The final item on the agenda is to consider whether to take the reporters' draft report of the committee's investigation into Scottish Water in private at our next meeting.
I have no objections to the committee discussing the matter in public, although I have one caveat. The reporters were keen that any technical information should be sent to a small number of respondents to check for factual errors. My only concern is that, if we were to introduce a public paper that contains factual errors, we would defeat the purpose of checking for those errors.
My understanding of the position from what I have seen so far—I have not yet seen the full text of the report because we are still waiting for a major contribution to it—is that we will get some interim findings from the reporters. It might be that the committee will wish to thrash out those interim issues at this stage. We will not be at the stage of producing a finalised report from what arises at our next meeting.
I would certainly like to discuss the subject in public, not least because of the huge public interest in and concern about water charges for domestic and business water rate payers. It would be absurd to have a private discussion.
If we are to discuss the interim recommendations, it might help if the clerks double-checked the Official Report of the evidence that we took from the water industry commissioner for Scotland and Scottish Water representatives, because the committee wanted clarification of a few facts. Chasing all the requisite bodies before our discussion would help, because even if we received responses only on the day, they would inform the interim conclusions. I am thinking of the technical inaccuracies or otherwise in the estimates from the Executive and the commissioner. Chasing that information before the interim discussion would make for a more productive discussion.
We may well be getting a wee bit ahead of ourselves. The report certainly awaits some contributions from Jim Mather. We are keen to invite the minister to the committee, and debating our conclusions before then might be precipitate. We want our work to inform the committee's questioning of the minister. After that, we would be in a position to reconsider the level of public discussion.
On that basis, we are looking for an interim discussion in private, so that we can invite the minister to give evidence. Do we agree that the discussion next week will take place in private?
I thought that we were moving towards a new consensus for a public discussion and that Mr Purvis said that we would revisit the issue after hearing from the minister. For the reasons that Wendy Alexander gave, would that not be better than having a private discussion beforehand? How can we have a private interim discussion next week when we do not have the information that Wendy Alexander was right to say that we sought from the first series of witnesses? We have not heard from the minister, so I would not be happy with an interim private discussion next week.
I hope that the report that the committee receives from the reporters will include all the information that Wendy Alexander described. It will also run through our initial considerations. The committee's initial discussion should be on whether the reporters are going in the right direction, which will improve our questions to the minister. That is probably best discussed outside a public session of the committee. However, the discussion of our ultimate conclusions about Scottish Water will of course take place in public.
Do members have any further thoughts on how best to handle the issue?
I disagree with private discussions. Everything that is said in Parliament should be open to everyone. We have nothing to hide.
The reporters were keen for other committee members to see the work that we have undertaken in the interim, so that they did not feel excluded until the end of the process. The complication is that there will be issues in our report on which we wish to seek factual clarification. That is why I think it would be unfair on the witnesses who have given evidence if we were to publish an interim report.
In principle, I would always wish the committee's ultimate discussions to be in public. That is vital. That said, surely we must pay some attention to what the reporters are saying: that, at this stage, they are perhaps not totally confident about the direction in which they are going. We should be in a position to help and guide them and to take into account what they have done so far without that being in the public arena. I think that there is merit in that approach.
It is important that we get this right. Members who have not had the opportunity to see what the reporters have said should have the chance to see the interim conclusions that they have arrived at, before that becomes a committee paper and before we have properly signed up to it. There might be some issues that the reporters have either ignored or got wrong, from other members' points of view.
I am happy to agree to that approach, provided we also agree that our final discussion on the matter will be in public, as Mr Brocklebank, Mr Purvis, Mr Swinburne and I—and, I imagine, Mr Mather—agree should be the case. Can we agree that at this meeting?
I do not think that we can do that. What we agree now concerns next week. Once we have heard evidence from the minister—we also need to decide today whether we wish to seek evidence from the minister—we will need to decide how to take things forward from there.
I thought that we had agreed to take evidence from the minister.
I just want to get the committee to agree that formally now. Does the committee agree to request oral evidence from the minister?
Can we also agree to deal with the interim report in a private discussion next week?
I thank members for their attendance.
Meeting closed at 12:01.
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