Chamber and committees

The selection process has been undertaken in the same way as we would normally undertake a public appointments process. There is a person specification and people are invited to apply. There is then a sifting process and a selection process, which is undertaken in accordance with the approach that we take to public appointments in general.

The individuals are essentially retained individuals and they will be paid a daily rate to reflect the work that they undertake. For example, should there be a case to be investigated or decided upon, a selection process would be undertaken to identify which person from the panel was suitable to undertake that investigation. In selecting the investigator, it will be crucial to make sure that there is no prior involvement with any aspect of the case or the individuals involved, and there will be a similar test in relation to the decision maker, who will be a different individual from the investigator. They will be remunerated for the time that is required to be spent on the task that they are allocated to undertake.

We have had preparatory discussions with those individuals through an induction process, and, as I reported to the committee, they have come through a selection process to be appointed to the roles in the same way as we undertake the public appointments process. I am not sure whether Ian Mitchell wants to add anything to that.

The best way to answer that question is to reference the point that I made in my opening statement about the values of the organisation and what we expect to see in that respect. The flipside of that is that the behaviour that has to change is any behaviour that is incompatible with those values. We have set out in a proactive and positive way what the values of the organisation are and what we expect to see from members of staff. That is openly communicated to members of staff, and any individual who believes that they are in a working environment that is not consistent with or conducive to those values is given a platform from which to raise their concerns through the internal processes of the Scottish Government.

I hope that members of staff will take a very clear signal from the communication of those values that that should be the norm of their experience and that, if it is not, there are channels for them to raise such concerns through and that those concerns will be addressed. It has been encouraging to see a positive response within the staff surveys in relation to the reduction of behaviours that we would all judge to be unacceptable.

I do not share that view, because extensive scrutiny of the process was undertaken by a specific parliamentary committee prior to the 2021 election. If my memory serves me right, the former permanent secretary made more than one appearance at that committee. The issues that pertained to all that went on in that period have been openly scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. I accept that that was not this parliamentary committee, but the issues certainly were scrutinised by a parliamentary committee in extensive and laborious detail—I do not think that any of us could say anything other than that—prior to the 2021 election. That is all on the record.

Essentially, the permanent secretary would make a contribution on behalf of the Scottish ministers. That is the only basis on which the permanent secretary, as a civil servant, can speak. Civil servants do not make individual appearances at committee: they represent ministers. It is crucial that, in all those cases, there is effective and open engagement with committees on the questions.

As I say, I am here to set out the lessons that have been learned from that process and how they have influenced the new complaints process that we have in place. I know that the permanent secretary will be happy to engage on any issues that the committee has on its mind.

I am trying to reassure Mr Lumsden that the complaints will come through a different channel, but they will have to be addressed, because we cannot have a situation where an agency worker is not able to raise their concerns. In exactly the fashion that Mr Lumsden has put to me, there could be two individuals sitting side by side, one of whom has certain rights because they are an SG employee, and another who has a different channel for raising concerns about their rights through an agency employment structure. However, I do not envision the investigators and decision makers being involved in handling an agency issue—we would have to handle that through proper management of contractual arrangements.

Yes, because the permanent secretary is also the principal accountable officer and, in the role of principal accountable officer, has particular obligations under other parts of legislation.

The information that the people survey gives us about attitudes of members of staff is published to give, I suppose, the committee the opportunity to scrutinise the progress that has been made in the general relationship between members of staff and the organisation and their experiences in that respect—hence, the importance of our looking at this from a variety of perspectives. As Michelle Thomson will know from her professional background, a people survey is a significant indicator of the health of an organisation and highlights the challenges to the leadership of the organisation to ensure that it is on an appropriate improvement journey.

However, although such measures are important in a general sense to assess an organisation’s performance, we need to be very careful about what we take forward as we chart progress on the continuous improvement journey. I certainly do not want that to be judged on whether the number of cases or complaints that we are getting is declining, because that is a rather negative way of looking at the issue. Instead, I want us to think very carefully about how we can demonstrably quantify progress in the organisation and how we are improving the experience and the capability of staff. All those different factors have to be reflected in the approach that we design as a consequence.

The people survey is published, isn’t it?

It is to take into account possible conflict-of-interest issues if people already have knowledge of the individuals, for example, and the fact that we inserted the appeals procedure. If we have an individual to investigate and we then go to appeal, we will need a separate decision maker and so on, and we will need to again ensure that there is no prior involvement. As Ian Mitchell said, there is no hard and fast judgment on the numbers. The decision was made simply to give us that range and flexibility.

I do not want it to be viewed as a final element, because propriety and ethics has been established as a distinctive directorate in the Scottish Government in response to a lot of the experiences that we have had, in order to underpin all the work that we are undertaking.

I do not want the committee to think that we are only getting around to thinking about propriety and ethics at the very end. We have actually been thinking about it from the very beginning—it runs through the whole process. The words that I would highlight in the last element of our schematic are “review of the processes”, as opposed to a review of the propriety and ethics function, because propriety and ethics is embedded in the process that we are undertaking.

Mr Johnson is correct; there is a tension there. There is a fundamental democratic question that the First Minister appoints a minister and essentially judges conduct in relation to a tabulated expectation of how our ministers should conduct themselves. The First Minister takes the code seriously in that respect and has those expectations of ministers, and that is made clear by the First Minister to ministers.

In relation to the perspective of the independent advisers, I would be entering into speculation, because I do not know what will come back from them. However, what I would say is that when you have advisers with the track record and credentials of Dame Elish Angiolini and Mr Hamilton, being open to hearing their perspectives is a good idea.