Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, April 20, 2017

Official Report 603KB pdf

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Section 22 Report

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“The 2015/16 audit of the Scottish Police Authority”

The first substantive item on our agenda is further oral evidence on the Auditor General for Scotland’s report “The 2015/16 audit of the Scottish Police Authority”. I welcome to the committee John Foley, chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority, and Andrew Flanagan, chair of the board of the SPA. I also welcome, from the Scottish Government, Paul Johnston, director general learning and justice, and Don McGillivray, head of the police division.

The committee will be aware that we took evidence on the audit on 2 March 2017. Members discussed a variety of governance issues affecting the SPA and we also discussed those separately with the SPA and Scottish Government officials. At the time, Mr Johnston said to the committee:

“Those are matters that will be discussed further between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Police Authority in the coming days.”—[Official Report, Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, 2 March 2017; c 50.]

We look forward to hearing the outcome of those discussions. Since then, as set out in the papers and in the media, various other criticisms have been expressed about governance at the SPA, some as recently as today.

There will be no opening statements, so I move straight to questions.

I want to address the issue of the letter dated 9 December 2016 from Derek Penman, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, to Andrew Flanagan, chair of the board, in which Mr Penman makes a number of substantive points about the governance of the SPA. When was the letter dated 9 December circulated to the board?

I do not think that it has been circulated to the board.

It has not been circulated to the board. The letter is from the chief inspector of constabulary about the governance of the SPA, in which he makes substantial points. He specifically says:

“I accept that it will properly be a matter for the Board to approve the Corporate Governance Framework and my comments are intended solely to inform members ahead of their decision next week”,

which was five days after the letter was sent. Why was the letter not circulated to the board?

That was because the issues themselves had been well trailed and were well known. Derek Penman’s position on those matters had been expressed to members of the board and so was known. Therefore, I did not think it necessary to circulate the letter itself.

It is not within your remit to make a decision like that. Under the guidelines and under statute, every board member is entitled to know what the chief inspector of constabulary says. Those were substantive points that, in many respects, were very critical of the governance review. Surely to goodness the letter should have gone to every board member before the meeting in December.

As I have said, the board members were already aware of the comments that Derek Penman expressed. That had been discussed at our meeting on 5 December and a number of the matters had been covered at that point.

I find that very unacceptable indeed. It breaches every rule in the book about the role of a chair, particularly of a public organisation, and about the issuance of letters to board members. Every board member should have had a copy of that letter and it should have been discussed at that board meeting in December. You are not running the Kremlin; the SPA is supposed to be an open public body in which you are accountable to the board members. The view of the chief inspector, who has statutory responsibility for such matters, as it was set out in that letter, should clearly have been sent to every board member.

The letter was addressed to me and I believed that the matters had already been covered by the board and that members were aware of them.

It was addressed to you, but Mr Penman said clearly that he wanted the letter to go to every board member. He specifically said that the letter was to inform board members at their meeting next week before they reached any decisions, but you took a unilateral decision not to circulate that to board members.

Yes, I did. As I said, the contents of it were well known to board members.

That is not the point. The letter should have been circulated.

Mr Foley, did you know that it was not being circulated to board members? Did you see the letter?

I do not recall seeing it at that particular point in time.

So the chief executive did not see the letter either.

I may have seen it, but I do not recall it.

You may have seen it. It is a very important letter from the chief inspector of constabulary. Either you saw the letter before the meeting or you did not. Yes or no, did you see the letter before the board meeting?

I am telling you that I do not recall seeing it. I recall having conversations with Mr Penman around that time and him expressing his views to me clearly. Having seen the letter and read it in recent days, I find that it is in accord with a conversation that I had at the time, in which Mr Penman expressed his views.

So you have seen the letter only in recent days.

No, I do not recall seeing it at that point in time, but I might have seen it. A large number of letters come through my office. I just do not recall seeing that one.

To be honest, given the three years of failure at the SPA, I find it hard to believe that its chief executive does not recall seeing a letter of that importance and with those contents. You do not recall whether you saw it. You are the chief executive and the accountable officer.

Mr Neil, I cannot tell you that I did if I do not recall it, and I do not recall it.

Presumably, every time that you receive a letter, it is date stamped. Is that correct?

They usually come in via email. That letter is not addressed to me. I am saying that I might have seen a copy of it. It might have been sent to me; I do not know. I do not recall it, but I did not see an original letter that came in at that time, addressed to the chair.

Right, so the chief executive did not see the letter—or does not recall doing so. Mr Johnston, when did you become aware of the letter?

I cannot give a specific date when I was aware of the letter. I have discussions with Derek Penman, as chief inspector of constabulary, and I have certainly been aware of some of the concerns that he has had and of the issues that he has raised with the SPA. Indeed, he will shortly undertake a full inspection that will cover those matters. Don McGillivray might wish to say more about the sequencing of when the Scottish Government received particular pieces of documentation.

I saw the letter at the time. The Scottish Government received it at the time, as a courtesy side copy, in hard copy from Derek Penman, on an informal basis. It was passed to me very informally, as a hard copy.

We learned from this morning’s Herald that the Scottish Government gets a copy of all the board papers before each board meeting. Is that correct?

Generally, yes.

Generally. So you would have picked up that the letter was not in the board papers.

Yes, we would have been aware of that at the time.

Did you mention it to Mr Foley or Mr Flanagan? The letter was clearly intended for every SPA board member. Did you draw to their attention the fact that it had not been circulated?

I think that we would have regarded that as a matter for the chair to decide on.

You would have regarded that as a matter for the chair.

Yes.

The SPA was under attack, as it has been—rightly—for the past three years for incompetence after incompetence, including, it would appear, trying to cover up forcing a board member to resign, and yet you did not think that it was important that the letter from the chief inspector had not been circulated to board members.

I am clear that the decision on which papers go to the SPA board is for the chair to make.

Yes, the decision is for the chair. However, in your role as head of police in the Scottish Government, did you not draw attention to the fact that the letter had not been circulated?

The letter clearly states that it should go to board members. You knew that it had not gone to board members, because you get the board papers but, despite the importance of the contents, you did not speak to Mr Flanagan or Mr Foley and say, “Would it not be wise to make sure this letter goes to board members?”

Again, I would not have seen that as the role of Government. At the time, I would have seen that as the role of the chair.

Why, then, do you get the board papers?

We get the board papers primarily for information. It is simply to make the Government aware of issues that are coming up at the board.

And you never comment to the board, the chair or the chief executive on the board papers before they go to the board.

We occasionally make comments on the papers, but that is usually on matters of factual accuracy more than anything else.

