Public Petitions Committee, 04 Nov 2008

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Official Report 295KB pdf

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Petitions Process Inquiry

Item 3 on the agenda is our inquiry into the public petitions process. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting; I hope that we will have a constructive discussion. Members of the Public Petitions Committee are keen to continue with the positive progress that we have made since the establishment of the committee in the Scottish Parliament. However, following a petition that we received from Young Scot, the committee has acknowledged that issues arise related to the way in which people—particularly young people—can become involved with the process of democracy and engage with elected parliamentarians. That was the genesis of our desire to hold an inquiry.

As members know, there is evidence to suggest that many parts of Scotland do not engage in any real fashion with the public petitions process, and we would like to hear about ways in which we could address that issue.

We recognise that other perspectives need to be heard. It is important that the Public Petitions Committee does not rest on its laurels. We are in advance of many other democracies, but we can continue to improve, and it would be useful to hear about ways in which we can do so.

Today's session will take the form of a round-table discussion, with members of the public being interspersed between parliamentarians, which should lessen the possibility of there being an adversarial atmosphere, and should facilitate more open and honest engagement.

This is a public session, so it will be recorded by the staff of the Official Report and broadcast as normal. The aim is to facilitate a general discussion and get answers to some questions. If anyone feels, during the discussion, that we have not asked a question about an issue that we should have asked about, they should feel free to let us know.

The first question will be asked by Marlyn Glen, who will introduce herself as a newcomer to the committee.

I am a relatively new member of the committee, so I will start with a general question. What is the witnesses' overall assessment of how the Parliament and the committee publicise the existence of the public petitions process, and how could we do that better?

Peter McColl, would you like to answer that? Robin Harper told me to pick on you first.

I will deal with him later.

I am here to speak on behalf of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the policy officer network, which is an informal network of voluntary sector policy officers that SCVO facilitates. I will therefore reflect the experience of the broader voluntary sector as well as of SCVO.

We think that the public petitions process is reasonably well publicised. The media helps in that regard, as it sometimes picks up and promotes petitions. Indeed, petitions are one of the few elements of the parliamentary process that make an appearance on the news. However, it would be problematic if the committee were to rely on that.

A fair degree of information about the petitions process is available to insiders—if your job involves keeping an eye on Parliament, it is easy to see what is going on. Beyond that bubble, however, there are problems, which all our organisations face daily.

We have no specific suggestions about how you could publicise the process better. We think that the existing publicity is reasonably good.

I am speaking on behalf of the Hansard Society, which is a political education and research charity.

As Peter McColl said, information about petitions is available to insiders and those who deal with the Parliament. There is an issue about public awareness of political processes in general, but the extent of the problem has not been quantified. Until that work has been done, the Public Petitions Committee should not rest on its laurels. We cannot make many assumptions about what is known about the petitions process by people other than those who are already involved to some degree. From evaluations of the public petitions process, we know that those who take part in the process or who are aware of Parliament are aware of the process. In other words, the process is well known to those who are already in the know.

On ways in which the petitions process could be better publicised, the Parliament is already involved in a number of good initiatives, such as roadshows and visits to communities. It is also important to work with the media, perhaps on case studies, so that people can see what happens in the Parliament and beyond when a petition is submitted on a particular issue. Such strategies could be developed without blowing a huge budget on advertising.

As I said, however, there is a need for research into public awareness of political processes in general.

Does Hannah Cornish have a view on that?

I am speaking on behalf of the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance, but I am also speaking on behalf of our members, who I think would see engagement with the petitions process as my role, rather than theirs, because most advocacy organisations engage with politics at a very local level. Although they have contact with MSPs, the idea of coming to Edinburgh to present a petition might seem like quite a distant possibility to some of them.

Do you think that the Public Petitions Committee has a responsibility to find ways of getting out to those parts of Scotland where folk feel as if they cannot come to talk to us?

I think so. People need to learn from good examples. What is the point of a petition? What have petitions achieved in the past? It would be useful to put answers to those questions on the Parliament's website. I know the Parliament's website quite well—that is my job—but I have not found anything that says plainly that, for example, someone was able to get a new bus stop in their community as a result of a petition.

As the convener mentioned, Young Scot was behind the petition that kick-started some of the work that the committee is now involved in. When we were trying to get young people to sign the petition, we discovered that they had a low level of awareness of the petitions process and of their ability to get involved in parliamentary business. That was true across the whole age group.

