Chamber and committees

The point is that public inquiries are unique. You are right to say that, often, people call for public inquiries thinking that that is the only route to establish the facts, and actually it is not. It becomes the ultimate means of confirming what has happened, whereas—as I said in my opening statement—there may be a more flexible and cost-effective, but nevertheless thorough, alternative to a public inquiry.

Another point is that, although there are public inquiries that have taken a considerable amount of time, it immediately becomes obvious when we look at why that is the case. While I am not casting any comment on the Scottish child abuse inquiry, if we consider the thorough approach that that inquiry has taken, not just to the generalities of the issue but in looking at what happened in individual institutions, which has formed different modules of the inquiry, it immediately becomes obvious why it has taken the time that it has.

It is actually an indictment of us, as a society, that there is so much to investigate with regard to historical child abuse in Scotland. There have also been demands for specific consideration of other institutions such as Fornethy house, and that has now become part of the child abuse inquiry.

When we are talking about some of the points, we have to start to apply them to the inquiries that are currently live. There is a tendency to say that any new rules should apply to future inquiries but not to current inquiries, because everybody feels passionately about the inquiries that are currently taking place.

On solicitors’ fees, I will hand over to Don McGillivray, if that is okay.

Your second question was about training and expertise. I understand the point that you are making. The same sponsor team now works on various inquiries. Instead of a new sponsor team being set up for a brand-new inquiry, with that team having to go through the process of learning how to do things, the same sponsor team is working on the Sheku Bayoh and Emma Caldwell inquiries. That team draws on a lot of the learning, so we avoid the issue that you mentioned of a new team having to learn how to do things differently.

I ask Don McGillivray to come in on solicitors’ fees. That is a common and recurring question.

I would query that because during the drafting of an inquiry’s substantive terms of reference—which is, in essence, the primary way for ministers to set the direction of travel—we engage extensively with affected parties, particularly victims and survivors, before settling on what the inquiry’s scope should be. After that point, the inquiry becomes visibly independent of Government. An inquiry’s scope is clearly defined in its terms of reference.

Obviously, the public, victims, survivors and other parties will have expectations, so perhaps the second element to John Sturrock’s question is about education. We believe that an inquiry’s scope and terms of reference will be very clear. Indeed, if a chair felt that they were not clear, they would be pretty quick to raise that with me.

I believe that the terms of reference and the scope that are set in my engagement with chairs is pretty clear. In relation to education, however, we perhaps need to be clearer with the public about the purpose. I think that the purpose is very clearly defined in the terms of reference, and most people who are intimately involved in the inquiry will know what it is. If there is a challenge with the wider public, we can always do more to communicate. Ultimately, the bottom line is to have a thorough, independent review of the facts, often with recommendations to avoid the incident happening again. That is generally the gist of inquiries.

Expectation.

I am smiling because, sometimes, inquiries conclude after changes have already been made.

I should say that there are other ways of approaching the issue. For example, there can be an interim report, which can ensure that early recommendations are given to the Scottish Government as soon as they are available, without the Government having to wait for the final report. That would mean that the Government could prepare a response to concerns that have been identified, thereby offering affected parties more transparency on progress against timescales.

The most recent inquiry that I have had to respond to is the UK Covid inquiry. It came with very clear timescales attached and with an obligation on me to report back to the chair and, as someone who is accountable to Parliament, to identify the recommendations that we accepted and those that we did not, and to monitor the progress on the implementation of those recommendations.

With the Covid inquiry, the fact that a report comes out after each module means that we are not waiting for the conclusion of the inquiry and then having to implement all the recommendations for all the modules. Can you imagine doing that? Thankfully, that is not the approach that it has taken, and it is not the one that we are taking.

Module 1 was published with clear recommendations, and we responded to the chair within months. We have a clear outline of what we are implementing, what we have already implemented and what is a requirement for other parties—in this case, the UK Government—to do, as we are co-ordinating on a four-nations basis. That is a good example of how to respond to and implement recommendations quickly.

That allows me an opportunity to be really clear. The request came to the First Minister to meet the Bayoh family, and he agreed. The request has also come from other parties that you just mentioned, and he has also agreed to meet them.

I know that that is a recurring issue. When you said that I might guess where you were going with your question, I thought that it would be one of those two areas, but you managed to combine both areas in one question—I was right in that regard.

I understand your long-standing frustration with data. I will ask Aidan Grisewood if there is anything further to add on that.

We just published our third NSET report, which is the third annual report. By and large, what we analyse from a Government perspective is whether we have delivered what we have said we will deliver. What is not in that report—at least to the extent that I know you would like—is analysis of whether what we have delivered is having a positive impact across different metrics. There is a point there; we should probably do that later down the line, because pathways are still being rolled out.

We have really good granular data on particular areas of focus—Techscaler is the most obvious example. With the more recent initiatives that have been established, we have taken a data-first approach, hence having very granular data for Techscaler. I am happy to send the committee the more granular data that never makes it on to websites, because that might be an area of interest. You are absolutely right to say that Techscaler shows up, as it were, all the other initiatives that have not been established with a data-first approach. The data for those is still lacking.

If it is of interest to the committee, we could follow up in writing with a list of all the areas where I am confident that we are collating data that reveals gender figures; that is, areas where there is the level of granularity that will allow us to see where there are areas that still need some work. We could do that, if that would be useful. However, it might not be—Michelle Thomson is looking quizzical.

I do not disagree at all. It is not an area that we have been neglecting in between committee appearances, but it has lots of challenges to it. That is not an excuse, but we will come back to the committee in writing as comprehensively as we can about where we have disaggregated gender data.

I know that, next week, we will have sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, and national representation, worth billions.