Official Report 234KB pdf
Electronic Communications (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
The second agenda item is consideration of an item of subordinate legislation. The draft Electronic Communications (Scotland) Order 2006 will be considered under the affirmative procedure. We will consider motion S2M-4425, in the name of Tom McCabe.
Good afternoon. The draft Electronic Communications (Scotland) Order 2006 will enable the use of electronic communications as an alternative to existing methods of transferring information, and it will promote the use of electronic services where appropriate. It will enable more effective and efficient service delivery by removing legislative barriers and by promoting an electronic option for those who want it. The draft order will put beyond doubt what is legally acceptable.
I will, having looked through the draft order, focus on one issue. Article 5 states:
I am happy to ask one of the officials to explain the processes for authentication, which is a key issue on which the committee will want reassurance. I understand that the committee has been sent a paper that provides further details on the procedures for each of the different pieces of legislation that the draft order will amend.
I can comment generally on authentication in my role as head of e-government, but I do not deal specifically with student loans. My understanding is that national insurance numbers are used along with other records as a means of verification. I take the point that has been made about the use of national insurance numbers and I will certainly ask what checks have been put in place to ensure that national insurance numbers cannot be duplicated.
By omitting the word "signed" from the 2000 regulations, the draft order will mean that a signed authorisation will no longer be required for student loan applications. If such applications can simply be done online, how will checks be made to ensure that people are who they say they are? An applicant might make a genuine mistake without intending impersonation.
We can go back to the Student Awards Agency for Scotland to ask it to set out its authentication policy. The agency is required to comply with Government guidelines by providing a risk assessment in respect of whether personal information will be correct. I can go back to the agency to check how it goes through the process of verifying national insurance numbers.
I should add that that amendment will apply only to the top-up loan application. The applicant will already have already undergone authentication for the actual loan. Therefore, we can use the same authentication process and do not need a new process. To omit the need for a signature will not make a great deal of difference in the context.
That is helpful. I was a bit concerned that the process would become less secure. Will the change apply only to the top-up loan application rather than to the original application?
Yes.
I would like to take the point a bit further, because it is important. Annex G states:
The Executive is seeking to ensure that the proper procedures are in place, so the concerns that the committee has raised will be properly addressed. We will provide to the appropriate bodies guidance on different areas to ensure that authentication is dealt with properly and that people can have confidence in the procedures that are being put in place by each of the seven bodies concerned.
The second issue is about the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996. Annex G states that
In relation to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, when there is agreement from the Deer Commission for Scotland's stakeholders that electronic transmissions are acceptable it has to set up an e-mail address. It must have written agreement before it does so. The Deer Commission for Scotland will have discussions with its stakeholders before it determines how further transactions might be managed; it is not currently set up to undertake certain e-mail transactions.
I am going by what the Executive note says. In respect of consultation it states:
That is certainly the case with the Deer Commission for Scotland, but some of its stakeholders wanted more dialogue before it determined the best way to manage the process.
So it is in agreement with the proposals, but the issue is how the process will be managed.
Yes.
Fair enough.
The draft order identifies seven pieces of legislation that are being amended to permit electronic communication. I take it from that that the Scottish Executive is conducting a trawl of legislation and is considering provisions through which an electronic communication option might by statute amendment be introduced to replace the conventional means of communication. Where are we in the process? Is this the start of the process, have I arrived in the middle of the process, or is this the end of the process of evaluating the statute book to see what can be done?
Mr McLetchie is, as ever, well aware of some of the issues. It is considerable work trawling through old legislation with a view to updating and modernising it to take account of new electronic information systems. The majority of recent legislation includes provisions to allow electronic communications.
It is a very difficult number to pin down. New legislation is coming on the stocks all the time, so it is becoming less and less of an issue because more and more legislation already allows for electronic communications. We are mopping up the older legislation. That can take a bit of digging, as some legislation is more complex. Amendments to such legislation are therefore more likely to come through as single Scottish statutory instruments rather than in this format again.
I have a question about the procedure and the timing of the draft order. Given that it is an affirmative order and that you have made a commitment to examine security in relation to student loans, what will happen if we find out after we pass the order that the system is not sufficiently secure?
The order is enabling legislation. The procedures will have to be agreed between the stakeholders and the Executive, which will have input through the guidance to the various bodies. If we, the stakeholders or other organisations are not satisfied with the authentication procedures, the matter will need to be considered again. We assure you that the matter will be dealt with as the use of electronic communications is rolled out throughout the public sector.
