Item 4 is to ask the committee to agree to take in private our final draft report on oral questions at the next meeting. Do members agree to do that, given that we have already agreed to discuss the draft report in private as our next agenda item?
I know that we agreed at our previous meeting to take our draft report in private today and I will not challenge that. However, the report sets out the options so well that had I seen it then, I am not sure that I would have taken the decision to discuss it in private. Until we reach the end of our discussion on the draft report I will not be sure that we need to discuss it in private at our next meeting. Do we need to make the decision today?
The trouble is that we have to make that decision in public.
Can we make the decision in public at the beginning of our next meeting if we need to?
We are supposed to publish whether we are going into private session in advance of doing so.
It is clearly preferable to make a decision before the next meeting. There are issues about whether the draft report is public.
In that case, can I agree with reservations? I might challenge you at our next meeting, because, having read the draft report, I do not think that we have to discuss it in private today. However, now that we have made the decision to do so, it is a bit difficult to go back on it.
I note those points. Do members agree at this stage that we will take in private the draft report at our next meeting? We might review that.
Meeting continued in private until 13:30.
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Scottish Civic Forum