This paper is issued alongside the Scotland Bill (Bill 115, ISBN 9780215557414, and its associated explanatory notes, Bill 115-EN, ISBN 9780215546548) which implements the changes to legislation recommended in the final report of the Commission on Scottish Devolution (chairman Sir Kenneth Calman) - "Serving Scotland better: Scotland and the United Kingdom in the 21st Century" (available at http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Calman%20report.pdf). The Commission's central view was that Scotland should be responsible for raising more of its revenue, and the Government proposes a transfer of fiscal power so that the Scottish Parliament will have powers to raise some 35 per cent of its own budget (the current level is 15 per cent). Proposals include: a Scottish income tax to replace part of the UK income tax; the devolution of land tax and landfill tax; the power to create of devolve other taxes to the Scottish Parliament; extensive new borrowing powers; a Scottish cash reserve to manage fluctuations around devolved tax receipts; a seat for Scottish ministers on a new UK-Scottish tax committee. This paper also outlines the Government's response in other policy areas: strengthening relations between Parliaments and Governments; improving the constitutional framework; administration of elections; policing and justice; health and public safety; business, corporate affairs and academic research; environment and rural affairs; social security and welfare reform; charities; the Scottish Government; and technical amendments to the Scotland Act 1998.

The unexpected outcome of the 2017 UK general election means that the UK Government lacks a clear mandate on Brexit and also that the Scottish Government lacks a clear mandate on holding a second Independence Referendum consequent to the material change in circumstance which will be brought about by Brexit. We are in for a bumpy, unpredictable ride, one with profound consequences for the people of Scotland and the UK. In this collection of essays from a wide range of leading political specialists, journalists and academics, Hassan and Gunson have assembled a comprehensive guide to Brexit for the UK as a whole, and its constituent parts. From fisheries and agriculture to higher education and law, the whys and how of Brexit are challenged from all angles. Particular attention is paid to how Brexit will impact Scotland and the viability of a future independent Scotland.

McHardy presents a new approach to history, changing our mindset to look at Scotland as the centre of our story. Rather than starting from the Mediterranean, from the classical/Christian bias we have been taught for centuries. Rather than being a remote dark land populated by barbaric tribes. Perhaps we were the centre of a well-organised civilisation around the Orkneys and islands and coasts and rivers, with our own priorities, community-centred, locally self-sufficient, well-versed in lore of all kinds. Who were/are we? The great centres of ritual in Orkney, Lewis and Kilmartin suggest an indigenous population much more sophisticated in terms of social ritual and communal rule than we have been led to believe. In whose interest is it that we accept the classical/Christian version of history relayed to us by monks? These are some of the questions McHardy addresses in a passionate and accessible style. Read and become more Alba-centric in terms of what we see as important to research, study and understand.

Although overshadowed by his contemporaries Adam Smith and David Hume, the Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson strongly influenced eighteenth-century currents of political thought. A major reassessment of this neglected figure, Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Roman Past and Europe’s Future sheds new light on Ferguson as a serious critic, rather than an advocate, of the Enlightenment belief in liberal progress. Unlike the philosophes who looked upon Europe’s growing prosperity and saw confirmation of a utopian future, Ferguson saw something else: a reminder of Rome’s lesson that egalitarian democracy could become a self-undermining path to dictatorship. Ferguson viewed the intrinsic power struggle between civil and military authorities as the central dilemma of modern constitutional governments. He believed that the key to understanding the forces that propel nations toward tyranny lay in analysis of ancient Roman history. It was the alliance between popular and militaristic factions within the Roman republic, Ferguson believed, which ultimately precipitated its downfall. Democratic forces, intended as a means of liberation from tyranny, could all too easily become the engine of political oppression—a fear that proved prescient when the French Revolution spawned the expansionist wars of Napoleon. As Iain McDaniel makes clear, Ferguson’s skepticism about the ability of constitutional states to weather pervasive conditions of warfare and emergency has particular relevance for twenty-first-century geopolitics. This revelatory study will resonate with debates over the troubling tendency of powerful democracies to curtail civil liberties and pursue imperial ambitions.

Looks at the legal and constitutional questions surrounding the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum The people of Scotland are set to make history in 2014. As the country's future governance continues to provoke debate and inspire opinion, Scotland's Future takes an impartial view of constitutional change and what it means for Scotland. Objective and professionally rigorous, it looks at the questions that must be asked and the realities that must be faced. The analysis supports no political agenda; it injects insight and reflection into every area including all the key macroeconomic and microeconomic themes and the future governance of Scotland.

This report is a brief description of a visit to Westfield Development Centre, where Fife Energy Limited has developed an advanced fuel technology and gasification plant. It is able to convert any carbon-containing material into a synthetic gas, composed primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used in place of natural gas, for example to generate electricity. The Committee was impressed by the plant, and by a number of other energy projects in the Fife area - wave generation, off-shore wind demonstrators, battery research - and recommends that the Minister for Energy either visits the site or receives a presentation from the Westfield Centre in the course of the consultation period for the energy review (which ends on 14 April 2006).

Students in Scotland (United Kingdom) engage in learning through Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), which aims to provide them with a holistic, coherent, and future-oriented approach to learning between the ages of 3 and 18. CfE offers an inspiring and widely supported philosophy of education. This report analyses the progress made with CfE since 2015, building upon several months of observations in Scotland, the existing literature and experiences from other OECD countries.