On the point about the procedure, I advise members that today is the last day that the committee can consider the order before it is considered by the Parliament. If members are not satisfied with the minister's response, their only option is to recommend that it should not be passed. It is up to members to decide whether they are content with the assurances that they have been given.
I, too, have concerns about the provision on student loans. Sometimes, people apply for further loans and there is a problem with consolidation. They get into arrears and they end up with sheriff officers or whoever coming to try to recoup the loan. There is a problem with the top-up applications. If it is all done electronically, is there a way of ensuring that students' loans are consolidated when they log on and that somebody is consolidating the loans at the other end?
I remind the committee that the use of electronic communications is an alternative. It does not replace the current paper-based systems. On your point about authentification and the user-friendliness of systems, people will continue to have a choice as to which system they wish to use. Local authorities that use electronic communications must ensure that their electronic systems are up to the same standards as their paper-based systems.
I do not know. I think that the policy area decided that it was only placing requests that would be submitted for amendment.
So exclusions might be included at a future date.
Not necessarily.
I do not want to answer for the minister, but I imagine that it would be regarded as too brutal to exclude people from school by e-mail.
It is only the communication, or the paperwork, that would be done electronically. People will still appear in front of the appeals committee; there will still be a committee dealing with placings and exclusions, and parents and people from the local authority can come and give evidence.
I ask our lawyer, Graham Fisher, to comment.
The provision extends to appeals committees' decisions on exclusions. There is a reference in the draft order to section 28H of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, so to that extent it applies to those particular points.
I am sorry to go back to this point, but I have been mulling over your response to me on the amendment of the Education (Student Loans) (Scotland) Regulations 2000 and it does not seem to chime with my experience. Maybe I have got this wrong, so I would like to be absolutely sure. You say:
I cannot comment on the policy for student loans.
I happen to know that that is a fact. My experience tells me that people apply for student loans in three chunks, so more of the money is backloaded than frontloaded. I am just concerned. I know from personal experience that—whether as a result of fraud or genuine error—mistakes are made. I am worried that the draft order makes fraud and mistakes more likely than less.
To address your point about the authentication, in the case that you mentioned the national insurance number served as a check to flag up the fact that there was a problem.
In the case that I raised, a signature was sent back because it was not my son's signature. It is the use of the signature that is important.
But it would then be clear to the authority that there was a problem.
Yes, but if the application was carried out online, there would be no proof that my son did not get the money. All I am saying is that the draft order seems to be making it easier for fraud or mistakes to occur.
Clearly, the issues that you are raising would need to be addressed by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland before it went down the road of using electronic communications. The authentication is fundamental in ensuring that there is confidence and credibility in the system. That is an issue that we will flag up with the awards agency before implementation.
Could you give us that necessary extra information before we have the final vote in the chamber? Quite a few issues have been raised.
Yes, I am happy to do that and to respond to the points that have been raised.
That brings us to the end of questions. Minister, do you wish to speak to the motion in Tom McCabe's name?
I do not have anything to add.
Motion moved,
That the Local Government and Transport Committee recommends that the draft Electronic Communications (Scotland) Order 2006 be approved.—[George Lyon.]
Motion agreed to.
Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc (Scotland) Act 2003 (Treatment of Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland as Specified Authority and Amendment of Specified Authorities) Order 2006 (draft)
Our next item is more subordinate legislation. I welcome the Minister for Transport, Tavish Scott. Supporting Mr Scott are Ian Kernohan, who is team leader of the transport group; Bill Brash, who is policy officer on local authority and partnerships liaison activities; and Jacqueline Pantony, who is principal legal officer with Legal and Parliamentary Services.
The Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland Order 2006 (SSI 2006/250) is to establish the public transport users committee for Scotland, while the Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc (Scotland) Act 2003 (Treatment of Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland as Specified Authority and Amendment of Specified Authorities) Order 2006 will bring the new body under the remit of the commissioner for public appointments. The public transport users committee order states that the new body will come into being on 1 January 2007. When approved by Parliament, the public appointments order will allow the commissioner for public appointments to appoint an assessor to oversee the appointment of members of the PTUC.
I should make it clear to members that, after this discussion, we will debate the public appointments order. However, the minister also referred to the PTUC order, so I will permit members—
I am sorry.
No, no. It was useful that you did that. I will allow questions from members on both orders, but there will be a debate and vote only on the public appointments order.
