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Scottish Parliament f**k-ups


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Guest Bob Mahelp
On 18/09/2021 at 13:41, Granny Danger said:

I think it was the wrong decision and there was a lack of honesty as to why it was done.  Imo it was about saving money.

As with other finance driven policies, until we have total control of our own finances it’s always going to be an issue that cannot be fully blamed on the SG.

Best practice in any other country of a similar size (Denmark, Ireland, Belgium etc) and many, many larger countries, shows that a centralised police force is far, far, far more efficient both operationally and financially than a dozen or so splintered forces. 

The problem is not with the actual forming of Police Scotland, it's how it was implemented. The blame with that falls equally between the SG and poor leadership of Police Scotland. 

As I understand though, things have improved considerably with time. 

 

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Guest Bob Mahelp
11 hours ago, the snudge said:

The determination to centralise everything. 

Not adapting the education system radically to the Finnish model. That is a colossal f**k up. We teach kids to take/pass tests, this is fundamentally wrong. It's not relevant to the working world. 

Treatment of football fans. The OF can't behave and everyday fans that support other clubs are punished as if football culture is that of the 1980s. It's not. Fans should be able to enjoy a beer or whatever in their seat. 

Minimum wage - this should be higher. Infact it should be done away with and a universal basic income be installed. I get that in some instances we're restricted by not having a fully autonomous government but that's a different argument. 

Sports in schools - not enough effort is being channeled into getting fitter and healthier. It starts when we're young. We have crazy amounts of unhealthy people which are a drain on our health system. More needs done to combat this. It'll take a whole mentality shift. 

Public transport - its too expensive. Its shite. It cost more to go from Dumbarton to Inverness by train that it did for me to fly to Valencia. That shouldn't happen.

Politicians - they don't seem representative of everyday folk in the SG. They're not employed in their area of expertise. There's too many that don't know what real life is about. For example Humza Yousaf - studied politics now a minister for health. What expertise does he bring to the table when it comes to making critical decisions?

John Swinney - studied politics and was the education minister. He's never been a teacher, or a head of a educational establishment. What did he bring to the role? 

 

 

Not that I'm necessarily dissing your other points, but public transport at this moment is not under the control of the SG. 

Different bus and train companies set their own timetables and pricing. You criticise the SG for over centralising in your first point, but then you seem to be criticising them for not centralising enough when it comes to public transport. 

Which is it to be ?

P.S. I agree with your overall point. Public transport in Scotland is generally a hellish dystopia of 3rd world proportions. 

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The point I am making is that no opinion can be supported by evidence. Not yet.


"It is a failed policy."

Including this one.

There is evidence the policy works, there is evidence Covid shutdowns have caused excessive alcohol related deaths since 2020. There is no evidence that it's a failed policy.
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4 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Best practice in any other country of a similar size (Denmark, Ireland, Belgium etc) and many, many larger countries, shows that a centralised police force is far, far, far more efficient both operationally and financially than a dozen or so splintered forces. 

 

 

From my understanding, the only thing centralised was the management.  There are still distinct divisions or similar in existence.  I  sure @Inanimate Carbon Rod could give more detail.  I think the biggest issue around the centralisation is that when it is always about the central belt then you can apply the same logic as with the UK spending on things like defense where Scotland contributes a population share but receives less military spending in return.

Our area has lost jobs in the fire and police service because things have been centralised.

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Guest Bob Mahelp
4 minutes ago, strichener said:

From my understanding, the only thing centralised was the management.  There are still distinct divisions or similar in existence.  I  sure @Inanimate Carbon Rod could give more detail.  I think the biggest issue around the centralisation is that when it is always about the central belt then you can apply the same logic as with the UK spending on things like defense where Scotland contributes a population share but receives less military spending in return.

Our area has lost jobs in the fire and police service because things have been centralised.

I suppose you have to look at it from the other side of the coin. Up to 2013 we had 8 Chief Constables, and 8 different forces, all duplicating each other in cerain ways and overlapping on others. 

For a country of only 5 million people, this was nuts. It's not really centralisation, it's common sense. 

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7 minutes ago, strichener said:

From my understanding, the only thing centralised was the management.  There are still distinct divisions or similar in existence.  I  sure @Inanimate Carbon Rod could give more detail.  I think the biggest issue around the centralisation is that when it is always about the central belt then you can apply the same logic as with the UK spending on things like defense where Scotland contributes a population share but receives less military spending in return.

Our area has lost jobs in the fire and police service because things have been centralised.

There have been job losses but id say in terms of division of specialised services there is a pretty even distribution. Also id argue that there were accusations of a ‘strathclydeisation’ of the police, but largely i’d say the more passive approach of Lothian and Borders and Grampian etc has become the kinda dominant mindset. 
Theres still very much a local focus, divisions work pretty much the same as the old burgh forces, there are division/local priorities from speaking with local politicians etc and national priorities (like counter terror and domestic abuse), it would work pretty well if it was funded properly tbh. 

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7 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

I suppose you have to look at it from the other side of the coin. Up to 2013 we had 8 Chief Constables, and 8 different forces, all duplicating each other in cerain ways and overlapping on others. 

For a country of only 5 million people, this was nuts. It's not really centralisation, it's common sense. 

