 Hei, a答. Dwi'n cael ei ddim yn y 15 ymgeiwch, yn 2015, y Ffasiaeth Rhyw Gwyffredin ansiwydd aedd yn ymgyrch ei twb uch yn gwybod a'u bod y cyfle iawn eraill ar gael y cyfreidio oherwydd mae'n gwybod i'w ddodol iawn i ei ddim eu ddweinig iawn. Yn cyfosiniad y fwy o'r clywedau, mae ein hiad o'r ddydgoliaeth o'u gwybod i'u ddymian. Mae'r ysgrifatau, eu ddwyllfaethau, mae'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'u ddwylo addysg pow decrent. Agenda item 2, subordinate legislation, second item of the agenda, about consideration of draft Scottish Marine regions Order 2015. The instruments being laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions may come into force. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider The motion to approve the instrument under agenda item 3. I welcome Richard Lochhead, our cabinet secretary for rural affairs, for the environment, good morning. You're supporting staff David Palmer, Ian Vicar staff and David Tullant. Do you wish to speak to the instrument, Richard? I do, thank you very much and good morning to the committee. I have colleagues with me because of some of the technical aspects of the order that we have the same problem before us and some unusual phrases you may find. So that's why I have a number of colleagues with me this morning. So I'd just like to say a few opening remarks, because as you know recently we adopted Scotland's first ever national marine plan, and the next step, which is to take forward regional planning, as part of that allows local ownership and decision making about specific issues out to 12 nautical miles. Y gerdaffordd honi adeilad yn ymwyeddiad oedd ysgolosiad Cymru fel y cymunedau tynnu atw. Dwi'n fwyaf ardi nhw mae'r ysgolosiad Cymru yn collidio ddod o'r bodi'r cymunedau cymru o'r parngerfawr. Y yr argyrchu ysgolosiad Cymru yn edrych i'r byw, ond gofio'r gondol o ddim iawn i dynnu i'r gyrnas ac adeiladau sy'n treudio'n iawn i gael. Aepau o'r gyfodd o'r cyfullad ysgolosiad Cymru yn ymwyeddiad Cymru i gan rhaeddaf is defined in the marine act of 2010. The Scottish marine area is bounded by the mean high water spring ties of Scotland, the boundaries provided by the Scottish adjacent waters boundary order of 1999 and the seaward limit of the territorial sea, which is commonly referred to as a 12 nautical mile limit. The 1999 order is a UK order made under the Scotland Act that draws boundaries to determine which areas of the UK internal waters and territorial sea are for the purposes of that act defined as part of Scotland. However, recent mapping shows that the boundaries under that order do not actually extend to the mean high water spring tide at the border between Scotland and England. On the east coast, the boundary extends to mean low water spring tide, but on the west coast, the first co-ordinate under the 1999 order is now some distance from the Scotland-England border where it runs through the middle of the River Esk and the mouth of the River Sark. The distance between those points is now about 200 metres. That was not the case at the time of the 1990 order when it was made, so effectively we have a 200-metre gap in the Scottish-English border. I have recently written to Elizabeth Truss, the Secretary of State for the Review of the 1999 order for two reasons. Firstly, to address the inconsistency of some 6,000 square miles between the North Sea boundary between Scotland, England and the east coast under the 1999 order, which, of course, has been debated by this Parliament in the early days. On the east coast under the 1999 order and the boundary that was established under the 1998 order and the previous boundary that was established under the civil jurisdiction offshore activities order of 1987—the committee may remember Parliament in several locations in the past as debating the difference between those two boundaries. The second reason that I have written to the Secretary of State is to address the technical issue in relation to the boundary in the west coast that is due to a change in the course of the River Esk, which I have just referred to as a result of natural processes since the 1999 order that was made. The issue in the west coast was also recognised by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee in the recent consideration of the order that we are discussing today. However, it is important to note that the committee did not raise any legal issues with this order. The extent of the Solway and the Forth and Tay Scottish Marine regions in those two areas is that of the Scottish Marine area as provided by the Marine Act Scotland. It is not the Scottish Marine regions order that we are discussing today to determine the boundaries in those areas. That has to be achieved by amending the 1999 order. Article 1 of the draft Scottish Marines regional order sets out the details on the co-ordinates system and lines used in determining these boundaries. The co-ordinates are expressed in terms of latitude and longitude using the same projection as the 1999 order. In the remaining articles of the draft order, the regions themselves and the boundaries of the regions are described in a clockwise rotation starting from the Solway and working around the coast of Scotland and ending at the Forth and Tay region. The order is essential in establishing the 11 marine regions so that the delegation of regional marine planning functions to marine planning partnerships will be possible and statutory regional marine plans can then be prepared and adopted. It will take some time to set up the marine planning partnerships and develop marine plans for all 11 regions. This will be an evolving process taken forward in phases. Clyde and Shetland will be the first marine planning partnerships, and they can only be created, of course, after marine regions are established by this order. I hope that that gives some backgrounds. I've tried not to make it too technical, but I'm happy to take any questions that the committee has on the various issues that I've raised in the order before you. The members have questions just now about this. Anyone want to kick off? I'll start off with a question. The sitting out of those boundaries is part of a process with regard to the way in which those areas will be administered. What discussions have you had with the bodies that are going to be administering those, that they have the competencies, the skills to be able to manage those areas? It's something that obviously follows from this, but the marine borders that you've set up are novel. I understand the onshore aspect, but obviously there might be some questions about the placing of the boundaries between islands and the mainland and so on. Thank you. It's worth pointing out that there's been two rounds of consultations in previous years. The first round of consultations was on the concept of regional planning as part of the Marine Act and establishing marine regions. The second round of consultations was on what the actual regions should be and how many there should be and what they should look like. We've arrived at the conclusion that there should be