Junkets

Every week there's a story in our newspapers about university chancellors, MSPs, MPS and councillors enjoying junkets. Junkets abroad are especially hated by the press. 

There was a story recently about the Principal of Caledonian University in Glasgow spending a lot of money going on trips to New York. Caley is trying to open up the US market. That way, students who pay a lot of money will come and study in Scotland. Scottish universities love students who pay. They need the income because they don't get that much funding from the Scottish Government and it's being reduced all the time, as the UK austerity budget pinches. Does anyone know how to open up the US market without figureheads like the Principal showing up to meet and greet potential customers? 

It's worthwhile remembering that when we get these foreign students here, we train them up in our ways, teach them our attitudes and beliefs and then let them loose on the world. It would be great if we could keep a lot of them. Scotland, with its ageing population, really needs these people. They are young and energetic and desperate to work. But the UK government sadly sends them home. 

I'm no friend to the political regime in Glasgow and if I thought Glasgow City councillors were travelling on freebies I would say so. But the situation is in fact quite different. Glasgow has come a long way in the last 30 years. It's a top tourist attraction, with millions of visitors every year, all spending money on hotels, meals out, day trips, etc. The surrounding area also gets the benefit, as tourists make trips to Ayrshire, Loch Lomond and Oban. One of the ways the council has attracted visitors is by sending councillors and officials overseas to tell people about the city. Its educational links with the rest of the world are second to none but a hostile approach by the press which suggests that every foreign trip is a junket is putting these links in danger.

I used to work for a council where the chief executive was obsessed with the fear that a Freedom of Information request from a newspaper would uncover a junket. I was the international officer and was asked every few months to account for how 'council' money was spent on trips abroad. It was hard to persuade the chief exec's office that council money was not being spent at all. In fact, I was spending a lot of my time filling in 22 page applications for funding - from the Lottery, the British Council, the Scottish Government - any agency that would let me send teachers and students away to learn about education in other parts of the world, in the hope that what they learned would improve education in our own schools. When I left the council, we had links with 23 countries: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Poland, Spain, France, etc. I hope those links are still going. They enriched the lives of teachers and students and they brought visitors to our wee corner of Scotland.

I sometimes wonder if journalists who file these Freedom of Information requests have ever been sent abroad by their newspapers. They seem to think a foreign visit involves huge expenditure. When people go abroad, they have to stay somewhere, so hotels are booked. Food is paid for. Travel has to be arranged. It's never first class, I promise you. I've stayed in some pretty ropey places on foreign trips, but that's a small worry if it brings in so much benefit.

As for the press complaints about the expenses of Scottish MPs and MSPs, I can't help thinking there's a political agenda at work here.  My newspaper this week highlighted the fact that 2 SNP MPs have had their credit cards frozen, but failed to mention that 10 MPs from other parties had also had their cards frozen. I'm not SNP but I am in favour of fairness and this approach by the press is not fair. 

Maybe journalists could take up investigative journalism - you know, actually going out there and finding out what's happening on the streets - instead of just slapping in a Freedom of Information request and hoping it will turn up something that can be spinned to look like trouble.