Talk:Scottish Government

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Scotland
 Scottish Government is within the scope of WikiProject Scotland, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Scotland and Scotland-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Scotland Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading:
The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
WikiProject Scotland To-do:
This article is within the scope of the Transport in Scotland WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of transportation in Scotland. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
B This page has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General

Are the Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General appointed from outside the Parliament, as neither Elish Angiolini nor Colin Boyd are listed on Members of the Scottish Parliament, 2003-2007?

Yes. The way it works, off the top of my head, is that they *may* be an MSP, but that as their jobs are fairly specialist, it is unlikely that they could be filled from the pool of MSPs. Therefore, they can be appointed from the outside. Maybe someone who knows exactly should add it into the article. Maccoinnich 13:13, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

The Scotland Act 1998 provides for the Lord Advocate and Solicitor General for Scotland to be appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the First Minister. They must resign in the event of a "no confidence" vote in the Scottish Parliament. The Act also permits them to sit in the Parliament and participate in its proceedings (if they are not MSPs) but not to vote. In the past, those appointed to law officer posts were either MPs or had strong political affilitations (in which case they were elevated to the House of Lords). The appointment of Elish Angiolini as Sol Gen reflects a move away from political appointment.--George Burgess 13:53, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of Departments

Could someone who knows a bit more about the subject have a look at the list of departments in the UK civil service in Scotland section. The education department link takes you to the Hong Kong education department and the Justice Department link takes you to the US department. We only seem to have an article for the environment department. I'd be inclined to redo all the links in line with the environment department one so that when we get articles on each department, hopefully the links will be pointing in the right place. Does anybody have any thoughts? RicDod 16:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

  • All of these links should now be sorted in a consistent and unambiguous format. I've added a fairly bland stub on ETLLD, hoping that someone with the inclination, or at least a passing familiarity with the other Departments, will add their tuppence worth... Wisdom of clowns 21:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war over description of coat of arms

Instead of edit warring over the description for the coat of arms could we possibly discuss a compromise? I personally think that the description is fairly interesting and would be useful for the reader and should be included. The royal coat of arms which in one version is on the page twice should only be on the page once. Perhaps we could have a separate section for discussion of the coat of arms. This may unbalance the article slightly, but the article needs expanding, so over time this shouldn't be an issue. RicDod 13:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Agree with RicDod. The removal of the detailed description and obfuscation of the true nature of the UK Arms is not justified. --Mais oui! 18:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks Astrotrain, I hadn't realised that this was discussed in another article. It would make more sense to me, to only have the discussion in one place with links in from other relevant articles. If there was a brief note in the caption to the Scottish executive arms explaining that there were differences and a link to the relevant discussion would this be OK for everyone? RicDod 19:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Except that what Astrotrain failed to tell you was that there is not a detailed description of the difference between the SE Arms and the UK Arms at that article. --Mais oui! 19:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Government or Execuitve

I noticed that the BBC has begun using the term Government [1] instead of Executive. Has there been a name change? Regan123 19:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no change. The term "government" has been used intermittently over the last 8 years to describe the Scottish Executive.--George Burgess 20:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think there has been some change on the news it was reported that the civil service are to refer to the term Scottish government rather than executive. --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 19:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
The BBC notably used the term in lowercase - 'Scottish government' rather than 'Scottish Government'. The Scottish Executive remains the legal term and the one still used in all formal dealings. --Breadandcheese 14:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that the Gaelic term "Riaghaltas"translates as "Government"? It is very similar to the Irish word used for Government; "Rialtas"

Quite possibly, after all the two terms are almost synonymous - it's exceptionally possibly that Irish and Scots Gaelic would not have different terms to translate the two. --Breadandcheese 14:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The Executive looks set to be fully rebranded next week [2] --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 12:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
It has already started (see [3])- sign changed at Victoria Quay. Astrotrain 12:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this article should now be moved to Scottish Government, given the official name change. Legally the body will continue to be known as the Scottish Executive, but all the signs and letterheads will now say Scottish Government, wikipedia should reflect this change. Abc30 17:43, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, I have made a request at WP:RM --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 18:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, given the alteration in circumstance I must agree this is sensible notwithstanding my previous objection. --Breadandcheese 21:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree, it's just a cheap attempt at back-door independence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.6.54 (talk) 07:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the term "Riaghaltas" means government, not Executive, but it is the term which has always been used by it, itself. The First Minister is also Am Priomh-Mhinistear, meaning Prime Minister, not First Minister. This has always been the case. --MacRusgail 19:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] "Former" arms?

I suspect these arms are not in fact "former" - but would be the present arms of the Scottish Government, just not incorporated into the logo anymore. --Breadandcheese 01:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify. Doops | talk 02:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Directorates

In trying to clean up Finance and Sustainable Growth Directorate, I was looking for references. I couldn't find any reference to a department with this eact name on the SG website, and I note that the reference on Finance and Central Services Department is broken. Further, the SG website has a page on the Greener Scotland Directorate [4], not mentioned in our template. I am concerned that the directorates are not accurately represented on WP, and would like someone with a bit more knowledge to check this out and confirm with references and working links. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck 09:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that the new Directorates do not correspond to the old Departments of the Scottish Executive. The Directorates are, broadly speaking, the tier below the old Departments, and there is no level of structure corresponding to what used to be Departments. There are now 40 or so Directorates, compared with the handful of former Departments. The edits by Barryob, while well-intentioned, try to equate Directorates with Departments - for example he has moved the article on Scottish Executive Justice Department to Justice and Communities Directorate, an entity which does not exist. I had begun the process of amending the old articles about Departments, at least to indicate that they no longer exist, but had not started creating articles about the individual Directorates, which might be overkill. A chart showing the new arrangements is available at [5] - I appear on page 8 as the Deputy Director responsible for Criminal Law & Licensing within the Criminal Justice Directorate--George Burgess 20:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah sorry I didn't realise --Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 00:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks George for your helpful explanation. Obviously the restructuring has been fairly far-reaching, but I am still unsure how we represent this on WP. The template {{Scottish Executive Departments}} would now appear to be completely inaccurate if not misleading. An article for each of 40 odd directorates does seem like overkill - perhaps a separate page on Directorates of the Scottish Government to cover tham all? The section on "United Kingdom Civil Service in Scotland" also seems to give more prominence to the old departments than to the new directorates. I will raise this at WP:SCOWNB to get a wider view. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Jonathan, I think the old template can be made into a redirect. But thanks for bringing this to wider attention. --MacRusgail (talk) 15:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC

Directorates can be grouped into their parent Directorates General, but as it stands it's an (albeit well intentioned) pig's breakfast. There's no such Directorate as Education and Lifelong Learning, for instance. There is DG Education, headed by Philip Rycroft, and Lifelong Learning Directorate, headed by Mark Batho, but LLD is only one of several Directorates comprising DG Education. Philip has strategic lead on the 'Smarter' theme of government and the other former Department Heads (now Directors General) each have strategi lead on one of these. Does anyone want to have a stab at this? Wisdom of clowns (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as it was me who created the miss I will attempt to fix it but I am unsure who to group the directorates I was thinking on going by the cabinet portfolio eg Justice and Communities Directorates, Rural Affairs and Environment Directorates ect --Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 14:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Barryob but the only way to group the Directorates in any meaningful way would be into their respective Directorates General. Directorates are not necessarily co-terminous with Ministerial portfolios.Wisdom of clowns (talk) 23:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand but is there a list of the Directorates General the Scottish Gov website only lists the Directors General [6] so just group them under the Director General Directorate General Education ect --Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 19:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)