Official Report 486KB pdf
Item 3 is the last item today and concerns the draft annual report. I refer members to the draft report with which the clerks have provided us. Note that the guidance is that the report should not exceed 1,500 words so, if members wish to put anything in, they must take something out.
It is like the budget.
Exactly.
I will kick off the comments. Paragraph 12 says:
“The Committee asked all subject committees to include an assessment of how the budget in their portfolio areas had taken account of climate change issues in their reports.”
We should add something about that being a continuing cross-committee activity that we want to encourage or something of that sort that encapsulates the more detailed discussions that we have had.
I do not know what the rest of the committee’s views are, but I was disappointed by the response of some of the committees and would like that to be marked in the section on the draft budget. I do not know how many words out of the 1,500 we have to play with, but we can add a little bit. I take your point that we want to encourage committees, but I would like a marker to be put down about the disappointing response, especially as we had to go back to some committees.
Do members agree that we should try to reflect that sentiment?
Members indicated agreement.
In that case, we will ask the clerks to draw up words that, I think, Claudia Beamish will find congenial to most people’s interest on that.
I absolutely agree. However, we should also highlight the fact that, despite our disappointment, there is on-going engagement with the other committees.
That is important because we will be attempting to set up a more structured process in future. However, I am sure that we can reflect that in the form of words used by the clerks.
Do members wish to comment on any other parts of the report?
12:30
I picked up on an issue relating to deer management. Paragraph 22 of the report says:
“the Committee published its letter to the Scottish Government summarising its views and setting out its recommendations on the future of deer management.”
The committee agreed that it would revisit the issue. I would like that marker put down because of concerns about whether the voluntary code is appropriate or whether we need to move to a statutory one.
I am sure that there will be quite a lot of issues in the report that we will revisit.
I take the point that it may not be appropriate to put down a marker in a particular area.
We could use a simple phrase such as “to which the committee will return” to link in with the sentence in the report. The clerks can handle that. Are you happy with that, folks?
No offence, but is the report not more about what we have done than about our future work programme? Sorry, Claudia.
It is a sort of record of what the committee has discussed. In a way, it is a minute of the year’s proceedings.
It is about reports in the previous year and not about our future work programme.
With respect, convener, I understand Claudia Beamish’s point. I appreciate that there may not be scope, given the number of words, but perhaps we could highlight, in a paragraph, the items that the committee has indicated it will return to in future. However, if we do not have the scope to do that as an overarching thing, I do not think that we can do it for one item.
It is difficult because of the timing and the limitation on the number of words. As I hinted earlier, there are a lot of issues to which we will be returning. If we were to list them all, it would be difficult to fit them in.
When we draft our future work programme, Claudia Beamish will have the opportunity, in public, to ensure that that issue is on it—not that anyone wants to keep it off. It would be easier if we did not mention it in the report. The sentiment is there, though.
As long as it is possible to note—if that is what I am understanding you are suggesting—at some point in the report the general point that there are issues that we will need to revisit in relation to whether there need to be either legislative changes or other changes that we would consider.
That is an awfy long sentence, but yes.
I sound a note of caution. Every committee does this. I think that we may be elevating the issue to a place that it does not deserve and making work for the future. I understand that this is a report card of what we have done in the previous year. The moment we expand it to include what we are going to return to later it becomes a different class of report. I do not disagree with a word of what Claudia Beamish is saying, but I do not think that it should be in the report.
Other things are online already, including the work programme, to say that these are the kinds of things that we will be doing. On the one hand, we have the report of what we have done. On the other, we have the work programme, which we will decide in public. It will be there for all to read and will include deer management as an issue to which we will return. Can we separate the two, for logic’s sake, as Nigel Don has put it?
If that is the view of the committee, I will agree to it.
Go with it. Your concern is on the record, which allows us to note the matter when we come to the work programme in future. We will keep the report to the simpler matter of the report card.
Paragraph 23 is about behaviour change, which is followed by a list of evidence sessions, so behaviour change is covered. Got that. Anything else? If not, we have first of all to sign off the report. Do we agree that I, as the convener, should finally sign it off, with the small changes that we have agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Like all other annual reports from committees, our annual report will be published next week. On 4 June, the committee will take evidence from a round table of stakeholders on the land reform review group final report, at a later starting time of 11 am.
Meeting closed at 12:35.Previous
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