Seòmar agus comataidhean

We continue our evidence taking on the Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill. I welcome to the meeting Hazel Johnson, director of Built Environment Forum Scotland; Anna Gardiner, senior policy adviser at Scottish Land & Estates; and Josie Sclater, senior policy officer at the Scottish Property Federation. Thank you, everyone, for your written submissions.

I refer people to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

As with the previous panel, we have approximately an hour for this evidence session, so I will move straight to questions.

Hazel, your submission is somewhat different from everyone else’s, as you say:

“An appropriate levy on future residential builds is a logical route for setting foundations to protect people from this situation, in which defects are discovered years or decades after construction, but public bodies, owners and other stakeholders do not have access to the level of resources required to deal with them.”

We do not have select committees. Do you mean a parliamentary committee?

It does make sense. Organisations and lawyers representing the families of victims and so on put on pressure to have judge-led inquiries because that is perceived as the gold standard. We are now in a situation whereby, if a judge does not lead an inquiry, it almost devalues it even before it starts. That is the public perception. We have heard from other witnesses how effective non-judge-led inquiries can be but, if the public is not listening to that and if the people who feel that they have been wronged and on whose behalf the inquiry is being held do not accept that, it is difficult. That does not mean that it should not be a retired judge as opposed to a judge who is serving. That would, hopefully, stop some of the bottlenecks in the court system that result from judge-led inquiries.

Fine. I am happy with that.

Thank you for that. One of the significant points made in your report is that Government offices provide

“administrative services to commissions of inquiry. These services include fully furnished office rooms, IT and telecommunications equipment, and information and advice on administrative matters and archives”.

From our perspective, that sounds like a remarkably sensible approach, given that, often, when we have inquiries we have to reinvent the wheel. Before an inquiry can kick off, it can take many months not only to find an appropriate chair but to find premises and get a secretariat together. How impactful is that set-up on the ability in Sweden to make sure that commissions start promptly and also rein in costs?

Finally, although you are not allowed to compel witnesses under the Swedish system, is there a feeling that people, although not compelled to attend, generally do so? The implication is that perhaps one or two vital witnesses in the Estonian inquiry decided not to give evidence. Is that the case? One would have thought that, even though people are not compelled to attend, the general pressure would mean that they feel obliged to participate.

We move to our second panel on the cost-effectiveness of Scottish public inquiries. I welcome Wendy McGuinness, who is the chief executive of the McGuinness Institute in New Zealand. Will you tell us a wee bit about yourself, Wendy?

Yes, I would. One broad concern that we have is that the number of inquiries in Scotland and the UK have ratcheted up over the years. It seems as though inquiries are perhaps not becoming a first resort but are perhaps not far off it in some cases. It almost becomes a go-to approach when something is not working as perhaps it should.

Will you talk us through how you feel that we have arrived at that situation, and how we can counter that? I think it is the case that no one here believes that public inquiries are not necessary. However, that does not mean that every public inquiry is necessary.

It is important to acknowledge that all inquiries are unique and have different sets of circumstances, but would it be helpful if the Government took a consistent approach, with broad parameters set whereby members of the public would know whether an inquiry could and should be called for or, for example, whether what they are looking for, perhaps, is outwith the scope of a potential inquiry and that they should pursue other avenues of justice?

Does the confidence extend to the implementation of recommendations? One issue we have is that inquiries can often last years. Many people who feel that they have been the victims of an injustice look to an inquiry to deliver on their behalf. The Government takes the recommendations and says, “We will examine them”, and then years pass and they fade away.

That does not always happen—sometimes recommendations are implemented—but what is the delivery mechanism for recommendations in New Zealand? Does the Government feel almost compelled to implement recommendations, or does it take a more Australian perspective, shall we say?