Chamber and committees

In earlier discussions or exchanges, you talked about the number of new commissioners that have been suggested or which might be taken forward. However, there are concerns about how they will deliver. How will you measure outcomes in that respect? Will there be a process by which, say, the disability commissioner will say in a report at the end of each year, “This is what we have achieved, and this is how we have made things better”? Moreover, how do you think things will have changed by the end of the commissioner’s eight-year term?

Should measurable outcomes be included in the bill? Should those be very clear before the bill is passed? As I have said, that has been a concern with other pieces of legislation.

Would you expect them to come from the charity sector?

I have a final quick question—there was not really any order to my questions as I scribbled things down. You talked about the relationship between charities and others. Do you have a concern that, unless the disability commissioner takes forward an issue, that issue might be ignored by the Government?

I get your earlier point about taking a more holistic approach, but a lot of very good third sector organisations that are obviously specialists in their areas are already working together, as we have said, and they will be far better resourced to do that work than this role will be. We are talking about a disability commissioner with only four staff, whose roles are still to be determined; I imagine that there will be a communications person in there to get messages out, as well as an office administrator, but that starts to reduce the number of people doing direct advocacy and investigation. How will they be able to deliver more than far better resourced third sector organisations?

We heard from a number of people who gave evidence in previous sessions on the commissioner landscape that one of the plus points would be if commissioners did their job in making things better, but no commissioner seems to be anywhere close to being able to, on the advocacy side, say, “That’s me done. I’ve achieved everything, so we can move on.” Outcomes are key, and our concern is that, after proposals are made and commissioners are put in place, they are not able to measure outcomes and what they have achieved. That is a real concern.

I know that you do not want to write the commissioner’s role or their responsibilities for them or, certainly, do the recruitment, but what background would you expect the commissioner to have?

So, once a commissioner is set up by the Scottish Government, there is no evaluation or scrutiny by the Government whatsoever.

I appreciate that, and I think that it is right that there is a focus on the pounds, but the pennies add up as well.

I want to come in on Michael Marra’s earlier point. I recognise what you said about £18 million not being a huge amount of money, but part of the problem is that when projects get out of hand, they do not involve huge amounts of money straight off, and it happens in incremental increases—the cost of the ferries going up by £12 million or £15 million, for example.

I do not want to bring in the 50 commissioner threat again, but do you not feel that, if we are not careful now, the whole area could get out of hand?