Chamber and committees

I do not take that view, for the reasons that I have set out. A lot of the questions about what went wrong with the process and procedure were clearly and openly aired at the committee prior to the 2021 election. Indeed, one of the issues that the convener has just questioned me about was the necessity for there to be no prior involvement of individuals in a particular case, and I went back to that point a couple of times in my responses. That was one of the significant flaws in the previous handling, which became very clear at the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints.

Although I understand the Liz Smith’s point that this committee did not undertake that exercise, my contention is that another parliamentary committee did so, and we are now in the process of learning the lessons from that and changing practice as a consequence. I am very happy to engage with the committee about that, and I am certain that the permanent secretary will be happy to do so, likewise.

Yes.

First, I accept Mr Lumsden’s point that there is a specific issue to do with agency workers. We took that away after it was raised with me at a previous evidence session. The judgment is difficult because the individual is not an employee of the Scottish Government but, essentially, they must be able to raise any concerns that they have through their own employment channels. Assuming that the organisation for which the individual works has appropriate human resources processes in place to enable that to be the case, the Scottish Government must have in place appropriate contractual relationships with a contractor in order to make sure that, should any issues be drawn to the contractor’s attention as an employer, those issues are addressed by the Scottish Government. That would have to be done under a contract management relationship, but if that involved any issues of ministerial interaction, we would have to address that through our own processes as an organisation.

It would not necessarily be through that process, which is available to members of staff, but we would have an obligation to address those issues because of our obligations under contract. You cannot have contractual relationships that do not work in an appropriate fashion; we would have a contractual obligation to address any issues.

I suspect that I will rely heavily on the words “direct” and “indirect” in my answer but, essentially, we are trying to cover all bases so that we have the ability to intervene when there is a direct and explicit necessity to do so. The indirect provision is where we are trying to find every other possible avenue that needs to be closed off to ensure that we have a system that is appropriate for the challenges that we face. I would best describe the provisions in the new sections 86B and 86C of the 2008 act, which the bill introduces, as trying to get to that level of completeness.

I am not quite following Mr Fairlie’s question.

It certainly would, because there is no doubt in my mind that the fact that we had to make such significant legislative change—in extremis, twice, in the spring of 2020—indicates to us that our statute book is not up to date.

We are likely to lodge an amendment on the moratorium at stage 2. There are differing views on the appropriate moratorium period and on whether it should be permanent, so we are taking time to consider what the timescale should be. During the pandemic, a temporary moratorium of six months was put in place. In England and Wales, the period is 60 days. There are a range of views, and we are in the process of weighing up the different views and setting out the provision, which is likely to take the form of a stage 2 amendment.

There are two aspects to that question. One is about the adaptability of public services so that they can be used in the digital environment. Great improvements have been made, but there is a way to go. Ministers have been clear that we are too far behind the private sector on developments in that regard. The private sector is significantly ahead of the public sector in relation to the availability of such provision. That is one priority.

The second aspect is about ensuring that we overcome the digital divide so that people are able to use technology to gain access to public services. The connected communities initiative is making significant progress in that respect, and I welcome the steps that have been made.

Through those two channels, Scottish Government funding is available to address those questions.

I will certainly consider that point. It has been interesting dealing with my constituency case load on the recent census, which, for the first time, has been predominantly undertaken digitally. Some of my constituents were concerned about not being able to do that and asked about getting paper copies. That tells me that we must be constantly mindful of the importance of ensuring that both options are available to individuals. If the bill does not have adequate safeguards in that regard, we should be prepared to consider that.

There is a difference, convener. The measures to which you refer are ones to be used during the course of a pandemic. The power would enable ministers, through regulations, to put particular monitoring responsibilities on public authorities.

On the obligations for preparedness, public authorities will take forward work, as part of their routine work under existing statutory arrangements, to ensure that we are prepared for all resilience challenges that we face. We revisit those issues regularly through the Scottish resilience partnership, and we take them forward as part of the wider work that we undertake with public authorities to ensure their preparedness for such eventualities.