Public Petitions Committee, 06 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 6, 2000

Official Report 174KB pdf

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Convener's Report

The next item is the convener's report.

Under this item, can we consider how to handle the tracking of current petitions? I went through a few of them—I got as far as PE80 or so—and some appear to have stopped dead in their tracks in January or February, while on others it is noted that no further action is required.

I am assured that the progress of petitions is being monitored. Some have stopped dead in their tracks because subject committees are awaiting responses to their investigations.

That is not true of some petitions. Sometimes it is a case of letters having been sent out two or three months ago. There might never have been a reply, but should we not be finding out why not?

When we are discussing the issue at our next meeting, convener, you might want to consider whether we need such a detailed printout that includes petitions on which no further action has been taken. If members want to find out about the progress that has been made on specific petitions, they should perhaps intimate that to you in advance. If we do not do that, heaven knows what the situation will be like further down the road, when we get to 600 petitions. We will need to think of a way of managing that.

The list of current petitions is monitored constantly by the clerks.

I was talking about the list that is supplied to members of the committee.

We might not need to print it out for every meeting in precisely this form. What form are you suggesting for that information?

I simply wanted to raise the issue today. I have been in touch with Steve Farrell about other matters, and this is relevant to how we manage our work load. We should keep tabs on certain petitions, but we do not need all that information.

When a petition is closed, information on the action that has been taken should be available in the Scottish Parliament information centre or somewhere. The petitions that are still open could be listed on a separate piece of paper.

We have the whole history for some petitions.

Petitions that are closed no longer appear. Until a petition is closed, it will continue to appear on the list.

At various points, there are references to it being agreed that no further action should be taken.

Those relate only to the meeting at which the petitions were last considered. Such petitions will not appear on the next list.

Fine.

I agree that the list contains a large amount of information. We would be happy to consider ways of reducing it. We aim to have a short session in private at our next meeting to discuss such issues.

The clerk intends to circulate a paper with recommendations on how we might better handle our work load. We have, for instance, received letters from constituency MSPs requesting that the committee consider how it can better keep them informed. A number of constituency members from Ayrshire were surprised to discover that substantial issues had been debated at the committee without their knowledge. I know that the petitions in question are listed on our agenda, but we need to consider other ways of keeping constituency members informed about aspects of our business that relate to their constituency. It is only right that we do that.

Perhaps each petition and the decision that we make on it should be e-mailed to the appropriate constituency member as a matter of course.

I am suggesting that at our next meeting we spend some time discussing that.

I want to go further than that. I do not want any petitioner's first port of call to be this committee. If we do not do something about that, the situation will get completely out of control. If members of the public have a complaint against their council, they should raise the issue with a councillor or with an MSP in the region before sending a petition to the committee. If that does not happen, the committee will be devalued. However, I will save that for our next meeting .

That is exactly the sort of issue that we should discuss next week.

I have been polite, have waited my turn and have put my hand up; I am being democratic. You are right to say that the discussion should wait until our meeting next week.

It is in two weeks' time.

I will save up what I have to say until then.

Next time, a paper should be available for members to consider before they come to the meeting. If members have concrete ideas, they should come to the meeting prepared to make suggestions, so that we can deal with them reasonably quickly before we move on to petitions. That will be the first item on the agenda.

There is no other competent business. I thank members for attending.

Meeting closed at 15:08.