Seòmar agus comataidhean

Each of your organisations exists to manage issues and support people, and you all have your ways of doing that. It would be useful to get a flavour of how you identify different needs and how you target support to ensure that survivors and people who are at risk come forward. Each individual is different, and, as you have identified, the experiences that people have gone through can be traumatic. Although some people might not wish to unravel some of those experiences, others might look to do so. How do you strike a balance so that people feel that they have the opportunity to come forward and get the support that they need?

I will move on to the topic of older people.

As we know, we have an ageing population, and a large percentage of our society falls into that bracket. “A Fairer Scotland for Older People—A Framework for Action”, which came out in April 2019, identified a number of priorities, including outcomes for access to services, health and social care employment, financial scrutiny and housing. Will the cabinet secretary give an update as to where we are with the framework, and how likely it is that a report will be published? Obviously, the pandemic has had an effect on the report, but it has also had a huge effect on the older population across Scotland.

Commissioner, you have given a very broad view this morning of your intentions with the code and how you want to encourage individuals to come forward and boards to be much more diverse. I think that that is starting to become a reality now.

It is also very important that we try to get the best individuals and that there is a good calibre of candidate coming forward, but not all candidates will succeed. Looking at those who do not make it, what are you doing in the code to look at what happens to candidates who go through the process and fail? Are they encouraged to come back? What role do you have in that? You have talked today about how you are very involved in the application process, in which those individuals progress only so far. It would be good to get a flavour of what you are trying to do there and how you are revising the code to encourage people to come back.

Specifically on this group, it is only right and proper that there is the change. I concur with and accept that. However, you make a very valid point, convener, about the resource and timescale that we have. There are a large number of CPGs, and they are quite diverse in their roles and responsibilities and the curriculum of activity that they may get involved in, depending on the topic.

It would be best practice if we had some structure that meant there would not be a tsunami effect on the committee clerks in having to manage it. Perhaps we can tailor a structure in which some formulation is put in place that helps the CPGs but that also helps the committee and its officials to manage the process. I am aware that they put a lot of effort into all of this, and we cannot have them being engulfed. We have hundreds of CPGs. If they all did this, we would spend our complete working lives dealing with it, and that cannot be the case.

There may be an interview in which a candidate goes in front of a number of individuals, but there is usually an application form to complete as well. How do you encourage and support individuals to fill in that form? I know from seeing such forms in the past that they have a one-line question that applicants are expected to write maybe 300 or 400 words in response to. That is the topic and the style, but that style can sometimes be quite restrictive as to what individuals can say. How are you planning to broaden the whole idea of that to ensure that the application form and the interview are much more aligned? Sometimes, they can be quite rigid or stuffy, and people do not feel comfortable in that environment. How do you change that?

I think that the strategic objectives that you are putting forward, Mr Bruce, show that you are attempting to have greater accountability and transparency, and even stakeholder engagement. That is welcome, because we want people to feel that they are able to engage. How are you balancing that attempt to have that meaningful relationship against your existing resources? You have indicated that you have some new roles and have taken on some new people, but your budget constraints are still there and your workload is increasing. In trying to ensure that you do all of this, how have you managed to square that circle?

It is about avoiding the tick-box exercise or just going through the motions.

The pandemic has meant that staff are not able to meet as they would normally in an office environment. Has that given you any difficulties in fulfilling your role and responsibilities and in ensuring that you can still have engagement and transparency? It would be good to get a feel of how you see that developing.

Do you think that that is to do with pressure of work, or is it just the environment that you are in?

The standard or template that you are putting together will give them the opportunity to develop that. Is there also the opportunity for things to be expanded in different boards when they are looking for different people? If the criteria are too rigid and people do not fulfil the criteria, they are bound to fail, but if the criteria are widened and people feel that there is a bigger opportunity to develop that, that may encourage more people to progress.

I, too, thank you for the frankness of your evidence and the personal testimonies that you have given today. It is useful for the committee to hear at first hand about your experiences.

I will focus on where we are on evidence. Can you give examples of how a legislative ban has been, and continues to be, effective? Can you advise us of any areas of best practice that we should look into when we are looking at how the evidence is being managed and processed?