Tag: Scotland

A new power for Scotland

I didn’t learn about this as soon as it happened, but a draft Statutory Instrument has been put to Parliament covering the particular hole I’d identified earlier this year. The instrument makes it possible for Scottish authorities to make provision for

occasional financial or other assistance to or in respect of individuals for the purposes of —
(a) meeting, or helping to meet, an immediate short term need—
(i) arising out of an exceptional event or exceptional circumstances, and
(ii) that requires to be met to avoid a risk to the well-being of an individual, or
(b) enabling qualifying individuals to establish or maintain a settled home, and “qualifying individuals” means individuals who have been or, without the assistance, might otherwise be—
(i) in prison, hospital, a residential care establishment or other institution, or
(ii) homeless or otherwise living an unsettled way of life.

It’s always difficult to know how specific provisions will work out in practice, but it should prevent the kind of administrative lock-up that I feared might otherwise happen. I’m greatly relieved.

Dividing up the single police force

When the Scottish Government announced the plans to merge Scotland’s eight police forces into one, they complained: “Scotland can no longer afford to do things eight times over.” (There have been, actually, more than eight services – there was also the nuclear police, the transport police and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency). In parliament, however, a requirement was made to have plans for all the 32 local authorities, and today it’s been announced that there will be 14 policy authority areas, replacing the previous eight. So the main effect of a single police service is not to reduce the number of service divisions, but to centralise control.

Football is broken

Football bores me personally, but it’s hard to live in Scotland and not to be aware of the passion and commitment it arouses in Scottish communities. A tiny nation has been trying to accommodate a finance structure which belongs to an international entertainment industry, and has made local clubs the playthings of rich entrepreneurs. It doesn’t work. We’ve just had the announcement that a second major club faces imminent bankruptcy, and it’s the fans and supporters who have been asked to save it.

This posting, then, is flying a kite. Communal activities, which rely on communal support, don’t have to be organised communally, but they can be. Public organisations which promote “participation in sport”, recreation and culture are now able to register as charities in Scotland – provided they are not for profit, they offer substantial benefits to the broader community, and they are properly governed. (There’s no intrinsic bar to a professional sport. The English Charity Commission’s guidance is directed only at amateur sport, but that’s not the distinction here; other charities employ professionals, and some such as theatres put on professional shows.) The full list of criteria for charitable status is laid out at OSCR’s website. A football club could qualify. But it is going to call for a rethink of what football clubs do, and how they do it.

Multiple disadvantage in Scotland

The Think Tank Demos has published a report about multiply disadvantaged families in Scotland. Families are described as “multiply disadvantaged” if they meet four or more of seven criteria:

  • low income
  • worklessness
  • no educational qualifications
  • overcrowding
  • ill health
  • mental health problems
  • poor neighbourhood.

There are 131,000 households who are multiply disadvantaged by this definition. Of those, 52,000 are pensioners, and 55,000 are households without children; 24,000 are households with children. The category of pensioners is based on 3 criteria of 6, because it excludes worklessness; overcrowding is not really a useful indicator either.

This is not the same test as the Westminster government uses for its definition of “troubled families”. That test is based on them meeting five of the following seven criteria:

  1. having a low income,
  2. no one in the family who is working
  3. poor housing,
  4. parents who have no qualifications,
  5. where the mother has a mental health problem
  6. one parent has a long-standing illness or disability, and
  7. where the family is unable to afford basics, including food and clothes.

The overlap between the criteria does make it plausible to suggest, though, that someone who is “multiply disadvantaged” in the Demos report will probably also score four or more on the “troubled families” score. As the Demos authors note, there is no implication that families who are disadvantaged in these terms present problems for other people – but there is no reason to suppose that from the criteria for “troubled families” either. And there has to be some suspicion about the tenor of a report which goes on to tie the characteristics of poverty to alcohol, drug use and child neglect – none of which applies to most, or even to many, of the families identified through these statistics.

The finding that there are only 24,000 families with children in Scotland who are multiply disadvantaged even on as few as four indicators does raise some questions about the direction of policy, which has tended to focus on the characteristics and culture of poor people as something set apart. There are some points to draw from the figures:

  • Scotland is a society where more than one person in six of working age receives an ‘out of work’ benefit, and a quarter of Scotland’s children are in low income households – but the vast majority of people in this position are not ‘multiply disadvantaged’ by the definitions in this report
  • showing that social problems are more prevalent than elsewhere does not mean that they are actually likely – most people who are ‘multiply disadvantaged’ do not have them
  • if the number of families who might be said to be multiply disadvantaged by these criteria is small, the numbers who might after that be said to suffer ‘intergenerational deprivation’ in these terms is, necessarily, smaller still
  • while multiple disadvantage is a legitimate cause of concern in itself, it is neither typical of poor families or commonplace.

