IN HER opening policy meeting as Scotland’s first minister in 2014, Nicola Sturgeon left no doubt of her priority: education. Falling standards, clear from international surveys and the government’s own tests, would no longer be tolerated. In the run-up to the 2016 Scottish parliamentary election, she asked voters to judge her on whether she had improved schools and closed the gap between rich and poor pupils. “If you’re not, as first minister, prepared to put your neck on the line over the education of our children, then what are you prepared [to do]?” she asked.

It was a change of tone for the Scottish National Party (SNP). Under Alex Salmond, who was first minister in 2007-14 and is now a host on RT, a Russian TV channel, the party showed scant interest in public-service reform. But after losing the independence referendum in 2014, the SNP realised there was little appetite for a second vote. It needed more to show for almost a decade in power. As health secretary under Mr Salmond, Ms Sturgeon had gained a reputation among policy wonks as an excellent manager. She seemed just the person to show that the SNP could govern, and in doing so make clear what an independent Scotland might be like.

Pro-independence types have long insisted that Scotland would have more in common with Scandinavia if it were not joined with England. Indeed, some of Ms Sturgeon’s most eye-catching ideas point in this direction. Her government is running a (small) universal basic-income trial and plans a national investment bank to support industry. Since last year it has copied Finland in giving the parents of every new baby a free box containing clothes, an ear thermometer and books, among other treats. It is also guiding through a few reforms introduced at the end of Mr Salmond’s time, including an expansion of free child care.

Beyond the weans

Elsewhere the government has combined this approach with a degree of technocratic competence often lacking in Westminster. It has, for instance, softened the introduction of universal credit, which replaces six existing benefits, by allowing more flexibility in its delivery. The government also plans to lock up fewer criminals by removing the presumption of prison for sentences of less than a year.

But the party’s spending priorities do not speak of a transformational government. Since the SNP came to power in 2007, Scotland has continued to spend a quarter more per person on devolved public services than England. Over the past decade, relative to England, spending on universities (in the form of free tuition) and the police has grown, while spending on health care and schools has fallen.

There has been no big change of direction since Ms Sturgeon became first minister, says Jim Gallagher of Oxford University. Despite gaining new powers last year, the government has made only minor tweaks to the tax system.

More radical supporters of independence chastise the SNP for its cautious “managerialism”. Its leadership has become more sensible, abandoning some of its previous wilder promises about what independence would mean for Scotland’s economy. Yet sensible thinking does not inspire activists, especially given new competition south of the border. As Gerry Hassan, an academic, has written, “the politics of imagining a different kind of state—and indeed a different kind of society and future—have been (however imperfectly) captured by the advent of the Corbyn Labour Party.”

Since losing its majority in the 2016 election, the SNP has passed few significant pieces of legislation. After a long delay the government announced in June that it would shelve its flagship education bill, which had been due to transfer power from local councils to head teachers, and to change the working of the teachers’ professional body. The SNP insists that powers can still be transferred without legislation under an informal agreement with local councils. Others are more doubtful. It is “unimaginable” that Labour and Tory local authorities will ever do the government’s bidding, even with the threat of future legislation, says Lindsay Paterson, an education specialist at the University of Edinburgh.

In this case, the problem was not parliamentary arithmetic. Liz Smith, the Tory shadow education secretary in Holyrood, says she would have been open to working with the SNP to deliver the bill with some modifications. Instead, opposition came from the trade unions and local authorities. The historic power of professional bodies in Scotland helps explain the rarity of structural reforms, says Mr Paterson. Despite falling standards, there is little parental clamour for big change. This hints at a degree of conservatism in Scottish political culture that exists alongside its progressive instincts.