Others have mentioned that people hear about petitions through the media. However, there is evidence that young people are increasingly turning away from mainstream media. Therefore, we need to find alternative ways of getting to them, whether those involve setting up roadshows and so on or piggybacking on the media that they use, such as social networking sites.

I support the views that have been expressed. We had a mixed response to the questions that we sent out. Some of our members are well aware of the petitions process and have a good knowledge of the Parliament, but other members do not, because they are not interested in politics in their daily lives.

People who are involved in parliamentary liaison have talked to excluded groups, and the SCVO provides some training on parliamentary awareness. As part of my role, I talk to people about how they can engage locally and nationally, and there is a group of trainers in the voluntary sector, in the civic participation network, that promulgates best practice in the training of people with communication support needs in ways in which they can get involved in the parliamentary process. More of that work must be done, and it must meet people's needs in terms of its approach and how it is publicised.

We have talked a lot about the Scottish Parliament's website, and we should note that the Parliament has produced a text-based service. That is the kind of service that not only hearing-impaired people but young people will use. It is important to use new technologies, such as YouTube, but it is equally important to ensure that your publicity materials are in plain English and are, for example, available in formats that are accessible to people with visual impairments or those who use British Sign Language. The current design of the service unwittingly excludes some people. You must put a friendly face on the service, so that people feel able to come in here and express themselves, as some people would be intimidated by the present procedures.

We did a mini-analysis of the types of people who lodged petitions and found that many petitions to do with disability were lodged by disability organisations and people who were already involved in work on the issue. Does that mean that there are vast swathes of individuals who are not affiliated to an organisation and who do not have the knowledge, the confidence or the literacy skills to get involved? Are they deterred by the fact that they might have to give oral evidence? Indeed, what does giving oral evidence mean? Being a witness seems to be quite a serious responsibility. Is it too much of a responsibility? Are people able and confident enough to take that on?

We have had many good answers already. The Parliament takes seriously its responsibilities as regards the issuing of information in alternative formats, but it is necessary to know where such material should be delivered. I thank Liz Rowlett for her suggestion.

Liz Rowlett also mentioned trainers and gave what I presume is an example of best practice. Do any of the other witnesses have examples of best practice? What methods have they used to increase awareness among people in communities of what they do and to involve them in that work?

We use various channels to get information out to young people. We provide information online through websites, we use SMS, we send regular e-mail bulletins to young people who have signed up to the service and we have a team that puts on roadshows around the country, which ensures constant face-to-face engagement with young people. Roadshows are one of the best ways of getting information out directly.

We also work through secondary schools and local authority youth work departments. As well as putting information into secondary schools, we give teachers materials to enable them to use that information more effectively. In addition to source materials, we give teachers notes and other information. That has proved highly effective over the years.

Is there a regular slot in your communications that reports on legislation and parliamentary discussions that directly affect young people?

We do not have a regular feature on what is coming up in Parliament. We have a daily news section, with a ticker at the top of the page. If an issue of particular interest is to be considered, we will include it in our news section, but there is no regular parliamentary feature on the website.

Many parliamentarians share my view that it is a shame that the real work of the Parliament, which is done in committees such as the Public Petitions Committee, is rarely reported in the press, which instead follows the big stuff in the chamber and the ding-dongs at First Minister's question time. Very rarely is our work reported on.

I have a question that relates to some of the points that Marlyn Glen raised. Are there any methods of engagement with groups or individuals that your organisations have used over the past year that you think have had a better effect on response rates? Ultimately, the Parliament wants to engage—that is enshrined as one of the principles of the Parliament. The petitions system is effective to the extent that, whether someone is an individual or represents an organisation, they can petition the Parliament. However, the evidence tells us that, as Liz Rowlett said, some people know that system better than others and can therefore, for better or worse, dominate the submission process. We are keen to find out whether there are different ways of engaging that will help us to get a better response rate.

The Young Scot submission made some observations on those matters, but I do not think that we have nailed down how we can make progress. I would like the legacy of the committee's work over the next two or three years to be a shift in favour of the citizen rather than the institution. If we do not make such a shift, we will not have succeeded, so we need to get good ideas on how to engage. That phenomenon might be evident over the next 24 hours in one of the world's biggest democracies, where the different methods of engagement used by one of the candidates—through the internet, through blogs and through social networking—might or might not result in success for them.

