Scottish Government

Priorities for the Scottish Executive

6. Respondents to the 2005 SSA were presented with a list of seven aims the Scottish Executive could work towards and were asked which they thought should be its highest priority. As table 1 shows, in both 2004 and 2005, the most commonly chosen items were 'improve people's health' (26% in 2005), and 'cut crime' (23% in 2005). In 2004 the third highest priority for the Scottish Executive was 'improve standards in education', while in 2005 this was replaced with 'help the economy to grow faster.' In both years the least commonly chosen was 'improve public transport' (1%).

Table 1 What should be the Scottish Executive's highest priority? 2004 and 2005

Is there a consensus about what the Scottish Executive's priorities should be?

7. Judgements about priorities for the Executive were fairly varied. Even the most commonly mentioned item, health, was picked by only around one in four (26%) (Table 1). Priorities also varied with age and education in particular (Table 2). Older people are nearly twice as likely as the youngest age group to prioritise cutting crime (37% of those aged 65 plus compared with 19% of 18-24 year olds). Younger people are more likely to prioritise education and housing. Seventeen percent of 18-24 year-olds chose housing as their top priority in 2005 and a further 19% chose education, compared with 7% and 10% respectively of the oldest age group. These differences are not altogether surprising and probably reflect changing concerns over the life-course. Housing and education are often critical issues for young people, while previous evidence has shown that older people worry more than younger people about crime (despite the fact that they are less likely to be victims - McVie et al, 2004).

8. Educational attainment is also associated with differing priorities for Scottish Executive action. People with no qualifications are twice as likely as those with degrees to prioritise cutting crime (33% compared with 17%), but are less likely to choose improving education standards (11% compared with 16%) and strengthening the economy (14% compared with 20%).

9. Priorities also varied by the type of area people lived in. Although relatively few differences between urban and rural areas were statistically significant, those in remote rural areas were more likely to prioritise the economy. Housing was more likely to be top priority for those living in the most deprived compared with the least deprived areas of Scotland.

10. Men and women have broadly similar priorities. Both place 'improving people's health' and 'cutting crime' at the top of the list. However, women were slightly more likely to choose health (29% compared with 24% of men) and men to choose the economy (20% compared with 16% of women) as their top priorities.

Table 2 Priorities for the Scottish Executive, by key demographic factors, 2005

Notes to table:
* indicates a figure below 0.5%
Policy areas are presented in order of the priority people gave them, not by their order in the questionnaire.
SIMD refers to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004, a broad-based measure of area-level deprivation (for more details, see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/simd2004/). The areas that SSA respondents lived in were matched to SIMD quintiles, with 1 being the least deprived and 5 being the most deprived.

Local and national priorities

11. In addition to asking people which aims they thought the Scottish Executive ought to prioritise overall, the Scottish Social Attitudes survey also asks what is most in need of improvement in respondents' local areas (Table 3). Results emphasised the importance the public place on cutting crime. As we have already seen, cutting crime is the second most popular priority for the Scottish Executive; it is the top priority for improvement in people's local area. Further, local crime levels attracted more concern in 2005 compared with the 2004 survey (in 2005, 18% identified 'the level of crime' as the thing 'most in need of improvement around here', compared with 11% in 2004).

12. In other respects, however, local and national priorities appear to diverge somewhat from each other. For example, while just 1% said improving public transport should be the Scottish Executive's top priority, 8% chose 'access to good public transport' as their priority for improvement in their local area. Conversely, while 'improving people's health' was the top priority for Scottish Executive action, just 4% prioritised access to GPs and local health services as the aspect of their local area most in need of improvement. These differences may reflect perceptions of the level of government at which different issues should be addressed (whether by the Scottish Executive or by local councils, for example).

Table 3 'What is most in need of improvement around here?' 2004 and 2005