Fire Service Boards (PE1147)
After the speed of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice's contribution, I hope that the interpreter from Catalonia is resting her voice.
Thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you in support of our petition. Our campaign to save our fire services has been lengthy and, at times, complex. I might cover some things that you will not fully understand, so I would appreciate it if you asked me, Peter Johnston or John Duffy if you need any clarification.
I invite questions from members. Any one of the three witnesses may respond. Members should indicate whether questions are directed at a particular individual.
I declare an interest. I am delighted that Annmargaret Watson is here today on behalf of the fire reforms action group, as the petition relates to a live issue in my constituency. I have three questions.
Using a retained crew involves a time lag, because the firefighters are on call and have to come to the station from their homes or workplaces. I know some members of retained crews who have indicated that it takes them seven minutes to get to the fire station. That time lag is a major concern for firefighters and residents. Safe working practice stipulates that, apart from in exceptional circumstances, firefighters should not enter a fire without having a back-up crew. If we have only one whole-time crew, when it goes out on a call it must either enter the fire without back-up or wait until a retained crew arrives. It is in firefighters' nature not to wait until a back-up crew has arrived—they will put themselves in danger by going in without back-up. That is not acceptable for either firefighters or residents. The first crew that goes in does firefighting and the second crew is responsible for search and rescue, so the search-and-rescue aspect of the operation will be affected. That is not good enough.
My second question is for Councillor Peter Johnston. It is unusual for a local authority actively to pursue another agency—in this case, the Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Board—and to offer to pay £500,000 to retain a service. Why has West Lothian Council found itself in that unusual position?
Good afternoon. You are absolutely right to say that the position is unusual. Like most local authorities, we would prefer not to volunteer our scarce resources to other agencies unnecessarily. In West Lothian we recognised unanimously—across the political divide—that the retention of two whole-time crews is essential to the delivery of a safe and effective fire and rescue service. We pursued the matter relentlessly within the fire board and presented a case that we thought was unanswerable, including statistics from the fire officers themselves—which Annmargaret Watson part-referenced—that showed some 1,500 occasions when retained crews were unable to muster a crew throughout West Lothian.
Will John Duffy give us an insight into why the FBU supports the petition? Given that, under current legislation, the relevant cabinet secretary has some scope to intervene, why does the FBU support the petition's request for the legislation to be changed so that there is parity between fire boards and police boards?
The use of retained firefighters is not in itself a problem for the Fire Brigades Union. The retained provide an excellent service in outlying areas throughout the country but, generally speaking, the annual number of calls in such areas would make having full-time crews there unsustainable. We use 365 calls as a general cut-off point; if a station has up to 365 calls a year, having a whole-time crew would simply be uneconomical for local authorities. However, we are talking about a station that had 2,022 calls last year. It is the second-busiest station in Lothian and Borders and one of the busiest stations in Scotland. The justification for moving from a whole-time crew to a retained crew is simply economic and to apply an economic test to a safety system is unacceptable to us.
Will Councillor Johnston explain—if it is explicable—how the fire board managed to turn down West Lothian Council's case?
I do not understand how it made that decision. We thought that we argued the case well. We presented statistics from the fire officers' organisation and the fire board did not dispute them. The only explanation is that the board's decision is made by councillors who are not accountable in West Lothian, did not see the matter as a priority and did not want to set a precedent whereby their local authority might be asked to pay for services. I can think of no other reason. You need to ask the board that question, because I found its decision inexplicable.
Forgive me, but is there nothing on the record to explain how the decision was made?
The fire board's minutes show us putting our case. They indicate that we offered to pay and that we made it clear that West Lothian Council would fund the retention of two whole-time pumps, but that we needed the fire board's permission to do that. That was all accepted. The public record shows that, I think, six councillors voted in favour of accepting the offer from West Lothian Council and nine voted against.
Is there any suggestion that the sum of money that you offered was inadequate?
No. The sum required to retain the two whole-time pumps was verified by the board's treasurer, so the board did not think that we were trying to get something without paying the full price.
My second question is for Mr Duffy. Is there a difference in training and expertise between a full-time fireman and a retained fireman? I recognise that retained firemen do different full-time jobs.
The easiest way to clarify the difference is to take new recruits as an example. A whole-time new recruit would do 16 weeks' training at the Scottish fire service training school at Gullane and would then embark on a 45-module training programme that is designed to make them competent in three years. The retained recruit would, generally speaking, have a fortnight's initial training, either at Gullane or at their home fire brigade. They would then embark on elements of the 45-module training programme. Their training varies throughout the country as there are different standards across Scotland. Some retained recruits do 17 modules, some do 18 and others do not use the modular system. The best guess is that if the retained were to complete all 45 modules it would take them eight years.
I am not impugning the skills of people who work very hard and do a dangerous job for us, but it is not unfair to say that the average skill of a retained crew that turns out will not be the same as that of a full-time crew. That is a fact of life.
