links for 2009-05-12

They have been the defining differences introduced by a Scottish Government in the last decade: free personal and nursing care, the abolition of tuition fees and the rejection of targets and use of the private sector in health. All those moves have played well with Scots voters. But objective measures, as reported by the FT, suggest they have failed: waiting times are falling more slowly than in the south and participation in higher education has not outstripped England. Worse, England is doing better than Scotland on maths and science scores, while overall GCSE performance has risen rapidly to equal Scotland’s, in its equivalent qualifications. “It could be,” says Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at Edinburgh university, “that the greater competitiveness and specialisation of English secondary schooling has introduced a dynamic of emulation and improvement which the more defensive policies of Scotland and Wales are not matching.”

Dan Gillmor: “I’ve learned my lesson. Anything I write — for myself or for someone else — is backed up on my machines under my control. I’m creating a cloud backup as well.”