The new committee will have within its ambit the functions of the Bus User Complaints Tribunal—a special sub-committee will cover those functions. Is there an equivalent complaints tribunal with equivalent powers for customers of ferries or trains that operate exclusively in Scotland?
There is a railway committee, but it is a reserved issue, as its powers cover the whole UK. James King, whom many members know, is the Scottish representative on the committee. I argue strongly that he supports rail consumers well when discharging his duty.
Assuming that you write the vast cheques that are involved for the Edinburgh trams project, I wonder whether a tram is a bus or a train for the purposes of the Bus User Complaints Tribunal.
That is a very good question. I will turn to my legal adviser.
I thought that you might.
What is the answer?
It is a train.
So I if go up Leith Walk in a few years' time, once you have given us hundreds of millions of pounds, and I have a complaint about the tram on which I travel, I can seek no compensation from the new public transport users committee for Scotland. However, if I have a complaint about a bus, I can. Is that correct?
I would not expect David McLetchie to complain, because the services will be so good and advantageous to the people of Edinburgh that we will all benefit from them. However, I take the serious point that he makes. It is important to recognise that the committee and its responsibilities will provide only one of the forms of recourse for an aggrieved passenger. I recognise that a number of members write letters and make strong representations on behalf of individuals directly and through Parliament to companies and operators. The committee is not the only mechanism that is open to individuals who are dissatisfied with the service that they are receiving.
It is a little unrealistic to expect people to regard a tram as a train. By and large, they will see it is a kind of superbus. If someone is dissatisfied with the service, they will expect to have the same point of complaint for a tram as they have for a bus. I suggest that you consider adjusting the legislation so that the very few dissatisfied tram users in Edinburgh have the same point of redress.
That is a fair point. I will reflect on how best to sort out the matter.
Most people, including the minister, will accept that the former Scottish rail users committee—latterly it changed its name to the Rail Passengers Committee Scotland—served Scotland very well, because it had a breadth of knowledge and included people who were committed to the railways. The railways in Scotland are very extensive, so there is a lot of railway to get to know. Those involved in that world had a very high standard of public service in their commitment to the task and a great deal of respect from all who dealt with them, including members of this committee during the passage of the legislation. They had well-founded concerns that a multimodal committee such as the public transport users committee for Scotland would not have—or would be in danger of not having—the expertise, the manpower, the wherewithal and the teeth to do the job as effectively as the RPC did it. Do you think that those concerns were ill founded?
I would not express them in the same way. The model that we have brought before the committee this afternoon reflects both the spirit of the consultation and our overall policy objectives, in providing recourse for individuals, organisations and companies that have experienced difficulties and wish to tackle them through a number of avenues.
You have said that the proposed PTUC—one body in an ocean of acronymic bodies—will provide recourse. I cannot see any new legal recourse that the PTUC order provides in relation to complaints about rail transport in Scotland. Specifically, paragraph 14 of the Executive note states:
I am sorry if I have misled Mr Ewing, convener, but there was never any intention to include rail in the remit of the proposed organisation. Rail complaints are dealt with on a Great Britain basis, which is why I mentioned James King. The Rail Passengers Council is a GB body, although we have a specific Scottish focus to that in Scotland, and it is seen as being effective. We will happily continue to have discussions with the Department for Transport on these matters, but that is considered to be the appropriate architecture at this time.
With respect, my belief and, I suspect, the belief of other members—I see nodding heads—was that the body was to be a multimodal committee. I do not put that point in any party-political way. Mr Martin was instrumental in arguing the case; I did not agree with it at the time, but I went along with it because I felt that an omelette that is made with two eggs is worth eating. The clear promise was to deliver a multimodal committee, but you have just told us that rail was not intended to be part of the proposed committee's remit. Surely, that is a complete contradiction of the pledge that was given to the Local Government and Transport Committee. The absence of any apparatus, mechanism, remedy or right of recourse—there is barely a reference to rail in the PTUC order—is of deep concern.
We need to separate complaints from policy. Of course, policy on rail can be considered by the committee that I am asking Parliament to agree today. However, as we have always said, complaints are a matter for the Rail Passengers Council, which operates on a GB basis—not least because we have cross-border rail services and because a number of other aspects to the rail industry are GB based. There is nothing to stop—indeed, there is everything to encourage—the proposed committee from having a range of expertise and from seeking to influence the development of rail policy in Scotland. There is a difference between policy and complaints.
I do not remember that distinction being made when the proposal was put. However, we can check the Official Report.
