Hansard

I will not say much because most of the issues have been covered. My overriding impression was that there was a lot that we could learn but that we should not be so naive as to think that we could just transplant the Finnish model in Scotland, because there are quite a few fundamental differences between the two countries.In his article—which I hope everyone will read—Douglas Fraser concentrated on the level of trust that exists in Finland, which goes further than the trust that exists between teachers, pupils and parents, for example. There is a degree of trust between the population and the Government, which I found astounding. If the Finnish Government says that something should be done, it is not questioned in any significant way. In general, the population believe that if the Government and the Parliament have said that a particular measure should be taken, that must be the best way forward. There is much in the country's fairly recent history that suggests why that might be the case. I found that to be an important factor in Finland's ability to move forward in certain regards.An example of that is Finland's knowledge economy which, as Phil Gallie said, is about more than just business—it embraces the population as a whole. People do all sorts of things online, including direct interaction with the Government. We know that if such a proposal were made here, people would not trust what the information that they were asked to provide would be used for.Like Phil Gallie, I was impressed by the Finnish Committee for the Future at the outset, but then I began to wonder whether it was as relevant as we first thought. Later on, I picked up that when we asked questions about it, there was sometimes no understanding of why we felt it necessary to ask such questions because of course things would be that way. Perhaps that goes back to the issue of trust that I mentioned.That led me to think about our futures forum, which has roots in the Finnish model, and whether it is possible for such a forum to make an impact on futures thinking if it is not mainstreamed in such a way that it is insisted that the findings are considered consensually. Our futures forum is not like that—its considerations take place outside the Parliament. When its reports come to parliamentarians and decision makers, we tend to look at them and think that their recommendations sound quite good, but then we put them aside because there is no impetus to push matters forward.