At the outset, the report lists a number of decisions that committee members are invited to take on the basis of the exposition that follows. Members are aware that we had a deputation from the group that is named here as the changing the culture of politics group. The report fleshes out the approach that we might take in the investigation that we have agreed we should carry out later this year. I therefore invite members to address each point for decision separately. Rather than go through the paper, we will go through the recommendations. If members are happy with them all, we will have cracked it.
The title is by no means short. "Principles into practice: making progress with the principles of the consultative steering group" would be a bit snappier than what we have at the moment. I shall return to this when we come to the press release.
Is that a bit of spinning?
Spinning positively on behalf of the committee. We need to return to the press release too. It would be easy to misrepresent this exercise. A malicious journalist—God help us, there are not that many—
They have all left.
Good—we can talk about them now. A malicious journalist might say that the Parliament is spending lots of its time and money considering how well it has done. We are not doing that, but trying to consider how much we have lived up to the positive feeling from the CSG. We have to be careful about the language we use as we present the report. For a start, the title is too long—it is not easily understood. We need a shorter and snappier title, and when we come to consider the press release, we need to define more clearly exactly what we wish to achieve.
The point about the title is well made. The clerk, who will remain anonymous, accepts the rebuke.
One of the underlying principles of the CSG is to get away from the blame culture.
But not from the humour culture, I hope.
I have a different point, which I have a bee in my bonnet about, although that is, in a sense, what we are here for. Page 3, under "approach", outlines all the areas that are to be considered. The second bullet point concerns the roles of the Presiding Officer, of committees and of civic society. It should also mention the role of individual members and of the parties. Whether we like it or not, politics is conducted on a party political basis. People might hold the view that it is too party political or that it could be improved in some way. Related to that is the role of the individual member—whether there is enough scope, for example.
Tell you what, Iain Smith and I will issue a whip saying that those roles should be added.
I wonder how long the committee will take to conduct the review, if it has to cover all those areas.
Although the exercise is pretty ambitious in many respects, we have already accepted that it is appropriate for us to find out how the Parliament is measuring up. As with anything, it is better to do this well, even if it takes a long time, rather than simply to race through it. However, it might not be an annual exercise.
It might take us the rest of the next three years.
You could be right.
My point is connected to Mike Russell's comments about the title and concerns the principles behind the exercise. Are we asking people to tell us what we have achieved? We are only a year into the Parliament and should bear in mind the fact that it was September before the committees were up and running and that several of them took a while to find their feet. How much have we gone into the meat of the Parliament? There has been much press criticism about what we have not achieved and how we have not lived up to expectations, and I am worried that we are asking people to comment on a negative view of the Parliament. Perhaps we should focus on whether we are getting the balance right.
That is a very good point. However, as people are being asked to comment by August, we still have the period between now and the summer break. Perhaps we should speak to people with experience of the workings of the Parliament rather than people who have read about it in the press. Everyone is entitled to his or her view, however. I understood that the consultees listed on pages 5 and 6 of the draft paper had already had dealings with the Parliament. Although we should start the exercise, we should also take it on the chin that much of the criticism will be ill-informed.
Or it might be accurate.
Absolutely.
That will be a matter of judgment when we hear it.
I did not quite catch Michael Russell's proposal. Perhaps he could repeat the title that he had in mind.
Having read the proposed title again, I should say that my first suggestion for a title was just as bad.
Although I agree that the title is too long, its reference to implementing principles is right. I do not know whether respondents will have the same perception; perhaps we should concentrate more on whether we are getting the balance of what we are doing right. The CSG principles were only principles, not policy, and people might not necessarily make that distinction.
The point about decelerating the process is well made. Perhaps the title of the exercise should be "Principles into Practice: Towards an Open and Accountable Parliament", which includes the idea that they are among the Parliament's aims and that our job is to assess that process and give it further impetus. We have all signed up to the CSG principles; the inquiry's purpose is to find out how well we are doing in light of them. We want to give the process further momentum in areas where we are not doing so well and to build a sense that we will go further.
We could also get genuine public opinion about the Parliament by, for example, stopping every 10th person who came out of the public gallery and asking them questions.
We could do that too.
