Common Weal investigates the impact of Covid-19 in Scottish Care homes and finds that the warnings about the weaknesses in pandemic preparation were repeatedly ignored with the result of causing “The single greatest failure in devolved government since the creation of the Scottish Parliament”
Several of Common Weal’s Local Groups respond to the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 Framework for Decision Making by calling for an increase in the ambition of its proposed Test, Trace, Isolate and Support plans.
This phase of creating a resilient Scotland covers 2021-26 the five years of the next Scottish Parliament. It provides the detail of how the transformation envisaged can be achieved quickly, with a closer look at our economy, society and democracy.
The final stage of the Resilient Scotland Plan runs from 2025 with the upcoming Parliamentary session ending with Scotland becoming an independent country. All of the work started in Part Two will continue and the work that could not start due to the limitations of devolution can now commence. By 2045, the plan will be completely and Scotland will have been transformed into a net zero-carbon country with a resilient economy that works for All of Us.
Nick Kempe investigates the Care Inspectorate’s attempts to assess the ongoing response in Scottish care homes to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whilst some care homes have improved, Kempe raises serious concerns about the quality of data being gathered and the “slow and seemingly random way” in which care homes are being reassessed. He raises particular concern that five months on from the onset of the pandemic in Scotland, staff in care homes are still not being properly trained in infection control.
How should parliament incorporate the public’s voice?
Opinion polls – measuring uncritical, off-the-cuff responses to complicated questions – are shallow at best, misleading at worst, and when amplified by the media and other sources can have a detrimental effect on policy making. Instead of gathering citizens’ opinions, political decisions should be made after garnering citizens’ considered and informed judgement.
This is what a Citizens’ Assembly will do.
The case for asset based community development in the North-East of Glasgow through mapping derelict and vacant sites in the area and looking at how the Community Empowerment Act could be utilised.
This paper proposes six policy ways to renew the Scottish Government’s domestic agenda through fresh and eye-catching policy transformation after 10 years in power at Holyrood.
Examination of the expansion of data collection and its use as a tool for the manipulation of elections.
Several recommendations are made which will help safeguard our democracy against unfair or malicious influence from companies or foreign states.
This paper looks at the vulnerabilities in the UK’s electoral process in the form of the lax regulation around digital political adverts. Such adverts can be bought cheaply and tightly micro-targeted at individual voters. The current fines levied against groups who over-spend on campaigns is low enough that not only do they provide no deterrence to overspending, the fines risk becoming actively “costed in” to campaigns mounted by well-funded yet unscrupulous organisations.