Scottish Council Foundation

The Scottish Council Foundation (SCF) is a neoliberal think tank that proclaims that it "develops leading edge thinking and world class practice to address the strategic challenges facing Scotland and other modern economies and societies in an age of complexity and rapid change" [1]. It was established by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) in 1999, which seeks to "strengthen Scotland’s economic competitiveness and sustainable prosperity by influencing Government policy at all levels". The SCDI remains strongly involved, as three of the SCF’s five trustees are high-ranking members of the SCDI executive and its board and all of them are important members of Scotland’s business community. In 2004, the SCF employs five full-time research staff. Its present director, James McCormick, was appointed in 2002. Previously had worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research’s (IPPR) Social Justice Commission Report (1994), which was important for the Labour Party’s Third Way concepts of the welfare state. The SCF is the only Scottish-based and Scotland-focussed think-tanks that carries out original research and only occasionally draws from external expertise. Unnlike the David Hume Institute and Policy Institute, the SCF has also cooperates with various organisatiosn, including the Washington D.C Centre for Excellence in Government, the IPPR, the Public Health Institute of Scotland and the Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health. The SCF emphasises the international and national relevance of its projects and therefore the ‘exportability’ of its products [2] (accessed 1 June 2004). Non-aligned to any political party, the SCF’s language resembles (New) Labour-speech: the institute’s core aims are "tackle[ing] inequalities in the marketplace", in public health and in the distribution of wealth [3]. It demands action led by the Scottish Executive to "promote cost-cutting partnerships between local shops and major retailers, and offer incentives for new businesses to set up in low-income neighbourhoods" in order to allow poor households to get more value for their money. In order to "enjoy the benefits of competition" more commitment from government to functioning markets and a clearer challenge to private service providers is demanded[4]. In the SCF's policy research work, equality does not feature very highly on the agenda as an aim in itself; at best marked disparities are seen as economically undesirable for all members of society: "a pronounced set of inequalities is bad for everyone, for the economy, for the people in the middle, for the people at the bottom", said its director James McCormick in January 2004. In January 2006 it published a report with the Fraser of Allander Institute proposing that Scottish Water be privatised.[5] In the same month it organised a conference with pharma giant Pfizer, one of the most active pharma lobbyists in Scotland on binge drinking. Andrew Harris, from the Foundation, said: "Education, improved housing, employment and environmental changes can all address problems such as binge-drinking far more effectively than trying to tackle the problem in isolation" [6]. The SCF, though its director says he sees it in a "social-democratic" epistemic community, pushes market friendly policies.

Funding

The SCF is funded by big business . The SCF states that its "principal supporters" include

• Associated Newspapers
• Boots
• BP
• BT
• Communities Scotland
• Diageo
• Liddell Thomson
• Pfizer
• Scottich Council for Development and Industry
• Scottish Adult Learning Partnership
• Scottish Enterprise
• Shell
• Volunteer Development Scotland

Personnel

SCF's Trustees are:

• Shonaig MacPherson, Chairperson
• Donal Dowds
• Crawford Gillies
• Mike Hambly
• Alan Wilson

All serve in a personal capacity.

Staff

• Linda Boyes Policy Manager
• Deirdre Elrick Policy Manager
• Jim McCormick Director
• Gillian Menzies Finance Officer
• Sandra Robertson Events Co-ordinator
• Janet Smith Office Manager
• Mark Langan Research Fellow
• Andrew Harris Programme Director

Contact details

Scottish Council Foundation,
23 Chester Street,
Edinburgh, Scotland, EH3 7ET
Phone: 0131 225 4709
Fax: 0131 220 2116
Email: scf AT @scottishcouncilfoundation.org
Web: http://www.scottishcouncilfoundation.org/index.php

External links

• • RICHARD GRAY Message in a bottle Scotland on Sunday, 29 January 2006.
• Alf Young The horse is at the water, but who’s nagging it to drink? the Herald, 24 January 2006.