There are about the same number of people in South Carolina as Scotland, in South Carolina there are 242 police agencies, 46 county sheriffs (elected) which are about as close to Chief Constables here and 136 ‘Town or Municipality’ police forces of varying sizes all with their own chiefs etc. So in retrospect 8 Chiefs (there were actually 9 if you count the SCDEA) wasnt a complete outrage. They were all paid different amounts too depending on size of the Force, the CC of Central or Fife probably getting less than an ‘assistant chief constable’ in Police Scotland (2 ranks beneath that of a chief constable). 
 

Personally think that following independence Scotland should have 3 distinct Police forces, 1 a Gendarmerie which would act as our civil defence force with a peacekeeping outlook also, be positioned to provide public order, close protection, military policing, specialist firearms capability etc similar to the CNC/MOD Police functions now. A national police force focusing on local policing and a degree of serious crime and a Specialist Crime Agency which would be both our anti-terror/intelligence function agency similar to the FBI which would also investigate organised crime/cyber/specialist lab or forensics and high profile crime such as abductions/murders or other things at the direction of the crown office or invitation of the local policing body. 
That would allow for specialism in the right place, local focused policing properly done and a way to have public order capability which doesnt remove front line police officers from Scotlands communities for things like cop26, large scale unrest or events. 

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8 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Not that I'm necessarily dissing your other points, but public transport at this moment is not under the control of the SG. 

Different bus and train companies set their own timetables and pricing. You criticise the SG for over centralising in your first point, but then you seem to be criticising them for not centralising enough when it comes to public transport. 

Which is it to be ?

P.S. I agree with your overall point. Public transport in Scotland is generally a hellish dystopia of 3rd world proportions. 

I said the determination to centralise everything. Some things should be centralised, some things shouldn't. I'm all for more local input into the running of certain services. Transport should be run by the same central body with local hubs. 

Edited by the snudge
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Guest Bob Mahelp
49 minutes ago, the snudge said:

I said the determination to centralise everything. Some things should be centralised, some things shouldn't. I'm all for more local input into the running of certain services. Transport should be run by the same central body with local hubs. 

I think we're agreeing here. 

Remember, until the 80's rail travel was centralised. Then along came the Tories and privatisation, and everything splintered into different parts in different regions. As far as I'm aware, the UK is the only european country that operated rail travel in this way. 

Has it been good or bad ? Probably a bit of both. Rail travel in the UK in general (outside London) needs dragged into the 21st century. The scheduling at weekends, and Sunday in particular, is an absolute disgrace. 

Maybe we'll see a difference when the SG effectively own Scotrail. Maybe. 

As to buses, they've never been centralised, although I suppose you could say that up until the 80's one or two companies in Scotland had an effective monopoly. Now we have hundreds of different companies running thousands of routes. 

Do we want to centralise that ? I can't think of any single country that has a central body running bus transportation I'm afraid. 

 

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15 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

 

Do we want to centralise that ? I can't think of any single country that has a central body running bus transportation I'm afraid. 

 

I don't think there would ever be one central bus company but FirstGroup apparently run 25% of bus services in Britain.

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Guest Bob Mahelp
10 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I don't think there would ever be one central bus company but FirstGroup apparently run 25% of bus services in Britain.

That's probably true. Stagecoach will have a huge share as well. 

There's no doubt at all that public transport in Scotland could do with a massive boot up the arse. Yes, there are more buses now than there were back in the days, and you can guarantee that Mrs McShoogle can get dropped off with her shopping within 30 yards of her house in the estate, but evening and weekend service is often brutal, especially if you live outside the main cities. 

There's still a perception in public transport Scotland that people don't want to travel later than 23.00 (often earlier) or on a Sunday, and bus and train services are correspondingly shite. 

Rail services are an utter shambles. Shockingly irregular....how hard is it to get a train between X and Y leaving at the same time, every hour or half hour ?.....and disgracefully absent on Sunday's. 

We are probably the only European country still stuck in a 1950's Calvinist mentality, where it's presumed that people don't go out in the evening or on a Sunday. 

I hold on a (small) hope that when Abellio feck off next year, services will be dragged into the 21st century. 

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2 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

There's still a perception in public transport Scotland that people don't want to travel later than 23.00 (often earlier) or on a Sunday, and bus and train services are correspondingly shite. 

 

As someone that lives miles from a railway station, public transport is exclusively busses here.  I used to think the same as you regarding service times but the reality is that if there was a way of making money out of earlier/later services either through passenger numbers or subsidies then the companies would be doing it.  There is no appetite from local councils to increase subsidies.

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Guest Bob Mahelp
6 minutes ago, strichener said:

As someone that lives miles from a railway station, public transport is exclusively busses here.  I used to think the same as you regarding service times but the reality is that if there was a way of making money out of earlier/later services either through passenger numbers or subsidies then the companies would be doing it.  There is no appetite from local councils to increase subsidies.

Sadly true. 😞

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4 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

 

There's still a perception in public transport Scotland that people don't want to travel later than 23.00 (often earlier) or on a Sunday, and bus and train services are correspondingly shite. 

 

Glasgow subway - prime example with Sunday times from 1000 - 1800. 2340 is the last trains through the week.

And then their drivers are up in arms at the prospect of driverless trains......

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On 21/09/2021 at 11:32, the snudge said:

Public transport - its too expensive. Its shite. It cost more to go from Dumbarton to Inverness by train that it did for me to fly to Valencia. That shouldn't happen

Isn't that more to do with the fact aviation fuel is subsidised? 

Hopefully once trains are electric and the electric supply is nationalised then train travel will be v.cheap

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