The Sunday Herald

March 25, 2001

HEADLINE: whisper it ... we're still a secret society;Devolution was supposed to herald a more open and accountable parliament. Instead it is just as reluctant to reveal the truth as Westminster. Political Editor Douglas Fraser investigates

BYLINE: By Douglas Fraser Political Editor

SECTION: Pg. 15

LENGTH: 1538 words

A PARLIAMENT was intended to open Scotland up. The vast machinery of government that had ticked over without much democratic scrutiny would be put on public view, and those wielding power would be held accountable. That was the ideal. The reality has been very different, according to the most thorough research project into the effects devolution had in its first year on making Scottish politics and government more transparent.

The project at Stirling University's media research institute publishes its findings in full next week, with the main points revealed exclusively today in the Sunday Herald. The key outcome is that for all the emphasis and expenditure on presentation and for all the extra press officers, Scotland remains far from open. That is because politicians indulged in damaging "spin wars" with each other; because the civil service failed to reform itself; because lobbyists continued to operate, unregulated, in the shadows; and because journalists (including this writer, presumably) colluded to make sure they were the ones who had control over access to politicians. They find the Scottish home rule project suffered from basing itself too closely on the Westminster and Whitehall model it was seeking to avoid.

In unprecedented detail and interviewing many of the key players, Professor Philip Schlesinger, David Miller and William Dinan closely tracked the devolution transition from before the election and found:

"The proximity of politicians, lobbyists and many of the journalists the public rely upon to hold these actors to account, is potentially unhealthy for Scottish democracy." For this, they drew on a Sunday Herald analysis a year ago of the complex web of personal political-journalist links;

BBC management in London killed off plans by staff in Glasgow to base television news out of Scotland, leaving politics underserved (see Seven Days);

That has left politics prone to the unchecked influence of the press;

There has been heavy dependency on reporting the parliament and Executive in the same secretive ways as in Westminster;

Political journalists have acted as an interest group and effectively "regulate access to the political class";

The civil service has barely changed its secretive culture as part of the devolution process, and the administrative arm of the Executive is barely open to public scrutiny;

The information, presentation and spin machine in Edinburgh has been at the heart of the major problems of governing Scotland in the past two years;

It is essential to have a statutory register of lobbyists seeking to influence policy at the Scottish parliament, if it is to avoid the sleaze allegations which have so damaged Westminster in recent years.

The research focuses on the role of presentation, public information, spin and lobbying which has become one of the dominant themes, both of the Blair administration in London and one of the bigger headaches continually facing the new Edinburgh government. It is not the first research to put journalists in the firing line alongside the politicians. The London-based Constitution Unit concluded that the first year of devolution was a modest success, but was damaged by the "corrosive small-mindedness of the Scottish press".

Professor Robert Hazell, the unit director, said the parliament's achievements "have been largely ignored by the Scottish press, which, led by the Daily Record and The Scotsman, has conducted a campaign of extraordinary ferocity against the new parliament. As a result, most Scots have formed a poor opinion of the new parliament, although they would not want to lose it."

The academics claim journalists on the Mound formed their own interest group, fighting for access, arguing to keep the same rules of non-attributable quoting that makes the Westminster lobby so secretive, and argued for the best possible facilities in the Holyrood building.

"Key journalists organised themselves into an exceedingly effective lobby - although, ironically, they disdain lobbyists and lobbying with no little fervour," they write.

"While the rhetoric of high politics was employed in their quest, it was the nuts and bolts of low politics - securing space and facilities and the right to roam the corridors of power - that was the prize."

The Stirling researchers suggest that when those journalists failed to get what they wanted as quickly as they hoped, they turned against both institutions and painted a negative picture of devolution through its first year in operation: "The political media were raring to report the new politics and found themselves frustrated by the time it took to let them become insiders".

What emerges also from the research is the failure of the Executive to shift the culture of the civil service towards more openness. Scrutiny of the civil service and the machinery of government in Scotland had been one of the main reasons put forward for having devolution in the first place.

Yet for all the discussion between civil servants and journalists about setting ground rules for how the parliament should be reported, officials carefully avoided any discussion of improving media access to Executive ministers and civil servants. The research argues that Donald Dewar failed to decide about changing the nature of Scotland's civil service. He left the mandarins to reform themselves, and the conclusion is that, while the civil service overhauled its internal communication, it did nothing to address the outside world with the openness that had been expected before devolution.

"It is the Executive that stands most in need of reform if we are to move towards an open Scotland," say the researchers.

But while officials were avoiding the kind of internal reform that would open up what they do, they were facing pressure on another flank, with ministers wanting them to break with the tradition of keeping away from party politics.

The finger is pointed at former Tory Scottish Secretary Lord Michael Forsyth.

Liz Drummond, appointed director of information nine years ago and sacked within months of Labour coming to power, remembers how civil servants were run ragged by Forsyth and the gimmicks he demanded they use. He was demonised by the Daily Record, but "the man was bad enough", she points out. "You didn't need to lie about it to make him look bad."

That was merely preparation for what followed from Wendy Alexander, then a special adviser and now enterprise minister. In the researchers' book, officials single her out for criticism in making unreasonable demands and not understanding media. "Some of her ideas are off the wall," says Drummond. "And she doesn't listen - she never listens."

Then, even when officials do go on camera and on the record, there is criticism too from the Stirling team about their approach. They cite as evidence the training material used for civil servants, teaching them the black arts already practised by their political bosses.

The material advises officials, when asked a multiple question by a journalist, to answer "the bit you want". Be "as reassuring as is truthfully possible". And "if you feel that the interviewer has asked inappropriate questions or is trying to steer you in an unacceptable direction, you can try and change or remove questions".

Since their research came to an end, a new first minister has been installed. But having courted the political press pack ahead of his promotion to the top job, Henry McLeish's approach shows evidence of how he is seeking to bypass the journalists whose hostility and negative reporting have been one of the dominant themes of devolution's earliest stages. McLeish's initiative involves a Knowledge Team, to ensure ministers have the five best answers to support a policy, and a hidden screen at St Andrew's House media bunker, on which civil servants can flash up answers to unexpected questions.

A new media and presentation unit has been set up, which has eight staff. Bypassing troublesome journalists, the intention is to use more direct advertising, with an adviser hired to place the First Minister where he looks "in touch", and another special adviser to get the message direct to local papers and radio. They hope also to use internet technology to feed briefings live to the public, rather than going through the media "middle man".

It is a new, deliberate attempt to address the shortcomings of the first year in getting the message across from the Executive. But changing the medium does not change the message. And nor does it increase accountability and the flow of information for the Stirling team to observe when they return for an update.

Hostile media reporting of the new breed of politician in Edinburgh has been one of the features of home rule so far, fuelling rows over Section 28, Lobbygate, allowances, holidays, spin and the Holyrood building. But how much could journalists really find out? A team of Stirling University researchers set out to find if all the activity on the Mound and at St Andrew's House was making government any more open - they report in full next week.