Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Herald today and on BBC Scotland:

John Swinney will today pledge a “national project of renewal” to overhaul Scotland’s public services, warning that the status quo is no longer good enough.

In what the Scottish Government has described as a “major speech”, the First Minister will tell leaders from across the NHS, education, local government, justice and the third sector that long-term reform is needed to meet the country’s looming demographic and economic challenges.

Despite having only seconds to tell the story, Reporting Scotland, this morning, managed to fit in the opposition parties claiming that the SNP ‘cannot be trusted‘ and that they are like ‘arsonists in charge of a fire!‘

Needless to say, they make no effort to provide sources that show that is either correct or wrong. I won’t either, because you can find them easily, here [search top right) or in the published statistics.

Suffice to say, by contrast, sometimes stark, with England after decades of Tory/Labour rule and Wales after decades of Labour rule, Scotland has:

1. Shorter hospital waiting times, for all treatments, especially for 18-weeks, cancer, alcohol and drug treatment, IVF and A&E.
2. Far more doctors, nurses, midwives, home visitors and beds.
3. Far better patient protection schemes.
4. Free prescriptions to enable, for example, all asthmatics to access medication, unlike the many in England who died from Covid for this reason.
5. Far more transparent data for the above.
6. By both police reporting and popular impression (U of Edinburgh) crime down more than 50% in 17 years and far lower crime, including homicide.
7. Far more police officers and better clear-up figures.
8. Lower violent deaths and drug deaths among the young.
9. No county lines drug gangs or child ‘grooming’ gangs resident in Scotland.
10. More affordable housing and lower council tax.
11. Free bus travel for the elderly and the young, students and apprentices.
12. Free HE tuition and university campus areas with lower crime levels than in all other parts of UK.
13. One of the best rail services in the UK.
14. Narrowing school attainment figures, increasing pass levels among the deprived and wider, lower cost-of-living, access due to articulation between local colleges and universities.
15. The world’s best ferry service.
16. Easier, cheaper, access to the mountains, lochs and rivers!

With time, I could think of more.

Ah, drug deaths! Falling but stalling, despite target beating treatment programmes, because of a recent surge of cheap, powerful, new drugs into towns and villages from English County Lines gangs.

For those requiring a short cut to the evidence, try:

Glenn Campbell and the ‘significant underperformance in key public services like the NHS’ that does not survive a collision with the evidence