Seòmar agus comataidhean

Sir David, do you want to come in?

I think that Meg Russell would like to come in.

Let me press you on one area. What is the role of the spectacle of politics that we sometimes see in committees? We certainly see it in the chamber. In committees, what are the advantages and disadvantages of that? What is its role and importance?

I will pursue that point. I am interested in the influential drivers of committee operations. You and Marc Geddes have talked about the relationships and the politicians who sit on a committee, irrespective of how they got there, but we also have our standing orders. We can instruct committees to operate in a certain way, and there has been discussion about the role of conveners, the role of the Government and party balance. Do we understand what would happen if, instead of it just being a case of looking at it and seeing what is operating, we had a stronger set of standing orders or stronger separation between the Government and committees? Is it just the people and the relationships, or is there something about the framework that can assist the relationships and the groups?

I do not know who would like to answer that terribly framed question. I will bring in David Natzler. What is your experience of the interrelationship between the rules and the members?

Well, I will not apologise for the toughness of the question. Please come back in should thoughts come to you afterwards.

Our second agenda item is an evidence session as part of our committee effectiveness inquiry, which is seeking to answer the question of whether changes to the Parliament’s procedures and practices would help committees to work more effectively. In recent weeks, we have launched a public call for views on the inquiry. We have invited consultation responses from committees, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, political parties and individual MSPs. We have also written to a range of legislatures, asking for information on how their committees operate and evaluate their work.

Today’s session is the first in a series of four oral evidence sessions as part of our inquiry. We are joined by our committee inquiry adviser, Dr Danielle Beswick, who is sitting to my right. Today, we will explore and try to answer the overarching questions of how committees are viewed externally and how we can evaluate their impact.

I am grateful to welcome Gemma Diamond, who is director of innovation and transformation at Audit Scotland; Dr Marc Geddes, who is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Edinburgh; Sir David Natzler KCB, who was clerk to the House of Commons between 2015 and 2019, clerk of committees between 2008 and 2009 and clerk to the Reform of the House of Commons Committee, which is known as the Wright committee, between 2009 and 2010; Brian Taylor, who is a former BBC Scotland political editor, a columnist for The Herald and a long-time observer of this Parliament; and Professor Meg Russell, who is director of the constitution unit at University College London.

As this is a round-table evidence session, although we will take the usual approach of members asking witnesses questions, we will seek the opportunity for witnesses to have a discussion between themselves and to have an evidence session that is perhaps more open and free flowing than the ones that sometimes take place in committees. There is no expectation that witnesses should answer every question. When the witnesses who are appearing remotely wish to respond to a question or make a comment, they should type R in the chat function or just jump in.

We will move to the first of our facilitating questions, which is about the characteristics of a successful committee. I will hand over to Sue Webber.

That is why I left it until the end.

I do not disagree with any of the comments that committee members have made. I note that, on 10 January this year, we had 119 cross-party groups. CPGs form an important part of how people outside the Parliament can engage with their MSPs. Indeed, the groups often allow people to engage with the Government and to give their lived experience, expertise and views when decisions are made. However, the annual report is a really challenging and disappointing read, given the failures.

Does the committee agree to deal with the question of whether we continue to accord accreditation to those CPGs at a later date?

Members indicated agreement.

I am certainly not going to comment on your choice of ChatGPT as an artificial intelligence platform. It is interesting that, as we contemplate having an environment of positive publication with regard to freedom of information, such AI tools will be able to provide a different nuance to information that currently is quite remote and to get beyond the point of people saying, “I have this—what’s next?”. Your comments on the specific barriers that young people face and the engagement that you are doing to break those down are massively important.

That takes me back to your undertaking to review the strategic plan after 12 months. You have discussed your approach of moving from promoting the idea of freedom of information to highlighting access to it. Is that the extent to which you are reviewing the strategic plan? Now that you have been working under it as it was presented to you, are you confident that it is fit for purpose? Does it reflect where the commission wants to see itself in 12 months’ time?

That is no problem and thank you for that information. We will move to questions, and I will kick off with the fact that this is, of course, the 20th anniversary. In some ways, 1 January 2005 seems like a long time ago and, in other ways, it seems like only yesterday.

I was fascinated by your comments at the end of your opening remarks about the involvement of young people and working with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. We have had 20 years of a landscape where we have seen improvements—sometimes substantial, more frequently just gradual—in the legislative framework, which we will get to in a minute. Beyond engaging with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, what thoughts have you had about engaging with young people and how to capture the importance to them of freedom of information? My experience is that they frequently ask questions to which they could get the answers on their own if they were more aware and the regime was more friendly towards young people.