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8. Changing perceptions of responsibility for standards in public services

8.1 We have just seen that perceptions of public services in general did not necessarily reflect perceptions of the impact of the devolved institutions. In order to more fully understand the extent to which people attribute the recent performance of key public services to the devolved institutions, the final section of this report examines who people thought was responsible for standards in the previous year.

8.2 For each of the five areas covered, respondents were asked to say what they thought standards in this area were 'mainly the result of' - UK government policies, Scottish Executive policies, or some other reason? Data for 2006 confirms and strengthens some of the trends that were starting to emerge in earlier years (see Given and Ormston, 2007 and Bromley and Given, 2005).

8.3 The Scottish Executive is in fact primarily responsible for policies relating to the health service, education and public transport in Scotland.

• In two of these areas, public transport and education, by 2006 the proportion who attributed responsibility for standards to Scottish Executive policies (31% for public transport and 33% for education) clearly outweighed the proportion who attributed it to the UK government (13% and 20% respectively - see Table 7).
• In relation to the health service, in 2006 more people still thought standards were the result of UK government rather than Scottish Executive policies (32% compared with 25%).
• But across all three areas, the trend over time is towards an increasing proportion attributing responsibility to the Scottish Executive, and a falling proportion thinking UK government policies are responsible for standards.

Table 7 Responsibility for standard of public services, 2001 to 2006 (column % within service area)

Base = all respondents.
* these questions were only asked from 2004 onwards
Note: not all columns may add to exactly 100% due to rounding.

8.4 Responsibility for economic policy is divided between Westminster and the Scottish Executive, with the UK Treasury having a greater role to play in creating a stable macroeconomic environment. Fiscal and monetary policy, international trade and currency, and competition and employment law are reserved areas of policy, whilst policy areas such as economic development, skills and training, local taxation, planning, education, health and inward investment are devolved to the Scottish Executive.

• There does not appear to have been much change in the proportion attributing responsibility to the Scottish Executive in either of these areas over the last few years - around 3 in 10 attributed the performance of the economy to Scottish Executive policies, while around 2 in 10 said the same about the general standard of living (Table 8).
• However, the proportion who hold the UK government responsible has fallen with respect to both these areas (from 42% in 2005 to 33% in 2006 with respect to the general standard of living, and from 30% in 2005 to 21% in 2006 with respect to the economy).
• The shift here, in fact, seems to have been towards either seeing the Scottish Executive and UK government as equally responsible, or thinking the performance of the economy and public services are the result of something other than government policies altogether.

Table 8 Responsibility for general standard of living and economy, 2001 to 2006 (column % within area)

Base = all respondents.
* these questions were only asked from 2004 onwards
Note: not all columns may add to exactly 100% due to rounding.

8.5 In fact, while across all five areas the gap between the proportion attributing responsibility to the UK government and those attributing it to the Scottish Executive is gradually narrowing, with the exception of public transport, this does not appear to be a straightforward shift from one to the other. For example, in relation to the economy there has been a 9 percentage point decrease from 2005 to 2006 in the proportion who say its performance is the result of UK government policies, but only a 1 point increase in the proportion who attribute it to the Scottish Executive. Instead, the shift has occurred in the proportion attributing the performance of the economy in the last 12 months to 'some other reason' (13% in 2005 up to 18% in 2006). Although it is not possible to say what these other factors are, one hypothesis might be that people are thinking about the impact of global events on the economy.

Who gets the credit and who gets the blame?

8.6 The section above discusses who people thought was responsible overall for standards in public services, but does not tell us who is 'credited' for perceived increases in standards and who is 'blamed' for perceived decreases. Results for 2006 show that the Scottish Executive was more likely than the UK government to be given the credit for increases in standards across all five areas (Table 9). In contrast, the UK government was more likely to be blamed for falling standards in all areas except public transport. This 'reverse symmetry' has been a common feature since these questions were first asked in 2001.

8.7 However, earlier reports on the Scottish Social Attitudes survey speculated that, as more people overall started to attribute responsibility to the Scottish Executive and fewer to the UK government, this pattern would begin to weaken. That is, they anticipated that the Scottish Executive would start to pick up both more of the credit from those who think public services are improving and more of the blame from those who think standards are falling. The data over time appear to confirm this theory. An example is highlighted in Table 8. In 2001, 24% of those who thought standards in the health service were increasing attributed this to the Scottish Executive, while by 2006 this figure was 41%. Similarly, in 2001, just 8% of those who thought standards in the health service were falling attributed this to the Scottish Executive, while by 2006 this figure was up to 20%. Similarly, with respect to education the gap between those who 'blame' the UK government and those who 'blame' the Scottish Executive has shrunk from 33 percentage points in 2001 to just 9 in 2006.

8.8 Previous SSA reports ( e.g. Park and McCrone in Bromley et al, 2006 and Given and Ormston, 2007) have highlighted this double edged sword in relation to health and education - as the public become more aware that these are areas of Scottish Executive responsibility, they also become more likely to hold them responsible for both perceived improvements and perceived declines in health and education. The 2006 data provide some tentative evidence that a similar shift may be occurring with respect to public transport. For example, in 2006 29% of people who thought standards in transport had fallen attributed this to the Executive - up from 24% in 2004. Even with respect to the general standard of living in Scotland, an area not wholly within the control of Scottish Executive policies, a greater proportion of people attributed perceived falls in standards to the Executive in 2006 (18%) compared with 2001 (7%).

Table 9 Attribution of 'credit' and 'blame' for standards in last 12 months to the Scottish Executive and UK government, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 (column % within area ¹⁷)

* these questions were only asked from 2004 onwards

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