Centre for Scottish Public Policy

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According to its website, the Centre for Scottish Public Policy (CSPP) is

An independent think tank providing a focus for imaginative and innovative policy debate on the key issues facing Scotland.[1] The CSPP says its aim is the "promotion of an imaginative policy debate" by ‘organising opportunities for politicians, policy thinkers and practitioners to meet and to learn from each other."[2]

The website adds that the CSPP was formerly known as the John Wheatley Centre.[3]

As of 2009 the CSPP's chief executive is Ross Martin (appointed 2004), a former Labour Councillor and failed Labour candidate for a seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1999.[4] He followed Gerry Hassan, who was previously head of communications at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) lobby group,[5]. As of 2009 Hassan is working with think-tank Demos on the Scotland 2020 project[6] .

Prior to his new position at the CSPP, Martin was head of the Scottish Forum for Modern Government at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University. This institute, set up in November 1999, has effectively ceased to exist. According to an article in the Edinburgh Evening News, Martin wants the CSPP "to act as a bridgehead between the government and the people they seek to govern by providing opportunities for engagement, by challenging vested interests".[7] In an interview with Hartwig Pautz, Martin said that he wants the institute to be seen as "centre-left", although not aligned to a political party.[8]

The CSPP is pursuing research into public service reform in Scotland[9] According to Hartwig Pautz, it has received sponsorship among others by BAA Scotland, the European Parliament and the German Social Democratic Party’s Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.[10]

Orientation

The CSPP used to be called the John Wheatley Centre. It was named after the respected Independent Labour Party MP who passed through legislation enabling government action on Glasgow's Housing Problem, arguably the chief cause of misery in the city at the time. Old socialists (and their socialism) are no longer welcome in Scotland, and the name has been changed along with the purpose.

The Centre says it is "independent of political parties" and that its programmes "involve a wide range of experts drawn from across the Scottish body politic"[11] Judge for yourself - this is the 2005 board according to the Centre's website at the time:

  • Prof. Alice Brown: Scotland's Public Appointments Ombudsman, former member of the (Neill) Committee on Standards in Public Life, and on extended leave from the Dept. of Politics Edinburgh University. She was an early supporter of the Scottish Parliament Business Exchange.
  • Gordon Dalyell: Solicitor, Wheatley Centre on Law Reform.
  • Mark Lazarowicz: An Advocate, and former Labour councillor. He stood in the '92 election as a Parliamentary Labour candidate in the Edinburgh Pentlands seat, losing to Malcolm Rifkind by 4,290 votes. It had previously, in 87, been a Labour majority of 1,859. He is the convener of the CSPP.
  • Anne McGuire: Labour MP for Stirling, was appointed Donald Dewar's Parliamentary Private Secretary. Shortly after the conference she was the principle "gate keeper" who drew up the list of prospective (i.e. acceptably right-wing) Labour candidates for the new parliament. An ardent sycophant she took the opportunity of PM"s question time to ask: "Does the prime minister recognise that our emphasis over the past year on the economy, health and education has kept faith with the voters." She has since held ministerial posts in the Scotland Office, the Department of Constitutional Affairs and the Department of Work and Pensions.
  • Rosemary McKenna: Labour MP. On the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee which is enquiring into "welfare to work." The Herald of 24/3/97 reported that McKenna's appointment to the seat of Cumbernauld and Kilsyth was accompanied by the purge of the Home rule faction of the local party at the conference in Inverness. Fears were voiced that this had been "engineered to give a clear run to councillor Rosemary McKenna, who is a leading figure in Network, the pro-leadership grouping which orchestrated the Inverness slate". The Network has been described as "garrulous college leavers anxious to be seen doing the leader's bidding." Its origins are said to be in Jim Murphy, another new MP and responsible for the acceptance of student loans while President of the NUS. He was assigned as "special projects officer" by those in the Scottish Labour Party hierarchy anxious to bee seen as Blairite. The big "success" of the network was McKenna's election. Jim Murphy also spoke at the conference.
  • Henry McLeish: Disgraced Labour MP who was the late Donald Dewar's second in command. Minister for Home Affairs, Devolution and Transport, was opposition spokesman on social security i.e. the country's chief exponent of workfare. McLeish succeeded Dewar as Scotland's First Minister in 2000 but had to resign in controversial circumstances over constitutuency office expenses[12], a murky saga that he described as "a muddle not a fiddle"[13]
  • David Martin: Labour MEP and former Vice-president of the European Parliament (which funds the CSPP) for ten years; an ex-stockbroker's assistant.
  • David Millar: Formerly a clerk in the house of Commons, then director of research at the European Parliament, now with the Europa Institute, Edinburgh University.
  • Kenneth Munro: European Commission.
  • Matt Smith: Scottish Secretary of Unison one of the biggest unions in Scotland and the UK.

