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I am happy to include them in the list.

Are we content with those suggestions? If Mr Torrance can just nod his head, I will know that he is content, too.

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, Mr Choudhury. There seemed to be a gap between warm words and operational practice in Police Scotland’s approach, so those questions need to be put to it directly.

It seems that no other member wishes to comment further. Is the committee content to keep the petition open and to progress the issues with Police Scotland directly, along the lines that Mr Choudhury suggested?

Members indicated agreement.

The next petition is PE1896, which seeks to provide every primary school child in Scotland with a reusable water bottle. Members might recall that the petition was lodged by Callum Isted, who, at the age of just seven and still in primary school, was the Parliament’s youngest ever petitioner. I have to say that the petition has been open for so long that he is now almost heading off to secondary school. The petition itself calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to replace the disposable water bottle that is provided with primary school lunches with a sustainable reusable metal bottle.

We last considered the petition at our meeting on 19 April 2023, when we agreed to write both to the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity and to the then First Minister. We requested information on the methods of water provision in each local authority-run school and on how authorities are meeting their sustainability requirements. We were particularly keen to hear whether local authorities would be interested in participating in a national procurement exercise for the supply of reusable metal water bottles.

The Scottish Government received responses from 26 local authorities, and a summary of those findings has been provided as a written submission. It reveals that the automatic provision of reusable water bottles to pupils, or the use of single-use bottles, is not an authority-wide policy in any Scottish local authority area. Of the responses, 15 noted that single-use bottles are available in schools; of those, 13 also offered reusable plastic cups and the remaining two provided reusable water bottles. We heard that 13 councils indicated that they would be interested in taking part in a national procurement exercise, while 12 clearly stated that they would not. Of those that marked no, six already provided reusable water bottles.

Sue Webber, who was previously present with Callum Isted and his family, is unable to attend our meeting this morning as she is convening the Education, Children and Young People Committee’s stage 2 proceedings elsewhere in the Parliament. However, she has asked that her support for Callum’s petition and on-going campaign work be noted on the record.

I come back to what, for me, is still quite a vivid memory of Callum Isted presenting his petition. Against a background of so much emphasis being placed on education and change of practice in the next generation, he came forward with a petition designed to achieve a material and practical change. There does seem to be interest in his proposal—at least from the 13 heroic councils that said that they might consider a national procurement exercise.

Do members have any suggestions for action that we might take?

We could certainly ask whether anybody has given any thought to whether that might be an option.

Are we content to proceed on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

PE2004, which seeks to abolish the use of public-private partnerships in Scotland, was lodged by Line Kikkenborg Christensen on behalf of Jubilee Scotland. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to abolish the use of PPPs and to commit to a new model for financing and managing public infrastructure in Scotland that has safety, quality, value for money and accountability to the taxpayer at its heart. We last considered the petition on 3 May 2023, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust.

The response from the Scottish Futures Trust states that the model proposed by the petition would require a renegotiation of the fiscal framework to enable the Scottish ministers to borrow finance capital expenditure. The response also offers information on the mutual investment model, which cropped up in our earlier evidence session. We know from our work in relation to the A9 that the mutual investment model is an option that is being actively pursued by the Scottish Government.

In its submission, the Scottish Government offers a response to the petitioner’s recommendations, stating that the use of private finance has allowed for the delivery of much-needed schools, hospitals and other key infrastructure. The Government also states that it is working with Audit Scotland to develop clear governance and decision-making processes on the use of the mutual investment model.

We have received a submission from the petitioner, which highlights cross-party support for seeking alternatives to public-private partnerships and expresses concern that the Scottish Government is not fully aware of the financial, social and environmental costs of PPPs.

Members will have noted from our papers that, in addition to the working group that the petitioner mentioned, the Public Audit Committee is due to take evidence from the director general of the Scottish exchequer on matters related to infrastructure investment.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

I think that that is a very clear direction from the Scottish Government with regard to the aims of the petition. Given that, are colleagues minded to agree and to close the petition on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much for joining us this morning, Mr Sweeney.

No, that is not the petition that we are discussing. We are dealing with PE2057, on shared parenting.

We thank the petitioner for raising the issue. It is an important matter, and work appears to be under way that directly addresses the issues that have been raised. However, as I said a moment ago, if the measures that have been outlined do not lead to a satisfactory outcome in respect of the issues that have been raised in the petition, the committee would be very happy to receive a petition again after the appropriate time has passed.

As we have come to appreciate the concerns around the growth in the number of office-holders, we have, among ourselves, questioned the ability of the corporate body to look at and properly scrutinise those matters. We did a piece of work on whether other structures were open to us, and we looked carefully at the legislative framework in which we operate. The corporate body cannot devolve its responsibility for scrutiny of office-bearers; it is a requirement under the legislation that the corporate body is responsible for those matters. We have therefore, within the time that we meet and in our agendas, sought to expand the scope that we have for proper scrutiny of office-holders.

We have been going through a sustained period of having each one of the office-holders attend a corporate body meeting to explain and justify their budget and to talk more generally about the work that we are doing, so we are increasing the interest and scrutiny that we bring to the task. However, I do not diminish the reality that this is a corporate body that, at one time, had to scrutinise two office-holders, is now having to scrutinise eight—if the patient safety commissioner is the eighth—and might be invited to scrutinise even more. Moreover, it has to scrutinise office-holders whose responsibilities, in some instances, are increasing, too. That becomes a challenge.

However, this is our responsibility from a governance point of view. The actual performance of office-holders is the responsibility of parliamentary committees. In some cases, one or two committees have responsibility for several office-holders. Accommodating that into their ability to do the work that they might wish to do, to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government to account is an equally significant challenge.