Security in Scotland, with or without constitutional change

These six one-day seminars will bring together policymakers, politicians, practitioners and academics to explore the implications of constitutional change for security governance in Scotland and the rest of the UK (RUK). Our point of departure is that while important work is underway on the implications of Scottish independence for the 'reserved matters' of foreign affairs and defence (Chalmers, Foreign Affairs Committee), security is an increasingly expansive multi-level governance issue. This is evidenced by the 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the UK which lists the following non-traditional 'priority risks' (at different levels or 'tiers'): terrorism, cyber attacks, major accidents and natural hazards, pandemics, organised crime, disruption to communications, illegal immigration, and energy and trade disruption. This means that many government departments and agencies are now involved in security governance (the CONTEST strategy lists 29), including those in the devolved administration of Scotland. For example, civil contingency planning is now a function of devolved and local government across the UK. The EU also plays a complex and expanding role in internal and external security governance (Bigo, et al.). Corresponding to this proliferation of insecurities, security oversight arrangements in Westminster now extend to at least six different parliamentary committees, occasionally more. This raises questions about the adequacy of security oversight arrangements in Scotland, with or without constitutional change.

This seminar series will explore the implications of Scottish independence and constitutional change for security governance in Scotland and the UK. It will bring together speakers for research and knowledge exchange from the intelligence and security community, UK Government departments with security competences, parliamentary committees providing security oversight, EU institutions, Scottish Civil and Parliamentary Services, Scottish Government, political parties, local government and other bodies such as the forthcoming single integrated Police Service of Scotland. A team of academic security and constitutional experts will facilitate the seminars and provide independent intellectual input and synthesis, supplemented by invited speakers from the UK and comparative European countries.

The seminars will span the referendum date, producing independent research evidence to inform policymaking and public debate in advance of the vote and in response to the outcome. Is the threat environment the same for Scotland as the RUK? What security governance arrangements would an independent Scotland seek to make? Would it create its own security agencies to mirror those of the RUK? What would be the resource and capacity implications? How independent could Scottish security agencies really be, given the multi-level nature of security governance? Alternatively, what is the feasibility of sharing security competences between Scotland and the RUK? What would be the implications for democratic oversight, privacy, and human rights? What oversight capacity would the Scottish parliament want and need? What can we learn from the experience of security governance in Westminster and comparable countries?

Four seminars will fall before the autumn 2014 referendum and two after, covering: 1) Assessing the governance of security in the UK and Scotland under current arrangements; 2) The threat environment of the UK and Scotland in the context of the UK National Security Strategy; 3) The foreign policy and comparative aspects of security governance for the UK, Scotland and its neighbours; 4) Current and prospective accountability and oversight arrangements in the UK and Scotland; 5) The security governance implications of the referendum outcome: independence or interdependence?; 6) Lessons from the seminar series for understanding security governance.

This seminar series is conceived as a collaboration between policymakers, politicians, practitioners and academics. The non-academic participants will not simply be audiences but full contributors. The knowledge exchange and creation process will take place as much between the non-academic participants from Scotland and the rest of the UK as it will between the academic and non-academic participants. The aim is not to foster political debate between the participants, but for Scottish participants to learn about security governance in the UK and EU in order to inform any future institutional changes, and in turn for RUK participants to explore the implications of Scottish independence and constitutional change for their current policies and practices. The academic participants will provide informed, impartial analysis of the implications raised.

The range of non-academic beneficiaries will be large but targeted. The seminar series will inform the contingency planning that is underway in many parts of the Scottish and UK governments in prospect of constitutional change. Through knowledge exchange it will inform policymaking and public debate before and after the referendum, and create research capacity on security governance in the context of longer-term constitutional change and the developing interdependencies between and across multiple levels of government.

We can categorise the non-academic beneficiaries into the following three groups:

1) Policymakers, including ministers and civil servants from the Scottish and UK governments, and representatives of the governing parties.
2) Politicians (who are not always 'policymakers'), both in their capacity as protagonists in the independence debate and as providers of parliamentary oversight of the government of security (particularly in the relevant parliamentary committees)
3) Practitioners, including local government officials (involved in emergency planning under the terms of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004), senior police officers (involved in enforcement of security policy, e.g. domestic counter-terrorism), cyber-security experts (who are often contracted by government from the private sector), and, ideally, representatives of the UK security agencies (if not then experts on them).

The main pathway to impact will be the seminar activity itself: through dialogue, the creation of knowledge and mutual understanding, and the forging of contacts. The PI and CIs will summarise and disseminate the content and conclusions of each seminar through policy briefs, the University of Edinburgh Press office, our website, and a social media strategy.

The seminars will lead to:

- Improved understanding of actual and potential security governance arrangements among Scottish and RUK policymakers and politicians.
- The forging of knowledge exchange relationships between policy, politics, practitioner and academic communities in the security governance field.
- Learning from academic inputs and experts from comparator countries.
- The involvement of security governance practitioners in Academy of Government policy and practitioner training programmes.