Nobody in the civil service thought that, given the controversies, it might be a good thing for the chief inspector’s letter to go to board members. Nobody thought to mention it.

Again, I would see a difference in the functions of the Government and the SPA in that respect. I am pretty clear that, under the governance framework that exists between the Government and the SPA, it is for the chair and the chief executive to decide on what papers go to the board.

It is very clear in the rules, however, that a letter such as the one from Mr Penman has to go to board members specifically. The chief inspector asked for it to go to board members, but nobody thought to make sure that the rules were kept to.

Anyway, we will move on to the letter’s contents. Can I go through some of the contents, convener?

Of course.

The second paragraph of the letter from Derek Penman, the chief inspector, says:

“I ... understand that the framework has been discussed in private session with members and will be formally agreed at next week’s Board meeting.”

Why are these things discussed only in private session and then formally nodded through at board meetings? That is not what the board is there for. The board is there to hold to account you, Mr Flanagan, as the chair; the chief executive; and Police Scotland. That has to be done openly and transparently.

It seems to me that the letter clearly indicates that a lot of the discussions and decisions are effectively being made in private and nodded through in public. The public does not see what is going on or what the discussions are or anything like that.

I do not think that that is how it works. A draft was circulated to the members’ meeting at the time, I believe, and it was discussed, but decisions were not made at that point. The decisions were made at the board meeting.

Yes, but it was nodded through at the board. My understanding is that there is a pre-meeting before the board meetings. Is that right?

There is a very short meeting before the board meeting actually starts.

Who is at the pre-meeting?

The board members.

All of them?

Yes.

Is there a record of what is discussed at the pre-meeting?

No.

Why not?

It is only preparatory for the full meeting.

Why is there no record of it?

As I say, it is only preparatory. It is simply to say, “Here’s the agenda—is there any comment on any of the papers, or any short updates that might have arisen since the papers were issued?”

So you are saying that something as important as the governance arrangements for the SPA were discussed at a short pre-meeting of which no record was taken. After that discussion, the matter then went to the board to be nodded through.

I do not think that the governance arrangements were discussed at the pre-meeting.

The letter from Mr Penman says:

“I now understand that the framework has been discussed in private session”.

If it was not discussed at a private pre-meeting, what private session was it discussed at?

Perhaps I can be helpful here, Mr Neil. My understanding of the content of Mr Penman’s letter is that the framework documentation and associated documents had been discussed in private session, which is a private members’ meeting that takes place every month, and—

Is that in addition to the pre-meeting?

Yes—it is in addition to the pre-meeting.

09:15  

You referred to a private meeting of members. Does that include every board member?

Yes.

Is there a record of the meeting?

Yes.

Where are the records? Are they published?

The records for the members’ meeting are not published.

Why are they not published?

We never publish the—

But why are they not published?

Well, the session is regarded as a meeting at which members can speak freely about matters that are appropriate to the authority. It covers a range—

In other words the governance issues and the recommendations are all dealt with behind closed doors.

The First Minister said in Parliament that the Scottish Police Authority must take heed of the recommendations on governance and of the comments on the review from the chief inspector and the Auditor General. However, you have a private meeting, with no public present, no publication of the minutes and no public record, to discuss the very issue of governance, on which the main recommendation is that it should be opened up, transparent and accountable. You go ahead with those meetings behind closed doors, with no access to the public—without even telling people that those meetings are taking place—and you call that open governance and transparency.

I have to say that, at the meetings at which governance was discussed, the governance documentation was at that point very much a working draft.

It does not matter—it should be discussed in open session.

People must be able to get to a position where there is an acceptable governance document that is fit for purpose. I will add some clarity that might be helpful. We started the process a while back. The first draft of the governance documentation was very thick, and we had to distil it down to get it into a proper document. We had to have those discussions among the members and other people who were working on it to get to that point. That is the way in which those discussions operate—

Will you now publish the minutes of those private meetings?

I would need to check that they are still available.

What? You will need to check that they are still available?

Yes.

For goodness’ sake, you are the chief executive, so surely you keep a record of every minute taken of every meeting. Mr Flanagan, as chair, do you still have your record of those private meetings?

I do not hold them, but they will exist.

They will exist.

Yes.

The chief executive says, “I don’t know if they still exist,” and you, as the chairman—although you do not hold the minutes—say that they do still exist.

I would expect them to exist.

So which is it? Who is right? Do they still exist?

There will be a record of them, yes.

You just said that you did not know.

No—I said that I would need to check whether they are still available, because they are not published minutes, so elements of them may not be there. I have not checked, as I have had no reason to do that, so I would need to check.

Convener, I strongly suggest that the committee asks for a copy of the minutes of every private session held in respect of governance and of any other related matters that should be in the public domain, and that in future those private meetings should be opened up to the public, unless there is something of obvious import, such as a terrorist matter, that requires a private meeting.

Something as basic as governance is being decided on behind closed doors, to be nodded through by the obviously compliant non-executive members of the SPA without any of them saying a dickie bird about it, and we are all supposed to accept that as a good example of open, transparent governance.

What is Paul Johnston doing about this?

So—

Surely you do not find that acceptable.

The committee is raising significant issues that I recognise need to be dealt with.

Why have you not dealt with them before now? Why have you allowed this? Were you aware of those private meetings?

I am absolutely aware that there is a range of meetings—

Were you aware of the private meeting? Yes or no?

I am not aware of all the private meetings that take place within the Scottish Police Authority.

Were you aware of the private meeting on governance?

No.

You were not aware of that.

I do not get a detailed account of every private meeting that is held by SPA members. It is very important that we recognise some of the history around governance—

We know the history—it has been going on for three years.

I refer specifically to the governance review of policing that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice asked Andrew Flanagan to undertake shortly after he took office. The review is in the public domain. It was published around a year ago and contains 30 recommendations.

We know all that. That is history. I want to know about the private meeting on governance. You did not know that it was taking place. Is that right?

What I have said is that I do not have an account of all private meetings.

Answer my specific question. Forget the civil service nonsense. Did you know in advance that the private meeting that Derek Penman referred to in his letter was taking place?

No.

Did you have the paperwork for that in advance?

I do not receive paperwork for SPA private meetings.

Did your colleagues receive it?

Don McGillivray might wish to comment on that.

We would have received the agenda for relevant SPA board meetings.

Was this a relevant SPA meeting and did you receive the agenda for it?

We would have received the agenda for all SPA board meetings.

Does that include those private sessions?

Generally, yes.

Did you get the papers for the private session that was referred to?

I think that we almost certainly would have.

Were you or any of your representatives in attendance?

No, we tend not to attend SPA board meetings. We have in the past, but we do not do so now.

