Public Audit Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Official Report 576KB pdf

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Section 23 Report

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“The Gathering 2009”

We had originally considered taking consideration of the section 23 report “The Gathering 2009” in private, but have since agreed to take it in public. Given that the papers for this item will not have been circulated, I point out for the public record that it refers to our on-going inquiry into the events surrounding the gathering.

I circulated for members’ consideration a draft letter to the permanent secretary, Sir Peter Housden, seeking confirmation that the normal civil service rules pertained to phone calls made by the First Minister in connection with the gathering—in other words, that any such phone calls were listened to by an official and the subject recorded—and asking whether a list could be provided of all telephone calls between the First Minister and any other person, organisation or body outwith the Scottish Government in relation to The Gathering 2009 Ltd.

I suggest that we send such a letter because, from what we have heard so far, it is clear that the First Minister was very closely involved and spoke to a number of people; indeed, Councillor Cardownie referred to a phone call that he received from the First Minister. I thought that, ahead of the First Minister’s appearance before the committee, we might want to consider having such information as useful background material.

I have taken soundings from committee members, the majority of whom are happy with the draft letter’s content; however, the three Scottish National Party members asked for the matter not to proceed until the committee had discussed it. That is the reason for this item’s appearance on the agenda.

I asked for this item to be taken in public so that we could have a closer look at the wording of the proposed letter. My recollection is that we did not reach agreement on asking whether the civil service listens to telephone calls and I certainly do not recall anything about asking for a list of all telephone calls that the First Minister had made.

My recollection is that the focus of our letter to the permanent secretary was to be the press release, given his understanding that the City of Edinburgh Council had agreed it and the evidence from council officials that it had not. I was therefore surprised to see these questions being asked as a result of our meeting and I wonder how we arrived at them; I do not recollect that they are what the committee agreed.

The committee has not arrived at anything. What has been circulated is a suggested draft in my name. One of the roles that I see myself playing is facilitating and expediting the committee’s work. I am aware that questions have been asked about phone calls and I thought that it might be helpful for committee members to have that information ahead of the First Minister’s appearance before the committee. I asked for the letter to be drafted and circulated it to committee members for their consideration and, as I previously indicated, a majority of members are content with the content. Three members—Willie Coffey, Jamie Hepburn and Anne McLaughlin—indicated that they did not wish the letter to go out until the committee had had an opportunity to discuss it. It has no formal status until the committee makes a decision.

I was not happy for the letter to go out because my understanding is that any letters that go out as a result of discussions held in private are supposed to reflect those discussions and the committee’s decisions. I do not even recall the issue being discussed, never mind decided on.

We have had many discussions on the gathering—in fact, we talk about almost nothing else—but I had no idea that we could have those discussions, decide on letters that have to go out and that you, as the convener, could decide at a later date that you would like to ask other questions that the committee had not discussed. That is why I wanted the matter brought to the committee—so that we could discuss it.

No. I suggested in a draft letter that was circulated to committee members that the committee might want that information to be pursued; however, that is for the committee to decide. As convener, I drafted a letter to facilitate the work of the committee. If the committee decides that it would rather not have that information, it does not need to pursue it. Any one of us individually can pursue that information from the permanent secretary, but this is a decision for the committee.

As you say, convener, it would be possible for each or any of us to get the information through an FOI request. However, it is important to the deliberations of the committee that we have as much information as possible. I do not understand why Anne McLaughlin, Jamie Hepburn and Willie Coffey want to hide it. I thought that they were in favour of openness and transparency and would want as much information as possible to be made available to not just individual members, but the committee. I am disappointed that we have lost a few days. The letter could have been sent and work could have been under way to get the information together. I propose that we agree to the draft letter and request the information by 30 November, so that it will be available to us when we meet next Wednesday.

I would like to respond to George Foulkes. I am coming at this from a slightly awkward position as I have not been involved in the committee’s previous deliberations. However, I have spoken to my party colleagues who have been on the committee for the duration of its inquiry and I think that it is entirely reasonable to have the matter delayed, as there are concerns about the letter that is to be issued on behalf of the committee. I do not see that it is unreasonable to want to discuss it as a committee. As for the point about being in favour of transparency and openness, we are clearly in favour of those things because we are having this discussion on the public record, which is to the committee’s credit. Whether the committee wants to issue the letter will be clearer in a moment, but it is useful for the public record to know that the initiative has come not from committee discussion but from the convener. I am not criticising you or questioning your right to take that initiative, convener; I am just making an observation.

I think that we should strongly support the convener’s right to assist the committee in this way. It is an important role that the convener plays. If there are initiatives that the convener can take to provide us with more information to suggest appropriate lines of inquiry, as long as those are approved by the committee members, that is to be strongly encouraged. We want a full inquiry that is as open as possible.

I understand why certain committee members might want to take the heat off the First Minister by not sending the letter, but I strongly hope that, on this issue, we can unanimously support the letter being sent. Our responsibility is as members of the committee, rather than as members who are loyal to a particular party. We want a full and open inquiry, and we have taken evidence on the issue from representatives of just about every political party. It is a complex inquiry that needs full disclosure and all the facts. The letter is part of the thorough process that the committee should have a reputation for.

Nicol Stephen is completely wrong. I am not bothered so much by the content of the letter, as by the fact that it was not discussed at the meeting. As I say, we have had meeting after meeting about the gathering. If it was so crucial to get the information, why was it not discussed at the meeting? Why did the convener wait until later? If any one of us comes up with something and would like a letter written to someone, can we approach you and send the letter round to the rest of the committee members, and say, “I’ve a great idea that I never thought about at the meeting. We should do this”?

