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The past three months have seen some upheaval in the Parliament, with the new First Minister shaping his own team and setting new emphases, and significant changes in Parliamentary Committees only recently completed. This Briefing is mainly factual, with updated details of Executive and Party spokespersons and membership of Committees. A new spreadsheet file is also available from SCPO with MSPs' contact and other details. Behind the storm in January's teacup over the name of the Scottish Executive (or Government), lies an apparently greater willingness to look for Scottish solutions - on paying for police checks on volunteers working with children or on long term care for the elderly - that might be different from Labour policies at Westminster or force the UK Government's hand. Parliamentary Committees are now routinely labelled "powerful" and "influential" in the media; they are widely seen as the success story of the new Parliament - listening to a wider Scotland, working largely by building consensus and carrying out effective scrutiny. Changes were felt to be needed, partly because of that success and the workload generated. That meant smaller Committees, with one - Justice & Home Affairs - split into two sharing the same remit (imaginatively entitled "Justice 1" and "Justice 2"), and some other slight changes of title and remit. But there has also been a massive movement of MSPs around Committees, largely at the direction of the parties. Not only has this emphasised the role of the parties as against independently-minded MSPs, but it has undermined the building up of Committee identities and expertise. The consensus about which parties held which convenerships also broke down with the creation of an extra Committee. Hopefully, this is a one-off situation, part of the settling-in process, and such reshuffling will not become an annual event. Hopefully too, the growing tendency of Committees to carry out important business in private will be reversed when the Procedures Committee carry out their review of the founding principles like openness and accountability. Audit (Convener: Andrew Welsh, SNP; Deputy Convener: Nick Johnston, Conservative; Clerk: Callum Thomson; phone 0131 348 5215) Education, Culture, and Sport (Convener: Karen Gillon; Deputy Convener: Cathy Peattie Labour; Clerk: Martin Verity; 348 5204) Enterprise and Life Long Learning (Convener: Alex Neil, SNP; Deputy Convener: Annabel Goldie, Conservative; Clerk: Simon Watkins; 348 5207)
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