Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 28 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 28, 2000

Official Report 137KB pdf

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Annual Report

Item 5 is the committee's annual report. We are required under the standing orders of the Parliament to make a formal report to the Parliament on certain issues. I am advised by the clerk that we are allocated a fixed number of words in which to make that report. If anyone wants to suggest any additions to be made to the draft that has been prepared by the clerk, they will have to suggest what might be removed as well.

The report covers the period from 1 May 1999 to 1 May 2000, so it cuts off before we reported on our first major inquiry. However, those are the dates that the standing orders specify. Do members have any points to make on the draft report that has been circulated?

The draft report looks fine to me. What will be done with the report? Who is the expected audience for it? Would the public be expected to read it?

Yes. It will be a public document and will include reports from all the committees. It will be made widely available.

It will be made widely available, but it is debatable whether it will be widely read.

I do not think that we are blowing our own trumpet loudly enough; the annual report gives us the chance to do so in setting out what this committee has been able to achieve. We have a letter today from Ken McCorquodale, the policy officer of Highland Council, who ascribes to this committee the achievement—following the detailed examination of an oil company's activities—of a penny reduction in the retail zonal premium. The committee's activity therefore appears to have saved 1p on the fuel premium in parts of Scotland.

Thank you, Fergus. I am not sure that that forms part of the annual report, which might be slightly more dispassionate.

Are we agreed on the content of the annual report?

Members indicated agreement.