Civil Service Jobs (Dispersal)
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S1M-372, in the name of Mr Jamie Stone, on the dispersal of civil service jobs to Caithness. The debate will be concluded, without any question being put, after 30 minutes. Members who wish to speak in the debate should press their request to speak buttons as soon as possible.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with interest the statement made by Donald Dewar in response to Parliamentary question S1W-1558 on 15 September 1999; recommends that serious consideration be given to the dispersal of civil service jobs to Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and calls for a comprehensive review in May 2000 to assess the Executive's commitment to the process.
I found it a little unnerving that just as I rose to speak, the lights suddenly dimmed a wee bit. I am not sure whether that was some kind of message.
This debate is important to me and to my constituents, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to members today.
I do not need to go over again the troubles in the Highlands. We know them all: trouble with agriculture, crofting, tourism and the cost of fuel. Highland communities such as Lairg, Golspie and Wick are up against it. They face fearsome problems, and I know that my fellow Highland MSPs and the Deputy Minister for Highlands and Islands and Gaelic, Alasdair Morrison, are aware of that fact. One partial solution would be to get civil service jobs out of the central belt and into my constituency in the Highlands and Islands.
Accordingly, I—along with everyone in the north of Scotland—welcomed Donald Dewar's written answer to Duncan McNeil in September, which said that a big effort would be made to try to move jobs out of Edinburgh. That notion has been welcomed by public agencies in my area; Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Highland Council, and Thurso and Wick trades council, for example, have warmly embraced it.
Highland Council put a comprehensive paper before its members on 16 December 1999. It reads:
"There are a number of units within the Rural Affairs Division whose headquarters is at Pentland House, 47 Robb's Loan, Edinburgh. Whilst a headquarters function may justifiably remain by the parliament, there is a whole array of officers and support staff in this office and other locations in Edinburgh whose primary role is to service the needs of rural industries and local residents across Scotland. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment divisions service a wide range of clients whose interests are specifically located in rural areas, particularly the Highlands. There are real professional benefits to ensuring that civil servants are co-located with the areas of responsibility to ensure that they have a firm understanding and feel for issues of current concern."
I will also quote from a paper that went before the Thurso and Wick trades council— "Decentralisation: the Key to a Sustainable Society in Scotland?"—which gives several concrete examples of what could happen. The section that deals with Scottish Natural Heritage is of interest to the Parliament:
"SNH employs about 600 people of whom one third are employed in Edinburgh, on average salaries, if comparison to the Forestry Commission is valid, at £20,000 per annum. A reasonable measure of SNH's interest are the areas designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). By this measure one third of SNH's interests are in the Highlands yet only one sixth of its staff are employed in the Highlands, a democratic deficit of 50% and a financial deficit of £7 million (1/6th of the SNH budget)."
The same would apply to employees of the Forestry Commission and we could all think of similar examples. If lateral thinking is applied, there is no reason why departments other than the agriculture, fisheries and environment departments could not locate specific sections in the Highlands.
Thanks to investment in past years, the Highlands enjoy the finest communications technology. Given that such technology is rapidly becoming an important part of government, business and almost everything that touches our lives, in the Highlands we are sitting with a handful of aces. We enjoy some of the highest education standards in the country; Highland schools turn out pupils with splendid qualifications and employers such as British Telecommunications, which has set up in Thurso, are known to treat that fund of ability as something special.
I need tell nobody here that the environment in the Highlands is unrivalled. Many people would dearly love to get out of the grime and the smoke of the city and move to the Highlands. As the minister will know, the cost of a flat in Edinburgh will buy a wee farm where he and I come from.
There has to be a will to do something. Where there is a will, there is a way.
I was pleased, as were all my constituents, by the First Minister's statements on the relocation of public sector jobs. The First Minister has informed us that the Executive is gathering information on staff numbers and potential locations. I assure the minister that the Liberal Democrats will work constructively with the Executive to ensure that the advantages that we enjoy in the Highlands are
given maximum consideration.
I seek assurance that positive action will be forthcoming. It is vital that an open review process is carried out, so people can see that the Executive is putting its money—and jobs—where its best intentions lie. The review will be a vital part of the dispersal process for civil service jobs. My motion suggests that an audit should be carried out next May. That will let us see where we are going and where work needs to be done; it will also allow us to find out how meaningful the Executive's policies on dispersal have been. In the Highlands, we know a lot about the hills and the mountains, but if we fail to deliver on dispersal of jobs, the Executive will amount to not much more than a wee hill of beans. I hope that the minister will be able to respond sympathetically.