I am not too enamoured by the prospect of being a key figure on a social networking site—that would terrify too many folk—but I am sure that that is one of the directions that we will take in the future. I would like to hear people's views on the issue.

Liz Rowlett said that it can be a bit intimidating to come to the Parliament. Some of the language that we use, such as calling witnesses and giving evidence, has an almost judicial feel. I wonder whether such language puts people off. That ties in with some of the convener's questions. I would be interested to hear what people think about the issue.

The only problem with MSN is that I still like to use vowels when I send messages. I am showing my age.

What is MSN? [Laughter.]

We considered the quasi-judicial nature of the language, which is off-putting. Many people associate being called as a witness with the legal process and with a level of seriousness for which they may not be willing to put themselves forward, rather than with sharing experience, which most people are much happier to do.

When we discussed the matter, it became clear that people are ambivalent about what they have got back from the Public Petitions Committee in the past. Word of mouth would be a successful means of promoting the committee's work. If people had a really good experience of their petition being taken on board and of the process and outcomes being clear to them, participation in the petitions process would increase significantly. There are both process issues and outcome issues. One big stream of feedback that we received was that people felt that their petitions vanished after they had had their day in front of the committee. There was not the follow-up and casework that would have made people feel that they had had a good experience. Improving outcomes would help us to get out through word of mouth that the petitions process is good and useful.

I am not here to speak on behalf of Enable, but it submitted a petition on advocacy that we supported. Before coming here today, I asked a colleague at Enable for their views on the petitions process. They said that, because the Parliament is in Edinburgh, the process is very central belt heavy. Coming to give evidence is quite an arduous task for people with wheelchairs—getting on and off trains and so on. Enable asked whether it would be possible for the committee to take evidence from people in their own setting.

That is a valid point. The Equal Opportunities Committee has held various meetings around Scotland.

It is important to look at outcomes, because people will not participate if they do not see that they can get some kind of win. On the Parliament's website, it is quite difficult to track the different bits of paper associated with petitions and to see what has happened. It takes too much effort for an ordinary person to navigate the system. I am a lazy person—more than three clicks is too much for me.

When the committee has had really big wins, those have not been trumpeted loudly enough. The redesign of the wheelchair service started life as an individual's petition. The fact that that petition ended up producing a £16 million budget and a service redesign is a phenomenal achievement, but people do not always appreciate what has been done. It is up to both the Parliament and the Government to explain how petitions have resulted in changes in policy or service delivery.

Before the meeting, we talked about the different kinds of petition that exist. Some petitions are too localised and repetitive. The Parliament's website states that people have the opportunity to submit petitions on matters of national importance. Is that statement helpful, or do people see it as a hindrance? Do people spend too much time on local issues? The guidance needs to be a bit clearer. Today you have already discussed whether a petition is admissible and how to explain your decision to the petitioner concerned.

I was on the Equal Opportunities Committee when it travelled around the country, and although it can be difficult for individuals to come to give evidence here in Edinburgh, it can also be difficult for committees to move around. However, the Justice Committee has done a fair amount of videoconferencing, which might be something that we could set up. That would make it much easier for people to give evidence.

My final question is a more encouraging one. What aspects of the public petitions process work well? I am interested in how we can make it work even better, but what are the good bits?

The good bits are that it works well, that it makes the Parliament more open, and that people have a good understanding of it. One of the Parliament's successes is its committee structure, which makes things more open and accountable. The challenge is to get people more interested in politics and show them how it affects them and how they can engage. We have discussed some of the shortcomings, but it is important not to sell ourselves short.

The process is innovative. We should remember that it is the first and foremost such system, at least in the United Kingdom. However, it can be built on. Because it was the first such system, it can also be the first to innovate. There are lots of things that it can do, and the committee's inquiry shows that there is a will to innovate and to provide an example of best practice to the rest of the country and beyond. What is important is not just the fact that the process was the first but the fact that it has momentum and that there is enthusiasm to learn lessons about how to handle petitions better. Those are all good things.

I agree. The good thing is that the process was the first, and the fact that the committee is holding an inquiry to reconsider it relatively soon after the Parliament started up shows willingness to take it forward. That can only be a good thing.

I am tempted to say that the word "new" has a limited shelf life before people then take a pop at you.

