Item 3 on our agenda is our consideration of a letter from the convener of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit. When the issue was first raised, it was news to me. However, I now understand that the commission is an important part of parliamentary proceedings; it is a sort of quasi committee. I suggest that it should be treated as if it were a committee of the Parliament.
Certainly, the commission deserves the full support of the parliamentary structure that its convener has requested. On reading the letter, my only concern is that the commission should retain its independence. We must ensure that nothing that we do compromises that.
That is a useful point.
The SCPA is slightly different from committees of the Parliament. Although it is not a committee as such, it should be able to use the facilities of the Parliament to carry out its functions.
I sense that members agree to the proposition.
I take it that there is no impediment to notices of commission meetings being placed in the Business Bulletin.
That would require a change in the rules, which is what the commission is asking for. However, if the committee agrees in principle that the requests are legitimate, the clerks will develop the appropriate rule changes.
But written into the script somewhere will be Alex Johnstone's point about not undermining the commission's independence in any way.
Yes.
Can we also check with the official report the resource implications for that office of producing Official Reports of commission meetings?
I gather that the official report produces transcripts at the moment, but that those transcripts are not published.
My understanding is that the official report produces transcripts of meetings of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit on the same basis as it produces Official Reports of committees of the Parliament. The resource implications are therefore—
So what is the revision to rule 16.2 all about?
At the moment, the transcripts that official report staff prepare cannot be referred to as Official Reports of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit. In the rules, the definition of an Official Report refers only to meetings of the Parliament and its committees.
So—
It is a definitional thing; the resource implications were addressed at an earlier stage.
Right.
So, in effect, the proposal is to facilitate the work of the commission.
Yes, and to make changes to the wording of some of the rules to allow that facilitation.
If everything that is said at commission meetings is recorded at the moment, it seems strange that the transcripts are not published.
The transcripts are published but at a later stage, as annexes to the reports that the Scottish Commission for Public Audit produces. If we were to change the terminology in the rules, an Official Report of each of the commission's meetings could be published soon after the event, in the same way that Official Reports of meetings of the Parliament's committees are published as soon as possible after meetings take place.
I seek clarification of paragraph 6 of the clerk's paper. Obviously, proceedings of the Parliament are given the particular status of parliamentary privilege. If the commission is not a committee of the Parliament, are we saying that it should be given the same protection as is given to committees of the Parliament? What is the commission's status under the Scotland Act 1998? Can we confer committee status on a body that has not had that status conferred on it under the 1998 act?
I ask our legal adviser to provide advice on the matter.
A colleague dealt with the matter, and my understanding of his advice is that if the Procedures Committee wishes to agree to the proposal, it can do so. Parliamentary privilege attaches only at the point of publication and not before—it is for the purpose of publication. A repetition of a statement after publication is not privileged; the privilege attaches only to that narrow spectrum.
The provision in the Scotland Act 1998 grants absolute privilege to
The position is very odd. We understand that the Procedures Committee can make a recommendation on the matter to the Parliament. The Parliament can agree to it or not, as it so wishes.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but what you are saying is that although the statement is not privileged when an individual makes it, the published statement is privileged when the Parliament publishes what the individual said.
Yes.
That would leave the individual in a difficult situation, but probably no more difficult than at present.
Precisely.
It seems a strange double standard.
It is a direct consequence of the point that has been picked up—the SCPA is not a committee of the Parliament and is not immediately identifiable as being under the parliamentary umbrella—it would be so identified only if the Procedures Committee and the Parliament decided to go down that route.
I have no concerns about SCPA meetings being announced in the Business Bulletin, and I have no problems with publishing transcripts of its meetings. However, I have some concern about giving the transcript the status of an Official Report of the Parliament when the SCPA is not a parliamentary committee. We need to consider the matter more closely than planned, given issues raised in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the paper.
There is a difference between what the committee and the Parliament can do and whether it is appropriate to do that.
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