| SECTION ONE |
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| INTRODUCTION |
| 1. The
Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament
(CSG) was set up by the Secretary of State for Scotland
in November 1997, following the positive outcome of the
Scottish devolution referendum, and met for the first
time in January 1998. Its membership included
representatives of all four major Scottish political
parties, as well as of a wide range of civic groups and
interests; and our remit was both straightforward and
daunting. It was: |
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To bring together
views on and consider the operational needs and
working methods of the Scottish Parliament.
To develop proposals
for the rules of procedure and Standing Orders which
the Parliament might be invited to adopt.
To prepare a report to
the Secretary of State by the end of 1998, to inform
the preparation of Standing Orders.
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| 2. The
Government's White Paper "Scotland's
Parliament"1, published in July 1997, had
already set out a broad framework for the operation of
the new Parliament, drawing on the recommendations of the
Scottish Constitutional Convention. It emphasised the
Government's expectation that the Parliament would adopt
modern methods of working; that it would be accessible,
open and responsive to the needs of the public; that
participation by organisations and individuals in
decision-making would be encouraged; that views and
advice from policy specialists would be sought as
appropriate; and that Committees would play an important
role in the new Parliament, able to initiate legislation,
as well as to scrutinise and amend the Scottish
Executive's proposals, carry out wide-ranging
investigative functions, and meet regularly in locations
away from Edinburgh, so as to improve public access to
the Parliament's work. |
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| 3. The White
Paper also stated the Government's wish, within these
broad outlines, to leave detailed decisions on how the
Scottish Parliament should operate to the Parliament
itself. But it was clear from the outset that it would be
unreasonable to expect MSPs to begin drawing up Standing
Orders - the detailed operating rules of the Parliament -
from scratch, immediately after the first elections.
Hence the setting up of the CSG, with the task of
developing a set of proposals which would be likely to
command widespread support, and would provide a clear and
well-founded basis for debate when the Parliament itself
comes to make final decisions on its procedures and
working methods. |
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| 4. In
preparing its report, the CSG has therefore drawn on a
wide range of information and advice: full details of our
working methods, and of the results of our consultations,
can be found in Annexes A-E. Our work was supported and
administered throughout by a team of officials from The
Scottish Office Constitution Group, who drafted the vast
majority of our working documents and papers. We were
advised by the Expert Panels on Procedures and Standing
Orders, Financial Issues, and Information and
Communications Technologies, and by a Working Group on
the Code of Conduct for MSPs; towards the end of the
year, an Expert Panel on Media Issues was also set up. |
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| 5. In
addition, we commissioned research into the working
methods of national and regional Parliaments in the
European Union and elsewhere. We launched a massive
written (and electronic) public consultation exercise,
actively inviting views on the working of the Parliament
from more than 800 organisations, and placed copies of
our papers and minutes on The Scottish Office Devolution
Website for open public response. We used targeted focus
groups to seek the views of groups often marginalised by
consultation processes, including young people and people
in urban, rural and remote areas; and we held a series of
Open Forum meetings across Scotland, to allow us to hear
views at first hand. |
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| 6. In
presenting this report to the Secretary of State, and to
the wider Scottish public, we would therefore like to
thank everyone who took part in this consultation
process, and in the development of our thinking about the
kind of Parliament Scotland will need in the 21st
century. The remainder of the report is divided into 3
sections. |
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| Section 2 outlines the key principles which we
determined should guide our work, and describes how those
principles shaped our thinking about the practical
operation of the Parliament. Section 3 contains more detailed proposals
for procedures and Standing Orders which we believe
embody those principles, and would help to give them real
force in Scotland's political life.
Section
4 outlines how our
work will be taken forward.
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| 7. Our aim
has been to try to capture, in the nuts and bolts of
Parliamentary procedure, some of the high aspirations for
a better, more responsive and more truly democratic
system of government that have informed the movement for
constitutional change in Scotland; and in submitting
these proposals for debate, our hope is that the
principles on which they have been based will continue to
influence the life of Scotland's Parliament, not only in
the letter of its Standing Orders, but in the spirit of
its work. |
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| 1 Cm 3658. |
