How SNP ministers have suddenly discovered their competence is being tested at last – Brian Wilson

So it was not surprising that he envisaged committees as a USP at the heart of the new Scottish Parliament which would make it different. In 1999, he even advocated joint committees between Holyrood and Westminster. What a good idea!

As a recent biography by Mark Peel suggested, Donald would be deeply disappointed in many ways about how Holyrood turned out and how little it has delivered towards the objectives that are within its powers.

Nothing else, I suspect, would have dismayed him more than the chasm between his vision of how Holyrood committees would develop and the reality of botched legislation and partisanship which have determined every report and blunted any challenge.

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Friendly reception for inept ministers

No matter how inept the performance of ministers, they have been able to walk free by reading briefs they scarcely understood. With a friendly majority round the table, little of value ever emerged. For those MSPs who tried, it has been deeply frustrating work.

Holyrood’s committee system plumbed its depths when the one set up to investigate whether Nicola Sturgeon had misled MSPs over the Salmond affair became a crude, party-driven exercise in exoneration and misrepresentation – the consequences of which continue to reverberate. Yet the culture never changed.

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All parliaments depend to some degree on independent spirits who are prepared to challenge their own tribe when the need arises. At Holyrood, they have barely existed. Fergus Ewing tried and was excommunicated. Andy Wightman walked away from the Greens. Do any other names spring to mind?

However, on this occasion, I am the bearer of hopeful news, having watched a few committee sessions since Holyrood reconvened after the May elections. At least some of them are alive and kicking, largely because of leadership from their chairs.

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Rennie taking Flynn to task

The best example is Willie Rennie in the transport committee who has established himself as the tormentor of Stephen Flynn, the over-cocky, under-prepared Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport. That is a rather important set of responsibilities which deserves a serious politician.

Mr Flynn breezed into his first appearance in front of the committee with the air of a man who assumed he could wing it. By the time he left, he knew otherwise. Reputations sometimes hang by fine threads and Mr Flynn’s has not yet recovered. On the contrary, he has kept digging.

If you are going to claim not to have been briefed on a subject (in this case a potentially serious incident involving the MV Glen Sannox), then it is better to be sure it is true since somebody will have an interest in setting the record straight. We now know that Mr Flynn was briefed, right up to the last minute, but apparently didn’t pay attention. Then, to put it politely, he misled the committee by stating otherwise. What happens next?

I’ve also admired the tenacity with which Mr Rennie has gone after Loganair and the exorbitant fares that now affect Highlands and Islands air travel. Here is an example of how a diligent committee can act with urgency to drive a policy initiative which, I suspect, will now become unavoidable – a coherent strategy for Scotland’s domestic air services.

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ScotWind scandal

Another chair doing his job well is Neil Bibby MSP who has taken over the Public Audit Committee. I watched the most recent session in which they were taking evidence from the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, about the sale of ScotWind licences, from which a mine of information emerged through good questioning.

Incidentally, party allegiance does not matter when it comes to committee scrutiny. In both these examples I have mentioned, Reform and Tory MSPs contributed effectively, having obviously done their homework. There are plenty other places to be partisan but committees are about getting at the facts, regardless of political labels.

We finally know that the historically bad advice to Crown Estate Scotland and Scottish government to sell off the best 20 offshore wind sites around the Scottish cost for just £75.5 million came from an Aberdeen consultancy, Aurora Energy Services, which then had to be hastily re-employed to up their advice ten-fold after an auction south of the Border raised £8 billion. Repeat ‘billion’.

As Mr Bibby commented, if the sites had been sold based on the original recommendation, it would have been like “a bargain bucket closing down sale” while “the only reason Scotland did not lose out on nearly £700m is that the Scottish government had a lucky escape, rather than any robust commercial strategy of its own”.

While these are now incontrovertible facts, it will be interesting to see if pro-government members on the committee will sign up to a unanimous report – or if they will continue to see it as their duty to block any conclusions that inconvenience ministers. That will be the true test of whether committees are working as they should.

Ministers will need a survival instinct

Governments do not fall because committees come out with critical reports and cross-party support. On the contrary, the quality of policy-making would benefit and the reputation of Holyrood would be enhanced if there was any evidence of constructive, critical consensus at work.

It is too soon to claim that there has been some great catharsis in how Holyrood’s committees operate. But I do think, already, that any minister with a survival instinct might have noticed the warning signs that competence is being judged according to the ability to answer questions and justify policy in front of fellow MSPs.

If that is the case, then the quality of government might improve and creative ideas might be allowed to flourish. Heaven knows, Scotland needs them.