Introduction

In his speech to the Labour Party conference in autumn 2003, First Minister McConnell acknowledged that, “under Tony Blair's leadership”, there was now increased investment in public services. Such resources, nonetheless, were to be employed in Scotland to meet the specific needs of the Scottish people. The Executive's “reforming agenda” would thus be different from that pursued elsewhere in the UK. So, for example, McConnell reaffirmed his faith in comprehensive education, although he also asserted that parents demanded and deserved “diversity”. Explicitly Scottish policies indicated that “devolution is working”, notwithstanding that the administrations in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff shared “values and objectives”. Emphasising the need for reform, this was nonetheless “not an end in itself ”. Rather, it was the means of “improving public services, tackling inequalities, creating choice, saving lives, delivering real opportunities, and supporting growth in the economy”. This statement captures many of the complexities, ambiguities, and even potential contradictions, in Executive welfare strategy. We saw in Chapter Five of this book, for example, that there are at the very least differences of emphasis in healthcare policy between London, Edinburgh, and, for that matter, Cardiff, and this clearly brings in to question notions of shared values and objectives.

In this chapter, we sum up and analyse Scottish social welfare after devolution. We do so by, first, placing Scotland in its UK context. We then identify more obviously Scottish characteristics of the Executive's role and strategy. The next section asks whether, as is often claimed by its supporters, devolution has made a positive difference. Next we move on to what – if anything – is distinctive about the Scottish approach to social welfare; and, if so, how this has come about. In conclusion, we ask who is diverging from what, and what this might mean, now and in the future.

Scotland in the UK

In this section, we consider five points that remind us of the explicitly UK context within which the Executive operates, although each will, to varying degrees, be subsequently qualified. First, when New Labour enacted devolution it always intended that this would take place within a framework whereby the Westminster Parliament retained sovereignty.