It is a fact of life and that is why, generally speaking, retained firefighters are used in outlying areas where there are fewer calls per year. They provide a system whereby a community that would not normally have anything has a fire engine. We acknowledge that the retained are a massive part of the fire service in Scotland and that they do a fantastic job, but it is not an appropriate way to crew the appliances in a fire station that is as busy as Livingston's and which covers a population the size of Livingston's.
You mentioned that there are more than 2,000 calls a year.
The number of turnouts for Livingston in 2007 was 2,022 calls.
Could you estimate, or do you know, how many of those calls coincided in such a way that you were trying to be in two places, or, conceivably on rare occasions, in three places at the same time?
I do not have a breakdown of the figures before me, but there is a general acknowledgement that any fire engine might be in the wrong place when the fire call comes in, hence there is a system in place whereby support is provided across different station boundaries. However, we must plan as if resources were where they would normally be. That leads to the problem that one appliance goes out the door one minute and another appliance goes out the door some time later. That lag time causes us the main concern.
For those of us whose central-belt geography is not as good as it should be, will you say how far from Livingston is your natural back-up in Bathgate?
The answer depends on which part of Livingston you are talking about.
I was thinking of the distance from fire station to fire station.
It depends on whether or not you want to go to Livingston.
Absolutely—and you would not start from there in the first place.
They could be pretty long miles in bad traffic.
Absolutely—particularly at peak hours. It is unfortunate that, as Livingston has grown, we have developed our own traffic jams.
Does the joint fire board plan to cut services in other council areas? What reasons has the board given for the cut in West Lothian?
We have been told two stories—the official and the unofficial. The official answer is that the board has no plans. The changes that have been made in West Lothian are part of an integrated risk management plan, which runs to 2010. Thereafter, another IMRP will be issued, the contents of which we do not know. However, if Livingston's arrangement is hailed as a success, there will be no reason not to roll it out elsewhere. The unofficial answer is that it is obvious that the system will be rolled out elsewhere if it succeeds. The interpretation of success depends on the person.
Have reasons been given for the cut?
The number of firefighters at Livingston fire station has been reduced by 21. Seven were taken to Whitburn, which is still part of West Lothian; seven were taken to Penicuik; and seven went to Duns. Those guys operate in those areas from 9 until 5, Monday to Friday, with the purpose of delivering a community fire safety programme. We realise that that is a major and welcome part of the fire service, but we feel that our services have been removed before it has been proved that community fire safety activity is working. That decision was all part of the integrated risk management plan.
Am I correct to say that Her Majesty's fire service inspectorate for Scotland is staffed by former firefighters?
Yes. In general, the inspectorate is staffed by former chief fire officers.
My question is difficult, but I want to ask a difficult question, since I am here. The inspectorate is staffed by former serving fire officers and it has claimed that the diminution is acceptable. Why is the inspectorate wrong?
The previous chief inspector—Jeff Ord—was well known for his cuts agenda. He advocated the reduction in control rooms, which the Government has—thankfully—thought better of. He pushed for the introduction of combined aerial rescue pumps, whose sole purpose is to reduce the number of firefighters.
As a result of the change in composition of the fire board after the 2007 elections, has there been any sense that the new fire board wishes to revisit the issue, or has it affirmed the decision?
That is interesting. The decision was taken just before the elections in May 2007. The new fire board initially suspended the decision and allowed the matter to be revisited. Unfortunately, we believe that it was revisited in a way that did not allow full discussion. For example, we presented the information that retained firefighters in West Lothian had been unable to form a crew on at least 1,500 occasions, but that information was not allowed to feed into the decision-making process. The decision to press ahead with the previous board's decision had already been made and the fire board would not allow that information to be debated fully.
That is the nub of the petition and that is the core point that I wish to question you further on. Has the local authority raised the matter with the minister with responsibility for the fire service in Scotland and, if so, have you got anywhere?
We have not raised the matter officially with the minister as yet. We felt that the Public Petitions Committee was the appropriate avenue to pursue initially.
That is a pity, because he was here about 15 minutes ago.
I have a brief question, which I hope is not a leading question, although it might be. Is it not the case that, in West Lothian there is cross-party support for the views that are set out in the petition and that that was the case before and after the election? The issue is not so much party political, but geographical.
Yes. West Lothian Council consists of Scottish National Party members, Labour Party members, one Conservative, three campaigners on action for St John's hospital at Howden and one independent. At full council meetings, everyone has supported the requirement for two whole-time pumps.
That is helpful. Annmargaret Watson presented the petition, supported by John Duffy and Peter Johnston. The process now is that we will raise the issues directly with several agencies. We will have a shared discussion about which agencies to approach. Once we have received the responses, the petition will come back before the committee. You will be notified of that in advance. You may not get a chance to speak directly to the committee again, but you can certainly be present as a member of the public to find out about progress.
There are three distinct partners and shareholders in the operation and accountability of fire services. There are the managers in the Chief Fire Officers Association, and the employers in local authorities and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, but I would also be interested in a formal written response from the FBU, so that we have absolute parity. We should seek written responses from the three major stakeholders—the managers, the employers and the front-line staff in the form of the FBU.
