
An important change - but only if party whips leave it to members themselves to decide who to vote for.
James Mitchell
7.4K posts

@ProfJMitchell
Professor of Public Policy, Edinburgh University

An important change - but only if party whips leave it to members themselves to decide who to vote for.

As l head back to Holyrood this morning 👇

@ProfJMitchell Particularly when it’s not those Ministers who will be tasked with delivering it!


But there are major concerns about deliverability. Parliament’s education committee was v critical in its report & @COSLA says it “risks unintended consequences for children and young people” & estimated costs are projected to rise from +£150m in 2027/28 to +£270m by 2029/30 3/4

One way or another, this suggests encouraging an awful lot of new childminders into (or in some cases back into) self-employment. My sums on this produce such different figures, depending how I do it, that it would be better to ask the policy's proposers what they are assuming🙃



Erm.. x.com/staylorish/sta…

'People's senate' could strengthen Holyrood scrutiny, says new manifesto. And it suggested Scotland's borrowing powers should be increased while also recommending a series of reforms to planning, devolved taxes and local government. scotsman.com/news/politics/…


Scottish Information Commissioner @DvdHmltn said he “can no longer trust the Government to handle this information unsupervised” following what he described as a “breach of trust” by the Scottish Government. Read more: tinyurl.com/Non-Compliance…

Scot Gov could be taken held in contempt of court AGAIN over the Hamilton files, the Scottish Information Commissioner has said David Hamilton says non-disclosure of some legal advice led to "preposterous and unacceptable" excuses. Quite the broadside foi.scot/preposterous-e…


@ProfJMitchell Kate Forbes equally culpable. Arguably more culpable. Robison has never given the impression that she knows what she’s doing, but Forbes was absolutely full of herself.

Giving evidence yesterday to the @SP_FinancePAC committee, Shona Robison came close to admitting that she has set public spending on an unsustainable path. She does appear to acknowledge that a great many chickens will come home to roost in the next parliament.

Holyrood's *checks notes* four day long debate three weeks before an election recess on an Assisted Dying bill discussed since 2021 a good example of the flaws of a parliament that fails miserably to prioritise what should be its central job: passing and debating legislation.

@Robert4LibDems @ProfJMitchell If Scottish Gov & UK Gov are both spending on capital projects within devolved areas of responsibility without coordination, the result will hardly represent efficient joined up government. The purpose of devolution surely was to give Scottish Gov power in these devolved areas

Objecting to money being spent in Scotland because it is being done by a UK government is an interesting political tactic 🤷♀️

@julesMcBot @ProfJMitchell Which specific part of the memo does this?