I am keeping my speech fairly short, Deputy First Minister—sorry, Deputy Presiding Officer; I just promoted you—because a few people want to speak and we have taken a bit of time over voting. I want to give as much time as possible to other members.
To summarise, it is as simple as this: five civil servants, in departments such as rural affairs, in places such as Lairg, Golspie or Wick, could make all the difference. It may sound like a wee puckle to members, but believe me, it could underpin those little communities—and I cannot emphasise enough how fragile they are. All that it would take to make that change would be a change in our attitude. Indeed, such a change would alleviate urban congestion in cities such as Edinburgh as much as it would be an economic boost to some parts of the far north. It just takes our political will.
Alas, there will be resistance—some of our civil servants will not be desperately keen on the idea. However, we sit here today as representatives of a new democracy in Scotland. If all parties, in conjunction with the Executive, can give a good push for the initiative, that could make all the difference.
I thank the minister for listening and look forward to his response.
A number of members have indicated that they want to speak and I apologise that it will not be possible to call them all. I ask members to keep their speeches as brief as they can, so that we can accommodate as many as possible.
I welcome the chance to debate the dispersal of civil service jobs to Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and, I would like to add, to other areas throughout the Highlands and Islands.
Those areas have much to offer. Highlands and Islands Enterprise has produced an excellent document, listing potential locations throughout the area; for example, Lerwick, Kirkwall, several in the Western Isles, Wick, Ross-shire and many others all the way down to Argyll. Those sites were selected for what they could offer: good transport, with links by air, sea and road; a well-qualified work force; infrastructure that would allow new workers to come into the community; and suitable business accommodation.
Proximity to centres of learning has also been deemed important; it not only gives access to a qualified work force, but the opportunity to continue the learning process. With modern technology, there is no reason that many areas of work cannot be dispersed. Most of the colleges in the Highlands and Islands form part of the University of the Highlands and Islands project, giving access to videoconferencing and cutting down travelling time to meetings. However, when travel is required, the locations selected have good transport links. The Highlands and Islands provide a much-improved standard of living, scenery, strong, safe communities and a totally different way of life.
However, we need to go further than asking the Executive for the dispersal of civil service jobs. We need to ask Government agencies, the health service and local government to do the same. Many crofters in fragile areas require jobs, along with running their crofts. It would greatly enhance the sustainability of the rural economy if our relatively small number of jobs were dispersed to those areas. One or two jobs in a village could support local shops, schools, post offices and other services that are important for the sustainability of those areas. We may not wish to force all civil servants out into the country, but it should be considered for new civil service jobs.
I welcome the debate and I hope that the Executive will continue to support and strengthen its stance in this area.
I commend Jamie Stone for initiating this debate and addressing this issue with his characteristic fluency. I also commend Rhoda Grant for her speech this evening.
This is not a party political matter. I am sure that there is cross-party support for the general principle that jobs should be dispersed out of Edinburgh. I hope that the minister, when replying to the debate, will take the opportunity to scotch the rumours that have arisen today, and that when another body in which a non-political approach has been taken—the Highlands and Islands
Convention—is reconvened, as we hope it will be, it will be reconvened with representatives of this chamber and, indeed, of Westminster. I hope that the rumours I have heard today, that it is proposed that MPs and MSPs will be excluded from the convention, are false and scurrilous.
The reasons for the dispersal of civil service jobs are twofold. The first, and perhaps lesser, reason is to ensure that areas throughout Scotland receive the economic benefit. From an answer that I was given by Jack McConnell on 23 August, I understand that there are 13,545—or rather 13,544.9—civil servants in Scotland, 6,299 of who are based in Edinburgh. Why has civil service job dispersal not proceeded apace? In answer to a question by my colleague Richard Lochhead, on 7 December, Donald Dewar stated that there would be
"a presumption against an Edinburgh location."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 7 December 1999; Vol 3, p 221.]
However, from the answer to another question we understand that little progress has been made.
Like Jamie Stone, I am not suggesting that certain ministries should be located in particular places. The general argument has been made. Bodies such as Scottish Natural Heritage should be located outwith Edinburgh. The Scottish Executive rural affairs department should be located in Inverness. SERAD already has a substantial office in Inverness. I have had the pleasure of meeting civil servants there and I believe that they do an excellent job.
The second reason for job dispersal is more important—it is about the mindset and the approach that civil servants take. My worry is that civil servants based in Edinburgh are not exposed to the real problems faced by farmers and others. I am very concerned that my constituents have been penalised for clerical errors in the completion of forms for schemes such as the suckler cow premium scheme, thereby losing a year's livelihood. I suspect that that has not been addressed by the minister because of advice from civil servants.
