WHEN a business performs poorly, the person at the top of that organisation tends to be held accountable.
They take responsibility and either move aside or set out in detail how they are going to turn things around.
In football, on an almost weekly basis, we see managers leave clubs when results take a dip.
So it’s increasingly frustrating in the Scottish Parliament to witness a government which categorically fails to take any responsibility, even for the things it has had direct control over for coming on 17 years.
The latest example of this shameless dereliction of responsibility came last week when I challenged ministers on the state of housing in Glasgow.
In this instance, there are two layers of SNP control – both at the local authority and Scottish Government level.
But instead of providing me with any kind of respectable answer, the housing minister Paul McLellan (centre of picture) blamed the UK Government for the present state of affairs.
He bizarrely pointed to an increase in people coming through the asylum system as one of the reasons so many Glaswegians can’t get their hands on a property of their own.
Shortly after, in a response to a Labour MSP, he futureproofed the blame game by suggesting any theoretical Labour government might be able to save the SNP’s bacon when it comes to the housing crisis.
People in Glasgow know exactly why there’s a housing emergency.
Properties have been torn down at a greater rate than they have been rebuilt.
It was fair enough that, due to conditions and other factors, tower blocks at Sighthill and Red Road were demolished.
But with that went thousands of homes, and they have not been replenished at a comparable rate.
And when developments do win planning permission, they often don’t meet the needs we presently have.
Close to my own home in the north of Glasgow there are numerous new and good-looking developments.
But families on low incomes can’t afford £200,000 for a flat – and therefore the housing crisis is not being alleviated.
Glasgow City Council itself declared a housing emergency, a move also made by the administration in Edinburgh.
It should never have reached this point.
After 17 years in charge of a devolved government, which has housing as one of its core portfolio areas, the SNP need to stop looking for other people to blame.
This is a national emergency and it deserves a serious and urgent response.
Cutting £200 million from the affordable housing budget, as the Scottish Government did at the end of last year, is not the place to start. There’s a serious social impact to this too.
If people can’t afford their own home, they revert to staying with family through necessity, sofa-surfing or find themselves trapped in temporary accommodation indefinitely.
Happy and vibrant households that should have been created never were.
That damages communities, hurts opportunity and ultimately impacts the economy, directly and indirectly.
Society pays a heavy price too.
Instead of finger-pointing, the Scottish Government should be working with the UK Government, which also has work to do and lessons to learn when it comes to building enough homes in England.
There’s a common interest in getting it right, and it needs to happen before any more Glaswegians end up on the streets.
