Policy Institute

The Policy Institute's (PI) foundation co-incided with the first election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. It is institutionally independent from any political party. Bill Jamieson, senior journalist at the right-leaning The Scotsman broadsheet (owned by the Barclay Brothers, is the Director of the PI, which has no office, ‘only a desk at the Scotsman’, as its Executive Director Tom Miers phrased it. He is the only salaried member of the PI, joined the PI in May 2003 ‘to run the institute on a more full-time basis’. He formerly worked for the IEA in an administrative role. He described The Scotsman as very generous in allocating logistic re-sources to the PI and allowing a senior member of its staff to re-dedicate some of his time to the institute. Jamieson has been a frequent guest at the IEA and at the Bruges Group – a Thatcherite committed to a fight against deeper UK integration into the EU. The PI’s board of trustees is less impressive than that of other more established Scottish think-tanks such as the DHI and SCF. It is composed of The 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.