Public Petitions Committee, 16 Dec 2008

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Official Report 241KB pdf

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Work Programme

The next item is consideration of a paper from the clerk on our work programme. Members will note the arrangements for our external meeting on 27 January. I say to new members that part of their inheritance is a commitment to get out and about in Scotland.

First, I thank members who attended the meeting in Duns in Berwickshire in challenging weather conditions. The meeting was a good one. I also say well done to the driver for overcoming the brief period of engine failure on the high-quality jalopy that the big-spending Scottish Parliament gave us for the journey.

Fergus Cochrane, our senior clerk, offered us his accommodation if we had got stuck in the Borders.

Mrs Cochrane was bolting the door as he said that.

I return to the paper from the clerk on the work programme and the arrangements for the meeting on 27 January. Do members have any comment on the proposal, or are they happy with it?

Obviously, I am happy with the proposal, although Mr Don and I might have a problem in attending the meeting, as it clashes with a meeting of the Justice Committee.

That is the nature of these things. If we do externals, we often find that members have prior commitments because of the failure of their business manager to understand members' schedules. They should do better at allocating things.

You may say that, but I could not possibly comment. I put that into the Official Report for my business manager to see.

My business manager is a very good business manager. I had better put that on the record, too.

You should stop digging there.

When we went to Duns, only three members of the public turned up for the open session. I am happy with the work programme; my concern is about the publicity for external meetings. Part of the idea in going out of the Parliament is to attract members of the public around the country to our meetings and to let people see how we operate and how we receive petitions. If only three members of the public turn up to a meeting, the question is whether the effort was worth while. I hope that the clerks will take that point on board. The publicity needs to go out in time to ensure the maximum participation from members of the public.

We need to take that on board for our meeting in January at the John Wheatley College's Easterhouse campus. A good community engagement strategy is evolving in the east end of Glasgow. A substantial number of young people have become involved. A good health summit has already been held. Last Monday evening, a summit was held to consider elements of the petition on knife crime at which I was asked to lead a workshop. There are folk out there who will work hard to get people to engage more effectively with us.

I share John Wilson's concern that a lot of work went into notifying people about the meeting in Duns, but to very limited effect. I qualify that by saying that the weather was pretty awful. That said, we want to get more return for the endeavour by attracting more people to attend external meetings. We need to deal with that.

Although the numbers were disappointing, we got substantial coverage on the evening news broadcast. Holding the meeting in Duns raised the profile of the committee, but not in the way that we wanted or desired. The idea of the open session was for members of the public and committee members to engage with one another.

It is also worth reflecting on the fact that almost the entire fifth and sixth years and a fair number of staff were present in the high school hall. The engagement with the young people at the school could hardly have been better. I am not saying that that compensates entirely for the lack of interest from members of the public. I am satisfied that the clerks make a considerable effort to publicise the meeting. I simply share John Wilson's reservations about such external meetings.

It is clear that we need to think of more extensive ways of publicising these meetings. Perhaps local membership organisations might be one way of taking that forward. People in such groups are in touch with one another and might decide to come as a group. I am thinking of the WRVS, church groups and so on.

Okay. We can do that. We have done some of those things, but we need to keep working on such suggestions.

Matching the hospitality of the clerk, I say that my office is a just over a mile away from the college. If we suffer any mechanical problems on the day, a cup of tea will be available there.

Perhaps we could look at your collection of DVDs.

Perhaps we could, but if we really want to be outrageous, we could occupy Margaret Curran's office round the corner. I can see members' eyes lighting up in anticipation.