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February 07, 2005
'The Index of Success'
Over on the Independence blog, Stuart Dickson is writing about Scotland’s poor economic performance and the so-called ‘Federation of Small Businesses-Sunday Herald Index of Success’.
It’s true that the economic data is bad enough, but when we factor in Scotland’s abysmal health record and lack of progress on the environment, the results look pretty bleak.
Gordon Brown has got away with some extraordinary hyping up of the British economy. This may be good for Labour, but it has done nothing to help people here realize the truth about their economic performance.
The reality is low standards and low productivity.
For someone coming to Edinburgh (as I did) from one of the world’s leading economic centres, low productivity is something that stares you in the face: the local government officers who respond by formal letter months after email enquiry, the paper-clutching 1980s-style solicitors, the doctors who are too busy to see you and then chat to you about the weather when you get an appointment, the shops where someone insists on doing your photocopying for you, the people who say they’ll ring you back but don’t, the call centres that are always busy, etc. etc.
I don’t see any solution to this because the problem starts at the top - with the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Parliament and the local governments. In fact it’s the bureaucrats that are the worst! Who is going to tell them that they must respond to email within 24 hours? Who is going to tell the doctors that they must see more patients? Who is going to tell the lawyers to raise their productivity and lower their fees?
And, come to think about it, who is going to tell the headquarters of the SNP to run a thorough-going dynamic, aggressive, modern party organization?
scottish-independence.blogspot.com/2005/02/scotland-is-last-among-advanced-oecd.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at February 7, 2005 12:30 AM
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