Local Government Committee, 15 Feb 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000

Official Report 130KB pdf

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Petition (Bridge of Allan Public Interests Association)

The next item is a petition, PE26, that we considered on 14 December, when it was agreed that we would write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the matter. The reply from COSLA is attached to members' papers. We must decide what action to take on the petition. We can either note the position but take no further action, or we can hold an inquiry. When petitions are sent to councils, they are dealt with in different ways. There is probably good reason for that. In my experience, the appropriate committee would deal with a petition.

The petitioner is asking the Scottish Parliament to produce guidelines or legislation for the way in which councils deal with petitions, so that they are dealt with in the same way across Scotland. There are some examples in the memorandum from the clerk to the Public Petitions Committee about how the City of Edinburgh Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council and Highland Council deal with petitions.

If I remember correctly, the matter of the Museum Hall is of long standing. Do you know anything about it, Sylvia?

I live in Bridge of Allan, although it is in Ochil constituency, not Stirling. The restoration of the Museum Hall has been an issue for a long time. I back the suggestion made in the memorandum from the clerk to the Public Petitions Committee that we try to find out from Stirling Council how it approaches petitions. That would be informative, and there is clearly variation among local authorities. Keith Harding might know more about this issue than I do, having been involved more intimately with Stirling Council.

I think that we should write to Stirling Council—and I declare an interest—to ask how it deals with petitions. As I said at the last meeting, they are certainly not ignored. It would be interesting to find out how the council deals with them. I am not a member of any of the ruling parties in Stirling, and I do not know how they deal with petitions.

It is clear from the documents that this is a matter that goes wider than Stirling. Just as the Scottish Parliament has a procedure, it would be worth while, for a number of reasons, if each council could adopt a procedure—it would be rather good if they were all similar—so that we, or someone such as the ombudsman, could judge whether due care and attention was being paid to an individual's or group's petition. It would also be good for the council.

A lot of time wasting and repetition is involved, as we have seen. In other words, if the first petition does not make a hit, it is often seen as a good idea to run a campaign on petitions, which could perhaps last 10 years. I do not think that that would be a good idea for an individual council.

I would like to move towards firm guidelines. There is a question whether it should be we or COSLA who should provide those guidelines, but I am minded to suggest that COSLA should put them in place and ensure that they are fairly understandable for everyone throughout the country, stating where, when and how a petition is dealt with.

COSLA is saying, in the last paragraph of the letter, that it

"would be concerned if there was any suggestion that local government should be required to deal with petitions in a uniform manner."

It points out that

"councils are increasingly seeking to involve their citizens in their policy development and decision-making processes"

and

"petitions form . . . part of that participative process."

I think COSLA is saying that, if that is done properly, there may eventually not be a need for petitions, if enough people are involved in decision making. I do not think that that will be in our lifetime, however.

I suggest that we write to Stirling Council in the first instance to get its views. We will bring the matter back to the committee as an item that is low on the agenda, and we will decide on what to do thereafter.

There is one more thing that we could do. There is variation between the councils listed on the memorandum from the clerk to the Public Petitions Committee. We could write to each of them, asking them if they think that this is the appropriate way to deal with petitions, or if they have other ideas. We could pursue this matter a little further than what Gil Paterson envisages.

Quite frankly, I am not convinced by the COSLA argument. I should perhaps have stated this already: I am not of the opinion that petitions are all going to disappear as democracy starts to bite into councils.

I think that that was my interpretation rather than that of COSLA.

I read the COSLA paper, but I am still not convinced. I think that issues are bound to arise even within the Parliament, no matter what we do and no matter what democratic structures we build. There will always be a time when people will feel that the decision about their petition is wrong for them, as individuals or as members of a community. They need some way of expressing that. I do not think that it should just be a case of our saying, "We know better."

The papers point out the diversity in the way in which petitions are handled—or in some cases, dare I say, not handled—so it would be a good idea to get it right. We have a lot to do, but this is down to the nitty-gritty of people who feel that democracy has failed them. We should address that. If one ever goes to the British Museum, one will see the beautiful petitions written by the people of St Kilda. Petitions are great things and people tend to respond to them.

The suggestion is that we write to Stirling Council, City of Edinburgh Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council and Highland Council to ask them to say more.

I do not know if there are statistics on this, but it would be interesting to know how often petitions are used by groups, which feel, as Gil Paterson said, that they are not being listened to. We should try to get that information.

Are members happy to leave that with us to write to the councils? We will bring the matter back to the committee, taking on board the comments that members have made.