This post also appears on Alan Trench’s blog, Devolution Matters, where it can be found here.

The Scottish Government has clearly, in its last few weeks, decided to stop playing nicely when it comes to intergovernmental relations. Hitherto, it’s scrupulously observed the convention that relations are, for the most part, to be conducted behind closed doors. After taking considerable amounts of criticism, it’s decided to place large quantities of correspondence and other records of its dealings with the UK Government (and other parties) into the public domain.

The documents they’ve released relate to two controversial issues. One is the debate about devolution finance: the UK Government’s proposals to implement the Calman recommendations, and its alternative of full fiscal autonomy. These cover the period from May 2010 to January this year.  The other is the release of Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, following the publication of Sir Gus O’Donnell’s review of the papers. These cover the period from August 2009 to October 2010, though some relate to earlier events.  These records are going to be a treasure trove for researchers and others interested in how intergovernmental relations in the UK work, especially as they’re exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000; our own version of the Wikileaks disclosures of US diplomatic cables, perhaps.

The finance papers can be found here.  The Lockerbie papers are here.

In releasing these papers, the Scottish Government appears to be sending two clear warnings to the UK Government. First, that the UK Government should assume that everything said or done in the course of those relations may be put into the public domain, so it shouldn’t assume that it can pursue one line in public and another in private. Second, the UK Government shouldn’t seek to use selective disclosure of documents and questionable précis of them as a way of trying to win the public end of that debate.  The use of that tactic by UK Government, for example over the Scottish variable rate, has significantly undermined the sort of co-operation and mutual respect for confidentiality that are much emphasised in the Memorandum of Understanding and have been regarded as underpinning intergovernmental relations up to now.  It would be an exaggeration to call this a ‘crisis’ in intergovernmental relations, but it is a serious blow to the established way of doing things, based on the UK’s assumption that there’s a broad consensus behind what it does and if not that it can out-muscle devolved governments.  It strongly suggests that the UK Government will need to take a much more coherent and strategic approach to intergovernmental relations than it has done, particularly recently.