I do not have long so I will, if I may, concentrate on some of those issues which I see playing a major role in next year’s elections and where we, as Scottish Liberal Democrats, have a clear, positive message to offer the electorate.

At Aviemore Nicol Stephen launched our “new localism” – I say “launched”, and I say “new”, but in fact he simply reasserted the community based view that we have always held.

Our vision gives local people, parents, pupils and patients a key role in the delivery of those public services. To my mind the best argument for this is the Heath Service. It is simply not acceptable that the first democratic accountability in the chain of our health care rests with Andy Kerr as Health Minister.

Unless people feel that their actions can make a difference there is no confidence in the system, or in the politics and politicians who supposedly deliver it.

Our public services should do just that and serve the public. A patient should not have to be rushed in an ambulance to a hospital miles away for a simple procedure which could be dealt with calmly - and safely - locally. Services are centralised for efficiency, but if you look at the big picture you can often treat more people, more quickly, and more appropriately, closer to home.

How can Labour in Holyrood claim to be the party of localism? A few months ago during the final stage of debate on the liberalisation of licensing laws a couple of their backbenchers submitted knee-jerk amendments. These by-passed months of Committee scrutiny, consideration and careful drafting and ended up making our licensing laws even more restrictive than they were before.

Recently, the news seems to be dominated with youth crime, but no-one seems surprised since for too long young people have only featured on the political agenda as a threat. Yob culture; anti-social behaviour; underage drinking; gangs and vandalism.

Very real problems, but who has the solution? The Labour party have made their view very clear. One backbencher recently suggested neutering junkies by adding contraceptives to their methadone! They are going to clamp down hard with every authoritarian cudgel that they can find. “Tough on young people, tough on the causes of young people!” That’s not the Liberal Democrat way.

What works? Well, Home Office statistics – and you don’t hear these quoted too often – show that for every £1,000 spent on current non-residential drug treatments only 1.3 crimes are prevented. Equally “hot-spot policing” cuts only 1.9 crimes for every £1,000 invested. However, parenting programmes can cut 11 crimes for every £1,000; but best of all are Youth Inclusion and Support Panels, where a panel of local services can take those 8 to 13-year-olds at the highest risk and provides them the intensive support that they need before it's too late, these panels can cut as many as 15 crimes for every £1,000.

It’s these sorts of imaginative and effective solutions which we as Liberal Democrats support rather than the heavy hand of other parties.

Our instincts are a world apart from those of our coalition partners, and that’s why it is so important that there is a strong Liberal voice in Holyrood and why we need to elect as many MSPs as we possibly can.