SNP must get rid of their policy blinkers - Miles Briggs
Last week was a bad week for those of us who are interested in how Scotland’s public services compare with those elsewhere. Most damningly, international statistics showed just how poorly our schools are performing across several key areas.
To rub salt in the wound, the alternative course charted by England over the past 20 years seems to have paid off, with pupils south of the border now among the highest achieving in the world.
In contrast, Scotland has slumped when it comes to maths, science and reading.
It all means, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), that high school children here are a year behind their English counterparts in key areas.
And they’re up to three years behind the previous generation.
This is about the most astonishing evidence ever put forward about the SNP’s shambolic agenda.
They have been in sole charge of the education system for almost 20 years, and we now have proof that over that time they have wrecked it.
And it’s not just about education standards, which we can now see are in critical decline.
Schools are becoming less safe for children and teachers, and the level of discipline appears to be non-existent.
It’s no wonder teachers are seeking their escape – they have been failed every bit as much as children.
For years the SNP saw the UK Government making progress with its education system, but deliberately contradicted its approach for no other reason than to be different.
It has been an abject failure, and it’s unbelievable that SNP ministers have tried to portray it any other way.
So we know the SNP won’t emulate England for cynical, pitiful political reasons.
But perhaps in another area of failed public policy they could look elsewhere for inspiration.
Delayed discharge – where patients are fit to leave hospital but have nowhere to go – has dogged our NHS for years.
The issue is a nightmare for hospitals, and creates misery for vulnerable patients and their loved ones.
The Scottish Government have long-pledged to sort it, but it only gets worse.
This week an expert said three people need to die before a bed becomes free.
It’s essentially a demographic problem which all of Europe is grappling with, but in the Nordic countries they have a plan whereby councils are brought to the table and more actively encouraged to accommodate patients.
It would require bravery and imagination, but ministers should at least look at options like these, otherwise the crisis will never be solved.
Either way, it’s time for the SNP to take the blinkers off and stop being too proud, or too dogmatic, to copy others when it comes to improving lives of people of all ages.
Young and old are suffering as a result.