Introduction

This chapter examines aspects of social welfare in Scotland since devolution. In this section there is an outline of the devolution settlement. We then briefly examine the historic background to Scottish social welfare and the significance of welfare issues to the movement for devolution. Following this we look at what the Scottish Executive (put crudely, Scotland’s ‘government’) is broadly trying to achieve. The focus next is on education and health, the two main areas of devolved social welfare powers. Particular stress is laid on ‘policy divergence’ although as we shall see there are constraints on what the Executive can do. Finally we assess what point the Scottish welfare state has reached and what might be its future trajectory. Like its counterpart (more accurately, superior) in London, the Scottish government has been extremely busy in producing policy documents and initiatives. What follows is thus highly selective (for a fuller account, see Stewart, 2004).

In May 1999 the Scottish people voted in elections to the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years. Some form of political devolution had been part of New Labour’s programme in 1997 and, as discussed below, there were close links between the demand for political devolution and social welfare issues. Shortly after Blair’s accession to power the Scots were asked in a referendum whether there should be a Scottish Parliament; and, if so, whether it should have tax-raising powers. Both these questions were answered in the affirmative, resulting in turn in the 1998 Scotland Act.

What did devolution entail and what were its immediate outcomes? First, elections to the Scottish Parliament involve a measure of proportional representation. Consequently, after the elections of both 1999 and 2003 the largest party, Labour, has had to go into coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Another significant result has been the election of representatives from smaller political parties and groupings such as the vociferous Scottish Socialist Party. All this has led, Davies argues (2003, p 1), to the ‘Europeanisation’ of Scottish politics. Second, the main opposition party has been not the Conservatives but the Scottish National Party (SNP), which has positioned itself on the political centre-left.