THE Scottish Secretary has revealed a "package of proposals" aimed at boosting relations between the UK Government and devolved administrations.
Alister Jack, who was speaking before the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster for the first time, said the proposals would be published by the end of the year.
The committee produced a report in July into the relations between the Scottish and UK governments, where a number of "high-level proposals" were made.
Jack praised his current relations with the devolved administration officials, adding statements in the media may not reflect the reality of the relationships.
Responding to a question from SNP MP Tommy Sheppard (below), Jack said a number of meetings had been undertaken and work was ongoing.
He said: "I had a meeting with the four nations and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster very recently and we discussed progress on that.
"I think substantive progress has been made on that, particularly at official level.
"We have discussed it twice at Joint Ministerial Committees (JMC) and the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have confirmed that they would like to bring forward a package of proposals by the end of this year.
"They're developing a package of reforms and my understanding is that these reforms will be brought back to all administrations before the end of this year."
One of the recommendations made in the report was for the UK Government to consider bringing in a third party mediator to resolve any disputes between the administrations.
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Again responding to Sheppard, the Secretary of State told the committee that, as far as he understood, this measure would be part of the reforms.
He said: "The new dispute resolution process is something that's quite high on the agenda now.
"Disputes between governments are rare, we should put that on the record.
"In the 20 years of devolution I think there have only been four disputes of any significance between administrations.
"Our prime focus is to avoid disputes between all administrations, but as regards the introduction of a third party arbitrator, our current plans are that should be the case."
Jack did not disclose any other measures to be included in the proposals.
In response to a question from Tory MP Paul Masterton, Jack talked up the relations between the administrations.
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He said: "My experience in discussions with the Scottish Government, is that I find myself to be on the same page as them in pretty much everything and to be very focused on the right things.
"We do come out and tear strips off each other. We both do it, so I can't pretend that it's one-way traffic, I think it's just the nature of politics.
"The Scottish Government want to separate Scotland away from the United Kingdom and we want to keep it part of the UK and on that we disagree.
"Inevitably, we come out in public and say those things, but behind closed doors I find the people I deal with to be very reasonable and I haven't had arguments with any of them."
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