Chamber and committees

You have no concerns about that process, no opinion on whether that is happening and you do no checks on whether that is taking place. We have heard from a number of different sources that the scrutiny process differs from commissioner to commissioner.

Should there be more commissioners? There are some in the pipeline. I am not necessarily talking about John Mason’s nightmare scenario, in which there are 50 commissioners, because you recognise how that was received by the committee. However, if the Scottish Government is looking to have new commissioners in certain areas in the future, particularly on the regulatory side, do you think that the ability for those roles to be scrutinised and for their outcomes to be evaluated is a key part of that? Could you be confident that that is happening, or is it the case that once the Government has created a commissioner, it is no longer its responsibility but that of the Parliament?

No, it is not a question of the Government scrutinising; it is a question of the Government ensuring that there is a process for properly scrutinising bodies that it has set up, and that there is an evaluation of outcomes. It seems that that is not happening, for commissioners across the board. Government has a key role in setting up commissioners in certain cases, but do you not think that it is of concern that you can create a commissioner, but there might not be scrutiny?

Good morning to the minister and his colleagues. I want to explore the points that Michael Marra has just raised. Do you feel that it is the responsibility of Government to ensure that, when it has set up a new commissioner, proper scrutiny can take place of that commissioner and their role?

We have heard a number of times that the scrutiny is not there, or that it varies in relation to the various commissioners. If the Scottish Government is setting up a commissioner, surely it is its responsibility, or in its interest, to ensure that such scrutiny is in place. Do you believe that that is happening at the moment, or is it a question of the Scottish Government setting up the commissioner and leaving it up to someone else to ensure that that role is scrutinised?

Does the Scottish Government undertake any evaluation of the commissioners—their outcomes, value for money and so on—including commissioners that have not been set up?

I meant on-going evaluation, after the commissioners have been set up.

It is probably more concerning that, if you were to ask them to speak about the commissioners that their committee was responsible for, they might have the same difficulty.

Good morning. My first question is along similar lines. There has been a lot of talk about how Parliament functions and, indeed, the role of committees and how they function, too. Following on from what Patrick Harvie has been saying, do you think that, as part of any reform of Parliament, we should consider the committees having more teeth to hold the Government to account on some of the advocacy issues in a way they might not have been able to in the past?

John Mason made the point that committees have a number of organisations that they have to hold to account. We have legislation and so on to run through. With some of the commissioners, there is sometimes a feeling that we need to get them in, or that we ought to get them in. That is concerning for scrutiny, because it feels as though it is of secondary importance, despite the huge and increasing amounts of money that are involved.

This is perhaps a difficult question, but surely the whole point of commissioners is to deliver a solution to a problem. They might not always deliver the solution and they might not always identify the right problem, but we are spending just over £18 million on them. Do you feel that we are getting value for that money? Do you think that we are getting value for money in the outcomes, or is that a difficult question to answer?