I make no criticism of individual civil servants, but I believe that there is a mindset in the civil service that the rule book is king, rather than that the people are sovereign. If I sound vehement about this, it is because I feel very strongly that the Scottish Parliament is failing in its duty to respond to requests to consider the important cases that have arisen. Part of the problem is that the top civil servants, who take the decisions and draft the ministers' letters, do not appreciate the real problems faced by ordinary people in Scotland.
During the summer, some people told me that the experience of losing thousands of pounds because of clerical errors has left them feeling that they are being treated worse than criminals. That cannot be right. I hope that the minister will understand the force with which I make this point: those people are not getting a fair deal. If the people who made the decisions were based in Inverness, or other parts of Scotland, the outcome of their decisions would be far more likely to be just and fair.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate and I am sure that my friend Jamie Stone will not mind my broadening the area to include the other constituencies of the Highlands and Islands region.
On Tuesday evening, I attended a very good dinner of Scots beef at Glasgow city chambers, in order to hear Mr Eddie George, the governor of the Bank of England, deliver a speech on the economy. He is the first governor to have the remit of controlling UK interest rates—a position of enormous power—and I was hoping for some crumb of comfort from the great man to give to those living in the Highlands and Islands. I hoped in vain. I wish I could take Mr George there, even just for a few hours, to show him an area where the UK economy is not flourishing, but is in danger of dying on its feet.
High interest rates, exorbitant fuel prices and the subsequent high cost of living are hitting industries such as agriculture, fishing, tourism and textiles, which are already on their knees. Because of that, sustainable jobs are at a premium. I welcome Donald Dewar's statement, particularly the presumption against locating new units and agencies in Edinburgh.
I also welcome his saying that, when existing leases on government buildings terminate, relocations will be considered to places outside the capital to include more of Scotland in the governing process and to provide jobs in areas where they are desperately needed to sustain the infrastructure of the local economies. That is completely in line with Scottish Conservative thinking on true devolution, taking government departments to the areas that they most represent.
During our election campaign, we put forward the idea that the new Scottish Parliament should benefit not just Edinburgh, but should be a Parliament for the whole of Scotland. We would decentralise many of its government departments to cities and towns in other parts of Scotland as a way of bringing government closer to the people. That would allay fears, especially in the Highlands and Islands, that the creation of the Scottish Parliament will lead to a concentration of power in Edinburgh, to the detriment of the rest of the
country.
For example, the department of tourism and culture could be located in Inverness, and its branches at other locations in the north. Agriculture would probably find its home in Perth and, again, extra offices could well be located in the areas that Jamie Stone has mentioned. As I suggested in a previous debate, fisheries should go to the north-east, with branch offices located on the north and north-west coasts. The ministry for Gaelic should, of course, go to Stornoway.
All that is possible due to the improved telecommunications that can link centres together. It is no longer necessary to centralise government departments. One only has to look at the success of call centres to see what can be achieved. Furthermore, it is now possible for people to be educated and trained in the northern regions of Scotland, thanks to the new University of the Highlands and Islands. I very much hope that more young people will see a future in staying in the beautiful areas of the Highlands where they were born, and that others from outside will wish to come and make their homes there. That alone will stop the Highlands and Islands descending into an area of sterility. Only from happy and busily employed communities can we hope to see the ancient tradition of Highland culture continue to flourish.
How will that be paid for? The budget rebate that the United Kingdom receives from the European Union was achieved only by sacrificing many of the rural grants that were due from EU sources. I am sure that Eddie George would be among those who stress that the UK as a whole had benefited by many billions of pounds as a result of the agreement that the Conservatives negotiated. However, if moving those departments and jobs to the Highlands is expensive to initiate, surely a few million of the billions that were saved to make the UK prosperous can now be spent in the areas that were partly sacrificed to achieve that end.
I do not represent the Highlands and Islands, but I want to endorse strongly the principle of civil service dispersal. There is nothing like being on the spot to understand the issues, the problems and the opportunities. Desk-bound civil servants in Edinburgh may think that they know about the problems of rurality, distance, sparsity of population and providing services, but I do not believe that they can ever truly understand them unless they have been there and experienced the problems for themselves.
Having had to go there once would be a help; having to relocate there would be very much better. We would also then get the economic benefits downstream as they spent their salaries. The practical problems of dispersal have been solved by advances in information technology. Furthermore, we would be doing those civil servants a favour. As somebody said, they would be living in beautiful countryside with clean air, they would have a shorter distance to travel to work, they would be much healthier, and their office space would likely be cheaper. There is a lot to be said for it.
