Priority areas of work within BIC: Social Inclusion (jointly with Wales) and Demography

Capital City : Edinburgh

Government : Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, which remains a unitary state. However, since 1 July 1999 the Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament have assumed responsibility for a wide range of devolved matters.

The Scottish Executive is Scotland’s devolved government, and is accountable to the Scottish Parliament. There are 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). 73 Members are directly elected on a “first past the post” system to represent individual constituencies and 56 additional Members are selected from regional party lists - a form of proportional representation which is designed to ensure that the overall result reflects as closely as possible the share of the votes cast for each party. Elections to the Parliament take place every four years.

The Scottish Executive has responsibility for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, including:

• health,
• education,
• justice,
• rural affairs,
• transport, and
• local government.

The Scottish Executive manages an annual budget of around £30 billion.

The UK Government remains responsible for “reserved” matters, including foreign policy, defence and national security, employment and social security legislation. The Westminster Parliament, including 59 Scottish MPs, continues to legislate for the UK as a whole on these matters.


Contact details : If you would like to know more about Scotland, please go to http://www.scotland.gov.uk