Scottish Parliament Health and Community Care Committee Wednesday 22 November 2000 (Morning)
[The Convener opened the meeting at 10:01]
Good morning and welcome to today's meeting of the Health and Community Care Committee.
Before we deal with the agenda, I will make a short statement about our community care inquiry report. Most members will know that the report appears to have been leaked to the BBC. The matter is now in the hands of the Standards Committee, which has received two formal complaints. I simply want to inform members that that is the situation at the moment. The committee will make no more comment on the matter, or anything relating to it, that would be prejudicial to the Standards Committee's inquiry. It is likely that the Standards Committee will contact every member of this committee individually. We must leave the Standards Committee to investigate the matter.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is that not the third of our reports that has been leaked to the press? Should that also be an issue for the Standards Committee?
It is certainly the second report that has been the subject of a formal complaint to the Standards Committee. You are probably right that it is the third. I will raise that matter when the Standards Committee talks to me, because there are wider implications for all the committees about the drafting of reports. Everybody needs to be involved in the final stages of producing a report, when we are moving from the draft to the final version, to ensure that everybody is happy. At the same time, the process must be kept as tight as possible.
We could chat all day about how damaging it is for a report to be leaked, but at this stage I do not want to say any more. When individual members are contacted by the Standards Committee, they will have the opportunity not only to say anything factual about the leak but to comment on the wider implications.