Legacy Paper
Agenda item 2 is consideration of our approach to our legacy paper. As the clerk has helpfully circulated a paper on the matter, I ask him to introduce the issue.
This is somewhat unexpected—
He keeps you on your toes.
Absolutely. You can talk among yourselves while I get my papers together.
I thought that it would be helpful to provide the committee with a suggested framework for a legacy paper. As several members have already talked to me about the importance of producing a legacy paper and some of the subjects that it should cover, I thought that members should have the opportunity to discuss an outline framework of such a paper before the clerks try to draft it. Therefore, I have put together a short briefing paper on how the legacy paper might look and I would appreciate some feedback on it before we start to write the legacy paper itself.
Assuming that the committee wants to produce a legacy paper, I have set out suggestions on the framework in paragraph 9 of my paper. I suggest that the legacy paper should have an introductory section to explain the purpose of legacy papers, which is basically twofold. First, any legacy paper should look back at lessons that have been learned during the parliamentary session, including feedback from members on what worked and what did not work, how the committee went about its operations and what things were particularly worth while. For example, members have said that the round-table evidence-taking sessions that the committee has had recently have been valuable. The first purpose, then, is to look back over the parliamentary session and record members' thoughts on ways of working.
The second purpose of a legacy paper is to look forward and to provide our successor committee or committees—there is no guarantee that there will be an Enterprise and Culture Committee as such in session 3—with our advice and thoughts. Of course, it is for any future committee to decide which, if any, of the ideas it will take forward. The proposed framework builds on that by suggesting that the legacy paper should include a review section, a lessons learned section and a future ideas section. For the future ideas section, because of the possibility that the committee's remit might be given to more than one committee in session 3, it probably make sense to list ideas by subject matter—enterprise, arts and culture, tourism and so on—to make it easier to farm out our suggestions to any future committees. That is the basic framework.
Obviously, the future ideas section will be informed by the round-table session that we had on the employability framework and the strategy to help those who are not in education, employment or training as well as by today's round-table session on the aging population and our future round-table sessions on the sport 21 strategy and on creative Scotland and the creative industries. However, I would be grateful to hear, between now and February, any other ideas that members have for future priorities and inquiries so that we can work those into our draft legacy paper.
I should point out that the paragraph on the review section suggests that the committee, or a successor committee—it could be one of a successor committee's first tasks—might want to ask the Executive about the recommendations the committee made in a number of the important reports it published during session 2. The Executive has already commented on those recommendations. It agreed to some and did not agree to others. The committee might want to ask the Executive how it has implemented the recommendations it agreed to. Have the recommendations been held in abeyance or have they been acted upon? If there is time, the committee might want to undertake that work now, as part of its legacy paper, picking out its main recommendations, or it could suggest that the task be undertaken by a future committee.
That is the basic framework. I would certainly appreciate ideas from members so that we can take the issue forward.
Thank you very much.
The purpose of today's discussion is to try to agree a general framework to which the clerks can work when they prepare a draft legacy paper. Obviously, there are two broad areas that the legacy paper needs to cover. First, it should look at general issues such as issues of process. For example, is there a better way of handling witnesses rather than some of the very formal procedures that we have used? How do we balance the need to get information in public and to be briefed in private? Members might want to make a number of suggestions on process issues that should apply to any successor committee.
As Stephen Imrie said, our committee in effect covers five portfolio areas: enterprise, including science policy and aspects of energy policy; lifelong learning; arts and culture; sport; and tourism. Committees tend to reflect—in a general way, rather than identically—the departmental structure of the Executive, but we do not know whether the enterprise and lifelong learning portfolios will remain within the same department and committee. We do not know whether arts and culture will remain alongside tourism and sport. Therefore, it seems sensible to divide our specific recommendations into the five portfolio areas so that any successor committee can follow them through logically within the common framework of our legacy paper.
