Chamber and committees

I have a couple of unrelated questions; I do not know whether you want me to cover those now or not, convener.

I do not want to dwell on that, for obvious reasons. I am trying to look forward as much as back. You have a team of five in total—as I think that you mentioned—and you lead on all complaints, but you delegate the day-to-day operation of dealing with the processes around those complaints, and the details of investigations, to your team.

For clarity, has the investigations manual been in operation for some time, or is it new?

I have no further questions. I thank Mr Bruce for his evidence and for answering our questions this morning.

I am sorry to get hung up on the process, Mr Bruce. You lead on all MSP complaints, but you delegate the day-to-day investigatory responsibilities to one of a team of five. They are all fully trained in a new and refreshed investigations manual and encouraged to talk to each other and draw on each other for support. All that is in place.

When you get a final report from the investigating officer on your desk, it makes a recommendation about the complaint, which will almost certainly be admissible because it has got to that point. The report will show the investigating officer’s working and lay out the evidence. You, as commissioner, have to decide whether you will agree the recommendation and ratify or sanction it as the way forward or change the decision.

When you agree with the investigating officer and the recommendation moves forward, that is fine. However, there must be situations in which you do not agree with the recommendation that the investigating officer makes. That is okay; it is an important check and balance in the system. However, when that happens, what is the process for supporting your investigating officer with continuing professional development or a review of the case? What happens at that point? Is there a supportive learning experience for your investigating officer?

I am not asking for the numbers, but do you keep track of the number of times when you agree with the investigating officer’s conclusion and when you do not agree? Clearly, if there was an increasing number of situations in which the commissioner—any commissioner, not just you as acting commissioner—did not agree with the investigating officer’s conclusion, that might point to issues, weaknesses or challenges in the investigatory process.

I thought that that was going to be a straightforward question, but it might be a little bit more complicated now. However, it would be helpful for the committee to know the answers.

I just wanted to make sure that the committee was not missing any barrier to filling that post. I thank Mr Bruce for clarifying the position.

This is quite important because, clearly, your team will be watching this evidence session and our exchange. If I were a member of your team, I would absolutely be watching it—get back to your work if you are watching it right now; watch it later. I was not casting aspersions on your team. My questions were more about checks and balances in the system and whether, if the data flagged up something that needed to be attended to, that might be due to a lack of clarity in the investigations manual or a lack of clarity in processes more generally. Therefore, for staff who are watching this, it is important to say that I was not casting aspersions on them. I am looking at checks and balances in the system and the processes that underpin it.

I think that you are saying that it is not the case that the investigating officer goes away for three months and comes back with a conclusion to put on your desk. There is a weekly review process, so no one is going to go down a tangential path in an investigation that you are unaware of. You take a more collegiate approach to investigations. Have I captured that properly?

Thank you.

These last couple of questions from me are Covid related, and they concern the need for change in working practices. You will want to know what the level of satisfaction has been with appointment rounds on the part of panel and body chairs, as maintained through new ways of working during the pandemic. Your office is heavily involved in those appointments, and the processes had to be tweaked because of the pandemic. What has the level of satisfaction been among those panel and body chairs who have had to engage in that appointments process? What are their views on how it has been handled?

I will not explore that further, but thank you for putting that on the record.

I turn to my final question. Your annual report and accounts refer to planned activity that was suspended or postponed due to prioritisation of other work—understandably so. Can you explain more about what work was delayed and when you envisage that the delays will be addressed? I would imagine that that was unavoidable delay, but can you say a bit more about where those delays have been and when you think that the office will be able to catch up?

Your role is to ensure that there is continuity of process. Is that a reasonable way of looking at it?