Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, Edinburgh - Briefing Document Twenty

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Parliamentary Officer:Rev Graham Blount
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Briefing Document No 20 - Page 1 of 8

True to its Principles?

The Consultative Steering Group was set up before the first Scottish Parliament elections. An all-party group including civic society representation, the CSG was intended to prepare the ground for the new Parliament, decide how it would work, and lay down some basic principles to be followed in its procedures. While the basic goal was to ensure that the first year of Parliament would not be taken up with endless argument over standing orders (as the Northern Ireland Assembly did for over six months of its first full session, albeit in a more politically sensitive context), the CSG principles to a large extent embody the vision of a new politics, a "pious vocabulary" or political grammar adopted by the Scottish Parliament as central to its mission. The Procedures Committee has now launched an inquiry into how successful Parliament has been in practising these principles.

The key principles of the Consultative Steering Group were:
1. The Parliament should embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Executive.
2. The Executive should be accountable to the Parliament and the Parliament should be accountable to the people of Scotland
3. The Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open, responsive, and develop procedures which make possible a participative approach to the development, consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation.
4. The Scottish Parliament in its operation and its appointments should recognise the need to promote equal opportunities for all. The inquiry seeks to take up the CSG recommendation that Parliament should take stock at the end of each Parliamentary year and measure its achievements against these key principles; its remit is to consider : "whether the key CSG principles as endorsed by the Parliament - sharing power, accountability, accessibility and equal opportunities - are being implemented in the Parliament, to what extent, and with what success". Views are particularly invited on these specific points: Sharing the Power:
1. How successful has Parliament been in working effectively and practicably to share power with the people of Scotland and the Executive?
2. Are the processes the Parliament has in place to programme and regulate its own business enabling the work of power sharing partners for example the executive's legislative programme?
3. Has scope of the powers and duties of the Presiding Officer as currently understood encouraged co-operation between the power- sharing partners?
4. Do the remits, number and composition of the Parliamentary Committees appear to promote the efficient discharge of Parliaments business and its ability to share power effectively?
5. How is the dual role of the committees - enquiry and legislative scrutiny - working in practice?
6. Has the Parliament shared power effectively with civic society?