Scottish Parliament Education, Culture and Sport Committee Tuesday 14 September 1999 (Afternoon)
[The Convener opened the meeting at 14:31]
Good afternoon, everybody. We have an agenda—
I would like to raise a couple of points of order.
I know that Mike Russell has already discussed this with the committee clerk, but he has asked me to raise formally the fact that he cannot come to meetings of this committee on Tuesday afternoons because the Parliamentary Bureau meets at the same time. However, he is aware of the difficulties of scheduling committee meetings.
I have a note of Mike Russell's situation. There are a number of items that I would like to cover this afternoon, one of which is the scheduling of our meetings.
You might tell me that we will discuss this later, but my second point of order refers back to the ruling that you made last week that the Minister for Children and Education could not be questioned directly on the teachers' pay negotiations. I do not intend to revisit that issue, as we came to a satisfactory conclusion on the matter, but I would like to raise a point about a connected matter that concerns the bill but is separate from the pay negotiations: the future of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee for Teaching Staff in School Education.
The day after our meeting last week, the minister said in the chamber—the information was also included in a leaked document—that he was considering proposals to abolish the SJNC and that that would be done by means of an amendment to the improvement in Scottish education bill. The minister should have told us that he planned to make that announcement in the chamber as it would have been useful to have questioned the minister about the proposals. I suggest that he come back to the committee to allow us to pursue the matter.
I am happy to ask the minister to reattend the committee to discuss that particular aspect. I do not have a problem with that. It would just be a case of us organising which meeting he should come to, whether the all-party meeting that we have already discussed or another one. I will take your comments on board and we will try to programme something in. Perhaps we could decide when exactly to hold such a meeting once we are further down the agenda and are putting together the work programme. Is that acceptable?
Yes.
I have a point of order.
Before I bring you in, Fiona, can I just say which issues I think we should be covering this afternoon.
My point of order relates to the agenda. You began the meeting by saying that we have a running order. Our agenda has two items on it. My first concern is that we receive the agenda at far too short notice and that it does not tell us what we are coming here to discuss. The lack of an opportunity for any other competent business is also an important point. In particular, Hampden does not appear on today's agenda, yet we ended our last meeting by saying that we would request an answer on that from the minister for today's meeting. The fact that it is not on the agenda worries me. What does that mean for the committee in terms of making decisions about future meetings?
Your points on the timing of the agenda being made available to members, so that they know exactly what is coming up, and on the way in which the agenda is produced, which—as with lots of things at the moment—is still being developed, will be taken on board.
I wanted to come on to today's agenda and flesh out the two points that are on it. You will see that the issue that you raised has been included on the briefing paper. The first item on the agenda is the committee's future work programme. A number of items have been raised at previous meetings that need to be considered under that item: the teachers' pay dispute and provision for a meeting; the Hampden letter, which I hope all members now have a copy of and have had a chance to look at; our outstanding invitation to Greg Dyke to come to speak to us; and a request from Rhona Brankin, Deputy Minister for Culture and Sport, to attend the committee to discuss whatever the committee wants as well as the national cultural strategy that is currently out for consultation. We are also in the process of setting up a briefing session with sportscotland, which we will try to include.
The paper circulated by the clerk also picks up on a number of issues in which people have an interest and that they want to discuss. Some of those relate to the bill and some to areas within the general remit of the committee, whether education, sport, culture or children.
The next item that I want to address is the timing of meetings, which comes back to Nicola's point. We are programmed in for every alternate Wednesday morning. That will continue, as it is suitable for all members. However, as we said at the previous meeting, there are concerns about taking our work load forward within that kind of time scale, particularly with the bill to consider. We have, therefore, decided to consider holding additional meetings. That will have repercussions for every member of the committee, because no matter when we timetable meetings for, they will clash with something. My suggestion—I will put it to you now, although we will come back to it later—is that we rotate the time of the additional meetings, so that the same person does not miss meetings or must make a choice about which meeting to attend.
The second item on the agenda covers two issues that dropped off the agenda of the previous meeting—sub-committees and the committee travelling outside Edinburgh—both of which have now been discussed by the conveners committee, so I have some suggestions to put forward.
Another point that concerns me, and which is not on your list of business, is the length of time that it takes for the Official Report of this committee to appear. At our last meeting we were questioning the minister quite closely. For all that we may have written down what was said, it would have been useful the following day to check what was said. It was more than a number of days until the report was available. I understand the strain on resources, but I think it is important that committees have Official Reports the day after they meet.
Brian has reminded me of another point that Michael Russell asked me to raise. Mike has not received a copy of the Official Report from the first meeting or the previous meeting. Could that be looked into?
Gillian Baxendine (Committee Clerk):
On the last point, it has now been agreed that all committee members will receive copies of the Official Report for each meeting.
Regarding the time scale for publication of the report; at the moment the way that the report is staffed means that producing committee reports the day after committees meet is not possible. The more often committees meet, the worse the situation will get. At the moment all that we can say is that reports will be available before the next meeting of a committee. If members are unhappy with that, they will need to discuss that with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.
I think that that is an important point. As Brian said, we did have the ministers here. If the committee system is going to work, it must get into the nuts and bolts of legislation and of amendments and engage in cross-examination. As Brian has indicated, important issues could come up.
I fully appreciate that official reporters are stretched and cannot be pushed any further. I have seen it with my own eyes. However, there seems to be a presumption—and I hope I am wrong—that the proceedings in the chamber will take precedence over committees. There can be days when proceedings in the chamber are not vastly important, whereas the work of the committees might be.
Without having a go at the official report, we should back Brian.
Gillian said that we could make our views known to the corporate body. We should as a committee make our view known. It is not for us to decide that the chamber should have priority over committees, but it is for the corporate body to ensure that enough staff are employed to do the work of the Parliament.
We are always talking about openness, accessibility, transparency and accountability. If committee reports are not available on the web and in print the day after the committee meets, how can we refer people to what we are doing? If something comes up in the chamber or in committee that people want to know about they must wait for a week for an Official Report. Without an Official Report, all folk have to go by is what the media presents to them. That is why we have an Official Report.
That is a very interesting idea and one with which I agree, but we need to take this further. I am happy to take it to the conveners group. That is one way of progressing this, because I am sure that we are not the only committee in this situation. With support from other conveners we might see something happen.
I thought that the computers went down on the day of our previous meeting. Are you saying that that is what the time scale will normally be?
That is right.
I would be satisfied if the issue was taken to the conveners committee. I will also take it further with the Conservative group, and I will ask that it be raised in the bureau.