Official Report 66KB pdf
Before we begin consideration of item 4, which relates to our Scottish Ballet inquiry, I must inform members with some regret that a committee report has been leaked prior to publication.
Where?
In yesterday's edition of The Scotsman. It is beginning to appear as if this committee cannot produce a report without that report finding its way into the public domain. That undermines confidence in the committee and members' confidence when they are considering reports. Over the weekend I refused to speak to journalists about the report on our Scottish Ballet inquiry, despite being under considerable pressure from them to do so. Now I find that details of the report have appeared in a newspaper.
I concur with everything that you have said, convener. As I told you earlier, I spent two hours on Sunday night going through the report and annotating it, having over the past week—indeed, over the past few weeks—resisted the blandishments of a range of journalists to talk to them about it. I was extremely annoyed and depressed to discover on Monday that a journalist had had sight of something that appears in our report. That is intolerable. It undermines the work that each of us is doing and the ability that we have demonstrated on the committee to work together across party lines. It also undermines the confidence of those who put their trust in the committee to undertake inquiries and to deal with those properly and in the manner that will be most helpful to them.
Thank you. Since the leaked information appeared in the press, I have been contacted on numerous occasions by Duncan McGhie. I have not spoken to him, as I did not feel that that was appropriate, but I understand his concerns. He came to the committee in good faith, and we have subsequently broken that trust.
I share the concerns that have been expressed by you, convener and by Mike Russell. As a member of the Standards Committee, I know that the difficulty when a matter is referred to the Standards Committee is that a guy spends his time beavering away, returns with an inconclusive report and then the matter is sent back to us and we are told that no action can be taken because we cannot get to the bottom of things.
For clarification, it was the convener of the Standards Committee who raised the issue.
The inquiry process is being undermined by such leaks. We are at only the first stage of evaluating the document and have not reached any conclusions.
For form's sake, I put on record the fact that I agree with everything that has been said. I associate myself with all those comments.
Not wishing to be left out, for obvious reasons, I concur with your comments, convener. It would be possible to safeguard the committee from such difficulties in the future by ensuring that each copy of a report was marked in such a way as to reveal itself if it was reprinted. I should be happy to discuss that with you at another time, convener. We must try to find some other response than simple condemnation of the action.
Yes. I would like to discuss with the clerks and others ways in which we can safeguard the integrity of the committee. We have worked well together and I do not want anything like this to happen again, as it undermines the confidence that we have in one another. We have had full and frank discussions in the committee, and it does nothing for the confidence of the committee if reports are leaked before we have considered them in any detail.
Meeting continued in private until 16:10.