Did you get a copy of the record of the meeting?

I do not recall ever seeing a minute of that private session of the meeting, but that does not mean that it was not sent to the Scottish Government at some point.

Okay, so we have a secret society within the board—not even the full board sometimes, it would appear—of the Scottish Police Authority that decides on the transparency of governance, and the whole thing is done without public knowledge and without people out there being able to hold that board to account. It is all deliberately being done behind closed doors to undermine the very principles of transparency and accountability that the review that the cabinet secretary set up was designed to address. How is that excusable or defensible?

The discussions were about the detail of how we were going to implement the recommendations in the governance review.

Do you not think that that is in the public interest?

It was at quite a detailed level. It did not change the recommendations of the review itself, so those were what we proceeded to implement. I am not sure that it was necessary to discuss them in public.

If we look at the implementation, we see the recommendations made by Derek Penman in his letter of 9 December. How many of those recommendations have been implemented?

We have taken into account what he said and other stakeholders have—

That is not what I asked. I asked how many have been implemented.

They have not been implemented.

They have not been implemented?

No.

When are they going to be implemented?

We will take account of the review of the governance arrangements that we have scheduled for June this year to see how the existing arrangements—the ones that we put through in December—are working. We will take account of Mr Penman’s views as a central part of that discussion.

That is the chief inspector who has just about started—he may have started now—his inspection of your governance arrangements. Is that the case?

He has not started yet.

Is it right that he is due to start?

Later in the year, yes.

You have had the First Minister, the Auditor General and the chief inspector tell you that they do not find the governance arrangements and certain aspects of the recommendations acceptable and that they need to be amended, and you are not going to consider them until at least June this year.

I have had continuing discussions with the chief inspector and we have agreed when he should schedule the work and what he should do in the review that he says he wants to conduct. He would like to see our review of the governance arrangements taking into account all the evidence and all the views of stakeholders, and being revised and changed in the summer, before he conducts his inspection.

How did the board members know that when they had not had the letter of 9 December? Are the decisions all being made by you personally, Mr Flanagan?

No, I have discussed them openly and regularly with the board members.

The letter could not have been discussed openly, because they never got the letter.

The contents of it were known to them and they were informed of it.

The contents were not known. They never got the letter. Did you tell them that there was a letter?

Yes, and it was actually—

And no non-executive member asked for a copy of it?

No.

You told them that there was a letter. Did you tell them that at the board meeting in December?

I do not recall if I said it at the December meeting.

Oh, you do not recall. There must be something wrong with memory around the SPA—everybody seems to have a bad memory. The fact of the matter is that it would appear that SPA members did not know about the existence of the letter at the board meeting in December. Even when they were told, no non-executive member asked for a copy of it. Is that right?

The existence of the letter was referenced in the Audit Scotland report.

But nobody asked for a copy of it.

No.

That tells us a lot about the board of the SPA. Convener, it is quite obvious that this is a shambles.

Thank you, Mr Neil. We move on to Monica Lennon.

Thank you, convener. I am still quite stunned by what we are hearing this morning. Can you be clear with us, Mr Flanagan—did you give the letter to anyone else?

No, I do not think that I did.

So you kept the letter to yourself.

Yes.

Okay. Do the other witnesses find that acceptable?

I think that what we have heard is that other members of the SPA were aware of the chief inspector of constabulary’s concerns. In light of what we are hearing, and with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better if the members of the SPA had had sight of the letter.

So you agree that it is completely unacceptable for the chairman to have kept the letter to himself. It is not acceptable, is it?

What I have said is that, with benefit of hindsight, it would have been better for members of the SPA to have seen the letter. However, I emphasise—I did not have a chance to finish what I was saying earlier—that the points that were raised by Mr Penman in his letter related to matters that had been made public in the report in March 2016. The report, with its 30 recommendations, included all the points that were subsequently discussed by the SPA board in December. It is important to see those particular issues in their context, which is the significant publicity around the specific recommendations that has been associated with the governance review during the past 12 months or so.

The letter identifies a concerning pattern of exclusion. The fourth paragraph on the second page says that it is

“not clear whether you will invite representatives from staff associations and others who may have an interest”.

The letter goes on to say that

“it is not clear whether there would be an invitation for HMICS to attend your committee meetings”.

That feels like exclusion to me. Can you explain that, Mr Flanagan?

I believe that the letter is wrong in those regards. There is a strong history of the SPA inviting key stakeholders. The chief inspector has a standing invitation to any meeting that he wishes to attend. It may not be explicitly set out in the framework document but the chief inspector attends meetings and the staff associations regularly engage with the various committees of the board.

If I could perhaps add some clarity to that, the terms of reference give authority to committee chairs to invite representatives to their committees as they see fit. They could be members of staff associations or other people with expert or specialist knowledge, for example.

I do not know Mr Penman but I can only imagine that it must have taken a lot of frustration for him to get to the point at which he felt that he had to put this into a letter. I take the point about standing orders but it sounds like people do not feel welcome or included. Do you recognise that, Mr Flanagan?

No, I do not.

Okay. John Scott QC, who advises the Scottish Government on policing matters, gave a speech to the Scottish Police Federation conference in which he talked about the SPA’s

“Failure to formally recognise the valuable input of staff associations”

which

“suggests an inability or unwillingness to listen to comments or criticism.”

Do you understand why those comments would have been made, Mr Flanagan?

No. I do not understand those comments and I am not aware that John Scott QC has had involvement with the staff associations in the meetings with the SPA. The staff associations and the trade unions regularly meet members of the police authority.

09:30  

Okay. That is cause for concern because, when the Sunday papers ask, “Is Scottish policing fit for purpose?” we want the committee to get some reassuring answers so that the public can feel safe and reassured. You do not seem to accept that there is a problem and, if you do not recognise the problems, we cannot find the solutions. You are not concerned by anything that anyone is saying about the governance and transparency of the Scottish Police Authority.

No, we are concerned and we are listening. A number of representations have been made to us, including by the chief inspector. We set out the process for reviewing the governance to which Mr Johnston referred 12 months ago. I was asked to do that review not because it was perceived that things were working well but because there was a series of issues that we wanted to address.

The review made 30 recommendations, two of which Derek Penman—the chief inspector—has concerns about. A number of the other recommendations have been implemented. As recommended in last March’s report, we agreed to review the matter within 12 months and will review it in June this year. We will listen to the concerns that have been expressed.

The governance of policing in Scotland is a work in progress. We are trying to see how it is working and improving. My argument is that it has improved during the past 12 months and we are seeing the benefits of that. There is a much better relationship between the SPA and Police Scotland. There have been a significant number of pieces of joint working such as the contact, command and control—C3—governance review and the creation of the new strategy. That indicates a very different approach in the past 12 months to the one that existed previously.

