Seòmar agus comataidhean

If I may, convener, I will move on to the second area of questioning, which is on Mr Barn’s view about how this can best be sorted.

In the statement that you provided to the committee, Mr Barn, which is extremely helpful and succinct, you set out the ways in which you, as the voice of industry, believe that procurement can be changed in order to achieve the objective that the petitioner has set out—namely, the as-swift-as-possible completion of the A9 project. I believe that, yesterday, the First Minister said that the Government’s commitment to that is “cast-iron”. That is welcome, but how do we get it done? The petitioner has already said that, at the current rate of progress, we will not see the job done until 2050, and I think that I will be pushing up the daisies by then.

The issue before us is, how can we make the necessary changes in order to get the job done as swiftly as possible? I think that there are two or three options. I wonder whether it might be helpful, convener, if Mr Barn can set those out for us in his own words.

All the benefits would accrue.

I appreciate your time, convener; I would like to ask one further question.

Which party was that?

The witnesses will have read the statement by Mr Barn and will have heard the evidence that he gave to the committee this morning. What he is saying is very clear. He praises the professionalism of Mr Shackman and his colleagues, and I endorse that, but the praise ends there. In his statement, he goes on to say that, from a civil engineering contractor’s point of view, Transport Scotland is the worst client in Britain.

That is not a personal comment; that is based on his assessment, which you have heard, that, as far as road building in Scotland is concerned, your form of contract, which passes all risk to the contractor, who has minimal margins of profit at 2 per cent, has resulted in the completely unacceptable outcome of there being only one bidder in two contracts—the Haudagain roundabout and the Tomatin to Moy section—despite the fact that the whole purpose of a tender process is to attract competitive bids. That has failed.

I am not trying to catch you out, but do you accept that the current procedure is just not fit for purpose and that, therefore, we now need to move on from that, without overly recriminating about the past, because we cannot do anything about that? Perhaps the committee can help in working out together how to solve the problem of getting a form of contract—a form of procurement—that, provided that the Scottish Government is willing to put up the money, which is not your responsibility but its responsibility, can deliver the swift completion of the project of dualling the A9, for all the reasons that the petitioner so eloquently and passionately set out in her opening statement.

I suppose that it is relatively early in the life of the petition. Given the point that you have made, convener, it seems that, on the ground of equity, in some cases, looking at other evidence, such as continuous assessment and the progress that a pupil has made over the course of the period to which the examinations relate, would be helpful. We are all conscious that, for every pupil, the results of their examinations for qualifications can determine their future. There is a lot at stake, and it is a huge moment for those children and their families.

I noticed that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills stated:

“Alternative evidence will not be needed for the Appeals service this year.”

That is a statement and an assertion. I wonder whether we might invite her to flesh that out and state with a bit more detail why that view should now be the case whereas previously it was not. Are there not circumstances, particularly where there are elements of difficulty, problems or trouble in the life of a child, such as an interruption to their education through ill health or other issues of that ilk, that may well merit the consideration of alternative evidence?

It may be that the system provides for that separately—I do not know; I am not an expert on it at all. However, I am sure that, over the years, we have all had cases in which the outcome of an examination has been very much out of line with the prediction and that, in turn, has led to lots of soul searching and problems in individual cases.

Given the importance of the issue to children in general, I would not want to close the petition now. I hope that I am putting this clearly, but I would rather seek from the cabinet secretary a much greater explication of why it is that alternative evidence would not appear to be relevant this year when, in principle, prima facie, there are surely many circumstances in which the consideration of alternative evidence is not only appropriate but essential.

The Scottish Government has replied very clearly and at considerable length, and the issue has been looked at considerably before. It seems to me that there is very little, if any, prospect of any change.

From work that I have done over the years, some people take the view that those who are subject to long-term imprisonment by virtue of having committed crimes for which they are required to be incarcerated and have their liberty withdrawn should not enjoy the benefits of freedom, which include the right to vote. I make that comment for the record because many people have expressed that view to me very strongly over the years.

Mr Whittle has made a number of reasonable points, and there is no doubt that many applications for wind farm developments can be extremely controversial. All of us who have rural constituencies or regions are well aware of that; there are frequent objections.

I am not coming at this from any preconceived view, but it is difficult sometimes to detect the extent to which residents who live within a reasonable radius of a proposed development are either for or against; in other words, there is a more basic question of what a community is. If there are, say, 300 people who live in an area within a few kilometres of a proposed development and 30 of them object, how significant is that? If 250 were to object, most people would think that that is very significant. The point that I am making is that it is sometimes difficult to detect who the community is and the extent to which the objectors represent a majority view or a minority view in the community. One or two people can make vocal objections. They are entitled to do so and often do.

My recommendation is that we write to the Minister for Local Government Empowerment and Planning to highlight the submission of 26 April but seek clarification on the Scottish Government’s definition of ensuring that communities can have “a meaningful say” on planning applications. We should include two particular requests. One is for a response to the question of what a community is. Is there any guidance for planning authorities on the number of people in an area affected by development who have to object before that is considered “meaningful”? Secondly, what does “a meaningful say” mean? That does not seem to be a particularly clear criterion to include in guidance. Clarity should be the key in guidance so that everybody knows where they stand.

If communities can have a meaningful say, does that mean that others who wish to make representations—individuals, businesses, charities, non-governmental organisations and local authorities—should not have a meaningful say? I would not have thought so, but I do not know, because I do not know what “a meaningful say” is.

If a community council were to put in a representation, given that they are generally elected—there are not always elections if there are not enough people—should that be given greater weight than representations from a few individuals who are not on the community council? Once one looks at the options, it becomes more and more difficult to determine what “community” is.

I want to comment on the process, having listened carefully to what Paul Sweeney said and respecting his considerable interest in the matter and the work that he has done on it. He suggests that we should take evidence but, given that he also states that Glasgow City Council is looking at options, the practical option for the committee may be to wait to see the results of that work by the council in order to hear its view as the local authority. After all, alongside other representatives, it is well placed to voice the views of Glasgow. If we first see what it recommends, that will give us a clearer thesis on which to proceed. If that is procedurally an appropriate way to proceed—I am not making any judgments on the merits—we could perhaps keep the petition open pro tem until that work is done.

Mr Sweeney might be able to tell us how long that work will take. It could take three months or three years—who knows? I wonder whether Mr Sweeney feels that, rather than shut the petition now, we should keep it open to see what the local authority has to say about the options. As he said, the council is looking at a variety of options, and this year, I am sure, is absolutely not straightforward by any means.