Edinburgh is crying out for new housing developments - and new public transport to get to them, says Herald columnist John McLellan

Less than three months ago, First Minster John Swinney gave a speech on the need for national renewal, which after 18 years of SNP rule was a brave admission

And as a sign of for just how long he and his party have been struggling for progress, he cited an initiative he instigated as Finance Secretary 15 years ago, asking the late STUC General Secretary Campbell Christie to head the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services.

Although he was speaking to health professionals at Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, his remarks were set in a broader context of the need for effective investment and better public services which, he said "requires, right now, a clear, collective commitment to the paradigm shift in public service delivery that we started with Christie in 2011."

No shift, it appears, ever comes without a paradigm, and is more likely to be civil service shorthand for not much happening at all, and indeed in repeating the Christie principles, Mr Swinney inadvertently provided a reminder of how resistant public services are to meaningful change unless it involves more money. Principle two, he said, was that "public service providers must be required to work much more closely in partnership, to integrate service provision and thus improve the outcomes they achieve."

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Sounded good, but a plan he unveiled all those years ago, to join up adult health and social care services, eventually created the impenetrable Integration Joint Boards for cooperation between councils and the NHS. They were such a resounding success that a few years later the Scottish Government decided it needed new national care service with a £2 billion price tag to sort out the mess caused largely by local authorities and health boards paying lip service to cooperation. Disintegration Joint Boards would be closer to current reality.

That brings me to this week's statement in Holyrood by Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan in which she outlined her plans to address the housing emergency, a list of initiatives so lacking in detail it could only have been designed to generate positive headlines.

Apart from setting new standards for civil service gobbledygook -- someone in there must understand what "multi-year funding forward look" means -- the two big announcements were an apparent commitment to invest £4.9 billion to "support the delivery of about 36,000 affordable homes" and to exempt mid-market rent and build-to-rent properties from proposed rent controls in the new Housing Bill.

Both welcome if they live up to the hype, but there were more strings than Jimmy Page's triple-neck guitar and senior local government figures have no idea if the £4.7 billion is the Barnett transfer from a £39 billion UK government housing investment announced in June, where it will go, or if there will be specific conditions.

Edinburgh officials hope a good chunk of it will go to build homes in the stalling West Town where the airport tram currently runs through open fields, but compare that with Ms McAllan's promise to work with East Lothian Council and the private sector to "unlock investment" in the Blindwells new town which could deliver 10,000 new homes.

The announcement comes just after Transport Scotland washed its hands of Edinburgh's grandiose tram expansion proposals which included the potential to link up with commuters from East Lothian and Midlothian. Although the East Coast main line runs alongside Blindwells and is the spine for a string of new estates all the way to East Linton, local train services are about one an hour, and apart from the odd roundabout this vast expansion of housing is not accompanied by meaningful transport investment.

Transport Scotland dismissed Edinburgh's attempt to sell the plan for running a new tram line from Princes Street to the BioQuarter as a potential regional asset as not regional at all. But if the residents of 10,000 new homes in Blindwells, who will work, shop and play in Edinburgh, are to get about and not contribute to emissions which will put the Scottish Government's 2045 Net Zero Carbon target even further out of reach, will that not require some joined-up thinking about transport?

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As I argued here last week, there is no question of Edinburgh being able to afford new tram routes which would cost £4 billion after interest on borrowing is included. But it would be irresponsible for the Scottish Government to facilitate a vast population increase just over the city boundaries and ignore the transport implications, in the same way as the Scottish Government and Network Rail have dragged their heels over building a railway station at Winchburgh to serve over 3,000 new households. The explosion of housing in Fife contributed to problems with the Forth Road Bridge and the result was the £1.35 billion Queensferry Crossing and more cars heading to Edinburgh.

So back to that Christie principle of public service partnerships to improve outcomes. If the Housing Secretary is to make big announcements about new schemes, there are clear implications for all other services needed to build successful communities and not just sprawling, soul-less estates which the new occupiers want to leave before the magnolia has had time to dry.

Nor need it be the case that the houses need to be built to prove the need for transport improvements because the expansion of London over a century ago and the creation of what are now very desirable suburbs was driven by private rail and tube operators seeking to expand their markets, particularly the Metropolitan Railway which built housing estates on surplus land it acquired for its railway lines. The first was Pinner in 1900, followed by places like Wembley, Neasden and Ruislip, and in 1915, a smart copywriter in the company's publicity department came up with the name Metro-Land to promote the new districts.

Maybe if Transport Scotland officials were set targets for the number of new houses they had served then the housing emergency might be tackled a lot quicker. That would be Christie-style joined-up thinking, and Edinburgh might secure some tram moolah and more homes after all.