The last time that you gave evidence to the committee, you said that Moi Ali did not communicate her position at the December board meeting ahead of time. However, since then, she has told the committee that she twice “made clear” her

“intention to voice concerns about aspects of the governance review”

to you. Is she right? Would you like to correct your original statement?

No, I think that she is wrong. I think that she said on a number of occasions that she would support the board although she disagreed with two specific recommendations on a personal level. That is documented in the record of the meeting we had on 5 December.

It seems to be a widely held view that Moi Ali has been treated appallingly by the SPA, which means you, in effect. Do you feel any regret? Have you apologised to her?

In my subsequent letter to Moi Ali, I expressed regret about the timing of my letter, which was caught up in the Christmas festive period. However, I have no regrets about making the challenge that I put to her.

You have deliberately withheld information from your own board. You also sent Moi Ali a private letter criticising her comments at the December board meeting and she received it on Christmas eve, unfortunately, although that was not your intention. Are you not concerned that, when people look at all that together, you will be perceived as a control freak?

I do not think that information was withheld. I agree that the letter was not copied and, as Paul Johnston has said, in retrospect, perhaps it would have been better to do that. However, the letter’s contents were shared with the board, which was aware of the chief inspector’s concerns.

The committee is not in the mood to play with words. You chose to keep the letter—an extremely serious letter—to yourself. You withheld that information. There is no other way to describe it.

As I said, the content of what Derek Penman was raising was known to the board. Again, in the meeting of 5 December, Moi Ali talked about the chief inspector’s concerns. It was known.

How can you possibly be in control of all information that is known to other board members? People can be in a meeting and not paying full attention. Are you expecting that everyone has the same level of information and that you would never have to go back and check that? You are treating the board members like infants.

I disagree.

Of course.

The items were discussed fully and Derek Penman’s reservations about the governance review and those two specific points were understood and noted.

Perhaps Paul Johnston can shine some light on this. In his speech at the Scottish Police Federation conference, John Scott QC, who I am sure is known to you, said that

“what has been allowed to develop is extremely unhealthy and must not continue”.

It appears that it is still continuing.

When I was last in front of the committee, I indicated that a number of issues had been raised around governance and that we would work with the Scottish Police Authority to seek to ensure that those issues were addressed. It is still important to address outstanding issues or concerns around governance.

Since we last met, a lot of work has been done. The two key issues that I see as being of real interest are, first, the decision that committee meetings will normally be held in private and, secondly, the timing of when papers are made publicly available. The chair wrote to the cabinet secretary after the last session indicating that those matters would be discussed at the public board meeting that took place in March. A record of that meeting is available.

The publication of papers has been addressed and the papers are now being made available under embargo in advance of the public meetings. The chair could say more about that.

The board members had a discussion about whether they wished the committee meetings to continue to be held in private. The chair might wish to say more about that but my understanding is that the conclusion was that some further work should be done on that matter by one specific member of the SPA, and that work is now taking place. Perhaps, if the member agrees, the chair could say a little bit more about that, because we are looking now at the action that is being taken to address the concerns that have been raised around governance.

Paul Johnston is right that we agreed to start putting the papers out earlier. That decision was based on a request from a number of stakeholders who felt that they could better appreciate the proceedings of the board meeting if they had a chance to read the papers in advance. We acceded to that request. The papers went out under embargo and that worked well. The board agreed to continue with that practice through to June, when we will do the full review.

David Hume, one of our board members who sat on the reference group for the review of governance, has agreed that he will conduct the review in June. In the meantime, he is drawing up a code or policy on how we exercise openness and transparency. We will consider that at the main meeting.

The board committee chairs agreed to look at the schedule of business for the forthcoming meetings and to make more explicit their welcome to various stakeholders to come to present evidence to the committees as appropriate.

I am certainly pleased to hear that the papers are now available in advance. How many days before each meeting are the papers circulated?

Forty-eight hours before the meeting.

Forty-eight hours? What day of the week do your meetings normally take place on?

Sometimes on Wednesdays and quite often on Thursdays.

Okay. Do you think that you are giving people enough time?

I think so. Certainly the feedback that we got last time was positive.

You said that it worked well. Can you say a bit more about that?

It worked well according to the feedback that we got. People were pleased that we were doing it. One or two queries were raised in advance that we were able to deal with so the process seemed to work as well as we could expect.

Finally, on the media coverage in The Herald today, some comments have been made by the previous chair, Brian Barbour. I have a question for Paul Johnston—why does the Scottish Government get draft agendas in advance?

The Scottish Government has an interest in many of the issues that are being discussed by the Scottish Police Authority and, as you will appreciate, it is possible that a decision that is made by the authority could attract media interest and ministers could be expected to comment on it. That is a legitimate role for Government ministers as set out in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. It is therefore important that the officials supporting ministers are aware of the matters that are being considered by the SPA board so that they can brief ministers on any significant issues that might arise at board meetings and ministers can be ready to provide comment on those issues. That is the reason for having sight of the board’s papers.

Has the Scottish Government ever commented on a draft agenda?

To the best of my knowledge, such comments would be on issues of factual accuracy, particularly on issues that are legitimately a matter for the Government, such as the overall financial settlement and budget setting. A range of areas that are of interest to the Government might be subject to some comment. Don McGillivray may want to add to that.

On Mr Barbour’s specific allegation that the Scottish Government is somehow controlling the agenda and demanding that items be removed from it, I cannot recall, in my 18 months in the post, ever asking the SPA to remove anything from the agenda.

Similarly, Ms Lennon, I cannot recall ever having an instruction or suggestion from the Scottish Government that we remove a paper.

You think that Mr Barbour’s statement that things would disappear if the Government or officials did not want them to see the light of day is factually incorrect. You are saying that that did not happen.

Mr Barbour’s time on the board overlapped only for a few months with my time in post. Nevertheless, I cannot recall ever, in the past 18 months, having asked the SPA to remove items from the agenda.

I do not recall being asked to do that, either.

Who would do the asking, Mr McGillivray? Would it be you?

The day-to-day relationship between the Scottish Government and the SPA operates on a number of levels. I have regular dialogue with the chief executive, and the director I work under has regular dialogue with Andrew Flanagan. There are a number of working-level contacts as well, and I am not aware of anybody who works for me ever having made such a request in the time that I have been in post.

I have certainly not received such a request in my time as the chair. I do not think that I have even had a conversation with any officials from the Scottish Government about the agenda.

I met Mr Barbour, who—I add this correction for the record—had been a board member, not the chair.

