Official Report 204KB pdf
The next item concerns our review of sportscotland. In your committee papers you have copies of correspondence from Stewart Maxwell, the Minister for Communities and Sport, inviting the committee's views, by 2 November, on the delivery of sport in Scotland, as part of the Scottish Government's review of sportscotland. Do members have any views? I imagine that the expression of those views will be as short as the timescale that we have.
I am disappointed because, when we were planning our budget scrutiny, we put aside a session to deal with the sportscotland budget and the review and to meet representatives of sportscotland. Could we express our concern to the minister and ask for an extension in the timescale? Sportscotland is our premier sporting body and it seems ludicrous that the committee should not be able to submit a report on it as part of the process.
We intend to have the Minister for Communities and Sport before us on 5 December and can ask him questions on the matter at that point. That would be part of the process. I do not know about the extension to the 2 November deadline.
For the committee to be able to give an informed opinion as part of a review of sportscotland, we would have to undertake an inquiry into the issue and consider it in detail, particularly given that the remit of the review is to consider sportscotland's current functions and possible organisational changes. We would have to give due consideration to what those possible organisational changes would be, including consideration of alternative models.
I am inclined to agree with Michael Matheson.
I do not know whether we were expected to respond; we just received an invitation to do so.
This might be novel, but the Scottish Government is asking for comments before it makes a decision. As a result, the committee will not have the figures. I know that under previous Governments, consultations were held when the decision had already been made. The minister is asking for our general view. He will come back to us to say what the Government intends to do with sportscotland, at which point the committee will be able to feed in its views directly. However, at the moment, the Government is simply asking for input as part of its review.
Although the letter is dated 19 October, it was not received until 24 October.
I agree with Michael Matheson. What has happened is unfortunate. I was not present when the matter was discussed but, like Mary Scanlon, I have read the Official Report of that meeting. As I understand it, the civil service is not carrying out the review but has been instructed to consult all the major sporting organisations to get their views on it, after which the Government will reach a view.
I was present on the day that the minister was here. My recollection is that he said that the Government was going to replace sportscotland with a different structure and farm out its functions to three regional organisations. I do not know whether that was set in tablets of stone. However, sportscotland was established by royal charter—I wonder whether it is straightforward to remove the royal charter.
I did not say that there should be an inquiry; I said that I think that we would have to have an inquiry.
No matter who is in government, a committee cannot tell a minister not to come to a view until it has had an inquiry. We are powerful, Helen, but unfortunately not that powerful.
Could I just add something?
I wanted to draw the session to a close. Although there is more to say, the general feeling appears to be that we do not have time to respond.
I want to make one further point. With the Commonwealth games coming up in 2010, the Olympics in 2012 and the Commonwealth games again in 2014, I wonder whether now is the moment to rush into significant and major changes. Networks are destroyed when that happens. We know what happened to the health service. It took two years to recover from change. It is unacceptable to give us five days' notice to discuss something that may have a fundamental effect on Scotland's ability to perform in those events.
Whether the timing is right is a political decision—it is really for ministers to deal with.
It is unacceptable to give the committee five days to comment on something that may have a significant effect.
We are looking at processes here. We have been invited to comment, but it is impossible for us to take any view in the given period. Would it be appropriate to say that, even if we had enough time, we would need to have the minister's proposals in front of us? The proposals will be out at the end of December, at which stage the committee will consider them, take evidence if required and make its views known. We are looking at a sequence of events. You are right—what could we comment on? We cannot comment on anything at the moment.
The committee should write to the minister, strenuously expressing its concern about the impossible position in which it has been placed. I do not know whether the dates were in the minister's control, but we have been asked for a response by 2 November to a letter dated 19 October that we received only on 24 October. That adds insult to injury.
I would not put it in quite such dramatic terms. You are right that the committee should indicate its position on the date of the letter, which was not in the clerks' hands until 24 October and could not therefore be presented to the committee until today. I am not making an excuse—the delay in the letter reaching our hands is certainly not appropriate—but even if we had received it sooner, we would still not be in a position to respond. The committee's view is that we have been invited to respond but we cannot do so in the timescale or without the information. Once the information is published, we fully intend to have a rigorous analysis of the proposals. I would be surprised if that does not involve evidence taking. The message will get to the minister that it is pretty pointless writing to us at the moment and that there are lessons to be learned by the ministerial team.
The minister's letter, which was written a month after he was here in committee, says that the remit for the review is
I want to amend what we put in the letter. We should strongly ask that no decision comes to the committee already set in stone. If we are going to take evidence on proposals, they should only be proposals. The committee scrutinises the Government, and if the minister will not take views from the committee, he is avoiding any scrutiny of his proposals. That is a slight to the committee and to Parliament.
Bear with me a minute. The outcome of the review—
I object—you cut across me and now you are cutting across Rhoda Grant as well. You should let her finish her point first. You cut across me too before I had finished my point. I object to that.
Bear with me—I think that I have used a fairly light touch. The point that I am making is just for clarification. The outcome of the review will be published in December. In our letter, we will say that we wish to consider that outcome. At that stage, the committee will take evidence and make its response. That seems to be appropriate. The minister and his team will gather evidence, he will publish the outcome of the review, and we can then have our bite at it and say whether we agree or disagree with it.
It must be clear from our letter that we need to be in a position to influence the final outcome. There is no point in our considering something that is set in stone, and saying that we agree or not. As the committee that deals with sport in Scotland, we need to be able to influence the decision.
I hope that committees always influence ministerial decisions, when there is something that is appropriate and sharp to say to ministers. I hope that ministers listened, for instance, to our previous debate in which we talked about the quality of data. However, you and I know that even if the entire committee came out with a particular view, the decision would still be a ministerial one, or a decision for Parliament. That is just the way the game is. If the committee takes a strong view on certain issues, I would certainly expect ministers to pay due regard to it, as I would expect them to do with anything that we do.
The minister has indicated that he is interested in our views; although we are unable to deliver them today, that should mean that he will still be interested in our views in the future
The minister will know from our discussion that this was not the best way to do things. We now move on to item 6, which will be discussed in private.
Meeting continued in private until 11:52.
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