We should not beat ourselves up, because by any standards the committee is on an advanced learning curve in relation to engagement. However, we cannot stop; we must continue to work on that. Marlyn Glen touched on one or two relevant areas. With accessibility through the net, other technology and various other things, we can do more throughout the country. We could do much more videoconferencing. There are local authority buildings and voluntary sector premises that can be used, so if the will is there we can engage with people more effectively over a period of time.

Two barriers may exist. The first that people face is that of simply getting to the Parliament. That is always a big problem—it applies to the House of Commons as well. The second barrier is that the formality of the structure can be intimidating. Parliament must have a formal structure or it will not have any real worth or value, but we need to find ways in which to shape it better so that people feel that it belongs to them rather than to a narrow group of elected parliamentarians who are isolated from the reality of people's lives. We should not be isolated, and I do not think that we are, but that criticism is levelled at elected members in Scotland and elsewhere.

We need to find better ways in which to work. We are keen to get some ideas from you about how we can improve the dynamic.

To pick up on what Liz Rowlett said, I wonder whether the panel members can give me any clues about whether the fact that the system is well known by organisations is necessarily a demerit and individuals are excluded. It seems to me that, if there is an important issue, there is probably a group that represents people who have that issue, and the group probably understands and can articulate the issue. Do the witnesses believe that individuals are seriously disadvantaged? I would have thought that individuals' problems are probably picked up by somebody else.

For us, the issue is not so much about individuals, but more about organisations with the capacity to deal in parliamentary work. Such organisations can put resources into petitions and are proficient at operating the system. The problem is that although, as you say, there are many organisations that represent individuals, not all of them are capable of putting forward those individuals' opinions. For example, I am not sure that there is an organisation with the capacity to take forward a petition on jet-skis.

The evaluation of the Scottish Parliament's public petitions system has highlighted the fact that individuals submit petitions, so the problem is not that individuals are not coming forward, but that they are not necessarily linked up to other processes. Therefore, when petitions are dropped or closed or there is no follow-up, that is a problem because the people might fall away and feel even more disenchanted than they did originally. The problem is not so much that individuals are not coming through the door; it is more that there is nothing to hold them here or to keep them engaged or nurture their engagement.

A second problem is the demographic trend of petitioners, of which the committee is well aware. A petitioning constituency that is disproportionately made up of people with above-average income and people who are above middle age and male is not representative and is therefore a problem.

To clarify that, suppose that, as frequently happens, the committee closes a petition for good reasons—perhaps it has come to an end or been dealt with—what further action should be taken as follow-up? Once a petition is closed, it is closed.

I understand that, under the committee's present remit, not a lot can be done. However, in my evidence, I gave illustrations of available options for engagement beyond a petition, even when it has been closed. That might simply involve giving information on the website about organisations that are working on similar issues, or it might involve setting up forums for discussion in local areas about the issues. If the Parliament decides that it cannot work on an issue, work can still take place locally to remedy the situation. I am not saying that the committee would have to convene that work, although there used to be a forum accompanying petitions, which could have made such engagement more available. That is just an illustration.

To expand on that, there is a sense that it is important to have further signposts to help manage an issue. Some petitions have to be closed, perhaps because they are—let us be honest—a lot of nonsense. That may well happen. Sadly, we have to say no to people in life. However, what should we do when there are issues that we know can be better explored, but for which the Public Petitions Committee process is not the best way to do that? We cannot resolve that this afternoon, but we need to consider the signposts and how we handle such issues with care. If somebody has taken time to get a petition together, that means that they are passionate about the issue. I might not agree with them, but they are committed to the issue. How do we ensure that people do not get so disappointed that they undervalue the whole democratic process? As I have said before, if we do not value that process, the alternative in historical terms is worse. How do we work better with folk?

That can definitely be done through signposting. Number 10 Downing Street has had a petitions system up and running for some time. It has not yet been evaluated, and I do not know whether it will be, but one major way in which it responds to petitions is through the kind of signposting that I mentioned. It is hard to say whether people are satisfied with that; the system has not been evaluated so we do not really know. However, the signposting means that there is something to join people together. When people get fired up enough to make a submission, they have somewhere to go afterwards. That is important.

There is a broader issue, to which I would like to return, about who is informed about petitions that are coming up. Without monitoring the Parliament's website for the lodging of petitions, it is hard to know what is coming up. I wonder whether there should be a list of statutory consultees or people to whom petitions would be sent for comment so that, even if the petitions went dead, other people would be aware of the issues. There is a flipside to that. One of the issues that came out in our work on this is that organisations are sometimes named in petitions but are not informed of that fact. That can lead to misrepresentation or other problems, and it needs to be tackled. I hope that we can return to that later.

