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The next item on the agenda is pre and post-council scrutiny. As ever, the usual options are available to the committee in responding to the regular updates. I should point out that a couple of the papers have arrived, even though the information for members says that they are due—they should be among the other papers for this meeting. Are there any comments on the item?
I wanted to ask about the intergovernmental conference.
We are coming to that. At the moment, we are still on pre and post-council scrutiny.
In the past, there have always been discussions at officer level between the clerks to the committee and the officers in the Executive. Perhaps Stephen Imrie can tell us what stage those discussions are at. It seems to me that it would be more helpful for us to put pressure on ministers rather than on the officers, which I am not sure is the right way of proceeding.
I am happy to ask the clerk to respond to that. I suggested the heads of department because I thought that there might not be support for getting the ministers along to discuss time scales for scrutiny.
We may not have to get them along. We could write to them.
We have done that before.
I would hesitate to put words into the mouths of officials in the Scottish Executive. We have had very cordial discussions with our contacts in the Finance and Central Services Department, who are our first point of contact. We are making common efforts to encourage other departments of the Scottish Executive to provide the information to mutually agreed timetables. It would be wrong of me to go much beyond that on the record, except to say that, at our initial level of contacts, the officials have a framework for asking for the information to mutually agreed timetables. Whether members feel that that framework has been enforced is a question for the committee, as is the question of whether it is at ministerial level or at official level that they wish to investigate matters further.
I do not want to open up the item into a big discussion. Most members appear to be of the view that we should leave the matter on the agenda so that we can, in future, invite heads of department or, if we wish, the ministers. At some point, however, we will have to discuss the lack of response.
In order to progress the matter, it might be helpful if the clerks prepared a short report identifying percentages by departments and providing us with the hard facts. Once we have examined that, we can take up the matter in written correspondence with ministers. If we have information analysed by department, that may encourage departments to reply to us more promptly. That may be better than inviting heads of department to appear before us, as, technically, they are responsible to ministers rather than to the committee.
If members wish, I am happy for an analysis to be put to us, with options, although I point out that on several previous occasions we have written to the Executive about the issue. However, it is worth while having an analysis carried out. Is that agreed?
To what extent is the delay the fault of the Scottish Executive and to what extent is it the fault of Westminster? Where are the bottlenecks?
Generally speaking, the delay is down to Scottish Executive ministers. Our pre and post-council scrutiny relates to Scotland's representation at council meetings.
We have received a paper on energy for the transport, telecommunications and energy council of 15 December. That issue was raised at the recent European members information liaison exchange network meeting.
I am happy to seek reassurance on that point.
The documents talk about energy infrastructure in a wider Europe. Does that have implications for the national grid?
To which council are you referring?
The transport, telecommunications and energy council.
The issue is particularly important, because we have interconnectors with other member states. Recently in Italy there was a failure of electricity supplied from other member states. We must have an efficient system for transmitting electricity around the European Union. Scotland plays a significant part in that, so we need to consider the matter.
We can seek clarification on that point, but we cannot yet answer Nora Radcliffe's question.
Rationalising the national grid would have significant implications.
Do members seek other points of clarification?
We have an interconnector with France, so that is an issue.
There is also an interconnector with Ireland.
Yes, although the electricity goes initially to Northern Ireland. Another important issue is dialogue with Russia about gas. Russia is a major source of energy for the future. The whole paper is relevant to Scotland's interests in the longer term.
We can raise all those issues in a letter to the appropriate minister.