Apologies.

I invited him to talk to me when I had just started, as I was interested in the views of somebody who had just left. There is an opportunity for people to be very candid in those circumstances. I asked him about his experiences and his reasons for resigning from the board, and he did not raise the matter with me as an issue.

If you were ever asked by Government officials to change the agenda, you would say no.

Absolutely, unless there was a valid reason for doing that. However, I cannot, off the top of my head, think of what that reason might be.

Colin Beattie wants to come in on that issue.

Yes. My questions will be based on governance and so on. The letter is obviously of great concern to the committee. Can Mr Foley and Mr Flanagan give us an assurance that no other letters from relevant sources have been suppressed or held back from the board?

I am not aware of anything other than the letter.

This is the only occasion on which something that should have been circulated to the board was not circulated.

I do not routinely copy all correspondence to me to all members of the board. There is a judgment to be made on that. Formal reports that come in are shared with all board members—for example, reports from the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner would automatically be shared with board members.

I think that you are rather qualifying that. You obviously made a judgment that the letter did not need to be circulated to the board, and you are saying that there are perhaps other things that, in your judgment, did not need to be circulated to the board. Was there anything else of that nature—containing suggestions, criticisms or input—of which the board should have been advised, informed and aware?

09:45  

No. I am not aware of anything else. As I said earlier, the contents of Derek Penman’s letter and the points that were raised were well known by the board.

Have you ever had any freedom of information requests about the secret, or private, meetings?

Yes—some. They were mainly information requests, and we complied with them if that was appropriate.

So you were able to find the information in records of those meetings and to comply with the freedom of information requests.

Yes. I am not aware of any requests that we have not been able to supply information on.

So all the records of those private meetings are, in fact, available, and they should be able to be supplied to the committee.

They certainly would have been at the time we were discharging anything under freedom of information. I am not trying to give the impression that they are not available; I just need to check that everything is available. My belief is that it is, but I would need to check that.

On the second page of the chief inspector’s letter, he says in the second paragraph from the bottom that he issued

“a Professional Advice Note in relation to the leadership and governance of the Authority’s forensic service”,

and he expresses concern about

“how the governance issues raised in our advice note will be fully addressed.”

Could we see a copy of that professional advice note? What has been done to answer the issues that the chief inspector raised?

Yes, absolutely, you can see a copy of the advice note. We changed the governance arrangements relating to forensics with the introduction of a forensic services advisory board, which involves members of the authority. That has been in operation for a couple of months now.

The chief inspector seems to be unclear about whether that answers the governance issues.

No. The advice note that we received from the chief inspector suggested a slightly different structure, and it may well be that we adopt it. HMI has recently been conducting a review of forensic services; it has not been finalised, so the report has not been published yet. However, the report will be published, and it will clearly be in the public domain at that point. We expect the document to reflect our dialogue in that inspection.

One of the reasons why I raise that issue is that we seem to see governance issues being raised all the way through. There is a pattern; it does not seem to be just a one-off.

In the last paragraph on the second page of the chief inspector’s letter, he expresses reservations about the

“proposal that committees will not, in general, have decision-making powers.”

Will they just be talking shops? What will they achieve?

As was set out in the governance review, we wanted to try to improve the amount of safe space for discussions between us and Police Scotland. When I undertook the review, it was clear that there was a lack of information flow from Police Scotland to the SPA. The SPA often heard things at the 11th hour or even after the event, and there were issues to do with stop and search, armed policing, counters and traffic wardens that were not being well handled. In the governance review, I suggested that we should try to shift the spectrum a little bit to have the committees meeting in private so that there would be a safe space for people to discuss matters. However, in such a situation it would be inappropriate for the committees to have decision-making powers. Therefore, we shifted the decision-making powers to the full board.

As I set out in the governance review, the committees are more like working groups with board members whose skills in those areas are more specific than those of the general membership of the board. They can go through and spend more time looking at the issues in detail. Any points that need to be decided must go to the full board for full discussion.

Do those committees make recommendations?

They do.

Are those recommendations normally accepted?

Not without further discussion and challenge if necessary.

But are they normally accepted? There is no point in committees doing all that work if their recommendations are not going to be accepted.

I can think of some that were not accepted, including recommendations by the finance committee about property in Peterhead and Haddington, whereby we gave only conditional approval and not full approval.

How many committees are there?

There are three—[Interruption.] Sorry—there are four.

What are they?

They are the audit and risk committee, the finance and investment committee, the people committee and the police committee.

And they all need to meet in private.

That was the recommendation in the governance review, and its purpose was, I think, to encourage better discussion between ourselves and Police Scotland. That approach has delivered. However, the relationship with Police Scotland has moved on significantly in the past 12 months, and I think that whether we need to maintain that position will be a subject for discussion in the review in June. Personally, I am relatively open-minded about that now.

In the second paragraph on the third page of his letter, the chief inspector considers

“whether ... you have sufficient credibility and confidence amongst politicians, public, stakeholders and ... staff to support your proposal that ... scrutiny should be conducted in private.”

Do you believe that you have that credibility and confidence?

I think that it is work in progress. The SPA and Police Scotland continue to have work to do in that area, but I think that we can get to that position. As I said, I am open-minded, and if the review in the summer concludes that we no longer have to have the committee meetings in private or that parts of them can be in public, I will be quite content with that.

Given where you are at the moment, do any stakeholders support your view that the committees should report in private?

We are undertaking work to talk to all stakeholders, but at the moment I cannot say yes or no with regard to the view of all stakeholders. Clearly, the chief inspector has said that he has concerns, and we are taking that very seriously.

Apparently, planning for the chief inspector’s inspection started in March 2017. Have there been discussions already about the inspection and its scope?

We have had discussions about the timetable for the inspection and some aspects of its scope, but we have not had a full discussion at a full planning meeting.

I have a further question or two on the letter to you, Mr Flanagan. You have said on a number of occasions this morning that members of the board were generally aware of the contents of the letter and that you therefore decided that there was no need to distribute it. However, I have Mr Penman’s letter in front of me and he states in the last paragraph:

“On the basis of ... previous discussions ... I have decided that it would be timely for HMICS to schedule a statutory inspection”.

That reads to me that Mr Penman is making an announcement or proposal in his letter. How could your board members have been aware of that?

The chief inspector has a statutory responsibility to conduct an inspection, and it is clearly his decision as to when he wants to invoke that. We had discussions with him previously. Before I started in my role in September 2015, he had conducted an improvement exercise on governance and there was a report and a series of recommendations that the SPA was working through before I conducted the governance review. The remaining recommendations were overtaken by the governance review itself. Mr Penman came in and did some work to ensure that all the recommendations that he had previously made were covered either through implementation or through the on-going work on the governance review.

