Looking back, looking forward: Twenty years on from the devolution referendum

It was twenty years ago today - not that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.

That was rather longer ago.

No, it's twenty years ago today that Scots voted in a referendum to back the establishment of a devolved Scottish parliament with limited tax-varying powers.

A couple of decades isn't long in the grand sweep of history, but given where we are now in the politics of Scotland that time feels like it belongs to another age.

Memories have faded like the yellowing copy of The Scotsman's front page story reporting the result and - if you'll allow a little self-indulgence - I am still proud to have written that story.

But as those memories fade, and other more recent political events crowd in on us, it is worth recalling that the months in 1997 after Labour's victory were a time of great optimism and hope.

The UK had a fresh-faced new Prime Minister, with a huge majority.

As Tony Blair put it, a new day had dawned, had it not? Change was in the air. Anything seemed possible.

After a long, tortuous process in getting there, Labour had gone into the election promising to set up a parliament with substantial powers in Edinburgh, but only after a referendum.

In Scotland after the 1997 election there was a mood of expectation but tinged with suspicion.

Was the referendum a Unionist plot to derail a project which some senior Labour politicians were known to be privately sceptical about?

It turned out it wasn't. It was done quickly and even though the campaign was suspended for a week after Princess Diana's death, the result was overwhelming, including on the tax powers.

And looking back that pre-legislative referendum - it came before the draft Scotland Bill which became the Scotland Act - strengthened the hand of the Labour government when faced with opposition, particularly from The Lords.

But that was then, this is now.

The fears that some, though not all, Labour politicians raised - that a Scottish parliament would inevitably lead to a rise in Nationalism have been realised.

But you could put that another way: the hopes that some (not all) Nationalist politician like Alex Salmond, who favoured a gradualist path to independence, have been realised.

Despite a PR voting system designed to make such an outcome highly unlikely, an SNP majority government came to pass at Holyrood and there was an independence referendum.

Yet the ultimate fears those sceptical Labour politicians had - that Scotland would vote to leave the UK - were not realised. And the hopes of Mr Salmond and the SNP were dashed.

If you were a Unionist of a devolutionary persuasion you could argue that by setting up a parliament, even if it led to a referendum, demand for home rule was met and independence averted.

Equally, if you were a Unionist of a devo-sceptical persuasion, you could argue that it was a close shave and that without Holyrood there would not have been a democratic forum for the promotion of nationalism.

You pays your money...

There are many other aspects of the impact of devolution - on Scotland and the UK as a whole - that are worthy of consideration.

However, let me focus on one more for now. Has the parliament actually improved life in Scotland?

It has certainly provided democratic accountability over vast areas of Scottish public life which were inadequately scrutinised when Scotland was run by the Scottish Office, as it was, and a handful of minsters at Westminster.

What though of the public services for which Holyrood is responsible? The evidence is mixed.

In health, for example, SNP ministers argue that figures show Scotland performing far better than other parts of the UK. True but, targets, set by those same ministers (for the likes of waiting times, for example) have frequently been missed.

In education, we know for a fact that Scotland has slipped down the international rankings and, from the Scottish government's own figures, there are serious problems with literacy and numeracy.

Their opponents say SNP ministers concentrated too much on independence and took their eye off the ball.

Ministers from Nicola Sturgeon down say they acted when the evidence became clear, and devolution allows them to act in a way that relates specifically to Scottish circumstances.

The debate over education highlights a broader issue which relates to devolution.

Those of a reforming tendency - including many Tories and what you might call 'new Labourites' - think that the relatively small Scottish parliament makes radical change harder to make north of the Border.

In their language the politicians have been captured by the 'producer interests' (the unions, the so-called 'third sector', quangos and the likes) at the expense of the 'consumer interests' (the parents, pupils, patients and others) who use public services.

There is another way of looking at it. Others argue that by taking into account the views of 'stakeholders' (yes, awful jargon used all too often) in Scotland, reform has been gradual or that unnecessary reform has not happened at all.

Radical and, in their eyes, divisive changes - like for example the creation academy or free schools in England - have been avoided.

For many on what can broadly be described as the Left in politics, devolution was about protecting Scotland from the ravages, first, of Thatcherism and then of 'new Labourism'.

To that extent they might argue that twenty years on from the referendum that legitimised the creation of a parliament in Edinburgh they can jubilantly claim: 'job done'.

SNP politicians would, of course, say that Scotland can only fully avoid the ravages of what they call Westminster-imposed austerity (by Tory or Labour) by becoming independent.

An alternative view is the failure to get on top of some of these problems is an inherent failure of devolution, that the tough decisions which devolution proponents said would be tackled in Scotland, have simply been ducked.

It's a natural instinct to look back on significant landmarks but celebrating anniversaries for anniversaries sake achieves nothing.

If something good comes from remembering the events of twenty years ago, it might be a renewed debate on what devolution has, and has not, achieved. And what we do about it.