By the way, I point out that the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee in the previous parliamentary session was the first committee to produce a legacy paper. Of course, our idea was copied, as usual, by all the other, more junior, committees. I think that legacy papers are a good idea. Obviously, a legacy paper cannot bind anyone, but I think that it will help any new committees that might be formed after the election. A legacy paper will give people a sense of what our priorities were and provide some degree of continuity in the work of committees for each of the portfolios. Committees are not duty bound to produce a legacy paper but, from the Conveners Group, I understand that most, if not all, subject committee are doing so.
Do members have any comments? Can we agree a general remit for the clerks, who will prepare the first draft of our legacy paper?
I have three points—one about the subject area and two about process. First, I might be wrong, but after almost four years I have the impression that we could have done more on science. Perhaps we did not have enough time, but we all suspect that problems exist with the teaching of science both at secondary level and in higher education.
Secondly, my experience, again from a long period, is that round-table discussions are always positive. The one that sticks in my mind is the one that we had in a hotel in the west end—the name of which escapes me—about Scottish solutions. I do not know whether we would call it a round-table discussion. Maybe it was a brainstorming session. I hate to use this expression, but in that session we were thinking outside the box. We heard almost more ideas than we could include in our report and, at times, we got into some interesting new territory. I do not know whether that was other members' experience of the day, but I will remember it. Maybe it was to do with the fact that we were taken out of the Parliament into a different, more informal, environment—we moved between tables and so on. However, colleagues might not agree with that.
Thirdly, I remember our evidence-taking session in Argyll during our inquiry into renewable energy. I remember the night in the community centre in Campbeltown when we heard some interesting new evidence that cleared the air in relation to the perceived wisdom about wind farms. That was useful. All our reports have been good, but our report on renewable energy was one of our better ones.
I agree with your point about the session in the Edinburgh hotel. One reason why it was so helpful might be the quality of the advice that we got from Wolfgang Michalski. A lesson for the future might be that committees should go outside the club that is Scotland to find advisers, because doing so gives us a special perspective that we do not always get from people who are hands on in Scotland.
I am not sure that that is true, but the quality of the advice that we got from Wolfgang Michalski was particularly good and our relationship was particularly positive. There is maybe something to be picked up in that.
I have a suggestion about the process of drawing up our legacy paper. I have noted a lot of practical points about the sessions that we have had, but, rather than take up discussion time, it might be helpful to capture such points through a combination of e-mail and a wee chat outside the committee for those who want to meet. Obviously, if there are points of disagreement, we can discuss those at the drafting stage. If members agree with that approach, I will resist the temptation to go through all the points on my list and will mention only a couple of the bigger ones.
The question of our remit was touched on from another angle. I well understand the range of issues that govern how decisions about remits are taken. By definition, they are not taken by committees themselves, but it would be legitimate in our legacy paper to make the factual comment that our remit is too broad. I do not think that it is in our gift to recommend what any future remit should be. We should simply say that it is too broad.
I agree with Jamie Stone's point about science, but given the extent of our remit we have not done badly. We have considered a range of areas, but we have not done justice to some of them—as we could if our remit were divided into more manageable chunks. That should be carefully considered in the future.
I am not sure that we acted on our predecessor committee's legacy paper as much as we could. The issue is not just about producing the paper; the new committee will need to build in some time early in its timetable to ensure that it considers the paper. Also, instead of considering the paper only once, there is a case for the new committee revisiting it once a year, or certainly a couple of times during the parliamentary session, because circumstances change.
It is only when members have been around for a while that they become aware that they might be reinventing the wheel or revisiting something on which a good piece of work has already been done. We do not have enough institutional memory to build on such work and often rely on members who were previously members of committees to say that something was done before. We must get better at capturing such information.
I have been party to a parallel conversation in the Audit Committee about a left-hand, right-hand issue that concerns the interrelationship of committees. That is a corporate issue and, if members agree, it would be helpful to capture it in our legacy paper. That is an issue for the Audit Committee, because it covers subjects that overlap with many subject committees' remits.
The essential point is that knowledge, information and expertise are not shared enough between committees. The intention when the Parliament began was to have more mechanisms for that, but for all sorts of reasons—I do not know whether we can even identify them—sharing has not been nearly as systematic as it should have been. Two examples that involve this committee's relationship with the Audit Committee are the work on individual learning accounts and the work on further education, for which the mechanisms for feeding in learning and so on were not as effective as they should have been. It would be useful for us to acknowledge that point as a subject committee. I have not thought about them today, but I am sure that other subject committees have similar issues. I will leave that point for now. Perhaps we should consider the relationship with other committees.
