Policy Institute

A Think tank based inside the offices of the Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh, which is owned by the Barclay Brothers.

The Policy Institute has personnel in common with and is linked to the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Policy Institute (PI). Its foundation coincided with the first election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. It is, like all think-tanks in this sample, institutionally independent from any political party. Bill Jamieson, senior journalist at the right-leaning The Scotsman broadsheet, is the Director of the PI, which has no office, ‘only a desk at the Scotsman’. Tom Miers, the only salaried member of the PI, has been employed as Executive Director in May 2003 ‘to run the institute on a more full-time basis’. He formerly worked for the Institute of Economic Affairs in an administrative role and does not rule out going into politics one day. He described The Scotsman as very generous in allocating logistic resources to the PI and allowing a senior member of its staff to re-dedicate some of his time to the institute56. Jamieson has been a frequent guest at the IEA57 and at the [[Bruges Group]] – a Thatcherite ‘independent all-party think tank’ committed to a fight against deeper UK integration into the EU58. The PI’s board of trustees is less impressive than that of the more established DHI and SCF and is composed of another Scotsman pundit Katie Grant, a top manager of Scottish Friendly Assurance Colin McLean, and Allan Massie, a journalist- turned-writer.

Funding

The PI has had about 30 different sponsors over the last two years, of which about half were trusts, such as the Tay Charitable Trust and the Binks Trust. Companies, e.g. Scottish Equitable, Holyrood Holdings (Barclay Bros holding company for Telegraph Media Group, The Scotsman, the Spectator Magazine, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News), and Stagecoach, the trade association Federation of Small Business and individuals make up the other half.