Hansard

I very much welcome this debate and I feel bound to make connections between the debate that is taking place in the chamber and the debate that is taking place about the chamber. Partly there are issues about some of the ways in which decisions are taken, how advice is offered to ministers and systems within the civil service. I am glad that that issue is now being looked at in some depth. However, there is also an issue about how we approach difficult issues and how we deal with things when they go wrong.

There is a question about whether we are simply going to have those outside the decision-making process seeking constantly to blame and criticise, and those inside the decision-making process seeking constantly to defend and entrench; or whether we are all going to come together and really and truly try to learn some lessons. I think that that is the approach that the committee has taken on the subject and I very much hope that it is the approach with which we can move forward on the issue from here on in.

I have followed the debate on relocation with interest for some considerable time. Tavish Scott reminded us that today is the fifth anniversary of the first policy statement on the issue from the then First Minister. I remember that statement well. I remember it because I had agitated for it, I had asked for it and I had been involved in developing it. During the summer of 1999, as Minister for Health and Community Care, I was faced with having to take the first major location decision of the new Scottish Executive—on the location of the new Food Standards Agency Scotland—and I did not want to take that decision in a vacuum. I wanted to take it within a strategic policy context and I knew that the Executive was committed to dispersal, so it seemed sensible that we should marry together both that individual decision and the development of the strategic policy. That is why Donald Dewar made the statement that he made on 15 September 1999.

The original statement was clear; it was a pragmatic approach and a sensitive one. It stressed important issues, such as the need to consider the impact of relocation on operational effectiveness, the cost of relocation and, crucially, the impact on staff. Increasingly, I developed concerns about the way in which the policy was being implemented over the months and years that followed, because I did not think that enough attention was being paid to those criteria. When I was still in the Executive, I was concerned that a blanket approach was being adopted, with insufficient consideration and differentiation being given to different organisations, their needs, their staff and their stage of development. Rather, there was a rolling programme of review, triggered in a very blunt way by lease-break points and the like.

I was concerned then, and I was even more concerned in the years that followed when I moved to the back benches, not least because a number of my constituents worked for SNH. The more that I looked at the SNH decision-making process and at the way in which that relocation was handled, the more concerned I became, not about the policy but about its implementation. I truly believe that, if ever there was a classic example of bad implementation of good policy, it is the relocation of Scottish Natural Heritage. The fact that the move was pushed through by the Executive, using not one but two ministerial directions, really does speak volumes. I truly hope, for everybody's sake, that the Executive will learn lessons from that experience and will never repeat those mistakes.

Some people have suggested or inferred that the debate about SNH was all about staff being resistant to moving or even simply not liking Inverness, but it was about much more than that. The Finance Committee effectively examined serious deficiencies in the decision-making process and real financial concerns about the move, and it is important that we do not lose sight of that.

My plea, quite simply, is that ministers look long and hard at how they handle future relocation policies, that they try to return to a more pragmatic approach and to develop a better managed approach, and that they try to be more sensitive to the human dimension. As I said, it is not just a question of individuals being resistant to change, although nobody likes to be faced with change, but all of us, faced with such a situation, would have considerations to deal with in relation to our partners' employment, our children's schools and so on. If those are the issues that we are dealing with, we must deal with them as an exercise in dealing with people, not just as pins on a map. I am concerned that, all too often when we debate relocation issues, it becomes an exercise in horse trading about which bit of the country will get the next batch of jobs that is on the go. We have to do better than that.

I note the point that relocation and job dispersal need not necessarily involve a move of hundreds of miles, and I very much endorse Des McNulty's comments in that regard. There is a lot to be said for looking at how relocations can be done, with jobs going to areas in and around Edinburgh and the Lothians and in the ever-increasing travel-to-work area. I am pleased that VisitScotland has recently moved from the city centre out to Leith. What about areas such as Craigmillar, Wester Hailes and Pilton? Let us think about the economic and social benefits of relocating Government jobs to those areas and about the signals that that would send. What about East Lothian, Midlothian, West Lothian, Falkirk, Fife and a host of other areas? The advantage of relocating jobs to such areas is that it would be easier to retain existing trained staff, because they would not have so far to travel.

Although, even as an Edinburgh member, I genuinely support the principle of job dispersal and have done since the inception of the Parliament, I say please let us not be too complacent about the Edinburgh economy. Let us remember that this city and its economic success are crucial to the rest of the country—the figures bear that out. Let us remember that Edinburgh is the seat of Government in Scotland and that it is the capital. I am sure that there must be a critical mass needed to support that and I hope that the minister will give us assurances that he will not go one dispersal too far. I hope that, in the future, ministers will try harder to find the right fit for the right organisation, in the right location, for the right reasons and at the right time.