I find that question difficult to understand. Mr Ewing would be the first to slam Government if we proposed to set up a body that cost £0.5 million or £1 million, on the ground that we were wasting public money. I am clear that our proposal meets efficient government aims by pulling together a range of organisations. I dispute Mr Ewing's description that there is an ocean of such bodies. The reverse is true. We seek to ensure that the representations that the new policy committee makes to the Local Government and Transport Committee and to ministers are focused. That is what I want to achieve. I believe that it is quite consistent with that approach to ensure that we make the proposed body as efficient as it can be, both in its objectives and in its use of public money. I am surprised at the basis of Mr Ewing's criticism.
I want to clarify the nature of the multimodal representation on the new public transport users committee, on which I lodged amendments at stage 2 of our consideration of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. It is my understanding that Nicol Stephen, who was the Minister for Transport at the time, advised that there would be feedback on the way in which the committee would operate in relation to complaints. We need to have clarity on that. The mood of my amendments, which were agreed to, was about bringing together the expertise of all the various representative organisations. Are you saying that complaints about rail are a reserved issue that the new committee could not deal with?
We do not envisage that the public transport users committee will provide a formal mechanism for dealing with complaints. We want it to be heavily focused on policy and strategy and on addressing issues from the consumer's point of view. We might agree that, as part of that work, consideration might be given to turning a complaint into a recommendation for improving a particular service or adopting a different overall approach to the railway industry so, in that sense, we might just be talking at cross-purposes. However, if you are suggesting that the new body should deal with matters such as why the 8 o'clock from Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh Waverley arrived late—which is the classic complaint—we do not think that getting bogged down in that level of detail should be its first job.
I want to pursue that. The franchise holder is appointed by you, as the minister, so I take it that all the issues to do with the functionalities and the performance of the franchise holder are managed by you. Part of the purpose of the Railways Act 2005 was to devolve powers to the Scottish Parliament. Would it not make sense for consideration of complaints about the services that the franchise holder provides to be devolved to the committee that has been set up?
There are a number of ways in which people make complaints. I genuinely do not want the new body to get bogged down in complaints about local or national services, understandable, necessary and important though such complaints may be. I would prefer that they be dealt with—
If that is the case, why has the Bus User Complaints Tribunal been incorporated in the new committee?
Because that is a simplification of the architecture, which I think that you were as keen to achieve as I was.
I do not have any difficulty with that. I accept the argument that you made about the incorporation of the Bus User Complaints Tribunal, but you have just argued against that because you said that you did not want the new body to get bogged down in dealing with complaints.
The rail service is GB-wide and complaints about it have always been handled on a GB-wide basis. A series of legislative changes would be necessary to facilitate what you advocate.
With respect, the buses provide a GB-wide service. People travel by bus to other parts of the UK.
We had existing architecture in Scotland for buses.
You are saying that, under the Executive's proposal, people will have no opportunity to make complaints to the new representative body.
I am not going to tell the new committee exactly what it can do. If it wants to receive complaints as well, ultimately that is a matter for it, although I do not think that that will be its primary purpose. A number of avenues for making complaints already exist. As Mr Martin knows, the ScotRail franchise has mechanisms built in that allow us to monitor the performance of the franchise holder. Transport Scotland has a role in that and there are a number of other ways in which people can complain—for example, they can complain directly to the operator. It strikes me that more direct avenues are open to people who use the rail services throughout Scotland than that of taking a complaint to the new committee.
Before Paul Martin asks his final question, I have a supplementary. As far as I can recall, the amendments in his name were moved—and accepted by your predecessor—because people felt that the Rail Passengers Committee Scotland performed a valuable role in acting as a consumers' advocate on services in general, not necessarily in relation to particular complaints by dissatisfied customers. My recollection was that the aim was to have a body to consider issues such as the overall performance of the franchise, the integration with other modes of transport and possibly even the sort of overall concerns that have been mentioned in the news this week about how the franchisee handles pricing. Do you anticipate that the new body will act as an advocate for consumers on such issues?
Yes. That is fair.
Article 10 of the Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland Order 2006 states that a sub-committee to deal with bus user complaints must be set up after the public transport users committee has been established on 1 January 2007. The order goes on to talk about other sub-committees. Under article 11(1)(a), the committee may
Yes. One strong feature of the consultation response was that ministers or Parliament should not prescribe the formal structure of the organisation, but that the organisation should be able to consider how it wants to establish itself. That is a fair observation.
So it would be possible.