I think that we are heading in the right direction. We should concentrate on the questions that we will ask, while bearing in mind Janis Hughes' point about the potential for respondents to focus on areas such as policy delivery and other issues for which we have no responsibility. If we get the questions right, we can ask them year-on-year, which would provide us with indicative results about whether the Parliament is improving or getting worse on issues such as openness, accessibility and responsiveness. It is a good idea not to rush the inquiry.
The committee has not asked for help from a special adviser or consultant. At this stage, it is infinitely more important to consult the public on this matter, although other people and the Executive must be consulted. We need to get a public handle on whether the CSG principles—which are not widely known—have percolated down to people's perceptions of how the Parliament operates. It is not just a matter of MSPs working up those principles; the principles of openness and accountability should show forth in our daily lives and people should be able to refer to them without knowing anything about the CSG. Perhaps we should consider redrafting the press release and the title of the paper—which is often a good way of redrafting a proposal—and develop a proposal for an adviser who would help us with the public consultation.
John Patterson, could you flesh out paragraph 17, which suggests that we discuss
There are many embryonic difficulties and some of the comments committee members have made are welcome. We will clearly want to consider consultation on the state of the Parliament itself—as Gordon Jackson pointed out—but I am afraid that we are looking to MSPs for suggestions about how to reach a wider audience. We are still at a very early stage in the process.
The difficulty is that we can quickly get into the media debate about the Executive's priorities and policies, which is entirely different from how the Parliament conducts its business. Part of our task is to give some profile to the Parliament as an institution, as opposed to the Executive. What kind of adviser do you have in mind, Michael?
Sampling companies and polling companies, for example, specialise in public consultation and will set up groups of people we can talk to. There are ways of doing this. We need some time to examine them and to talk to people who have used such companies. This is a real public exercise. We know how to ask questions of the bodies that are listed in the draft paper, and we certainly need to ask them the right questions, but we must approach the public almost cold to find out whether their perception of the Scottish Parliament reflects the CSG principles, and whether—and to what extent—we have achieved our aims. That is quite a specialised task and we will need to work up a very careful brief for such a company. We can do that if we can clearly define the aims of the exercise.
The list of external organisations could be broadened to include less glamorous but more community-based organisations such as pensioner associations and others that involve people who get together year in, year out. That would certainly be as useful an exercise as consulting Joe Public.
Page 144 of the CSG report talks about participation and mentions public petitions, citizens' panels and deliberative opinion polling. Any such exercise must be perceived to be at the cutting edge of gathering people's views.
One of the things that has defeated me in my long period in politics is finding out what the public really think; the cliché about the silent majority is, like all clichés, true. Public consultation costs a lot of money and we do not have any, which might present a practical problem. It might be cheaper to accept Andy Kerr's suggestion and find out the opinions of a specimen number of organisations such as schools, youth groups and pensioner groups. That might be somewhat unscientific—if someone can find the money to do it scientifically, we can do that too. As Janis Hughes said, there is a risk of getting regurgitated, second-hand stuff that people have been fed by hostile newspapers.
There is a budget for special advisers to committees, with a standard, fixed range of fees which is known to the clerks. It would not be impossible to tailor our requirements to such a budget.
The discussion has raised a number of interesting points and the Executive generally welcomes the review and will be happy to give evidence. It is quite right to mention that we should ask groups that have already given evidence, "How was it for you?" and find out whether the process was open and accessible enough for them.
That is a fair point.
Presumably members can put their suggestions to John Patterson.
Absolutely.
They are welcome to do that.
I would like to raise one further issue—for information, more than anything else. This week, we are likely to have the first stage 1 debate on a member's bill. It has been suggested that there will be an attempt to amend the general principles of the bill and the stage 1 report. According to the CSG report and to individual members of the CSG whom I have asked, the CSG did not anticipate amendments to bills at stage 1. Is there anything in the standing orders that would prohibit that?
What does Michael Russell mean by an amendment to the general principles of a bill?
The bill to be debated this week proposes the abolition of warrant sales. If any amendment that is lodged would cause warrant sales not to be abolished, that would be an amendment to the general principles of the bill.
I suppose it would, as it would destroy the bill.
Order. This item is not on our agenda and we cannot reasonably discuss it. A question has been asked about a procedural matter relating to standing orders. I ask the clerks to reflect on the issue that has been raised and to provide all members of the committee with a ruling on this aspect of standing orders as soon as possible this week by e-mail. If there are procedural issues for the committee to discuss, we will do that at a subsequent meeting.
Meeting closed at 11:03.
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