Message from the Chairman, Sir Kenneth Calman

It is now more than a year since I and my fellow Commission members first assembled at the Scottish Parliament. At that stage, we had only a remit and a sense of the scale of the task we had taken on.

We have come a long way since. We have had 21 full Commission meetings, 41 meetings of different task groups, 52 sessions of public oral evidence and 27 further sessions in private. We have read over 300 written submissions, and seen the responses of over 900 people to our questionnaire. We have travelled widely – from Ayr to Aberdeen, from Lerwick to Newcastle – to meet over 300 people at 12 local engagement events. It has been hard work – but always fascinating and often fun.

Most importantly, we have now agreed – unanimously – a Final Report. It contains 63 recommendations covering all the main areas of our remit – recommendations to improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament, to improve the distribution of powers and functions, to improve joint working between the Parliaments and Governments and encourage cooperation on shared interests, and to strengthen the operation of the Parliament itself. Taken together, we believe these recommendations will enable devolution to serve the people of Scotland better, while also consolidating Scotland’s important place within the United Kingdom.

Alongside the Report, we have produced a summary of the evidence on which our conclusions are based. On this website you can find the full evidence-base – the transcripts of oral evidence, the written submissions, the responses to our questionnaire and the feedback from our engagement events. You can also read minutes of our meetings, learn more about the members, read news items and follow links to other relevant information.

This website has been a vital communication resource and means of engagement throughout our work. By the end of May, it had been used by over 13,000 different people (a total of over 130,000 page-views). I hope you will now find it useful as a comprehensive archive of our work – thank you for your interest.

Sir Kenneth Calman
15 June 2009