I have similar comments to make. The issue is about making clear to people what can be covered in petitions. I attended an event last week at which the public services ombudsman spoke. He is often approached by people who are trying to overturn planning decisions because they do not understand where else they can go—he is an inappropriate last resort. That might be similar to the way in which the committee sometimes receives petitions that it cannot deal with. People do not know where to go or how to approach the issues appropriately. Rather than just close a petition, you should refer the petitioners to a more appropriate authority to get the issue resolved. The issue will mean something to somebody, even if this is not the appropriate forum in which to deal with it. That would foster a better understanding among the public of what is dealt with locally, what is dealt with nationally and the different political structures that are involved.

We would welcome views on that. We are concerned about the fact that issues that we know, from experience, should be dealt with at local government level are arriving here with great frequency. We should encourage local authorities—through the powers of general competence or whatever the language is for modernisation of local government—to ensure that they have in place structures within which such issues are dealt with. To be fair, one or two local authorities have opened up a debate about whether they should have a local authority petitions structure similar to the Parliament's system. That might address some of the concerns that frequently emerge at our committee.

Should not the Parliament consider this before a petition is lodged? In our written submission to the committee, we suggested that there should be a stage before the petition arrives at which the clerks or whoever could advise the petitioner whether the Parliament would be the right place to come with their issue. That would avoid the committee having to close a petition or send a petition away. The matter could be referred to the local authority, the health board or wherever was appropriate.

Okay. The consensus is that it is important to demonstrate productive outcomes, although they may not always be positive ones, which the committee could present to the wider public through formal publications or structures. The idea has been put forward that we compile a summary of petitions that the Parliament has received that have resulted in a change in policy or new investment by the Government or a key agency—a health board or whatever.

We have had success recently following a parliamentary debate about the availability of a cancer drug. The issue was of interest to the public, and the press and other media knew that and covered the debate well. That resulted in a more constructive engagement with the minister and the Government. People have different views about how far we can go with the issue, but progress has been made in the past six months that had not been made in the previous three or four years.

We have a responsibility to tell people what we are doing and how they can have a positive impact on that. The suggestions that have been made so far are, therefore, useful.

I want to move on, as I am conscious of the limited amount of time that we have for the discussion. John Wilson will lead on the issues of how we see petitions as admissible—how we can break down the barrier of the terminology, which puts people off—and how we can improve the way in which petitions are presented to the committee.

Thanks, convener. You have led off well on the issue.

A number of contributors have mentioned the admissibility of petitions that come before us. At item 2 on today's agenda, you were privileged to hear the committee deal with an admissibility issue in respect of a petition that had been lodged. Do you think that the committee is too open in respect of the petitions with which it deals, or too prescriptive, or are we getting it right in our handling of petitions that come forward?

Do we place enough emphasis on the petitioners trying to resolve the issues at local level, or whatever level is appropriate, prior to coming to the Public Petitions Committee? Petitioners have said a number of times that they have spoken to their MSP. Nanette Milne said that someone had phoned her up and that she had recommended that they refer the matter to the Public Petitions Committee. I would welcome your views on whether the Public Petitions Committee or the clerks would be entitled to say, "Sorry, we don't think that we can deal with the issue."

We have been agonising over the matter. The committee needs to sort out some issues, so any helpful suggestions would be welcome.

Signposting is essential. As long as the committee says, "No, but try X, Y or Z," that is great, but there would be issues about the committee saying a point blank no, for whatever reason.

But whatever the issue, we have a relatively young Parliament. People say, "Now that the Parliament has been established and it is just down the road, why can I not bring the issue to my Parliament? We have waited 300 years for a slightly more open democracy. I want you to give me a break and you are saying no to me."

I am trying to give a punter's view. Should we just say, "No, you should have taken up the issue with your council", or should we say, "Suffer the little children; we will give you a big cuddle and understand you more"?