I will not go through my full list of process points. What is bubbling under and what people have already talked about is the value of informal sessions. The constant discussion is about the balance between meeting in public and having the free flow of an informal session that does not have a full Official Report and so on. My firm view is that the Parliament needs much more of a continuum and that it is possible to strike that balance. Even from a cost point of view, the full-blown Official Report and all that goes with it are not needed, probably even for a discussion such as this. I know that I am raising wider issues. When, outside a formal session, we have received briefings and tried to get our heads around issues early, that has been more effective and more efficient. The outcomes can be captured or there can be a bona fide minute. I realise that the situation is different for a more formal process, whether in relation to legislation or a later stage of evidence taking for a policy inquiry.
As I said, I have a host of other detailed points, but I am happy to pass them to the clerks.
I encourage all members who have detailed points to feed them in. My attitude—I think that Stephen Imrie's is the same—is that we should put comments in the initial draft, after which they can be removed, rather than not put them in. What is in the legacy paper is up to members, as the committee owns the paper.
I agree with Susan Deacon about our remit. The extent to which we have been able to do anything other than enterprise stuff is an issue. My experience of previous committees with a broad remit has been that the dominant policy occupies most of the time. We have not done justice to sport, culture or tourism, although we have tried hard. That should be in the paper.
Another matter that may be worth flagging up is the refreshing of the committee—consideration of rotating membership every two years. I know that people become comfortable—I have been here for four years and I have loved every minute—but I do not know whether some refreshing of the committee has merit because of the different ideas that that would bring.
A more general point is about briefings. The informal manufacturing advisory service briefing was superb. We could have spent twice as much time on it. Perhaps the balance of work between formal committee meetings and other initiatives is an issue.
As for the legacy paper's framework, I agree with having two fairly short introductory sections—the introduction and review. After that, we can cover the blue-sky stuff—what we think will be the dominant issues—and subjects on which it is for a future committee to do work. It will be up to a future committee to decide whether to take our advice.
I have just a couple of brief points. In his paper, under the heading "Future ideas", Stephen Imrie refers to the idea of a skills summit. That should be broadened out. We have not spent enough time on the wider skills agenda in the past four years, which to an extent ties in with what Jamie Stone said about science. There is a definite overlap. We could perhaps give a steer to a successor committee or committees that how skills and the workplace tie in with subjects such as further education should be prioritised.
My only other comment is about Stephen Imrie's recommendation on annexes and an Executive update on what has happened to our report recommendations. That is a valuable suggestion. There is not much point leaving that until after the election when a new committee will be in place, because we may have a different Executive and all sorts of things might change. It makes sense to follow that suggestion before the parliamentary session ends.
Alex Salmond will have only four departments, so there may be only four committees in the whole Parliament.
And which ministerial office will you hold, convener?
I call Richard Baker.
I wanted simply to say that we should perhaps flag up in the legacy paper the value of post-legislative scrutiny, which is a good thing that some committees have done. One example is the Health Committee's work on long-term care. We dealt with the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc (Scotland) Bill, which was huge. It might be worth the next committee seeing how well that legislation works. There have been some other, smaller, but equally important, pieces of legislation that might also be worth reviewing. Such reviews are sometimes just as useful, if not more so, than inquiries.
I am not sure about being refreshed every two years. I have been here for four years and I do not feel particularly fresh, but I am not sure whether it would benefit me to be refreshed by going on another committee.
I do not want to dampen Christine May's idea, because it is good in principle, but I suspect that the business managers may have something to say about it.
This is your committee, but as a former business manager I can perhaps give a wee bit of perspective on the idea of refreshing. Having gone through two sessions, I much prefer committees when they stay as a unit, as they work more effectively. It is hard to create a unit. Under Alex Neil's excellent convenership, you have a cohesive and focused committee, which makes a difference.
