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Conclusions
51. Supporters of devolution argued that enabling Scotland to plan its own policies would facilitate improvements in public services. Scotland's public services received mixed judgements from the public in 2005. Across the 5 areas examined - the health service, education, public transport, the economy and the general standard of living - the most common assessment was that standards had stayed the same in the last 12 months. Education and living standards received the most positive evaluations, suggesting that if most people do not perceive radical improvements in these areas post-devolution, even fewer think things have got worse. However, as in previous years, negative evaluations of the health service stand out. Although views were less negative in 2005 compared with 2004, it remains the case that more people think standards in the health service have fallen in the past 12 months than feel they have improved.
52. There is some evidence to suggest that those most likely to use key services (regular public transport users, and young people and parents of school-aged children in the case of education) are more likely than non-users to be positive in their evaluations of the performance of these services. This is encouraging in the sense that users are arguably best placed to judge performance. However, this pattern was not evident for the health service.
53. Public evaluations of performance alone cannot tell us how people view the impact of devolution on services. We also need to know who people hold responsible for changing standards. Several key patterns emerge. First, there is evidence of a 'reverse symmetry' in people's allocation of credit and blame for standards in public services. With the exception of living standards, those who believe that things are getting better are more likely to credit the Scottish Executive with improvements, while those who believe standards are falling are more likely to 'blame' this on UK government policies. SSSecond, broad policy divisions between Scotland and Westminster are not yet completely reflected in public attributions of responsibility. For example, - in relation to the health service (a key area for devolved policy) people remain more likely to think performance in this area is the result of UK government policies.
54. However, overall, there is some evidence that people are becoming more likely to attribute responsibility for standards in key devolved policy areas, like education and health, to the Scottish Executive. If the trends found in this report continue into the future it seems likely that the performance of key public services will increasingly be attributed to Scottish Executive, rather than UK government policies.
55. Devolution was intended to improve public services in Scotland by devolving decisions about their delivery to policy-makers wholly accountable to the Scottish people. From this perspective, a trend towards viewing the Scottish Executive as the body responsible for key public services is clearly positive. However, this trend also raises the possibility that the 'reverse symmetry' currently seen in public allocations of credit and blame will start to shift. As the Scottish Executive is increasingly held responsible for standards overall, it may also start to receive an increasing share of the 'blame' if standards are thought to be falling. It is therefore important to remember that future public judgements of the impact of devolution on services will depend on both public perceptions of standards in these services and the extent to which the Scottish Executive is seen as responsible for these services.
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