If you tell someone that you cannot deal with an issue, you must help them to tease out why they should take the issue back to their council. We came across a petition from someone from Aberdeen about car parking spaces in Aberdeen. A recommendation had been made by the access panel, so there had been a process of local democracy and access auditing, but the individual did not approve of the council's decision so they raised a petition. The access panel was then on to us saying, "Have you heard about the decision?" and you guys were saying, "What's the issue with parking spaces in Aberdeen?" It is a matter of what it is appropriate for the committee to deal with. How can you help someone overcome an issue? Is it most appropriate to refer them back to their MSP to sort it out? Sometimes people bring local politics to the Public Petitions Committee.

Never. That is a shocking revelation.

It is a question of whether you can resolve the issue and whether you have the resources to address it. Parliamentarians are fighting for time and lots of cross-party groups are fighting for scant resources. There has to be a better understanding of what the Public Petitions Committee can and cannot deal with. An issue is how you help people through that process.

You mentioned time. We have limited time and people are keen to speak to the committee. Out of every tranche of petitions, we are lucky if oral presentations can be made to the committee on two or three. It is always disappointing for folk who miss out when they want a chance to speak directly to a parliamentary committee. How should we handle that issue in the future? People feel aggrieved that they have not had a chance to speak, but we must make that call.

This is perhaps more in response to the previous point, which goes back to what I said about outcomes. People should be guided through the process. If they are told that they cannot bring a petition here and that they have to go elsewhere, there should be some contact with them about what happened when they went elsewhere before they come back here. It is about appropriateness. If local processes have been followed incorrectly or there have been problems, there might be an opportunity to legislate on that or to refer the matter to another parliamentary committee. Having better contact with petitioners provides an opportunity to derive better outcomes.

This goes to the heart of the public's understanding of petitions. You raised the bar here, which is probably a good thing, because it means that fewer people will be disappointed by the fact that they cannot submit the kind of petitions that go through 10 Downing Street's website, which are inadmissible here. There is a good chance that petitions that people submit to the Scottish Parliament will be considered seriously, which has to be a good thing. The public still have an expectation that a petition equals action, which equals results. Work has to be done to address the public's expectations and to tackle the perceptions that arise out of the process. Much as you have in place a structure that, to all intents and purposes, works well, work has to be done around it, on education, outreach and the way in which the results are transmitted to the public. Those are all important dimensions.

It goes back to how well educated people are about how to lobby, get their point across and take action. I am conscious that there is no one-stop shop in Scotland to which someone can go to ask how to progress an issue or get something changed. Should the Parliament be the place to tell people what steps they can take? The ultimate step would be to lodge a petition in the Parliament if that is appropriate.

Given our experience over the past eight or nine years, are we getting it right on admissibility? Could other things be done? We have tried to streamline and filter which petitions get to come before the committee. As the convener said, we need to get a feel from the public about how the system is operating and whether our admissibility criteria are working to the benefit of people who want to submit petitions.

In that case, it would be helpful to have some information on the petitions that you have deemed inadmissible. If you want to consult the public, you must go out and talk to people; there is no getting away from that. It is about going out to talk to the public and helping people to understand the process. There are local information and advice projects scattered up and down the country. Information workers will tell people how they can resolve an issue and how they can speak to their councillor or MSP. We are not saying that such work is not happening, but it is patchy.

I do not know whether this is a flagellation-type commitment, but as part of this inquiry we will hold three external meetings in different regions of Scotland, so that we can at least get a flavour of what is happening there, as well as receive submissions. I agree that people cannot comment unless they can see the material or the contrast between the available options. This is not a central worry of ours, but we need to get things right, so that people do not feel that we have given them flimsy reasons for excluding their petition. I am trying to avoid that. It is about the interest of the petition, rather than our being difficult with one another about what is admissible.

It is perhaps because of the function of the groups that we consulted that admissibility was not raised as an issue, which might be of interest to the committee.

It is interesting that people are saying that they tried to raise an issue at Scottish Parliament level before raising it at a local level. Our organisations are saying, "Well actually, we wouldn't want to raise a petition; we'd want to sit on a community health partnership planning group or a public/patient involvement group." People want to influence policy in that way rather than at a national level. I do not know how much evidence there is for that, but one manager felt that to come to the Scottish Parliament and bypass local commissioners, or local funders if they were seeking more funds, would be seen as a really bad thing to do and that they should always try to make their voice heard locally.

That is useful, because it throws up a possible option for us to look at: what is local engagement like in community partnerships and on assessment panels? We might be able to consider that as part of our process.

Some community planning structures are so complex that most of the workers, let alone the general public, do not understand them. It might be difficult for people to navigate such structures and easier for them to come here.

