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3. Perceived impact of the Scottish Parliament on public services
3.1 A key aim of devolution was to improve public services in Scotland by allowing policies on health, education and public transport to be tailored more closely to the needs and aspirations of people in Scotland. This section explores to what extent the public in 2006 believed devolution had delivered on this aim. The 2006 Scottish Social Attitudes survey asked people to say, from what they had seen and heard so far, whether they thought the Scottish Parliament was increasing, reducing, or making no difference to standards in the health service, education and public transport.
3.2 This first thing to note is that across all these areas, very few (9% or less) thought that the Scottish Parliament was reducing standards (Figure 1). Thus there is little evidence to suggest people think devolution is having a negative impact on public services. Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 thought the Scottish Parliament was having a positive impact on public transport and education (26% and 30% respectively), while for health the figure was closer to 1 in 5 (22%). However, in 2006 the proportions who felt that the Parliament was making no difference (62% for health, 52% for education and 53% for transport) far outweighed the proportions who believed it was increasing standards in these key services. This was particularly the case with respect to health, which is not surprising given that, as this report will go on to show, more people attributed responsibility for standards in the health service to the UK government rather than the Scottish Executive.
Figure 1 Impact of Scottish Parliament on standards in public services (2006)
Base: all respondents (1,594)
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