It would be useful to get views from a smaller authority that is in a board area that includes larger authorities that have substantially more elected members. In the example that we are discussing, the City of Edinburgh Council has three times as many members as West Lothian Council, which has the second largest membership. It would be useful to know how they cope with the issues. In the smaller authorities, it might be more difficult to pull together a coalition on a fire board to get a direction of travel on an issue.
I appreciate that, convener. We should seek views from the Chief Fire Officers Association, provided that we also consult the employers and front-line staff.
There is no harm in having contentious issues in front of us. Committee members will deliberate on those when we get them. We need a broad view so that we can arrive at conclusions that have substance.
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (Screening) (PE1151)
The next petition is PE1151, by Wilma Gunn, who is the founder and chairperson of Scottish Heart at Risk Testing. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the need to establish a national heart screening programme for young people who take part in sport and for families at risk, and a national screening council to oversee such a programme.
Thank you, convener. I will make our opening statement. I am a volunteer for Scottish HART.
Thank you for those extensive introductory remarks, which have been very helpful for filling in the background. I also thank Wilma Gunn for allowing this to go ahead.
I certainly declare an interest as a patron of Scottish HART, a responsibility that I took on not long after I became an MSP. I pay tribute to Wilma Gunn for her dedication and commitment to this cause over many years. Things have moved on, but, as Graeme McIver has made clear, they have not gone far enough.
I feel that the Scottish Government should have its own screening committee. We have been taking advice from Westminster for too long. If it is correct that we should not be screening our young people, why are other countries screening their young people? In Greece, every four-year-old child is screened before they go to school, and two doctors must sign a piece of paper to say that it is okay for them to do sport. Italy, Finland, Japan, Sweden and America all check to see that their children's hearts are okay. However, for nine years now, children in this country have been leaving school without even a medical, which means that other things, such as their hearing and sight, are not being checked. That is wrong. We are not looking after our children's health.
Could you tell us how the scheme in Italy operates?
Dr Anna Maria Choy, a cardiologist at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, has conducted extensive research into the scheme in Italy, which has been running for 25 years. Everyone between the ages of 12 and 35 has to undergo medical testing and screening, whether they are participating in sport as a professional or an amateur.
Our papers indicate that the National Screening Committee is unconvinced—to speak euphemistically—about whether a national screening programme should be adopted. How could that view be changed? Is there anything that we could do to show that such a scheme is worth having?
Scottish HART would like to bring the National Screening Committee's attention to the fact that there has been an 89 per cent reduction in sudden cardiac death in Italy as a result of that screening programme. We are aware that there has been some debate about how successful screening would be, but that figure shows that it can save young people's lives, which is what this charity—and, I am sure, everyone in Scotland—wants to do.
Is it beyond us, in a relatively small country in which a fair amount of gross domestic product is spent on health services, to provide an MOT that would include the heart check that you have been campaigning for as part of a broader assessment? The vast majority of our children go through 16 years of pre-five provision, primary school and secondary school. It seems daft that we have youngsters in our school system for 16 years but do not carry out any reasonable MOT check on them to pick up problems early or to make them more able to deal with things should they want to make different lifestyle choices and decisions about activities and so on. A health check early on could perhaps prevent them from getting into ill health. I wonder whether we can raise the debate to that level rather than just react—understandably—to the tragedies that Wilma Gunn and other mothers have confronted over the years with the unexpected loss of a family member.
There is no MOT check of youngsters in our schools up to the age of 16 although, given Scotland's health in general, perhaps we should have done that over the past 20 years to protect the health of our young people. A screening programme would check every child.
When their son or daughter dies, a lot of mothers and fathers get the feedback that it was a sudden death, but that is not a condition. There needs to be an education programme for doctors and for education departments, so that there is awareness of how heart disease can affect a child. We do not have the figures, and it is wrong that the condition is not being identified to families as it should be.
Graeme McIver mentioned the pilot study that is being carried out at Hampden. Do you know how that is progressing? How long has it been on the go?
The other day, I received an inquiry from a rugby club in the Borders area that wanted to have screening done. It asked whether I could help. The club has 17 young boys who have decided that they want to be screened, but they are not sure what is being done at Hampden. I support the study and Professor Hillis whole-heartedly, but we should know what procedure to follow if a club contacts Scottish HART. How do we refer them to get the screening done? All clubs ought to have screening done. Is the Scottish Rugby Union included in the study along with the Scottish Football Association? I do not know.
It would be fair to say that we are waiting for a bit more information about the scheme, which Nicola Sturgeon announced in about the middle of April. It is not long since the announcement was made, so the detail is thin. However, we know that the plan is that the scheme will be for young people over the age of 16 who are involved in amateur sports. We welcome that as a move forward, but we believe that the focus is far too narrow; it should be much more all encompassing.