I am sorry to play devil's advocate, but perhaps we need a petition of national concern that makes things clearer because the general public are not alone—parliamentarians sitting round the table are equally confused about those local structures compared with what existed before. That might be a good subject for a petition that the Parliament could consider; we could then encourage much more transparency of such structures locally.

I am conscious of time and want us to consider outstanding issues, although we will come back to the issues that have been raised during the inquiry. Feel free to submit observations about matters that we have not yet addressed. Nigel Don has questions about information and communication technology and development and it would be helpful if Graeme Robertson would lead on that.

I would like to lead us into the processes—not how we scrutinise the questions that we ask here, which I suggest is for later consideration, but the processes that are involved in getting the petition into and through the committee. How do the panellists feel about the e-petitions system and how we could develop it? We are looking not for technical solutions—most of us would not even understand the acronym, never mind what it means—but for conceptual ideas about how we might improve our use of technology to gain access and admissibility.

I repeat what I said about early support from the Parliament to help people come up with ideas and take them through the process. To that end, we came up with a three-stage concept.

The first part of the concept was to help create a space on the Parliament's or somebody else's website where people could just list what they were interested in to help them come up with ideas to begin with. The second aspect was to have what is called a common work space on the website to allow people who had shared their ideas to refine them—there are many commercial common work spaces out there and they are not difficult to build. Such a work space would allow people to collaborate online and come up with the wording and ideas for debate and to refine the concept. The third step was to launch the e-petition. In summary, that three-stage process would allow people to refine an idea and then take action on it through the e-petitions system.

It is sad that the forums that accompanied the e-petitions system are no longer running. I do not know why that is, but they were a good idea in that they enabled people who had submitted petitions to discuss them with one another and to raise counter-petitions. There might be a need to think about reinstating those forums.

I mentioned signposting, which is important. You could use the websites and the e-petitions system as a way of providing such signposts.

Finally, Liz Rowlett touched on having a case study upfront of a successfully launched petition. In addition, e-petitions could be searched by subject and not just by petition number. Those are the kinds of important architectural improvements that could be made.

It would be helpful if there was a searchable petitions database with accompanying documents and signposts. When searching the Parliament website, I often find that I have to go through a lot to track not only petitions, but motions and parliamentary questions. The site is perhaps not as sophisticated as it should be.

That drags me on to the social networking side of the internet, which feels like a great novelty when you are as old as I am. Most of the people who bring us petitions look a bit like me, which is seriously worrying. We need to engage with younger folk and we must do that in their way. I guess we would be looking for a bit of help and advice on how we might do that, and that technology might well be part of it.

Young Scot uses social networking sites, but we do not try to replicate there what we have on our main websites. We use social networking sites as conduits or marketing tools to get young people to visit our websites. That seems to be how things are going in social networking. You do not try to create, say, 15 different types of websites; you just use the networking sites as channels to a single point. I do not want to get too technical, but the Parliament could develop its own nuggets or bolt-ons that could go into somebody's social networking sites. That would allow someone who had a petition up to have a link to it from their own social networking sites and use that to promote the petition around their circle of friends or the community of interest with which they worked. That kind of thing should be relatively simple to do.

I am not an expert in this area, but our Parliament system is very secure and I do not envisage that being changed. The parliamentary network, which we can access from computers in our offices or anywhere in the Parliament, has huge restrictions for security reasons. We would have to balance that against having links to outside sites. We obviously could not have a link to a social networking site through which inappropriate comments could be put on the Parliament site.

If we consider the internet phenomenon, there must be the equivalent in Scotland of a couple of McGoogles that could come up with ideas about how we can engage more effectively with the internet. As for asking me to do that, you would be as well just locking me in a room. We must get a young person who is sharply tuned in to such matters, who could say, "Well, see if you did this and this—".

Clearly, we would need to protect certain procedures on the Parliament website. However, to be blunt, I think that we have a clunky system that does not meet needs, particularly those of newcomers to engagement with the internet. We need to do better. We probably do not spend the kind of money that needs to be spent to get something more innovative and dramatic. We are still looking at the technology of six or seven years ago rather than worrying about what is ahead of us in the next four or five years.

I am not an expert on the issue, though. Seventeen-year-olds just laugh at me, for example, when I go over and say, "Please help me here." They reply, "Here's the three ways you can do that," and I say, "That's great." We must find better ways of doing that kind of thing and ensure that the Parliament website is more attuned to different needs.