On the timeliness of his inspection, one might even say that an inspection was overdue. We welcome his view. Again, the members of the board knew about that as part of the discussions that we were having with him.

We all know that he has a statutory duty to inspect, but in the letter he makes a clear announcement that he is going to conduct the inspection. How could your members possibly have known that? They could not have done, because he makes the announcement in the letter.

I discussed the contents of the letter. I cannot remember whether I mentioned that specific point, but within a week or 10 days, he put out his annual report and the inspection was mentioned in that. There was also press comment on it.

That brings us to the crux of the matter, on which Mr Neil and Ms Lennon have led. You claim that the board knew the entire contents of the letter, but they quite clearly did not know that Mr Penman had made a decision to carry out the inspection, that he had announced it in the letter of 9 December and that he had asked you to tell the board. They could not have known that, so why did you not share that information with them?

I may have done. I do not remember when we discussed the inspection.

But you said that you did not share the letter or its contents with the board.

I have acknowledged that I did not circulate the letter, but we have discussed his inspection on a number of occasions. Having checked my notes, I can say that at the meeting on 5 December, Miss Ali noted that Derek Penman had said that he may subject us to an inspection. That was before it was announced in that letter.

That was that he “may” have an inspection, and we know that there is a statutory duty so an inspection could happen at any point. The letter contains a clear indication to you, as the chair, that an inspection will take place and that there is a clear timetable for it, yet you chose not to share that with the board members.

As I say, we were aware that he was thinking about it.

If we, as a committee of the Scottish Parliament, write to you, as chair of the board, asking you to put certain matters to the board—to table them—do you believe it to be in your gift to decide whether to share such a request with your board members?

No. It would be a question of what you were asking for and how that needed to be communicated to them.

If we made a specific request, as Mr Penman did, to share a letter and inform your board members, would you have the right to withhold it, if you decided that your board members already knew what the committee wanted to say?

I could inform the members, but that does not equate to copying the letter to the board in all cases.

How do you think that that approach accords with the general principles of openness and accountability?

As long as the members are informed, it accords with those principles.

I am aware that thinking about an inspection is substantially different from deciding that you are going to have one. I acknowledge the acknowledgement by both the Scottish Government and Mr Flanagan that, with the benefit of hindsight, those matters should have been formally reported to the board.

I am also aware of what the guidance given to members of public bodies says. I would like Mr Johnston to clear something up for me, because—if I may say so—there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the chair of the SPA board. It is all very well to debate and disagree at board meetings, private meetings and committees, but it is only once the board has arrived at a decision following that debate that collective responsibility applies. Is that a fair interpretation of the Government’s guidance?

Yes, that is a fair interpretation. There are specific provisions on boards that explain what collective responsibility entails. In particular, it is set out that if a board member disagrees with a matter in public, the board member can ask for his or her disagreement to be noted in the minutes, but the concept of collective responsibility means that the board member must then support the decision of the board if he or she is going to continue to be a board member.

Based on what we have just heard from Mr Johnston, Mr Flanagan, and given your correspondence with Moi Ali, do you want to reflect on the fact that at no stage did she breach collective responsibility?

I agree that Moi Ali’s support was forthcoming after the board’s decision had been made. My main issue was that, up to that point, she had said that she would support the board’s decision, but she did not do that in the meeting.

10:00  

The board had not reached a decision. Indeed, there was debate—and even dissent—at the board meeting. We have heard quite clearly from Mr Johnston that the provisions on collective responsibility would apply once the board had reached a decision. I put it to you as gently as I can that you perhaps jumped the gun and misinterpreted the guidance to board members.

There was certainly a point to be discussed with Ms Ali following the board meeting—that was what the letter tried to instigate.

I was listening closely to my colleagues’ questions to you. It strikes me that a culture of secrecy exists in the SPA. You mentioned papers being offered in advance to some stakeholders. I am curious to know what restrictions are put on the circulation of papers in advance of meetings. Are they published and made available to the public? If that is not the case, you would simply be operating a closed list of who gets the papers.

The papers for the March meeting had a fairly wide distribution. They went to all the staff associations, the trade unions, the chief inspector, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, local authorities, the Scottish Government and the media. The papers are only posted on the SPA website on the morning of the meeting.

Given that you send the papers to the media in advance, why do you not put them on the website when you send them to everyone else? That would be transparent and would fit with the recommendations in your governance review.

That is being considered.

Before I move on to other areas, a number of members have asked for information. I reiterate that I seek your agreement that you will provide the committee with the minutes of all the private sessions that have been referred to today and a copy of the chief inspector’s advice note on forensic services. Do you agree to do that?

Can I add to that list? To take up Willie Coffey’s point on Derek Penman’s formal announcement, as it were, of the forthcoming inspection in his letter, will you give us a copy of the minute of the meeting at which the board was informed of that decision? I do not want to know about rumours or a discussion; I want a copy of the minute of the meeting at which the board was informed of that decision.

Are you happy to provide that?

Yes.

That is very helpful.

I want to look forward, but I will stay in the same subject area, in so far as I am interested in public trust in the SPA. Your draft 10-year strategy talks quite a lot about trust. It says:

“Communities should influence decisions that affect them and they need to trust the decisions that will be taken about the future direction of policing.”

It also talks about improving

“public confidence in policing and”—

inspiring—

“trust by being transparent, accountable and acting with integrity, fairness and respect.”

What input do communities and the public have to the SPA board and committee meetings? What input will they have in the future?

At the moment, there are a minimum of eight meetings that are open to any member of the public to attend. They are also live streamed, so they can be watched on the internet. I think that we are the only public body that live streams its board meetings. The papers are also available. There are a number of engagement processes—through Police Scotland with local authorities, and with the scrutiny committees themselves.

We need to reflect on how the board can engage more formally with the public, so we are looking at conducting board meetings at different venues around the country and holding engagement events with the public at the same time.

The 10-year strategy is still in draft and subject to consultation. I think that the consultation period is quite short—is it 10 weeks?

I think that it is 10 weeks. Because of the timing of the local authority elections, we have extended the consultation time for local authorities, which have until the end of May to come back to us.

Is it likely that the public will have any impact on the 10-year strategy in a 10-week consultation period?

There are sessions for local engagement. We are communicating through a series of articles that have gone out through Johnston Press, with all its local titles, which serve a number of communities across the country. We are being pretty proactive in getting out and hearing views.

Could those views change the 10-year strategy?