I have a suggestion on which it would be useful to hear your observations. The two dominant participatory sports are rugby and football, with athletics and a number of other activities following just behind. Given that community clubs are linked to the training programmes of professional and semi-professional clubs, it would make sense to provide regional opportunities for screening. If regional and cottage hospitals could provide screening, that would avoid 17 boys from the Borders having to travel up to Hampden stadium to be screened. What is there to prevent that?
Certainly. The petition calls for a national screening council to be set up to oversee the whole project. We would like health boards to work with one another. The programme should be accessible, given the number of young people who belong to sports clubs and youth clubs or who play sport, from the Shetland Isles and Orkney to the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. If there is just one centre in Glasgow, the programme will not be very inclusive. We would like it to be spread throughout every health board region in Scotland.
Do members have any other comments or questions?
It is an interesting discussion. The programme would be highly effective if it could be implemented. How could it be implemented in remote rural areas where there are no clinics or sports facilities, just wide open spaces? How could we look after energetic and athletic people in those areas?
One of the main aims of Scottish HART over the 11 years of its existence has been to raise funds to supply a mobile screening unit—in fact, we would like to supply a number of mobile screening units but, as you can imagine, they cost a lot of money and have to be staffed by health professionals.
At what age would children be tested? Are we talking about primary school age or secondary school age?
The Italian system deals with kids of 12 and upwards. As I explained, cardiomyopathy tends to manifest itself during puberty, when the body is growing the most. We would like screening to be available to children from the age of 12.
If a screening unit visited every school, that would achieve most of your aims.
It would be great to have that. We would need several screening units in order to visit each and every school.
To start with, getting the numbers of families at risk and children taking part in competitive sport is a must. On whether it is viable to screen everybody, if something is picked up by the doctor, the person is referred and they may be found to have cardiomyopathy or long QT syndrome—another condition that gives no outward sign of the cause of death—but unless the rest of the family is screened, you have nothing to go on. Screening is a must for families at risk and children who take part in competitive sport.
There appear to be no further questions from members. Your concluding point, Wilma, is the right one. The snapshot issue is the lack of data—a prevalent problem that arises when the committee deals with health issues—and I think that members would concur that we are not tracking things enough, as your petition highlights.
It is clear that the Italian model is a good one, but the petitioners mentioned that other European countries are running similar programmes. It would be useful if we could find out what is happening in some of those other countries too.
It would be useful to have that information. I presume that Professor Hillis is unavailable because of other pressing national team commitments. I wish the Scottish team good luck in the friendly—if we have a team left to put out, given the number of folk who have been withdrawn. I recognise that Professor Hillis has other professional duties this afternoon, but it would be useful to get a sense of his thinking.
I want to jump from the particular to the general. These good folk with us today have spoken about a couple of specific conditions, which are of course important to them and should be important to us. However, I wonder whether we should ask the health secretary to give us the rationale for the lack of screening of children in general and, at the same time, ask her to consider whether we should screen for other conditions. It sounds as though we are just not doing that screening. People would not treat their car in that way so why on earth do we treat ourselves like that?
I think that we cut across Wilma Gunn earlier. Did you want to say something else?
Most of us here will have had medicals at school, but no one has had a medical on leaving school in the past eight years unless they were going into a business or university course for which they needed such examinations. That is wrong because a lot of children out there might not know that they need glasses, hearing aids or whatever.
I do not know what you were like as a child, but I would have much preferred a health check than a BCG any day of the week. It took them three attempts to get me to have it.
The petition has more than 4,000 signatures. Most of those people want to correspond with me so I will have a shorter hand the next time that I come if I write to everybody involved.
We can certainly make sure that your comments are on the record so that you can refer anyone who contacts you to the Official Report of the Scottish Parliament via a web link. You can liaise with our clerks on how best to do that. You are taking on a big burden in responding to all the concerns raised by individuals who have gone through the same experience as you have.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Closed-circuit Television Provision (PE1152)
Let us get the show back on the road. I thank our next petitioner for being so patient. We have had a long shift this afternoon, but we do not often get the chance to take evidence from Government ministers so our meeting has gone on a wee bit longer than normal.
I do not have an awful lot to add to the detail that I have already supplied along with the petition.
Interestingly, the debate around CCTV cameras appeared as a front-page feature in one of Scotland's national papers this week, so this is an appropriate time for the committee to consider the petition.
Good afternoon and thank you for waiting. Can you give me a clue—forgive me if this is in our papers, but I do not think that it is—how many CCTV cameras would be needed to cover the area that we are talking about?
In the area where I live and which I am representing today, we have not done a study of how many cameras would be needed, but the community would probably say that cameras should be put up all over the place. In general terms, I think that we are looking at erecting three cameras in the community.
Forgive me, but the geography of Inverclyde is beyond me—I am an east coast man. If we could magic up funding to put up the cameras, where would they be monitored?
They would be monitored by the local police control room, which is run jointly by council and police personnel.
Does the control room already deal with other CCTV cameras?
