The next item is consideration of the committee's approach to the scrutiny of financial memoranda and whether it wishes to take evidence on the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill.
I spoke to you about the matter earlier. It is important that we have a level of scrutiny for all legislation, but the committee might want to scrutinise specific legislation by taking oral and written evidence. We could flag up certain issues with the subject committees or use a checklist to ensure that certain areas are covered when we write to the Executive. Our overarching role is to consider every piece of legislation, but we do not have to scrutinise all bills in the same way. The previous Equal Opportunities Committee had three levels of scrutiny, which seemed to work well because we were able to have some input on every piece of legislation that the Parliament considered.
I wrote to the convener to express my view that we should not decide to dispense with oral evidence. Part of the core function of the committee is to probe and question the financial estimates for every piece of legislation that comes before us. I agree that written evidence should be obtained, but there must be an opportunity for members to probe and question whether that written evidence is robust.
Both the subject committee and the civil servants in charge should subject financial memoranda to a checklist at least and probably to further scrutiny. Initially, I was somewhat relaxed about the matter because I had become clinically aware that, given the virtual cash-accounting nature of governance in Scotland, staff in each and every department bounce off a financial ceiling and have no further spending available beyond the scope of the budget. However, the key point is about markers and signals, so we must probe and interrogate witnesses on the effectiveness of the measures that they take. It is worth while doing that and having the evidence on the record. Therefore, I am backtracking from my previous cavalier approach.
We could find a compromise by having a system that allows us to take oral evidence from the bill team as a matter of course, but for some pieces of legislation to obtain written evidence from other witnesses. I agree that it would be useful to have an opportunity to scrutinise the work of the bill team that puts together the bill and sees it through the Parliament, but witnesses can be of varying quality. If the point is to try to cut down on time, taking receipt of written evidence from other witnesses would achieve that. I would rather have written evidence from the Executive than none at all but, as a compromise, we should take oral evidence from the bill team.
I am concerned about getting into a mode whereby we accept written evidence. As everybody knows, when something is written down, it can be doctored, shaped and, who knows, spun. I am convinced that one of the functions of the committee is to scrutinise. We appear to have a tremendous amount on our plate, but I am persuaded by the argument that, even with a shorter time scale, we should still have the ability to scrutinise witnesses.
As the convener is aware, I was one of the people who were in favour of taking written evidence from other sources. I am still attracted to that because it could flag up areas where others feel that there are issues that we should probe further. I agree with Kate Maclean that there should be some mechanism by which we can assess whether we need to take further evidence from the bill team because others have raised concerns through their written evidence.
A throwaway comment that was made today by Donald MacRae might give us something to build on. He talked about how the bank evaluated its client entities—I suspect that he meant people who continued with the bank year on year and not necessarily those who applied for funding in the first instance. He talked about balanced scorecards that contained 12 to 20 measures. There would be merit in our coming up with a similar balanced scorecard that the proposers of new legislation could use to address certain points that we think are important. That would give us a vehicle for crisper, tighter questioning and it would give us a benchmark against legislation that comes from other departments.
We have sought to do that by discussing the formatting of financial memoranda that have come before us, which included issues of refinement. We have two propositions. To summarise what Fergus Ewing said, the first is that, in principle, we should agree to take evidence on every Executive bill that is introduced. The other is that we should try to develop a mechanism—a scorecard or broad criteria against which we can assess—
Those options are not mutually exclusive.
No, we would consider each bill and use criteria to decide whether we wanted to take oral evidence and differentiate the scrutiny. Jim Mather says that those measures are not mutually exclusive, but I think that to some extent they might be, if I understand Fergus Ewing's proposition correctly.
I am not sure because until we know what criteria you are talking about, it is difficult to formulate any judgment. For the time being, I suggest that we continue with the practice of taking oral evidence, but that we keep it under review. We all want to do the work that we have taken on and now, so early on in the parliamentary session, would not be the right time to make a decision of that nature. We will not have to deal with very many bills, although some of the health bills will undoubtedly require much more careful and close scrutiny than other bills will. Let us proceed on the basis that we carry on with oral evidence for the time being and be sensible in our approach to the evidence that we seek, the witnesses that we hear and the use of the committee's time.
If we have consensus, I suggest that, for some bills—the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill is an example—we should take oral evidence from the bill team only as Jeremy Purvis suggested. For other bills, we should continue as we have until now with the two health bills. It is really a question of horses for courses. The clerks and I will try to find a mechanism of formalising the process that we can bring to the committee, so that we can agree that we are proceeding in the broadly correct way. Is that acceptable? In a sense, we would be doing what Fergus Ewing suggested.
Fergus Ewing is saying that we should take evidence from a wide range of people. We should either do that—and do it properly—or have another kind of scrutiny system in place. If we are to take evidence on every piece of legislation, let us take it from a wide range of individuals and organisations.
If we are to take oral evidence from the bill team, we must at least take written evidence from others, so that we know what questions we need to ask.
That is right.
Why should we not take oral evidence from others? If we are to take evidence, we may as well do so properly.
I am in the hands of the committee. I am aware that this is a big part of our work load. For three years, the Finance Committee did not scrutinise the financial memoranda of bills, which was wrong. It then adopted the practice of examining bills selectively, which worked reasonably well. Given the volume of bills, can we say that we will examine every bill in the same detail? That is the logical consequence of what Kate Maclean is suggesting. Alternatively, is there a stripped-down method of examining bills that we do not think require such detailed scrutiny?
I do not want to prolong the discussion, but I made a point about taking written evidence. It is possible that everyone who writes to us about the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill will say that they are perfectly happy with the financial memorandum to the bill. If everyone agrees with the bill team, there is probably no reason to take evidence from it. However, if some parties do not agree with the Executive's analysis, we may wish to take further evidence.
I am most concerned about our saying that we will scrutinise financial memoranda and then doing so only partially in some circumstances. It is better for us to be very clear about what we are doing than for us to leave scope for confusion in the process.
This is only a personal view, but my experience since May is that occasionally we have asked witnesses questions that we should have put to the bill team. I would be relaxed about our taking more written evidence from a wider range of witnesses, which would allow us to shape in more detail our questions to the bill team, rather than taking more oral evidence from witnesses that would decrease the amount of time that is available for questioning the bill team. The compromise proposed by the convener, which builds on Fergus Ewing's suggestion, would allow that.
Time is pressing, so we must make a decision. Do members agree to take oral evidence on the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill whenever that can be organised—which would have to be next week? The agenda for next week's meeting will be very congested. Do we also agree that, based on today's discussion, we will produce for further consideration by the committee a paper on how to proceed with scrutiny of bills in general?