SNP Woefully Incapable and Dreadful: Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship SNP childcare pledge going off the rails, Audit Scotland’s damning report highlights abject failure of the SNP to govern properly, they “should have started detailed planning earlier”, Sturgeon has lost the trust of the nation

Dear All

The SNP were pressing hard for the women’s vote during the Scottish independence vote, they reasoned if they could get the women’s vote onboard that this would be enough to carry them over the line. There was a whole pitch to women made around childcare, to tug the old heartstrings of how wonderful bouncing babies would have it in an SNP utopia. 

You can’t have failed to notice the dreadful Women for Independence demanding that their voice is heard, this was fronted by people like the odious Natalie McGarry. McGarry was someone I named in my Police complaint, she became an MP, that didn’t last long, in fact Nicola Sturgeon’s pal crashed and burned rather badly on the political runway.

And of course, there is this small item which I take a particular interest in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37487841

During the Scottish independence referendum, I was a regular on the BBC Big Debate as a member of the audience if the programme was in the Greater Glasgow area, on of the events was held in a community centre in Townhead. On the panel were Jim Murphy for Scottish Labour and James Dornan SNP. So, after getting a snide comment off James Dornan, I sat there and waited, when the issue of childcare was discussed, I then put my hand up.

The SNP had said that they would put 100,000 women into high paying jobs which would be around the £42,000 a year mark; and the tax from this would pay for their childcare proposals. When asked how long this would take to achieve, James Dornan went off point starting to talk about what the SNP had done in the past, so, I stopped him and said on radio, I didn’t ask you what the SNP had done in the past, I want to know how long the proposal would take to be put into effect.

An unhappy James Dornan blurted out 10 years; presumably that taught him a lesson, don’t be snide with me, and especially not on radio. Afterwards Jim Murphy commented to me how angry James Dornan was during the show after I had questioned him.

The SNP are a party of protest, not of government which is why they are so bad at government, they are good at complaining about the failures of others, but dreadful inadequate about their own shortcomings. Part of the problem is that they run the Scottish Government as a part time concern, a desire for power without the will or experience to exercise it properly. They are so stupid that they ‘marvel’ at their ability to under spend and stay within spending limits while services get degraded.

Now, among the catalogue of failures, we find the SNP childcare pledge going off the rails according to the watchdog Audit Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon who has used children to promote herself and the SNP as family friendly can now sit an read a scathing report which shows she is struggling to deliver her signature pledge to double free childcare hours.

So, what’s the problem?

It is what I suggested above, not a party of government, the failures in this case revolve around poor preparation and disputes over money. I found when I was in the SNP, the people who held leadership positions all had something in common; they expected other people to do the heavy lifting when it came to the work. Time and time again, I witnessed the leadership disappear leaving others to carry the can, only to pop up later if things turned out successfully.

Nicola Sturgeon’s promises are worthless!

Sturgeon used used her first legislative programme, in November 2014, to promise hours would rise from 600 to 1140 for all three-and four-year-olds and vulnerable two-year-olds. The deadline for success is August 2020 but with the SNP failing in other areas right across the board, the decline of their vote, the loss of seats and continually fighting a rearguard action to attempt to stop decline, the problems just keep on mounting up.

The SNP are good at sound bites, what they can’t cope with is problems and when you get problems such as how to make their plans operational in terms of staffing, infrastructure work, procurement of land and new buildings, and dialogue with stakeholders about how much it will all cost.

You get serious problems.

Audit Scotland is SNP Ministers for taking a year from announcing the policy to delivery, saying they “should have started detailed planning earlier”. This is a symptom of what is wrong with the Nationalists, planning takes time, and it isn’t a thing which can be left to others to carry the load. Years ago, I said the Scottish Government needed expanded because there weren’t enough ministers to do the job of running Scotland effectively, I said that deputies in key departments were crucial to solving problems. The SNP cult opted for a small cabal of ministers to insulate themselves from the rest of the party, that failure to develop is coming home to roost.

So, what questions should the SNP be solving on childcare?

Well you could start with where is the £690m of capital funding councils say they need?

Where is the 12,000 extra staff to deliver it?

In attempting to hamstring councils into providing a sub standard service, the SNP Ministers say the councils only need £400m capital, £840m revenue and 6000 to 8000 staff. One thing about the SNP is that they provide poor public services where employees face huge workloads, burdens and lack of resources.

Finally, this part of Audit Scotland’s report is the most damning as it states, the government had sunk £650m into the policy over four years without considering evidence about how it would work, The lack of proper governance also flagged that the SNP didn’t  set specific goals, didn’t consider alternatives, and acted without knowing how results would be measured. The conclusion of this is that it remains a mystery whether it was value for money.

This report is just an indication of how ‘hands off’ government works under Nicola Sturgeon, money isn’t being used wisely and there isn’t due care taken to understand process.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University