After a long exchange of letters, the information that filtered through was that Inverclyde Council's control room is running at maximum capacity. The control room has 50 screens that are monitored by two personnel. The council said that it would not provide funding for additional cameras because that would require the facilities to be expanded. For that reason, our request was stopped at that point.
If we take that at face value—I am in no position to disagree with it—the argument is about capacity. If the control room had not been at capacity, would there have been far less resistance to erecting a few more cameras?
Absolutely.
So the system is at break point, where someone needs to decide whether to spend significant amounts of money to install more cameras.
Yes.
Do we have any idea of what such an expansion of capacity would cost?
The council said that it would run a full cost benefit analysis, but we still await the results.
When are the results expected?
The council has not made any declaration on that.
It would be interesting to find out the results of the assessment. I have been to a CCTV control room in Aberdeen. Looking at the screens is an intensive occupation, so it might be costly to expand the number of personnel who are involved.
Sure.
I understand entirely the desire for CCTV facilities. You touched on why your community wants permanent as opposed to mobile cameras, but would permanent cameras meet your community's needs once offenders knew where they were sited? Have you thought about that? I am thinking about hoodies using their hoods. Would the installation of permanent cameras simply result in problems being moved elsewhere? Are the police in the local area for or against permanent cameras?
The police have certainly raised the issue. They talk about dispersing trouble and dispersing groups of youths. A good case could be made that offenders will look out for cameras and avoid them; that will always happen. That said, there is the same problem with mobile cameras. Youths who break the law or cause problems will quickly identify vehicles that are being used to carry cameras. As soon as those vehicles come on the scene, such youths will stop doing what they are doing or move elsewhere.
I have a small point of clarification. I got the impression from what you said earlier that you think that a significant proportion, or perhaps even a majority, of vandalism crimes in your community have been committed by people from outwith it. I got the impression that people are coming into the community, vandalising and causing problems and then leaving.
I believe that that is happening; youths are coming into the area, causing problems and then leaving. It is the Friday-night syndrome. Underage youths are getting alcohol and going to meet their friends. In doing so, they pass through neighbourhoods such as ours in the east end of Greenock, and that is when much of the crime takes place. Going from point to point, youths pass through communities and vandalise cars and intimidate residents. The weekend is obviously the peak time for that.
Would your concerns not be better addressed by an enhanced police presence and a better policing strategy for the neighbourhood? Would that not be better than a technological solution?
As a result of all the problems, more beat policemen are in the area. If beat policemen are walking round areas that they have not walked round before, or if they are walking round more often, they can deal with particular problems and can disperse the people causing them. The general feeling among residents is that that is fine while the police continue to do it; if you are suggesting a permanently enhanced police presence, I would agree that that would help considerably. However, putting a beat policeman on for three or four weeks or a couple of months and then taking him off does not offer a long-term solution. That is the feeling in the community.
The deputy convener wants to ask a question, but I ask him to let me ask another one first.
I am not saying that the community would not be happy with that or consider it. Any additional support would be fine.
John Farquhar Munro has been very patient.
Good afternoon. When a CCTV scheme is proposed in any locality, who is responsible for the initial funding?
As far as I know, it is the council.
Do the police contribute?
I believe that other bodies contribute a percentage, but I do not think that those contributions alone would be sufficient to fund the projects.
In your experience, have you found that there is co-operation between the two departments? If the local authority is going to put in more CCTV cameras, that will load more on to the constabulary. Is there an argument there?
The mechanics of it are such that funds probably come from various sources; it could be argued that that is as it should be. The feeling behind the petition is that the communities are not bothered where the funding comes from. All that they are concerned about is that the funding is there. If the crime figures show a regular and persistent level of crime, where the money comes from or whether it is available should not be an issue. For statutory reasons, the local authority should make money available and, when it does so, the communities that are on the receiving end of crime should be part of the decision-making process. It should not be a case of the local authority saying, "Sorry, you didn't get cameras because we decided that they would be better somewhere else." That is not acceptable to the communities that are experiencing crime week in, week out. They want to be part of the decision-making process and, if funding is available but a decision is made not to provide the cameras, they will want to know why.
The evidence that you have gathered suggests that crime figures fall after cameras have been installed, so they are effective at reducing crime levels. Because of that, there should be a cost saving to the local authorities and constabulary. The cameras have been doing some of the work of reducing crime and vandalism and other things that add cost to any community. There could be a massive saving at the end of the day.
Absolutely.
When I became a councillor in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow in 2003, there were a lot of demands on me to get CCTV cameras into the area. I have been living in that area for a number of years and I know that the people living there are good people but there are some troublemakers.
One of the issues is the change in resource distribution. Local authorities have argued that there were too many specified issues, or too much of what local government jargon calls ring fencing. That is how money was allocated to local authorities for CCTV cameras. Money for cameras is now part of the broader grant to local authorities. How do you view that direction of travel? Will local authorities be able to meet the costs of CCTV from existing resources? Could they have difficulty in coping with the demand for CCTV in communities?
