The Scottish National Party has announced it will bring Transport Scotland back within the Scottish Government if it wins a majority in next month’s Scottish Parliament elections.

Latest polls predict the party will win when voters go to the polls, so this announcement, tucked away inside the document, may be significant for the Scottish transport industry.

The SNP’s manifesto reads: “As part of wider public sector reforms to remove duplication of functions, Transport Scotland will be brought back into the Scottish Government, along with the other national transport bodies.”

How this will work in practice remains difficult to predict, however. Unlike, for example, National Highways in England, Transport Scotland is not legally separate from the Scottish Government, and staff are still civil servants. That is different to National Highways where staff work for a separate company owned by the Government.

Therefore any change in Scotland could mean changing its status from an executive agency to a core directorate within the government. This would mean it would lose its agency status and become a standard Scottish Government Directorate led by a Director-General and not a separate Chief Executive. This would likely mean it would be more directly embedded in the central civil service structure.

Scotland’s Transport Secretary would remain in control, and core responsibilities would still be roads, rail oversight and ferries, while budgets and priorities would are set by ministers at the moment, but decision making may be quicker.

(Picture – Transport Scotland)