Procedures Committee, 01 Feb 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 1, 2000

Official Report 232KB pdf

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Committee Videoconferencing Facilities

The third item arises from a letter from David Mundell, whom I welcome to the committee. We are also joined by Lesley Beddie.

I declare that I have a registered interest in British Telecommunications Scotland, which may impact on this matter.

I became aware in November that there were videoconferencing facilities in the Parliament headquarters. During December, Elaine Murray, Michael Russell, Colin Campbell and I participated in a video link between the Parliament and Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, which has excellent facilities. Everybody agreed that that meeting worked extremely well.

A cross-section of the community, including school pupils and the community council, asked us a range of questions, which, as is typical of the public, were much more difficult to answer than those that come from other sources. The event took place on a wintry December evening, which was, I think, the evening of the Labour party Christmas party. Not only would it have been difficult for some of those present to attend a public meeting, the weather in the Langholm area would have made it difficult for the event to happen at all.

It was clear that videoconferencing offered an excellent facility for direct contact with the public, for information gathering by committees and, potentially, for members' surgeries. I then discussed videoconferencing with a number of people, including Lesley Beddie.

It became clear that there was confusion about the extent to which the standing orders allow for videoconferencing to be used during the proceedings of the Parliament and its committees. I felt that it was important that the issue be clarified, so that people could not say, "We cannot do this as the standing orders do not allow it."

It also seemed to me that the Parliament should be taking an experimental approach and not overly constricting itself. I am an advocate of the use of videoconferencing. It might not work in every circumstance, but let us try it. If it does not work, we can move on to something else, but if it does, we can enhance and work with it.

I was keen for the Procedures Committee to clarify the extent to which videoconferencing can be used. This is mainly about a change of mindset, so that people feel comfortable with the facility and want to use it. The reporters that a number of committees have appointed will be involved in evidence gathering that can be supported by the facility. That is the background to my letter to you, convener.

Is the standing order difficulty the incompatibility between the requirement to make meetings and evidence publicly available and the physical limitations on the videoconferencing facility?

I think that the two are connected. However—with due respect to the committee—not all members are as intimate with the standing orders as you perhaps envisage, convener. Members may not be clear about this issue and think that hidden away in standing orders there is bound to be something that makes it impossible for us to use videoconferencing.

The facilities in the basement are obviously restricted. I hope that there will be a significant improvement in the new Parliament building. Several committees are proceeding with sub-groups and individual reporters. I do not think that there would be any difficulty in the public having access to the relevant rooms while videoconferencing took place. I have just come from a meeting in a room similar to this, to which only four members of the public could have been admitted. I do not think that the restriction is realistic.

John Patterson, you have submitted a draft letter to the committee. Do you believe that there is a standing orders issue, or is it simply an issue of interpretation and guidance?

It is more the latter. There is nothing about videoconferencing in standing orders. We believe that there is no limitation rooted in a particular rule. We mentioned rule 12.3.4 to highlight the fact that committees should normally meet in public. Beyond that, I do not think that there is any bar.

So if a committee wanted to take evidence using the videoconferencing facilities, it would have to agree to meet in private, simply because there is no space for the public in the room? Is that the issue, or are we saying that we would squeeze in as many people as we could? Alternatively, could we take the evidence and relay it at a public meeting?

That is a difficult question. The starting point should be that committees should normally meet in public. There are clearly some practical considerations, but there is nothing in standing orders to rule out videoconferencing.

Before I ask Mike Russell to address the issues, I would like to hear from Lesley Beddie. The report was about the spread of information and communications technology and was intended to go to the conveners liaison group. Do you see practical difficulties in using videoconferencing for a committee meeting?

I see a few limitations. First, the videoconferencing suite downstairs is not very big. Secondly, whoever is giving evidence needs to have access to facilities at the other end. However, that is quite easily done—in many parts of the public sector and in many industries it is seen as a natural thing to do, so it is becoming increasingly available.

Here at the interim accommodation, because of the layout and location, many people have found this very difficult. It is not impossible, but we have to think fairly innovatively about how the committees work and the appropriate way to use technology to support and develop that work.

Do you mean that we should either relocate the facility or use rapporteurs because we could fit in the rapporteur, the staff and the public?

Many things are possible if we consider what the committee wants to do and what technology is available. We may have to adapt some of the technology. Mobile videoconferencing equipment is available, but it is expensive. We could use those facilities if committees met in larger rooms, such as this one.

The standing order difficulty should not detain us for too long; I agree with John Patterson about that. If we used videoconferencing in a committee room such as this, it would be a public facility. We would take evidence from and discuss matters with someone who appeared on a screen. If the screen were visible to the people attending the committee, the evidence given would be as public as if those giving it were attending the committee in person. That is not a great difficulty.

