Holyrood elections in May spark call for future‑focused policymaking

Leaf through the pages of The Herald and you’ll find it hard to ignore the scale of the challenges facing Scotland.

Our public services are under intense strain as they respond to both unexpected and all too predictable pressures. The cost of living is rising again, because of a seemingly unending stream of international crises. Our population is getting older and our young people are finding it hard to find good jobs. Chronic ill-health and poverty still blight our society while climate change casts a long shadow over the planet.

These problems are complex, deeply interconnected, and stubbornly resistant to simple solutions. Yet our political system often feels locked into a cycle of crisis management, moving from one emergency to the next. We patch, we react, and we move on. Too rarely do we stop to ask whether our short‑term fixes are storing up bigger problems for the future.

At Carnegie UK, we believe if we’re to have half a chance of tackling these problems we need to look over the horizon. And if Scotland is to be equipped for the future, we must invest now in the institutions, capabilities and long-term thinking that will help us navigate whatever lies ahead.

With the Holyrood elections around the corner, this feels like an opportune moment to remind political leaders in Scotland of that responsibility. That’s why Carnegie UK invited senior representatives from Scotland’s most significant political parties to contribute to an essay collection on the future of Scotland.

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In an age of soundbites, reels and bite-sized content, it’s easy to lose the opportunity to pause, reflect and focus on what truly matters. That is what inspired us to publish this series of essays. This was an opportunity for representatives from each political party to step back from the immediate pressures of manifestos and news cycles, to map out their long-term thinking, and to share their hopes for Scotland in two decades’ time.

We asked them: what kind of country do you want Scotland to be twenty years from now?

The resulting essays – including contributions from First Minister John Swinney MSP, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay MSP, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar MSP, Scottish Green Party co-leader Gillian Mackay MSP, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton and Reform MSP Graham Simpson – offer a compelling set of perspectives.

Some imagine a Scotland striving for greater equality, others talk about delivering strong and responsive public services, while other press the challenge of navigating an era of rapid technological change. The leaders outlined reforms to public services including the NHS and made clear their ambitions for a brighter future for the next generation.

And because it is Scotland, there was no shortage of divergence in opinion about the constitutional set up we might see in two decades’ time.

Despite their political differences, the authors are united in recognising that Scotland in 20 years will be markedly different from the Scotland we know today. Technology will move at pace; demographics will shift, with an ageing population; and the pressures on public services will demand new approaches.

It is clear that few of Scotland’s biggest challenges can be resolved within a single parliamentary term. With this in mind, we would urge new and returning MSPs to commit to sustained, long‑term action rather than short‑term fixes.

And if you don’t want to listen to us, tune into Audit Scotland or the Climate Change Committee who have sounded alarm bells about the short-sightedness of our current approach, warning that delay and drift today will mean higher costs and fewer choices tomorrow.

There is a natural tendency to prioritise the urgent over the important. But ending the era of firefighting in public policy will take a collective effort to rebalance our system towards prevention, resilience and foresight. Scotland needs a parliament and government that is genuinely focused on the long term.

Encouragingly, there are signs of progress. Earlier this month the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee expressed support for a “Committee of the Future”, tasked with scrutinising government foresight and drawing on lessons from similar bodies in Finland and Lithuania.

This kind of institutional innovation is important because long-term thinking cannot rely on goodwill alone. It needs structures that reward it, protect it, and embed it in everyday decision making. At Carnegie UK, we have long argued that Scotland can learn from international practice, but also from developments closer to home.

Devolved governments across the UK have adopted wellbeing frameworks and long-term approaches to policymaking. Scotland’s National Performance Framework, the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act in Wales, and Northern Ireland’s Outcomes Delivery Plan all set out population-level indicators designed to align the efforts of central and local government, public bodies, and the third sector. Will the next generation of Scottish policymakers recommit to this sort of approach designed to deliver better lives over the long-term?

Internationally, countries such as New Zealand, Iceland and Finland have pioneered wellbeing budgeting, linking public spending to long-term outcomes rather than short-term pressures. These approaches show that it is possible to embed strategic, future-focused thinking at the heart of government – provided there is political commitment and the right institutional support. Could this be a brave and future focused step for the next Scottish Government?

The question now is whether the next generation of Scottish policymakers will recommit to this agenda, or allow it to fade into the background. The foundations are already in place. What matters is whether future leaders choose to build on them.

We hope that this essay collection contributes positively to public debate in the run‑up to the Holyrood elections and beyond. More importantly, we hope it encourages all of us, politicians and citizens alike, to think more boldly, imaginatively and responsibly about the decades ahead. Scotland’s best days may well be ahead of us, but we won’t get there by accident.

Sarah Davidson is chief executive at Carnegie UK