As there are no further questions, we move to formal consideration of the motion on the draft Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc (Scotland) Act 2003 (Treatment of Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland as Specified Authority and Amendment of Specified Authorities) Order 2006. The draft order will put the public transport users committee into the architecture of the Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc (Scotland) Act 2003—it is not the order that will establish the committee. I ask the minister to move motion S2M-4424.
Motion moved,
That the Local Government and Transport Committee recommends that the draft Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 (Treatment of Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland as Specified Authority and Amendment of Specified Authorities) Order 2006 be approved.—[Tavish Scott.]
We come to the open debate on the motion.
I appreciate that we are debating an order that is ancillary to the substantive one that we will consider under agenda item 4, but virtually all the discussion so far has been about that substantive order. It follows that our approach to the motion depends on the view that we take on the substantive order. I would like the process of dealing with bus users' complaints to be dealt with, so it would not be sensible to obstruct that by opposing either the draft order or the order that we will consider under agenda item 4. However, I am gravely concerned about the fact that we were led to believe that the body would deal with complaints from rail passengers. The fact that rail passengers will have to take their complaints to a body that is based in London is a big mistake. I hope that we can all agree that that situation is unsatisfactory. We expected a body that would deal with multimodal complaints—a watchdog in which people could have confidence, as they did in the old one—so the situation is deeply disappointing. As others have said, we are not absolutely certain what assurances the minister's predecessor made when he persuaded the committee to go down this route.
I understood from the minister's answer to Sylvia Jackson's question that it will be within the new committee's power to form sub-committees to deal with rail issues, if it so wishes. Is that correct?
Yes.
To try to be helpful on the commitments that have been made, the clerks have obtained extracts from the Official Report of the stage 3 debate on the Transport (Scotland) Bill. The minister at the time said that the intention was to create a "multimodal body". He stated:
My point is similar to Fergus Ewing's point. After the stage 3 debate, we put considerable trust in the minister to develop a multimodal approach such as we had proposed during the debate. However, the response from the Executive has not met our expectations in relation to rail passengers.
We must keep things in context. Some 400 million bus journeys are made in Scotland every year, but in 2005 the bus user complaints tribunal dealt with 190 complaints. With the greatest respect, members are making a mountain out of the issue. The tribunal plays a role and the nature of complaints and how they are addressed are important matters, but it cannot be suggested that the tribunal is the primary mechanism for dealing with bus complaints, for whatever reason. On the whole, people use other mechanisms when they complain. They might speak to their elected representatives at local or national level, go directly to the bus operator or deal with the problem in a practical and immediate way. I brought the tribunal's figures with me and I am happy to leave them with the committee.
The question is, that motion S2M-4424, in the name of Tom McCabe, be agreed to.
Motion agreed to,
That the Local Government and Transport Committee recommends that the draft Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 (Treatment of Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland as Specified Authority and Amendment of Specified Authorities) Order 2006 be approved.
We will report that decision to the Parliament.
Public Transport Users' Committee for Scotland Order 2006 (SSI 2006/250)
We have discussed the order extensively in the debate on the previous instrument. Although members have expressed concern about the order, no motion to annul has been lodged and therefore there is no means of opposing it. As a result, I recommend that we report to Parliament that we have no comment to make on the order but I encourage the Minister for Transport to reflect on certain points that were raised in the previous debate. I intend to follow up those points in writing with the minister and after we have received a response we can consider how to take the matter forward. Are members content with that approach?
I am broadly content with it. As I have made clear, I see no point in seeking to abolish the public transport users committee for Scotland—which, after all, will continue to enforce the bus complaints procedure—just because we do not like the fact that it will not do what we hoped it would do.
When we write to the minister, will we refer to the number of complaints that have been made to the bus user complaints tribunal? I think that the minister referred to a figure of 181.
It was 190.
I know that the minister has probably received that many complaints from me and I am sure that that will be replicated around the table. That reflects not so much the fact that there is a lack of willingness to make complaints, but something about the bus user complaints tribunal. We said that as part of our bus inquiry. I ask the minister, in setting up the new committee, to consider the effectiveness of the way in which that tribunal receives complaints. The organisation seems to be willing to receive complaints—I saw that during our inquiry—but it does not seem to be willing to get out there and encourage people to take up the issues. I welcome the positive way in which the minister has reacted to that comment.
Can I confirm that, formally, we have nothing to report to Parliament with regard to the instrument but that members would like me to raise the issues and concerns that they have raised during the debate on both instruments?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the minister and his officials for attending. That was another useful debate.