Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Christine Grahame for finally giving way, which has interrupted her long list of grievances and what I view as faux outrage, because is it not the case that Scotland and the rest of the UK would still be in the customs union were it not for the fact that SNP MPs at Westminster vetoed that? Can she explain why they took Scotland out of a customs union with the EU?

When Colin Smyth is speaking to those businesses, what are they telling him about the impact of the imposition of a national insurance tax on jobs in rural areas?

Will the member take an intervention?

Is Jeremy Balfour’s question difficult to answer because there is a lack of clarity about the function of commissioners? If the issue was about upholding rights, surely it would fall to the Scottish Human Rights Commission, but, in relation to the advocacy function, we are saying that we are not convinced that commissioners are there to be advocates, per se, because civil society groups do that. Should we therefore not look at the function of commissioners before we start thinking about who should go to them and for what?

[Made a request to intervene.]

On behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, I welcome the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s report and offer my thanks to the committee for carrying out a robust inquiry into an important and evolving area. For transparency, I mention that I am now a member of that committee, but as I have attended only one meeting, it is too early to say that I have gone rogue or native.

The reason for my party welcoming the report is that it relates to two important considerations: value for money for the taxpayer and the effectiveness of public bodies. Perhaps the Parliament does not look enough at both those issues. As the committee notes, it is time to examine both, given the rapidly shifting sands in relation to the public purse and the shape and scale of the wide range of Scottish public bodies, including the supported bodies that we are looking at today.

Absolutely. One of the things that Government does not do often enough is look at Government itself. Organisations in the corporate environment do that each and every year. It has been regrettable that the Scottish Government has been too busy governing the country to look at its own internal mechanisms and operational procedures. The same has been true of Governments down the ages.

The commissioner landscape inquiry has given the Parliament an opportunity to probe that issue. Twenty-five years into devolution, we should be reviewing many elements of the way in which the Parliament and the wider landscape outside it operate.

We welcome the moratorium on the creation of further SPCB-supported bodies, given that we stand on the doorstep of a possible proliferation of such bodies. I believe that that is a sensible move. It will be for Parliament to determine whether it fully accepts the committee’s recommendation that all such bodies should be subject to a moratorium or only those that are coming down the line.

I heard what the minister said about that and Liz Smith will address that point on behalf of my party.

Regardless of the interpretation of either the amendments or the report and its recommendations, it would be prudent for any committee that is established by the Parliament to look at proposed bills and those that are under legislative consideration. We should set our face against ever saying that a body that has been legislated for or introduced can never be considered surplus to requirements at some future point.

The committee heard wide and varied evidence about the role, function and cost effectiveness of commissioners and supported bodies. It is vital that we continue examining those issues out of due regard for the public purse, and we should commit to doing so regularly.

The committee also heard repeated calls for sunset clauses to become commonplace when new public bodies come into being, not least to ensure that the landscape does not become cluttered or stale and that the effectiveness of commissioners and bodies is not blunted over time. Where commissioners, or any public bodies, have been, or are to be, formed with a principal role of advocating for a cause, rather than fulfilling some statutory function or requirement, it is vitally important that we continue to review them and, over time, to remove them as the causes that they champion progress to a point where there is satisfaction with whatever regulatory regime or support is provided through public policy.

Having a review now also gives Parliament an opportunity to look dispassionately at the proposed proliferation of commissioners and to ask whether, as Michael Marra said, there is a risk of overlap or duplication. Not only is that bad practice structurally but it is not in the interests of the taxpayers who fund those agencies and who are already looking at a cluttered public space in Scotland, even if they cannot necessarily name all the organisations that they are paying for.

There may not be many people watching, but, for those who are, it may be worth recapping the organisations that are already in place because of the system. We have the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland, the Standards Commission for Scotland, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, and the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland. There are also commissioners for information and human rights, and the most recent is the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner. I do not intend to go into each of those in detail, but, in general, my impression is that their functions go beyond simple advocacy.

Sarah Boyack referred to some of the proposed organisations and made the point that they, too, may have functions that go beyond simple advocacy. If we look at the list of those organisations, we will see that we are getting to the point where the fabric and role of organisations are changing. As well as the proposed patient safety commissioner, there is the victims and witnesses commissioner, the disability commissioner, the older people’s commissioner, the wellbeing and sustainable development commissioner, the future generations commissioner, and the learning disability, autism and neurodiversity commissioner.

There is a difference between giving somebody a voice and the person who is listening to that voice responding to it.

When I was shadow minister for social care, I spoke to many organisations that were supportive of a national care service. The principle of a national care service was co-design. As time progressed, the Government had one idea of the national care service and the stakeholders had another, which is why the national care service is in such a dire position. Had there been a care commissioner, I do not think that their voice would have been any more powerful.

Many of those organisations are already funded in part by the Government, so if the Government—and, effectively, the taxpayer—funds a commissioner, there is a duplication of the spending of taxpayers’ money.

The fundamental point is that some of the commissioners have a statutory function and perform a function—for example, the Ethical Standards Commissioner or the Standards Commission. Looking down the list of new commissioners, I think that there is a significant chance of duplicating what civil society is already doing in Scotland.

I very much welcome the review and look forward to the debate. I hope that a committee will be formed and that it will come to the conclusion that it has to do two things. First, it has to make sure that Government and structures are effective in this country and, secondly, it has to make sure that we have due regard to the public purse.

The member takes me to my next point, which is that there are already strong channels through which organisations can communicate with the Scottish Parliament.

In 1999, I set up Holyrood magazine, in part to give the third sector and other stakeholders a voice and an entry point to engage with the Parliament, but we rapidly found out that Parliament had itself set up good mechanisms for that and that third sector groups and other organisations could engage with it.

Parliament continues taking engagement very seriously through consultations, the committee structure and cross-party groups, and by developing policies alongside and with those who have lived experience. There is also a plethora—on occasion, perhaps too many—of working groups, action plans and other forums.

After I launched Holyrood magazine 25 years ago, I went on to do something similar in London, Brussels, Asia and China, where the door is not open to external organisations. I worked through organisations such as the secretariat to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In those places, third sector organisations struggle to get a foot in the door. Here, the door is open and all those organisations have a seat at the table. If we go down the route of using the structure of commissioners to give a platform to advocacy groups, we are duplicating an already vibrant and engaged civil society process in the Parliament.