‘The economic statistics published by the SG tend to pick out relevant data from UK-wide surveys and administrative data. This approach needs to change if Scotland is to generate a more reliable, relevant and holistic evidence base of its performance from which to base its future economic vision and objectives.’
Local government
A way home for Scotland’s homeless young people
A message of hope for Christmas. Prevention is the new focus in efforts to reduce youth homelessness in Scotland via Housing First
Part Two: the council boards a runaway train
Edinburgh, once a working city, seems destined to become a tourist theme park – that falls victim to the demise of cheap air travel…
TIAA: a global American invades Scotland
‘If subsidizing a rich US corporation amounted to an abuse of Scottish revenues, arguably it is even more serious that the government and local council forfeited their impartiality as planning authorities by buying into TIAA’s deal. They may even have breached EU State Aid rules..’
Pupil attainment: up or down?
‘Unfortunately, it is not easy to evaluate the CfE conclusively at this point in time…We need more research into everything from the breadth of education students are receiving to the number of A to C grades at National 5 and Higher levels to what happens in the years after people leave school.’
Scotland’s budget prospects
The Scottish Budget was due on December 12, #GE2019 day, but will almost certainly be pulled until after the UK Budget is presented early next year on the back of wild spending promises. Even pre-Brexit the Scottish outlook is more than unusually uncertain…
Caution: 5G ahead
‘The Scottish and Westminster Governments are silent on any 5G health issue, including its potential impact on children. How can the Scottish Government square this with its desire for Scotland to become ‘the best country in the world to bring up children’?
Winners and losers on #MoultriesHill Part 3
Updated: Having won a battle that they should have lost (over the hotel), the bosses of Edinburgh St James are now engaged in one they should lose…but eventiually reached a settlement instead.
New Brutalism in St James Square: #MoultriesHill Part 2
Enough was enough. The cost and the disruption were too much. It made more sense to build the new Scottish Office elsewhere and leave the old gaunt, grey building to the pigeons.
The tangled history of Edinburgh St James
‘So St. James Square remained the province of a handful of small businesses and workshops and 3,700 or so of Edinburgh’s lower orders and their exploitative, ever-neglectful landlords. The long decline of James Craig’s tenement buildings continued. Rack followed ruin and ruin begat rack.’