Of course; it is a consultation. Clearly, we have put a lot of thought into the strategy and we think that we are proposing sensible ideas about how to take policing forward, but we will be open-minded about the consultation responses.

How many responses to the consultation have you had from current police officers?

I think that we are at about 1,000 responses, which are substantially from police staff and officers.

Are they broadly supportive?

They are supportive of the direction of travel. The questions are often about how the strategy will be implemented, rather than about the principle of some of the things that we are talking about doing.

Am I right in thinking that there are 12 SPA board members?

I think that there are about 10, with the new appointments.

We have just appointed four new members.

Yes, there are 11 plus the chair, so it is 12.

Sorry—are there 11 or 12?

There are 11 plus the chair.

There seems to be some confusion on this point, so perhaps you could let us know.

We have appointed four new members in the last couple of weeks.

One of the board members who has been appointed has not yet started.

Is it correct that only one of them has served as a police officer?

One of the existing members has been a serving police officer—he was a chief constable. The new member who is scheduled to start in June has also been a serving police officer.

You no doubt see where I am going. Are you comfortable that the board will fully understand and reflect the views of serving police officers, particularly if you are taking an existing chief constable? How certain are you that you are getting the views of serving officers?

We all want a certain amount of police expertise around the table. We talked earlier about engagement with the various staff associations and there is always an opportunity to get further views than only those that come through the senior officers of Police Scotland.

The opposite is also true. There would be a genuine concern if we were solely police officers around the board table.

I represent the north-east region. In the past months, there have been two incidents that seem to suggest that the centralisation of police forces and control rooms has had a negative impact. As you will be aware, in the north, an air ambulance was sent to Shetland instead of Orkney and, rather closer to home, a police unit was sent to a Tesco store in Glasgow instead of in Aberdeen.

How will you re-establish trust in policing and how will you measure that trust?

First, you should know that I have asked for reports on both those incidents to come to me directly. I want to know what happened and what the investigation of the circumstances that gave rise to those situations has found.

As part of control room centralisation we established a separate working group to review the process. The chief inspector of constabulary mentioned in his report in January that he felt that the governance of the process by the SPA had improved significantly, but work is in progress to build confidence among the public that the move to centralised control rooms is effective and that the system is operating properly. It is worth investigating the two incidents so that we can find out why they happened.

My second question was about how you will measure public confidence and trust.

Work on that is being done as part of the policing 2026 work. We are creating a performance framework, as a result of which we expect specific measures of public confidence and trust to be developed. At the moment, that is measured through public survey. We are working through the question whether that is enough.

I add that the Scottish Government publishes a number of public confidence measures through the Scottish crime and justice survey. That survey, which is published periodically, has a very large sample size.

I would like to ask you some questions on the budget—I always enjoy following the money.

Do you yet know what your final overspend for last year was?

I do not have the final figure. The estimate that was presented to the March board meeting was that there would be an overrun of £17 million. The year-end processes are under way and I have had no indication that the final figure will be different.

You are settling on £17 million, subject to rounding.

Mr Foley, do you have any other information?

No, convener. The chair gave the correct figure. The accountants in Police Scotland are working on that at the moment and, of course, the figures are subject to audit by the Auditor General.

I understand that you have had 18 accountants in three years. Is that right? I thought that that might have been a typographical error, so high is the number.

No—18 accountants have left Police Scotland since April 2013. To set that in context, when there were nine forces, there would have been nine finance directors, who had to be distilled down to one. There were people in post who left under the early retirement/voluntary redundancy scheme.

Do you have a new chief financial officer yet?

We interviewed the shortlisted candidates last week.

So we can expect news of a new chief financial officer soon.

Very soon.

A £17.5 million deficit is expected for 2016-17. As part of your accounts, you report an expected deficit of £47 million for 2017-18. What dialogue have you had with the Scottish Government about closing that gap?

We have had a number of discussions with the Scottish Government, and discussions are on-going. The Scottish Government was made aware of the deficit before the budget went to the board meeting in March. Police Scotland will undertake a series of actions—which might be of a one-off nature—in an effort to bring that figure down. We wanted to acknowledge what the on-going deficit position was and to work that down through a series of actions. I am hopeful that the deficit will come in at less than £47 million.

I want to tease that out a little. You mentioned “one-off” actions. It has been suggested, certainly in relation to this year, that the £17.5 million deficit will be covered by capital being applied to revenue. Are you suggesting that the same might happen for the £47 million?

No, we are not.

Okay.

Perhaps I can ask Paul Johnston a question. The use of capital—which is a one-off payment—to cover for recurring revenue shortfalls is genuinely frowned upon across the Scottish Government. Why do you consider that practice to be acceptable in the case of the SPA and Police Scotland?

That was discussed when we appeared before the committee last month.

I was not there.

I appreciate that.

You can repeat what you said then.

I will endeavour to do so, although our finance lead was present at that meeting.

It was agreed that, exceptionally, we had allowed capital to be used to support the overall budgetary situation. My recollection is that that has happened for two years; Don McGillivray might be able to correct me on that. We absolutely do not want that to be the norm. In particular, we want the reform budget, which has a mixture of revenue and capital elements, to be used to deliver on-going sustainability in the budgets. That is our expectation, and work is in hand to ensure that it happens.

10:15  

Just to aid my understanding, how much capital will be applied to reducing the £47 million deficit? The exceptional payment that you talk about might roll into a third year.

The £47 million is the projection for the year that has just commenced. At present, we do not anticipate that there will be any switch of capital to revenue, although in the past that has been requested as the year has gone on. For example, it has happened in response to slippage in capital projects. We are starting this new financial year with the assumption that there will not be movement from capital to revenue, and on the basis of a plan to deliver long-term sustainability, as set out in the 2026 documentation.

However, as you have described, you get requests in-year and the profile changes. Are you ruling out the use of capital in that way, given that, to use your words, it is an “exceptional” thing and therefore running into a third year would not be very good in accounting terms?

I certainly hope that we do not have to do that again this year. I am loth to rule it out, given the early stage that we are at in the financial year and the range of unknowns that may lie ahead of us. However, we are clear that our wish is to have a sustainable budgetary position so that we do not have to rely on capital to revenue transfers. That is exactly what the 2026 proposal seeks to deliver.

I have a factual question for Paul Johnston. Does the £47 million projection take into account the additional money that Derek Mackay, the finance secretary, announced in his budget?

Yes.

Yes.

So, after that £25 million has been used, there is still a projected deficit of £47 million.

That is the projection as of the start of this financial year. Our expectation is that the SPA and Police Scotland will work to bring that down. In previous years, when there has been a gap, work has been done to reduce that. We will work with the SPA and Police Scotland to support their efforts to reduce that deficit in the course of the year.

