David Scott: Scotsman journalist who never missed a story

On the day he took over as editor of The Scotsman in 1988, Magnus Linklater was given a confidential briefing on his reporting staff. There were, he was told, a few journalists whose reliability he might need to question. There was one, however, whom he could count on 100 per cent: David Scott, his local government correspondent. Scott, he was told, was a byword for accuracy, whose reporting had never been questioned, and who had not once missed an important news story.
For 35 years Scott chronicled the history and development of local government in Scotland, from the early days of county councils, through the two-tier reforms brought in by the Edward Heath government in 1973, the tense relationship between Scottish councils and the Margaret Thatcher government, the abolition of sprawling regional bodies such as Strathclyde and Lothian under John Major, and then the 1999 referendum which ushered in the Scottish parliament, and, as Scott himself said, “changed everything”.
Throughout this time, although his title was steadily upgraded, from municipal correspondent to local government editor and finally to Scottish government editor, the task he faced was broadly the same: to report political news as fairly and as accurately as he knew how, and to get the facts right.
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, described him as “the best of journalists”, and Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, the former first minister, paid tribute to the dedication he brought to the job.
“David Scott knew everybody he had to know,” he said, “but he never became too close for them to avoid scrutiny. He was a super professional, a lovely man, and he made a meaningful contribution to Scottish politics over three decades of turbulence and change.”
Although he came across as calm and unflappable, Scott worried constantly about whether he had done well enough. His wife, Theresa, remembers him sitting up late at night after filing a story, making certain he had spelt all the names right and had double-checked the figures.
The most dramatic story he covered was the collapse in July 1991 of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which cost local government across the UK £90 million and exposed the Western Isles to the biggest loss of all — £23 million — and brought the council to its knees. Scott broke the story and kept his paper in step with the news throughout.
He won four press awards during the course of his career, and was praised for the in-depth nature of his research and the balance he brought to his reporting. Then, in 1998, he was awarded the OBE for services to journalism. A man of great modesty, he consigned his press awards to the attic and gave tribute for his OBE to the support of his colleagues.
David Haig Scott was born and brought up in the Border town of Hawick, the only son of Frances and David Scott. His father, a musician, was the leader of an orchestra which played in the pits as accompaniment to silent movies, and Scott inherited not only his love of music but his skills as well. He was brought up a Catholic, and religion was always to play a major part in his life. From the age of 14, he regularly played the organ at his local church.
Educated locally, he left school at 15 and answered an advertisement for a junior reporter on the Hawick News, where his first story, in 1958, was to report on an aviary show; he combined the job with going to night school. He frequently found himself covering local stories with that other great Hawick figure, Bill McLaren, later famous as a rugby commentator. McLaren would occasionally offer to drive him, which meant Scott could leave the Hawick News bicycle behind. After six years at the paper, he moved south of the border to work briefly for the Cumberland Evening News, before returning to the Hawick News as senior reporter.
In 1967 he spotted another advertisement, this time for a reporting job on The Scotsman. He joined that paper in Edinburgh on New Year’s Day 1968, worried by the fact that there were no trains that day, and that he would have to learn about the deadlines of a daily paper, when his experience hitherto had been on weeklies.
By this time he was married to Theresa Donnelly, whom he had met at a local youth club in Hawick when she was 15 and he was 17. Their courtship lasted five years and they were married in 1966, while she was embarking on a career as a primary-school teacher. Living originally in Hawick, they later moved to Balerno on the outskirts of Edinburgh, as Scott’s responsibilities at The Scotsman grew. They had three children: Caroline, a designer and entrepreneur who practises sports massage therapy; Michael, who works for the BBC as a network editor; and Paulene, a graphic designer.
Starting out as The Scotsman’s municipal correspondent, under the paper’s then editor, Alastair Dunnett, Scott reported on the local politics of Edinburgh city council, before graduating to become local government reporter, covering all Scotland’s councils, learning rapidly about the pressures of the job and the need to balance the rapid turnaround of a story with the need to ensure accuracy.
He developed strong views about the ethics, not just in journalism but also politics, learning never entirely to trust those who told him one thing then did something else, and became, as Theresa recalls, a “stickler for accuracy”. It was, she said, “a job he absolutely loved. He was in his element, and could not believe his luck, because working for The Scotsman had always been a dream.”
Politicians, in turn, whether at local or national level, came to trust him, with the result that he was able to deliver many stories his rivals only picked up later. In 1987 he was invited to join a UK committee set up by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to investigate local government finance and the relationship between local councils and central government.
With the creation of the Scottish parliament in 1999, he became Scottish government editor, with a free-ranging role which he greatly enjoyed, though in later years he regretted the way that, under devolution, the importance of local government had been downgraded, and the services it provided viewed as less significant than the work of the parliament.
He retired in 2003 at the age of 60, albeit with some misgivings, to take up a freelance role, drawing on his encyclopaedic knowledge of local government finance. His leaving party was attended by the McConnell, George Reid, the parliament’s presiding officer, and the leaders of the main opposition parties.
In retirement Scott devoted much time to his family and his grandchildren, and continued to play the organ at St Joseph’s church in Balerno. He was diagnosed earlier this year with bile duct cancer, an illness which he bore bravely. He leaves his wife and three children.
David Scott, journalist, was born on May 13, 1943. He died of cancer on August 9, 2024, aged 80