c. 0836 @BBCr4today a piece on #scotgov cancellation of school exams in 2021 in response to covid.

Headteacher: 'We've had a whole term of indecisiveness ... he [Swinney] should have made the decision [to cancel exams] months ago'

Interviewer: 'Is the word chaos right?' Lindsay Paterson, Professor of Educational Policy: 'It's think it's absolutely right ... There's been one damn [sequence of decisions] after another without a long-term plan at all'

'Scotland managed to get its chaos in first' [before England]

'The Scottish Government and Scottish system as a whole is very reluctant to learn from England. England's doing some things quite well at the moment.'

Cites good practice of the English National Tutoring Programme - 'The Scottish Gov has refused to take part in this programme'.

'There's a reluctance to realise England is doing some things rather better than Scotland..'

'[Children's] learning has been turned upside down ... the one thing schools really did need this year was stability and the Scottish Government has failed to give it'.

Damning stuff. The whole interview will be on BBC Sounds later.

Further reflection ... This 'chaos' is in a devolved area of responsibility wholly within the control of Holyrood and the SNP government. Blame cannot be assigned anywhere else, neither to Westminster nor to lack of funding.

It comes on the same day that Holyrood's Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee issued a report on the debacle surrounding the procurement of two CalMac ferries. https://www.parliament.scot/newsandmediacentre/116694.aspx

Blame for the ferries is distributed between the shipyard owner, the Scottish government, and its two agencies, CalMac, and a separate procurement body. The report has harsh words to say about government involvement.

Once again, the failure is wholly within a devolved area of responsibility. Neither the UK nor lack of funding can be blamed.

These failures impact directly on significant groups of people. In the one case, school students due to take exams in 2021. In the other, the workforce of a much-depleted industry (check out the sad story of BiFab too) https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/283594/bifab-administration-unite-gmb/

All this (and much more) after 13 years of SNP government. And their party leader walks on water despite the proof of serial incompetence. People need to wake up to the yawning gap between reality and nebulous promises of a rosy 'independent' future.