There is also a lot to be said for them going there to educate themselves. When I was canvassing during the election, an old gentleman in Inverurie said, "I think I'll vote for you, lassie, because I know where to get hold of you." If the civil servants are out in the communities that they serve, dealing with the problems of those communities, and people can get hold of them, that can be only to the good.
I strongly endorse the principle. I commend Jamie for securing this debate.
Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
rose—
I have just one further thing to say. I understand the problems of the Highlands and Islands, but I would like to make a pitch for some of the dispersal to be to the north-east as well. However, I will not waste time extolling the virtues of the north-east.
I just want to make a couple of points about the best and brightest in the Highlands having to leave home if they want high-quality employment. The problem is that an excellent education system provides high-quality graduates for Scotland, who either leave home to get jobs or return home and find themselves underemployed. If we disperse more high-quality civil service jobs to the Highlands—not just to Inverness but to the peripheral areas in the north and west and in Kintyre that suffer most from such a drift—we can give local youngsters the idea that there is something for them to come back to.
I suspect that many of the civil servants at Victoria Quay come from the Highlands and Islands and would jump at the chance of returning home. There is a myth that people do not want to live in the far north or west. They are desperate to live in Tiree, Benbecula, Wick, Thurso or the Black Isle instead of Glasgow and Edinburgh and many of those people come back to lesser jobs for that very reason. They should have decent civil service jobs to come home to.
Donald Dewar has said that efficiency and
effectiveness would be a criterion for dispersing jobs. He should also consider social inclusion, peripherality and the need for decent jobs for young people in the Highlands.
In spite of my earlier comments, it looks as though I might be able to accommodate all members in the debate. One more member, Dr Richard Simpson, wishes to speak and I will call him if he will keep his comments brief.
I certainly will keep my comments brief, particularly because, coming from close to the central belt, I feel a bit of an interloper.
I support the concept of dispersal which lies behind Jamie Stone's motion. Although my constituency might be 31st in the overall list of unemployment, the heart of the area, Clackmannanshire, has suffered massive deterioration of its industrial base, with huge numbers of job losses. Recently, 70 jobs have been lost at Weir Pumps foundry, and 21 more at R G Abercrombie and Co. The announcement of another 50 job losses today at United Glass in Alloa, in part, has motivated me to speak tonight.
The concept of dispersal of jobs should be applied across Scotland and should be underpinned by the possibilities presented by IT, which Nora Radcliffe mentioned, with the ability to work at home and away from Edinburgh. As part of our modern society and structure of government, we should be creating an absolutely in-built concept that something should not be in Edinburgh unless it is absolutely necessary for it to be there. We should be using IT, audio-conferencing and videoconferencing to ensure such dispersal.
I have suffered in this respect myself. I used to have a five-minute walk to work; now I have to commute for three and a bit hours a day, which I hate. That is terribly destructive to family life and I do not know how some MSPs with young children cope with the situation. Many people are forced to work in Edinburgh, which is about to have a massive jobs bonanza. I appeal to the Executive to follow through on its commitments to ensure that we reduce substantially and soon the 6,000 or so civil servants, to whom Fergus Ewing referred, who work in Edinburgh.
I understand that I have seven minutes to reply to the various points that have been raised.
I congratulate Mr Stone on securing this debate and agree with much of what he and other members have said. I certainly share his and others' enthusiasm for decentralisation and I will shortly outline the Executive's position.
Several members mentioned IT, which is an important point to make when we discuss decentralisation. Last week, I had the privilege of opening Argyll College in Dunstaffnage, where I saw exactly how IT can empower communities.
I certainly endorse what members have said about our schools and education system in the Highlands and Islands. The Western Isles used to produce more university graduates than any other part of the UK, which is something to be proud of.
As the constituency member for Western Isles, does the minister agree with Mr Jim Hunter, chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who recently suggested that the officers controlling what used to be objective 1 money should go to Benbecula?
As the local MSP, I welcome any statements of intent that relate to my constituency. Certainly, I welcomed Mr Hunter's statement at the time. It is up to the members of the objective 1 partnership and those who will administer the transitional funds to take the decision, but I am on record as endorsing Mr Hunter's commitment.
I want to pick up on one of the points raised by Fergus Ewing. It should concern us all if, as Mr Ewing highlighted, people are suffering because of clerical errors. However, it is not a problem that could possibly be coped with through decentralisation. If people are making errors, they will make them irrespective of where they are. We should really consider the causes of such errors, which are—and should be—a matter of concern for everyone.