That is a difficult question to answer, because we do not know exactly what level of demand for CCTV exists; demand could also change. The issue is fundamental to the petition. I approach it from a personal and community point of view. Communities would prefer councils to have to provide funding for CCTV cameras and for there to be a certain allocation per annum or over a three-year period. If figures show that over two years there is a persistently high level of crime in a community—I am not talking about problems that appear overnight—that community should not have to negotiate or to struggle with funding issues.
We have explored some of the key issues related to the petition. How would members like to proceed?
It might be useful for us to find out from a selection of local authorities how they are going about funding cameras in the new situation.
That would be helpful. We could ask whether the issue is addressed in outcome agreements, which are part of the current debate.
Inverclyde Council could be one of the local authorities to which we put that question.
Yes. I understand why the petitioner is concerned about how directive outcome agreements will be in the allocation of local authority budgets, given that the aim is to allow for discretion at local level. Local government has certain statutory responsibilities and a multitude of options for discretionary spending. If councils are instructed to fund the provision of CCTV as the petition suggests, they will have less discretion. We need to explore the issue with appropriate local authorities and to get COSLA's view on it. We need to separate the demand of communities to feel safer, of which CCTV may be one element, from the issue of whether prescription is necessary, so that provision kicks in automatically when crime stats reach a certain level. Both local police boards and community safety partnerships may have a more detailed view—not necessarily a more informed view, although I would like it to be—on the issue. Let us explore that in relation to the petition.
It would be interesting for us to find out the running costs of CCTV, in both finance and personnel, in various areas.
We can seek information on both capital and on-going annual costs.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your patience. It has been a long session, but we will press on.
Medical Records (Destruction) (PE1141)
PE1141, by Myles Fitzpatrick, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Government to consider whether it is satisfied with the policy and guidance that are issued by it under which national health service boards may destroy a patient's medical records and whether that policy in any way hinders the right of an individual whose records have been destroyed to access medical treatment on the NHS.
There is no question but that the matter needs to be taken a bit further. We should seek clarification from the Government, although I am not sure which way round to do things or whether to do everything at once. I recommend that we write first to a selection of NHS boards, to seek their views on the experience of the petitioner and others who feel that their records have been destroyed prematurely.
It may be pure naivety on my part, but it is not obvious to me why anybody would want to destroy a medical record. It sounds like a rather important document. If somebody has given their professional skill and time to examine me and form a view about me, why should that record be binned? I do not see an obvious answer to that question.
I suspect that it is a question of logistics. I know that forms of record keeping have changed, but old-fashioned medical record departments are enormous. The issue is serious. If the Government is considering publishing further guidance, it might be worth writing to ask what proposals it has in mind.
I would have thought that records could be lost through neglect and through change in organisations—shifting between buildings and all that kind of stuff—although some records may be wilfully lost. Three things are worth exploring: first, the context in which records can be no longer kept; secondly, what authorisation is given for the destruction of records; and, thirdly, whether patients' ability to access NHS treatment is dependent on the availability of their records. We need to explore those areas a wee bit further.
The legal anomaly in this case was the fact that the court refused to accept the case because it was not signed by the individual. That issue has since been resolved.
Okay. Perhaps we could approach NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. There is a legal process involved, which I am not an expert on. It would be useful to find out a wee bit more information on that.
I take up the point that Nigel Don made. There is a clear conflict between the keeping of medical records for the sensible reason that they are detailed, complicated documents that can be useful and the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. Medical records are kept in a number of different forms, and the longer that the records are kept, and the greater the number of forms in which they are kept, the more vulnerable they become. Some boards may take the view that, because of the requirements of the 1998 act, they should destroy the records when there is no clear further use for them. That conflict exists.
The problem is not that records were lost, but that they were destroyed. There could be an excuse if they were just missing or lost, but agreeing to destroy them is a different issue.
Members have made suggestions on how to explore the issue a wee bit further. Are we happy with those suggestions?
Court of Session (Right of Audience) (PE1157)
PE1157, which is also by Myles Fitzpatrick, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to abolish rule 4.2(5) of the rules of the Court of Session, concerning rights of audience, to allow individuals to conduct litigation without legal representation, and to consider whether the rule is contrary to article 6 of the European convention on human rights, on the right to a fair trial. Background information has been provided to members. Are there any views on how we should deal with the petition?
The background information that the researchers have prepared states that, under rule 4.2(5), a case could proceed without the relevant signature, contrary to the statement in the petition. That leads me to conclude that we should close the petition, as I am not sure what we would gain from further inquiry on it.
My reading is even stricter than that. I am grateful to have the notes on the petition. The rule, which is quoted in the background information, is that the lord ordinary can make a decision and that his decision is final and not subject to review. If that applies, the decision is not subject to review by us, full stop. The petition is an attempt to appeal such a decision through the back door. It does not matter which back door is used, the answer is that the decision is not subject to appeal. Certainly, we should not open the parliamentary door for that.
