Government decision-making processes unclear and unstructured, say MSPs

The “increasingly binary nature” of Scottish politics is “impacting on effective decision-making”, a report from a Holyrood committee has said.

MSPs on the Finance and Public Administration Committee have been hearing from both former ministers and those who have served as senior civil servants as part of an inquiry into Government decision-making.

While that inquiry is still ongoing, a report published by the committee found that decision-making processes were “generally not consistent”, describing the process as being “generally unclear and unstructured”.

The report noted: “Decision-making was different under a coalition Government when there was a necessity for advice to be shared with the other party, providing greater transparency.

“The increasingly binary nature of politics in Scotland is an issue impacting on effective decision-making.”

The committee published its research after engaging with a number of senior figures from Scottish politics, including Iain Gray, who was social justice minister and also served as minister for enterprise, transport and lifelong learning in the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition that was in power prior to 2007.

Paul Gray, the former NHS Scotland chief executive; Alastair Merrill, who served as former chief procurement officer and commercial director for the Scottish Government; and Sarah Davidson, who previously worked as the director-general for organisational development and operations, were also amongst those who spoke to the committee.

One participant told the committee: “We generally only hear about the ones where there were difficulties.”

In relation to decisions made by the Scottish Cabinet, the report said: “It was felt that decisions worked best when people felt able to converse and the policy outcome was not predetermined.”

One participant told the committee: “The best cabinets were when decisions emerged following a discussion of pros and cons.”

The report found while the development of policies could take months early in devolution, such work was now “expected to take days or weeks, sometimes on the back of ministerial announcements”.

At the same time, those taking part in the discussions agreed that “a culture of firefighting had developed, rather than thinking strategically” over the last two decades.

Here it was said the culture within the Government had been “influenced by the modern day, 24-hour news cycle and chasing headlines/avoiding bad headlines”.

The report told how there is a “huge variety in decision-making approaches, not all of it clear or structured”.

It went on: “There is also lack of structure and consistency in relation to policy development and testing.

“Different modes of civil service leadership and ministerial approaches have a big impact on how advice is provided and the decisions made.”

Personal relationships between ministers and civil servants could be key to “effective decision-making”, the report added – describing the quality of these relationships between ministers and those advising them as being “critical and key to the quality of decision-making”.

The report went on to note that the moving of staff between Government departments “can become a problem in providing continuity of good advice for ministers” adding that “whilst freshening things up can be advantageous, there needs to be a better balance between continuity and change”.

The introduction of Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation was also said to have had “a negative effect on how advice was provided”.

One of the people involved in the discussions told how, prior to this, advice given to ministers could be of “jaw-dropping frankness” and would be “received without offence”.

But now it said “there was a suggestion that advice may be narrower in focus since FOI.”

One way of addressing this, the report noted, was for “routine transparency”, where advice would be published retrospectively “which would take the heat out of advice over time as publication becomes more routine”.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government does not agree with this report and there are a number of processes which are routinely taken when making important policy decisions.

“Representatives from the Scottish Government look forward to giving evidence to the committee in the near future on this report.”