There may be a difficulty in the interpretation of the standing orders that talk about members being present at a meeting. We should consider that because it may require a slight tweaking of the wording to allow members to participate from another location. There are two distinct uses for videoconferencing: first, to take evidence from people who are not members of the committee; secondly, to allow David Mundell, when he gets snowed in at Langholm, to participate in a committee meeting. That would be a very useful facility, as long as we did not over-rely on it.

We should know more about the locations of videoconferencing facilities in Scotland so that we can make use of them. I am sure that David Mundell, through the good offices of BT and others, could give us a list of facilities in Scotland and encourage us to use them. We should encourage the conveners liaison group to consider using the videoconferencing suite, which is not particularly attractive and is stuck in the basement—not a salubrious location. If the committees started to use that facility, there might be enough pressure to have it reinstalled in another committee room, such as committee room 4.

As we consider moving to the new premises, we should think about integrating the latest technology so that committees and individual members can use it. Webcams of various types are developing every day and by the time we get into the new building, whenever that is, the technology will have moved on several stages. Let us suck it and see, but encourage committees to make use of the facilities.

We also need some notes on standing orders, just to clarify the position.

Is it that people do not use the facilities because they are out of sight and therefore out of mind? Should we consider moving the facility to one of the committee rooms and hope that the availability of the equipment will lead to people looking for ways in which to use it?

I would like to have some evidence to show that the facility is being used before we do that. I did not know where it was until David showed me and even then I got lost because the suite is not well signposted.

Most of us are not aware of the facility or how to book it if we want to make use of it. We need to promote its availability.

The conveners know that the facility exists, because we have discussed it.

The second issue is the location. I assume that something has been built into the design for the new building, but if not we should ensure that full videoconferencing facilities are available in at least one committee room and the chamber. We should also consider whether it is worth equipping one of the current committee rooms for videoconferencing, given that we will be here for at least another two years.

We need to know more about other facilities—the lack of that information is a problem. There are facilities at Langholm, but we need to know where else we can use videoconferencing facilities. It cannot be used at only one end.

Mr McConnell advised me that the Scottish Executive is in close consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about the siting of videoconferencing links for use between the Scottish Executive and local authorities. A large number of educational establishments have taken them up. On Monday, I hope to participate in a link between this Parliament and the Finnish Parliament. While some people will be in the headquarters here, I and other MSPs will be in Dumfries, at the Crichton campus. The facilities exist, but promotion is a key to their use. Sir David Steel supplied me with the names of a number of people who had used them—about half a dozen so far. Lesley may have better figures.

I do not, but we recognise that the facility has not been promoted extensively. Information on videoconferencing—such as how to book it—appears on the new intranet site, the Scottish Parliament electronic information resource, in the information technology section. There are moves to do more with it. I have been speaking with COSLA and the Executive about how we can make things work between those groups.

Can you tell us something about the new facilities? Will we be adequately equipped with what you understand to be the latest technology when we move down the road? Are you involved in the design for that?

Certainly. In fact, we had a meeting yesterday that addressed IT and broadcasting at Holyrood. Although the original specification was drawn up some time ago, it includes facilities for videoconferencing. Even as matters proceed, we expect that the committee rooms will be able to accommodate more videoconferencing and more broadcasting work. As you can see, the convergence of broadcasting and computing is enabling that. That is very much in our minds.

Promotion is the key word, and not only within the Parliament. This is the way to go because it opens up many avenues. Videoconferencing gives people the opportunity to be associated with the Parliament much more easily than they are at present. If we promote the facility within the Parliament, which I believe we should, it will become commonplace in other areas of Scottish life. We could ask to have extra resources put in key locations in Scotland.

It will have some practical outcomes, then. We will get the clerks to give specific consideration to the standing orders so that we can satisfy ourselves that there is nothing there that would be an impediment. We will write to the corporate body about the possibility of moving the facility to a committee room and we will communicate with the conveners liaison group on the promotion issue, advising them of what we are doing and suggesting that there might be a greater willingness to make the facility better available if people were actually looking for ways to use it.

We need a list of locations where videoconferencing exists in Scotland, where we can—

Might BT be able to give us that, David?

I think so. Various other organisations, such as local authorities and academic institutions, would be able to provide that information. That is something worth doing. Individual members should be encouraged to use videoconferencing for their own purposes, just to

get comfortable with it. People have preconceptions—the quality of transmission from Lesley's facilities is much better than the quality that people may have been accustomed to in the past. The more comfortable people are with it, the more it will be used.

I think we have general agreement on that. Thank you for your attendance.

Meeting closed at 11:58.