Liam Kerr can ask a quick question before I bring in Ross Thomson.

It is very quick. What is the proposed salary of the CFO that you are recruiting?

We have not nailed it down, but I anticipate that it will be in the region of £115,000. It could be less. I do not want to say too much, because obviously there is a shortlist of candidates, and they would know if they saw this meeting.

I always thought that there was transparency in public pay, but there you go. That is clearly not the case.

There will be, as soon as it is announced. We are in negotiations with people.

Okay—interesting.

I want to return to the SPA’s draft 10-year strategy, which my colleague Liam Kerr asked about. The strategy says that the SPA will

“Continuously improve public confidence in policing and inspire trust by being transparent, accountable and acting with integrity, fairness and respect.”

In the fourth paragraph of Mr Penman’s letter, he says that the SPA’s approach

“seems at odds with your key principle of transparency and your commitment that the Authority should be open and transparent and operate to the highest standards of public sector administration and management.”

He goes on to say:

“Effective scrutiny of policing in Scotland is essential in maintaining both legitimacy and public confidence”.

Given what is in that letter and what we have heard in answer to questions, and given the convenient collective amnesia that we have heard today, the SPA is not fit for purpose, is it?

No, I do not agree. We have made a number of substantial movements in the past 12 months, based on the governance review. I think that we are becoming more effective. It is important that we recognise that there is already a high and significant degree of openness through the public board meetings that we have, which are second to none among public bodies in Scotland.

In terms of progress, the policing 2026 strategy represents the first time that we have had a clear direction of travel for policing in Scotland. There are a number of steps that will be taken with the performance framework that were not there before, to show exactly what is meant by holding the chief constable to account. We are on a journey. Is it perfect? No, it is not perfect, but in the past 12 months or so there have been significant steps forward.

Thank you. You talked about the effectiveness and openness of board meetings, but let us look at the evidence. Mr Penman states in his letter that

“there is a real risk that proceedings at formal board meetings will become truncated and perceived by some as perfunctory ... It is my strong view that scrutiny in policing not only needs to be effective—it needs to be seen to be effective.”

Do you agree that there is a real risk of public confidence being further eroded if you do not work to address the concerns that Mr Penman has highlighted in his letter?

I think that we have to ensure that the board meetings are not perfunctory or rubber stamped. We need to have open discussion at those board meetings. We have taken a number of steps to improve the quality of the agendas and of the papers, so that we do not get 200-page reports that nobody can read, and we have made a lot of progress in ensuring that we are having informed discussions at the board in a much better way than was the case previously.

If the SPA is not functioning—and deep concern has been highlighted in this committee and by the inspectorate—who is ultimately responsible for that?

Ultimately, the board of the SPA is responsible for it.

I do not want to speak for all committee members, but given that two members of the board have resigned and there is evidence in the newspapers today of another, it seems that the committee can have little confidence in the SPA. Have you thought about your own position at all?

No, I have not. I was brought in to do a job. I am subject to annual performance reviews. I have had positive feedback. I have talked to my board about my performance and I believe that I am doing an effective job.

Do you agree, Mr Johnston?

Yes. As Mr Flanagan said, the chair is subject to regular performance reviews. That responsibility falls to me. I am sure that the committee would not expect me to conduct that review in public to any extent, but on-going performance reviews will be undertaken by me.

Given the letter from Mr Penman, the second resignation and the damning comments by this committee, I presume that you will be acting with urgency to address the concerns that have been raised.

I will be working closely with the chair and with the police authority on the matters raised.

On a point of factual accuracy, I would like to state that the media reporting today does not relate to a recent resignation. I am not sure when Mr Barbour resigned, but I think that it was about two years ago.

It was a year and a half ago.

I presume that two resignations from a board would still trouble you.

We would certainly want to understand the circumstances of all resignations, and if there are lessons to be learned from resignations I would want to be sure that we learned those lessons.

For clarity, I should say that Mr Barbour resigned before I joined as chair.

I have a quick supplementary question regarding Paul Johnston’s comment. Given your statement that you would like to get a good understanding of what is behind resignations, I take it that you have asked for a debriefing and a meeting with Moi Ali to understand why she resigned.

I can confirm that my colleague who is director for safer communities has had engagement with Ms Ali regarding the circumstances of her resignation. If I am not undertaking it personally, I want to ensure that members of my team are having that engagement and are reporting to me.

Has that already happened?

Don McGillivray has reminded me that discussions took place shortly before the resignation. When I was last before the committee, I indicated that I was very keen that we gave full consideration to the circumstances of the resignation, and particularly the matters that Ms Ali has set out. Indeed, that is what we have been discussing today—particularly the point about both committees meeting in private, which is still very much the subject of live consideration, and the points around on board guidance that we have discussed with the convener.

But the convener’s earlier point was that Ms Ali has apparently acted totally within the rules, and yet she appears to have been forced off the board because she wanted to minute her disagreement with a board decision. That is perfectly allowable under the rules, yet the chairman, in his letter in correspondence with Ms Ali, said that he thought that it was a resignation issue.

To aid discussion, I suggest that perhaps either Mr Johnston or Mr McGillivray should speak to Moi Ali directly rather than delegating it to anybody else.

I was present at the meeting with Moi Ali that took place on 31 January, to which Paul Johnston referred. I make the point that it was in the days just prior to her resignation rather than just subsequently.

On the convener’s point, I add that I am very happy to meet Ms Ali directly, to have a further conversation about the matters that she has set out.

That would be very helpful.

But do you agree that she has not broken any rules and that she was perfectly entitled to minute her dissent from a decision?

As I have set out, the on board guidance anticipates a situation in which a member can indicate their concern and can ask for their dissent to be minuted.

Why, then, did the chairman basically force her to resign because she did so?

The chair might wish to comment further on that, but I think that there is an issue with the characterisation of the communication. In particular, the SPA has submitted to the committee a subsequent letter that was sent from the chair to Ms Ali, which perhaps the chair would wish to describe—

That makes it worse. It reinforces the point that she was driven off the board because she minuted her dissent. Mr Flanagan’s letter makes it absolutely clear that she was driven off the board even though she had not broken any rules. It even hints that she had leaked information. There is no evidence whatsoever that she leaked any information. Mr Johnston, you should be very concerned about that.

I accept Mr Johnston’s commitment to meet Ms Ali, which I think is productive, given the correspondence that has been going backwards and forwards. We are grateful for that.

There are no more questions from members. I thank all our witnesses for appearing this morning. I gather that two of you are staying on, so we will have a short suspension to enable the seats to be changed around.

10:27 Meeting suspended.  

10:28 On resuming—