Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, October 10, 2013

Official Report 282KB pdf

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Cross-party Groups (Guidance)

Item 5 is for the committee to agree guidance for cross-party groups on the completion of annual return forms. I invite comments from members on paper 2, which has been circulated.

I have my own comments, but I will keep mine until the end. Would it be helpful to go through the guidance page by page?

Is this a new form?

The guidance is on the completion of the annual return form. This is the second year in which we have required cross-party groups to submit an annual return form. Over the past couple of years, as part of the committee’s work we have tried to be much more formal about cross-party groups. To ensure that everyone understands the form, we want to provide guidance on some of the areas where we were not receiving consistent information.

Let us go through the guidance page by page. Do members have any comments on page 1?

On page 2, halfway down annex A, the paragraph in bold type contains a typo. The wording currently says:

“The following three sections of the form should contain information on what has happened since the previous annual return form was submitted of the Group:”.

That should say “by the Group” rather than “of the Group”.

Do members have any comments on page 3?

On page 4, I have a comment on the second paragraph, which currently refers to

“how much time they spend working for the Group and the hourly rate they are normally paid.”

I think that we should consider changing “are normally paid” to “would normally charge”. When Richard Baker gave evidence on the cross-party group on France, he suggested that the proposed wording would reveal people’s salaries, which is not the purpose. Therefore, I suggest that wording such as “would normally charge” might work better. Do committee members agree?

That seems sensible. However, as convener of the CPG on aviation, I know that Edinburgh Airport Ltd’s people provide the secretariat for that group in addition to the help that is provided by my staff. I cannot imagine a company such as Edinburgh Airport charging for that.

Can we perhaps find a better form of words? The sentence currently begins:

“The individual who does the secretariat work on behalf of that organisation should estimate how much this time would cost based on how much time they spend working for the Group”.

Could we just finish the paragraph there?

Yes, we could just leave it to the CPG to decide whether the secretariat’s work should be calculated at an hourly rate or on the basis of a charge that might be made. Does that make sense? Does that help Colin Keir?

I will tell you when I have looked through it.

09:45

On page 5, annex A gives an example of a completed form. Do members have any comments on that? I think that the annex will be included in the guidance.

Do members have any comments on page 6?

On page 7, I have a comment about the “Deputy Convener” box, which currently says both “MSP” and “Individual”. I worry that including “MSP” in the example might imply that a cross-party group needs an MSP as a deputy convener. Does that make sense?

Each cross-party group needs two MSP office bearers. We wanted to show people that two MSP office bearers are required.

We should perhaps leave that as it stands. I am being too picky, so ignore me.

Convener, in the financial benefits box at the bottom of page 7, the example that is currently given is:

“AN Individual provided secretariat support on behalf of A N Organisation. This is estimated at 20 hours per year at a cost of £10 per hour.”

Should we perhaps change that wording as well?

Yes, given the previous change that we have made to page 4, we should perhaps change that to “A N Individual provided secretariat support on behalf of A N Organisation, which they calculated at”. Would that work? That follows from the change that we made on page 4.

Convener, I am slightly lost. Regarding your initial observation about page 7, I agreed with your point because of the wording of the paragraph on group office bearers at the bottom of page 3. The presumption arising from that paragraph is not that the deputy convener need be an MSP. The second MSP office bearer could be the secretary or the treasurer instead.

In the example form on page 7, could we write “MSP/Individual” in each of those boxes?

Yes, that would cover it.

So we could put “MSP/Individual” next to “Deputy Convener” and “Secretary”.

Yes, I think that that would meet the point that you made.

Okay.

Do members have any comments on page 8?

With those changes having been made, do members agree the draft guidance, which we can then publish?

I am minded to agree the guidance, but I am interested to discuss whether we should publish it.

I was just coming to that. The next question that I was going to ask is whether members agree that the draft guidance should be published in volume 3 of the code of conduct. The guidance would be included not in standing orders but in the guidance on the code of conduct.

Sorry, I have a question first about page 8, which says:

“Each member will be charged £5 per year to cover the costs of catering for each meeting”.

At this point in time, the cost of catering—basically, some coffee at every meeting—for the CPG on aviation is covered by the airports. Will the guidance say that each member should be charged something?

No, this is just an example of how to fill in the form. For the CPG on aviation, that issue would be covered in the financial benefits section.

Sorry—I had completely forgotten that you were putting this out as an example. I apologise.

Yes, this is just an example. However, you are right that we must get the example right in order for the guidance to be followed.

Do we agree that the draft guidance should be published in volume 3 of the code of conduct?

Is there existing guidance that this amends?

I will check. I do not think that there is. No, there is not—that is why we are producing this draft guidance.

What alternatives are there to publishing it? Would it be in order for the draft guidance to be made available to every group convener? I say that because I have been involved in a couple of CPGs in which there has been a degree of mischief when people have sought to create difficulties within the group arising from interpretations of guidance. I am intrigued to know whether the option is open to us for the draft guidance to be made available to the conveners so that they will understand the responsibilities attaching to the group as opposed to its being made available more widely, which has the potential to create difficulties that need not arise.

It is up to the committee to decide whether we publish the draft guidance. However, whether or not we publish it, it is our intention to send it to every convener and to the secretariat of every cross-party group so that it gets directly to the people who need it.

I tend to agree with Jackson Carlaw. The draft guidance is just a set of suggestions as to what best practice would be, so is publication in the standards really the right thing for them? I can see where Jackson Carlaw is coming from. If the form is to be filled in by the secretariat, the secretariat can surely clear it with the officers before submitting it.

I must correct you on one thing. The guidance will be published in the code of conduct, not in the standards. That is slightly less formal.

I appreciate that. I would not jump up and down whether we include it or not. I am just suggesting that it does not need to be there.

I suggest that we implement the guidance for a 12-month period and then write to the conveners of the cross-party groups to establish whether they have found it helpful and to ask whether they would have any objection to its being incorporated into the code of conduct at that stage. It may need to be amended, and rather than publish it we may want it to be considered advice that we are giving conveners in the first instance that is to be reconsidered after 12 months, when they can tell us whether they have found it helpful. If so, and if they see no difficulties arising from it, it can then be published in the code of conduct at that point.

Are there any thoughts on Jackson Carlaw’s suggestion?

Do we not already have to complete a form for cross-party groups?

This is the form. What we are talking about is the guidance on how to complete the form. We were not getting consistency in the completion of the annual report.

I do not have a problem with going for a one-year trial period.

I am quite happy with that as well.

That seems to be a useful compromise—“compromise” is the wrong word. This is about ensuring consistency from the people completing the form so that, when the public look at the form, they can read across all the different cross-party groups.

It seems sensible for us to follow Jackson Carlaw’s suggestion that we pilot the draft guidance. We are agreed that we will not publish the draft guidance in volume 3 of the code of conduct but that we will send it to the conveners and secretariats of the cross-party groups, and the committee’s clerks will be part of the pilot when, next year, they monitor how consistently we got the information back.

09:54 Meeting continued in private until 11:07.