Official Report 124KB pdf
I welcome everyone present to the second meeting of the committee in 2006 and invite them to switch off their mobile phones. We have had apologies from Linda Fabiani and Alex Fergusson. I presume that the other members who are absent are on their way.
I agree with the thrust of the paper, which is that the core of the code of conduct should be as brief and focused as possible. If we want to have additional guidance, that is fine. Distinguishing between the core, mandatory stuff and the other stuff is a good proposal and we should pursue that.
I agree with Donald Gorrie. We should keep the language as simple and as straightforward as possible so that not only the public find it easily accessible but members know what they are and are not required to do.
I think that I am on record as saying that this is and always has been a difficult area for members. The key principles should be explained as clearly as possible. As Donald Gorrie suggested, there could be additional guidance, on areas in which members might wish to consider their position for example. That would be better than writing such guidance into the code of conduct, which would put us in danger of not only tying everybody up in red tape but the code not working as it is intended to work.
I agree with my colleagues. The code should be a mixture of mandatory and advisory and should be as straightforward and succinct as possible.
In that case, I take it that members agree that we should have a paper at a future meeting on how the restructured code would work in practice. Members have expressed fairly clearly their view that the code should be as simple and straightforward as possible, in the interests of the public and members alike. Is that agreed?
Page 3 invites the committee to decide how it wishes to deal with section 2, on the key principles. Do members wish to make any comments?
I have a bit more difficulty with what is called the "aspirational" element of the code. After all, I recall a case in which a colleague might not have achieved the highest possible standards of office management and so on but had not actually done anything wrong. It is fine to set out the goals to which we should aspire; however, if, like all human beings, we fail always to achieve those goals, we should not be hanged, drawn and quartered for it. Putting such goals into the code is a good thing, but they should not be used as a device to pillory MSPs.
What you have highlighted can be achieved if we restructure the code to make clear the aspirational elements, the mandatory elements and the various elements of guidance for interpretation and information. The key principles would certainly fall into the aspirational category rather than the mandatory category, in which non-compliance would have certain stated consequences.
That approach is entirely sensible. We should try to strike a balance between aspirational elements and what we must do. As far as service level agreements are concerned, I believe that we all have one of those, which lasts four years. However, I take your point that we should perhaps examine the matter, although I think that we need to be subtle about it.
It is always appropriate to examine our practices, but at the moment we are dealing with how we police them. Perhaps the judgment on how well or otherwise a member has performed is best left to the electorate. However, if others are considering slightly different methods in that respect, there is no harm in looking at their deliberations.
The Greens have a point about the difference between a sandwich provided here and a sandwich provided somewhere else. There is a widespread view that MSPs will not go to something unless there is food—or food and drink.
I am glad that you put it that way round, Mr Gorrie.
It is thought that they will come only for the rather bad sausage rolls—well, the sandwiches are not bad here. We all suffer from eating some pretty unpleasant lunches in order to be briefed by some organisation. If one pressure group gives me really good sausage rolls and one gives me rather bad sausage rolls, I do not think that I will support the first lot rather than the second lot and give them priority treatment. However, there is an issue about where one draws the line.
If it is not very clear how we should draw up the rules, that probably indicates that we ought to have a look at the situation and seek views on it. That is my suggestion.
The realities of lobbying and influencing are infinitely more subtle than paragraph 7.3.6 of the code of conduct indicates. It is not so much an influencer's dinner as a dog's dinner.
Or a grand dinner.
Yes—that is covered, too.
We have considered the matter sufficiently to enable us to ask that a paper be produced on the issue. I suppose that we are trying to regulate individual judgment and I do not know whether we can do that. However, the points that Christine May, Donald Gorrie and the convener have made are worthy of further discussion.
Do members agree to the approach that Bill Butler suggests?
I agree with Christine May and the convener. Conferences raise difficult issues. There is a conference industry, which as Christine May said, can be informative and helpful but can involve a degree of lobbying. I take an arrogant view: if I am invited to speak, that is fine, but if I am invited to pay to listen to a minister explain something, the invitation goes straight in the bucket. However, if an MSP is offered a free place at a conference that charges the public £50 or £100 for attendance, does that constitute wicked lobbying?
I suspect that the figures that you mention are rather low, because I often hear about conferences that are charging three-figure sums for attendance. Such events can be positive, which is not well understood by the public, so we need to strike the right balance. However, I am a little concerned that elements of the conference industry seem to have ready access to committee conveners or ministers, who front conferences that would have no interest if the conveners or ministers were not speaking. In such circumstances people pay to gain access to conveners of parliamentary committees—or whoever. We should consider the pluses and the minuses of the situation.
May I first comment on paragraph 24, which refers to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body? It says:
I agree that it would be useful to hear from the SPCB. I might be taking advantage of my position by saying this, but I would like it if the SPCB went out of its way to use notice boards to announce what was happening in the Parliament every day. A notice to indicate that a cross-party group would meet in committee room 5, for example, could be placed not just outside the committee room but at the public entrance and in the garden lobby. Such notices would help members to know what was happening, so that they could spend time attending the meetings that they wanted to attend, rather than scurrying about trying to find out what was going on. We could improve the way in which we inform not just the public but members of the Parliament.
I agree with Christine May and the convener that we should seek the views of the SPCB. We could start by seeking written evidence and perhaps take oral evidence later if we wanted to do so.
So you are interested in considering the membership of CPGs.