The Thatcher period was marked by scores of supposedly non-partisan but ideologically directed research institutes, who financed and publicised the work of approved experts. The CSPP's political connections suggests similar forms of activity.

As a result of the conference, the CSPP has an advisory board and a board of directors totalling thirty-eight people. There are eight new directors including Paul Thompson: the editor of Renewal (a New Labour magazine), Ronnie Smith: the General Secretary of the EIS, Grant Baird: the Chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, and some academics. The advisory board has been padded out with Councillors from Glasgow and Edinburgh and more academics. Twenty-nine of the total of thirty-eight spoke at the conference, which had fifty-five speakers on day one and seventy-four on the other. CSPP members were scattered throughout the three sessions each with eight different seminars per day. More or less half of the talks were non-political and largely arbitrary cultural themes and these ones they avoided. Some talks contained nothing but CSPP members. I think it is fair to say we were somewhat shepherded into hearing the views the organisation is pushing. No one mentioned this in the press.

The CSPP aim to set agendas for the Scottish Parliament, attack home rule, advocate coalition politics and promote the EU (without actually asking what good it does) - where the Social Democrats and the Labour Party merge into one in the European Parliament.

Personnel

The Board 2008

Staff 2008

Advisory board

Former members



Funding

Source: Pautz

Activities

Achieving the Vision: The Edinburgh City Region Conference 2005 Edinburgh, Thursday 26 May

Keynote speaker: Tom McCabe MSP, Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform in association with City of Edinburgh Council Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian, Media sponsor: The Scotsman Conference sponsors: BT, First, Citigate Public Affairs

Reports

Reports available:

Delivering Transport Policy for Scotland Working Together for a Sustainable Scotland A Healthy Scotland Public Service Reform in Scotland Scotland's role in the Enlarged Europe The Implications and Consequences of Introducing STV for the Scottish Parliament Elections

Contact

Chisholm House 1 Surgeon Square High School Yards Edinburgh EH1 1LZ

Tel/Fax: 0131 558 8179 mail@cspp.demon.co.uk

External links

  • Hartwig Pautz 'Think-Tanks in Scotland' Paper for the 55th Political Studies Association Annual conference, 4-7 April 2005, University of Leeds
  1. ↑ "Homepage", CSPP website, accessed January 2009.
  2. ↑ "Home page", CSPP website, accessed January 2009.
  3. ↑ "About us: History", CSPP website, accessed January 2009
  4. ↑ Mary Braid, "Britain Votes: Canavan out for revenge against the 'wee cabal'", The Independent, 7 May 1999, accessed January 2009.
  5. ↑ "[www.scdi.org.uk/pi/2000/1542.doc Scottish Council for Development and Industry Response to the Scottish Executive Consultation Paper on Appointments to Public Bodies in Scotland: Modernising the System]", SCDI, 5 May 2000, accessed January 2009
  6. ↑ "Gerry Hassan", Demos website, accessed January 2009.
  7. ↑ Ross Martin to head up left-of-centre think tank", Edinburgh Evening News, 22 June 2004.
  8. ↑ Ross Martin, in an interview with Hartwig Pautz of Glasgow Caledonian University, 16 August 2004, Glasgow, cited in Hartwig Pautz, "Think-Tanks in Scotland", paper given at the 55th Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 4-7 April 2005 - University of Leeds, p. 6, accessed January 2009.
  9. ↑ "About the Programme", CSPP website, accessed January 2009.
  10. ↑ Hartwig Pautz, "Think-Tanks in Scotland", paper given at the 55th Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 4-7 April 2005 - University of Leeds, p. 6, accessed January 2009.
  11. ↑ "Policy Programmes Overview", CSPP website, accessed January 2009.
  12. ↑ Tom Gordon, "Henry McLeish under fire as Labour feuding erupts", The Sunday Times, 17 August 2008, accessed January 2009.
  13. ↑ "Scotland's 'House of Cards'", BBC News, 13 November 2001, accessed January 2009
  14. ↑ [1]
  15. ↑ [2]
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