Health and Community Care Committee, 20 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Official Report 140KB pdf

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Legislation

We move to agenda item 3, the intention of which is to give us an idea of the procedures that we ought to follow when we scrutinise the legislation on the regulation of the care and social services work force.

Committee members had a taster of what is involved in the scrutiny of legislation through the work that we did on the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000. However, that work involved only taking evidence at stage 1 and stage 2; we did not deal with amendments or with the minister coming along and putting across a different point of view.

In the paper that has been presented to members, the clerks have outlined exactly what is involved and emphasised to members the importance of the bill, which has been broadly welcomed across the chamber. The bill will have a big impact, not only on nursing and residential homes but on children's homes.

Three or four parliamentary committees are likely to be interested in having a say on the bill. I have instructed our clerk that, from day one of the procedure, our approach is to be inclusive, in terms of our relationship—the committee's and my own—with the other conveners and committees that will have an opinion on the bill. I think that the Local Government Committee, the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, the Equal Opportunities Committee and others will want some input, whether by taking evidence or by lodging amendments following discussion in committee meetings.

All our information, such as informal briefings, research notes and other work on the bill, will be made available to the conveners, if not to the members, of other committees that are interested. All members of the Health and Community Care Committee remember how frustrating it was to deal with the difficulties that we faced, as a secondary committee, when we dealt with the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000. I want to assure members that we will bear that experience in mind in our treatment of other committees.

Bearing in mind what happened to us, it may also be helpful to attach reporters from this committee to the other committees, so that those links are established from day one. Other committees have tried that approach and I understand that it has worked to their advantage. Perhaps we could consider that approach.

Are there other comments on the paper?

My comment ties in with the paper on committee business, which we will discuss later, and concerns time scales. The paper refers to the following factor:

"The ideal amount of time to be allocated to inquiries".

It continues:

"It will not always be possible for the Committee to be allocated the time that it seeks."

The Scottish Parliament does not have a reviewing chamber, and it is for the Executive to decide to push motions through the committees, if it so wishes and if it does not think that the committees are meeting its time scale.

The committee must decide the amount of time that it requires, whether or not that time scale is to the liking of the Minister for Parliament. At Westminster, there is a tacit agreement that a committee will have a minimum of 100 hours for legislation, and it is for the Government to change that time scale. The committee will agree with that strong principle on time.

We are all responsible people—we are not here to be childish about holding up legislation. It is for the Executive to decide whether it wants to rush through legislation, not us.

I agree with you totally, Ben.

On a point of clarification, the Executive will take its request to the Parliamentary Bureau. I will be at the bureau to represent the committee. We have moved on from the original procedure and, as a result of what happened to us, other relevant conveners will also be present to discuss timetabling the legislation. That meeting will involve all conveners putting across their points of view on the amount of work that they foresee their committees undertaking. Secondary and tertiary committees, or whatever, will have to feed into our stage 1 report.

At that stage, I can put forward the view of the committee and the committee clerks on how much time the committee wishes to spend on full scrutiny at stage 1 and stage 2. The question will arise of how our work dovetails with that of the secondary and tertiary committees, which will need to be completed before we can produce our stage 1 reports.

We should set some basic parameters. For example, will we be able to hold extra meetings if they are needed? Will you be able to tell the Parliamentary Bureau that the committee will not meet on a Monday morning? I think that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee met on two extra occasions.

The Rural Affairs Committee had to meet in the evening and hold extra meetings when it was scrutinising the National Parks (Scotland) Bill.

We should decide now whether we are prepared to do that.

Our first meeting on the legislation is due to take place on 22 November. Will we receive a draft of the bill before then?

As far as we are aware, we will receive the bill when it is introduced in December.

So the introduction of the bill is scheduled for 6 December and that is when we will first see the bill.

I propose that we ask the Executive to give us a background briefing before then, so that we have more time to prepare our list of witnesses and to decide what issues we want to examine in more detail.

I have been through the process a couple of times with the Finance Committee. It would be helpful to receive the initial SPICe research note on policy and background fairly quickly. We have received a helpful table that shows all the relevant documents, and I hope that we will gain ready access to them. Once we have that information, we can prepare ourselves for a relatively early briefing from the Executive officials. From my experience on the Finance Committee, I know that there may be things that we want to influence informally before the final drafting is done. The process of interaction should begin soon after the recess, if that is feasible, as that would leave a reasonable length of time before the publication of the bill in December.

The SPICe research note is almost complete, as work has been done on it over the recess.

I presume that the list of suggested witnesses will be brought to the committee along with the proposed timetable, so that the committee can exercise some influence on the choice of witnesses. I feel that the community care inquiry has gone on too long and that, in the light of that experience, we should exercise some judgment on the witnesses who are recommended.

The list of witnesses and the timetable will be brought to the committee.

It often takes considerable time to get permission to engage expert witnesses, or we have to go through hoops to get them. Could we propose that the committee should have more control over its budget? It is not helpful if we have to wait three or four weeks for the Parliamentary Bureau to decide whether we can have the expert advice that we need.

The process has been refined and streamlined over the past year as committees have identified problems with it. Ben Wallace's point is valid. After we receive the briefing as soon as possible after the recess, we may decide that we need expert input into our consideration of the bill. There is no reason for us not to have an adviser. One of the questions that we should ask ourselves after we have had the initial informal briefing is whether we need one.

I think that we should decide that before the briefing.

If the committee feels that it is appropriate that it should have an adviser, it could take a decision now that we investigate that.

Should we investigate that with a view to identifying possible names? Are members saying that they definitely want to have an adviser, or are they happy for us to identify possible candidates and to come back to the issue at a later date?

I believe that we should have an adviser and, if possible, appoint that person before the informal briefing. There is a considerable amount of documentation and background information that needs to be sifted through. It would be helpful if we could get an adviser in place quickly.

There should certainly be an investigation of possible names, so that before appointing someone we can discuss who would be appropriate for our deliberations.

We will ask the clerks and research staff to provide us with a list of possible advisers. We can revisit the matter before the October recess—[Interruption.] I have been informed that it would better if the committee made the decision in principle that it wishes to appoint an adviser. That would allow the staff to follow through with the action that we have proposed. Does the committee wish to appoint an adviser?

Members indicated agreement.

That brings the public part of today's proceedings to a close. We move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 12:15.