As well as post-legislative scrutiny, committees could carry out post-policy scrutiny. For example, one of the most useful things the Education Committee did was examine the recommendations on child protection and where we are relative to the Government's proposals. We have probably delivered more to improve child protection through that than by approaching the subject with a blank piece of paper, so it is worth considering post-policy examination as well as post-legislative scrutiny.
Coming back to Susan Deacon's point about structure, I think that the Parliament misses an opportunity. Departments tend to work on particular subject areas, such as enterprise and lifelong learning, but there is scope for the committees to provide a cross-governmental function. Economic development is a good example. If there were an economic development committee, it could examine the impact of education or transport on economic development.
Structuring committees along themes rather than reflecting the departmental structure needs to be looked at. They could be used to get joined-up thinking. I do not mean this in any derogatory sense, but the departmental structure is at the whim of the First Minister, and it tends to change over time. The creation of a culture, sport and tourism function was one change, and the question was whether enterprise should stay with lifelong learning. We might get a more stable structure if committees were themed along, for example, economic development or poverty and deprivation. We could perhaps give some thought to that.
Stephen Imrie is happy to meet any committee member to discuss their ideas. I encourage members to do that. The Parliament has grown up a lot in the past eight years and we now have a lot of experience, which we should try to impart. Irrespective of the changes in party fortunes, there will always be a churn at every election. For new members coming in and serving on committees for the first time, it will be helpful to have recommendations, even if they are not taken up. The legacy paper can be used as a kind of briefing on the work that has been done, to inform new members and to bring members who have been members of the Parliament but who are new to the committee up to date with what has been happening.
As a member who has been refreshed on committees—I came from the Equal Opportunities Committee to the Enterprise and Culture Committee—I can say that the downside is that it took me a while to get into the thinking on this committee. Other members had their heads round the subject, but it took me time to get into it. It also took time to get into the way in which the committee is managed, as it is different from the Equal Opportunities Committee, which has prepared questions. That was a fascinating change for me.
I have been an ordinary member in a committee with prepared questions and I absolutely hated it. My personal view is that that practice stifles the committee.
I was anxious when I entered this set-up, but I can now see how valuable it is to members to have the freedom to go down whatever avenue suits them.
At present, some committees use prepared questions and some do not. I personally do not like prepared questions, because the whole point of the process is to try to respond to what people tell you. If members sit with prepared questions, that looks dreadful.
At the same time, there is an opportunity. The clerks on this committee do good work in providing briefings and outlines, to give us information on which to base our questions. That is valuable and interesting.
I will repeat what others have said about the value of looking back. One of the most interesting pieces of work that the Equal Opportunities Committee did when I was a member was to refer back to the Gypsy Traveller measures and consider how well they have worked. We found huge gaps. It is also important to look back at reports, such as the one on aging that we discussed earlier. We should not lose sight of such reports. Once people have taken evidence and produced reports, it is easy for the reports to go nowhere, which undermines people's confidence in the parliamentary process. One important aspect for the successor committee is that, in moving forward, it should also look back.
I have other points, which I will give to the clerks, on topics that I would like the future enterprise committee to consider.
We will not have a guess as to what they are.
They will not include climate change.
The Confederation of British Industry is on to that already.
I am happy to open a book.
I have a point about the non-scripted questions in this committee. It is an incredibly important feature that was part of the dynamic of the committee. I take it that the clerks have taken note of that.
The decision on that is really for committees and their conveners. My view is that having questions prepared to that extent takes the life out of a committee and is a bit of an insult.
Not having scripted questions has made us think and listen more.
If members go into a committee with scripted questions, the danger is that they will have not done their research beforehand.
To be fair, we had some guidance on questions from Nicholas Grier, when he advised us on the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc (Scotland) Bill, which was extremely helpful, because it was a complex bill.
It was just as well.
To be fair, that was a very technical area and we were dealing with proposed legislation.
Such guidance has its place.
Exactly. That is the point—it is horses for courses.
We will bring back the draft paper in the first week in February, which gives members ample opportunity to feed into the clerks and, if you want, to have a one-to-one meeting with Stephen Imrie, which I encourage you to do.