Seòmar agus comataidhean

Those issues could be raised at stage 2.

The hope is that the bill will lead to culture change, where more information is proactively published. As the Information Commissioner outlined last week, the codes of practice would outline the type of information that it was useful for an organisation to publish, and he would work with the organisation in relation to that.

It is also hoped that that would lead to a reduction in the number of FOI requests and, therefore, that there would be savings as a result of that cultural change, because information would already be readily available. The Information Commissioner’s office says that we can often predict the kinds of FOI requests that are going to be made. If that information was proactively published, the public would not need to rely on the FOI mechanism.

I think that that would be clear in the publication code that the Information Commissioner produced. Those information codes would be specific to sectors or perhaps even organisations. Their requirements should not be onerous and would depend on the organisation’s resources. This is about a culture change, not putting additional resources into functions. It is about how people use the time.

A consultation process would lead up to the publication code. Therefore, to use the specific example that you have cited of local authorities, which are a large and significant set of bodies, I imagine that there would be an intensive consultation process with them about what might be in the publication code.

The offence would be a criminal offence. The set of circumstances that are likely to lead to the Information Commissioner and the Crown Office wishing to proceed with a prosecution would probably be such that the view would be that it would be appropriate for the legislation to be in place.

I am not sure of the exact nature of the consultation that would take place in relation to the criminal offence. There might be a need for consultation in relation to proactive publication and the type of information that is published. However, in relation to the destruction of records, the threshold is so high that—

A large part of the cost of the bill will lie with the Information Commissioner. That has been fully costed, because the commissioner will be the main driver of the implementation of the bill. Many people in the FOI community would say that the bill will not cost anything, because it simply requires organisations to do what they should be doing anyway. For example, in relation to training, there is already a statutory obligation on public authorities to update training on an annual basis. Some people would argue that the bill should not require any more money, because that work should be happening anyway.

However, we have not framed the financial memorandum on that basis, and we recognise that how organisations respond will vary. Some organisations might spend a huge amount of money on trying to implement the bill, but others will not. That is why the Information Commissioner’s role in relation to the codes of practice is important in making it really clear to organisations what they require to do to comply with the legislation.

We hope that, if the bill is enacted, the Scottish Government will deal with those matters more speedily and that designation will speed up. We even hope that the discussion that is taking place today will help to speed up the process of designation.

However, as you know, there is also a new mechanism in the bill that would allow a parliamentary committee to get involved, should it choose to do so. I will use the care example that is currently being looked at by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government may come forward in the next session of Parliament with proposals to designate parts of the care sector as FOI compliant. It would be quite a big political issue if the Scottish Government were to fail to do that, and a committee of this Parliament—it would be likely to be a health committee—could decide to use its time to consider the issue. It could put out a call for evidence, take evidence from all parties, including the Scottish Government, the sector and campaign groups, come to a view and make a recommendation to Parliament, which could then debate the issue. Obviously, changes to standing orders would be required to enable that to happen.

That would require a committee to decide that it was going to use its time in that way, so it would be likely to happen only for a big political issue. I hope that the fact that the Scottish Government would know that there might be enhanced scrutiny when ministers failed to act would help to drive designations.

In general, it would be a matter for committees themselves, but including the detail in the standing orders could be an option. It is the transparency of the process that would ensure whether it was robust. All stakeholders—the sector, private bodies, representative bodies and the Scottish Government—would be involved and would have the opportunity to make representations. It would be a far more transparent and, I would argue, robust process because of the public scrutiny that it would involve. However, it would be an additional mechanism; it would not be instead of the existing mechanisms.

It is a hard question. Sometimes, the designation might be for only one small body that employs a relatively small number of people and does not work with a considerable amount of money; the Parliament might take the view, for political or other obvious reasons, that it should be compliant with the FOI legislation. At other times, the designation might be for a massive sector. Therefore, it is difficult to say, because it depends on the proposed designation, how much evidence is involved and how complex that is.

Very much so.

The advice that I had was that it was sufficiently clear. However, I am open to amendments. The provision is a technical amendment, so if the view is that it is not sufficiently belt and braces, there is scope to amend it. We are very amenable to discussions.