Item 2 deals with the consultative steering group inquiry. Another period of parliamentary time has passed—we are about to hit another recess. We are conscious of not having updated the committee on the progress of the CSG inquiry. John Patterson will bring us up to date on progress towards finalising the report.
I have just a few words to say. We are finishing the text of the first draft, which is about 50,000 words long at the moment. By the time we finish it, it will probably be about 55,000 words long. We are almost there. The draft report has no status at the moment—it simply represents the clerks' cut at the issue. The report has not gone anywhere else.
I also give my apologies, as I will have to leave in a few minutes. I am concerned about the pace at which the report is developing. I am aware of the good work that the clerks are doing to prepare the report. It has been some time since we last met and discussed it all. I am keen that we should have an opportunity to reflect not so much on the substance of the report as on the key recommendations and agree them. We should ensure that we are all speaking with one voice and understand the key issues.
We had a seminar to discuss the direction that the report might take. Do members want another meeting of that nature, perhaps a week or so after we receive a draft of the report, so that we have the basis for a discussion?
An informal meeting over a coffee would be very helpful. If the full report is not available it would be helpful, to take up the point that Fiona Hyslop raised, to have a sheet with bullet points. If there is consensus around some of the main possible recommendations, that would be helpful to the future discussion. Each of us has bees in our bonnet, so if we were talking about a whole document we could easily discuss paragraph 215 at great length and miss the full picture.
That is an important point.
I echo the comments that Fiona Hyslop and Donald Gorrie made. Timing is of the essence. I am more than happy for there to be a further informal meeting. I share the view that the emphasis of the meeting, and of any papers that we consider, ought to be on the recommendations and the action that we see flowing from the report. The sooner we can do that, the better.
Professor McCrone assisted us when we held the previous seminar and in our work at that stage. He is no longer contracted to us. Do you want him to be involved in the seminar?
If he does it for nothing.
He made a very good contribution.
I think that he would probably be happy to come along and be involved at this stage, but I wanted to put that to the committee for its agreement.
I suggest that a paper be produced on the timing options that are available to us. We are slightly out of sync with the timetable that we originally anticipated.
It would be helpful to spell out for the benefit of us all the amount of committee time that is still agreed to be available; it is now all after Christmas. I understand that the Executive may be reluctant to make additional committee time available for the good reason that it has a considerable number of bills that it needs to finalise before the end of March. We may have a relatively short window in January and early February when we can get parliamentary time. We must hit that target. That will require the agreement of the conveners group, which agrees the allocation of committee time. Our bid is on the record. The conveners group knows that it is coming and there is a lot of interest in the report from other committees and other conveners. I am optimistic that we can get the time, so long as we are in a position to move within a time frame that the business bureau can accommodate.
What is the time scale for holding that meeting? I am worried that if we wait for the draft report before we have that meeting, we could lose further weeks.
The meeting has to be held when we have something to discuss. John Patterson has stated when he hopes to have the draft report available. In a sense, I am at the committee's disposal. Do members want a day's notice or a week's notice? The report will be substantial, but it will contain the principal recommendations, so it might be possible to assimilate that information quickly and proceed relatively quickly to the seminar.
That is what I was alluding to. That is consistent with other members' comments. We appreciate that getting the full report to the draft stage is a gargantuan task. Several of us have commented that if a summary document could be completed, that would be sufficient to enable us to have a meaningful seminar or discussion.
My intention is that a summary of recommendations and conclusions will be incorporated in whatever is sent to members, against the sort of time scale that has been discussed.
Could we have a weekend to read the report and have a meeting the next week?
That is the sort of time scale that we would consider.
Meeting closed at 10:15.
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