9th March '22

Perhaps because the third sector is such a multi-faceted amalgam of activity, it’s almost impossible to describe in any way that does justice to its diversity. It’s why so many collective voices have emerged over the years to represent different parts of the whole. One of those parts is social enterprise – the part that Senscot has promoted, often against the grain of public policy, for over twenty years. Earlier this week, they were informed by the Scottish Government that this role was to cease. I wrote previously that the whole procurement process felt wrong. It still feels wrong.

A trend in government that’s become increasingly commonplace is the assumption that incentives to attract private investment must be baked into the design of any new areas of  policy development. For instance, there’s already significant unease at the role of the Big Four accountancy firms in the early scoping of the National Care Service. A very different area of policy – creating a market for carbon offsetting – has raised similar but different concerns about the (presumably) unintended consequence of the tax breaks and subsidies exacerbating inequalities in rural areas. Community Woodland Association’s Jon Hollingdale has been investigating. 

There are some aspects of public policy, irrespective of their relative importance, that just sound dry and inaccessible to the general public. For instance, regular readers will be familiar with my constant references to the Local Governance Review and may already be stifling that yawn. Another that falls into this unfortunate category is the National Planning Framework 4. Nonetheless NPF4 is hugely important and will shape much of what happens in Scotland over the next 10 years. Planning Democracy have done a power of work to encourage communities to respond to the consultation by 31st March, culminating in this excellent guide.