IN less than a fortnight the SNP conference will debate what went wrong at last month’s election. The decks have been cleared for the first half day of the gathering to have an open and private discussion. And the timetable offers opportunities to extend these deliberations throughout the weekend.

So begins the process of renewing and rebuilding. The conference can make a start on preparing a policy agenda which resonates with the Scottish public, and in developing a new strategy for achieving political independence for our country.

It would be wrong to seek all the answers at this first meeting, but at least we can agree the right questions.

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But there’s something else we need to concern ourselves with.

Are the structure and constitution of the SNP fit for purpose? Do they provide for an effective democratic organisation that can mobilise and inspire those who support the idea of an independent Scotland? The answer is not really.

Changing constitutions is a messy and time-consuming process.

We haven’t got time for extended navel-gazing. And there are no proposals for change on the agenda at this meeting.

We don’t need to vary every dot and comma of our existing rule book. Many branches will remember the last rule book consultation. It stretched to 40 pages where comment was invited on every paragraph. That’s the last thing we need. But there are some obvious, major changes we could make which would put the party on a better footing within the year.

The conference could agree to instruct the party executive to have an urgent consultation and bring back proposals to a rules revision conference in the spring.

For me there are three immediate areas of operation we need to do differently. First is the conference itself. Many of us will shortly be wandering around the corridors of Edinburgh’s conference centre bearing lanyards with the word “delegate”.

That implies that people are there as representatives, elected and mandated by grassroots members to speak on their behalf. If that was ever true, it isn’t now. In fact, not a single branch of the party has held an election for its delegation to conference. Not a single branch will send its full complement.

All the “delegates” are volunteers who have been cajoled and persuaded to attend. The reason is simple. The rule book provides for far more delegates to be appointed than any party branch could ever dream of. This is spelled out in clause 20.4. “… two delegates for the first 20 members of the branch; and one additional delegate for each additional 20 members …”

My branch is Portobello and Craigmillar. It has 403 members. So, it is entitled to 23 delegates. We are hoping that five will attend.

The reason this has happened is because the rules did not change when the party did after the 2014 referendum. Membership quintupled, and some might have hoped party activity would quintuple too. It didn’t.

Most people joined, and still join, to register support, be kept in touch about key events, and contribute money. They have neither the time nor inclination to attend meetings or participate in campaigns.

Membership has declined but is still about three times bigger than a decade ago. In essence, we have two types of members – active and supporting. This is something we should recognise in the rules.

If the delegate entitlement was one for every 100 members, my branch might be able to send a full complement. We might even have a contest with the branch considering different views on the main topics. Imagine that.

We would also have a smaller conference of people who genuinely represented the wider membership. Counter-intuitively, that means the conference would have more clout and be better able to hold its leaders to account. It would also cost less.

At the moment, the conference is an aggregate gathering of the most active members. Nothing wrong with that. But it will never have the authority and democratic legitimacy of a proper delegate-based meeting.

Nor would anyone be excluded. A new class of observer would allow for anyone who wanted to be there to be present at debates and participate in the fringe.

The next thing to change is the NEC. In recent years this has grown into an unwieldy cumbersome body which resembles a mini United Nations attempting to balance competing interests and sections within the party.

This makes it unable to provide the strategic support and direction for the party’s full-time staff which is so desperately required.

We could consult over the winter on the principle of a much smaller NEC with, say, 12-15 ordinary members directly elected by the conference. These would be joined by a much-reduced number of office-bearers.

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We currently have a staggering 14 national office bearers – it’s as if any time we felt we needed to do more about something we created an office bearer to make it look like we were. Talk about form over content.

Finally, we should organise branches better. This will require less constitutional change although a filleting of the multiple tiers of organisation to remove duplication would be welcome.

We need to refocus branches on political discussion and action, reaching out for guest speakers and encouraging new members to attend.

In two weeks’ time, the conference could resolve to look at urgent but limited organisational changes and to make them within six months.

Or we could continue as we are.