A “gotcha mentality” focused on blame rather than learning lessons is hindering government decision-making, MSPs have been told.
Professor Matthew Flinders, a governance expert at Sheffield University, said this means there is often a lack of candour among ministers and officials.
Holyrood’s Public Administration Committee is conducting an inquiry into effective decision-making in the Scottish Government.
Last week, it published a report saying the process was “generally unclear and unstructured”.
Flinders told the committee there is an “immature” approach to accountability and scrutiny, describing it as a “gotcha mentality”.
He said: “It creates a negative view of accountability structures where people will not often speak with candour because they’re scared of the implications it may have for them or their minister.
“At the moment, our structures tend to be largely blame focused rather than learning focused.”
Mature discussion about complex issues tends to shut down in front of parliamentary committees and the media, he said, with open exchanges taking place “offstage”.
Flinders said: “One of the thoughts I’ve had is, how do you move those more mature offstage conversations about the inevitable messiness of policymaking and how to learn from failure – how do you move them onstage in a way that might promote a much more sensible culture and understanding?”
He suggested policy advice given to ministers should become more open, while noting the “churn” of personnel working in different government departments means civil servants cannot build up expertise in a given area.
The academic also said there can be a lack of clarity around policy goals, saying: “We often end up throwing mud at walls to see what sticks – and little of it sticks.”
While that inquiry is still ongoing, the committee's report found that decision-making processes were “generally not consistent”, describing the process as being “generally unclear and unstructured”.
The report noted that the increasingly binary nature of politics in Scotland is an issue impacting on effective decision-making.
The committee published its research after engaging with a number of senior figures from Scottish politics, including Iain Gray, who was social justice minister and also served as minister for enterprise, transport and lifelong learning in the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition that was in power prior to 2007.
Also included were Paul Gray, the former NHS Scotland chief executive; Alastair Merrill, who served as former chief procurement officer and commercial director for the Scottish Government; and Sarah Davidson, who previously worked as the director-general for organisational development and operations.
The MSPs spoke privately with former ministers, civil servants and special advisers (Spads), with the committee report stressing that of the thousands of decision that have been made by the Scottish Government over the years “most worked perfectly well”.
One participant told the committee: “We generally only hear about the ones where there were difficulties.”
In relation to decisions made by the Cabinet, the report said: “It was felt that decisions worked best when people felt able to converse and the policy outcome was not predetermined.”
One participant told the committee: “The best cabinets were when decisions emerged following a discussion of pros and cons.”
The report found while the development of policies could take months early in devolution, such work was now “expected to take days or weeks, sometimes on the back of ministerial announcements”.
At the same time, those taking part in the discussions agreed that “a culture of firefighting had developed, rather than thinking strategically” over the last two decades.
Here it was said the culture within the government had been “influenced by the modern day, 24-hour news cycle and chasing headlines/avoiding bad headlines”.
The report told how there is a “huge variety in decision-making approaches, not all of it clear or structured”.
It went on: “There is also lack of structure and consistency in relation to policy development and testing.
“Different modes of civil service leadership and ministerial approaches have a big impact on how advice is provided and the decisions made.”
Personal relationships between ministers and civil servants could be key, the report added – describing the quality of these relationships between ministers and those advising them as being “critical and key to the quality of decision-making”.
The report went on to note that the moving of staff between government departments “can become a problem in providing continuity of good advice for ministers”, adding that “whilst freshening things up can be advantageous, there needs to be a better balance between continuity and change”.
The introduction of Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation was also said to have had “a negative effect on how advice was provided”.
One of the people involved in the discussions told how, prior to this, advice given to ministers could be of “jaw-dropping frankness” and would be “received without offence”.
But now it said “there was a suggestion that advice may be narrower in focus since FoI.”
One way of addressing this, the report noted, was for “routine transparency”, where advice would be published retrospectively “which would take the heat out of advice over time as publication becomes more routine”.
Responding to last week's report, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government does not agree with this report and there are a number of processes which are routinely taken when making important policy decisions.
“Representatives from the Scottish Government look forward to giving evidence to the committee in the near future on this report.”
Don't miss the latest headlines with our twice-daily newsletter - sign up here for free.