We have a recommendation to close the petition on the grounds that were articulated by Angela Constance and amplified by Nigel Don. Are members happy to close our consideration of the petition on those grounds?
Disabled Parking (PE1149)
PE1149, which is by Kenny Shand, on behalf of Disability Help Scotland, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to introduce legislation to allow parking bays for disabled drivers with mobility impairments—for example, outside a person's home—to be allocated to the person who makes the application and for such bays to be legally enforceable. Similar issues have been raised with us in the past and we have probably all dealt with such issues as elected members. The petition is fairly self-explanatory. Are there any strong views on how to deal with it?
I am not sure how to deal with the petition, but I have a comment that goes back to the days when I had a council ward. Getting people a parking bay was relatively straightforward, and everybody understood why one was needed, but the difficulty was getting rid of it afterwards. I am worried that, if we have parking bays that are accessible to only one person—and therefore, I presume, to one car, the number plate of which will have to be identified—when people move on, cease to use the car or, in time, pass on, there will be spaces on the road and nobody will know quite what to do with them. I make those comments merely to give the other side of the argument, from a local councillor's perspective.
I am all for more disabled parking bays and for enforcing the rule that the bays should be used by people who have a disability and who need them. I would welcome anything that the committee can do to further that cause. However, like Nigel Don, I am not sure about the logistics or the legalities of designating specific parking places on public roads for individuals. Issues arise about that.
We should write to the Government and a cross-section of local authorities or COSLA. I compliment the clerks on suggesting the most appropriate organisation to contact: the Baywatch campaign—members may well get some interesting responses if they try to find the website for that. It would be useful to get a view from all those organisations on how we can deal with the matter. Too many individuals with disabilities cannot get access to a proper parking bay in too many parts of Scotland; there seems to be no sense that they have any rights in that regard. We will explore that and respond to the petitioner in due course.
Palestinian People (Rights) (PE1153)
PE1153, which is by Gerald Quin, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make representations to the United Kingdom Government, inviting it to apologise to displaced Palestinians for the actions of Arthur Balfour and to promote early implementation of United Nations general assembly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948 to secure the Palestinian people's inalienable right to live in peace and security in any part of its historic homeland.
Do we have any locus on it at all? It strikes me that the matter is reserved and I am not sure that we should be involved in it.
We have been through this with a number of petitions. We have no responsibility for the matter, but the petition is crafted intelligently: it calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make representations to the UK Government, inviting it to apologise. That gets round the framework that we have in the Scottish Parliament.
I have my political affiliations and, although I would like the Scottish Parliament to have grander powers, that argument will not be fought and won or lost in the committee; it is for the wider political arena and civic Scotland. For me, the committee is about what we can achieve for the people who cross our path, and I would much rather focus on issues on which we have some prospect of achieving an outcome. Today, we have heard petitions about fire services, community safety and heart screening. It is not that I am unsympathetic to the petition but, with the best will in the world, I am not sure what the committee could achieve on it. With respect, I propose that it be closed.
I have an interest as a member of the cross-party group on Palestine but, regretfully, I back Angela Constance's view. We are a Public Petitions Committee working pragmatically on things that we can do in Scotland. We clearly do not have a locus on the matter, as we have no foreign policy powers. The petition has made its point by being lodged, and we should be content that that point has been made.
The situation has been going on since 1948; that is a very long time. I do not know how and when it will end, but we should do our best to get the problem settled. I am in favour of doing whatever we can to settle it. It has been going on for 60 years or so, which is far too long.
There is no lack of sympathy in the committee for the conjoined issues of a resolution to the persistent problem in Palestine and the security of the state of Israel, but there is a difficulty with the process that the committee has for dealing with them. We could acknowledge the petition and close it on the ground that responsibility for the matter lies with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but draw the Government's attention to the fact that we have received it.
Inheritance Law (PE1154)
PE1154, by Mary McIlroy Hipwell, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to amend the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 to allow a person in their will to leave their whole estate to a surviving spouse or civil partner and to abolish the right of adult children to claim on that estate. Those of us who are parents worry when we see these legal minefields. Given that the Scottish Law Commission is exploring the fundamental point of the petition, I do not know whether it is appropriate for us to deal with it now. Perhaps we should wait until the commission has published its report on succession, which would give us background information. I do not think that it is fair on the petitioner for us to have a discussion about something that we know that other bodies are considering in detail. It would inform our discussion if we knew the outcome of the commission's deliberations. On that ground, although the petition is in the system, I suggest that we suspend consideration of it until the commission has reported. Is that agreed?
Young Offenders (PE1155)
PE1155, by Elizabeth Cooper, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to amend the law to ensure that young people aged between 10 and 18 who are charged with serious offences are tried by the criminal justice system, rather than the children's hearings system. This issue undoubtedly features in public discourse. I seek members' views on the petition.
