Scottish Broadcasting and The Force for Inertia

By Robin McAlpine

What’s the business model and corporate governance structure of the telly tonight? Or - to put it another way - why is it that whenever there is a good idea, the ‘goodness’ of the idea somehow gets squeezed out in favour of the machine?

In 2007 the Scottish Government created the Broadcasting Commission which in 2008 strongly recommended the setting-up of a Scottish Digital Network (a sort-of Scottish BBC). In 2009 the Scottish Government and all the opposition parties said ‘great idea – let’s go for it’. It was then given to a couple of bodies (including Scottish Enterprise) to consider a funding and governance structure. It is now 2011.

I don’t for a second want to suggest that putting in place proper funding and governance structures for a Scottish TV network are not important – they are – but why is it that whenever we get anything visionary creeping into Scottish political debate, it’s crushed under the grinding wheel of managerial government? Sure, bureaucracies have the power to drain the colour out of things, but the contemporary version seems to take all human endeavour and distort it into grainy, black-and-white interference.

The reasons for this are well known – the last two decades have seen all decisions in the public realm treated like mathematical problems to be computed by people with no actual interest in what is being decided (or worse still, by people who pretend to have no interest). Every new initiative has to be filtered through the thinking-by-numbers approach of a big consultancy firm or a panel of ‘experts’ whose expertise is basically to be able to think like a big consultancy firm or via a government agency, which primarily aspires to be, well, just like a big consultancy firm. In part it is just risk-aversion – civil servants would much rather be seen to not get something wrong than take a chance on actually doing something. In part it is ideology and habit – once they reach a senior level an awful lot of civil servants seem to think that doing something great is someone else’s remit and they are there only to make sure that the machine keeps running according to the rules of the day. And in part it is really just corruption – big consultancy firms ‘prove’ that they or their partners should be given all the money because they have a computer programme that proves it.

Nothing ever comes of all of this. The case-study-in-point was Jack McConnell’s Culture Commission, an ‘expert panel’ looking at the cultural life of Scotland filled by businessmen and accountants with a token artist included. Had it never existed, nothing would be any different. It is time to be more honest – since devolution a cabal of accountants, civil servants, quangos, appointees, consultants and their friends have one way or another been given control of almost everything. They run carefully-controlled consultations, do modelling that almost never returns a result that wasn’t the expected one, give privileged place to the views of anyone else in their cabal and tend to disregard those from the ‘outside world’. And then they write reports which without fail propose that existing corporate entities (occasionally governmental but usually commercial ones) are ‘best positioned to deliver the outcomes’. Which is to say that someone in or close to the cabal gets the money.

And it all amounts to nothing. Nothing good happens, nothing different happens, nothing changes. They build infrastructure which they then occupy and do what they were doing anyway. Or they do what someone else was already doing but with a new logo and usually worse outcomes. They can see the world only in terms of different permutations of themselves. And they are utterly useless at anything other than running rigged consultations and spending other people’s money. If everything we need to achieve utopia exists in the corporate structure of commercial Scotland, why aren’t they delivering? Might it be because they are doing nothing more than running a public-policy Ponzi scheme at our expense?

Meanwhile, the entirety of the creative sector in Scotland seems to be doing work that is catching the eye of the world and seems to be managing it on a budget in the margin of error of the management fee involved in a big government construction project. Why is it that Scotland has such a remarkable artistic record around the world? Might it be (a) the sector is run by people who know what they’re doing and (b) the consultancy sector ignores them because they’re not ‘worth much’? Traditionally, civil servants say that you can’t let artists run the arts because they can’t manage budgets properly. Unlike people who build tram tracks, parliament buildings or PFI hospitals? Give us a break. If the artists made a fraction of the disastrous mistakes made by the consultants they would be deported.

So how about this? How about we all agree that a Scottish Network is a great idea (since we already have). Then we recognise that a TV station is precisely as good as the programmes it shows (oh dear Channel 4). Then we conclude that this channel will stand or fall purely on the basis of the quality of its programming (which it will). And so we give the job of inventing it to people who care about quality programming – you know, filmmakers, journalists, documentary-makers and the like. We can appoint a board to oversee this made up of people who care about broadcasting and programme-making. We can set it up and make it run by utilising the skills of the people in Scotland who have actually trained and learned about running broadcasting. And to make it a ‘national’ channel, why don’t we kick off a debate about what people really want to see on the telly, not who they want returning the annual accounts. But what (you cry) is the role of the consultants, civil servants and accountants in all this? How about none? How about we let them continue to fuck up the economy, the environment and the welfare state and give our telly stations a fighting chance of not being crap too?

So after tea I’d like to watch a run-down of the news (you know, Scotland, the world – not just London). And then perhaps an off-beat sitcom about two management consultants sent to a Scottish island to reinvent the tide. After that I’d perhaps like to watch a satirical quiz show about things that are happening across Europe (not just what’s in the Daily Mail). Afterwards a one-hour documentary about who really pocketed the money in the Edinburgh Trams scandal. And after that a late-night film, which would be one of 30 commissioned each year from the Scottish Network Film Fund. You might have your own thoughts.

Because its not about governance or structure, its about what’s on. So keep Scottish Enterprise and its many shadows from blocking the light. Give us a chance of being illuminated by our national telly station.

What do you want to watch?

Robin McAlpine is Editor of the Scottish Left Review