Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay. I turn to Mr Pugh.

Okay. Thank you. In relation to data, you have said that there is

“an associated ‘integrated health and social care record’ technical development which will”

make it

“easier to specify what information should be fed into the ‘record’ by what organisation. However, the Scottish Government considers the scope of the information sharing and information standards provision to be broader than this. For the avoidance of doubt Section 36, as drafted, will not in itself legislate for the creation of an ‘integrated health and social care record”.

Why not? The committee was in Estonia last year, where we looked at X-Road, which is a tremendously integrated health data record in which everyone can look back through their individual health data, as can professionals. There are real issues about data interoperability. Will the data that the bill creates be interoperable?

How much is that likely to cost to deliver, and when will it go live?

Other colleagues will ask about that in greater detail, so I will not touch on that.

Do you accept that when people see senior counsel at the Covid-19 inquiry being paid £200 an hour and being able to charge up to 60 hours or £12,000 a week, or inquiries that go on for years, it seems like the vested interest of the legal profession is to keep things as they are? Rightly or wrongly, an inquiry is seen as a dripping roast for lawyers. Does that perception, which some people have—I am one of them, and the rest of the committee members are part of that, too—concern the Faculty of Advocates?

To be fair, that was in Mr Clancy’s submission, so perhaps it was an unfair question to ask you. I will go to Mr Clancy.

That was helpful.

That concludes our questions for this panel. Are there any final points that either of you wishes to make at this juncture?

Thank you very much for your very helpful evidence. As we have another panel of witnesses, we will have a five-minute natural break and then reconvene.

This is the second part of our evidence session on the cost effectiveness of Scottish public inquiries. I welcome Michael Clancy, director of law reform at the Law Society of Scotland; Laura Dunlop KC, convener of the law reform committee of the Faculty of Advocates; and Richard Pugh KC, from Compass Chambers.

Thank you for your submissions. I will begin with a question for Michael Clancy, which is based on his paper, although others can come in as they wish. You have said that cost control

“should not be judged on rules which apply to business enterprises.”

However, those costs are not being imposed on business enterprises—the cost is to the public sector.

I will take you to a live case. The Scottish Parliament information centre has told us that operation tarn, which supports the on-going public inquiry into the death of Sheku Bayoh, has so far cost Police Scotland £17 million in legal costs. Police Scotland says that it

“has been involved in a number of high-profile public inquiries in recent years which have had significant legal and administrative costs, redirecting both financial and human resources away from other critical areas of policing.”

If there are no cost controls and costs are just allowed to rise almost exponentially, as seems to be happening in that case, that must have an impact on other public services. One has to wonder about the value of a public inquiry in the light of the greater public good, as the police seem to indicate.

Thank you for that. Ms Dunlop, in your statement you say that

“the Piper Alpha and the Dunblane shootings Inquiries had succinct, general statement of purpose and were not subject to significant cost or overrun.”

Those were horrific incidents and we all remember them very well, but the inquiries seem to have been delivered much more timeously and effectively. You then go on to say that, in your view,

“producing a high-quality report within a relatively short timeframe may lead to more challenges in managing costs.”

I do not know what you mean by a “relatively short timeframe”, so you might want explain that.

You also say:

“There is often a trade-off between time, cost, and quality. It is generally understood that prioritising two of these factors can reduce control over the third.”

That seems to almost contradict what you said about Piper Alpha and Dunblane. I imagine that those inquiries were not only done timeously and for a reasonable cost. Those were also quality inquiries, were they not?

More than 160 men died in that disaster, so it was a major focus at the time. One would have thought that technology would have made things easier rather than more difficult and complex.

I should have put on record the fact that the Scottish Parliament information centre has said that, on average, legal costs account for 35 per cent of the cost of an inquiry, so we are not saying that it is all about the lawyers.

Our paper from SPICe also says:

“After the Chair, the inquiry secretary is probably the most important person for the running of a successful inquiry. The secretary is usually recruited from the civil service; however, this is for the chair to decide.”

Should experience of controlling budgets be considered when selecting an inquiry secretary?