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I would not say that sorting out the technology means that everything else will follow. I do not think that the technology is the problem. I agree that the Parliament website can be improved and that things can be done to make it less clunky, but I do not think that you necessarily need social networking capacity on the website. Phenomena such as social network websites generally develop from the grassroots up. As has been said, they could be used to feed into the petitions process, but if you want to engage with young people, you must do things to engage with them specifically. Because of issues such as the digital divide, you must do that offline as well as online. You can engage with young people through schools and other forums, as well as online. Both approaches are necessary.

I second that comment. Promoting the petitions process is a separate issue from promoting an individual petition online. It is one thing for a petitioner who has their own Bebo or MySpace page to get a nugget from the Scottish Parliament website and use their site to promote their petition to their circle of friends or community. However, using social networking to reach young people and to promote the petitions process requires an entirely different strategy.

In today's environment, young people like fast, dynamic information. It is not a question of giving them a weblink once every three weeks—that will not do it. The dynamism of the information that you provide is important.

I am conscious that a petitioner who is here for a later petition must leave quite soon.

Nanette Milne wants to ask about the committee's scrutiny role.

Do you think that the methods that we use to scrutinise petitions are effective? Can you offer us some examples of best practice?

Have we been blundering away in the past year and a half? Have we gone about things in the right way? Can you suggest one or two innovations that might be useful?

The only thing that stands out in the evaluation and evidence on the Scottish petitions system that I have read is that there is not a great deal of transparency with regard to how decisions are made. Where there is transparency, the information is not particularly accessible. It is a credit to the Public Petitions Committee and its clerks that decisions are made and that a process is in place to ensure that that happens, but things could be made more evident. Liz Rowlett made the point that there is not much information about rejected petitions to help people come to an understanding of whether their petition is likely to follow suit or is likely to be accepted. There are steps that you could take to make that more evident, which would help.

Our written evidence included a list of questions about process—for example, how is it decided who will give evidence, and how are inaccuracies and factual differences sorted out? Those questions will guide the committee on what we thought was important. There is a serious problem of people who have been named not being alerted to that fact.

The issue of petitioners giving oral evidence was raised repeatedly in the written evidence that we received. People are peeved—to put it mildly—when they are not invited to give evidence. How can we overcome that problem, given the fact that we are under time pressure? You will be aware that the number of petitions submitted increases constantly. How can we cope with that demand?

People understand that a lot of petitions are submitted, but they want to know how it is decided that evidence should be taken on a particular petition. At the moment, people are not satisfied that that is clear—that is where the problem lies.

Peter McColl raised the issue of people being named in petitions. Should a duty be placed on petitioners who have named people to alert them to that fact? Should we make it clear to petitioners that, if they name someone, they must inform the person concerned that they have done so?

I would go further than that and make it a function of the committee to ensure that the petitioner has done that. Otherwise, a petitioner could say, "Oh yes, we told him we've named him in this petition," but it might not necessarily have happened.

It is an issue for organisations as well as individuals. There have been a few cases in which an organisation has not been consulted.

The committee has a lot of petitions to deal with this afternoon, so I will make a couple of points to sum up. We have not asked all the questions that we could have, so I suggest that, if witnesses want to, they liaise with the clerks on the issues to which they could add more detail.

I would like the witnesses also to think about how we deal with petitions and the issues that John Wilson mentioned. We do not have powers to deal with issues that people feel strongly that the Scottish Parliament or Scottish Government should take a view on. How should we manage that process? We have navigated it with great care in the past few months, but any observational points would be helpful.

There is also the question of research evidence, which is not detailed at the moment. Some of the witnesses may be aware that we commissioned the University of Strathclyde to carry out some work, but there may be a need for focus group work on what people want from a petitions process. All of us—I include myself—have made assumptions about what the public want, but we perhaps need a better sense of that. That work may throw up some pretty chilling responses, and we may need to change our views on certain things, but we should do that research.

There will be other opportunities to follow through on the work, but I thank the witnesses for giving up their time this afternoon. We will return to the topic on 2 December, and any views or observations in the intervening period that they think will be valuable would be welcome. Given what was said in an earlier contribution, if the witnesses believe that today has been a useful experience, they could encourage others through word of mouth to make submissions.

I thank the witnesses. We will suspend briefly.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—