Helen Keller, the author and activist who became deaf and blind as a baby before going on to write 14 books, said that optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.

There is not much optimism to be found around the Scottish Parliament during this first week back after the summer recess, it must be said. On Tuesday, Finance Secretary Shona Robison outlined Scotland’s ostensibly dismal fiscal position. On Wednesday First Minister John Swinney announced his first Programme for Government, and on Thursday he faced the music at First Minister’s Questions, both in the dark shadow of Tuesday’s gloomy statement.

The general dejection appears not to be limited to the SNP Government. Even the opposition Labour Party is moaning about money (it may not surprise you to hear that they blame the SNP Scottish Government and the SNP blames the UK Labour Government).

Read more by Andy Maciver

I do wish everyone wasn’t quite so melancholy. Those of us who are hard-wired to believe in something better should look at the financial and legislative outlook not with a bowed head of resignation, but with heads held high in search of opportunity. There is plenty to be found.

The very language is immediately negative. When we tighten our belts at home we talk about savings; in politics we talk about cuts. But there are savings to be made everywhere; many, many more than were identified on Tuesday. Scotland’s "billion pound black hole" could be filled by savings in the health budget alone, without harming a single patient; Scotland’s NHS offers demonstrably poor value for money compared to European peers, and the idea that healthcare money is well spent is fanciful.

But our financial constraints are a reason to look even wider, to think even bigger. One of the reasons why the NHS is so inefficient is because it is so big, and so centralised. Efficient reform is much more easily delivered in smaller packages. That is why the Scottish Government, and Scottish Labour should they still be keen to collect the keys to Bute House, should spot the links between the pessimism of this week and the optimism of an intervention last week, by Donald Anderson and Steven Purcell, the former trailblazing leaders of Edinburgh and Glasgow city councils respectively.

Messrs Anderson and Purcell suggested the direct election of mayors for Glasgow and Edinburgh, who would work together to advocate for what they termed "Scotland’s Growth Corridor", and also suggested replication in the Aberdeen-Inverness-Dundee triangle.

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that the cities of the central belt need to lobby for themselves, but the truth is that post-devolution Scotland has become so centralised that every part of it has been disempowered.

Can you name the leader of Aberdeen City Council? Thought not. But can you name the mayor of Greater Manchester? Of course you can.

Re-empowerment is now an imperative, not just in our cities but also in our rural areas, from Portpatrick to Peterhead, and throughout our islands, so critical as they are to Scotland’s economic future.

Mayors are an idea whose time has come. They can become, in effect, the CEOs of regional hubs. On one hand, they could take control of strategic regional transport, housing and economic affairs. It should scarcely need to be said in a liberal democracy, but growth is good, of course. Private capital and investment creates jobs, people in jobs pay taxes, the more money they earn, the more tax they pay, and the more tax they pay, the more the nation can invest in public services or whatever else it chooses.

But on the other hand, they are also in a significantly better position than central government to identify savings by operating a leaner, more efficient unit. Indeed, the opportunity should be taken for a much broader reorganisation of local governance.

How can the local authorities in Fife, or the Scottish Borders, or in East, West or Midlothian, construct credible transport or housing strategies in isolation from Edinburgh, which is the location in which many of their inhabitants work? It makes very little sense in theory, even less in practice, leads to unnecessary duplication, and costs a lot of money.

Is not the same true in Ayrshire, in Grampian, in Tayside, in Lanarkshire, in Forth Valley? There is always opportunity in chaos. The easiest way to solve a big problem and to exploit a big opportunity is to break it down into smaller parts.

And if we bring this back to a short-term political imperative, there is very little downside for the SNP Government in opening themselves up to this sort of decentralised agenda. At a very basic level, devolving problems is not a terribly bad political strategy.

Former Glasgow City Council leader Steven PurcellFormer Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell (Image: Newsquest)

Removing the cynicism, though, this is a government which, particularly since the creation of the Bute House Agreement with the Greens after the 2021 election, has faced persistent criticism for being urban-centric and out of touch with the views of the population outside of the people Fergus Ewing famously called "wine bar revolutionaries’" What better way to say "we hear you" than to give them the authority to be the change they want to see?

I am eternally optimistic, I’m afraid. I can’t help it. I see in our financial position some short-term pain, which can be turned into long-term gain if we react in the right way.

Scotland is a tweed, with many different colours of yarn, coming together but retaining a distinct identity, and performing a unique role.

Saving money is good, if the spending identified has no proven impact. More, please. Growth is good, because it raises more money for spending in sensible ways. More, please.

And decentralising power is good, too, because it makes both of these noble endeavours so very much easier to achieve. Much more of that, please. We have 20 months until we go to the polls to elect our 129 MSPs. Let’s have an extra ballot paper, and elect some mayors too.

Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters and Zero Matters