‘Whatever is happening, you guys have got to be involved,’ Watt told the CIPFA Scotland conference in Clydebank. ‘You need to be giving instruction and guidance to the politicians in what they do.’ He said he wanted to see, not just evidence-based policy-making, but evidence-based decisions by politicians. ‘You need to be pulling the big data so that they fire the bullets in the right direction,’ Watt told delegates. He accepted that Scotland was unlikely to see much in the way of privatisation ‘for the foreseeable future’, but argued that other ways of delivering public services – such as Arms-Length Executive Organisations (ALEOs) and employee-owned co-operatives – had been shown to work. ‘You should be part of this leadership team,’ he said.
