The Scottish Government

Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning

Friday, November 30, 2007

In May of this year the people of Scotland voted for a new approach and better future for Scotland. Now we are asking you to take part in a National Conversation on whether more powers would be beneficial for our country.

For example, skills for work is a devolved area, but the UK Government often leads in the design of employment and skills policies. UK Government employment and benefit-related policies generally address the wider skills needs of the UK but don't always take account of what's best for Scotland.

We recently launched the first ever skills strategy for Scotland 'Skills for Scotland' to address Scotland's skills issues, some of which are different from those in the rest of the UK. Further transfer of powers in the area of employment services could provide greater coherence and accountability for delivery of employment and skills development policy.

We just have to look to small independent countries across the water to see that further powers could help Scotland become smarter.

We could deliver a more comprehensive early years strategy if we had more say over reserved areas. The ability to set maternity and paternity leave, for example, would allow us to support parents in those crucial early years. We need only look to Iceland to see the benefits. It can set maternity and paternity rules which currently give fathers three months leave when mothers decide to return to work. This not only makes the return to work easier for mothers but also ensures fathers take more interest in their child's upbringing.

Our National Conversation is the first step to exploring what extra powers could do for Scotland - I for one am convinced we would thrive and compete on the world stage, providing a better standard of living and quality of life for families.

This blog is now closed to further comments.

Comments

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• 121. jack - glasgow, univeristy

  Monday, March 24, 2008 19:49

  What undermines faith in politics, Ministers and the National Conversation are bare faced lies like telling Scottish students you would "dump the debt monster". In a TV interview, the Education Secretary says they never promised that at all. Shame on you, Fiona Hyslop! Dump the debt monster, dump Hyslop!
  
  Students entered into dialogue with Ministers before and received nothing but gestures. It doesn't fill me with confidence when it comes to anything else the SNP do. Politics is broken and it will take more than a one way conversation to fix it.

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