12:45

There are two questions there. First, the reason that it was not discussed in committee was that it occurred to me after the meeting. I thought it might be useful information to have.

My response to the second question is yes: if any member of the committee identifies an issue that they think is pertinent and they wish a letter to go out in my name as convener, they can approach me. It would then be for the committee to decide what to do.

That does not prevent any one of us, in our individual capacities, from pursuing information from anyone in relation to any of our inquiries. We all have members of staff who seek out information for us in relation to our inquiries, and I reserve the right as an individual MSP to ask for some of that information.

What I am not doing, however, is asking for it as the convener of the committee. That would be a matter for the committee to decide on.

It is not a question of hiding behind things and not wanting to bring people to account; it is about principle, and whether a piece of paper that has supposedly been produced on behalf of us all is a true and accurate reflection of what we all asked to happen.

I am concerned that the letter would go behind the scenes and become something completely different—it would grow arms and legs, perhaps. That is the point, and that is why I am unhappy with it. We can all ask those questions individually, as the convener and other members have said, but I feel strongly that the draft questions that follow on from our committee discussion should reflect what the committee said.

It might be worth asking as a footnote whether members would further agree to such and such, having considered the matter, but it is wrong to claim that the committee agreed on a line of questioning when we did not in fact discuss it, and that must be brought to the committee’s attention.

I would like to seek the Presiding Officer’s guidance on whether it is competent to construct a letter that is not based on discussion at the committee and submit it on the committee’s behalf.

Before I bring in Murdo Fraser, the point is that it is a draft letter, not a committee letter. I have no problem in rewording that particular paragraph and taking out the first part, so that it simply states:

“it would be helpful if you could confirm”.

There is no difficulty with that, if it is what committee members wish to do and if it better reflects the committee’s view.

We are in danger of getting hung up on process. It seems to me that the convener operated entirely properly. Subsequent to the meeting, an issue occurred to him—which, in fairness, we had not discussed—as being salient to our investigation. Rather than firing off a letter in his own name as convener, without referring it back to members, he quite properly produced a draft of the proposed letter and circulated it to members.

The draft that is before us has no standing of any kind; it is purely a draft letter for discussion. Unless or until the letter is issued, there is no issue whatsoever. If members want to adjust the letter I am entirely relaxed about that, but the convener has not done anything that is improper or outwith his office as committee convener. All that he has sought to do is bring members of the committee along with him in a proposed course of action.

The principle is that the committee will determine what is sent under its name, if it is agreed once the committee has discussed it.

The committee and the convener have been commended by no less an institution than Scottish political journalism in its wonderful wisdom. Part of that is about finding a level of interrogation and inquisitiveness that really gets to the heart of things.

Irrespective of where we stand on the evidence that we have had so far—on which we are still to reach a conclusion—or even on the quality of that evidence, we need to keep burrowing away on some of the issues because there are still fundamental contradictions. If we are having discussions, as we currently are, and if we are clear about the authority by which the committee authorises the convener to send a letter in the committee’s name, we can agree on that. If members want to look at the wording of the letter, that is fine, although I do not have a problem with the wording as it is.

If we are going to look at it, I suggest that we just take out the words

“Having considered the evidence received”

and start with “the Committee agreed”.

If we agree to it today, the original wording is correct. If we had sent the letter last week, it would not have been correct.

Okay.

I want to comment on the substance of the letter.

We will decide now whether the letter should be sent in the name of the committee.

I have something to say. Such letters should be discussed at meetings rather than sent around afterwards. The convener said that he was surprised that the First Minister should make his own phone calls, which does not surprise me. Other than that, I am not sure that I understand the purpose of the letter and what we are looking for.

We are looking at the record of who received phone calls in relation to The Gathering 2009 Ltd. We know that Steve Cardownie received one, but we do not yet know whether officials were aware of the content of that or whether it was a personal phone call. We also do not know whether other people received phone calls from the First Minister about the issue. The purpose of the letter is to determine exactly who received such calls.

Why does that matter, given that we know that the people who had to be invited to the meeting were invited to it? I genuinely do not understand why it matters. If we discover from this interrogation that the First Minister phoned two people and his officials phoned three, what does that tell us?

We are in danger of getting into a much wider discussion. For example, did the First Minister phone Lord Sempill or any of the organisations that were participating in considering the use of public money? There is information that it would be helpful for us to have before the First Minister appears before us, but I will not get into a huge debate on the issue. We will decide shortly whether to send the letter.

If Anne McLaughlin is right, she should not worry, as we will get a nil or an uninteresting response. However, if she is wrong, it will be very interesting and we should act.

The question is, does the committee agree to issue the letter to the permanent secretary in the name of the committee?

Members: No.

There will be a division.

For

Foulkes, George (Lothians) (Lab)

Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)

Henry, Hugh (Paisley South) (Lab)

McAveety, Mr Frank (Glasgow Shettleston) (Lab)

Stephen, Nicol (Aberdeen South) (LD)

Against

Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)

McLaughlin, Anne (Glasgow) (SNP)

Abstentions

Hepburn, Jamie (Central Scotland) (SNP)

The result of the division is: For 5, Against 2, Abstentions 1.

12:53 Meeting continued in private until 12:58.