The problem is that, under the rules, people still lose all the money, even when the errors made are honest. In every single case that I have raised, the Minister for Rural Affairs has signed letters—presumably prepared by civil servants—rejecting any argument that constituents should have their grants paid to them, despite the fact that the errors were of an innocent clerical nature. What does the minister propose should be done to address this very serious problem, which exists not only in the Highlands and Islands, but, I suspect, throughout Scotland?
Presiding Officer, you will appreciate that this is a debate about decentralisation. The serious issues that Mr Ewing raises should really be addressed to the Minister for Rural Affairs, but I am happy to convey Mr Ewing's concerns to Mr Finnie.
I have already used three minutes of my time
and have not really begun properly. I will press on.
The motion refers to the statement made in September by the First Minister about the location and relocation of public service jobs in Scotland, which made a number of fundamental points. We want government in Scotland to be efficient and effective. We want the location of departments and other bodies connected with the Executive to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Subject to that, we want the work of those departments and other bodies to be close to the communities that the Scottish Executive and related bodies serve.
The statement drew a distinction between headquarters functions of our departments and executive functions, which are more readily capable of being discharged effectively in other locations. It is the former whose staff need to be based near ministers, who, in turn, need to be readily available to this Parliament. However, for many governmental activities location is either, in principle, not so constrained, or may be geographically dispersed for good operational reasons. The statement noted, therefore, that the bulk of employment in the organisations that are subject to the policy is already located away from Edinburgh.
Will the minister give way?
I want to make some progress. I have only two minutes left. It would be unreasonable to give way, as I really must respond to some of the points that have been made and develop the theme.
More than half the 32,000 civil servants and staff of public bodies covered by the policy already work outside Edinburgh. The Executive has announced that 120 jobs in the enterprise and lifelong learning department will move from Edinburgh, which will mean that the entire department will be located in Glasgow, which is where Nicol Stephen, Henry McLeish and I are based. In addition, the new food standards agency, with over 40 posts, will be established in Aberdeen.
The statement established a presumption against an Edinburgh location for new or reorganised bodies and made clear that ministers will consider relocation options outside Edinburgh for existing organisations if a significant property break is reached. I reaffirm readily today that such consideration will be full and thorough. In considering other locations, ministers will take into account costs and operational factors. As one would expect, they will also consider the position of the staff concerned.
It is not the Executive's policy, nor was it suggested in the statement, that there should be an artificially constructed list or number of jobs to be moved, come what may. Such a dispersal programme would be open to a number of objections. First, our policy will treat every opportunity on a case-by-case basis to ensure that, in each instance, the optimum decision is reached. That does not lend itself to predetermined targets for jobs in particular parts of the country. Secondly, that sort of approach pays scant regard to cost-effectiveness, which was stressed in the First Minister's written reply of 15 September 1999.
Our view is that cost-effectiveness and relocation can work hand in hand, but not on the basis of some artificially driven one-off programme that would probably look dated before its completion. Rather, we wish to embed them as part of the culture of government in Scotland, which is the kind of change in attitude that many members have sought.
We are carefully considering possible future structures and moves as opportunities arise. We are doing that on a year-by-year basis and we will continue to identify changes to either structures or locations from which we wish Scotland as a whole to benefit. What is appropriate for a new body with many staff may not be appropriate for an area office with only a handful of staff. For that reason, the Executive does not accept that a comprehensive review as specified in the motion is the way ahead. I can assure Mr Stone, however, that as part of our overall commitment to proper consultation, there will be scope for areas such as Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross to draw to our attention the needs of their communities for the services provided by bodies under the aegis of the Executive, and to make clear the advantages of location that those bodies can offer.
I was delighted recently, when my local authority, Western Isles Council, stated that it has a policy to disperse 10 per cent of its jobs. I recall from a recent visit to Unst that that its community was looking to Shetland Islands Council to disperse jobs.
The Presiding Officer is being very charitable. I know that I am a minute and a half over, and I estimate that I will take one more minute to finish.
It must be remembered that employment opportunities arise in the public sector as a whole. In general, the Highlands and Islands enjoy slightly higher levels of public sector employment than Scotland as a whole, with just over 30 per cent of employees working in public sector jobs— some 30,000 people in all. I have, however, listened with interest to Mr Stone and to the other members who participated in this debate. My colleagues and I will readily consider a number of the points made today about the location of public service work in Scotland.
I hope that those who promoted today's debate will accept for their part that the overall approach that we are taking is the right one. It is, in the best sense, opportunistic. It seeks to take forward the thrust of decentralisation and therefore the social inclusion that we wish for all the people of Scotland. It properly considers cost, and it marches in step with our overall aims for the improvement and modernisation of government in Scotland.
In closing, I thank you for your tolerance, Presiding Officer.
Meeting closed at 17:43.