Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, April 24, 2014

Official Report 313KB pdf

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“Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament” (Cross-party Groups)

Item 3 is for the committee to agree an update to volume 3, section 6 of the “Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament”, to ensure that cross-party groups comply with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s policies on filming and room bookings. The committee agreed at its previous meeting to incorporate those policies into volume 3. We have a paper that shows the updates in the annex to paper 2, which is before the committee. Do members wish to comment?

Page 4 states, in relation to room bookings:

“For example, Cross-Party Group Conveners and Secretaries could refer to this section when planning future meeting dates to determine which dates and times would prevent any clashes”.

It was suggested that MSPs look at the website to see when other cross-party groups are meeting, so that they do not set dates that clash; some MSPs are members of three or four cross-party groups. I think that that would be cumbersome and practically impossible, because you would have to tie it in with when the room is available, and the groups may be meeting quarterly so it would be difficult to scroll through all the cross-party groups to see where the MSP members were going to be on that particular day to avoid a clash.

That is something that is currently in volume 3 of the code, not one of the additional pieces of the code that members are being asked about today, but if it is an issue that members wish to explore you can take it into account for the committee’s future work programme. For what it is worth, the clerks tend to use the meeting-room manager to scan upcoming business for cross-party groups, because that is one place to see all the meetings that are happening, so that may be more helpful than scanning through all the cross-party group pages.

If it is already part of the code, it obviously does not work, because lots of people cannot attend cross-party groups because groups meet on the same nights. I do not know how you can make that any easier.

We can return to the issue, but I suspect that we are looking at a matter of logistics and that it is up to individuals, when making arrangements, to consider all the circumstances around any proposed date for a meeting. There is probably a limit to what we, as a committee, can contribute to good practice on the part of others.

If nobody else wishes to make any observations on the matter, we move into private session for item 4.

10:10 Meeting continued in private until 11:23.