Chamber and committees

You will be aware that there are Covid inquiries in Scotland and the UK. They will look at various things including the shortcomings of politicians, mainly, and others. However, having heard you speak, I think that it is worth saying that it was an absolutely fantastic achievement to get through Covid and keep the services running. I hope that, in due course, people will recognise the scale of that achievement.

Going back to the subject of Michael Marra’s questions, I note that you said that you intend to reduce the numbers of supplementary staff by half this year. We are only about three months into the financial year, but do you have any idea how things are going so far?

We have heard a couple of interesting examples about, for example, how Brexit impacted on one organisation, which had to move from a platinum standard down to a gold standard. We have also heard about trying to effect public sector reform during a time of constrained budgets, post-crash from 2010 onwards. That has affected public sector reform, but I am struck by the prevalence of public sector reform being frustrated by or foundering on IT projects—not necessarily digitisation.

For example, about a decade ago, Disclosure Scotland had a terrible experience with an IT project. Police Scotland is sitting with at least eight different legacy systems. There was also the case in the UK of a national health service system in which investment of about £4 billion achieved nothing. Do the organisations around the table perceive themselves to be too small to wrestle with some of the big IT providers in order to get a grip on budgets and timescales for big IT projects that are fundamental to public sector reform? For example, for the police, even implementing what Parliament has set in new laws is difficult with the legacy systems that they have.

Garry McEwan made a point about getting a smaller group of experts with experience across the piece in such projects—good and bad. Would that be a way to overcome what I perceive to be an imbalance, in that quite small organisations are trying to deal with very large, sometimes multinational, IT companies?

I would like to go back to IT, convener—I do not know whether that is okay.

The reason for raising IT in the first place was really to do with project management and the fact that such projects can swamp smaller organisations, but the issues that have been drawn out are quite interesting.

The data issue, which a lot of people have mentioned, seems to put an obligation on organisations to ensure interoperability at the very start. I think that there has been a change in culture in that respect, with the general data protection regulation and data protection in general being widely perceived as having had a too-chilling effect on data transfer and sharing. That might suggest that a big change is needed.

One issue is data, another is project management and the last issue is the more mundane matter of shared services. Going back to David Page’s point about how we work our way through this, I have to be perfectly frank and say that, having had ministerial responsibility for four of the organisations around the table, I do not think that this will happen unless it is mandated. Somebody is going to have to say, “You’re going to have to put together a group that can look at this.” The cybersecurity issue, which might seem contrary to the issue of data management, is now hugely important, but that sort of approach is not being applied consistently.

My final comment is really just an observation. The fact is that, if we do not join up the dots in a way that suits us for the data that we need, AI will do it—indeed, it can do it right now. If we are not part of it, AI will just supersede any Chinese walls that we might have between collections of data, if that makes sense. We are as well to get ahead of the game, but to be honest I do not see that happening, given the way in which public bodies currently operate. They will, quite rightly, look after their own interests. It goes back to David Page’s point: unless there is a perceived benefit for both bodies involved, it will not happen unless it is mandated.

I am a new member of the committee, so I am not included in what Liz Smith said about the concerns of the committee. I disassociate myself from those remarks.

I am a bit surprised that we have gone down the route of gender recognition reform, but let us stick with that for a second. That policy is in not just the Scottish Government’s manifesto but everybody’s manifesto. Two consultations were undertaken, and the proposals have been subject to more parliamentary scrutiny than any other measure that I can remember in my time in this Parliament. Despite that, at the end of that process we are in a situation in which another Government has said that it will nullify the bill. That is the biggest development that we have seen in public administration or in decision making in the Parliament, certainly since my time here and I think since its inception.

If another Government just steps in, without saying what it thinks is wrong with the bill and says that it will strike it down—incredibly, some members in this Parliament support the UK Government doing that to this Parliament—what is the effect on the civil service and ministers when considering further policy initiatives? That threat has been raised again in relation to a couple of other measures, such as the deposit return scheme. What is the effect on policy making in the Scottish Government of that interference with the Scottish Parliament?

This question might be for the permanent secretary. It may be, from what the committee has heard so far in the inquiry, that these issues, which in my view have by far the biggest impact on decision making in the Scottish Parliament, have been covered already.

Aside from a capricious Government deciding, for political reasons, to try to gratuitously supersede a decision of this Parliament, there are now various instances of legislative consent motions, or the Sewel convention, being ignored, which was not the case not too long ago.

In the early stages of policy development in the civil service in particular, does that have a chilling effect? Do you have to take into account, in addition to all the other factors, the likelihood that some minister in the Westminster Government is going to do something that completely ignores the interests of this Parliament, or is going to increase the likelihood of legal conflict between the two Administrations? Is that part of your thinking, or do you—as the DFM just said—try to zone that out of your thinking at the start?

I completely understand your point and the value of those good relationships, but if that is the case it is very different from the experience of ministerial collaboration. For example, this Parliament is placed in various cul-de-sacs, such as the refusal of a section 30 order—the Parliament has voted for a referendum and it is just ignored out of hand—and the application of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998.

Compare the situation now with that 10 years ago, when we had the respect agenda, which led to an improvement in relations between different Governments and ministers within them. Nowadays, I have arranged meetings with the UK Government and it has refused to give me entry to the Ministry of Defence to hold the meeting or it has continually refused to answer correspondence.

If the relationship between the civil servants is generally productive but that between the Administrations is not, would that not tend to argue for an independent civil service? I go back to a point that was made in the previous discussion. People can accuse organisations of policy capture when they are funded by the Scottish Government, although, interestingly, the Parliament is funded by the Scottish Government and nobody argues that it has been subject to policy capture. As much as anything else, is the perception not important and would it not be important to say that, as with councils and the Parliament, the civil servants who serve the Scottish Government and the public are independent and answer to them?

None of this is to do with you personally, of course, permanent secretary, although I note that the permanent secretary to the Scottish Government is appointed jointly by the principal adviser to the UK Government—the cabinet secretary—and the First Minister. It is a question of perception, and it is probably less of a question when relationships are productive and constructive. As you say, it probably comes more into view for people because of the constitutional situation and the stand-off.

On the point that was raised previously in relation to the ministerial code and the interference in the Scottish civil service by the Secretary of State, I recently received a letter from a guy called Lord Pickles, telling me various things that I could and could not do and referring continuously to the ministerial code of conduct and the Government’s position. I think that he was referring to the UK Government—he seemed very ignorant of the situation in Scotland. That confusion is surely a matter of concern when it comes to situations where the Secretary of State for Scotland is trying to instruct or countermand some of the things that the Scottish Government is trying to do.

Given that point, given that this Parliament would not settle for its staff being told what to do by the Government or somebody else and given that no local authority would accept that its officials should be directed by somebody else, is it not a better idea just to have a Scottish civil service?

I am advised that I have no relevant interests in the register of members’ interests, but I note that I am a member of the local government pension scheme.