The Scottish government approach to policymaking is distinctive in the way it uses evidence to inform policy and policymaking.
The Scottish Government’s former Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Housden (2013) labelled the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) as an alternative to the UK model of government.
Central to this self-described approach is the distinctive way in which it uses evidence to inform policy and policymaking. Yet, scholarship on Scotland focuses increasingly on broader comparative dimensions, in which the UK is one of many reference points.
Scottish policymaking takes place in the context of a far wider, international, and unresolved debate about what counts as good evidence and good governance. Consequently, as in many other systems, the Scottish Government supports three models of evidence-informed governance, and they co-exist with a centralist model, associated with Westminster-style democratic accountability, that must endure despite a Scottish Government commitment to its replacement. Like all executives, it describes how it would prefer to make policy, but this preference is one part of the story of complex government.