Hooray. Swinney signs Argyll’s Single Outcome Agreement today. Does anyone know what it is?
published this on 2:59 pm, Monday, 26th October, 2009Community News| Local Government | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
Good news for Argyll – we assume. Today, Finance Secretary John Swinney officially signed the Argyll and Bute Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) with the Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnership.
Councilor Dick Walsh, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council and Chair of the Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnership and Mr Swinney made the appropriate speeches of mutual pleasure at this moment.
Now, alongside congratulating Argyll for having achieved what is clearly an important milestone on the road to somewhere, can anyone please offer a public explanation – in plain English – as to exactly what this Single Outcome Agreement is?
We can’t. And we’ve tried. Because we need to understand something ourselves before we can talk sensibly about it (which is why we’re making no attempt to do so here).
Our last shot at it suggested that it was some sort of Job Evaluation scheme. That may be part of it but it’s clearly more than that.
It’s one of those irritating bureaucratic conundrums where those who know what it is, know what it is – and the rest of us just struggle through the fog, hugging anyone we bump into in mutual sympathy.
So – we may be suffering from hardening of the arteries to the brain, but we haven’t a clue what this SOA thing is. Perhaps it’s a Thunderbird? That would be fun. Will someone take up the challenge of elucidation?
All the Council’s Press Office could do (and God help them) was point us at this Scottish Government webpage. This may help whoever takes up our challenge but we remain clueless – and are now depressed as well.
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October 26th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Come, come now, For Argyll! How dare you mock those charged with driving forward one of the great administrative endeavours of our era. Surely this, the very day of this historic concordat, is not the moment to pour proverbial cold water on the Single Outcome Agreement. From the deepest recesses of Gleann Domhain to the headlands of Coll and Islay, champagne corks are popping today as communities erupt in spontaneous celebration at the news of this momentous achievement.
You folk at For Argyll may have your doubts, but mark our words! When the concise history of the planet in one volume comes to be written, this day will be hallowed – and the Single Outcome Agreement will take its place (along with the Austro-Hungarian Double Income Agreement of 1871 and the Cretan Postal Concordat of 1913) as one of the keystones of the Modern Age. How can you fail to appreciate the momentous times in which we live.
We used to live in a complex and troubling world of multiple outcomes. We shall sleep better tonight in this brave new era when only a single outcome is countenanced. May God bless John Swinney! And may God bless the Single Outcome Agreement.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
@Susanne and Nicky: nice one ;-D Gets my vote for best comment this year !
October 26th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
My understanding is that the Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) sets out how the local authority will contribute to the Scottish Government’s National Outcomes. The purpose of the SOA is to identify areas for improvement and deliver better outcomes for the people of that local authority and Scotland through specific commitments made by that local authority and the Scottish Government.
In essence the local authorities and the national government will be singing from the same hymn sheet regarding the items they have agreed in the SOA, a partnership, a new and more positive relationship between local and central government. Sounds simple and most will have assumed that this was the relationship between local and national government anyway, but alas no. Each did their own thing, often duplicating or contradicting each other but always blaming each other for the failure to deliver on policy.
It will also mean that monies and resources can be pooled when working towards a common outcome. Local authorities and government working together for a stronger Scotland that serves its citizens has simply never been done before, it took the SNP to introduce that kind of radical, common sense thinking.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
It’s all very clear – except… what are outcomes? Are they catching? Are they easy to see? Do they come in a box? Are they for sale? Are they cultivated, or do they run wild? Maybe they’ve been re-introduced, like the beavers? If I see one, should I try to catch it? Or are they dangerous and only to be dealt with by experts?
It seems it’s better to have one rather than many. Is that because they’re bad for my health? If they are, what are the authorities going to do about them?
I think we should be told. Until we know more, we should treat any outcome as dangerous until proven safe.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Our advice, Tony, is – if you see one you should definitely try to catch it. There may be a bounty on it. All you need is one and it doesn’t matter which one you catch. We think they’re cloned. So grab the first one you come across but treat it gently. They’re a new species and quite fragile – although their vocabulary is astonishingly advanced. They should be safe enough to trap – but they’re slippery customers and you may think you’ve caught one only to find there’s nothing there. We’re trying to find which is the appropriate authority to receive the captured outcome. Good hunting. (What sort of trap are you planning to use. Be humane.)
October 29th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Dear Newsroom,
Many thanks for your advice. I will try to catch one, though I’m still not sure what one looks like. We have a major problem with mink in this area. They’re killing all the seabird chicks, so we have authorised traps in several key places. I’ve spoken to the chap who tends them, but according to him there’s been no sign of an outcome in any of his traps – just the occasional mink. Mind you the traps are not baited, to avoid catching everyone’s pet cats, so maybe that’s the reason the outcomes keep away.
I recently had the honour of being voted onto the local Community Council because not enough people were interested in it. We have a meeting in a couple of weeks or so. There’s usually a good turnout of members of the public at the meetings, as it’s an excuse to gossip and for the old people to moan about anything new. I intend to broach the subject of outcomes and implore members of the community to keep a wary eye out. In the meantime, I’ll try to catch one.
I have a suspicion that outcomes are difficult to see because they’re well camouflaged in our grey Autumn days. I feel they may be attracted to something grey so they can blend in. A search through my loft revealed the perfect trap.
On a suitable patch of open ground I shall lay out a pair of grey flannel trousers, left over from my schooldays. I feel that any outcome’s around will have an affinity with flannel and dive in head first, to be trapped by the elastic at the bottom of the legs.
Whether you consider being trapped inside the trousers of a 15 year old schoolboy to be humane, I can’t comment. I’m willing to bet, though, that flannels and outcomes have a great deal in common.
Yours in anticipation, Tony Gill
October 29th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Tony – we understand your difficulty in having no secure identifying features for an outcome. This will make it difficult to tell whether what you find in your flannels is indeed an outcome.
We have now suggested to an artist that the rendering of an outcome would be a significant public service.