At the moment, I am spending some of my time trying to work out the best way to be an MP. I am pretty clear about the kind of MP I would like to be, it is just going to take a wee while to get there.
I am sure everyone reading this knows about the extortionate price of property in Aberdeen. For offices, it’s not much better. I have really struggled to find an office that is appropriate. I was keen from day one to be an accessible representative. I think Nicola Sturgeon has done a great job in showing how both elected members and Government should engage with people. Nicola does tours and genuinely speaks to real people on the streets. Surely the only way to competently run a country is to have an idea what is concerning local people?
I had all these grand plans about being accessible straight away, but it turns out that it’s quite difficult to do that in the early days, with no staff, no office and no Aberdeen phone number. Thank goodness it is all coming together, finally.
Sure, I am still making mistakes, and even though I listen carefully to more experienced representatives, what works for them may not work for me. This week I held a surgery. We decided to offer 10 minute appointment slots and to run the surgery for 1.5 hours. Neither of these were long enough! We had a wide variety of issues brought to us – many about housing, some about welfare and benefits and a few more national issues relating to talking buses and environmental responsibility.
In Scotland, there are three tiers to government. You have elected members at council level, Scottish Parliament level and UK Parliament. Each layer of government has different responsibilities. Our local councils are responsible for local policy affecting the day to day running of our towns and cities. They look after roads, council housing, school buildings and teachers, social work and planning matters. The Scottish Parliament is in charge of Scotland-wide policy and financing including education curriculum, trunk roads, the NHS, police and fire, Scottish law and railways. The Westminster Parliament legislates on benefits, immigration, most taxation and foreign policy.
You can go to any of your representatives to ask for help. They are all elected to assist their constituents, no matter where the ultimate responsibility for the policy lies. If you are concerned about a policy matter rather than a personal matter though, it might be best to go to the representative at the level you are concerned about.
I will be opening my new office on John Street in the next couple of weeks and my staff and I will be around to speak to anyone who wants to pop in. Sometime soon it will begin to look like an office rather than a tanning salon!