To be blunt, I am not overly sympathetic to the petition. In a former life, I was a prison social worker, and we encountered young people who arrived in Perth prison subject to unruly certificates and other legal provisions. In my view, there is ample scope to deal with young people in the criminal justice system. When a child or young person commits a serious offence, they are dealt with in court. It is not unknown for 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds to be subject to High Court proceedings. I do not see the merit in pursuing the petition further.
We have a simple choice. Do we believe that the current system, whereby the Lord Advocate has discretion, which is exercised by her staff, is reasonable? If so, I suggest that if the system ain't broke, we don't need to fix it. If we do not believe that continuing with the current system is the right way forward, we have to investigate alternatives.
My difficulty is that, although I understand Angela Constance's take on this, I know from local experience that there is genuine concern about certain behaviour by young people. Some people feel that individuals can act without intervention by the system, so they do not have confidence in it. The issue is not whether there is a willingness by professionals to intervene—I am sure that there is—but whether that is sufficient, given the nature of the offences in question. I want to explore some of the issues further, but other members of the committee might think differently. I would like to hear what members think before we reach a conclusion.
I served on the children's panel for three years. More serious crimes were dealt with in a different way. If the crime was serious, the young person involved would not be allowed to admit it to the panel. The case would go to court, but the young person could still come back to the panel for disposal, and there would be a discussion about the best way forward. In other words, having been tried and found guilty in the mainstream justice system, the young person would not necessarily be sentenced to incarceration, but would come to the children's panel for different kinds of disposal, taking into account the interests of the child.
We have a profound disagreement on the direction in which to take the petition. I am reluctant to close it. I am sure that all members are sympathetic to the personal testimony that it contains; I have no doubt that the woman in question was deeply affected by the circumstances surrounding what happened to her son. Her sense is that the justice system ain't intervening enough to send a strong message to those who attacked her son.
I am not particularly knowledgeable about the issue, so I do not have a strong view either way. However, I see no harm in exploring things a bit further, particularly with regard to finding out what Victim Support Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the children's reporter think about the issue.
The petition asks about whether people should be tried by the criminal justice system or the children's hearings system. It is probably worth exploring a third option, with regard to the nature of the procedures that can be undertaken through the children's hearings system and consideration of how young people are developing, to try to intervene in their behaviour rather than throw them into the criminal justice system so dramatically.
A compromise position would be to keep the petition open until we have heard the results of the review of the children's hearings system. That might be sensible—we can see what happens from that. You never know—the petitioner might be content.
Is our position that we are waiting for the review process?
The review has not started.
I do not disagree with the suggestion. The issues are complex, and the reality is that the individuals who were involved in the situation that the petition mentions will have been dealt with through the existing system.
Would it possible for the committee to refer the example in the petition to the review as evidence?
I am not sure whether the terms of the review and precisely what it will consider have been announced, but we could investigate whether it would be appropriate for a copy of the petition to be fed in officially for consideration as part of the review. Obviously, the petition would still be within the ownership of the committee.
I have fundamental concerns about putting more children and young people into the criminal justice system, because that would be counterproductive. I am opposed to banging children up. However, I accept that the children's hearings system is rooted in local authorities and can operate differently in different parts of the country. Robin Harper's suggestion is sensible.
Okay. We will proceed with that suggestion. I thank members for their patience in discussing the difficult issue that the petition raises and how we should handle it. We should take on board the perspectives that we have heard about this afternoon to see whether they can help us to explore the issue with the review of the hearings system.
Children's Interests (PE1156)
Our final new petition is PE1156, by Jimmy Deuchars, on behalf of Grandparents Apart Self Help Group Scotland, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the administration of child and family law services to ensure that they operate in the best interests of the child.
I have sympathy with the petition. We have said—and we still say—that the issue was considered and dealt with in recent legislation. However, we still hear, admittedly in anecdotal evidence, that a number of people are not satisfied that the system operates in the best interests of the child in every case, albeit that it does so in many cases. Maybe we should investigate a little more before we close the petition.
Like Nanette Milne, I have sympathy with the petition, given that everything should be child centred. Does my memory serve me correctly, though? Did we deal with a similar petition? Is there an issue of consistency?
Yes. I was going to say that. Paragraph 13 of our briefing on the petition mentions other petitions on the same topic, which came from the same petitioners, essentially.
The issue is of considerable interest to me and, indeed, my staff. I draw members' attention to the fact that there is a motion in my name on a similar area of family law and the best interests of the child. I hope that we will debate that motion before the end of term, but whether we will do so remains to be seen.
I support Nigel Don's position. If the children's panel is being reviewed, we need to have a review of children's services, which are separate from the panel. In fact, one of the panel's biggest problems is finding the services that it would like to assist children and families. It would be sensible at least to start asking questions about children's services in relation to everything else that is going on, particularly the review of the children's panel.
Angela Constance is the mother of a new-born baby. The mother can tell what love there is for the child. As men, we cannot really tell how much love there is. We should leave it to the mother rather than to the man.
Those arguments used to rage between my mother and father in my house on Friday nights. They are unresolved to this day.
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