I am interested in considering their party and non-party membership.
Okay.
We should take written evidence from the SPCB and consider whether the interim decision that the committee took in 2003 on the membership of cross-party groups is working effectively. The Greens suggested in their written submission that the committee should examine the decision, and their point is at least worth considering. There are more Green party, Scottish Socialist Party and independent group members of the Scottish Parliament than there are members of the next two largest parties after the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party, so perhaps they are not as badly done by as they seem to think they are. However, if we want our cross-party groups to be genuine cross-party groups, it is right to monitor the decision that we took in 2003 to ensure that it is working effectively.
So members agree that the committee will consider section 8 of the code of conduct, on the regulation of cross-party groups, at a future meeting and that we will invite the corporate body to give us more written evidence, as it has offered to do. Are members also content that we should invite the corporate body to say how we might advertise to the public and to people who work in the Parliament what is happening in the building by appropriate display notices rather than simply advertising outside committee rooms?
Perhaps we could have dealt with such details later, but I may not remember to do so.
It is entirely appropriate for us to revisit section 9 of the code of conduct to see whether it covers the appropriate equalities areas and to look at the list of equipment. We should also see whether the code is adequate to deal with exceptional expressions of behaviour that have been evident in the chamber.
Do members agree to that proposal and to seek further written evidence from the SPCB?
Do members have any comments to make on what is said after paragraph 33 on page 7 of the paper? Section 10 of the code of conduct, which deals with enforcement of the rules, is referred to.
The section goes with section 9 of the code—conduct and then enforcement are dealt with. To the best of my knowledge, no minor penalties can be imposed if members misbehave themselves a bit in a full plenary meeting, for example. We have discussed that previously. There is the nuclear option or nothing. I have no clear suggestions to make about whether members can be told to stand in a corner without their lunch for an hour, or something like that.
Would that be the parliamentary equivalent of the sin bin?
We could have a dunce's hat on offer—I do not know. It might be reasonable to have more modest penalties for more modest offences. However, on the whole, members behave reasonably well. Other than when the poor chap or chapess speaks just before 5 o'clock—they generally have a really thick time of it—we do not behave too badly.
If we are taking written evidence from the SPCB on the previous issue, we should take written evidence on this one, as the two issues sit together. We can consider the issues at a later date when we have received that written evidence.
I will throw in my tuppenceworth, although I am more than happy to accept Karen Whitefield's suggestion. Mr Gorrie makes the perfectly valid point that the committee has a limited range of sanctions available to it. We discovered when we exercised the sanctions how convoluted the process is. We should consider what powers or sanctions should be in the hands of committee conveners, the Presiding Officer, the Parliamentary Bureau and, ultimately, the Parliament. We do not need to go as far as to produce a tariff that sets out, for example, that for a second offence a member would get a three-week ban, or perhaps a sine die ban, to use football parlance. It might be difficult to produce a tariff, so we should not go that far. However, at present, the public and members have no indication of the likely consequences of various breaches. We should at least discuss the principles of that and who would most appropriately exercise any sanctions. We could also consider whether there should be an appeal route.
On page 8, following paragraph 41, we are asked whether we should consider annex 5 to the code of conduct, which covers matters that are in the hands of the Presiding Officer. How do members feel about annex 5 to the code and the suggestions in the paper?
In six years as an MSP, I have never once discovered that my correspondence with a public agency has been passed to a list member. I wonder how common an occurrence that is, but that is not for us to judge. Such a matter would be for the individual MSP, who would rightly have a grievance. The Greens have a right to be angry and concerned about the case that is highlighted in their submission. However, they should pursue the issue with the public agency that was responsible for the breach of confidentiality. The committee is not responsible for policing public agencies; we are responsible for members' conduct and the conduct of the Parliament. It is enough for us to police those things effectively and properly, without encroaching on the operations of other agencies. In circumstances such as those that are outlined in the Green party's letter to the committee, it is for the individual member to take up the matter with the public agency and explain why they think that there has been a breach of confidentiality and why that is unacceptable.
It is not all that unusual a practice for public agencies to pass on details of correspondence to list and constituency MSPs and particularly to councillors—that was prevalent when we had the two-tier local authority arrangement. The principle that you mention is accurate and is spelled out in the paper.
That is entirely sensible. We should ask the Presiding Officer to provide that evidence and reflect on it when we receive it.
Is that agreed?
On page 9, following paragraph 44, we are asked to consider what we should do about persistent and abusive constituents.
I have always taken the view—not as an elected member, but when I worked for one—that that matter should be dealt with in the constituency and that, if the complainant was particularly abusive or aggressive, the matter should be taken to court as a last resort. I have done that.
It is reasonable that we discuss the matter. However, I would think that the codes of conduct of some public services would have ideas about dealing with customers who are abusive or vexatious. Perhaps we could reflect on those various practices and find out whether they have anything from which we could benefit.
I am sure that we could learn from other people.
I think that there are instances in which trade unions, in the course of representing their members, have had to seek interim interdicts in the courts with regard to particularly vexatious individuals. Perhaps we could examine the way in which those who represent working people try to ensure that they are protected from the few—I am thankful that it is a few—who indulge in such behaviour.
Can I take it that the committee would like to have a report that considers practice in the private and public sectors and, in particular, the parts of the public sector to which we are closely related, such as the commissioners, some of whom have developed such a code? We will consider that report at a future meeting along with the suggestions that have been made today.
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