Professor John Robertson OBA As another UK Labour MP is revealed as a self-serving hypocrite, I was reminded of the above chart from the Guardian in April 2025. The Guardian did not, of course, bother to consider the interests of its readers elsewhere in the UK. From Homelessness in Scotland: 2023-24 published in September 2024: 53 549 people or a ratio of 99.26 per 10 000 people in Scotland’s 5.44 million. Continue reading Homelessness – As another Labour MP is revealed as a self-serving hypocrite how the level in England is more than FOUR times higher than in Scotland

Professor John Robertson OBA Today’s latest ‘back-of-a-cigarette-packet‘ plan by the UK Labour Government to protect victims from released violent offenders has been criticised by probation officers for lack of consultation and for certain failure as England’s tiny number of probation officers is swamped by new workload. In February 2024,  Allan Dorans MP, the Scottish National Party’s then spokesperson on policing at Westminster and a former Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, reported how a disclosure scheme in Scotland had been much more successful, as had wider efforts to reduce violent crime north of the border. Writing in Policing Insight, Dorans … Continue reading As effectiveness of new UK Labour government plan to protect victims from released prisoners is questioned, a Scottish MP and former senior police officer explained the better Scottish system more than a year ago

Professor John Robertson OBA (74) ‘Our’ media this morning are full of negative reporting based on increasing absence rates among council workers including teachers, who are older on average than the general population. They are much-helped by Audit Scotland‘s framing of their report as Strain clear across Scotland’s local government workforce and its saturation-level ageism which can find no advantages in having a workforce in these complex areas – schools, housing, care, engineering and so on. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://audit.scot/uploads/2025-07/bv_250807_workforce_thematic.pdf Once more it’s propaganda from Audit Scotland of a kind the national auditors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland see no need for. … Continue reading Audit Scotland’s shockingly ageist report implies a link but offers no evidence of absent older workers and offensively ignores value of proven reliability and experience in older council workers and teachers

By stewartb I asked ChatGPT this question: ‘Is the poverty-related attainment gap as politicised by opposition political parties and the news media in England and Wales as in Scotland? And why? This is its response summary: ‘Scotland has experienced intense political and media scrutiny because poverty-related attainment gap metrics are explicitly tied to government pledges. Successes and failures are amplified and often politicized. ‘In England and Wales, the attainment gap is treated more as a persistent structural problem, less as a political litmus test. Media and opposition criticism focus on general educational standards, funding, and recovery programmes, rather than direct failure … Continue reading How the poverty-related attainment gap is not politicised in England & Wales

Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair From Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 7: 2025 edition published in February 2025 (most recent figures), we can see that between academic years 2009/20120 and 2023/2024: Nearly three times as many pupils from the most disadvantaged 20% of the population and nearly twice as many from the next most deprived 20%, achieved 1 or more Advanced Highers (SCQF Level 7). At Level 6 or better, for Highers and above, there was … Continue reading School qualification achievement by deprived students surges by up to THREE times in SNP era