the Cowlairs decontamination Unit, cancellations due to lack of capacity would have been at a consistently very low level since March 2018, despite ongoing increases in demand.
An anonymous Freedom of Information request has revealed today that contrary to Cole-Hamilton’s predictions last April, fewer GPs and dentists are retiring early. See this:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-00620/
So, neither really sick to the back teeth of their jobs?
Talking-up Scotland 