It makes sense to design policies that can effectively reach people who are most disadvantaged. Poverty in Scotland is much more widespread, however, and it makes no sense to make such policies the basis for anti-poverty strategy more generally.

The cost of free services in Scotland

Robert Black, who recently retired as Auditor General in Scotland, argues in today’s Scotsman in favour of reviewing the cost of universal services – particularly free personal care and free transport. He acknowledges that the cost of free prescriptions and eye tests is less and that they have a preventive function. His position has been consistent; it was formerly argued in an Audit Scotland report, Scotland’s public finances.

Part of Bob’s case is unarguable – that public expenditure has an opportunity cost, and we should always be prepared to consider what the implications are of one decision relative to another. Some of the figures he uses, however, are contentious. The increase in prescription costs to £1 billion is a general cost of the NHS, not a specific cost of ‘free prescriptions’. They cost nearer to £80m, though I’ve been struggling to find an accurate figure – the rest of the £150m cited in costs is down to eye tests, which have been separately justified in terms of savings elsewhere. We’re told that the cost of the National Concessionary Travel Scheme (bus and travel passes) ‘could rise’ to £500m. Well, it could do anything in theory; much depends on inflation, much on future policy; but the budget for 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 has been set at a constant £194m. There are certainly pressures on the public finances, but it’s not clear that it’s the universal benefits currently in dispute that are driving them.

The arguments for free services

Hard on the heels of the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Labour Party has announced its opposition to services which are free at the point of delivery, including free prescriptions and personal care. Part of this is in a speech by Johann Lamont, part in comments by Arthur Midwinter.

There are many arguments in favour of universal services – services that are available to all, and free at the point of delivery. Here are some of the main ones.

    Principle

  • People have, or should have, a right to welfare. They do not lose that right if they earn more.
  • Societies which offer equal rights are better to live in for everyone; societies that are less equal are worse to live in for everyone. (See The Spirit Level.)

    • Politics

  • Richer people will not be content to pay for services they cannot benefit from.
  • Separating out services for the better-off means there must be at least a two-tier service. “Services for the poor will always be poor services.” See e.g. T Horton, J Gregory, The Solidarity Society.

    • Practice

  • If entitlement has to be policed, there has to be a mechanism for doing it. Means tests are intrusive, burdensome and expensive.
  • The administration of testing inevitably includes some people who should not be included, and excludes others who should be.
  • Multiple means tests are wasteful and unnecessary; there are better ways of controlling the finance.

It’s difficult to know at what point a shower becomes a rainstorm, but the Labour Party’s shift may indicate the emergence of a new consensus, where the three main parties are all opposed to the principles of the welfare state.

Scottish travellers

Gypsy/travellers are the minority group most discriminated against in Scotland. In a report published today by the Scottish Parliament, the Equalities Committee describes the findings as ‘deeply shocking’ and describes its reaction as ‘horrified’ and ‘appalled’. The work I do doesn’t often bring me into direct contact with travellers, but I did do some work in Aberdeenshire in 2004 which gave me the opportunity to talk directly with travellers about their situation. One of the women said what it’s like: “you’re a floor they can dance on.” The travellers talked about rampant racism, discrimination in services, harassment and lack of protection by the police – “we’re just a puckle of tinkers to them”. It’s good to see some public attention, but depressing to see so little progress.

Can Scotland afford benefits?

Iain Duncan Smith argued yesterday that an independent Scotland would not be able to afford benefits because of the high dependency of its population. This was dismissed by Alex Salmond on the basis that Scotland generates a higher proportion of revenue, and takes a lower proportion of benefits, than the rest of the UK. Salmond is right, because Scotland pays less to pensioners and Housing Benefit, but it’s still only part of the response. The more fundamental question is whether an independent Scotland would want the same benefit rates and tax rates as the UK; and while there may be pressures to conform to the pre-existing norms, there would be good reasons to do something different. If benefits are capped at existing levels, it will not be possible to make anyone better off without making someone else worse off. Reforming benefits without undermining existing protection is, inevitably, an expensive business; but it could be worth the expense.

Promoting GP competition

Reform Scotland has published a pamphlet arguing that since GP practices are insufficiently sensitive to patients’ needs, the answer must be to promote competition between providers. That doesn’t follow. When markets are based on ‘choice’, the choices that are made are not just the choices of consumers; they are also the choices of providers. Competition works because providers refine and select what they do. They choose who their customers are. They choose their location. Making the right choices cut costs; that is why competitive markets tend to be efficient (and why public services aims for ‘cost-effectiveness’ instead of efficiency – the aims are very different). The selective decisions of providers, within the current system, are precisely the reasons why patients do not get what they need. Which practices are going to cover people in isolated rural locations? Who is going to provide services to drug users, who use GP services at ten times the rate of other people? Who is going to provide services to very elderly people, who cost practices seven times the resource of other patients? Competition is not the way to a universal service; it is the opposite of what is called for.