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The state of Scotland's National Parks
Ian Mitchell
The Excise House, Lagavulin, Isle of Islay PA42
7DX
Filed 07 Dec 04
Ian Mitchell kindly provided Land-Care with
a copy of the following letter that he sent to the Glasgow Herald
on 6th December
Dear Sir,
You report today that the designation of the Loch
Lomond and Trossachs National Park appears to have resulted in the
Loch's environment deteriorating rather than improving (1).
Your leader suggests the failure of the Park Authority is replicated
in other quangos which have "run into trouble", often
because of a "failure to listen". In fact, this is a general
problem with the Scottish Executive and its rural quango, SNH.
I have written at length on the politics of national
parks in my book Isles of the West (2), showing, in particular,
how the consultation on the National Parks (Scotland) Bill was,
in reality, a sham. For a start, only 2,500 copies of the consultation
document were printed. Most of these went to other quangos, like
SEPA and Historic Scotland, or to charities who rely for much of
their income on SNH, like the RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust or the
John Muir Trust. Only 161 responses from private individuals were
received, from a Scottish electorate of some 3 million. Moreover,
not all of those who responded were even British, much less Scottish.
That would not matter were it not for the fact
that the way consultations are viewed by the Scottish government
has changed in recent years. Consultation used to be a process by
which interested individuals, groups or other corporate entities
were given sight of the government's plans and were invited to comment
on them in advance to ensure they did not unintentionally infringe
relevant interests or ignore important considerations which the
bureaucrats in Edinburgh might have missed or misunderstood.
Today, consultation is used as a test of public
opinion. The Scottish Executive issues a report giving statistics
for those who are in favour of any proposed legislation and those
against. That would not be unreasonable, were not some of the consultees
in this case citizens of countries like Norway, the United States
and England. They should be free to comment on aims and methods,
where many have valuable suggestions to make. But they should be
excluded from a process which is used by the Executive to, in effect,
second-guess the democratically-elected parliament.
The lack of general public consultation means
that the quango-charity world produces most of the responses which
government receives. Coming from "partner organisations",
this is a bureaucratic version of the old-boy network which, as
far as the quangos go, produces complacency, myopia and piles of
unnecessary paperwork. The situation with the charities is much
worse.
Taking the three I mentioned above, in the last
four years for which figures are available, the RSPB has received
£1,417,042 from SNH, the Scottish Wildlife Trust £2,151,879
and the John Muir Trust £103,900. Since all their responses
to the consultation are on headed notepaper, it is clear that they
are not likely to make comment which might upset SNH, and jeopardise
the golden river of grants. The same fact also taints the responses
of the many private estates and rural businesses which depend, to
a lesser extent, on government patronage distributed through SNH.
The principle of the secret ballot, which was
introduced to British political life in 1870, has been abandoned
by bureaucratic Scotland. The result is an unhealthily oleaginous
quality to the responses from these charities, which does nothing
to facilitate clear decision-making. Thus the RSPB wrote about the
National Parks Bill, "We warmly welcome the opportunity to
comment on the proposed legislation at draft stage... RSPB Scotland
welcomes and strongly supports the approach taken in the draft Bill
to powers and functions... In general RSPB Scotland welcomes and
supports the proposed constitution and procedures for National Park
authorities." Likewise, the SWT said it "welcomes the
opportunity to respond to the draft Bill on National Parks",
and the John Muir Trust "welcomes the opportunity to contribute
to your consultation on the Bill..."
Bizarrely, even SNH wrote to the Scottish Executive
"welcoming" legislation which, at the Scottish Executive's
behest, SNH itself had drafted. In effect, the government was consulting
itself. Predictably, it agreed with itself. This incestuous process
excludes opinion which is uncomfortable, unconventional and, most
importantly, creative. You were quite right to accuse the government
of "failure to listen", though that should be qualified
by saying that it will always listen to itself. It is just the public
which is such a nuisance.
Yours faithfully,
Ian Mitchell
References
1. Collins, Vicky (2004). Loch
Lomond dream turns sour.
http://www.the herald.co.uk/news/29230.html Click
Here to View
2. Mitchell, Ian (2004). Isles
of the West - a Hebridean Voyage. Third Edition
Birlinn, Edinburgh. ISBN 1 84158 322 7 Available from Amazon
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