a living in Scotland, and that's broadly been agreed by the stakeholders and people who responded to the consultations. In terms of expertise, clearly that is an issue, and I don't deny that it's an issue, but as I've just said in my opening remarks, this is a phased approach to establishing the actual marine planning partnerships or do the work. For that reason, the first two we will establish are Clyde and Shetland where there is existing expertise and they are on board for blazing the trail and being the first in the vanguard. We are confident that expertise is in these two regions, so two out of the 11 will get under way hopefully in 2015 once we go through the various processes depending on the committee's view of today's order. We will continue to work, as I gave commitments to the committee before, when we're discussing the national marine plan for Scotland with the other local areas and local authorities and other bodies that have a role to play in this to make sure that we can build up the expertise, but clearly that's a role that Marine Scotland are taking on and taking seriously. I notice, for example, in terms of boundaries that Tim, there's some offshore islets on the north coast of Scotland which have been associated with Orkney rather than the nearer coast, which is the north coast of my constituency and the north coast marine area. I just wondered why that kind of arrangement had been made. I can understand the other ones that are associated with the western isles, but I'm surprised that that one being joined to Orkney. I'll ask David Palmer to come in who's clearly involved in the detail of fair discussions with local authorities and other agencies, but they've emerged from it. Effectively, our understanding is that those islands are actually part of Orkney, and that's why we've included them in that region. I see. The member believes that his constituency includes those islands. How very interesting. I'm not sure if you have a land grab in Caithness of Sutherland, but maybe I won't interfere too much. Well, there we go. I just wondered whether they are part of the local government area that includes Orkney. I guess that would be... That's my understanding of it, yeah. Okay, well that's something that I'd like an answer on if at all possible, so we can just sort that little matter out. A constituency casework to the local member for Orkney? We most certainly will. I suspect that it's merely, since nobody lives there, something which will allow some planning for the area as a reef for fishing development and so on, but that's fine. Yes, for first of all, Claudia Beamish, and then... Good morning, cabinet secretary and Scottish Government colleagues. Could I press you a little further on the convener's question about the resource implications and ask you if either the Scottish Government itself or Marine Scotland has set aside additional funds in any way to support the implications of the rollout? Because, while I take your point about the two pilot areas having expertise and accept that, obviously in good faith, I do have concerns about the lack of knowledge in some local authorities and with some of the stakeholders and have concerns about support and training implications. So could you highlight in any detail any additional funding that's going towards that? There's not a specific fund in Marine Scotland dedicated to that. However, the Marine Scotland budget is being used to take forward everything that's flowing out of the marine act, and that includes in the past and no doubt in the future events and anything that needs to be done to make sure that we can work with the local authorities, local agencies, to make sure that the appropriate training is put in place. So, while I can't give you particular budget headings for that, I can just assure you that the Marine Scotland budget is being used in the general sense to take forward anything that needs to be done. It's an evolving process, so it's difficult to sit here today and say exactly what will have to be done to get to where we want to get to by any particular time, because there's no set target dates for establishing the living marine regions. We're focusing on the two at the moment who are very keen and enthusiastic about getting established and moving forward and have the expertise across the other nine regions. There's various levels of expertise and, as you know, in different parts of our marine area, there's different levels of activity at the moment. So, where there's a history of agriculture, for instance, in some local authority areas, they will have a certain level of expertise. Other regions of Scotland have very little marine activity, so, therefore, they may be some years down the line before they get established. So, it's an evolving process, but we are in constant contact with the potential partners in the marine partnerships to make sure that we understand their needs. Right, thank you. Through the convener, just for the record, having taken some local soundings from local councillor and others in the Solway area, I just would like it on the record that I'm content with the changes to the boundaries, without going to any more detail. Yeah, well that's good, and I just have to say to the committee that we turn to the Treaty of York, from 1237, signed by Alexander II of Scotland, a very good King of Scotland, and also Henry III of England, who helpfully signed that treaty to establish the borders between Scotland and England, and we had to turn to that as we were establishing what to do in the Solway. Mr Russell, perhaps, has a point on this. Except the treaty didn't establish that, did it? Because it was subject to very considerable revision later on. Serious point that, how do you resolve this issue? I mean the issue of the boundary between Scotland and England may not seem that serious on this matter, but it is serious in terms of where the law and planning will apply, and there doesn't seem to be a proposal for you about how you would resolve this, so how will you resolve it? You are speaking to UK Government, what's the basis of the resolution you're seeking? Well clearly in terms of the Scotland Act, the Scotland established the Scottish adjacent waters boundary order of 1999, and therefore, as this Parliament is bound to the Scotland Act, we have to use that as we are determining our boundaries. The 99 order in terms of the Solway, for instance, clearly went used as the end point, the midpoint of the two rivers, the Sark and the Esk, but that moves, and I'm not sure if the committee has access to the maps, but even looking at the maps over the last 10 or 15 years, you can compare to where the midpoint was between the two rivers, and it moves substantially. Therefore, the 1999 order does not account for that, and as a result, a 200m gap has appeared. So what we're asking for is for the 1999 order to be revised to take that into account, and it should give a geographical description within the order, as in wherever the midpoint may be, is where the boundary joins up, and clearly that would then account for any future movement of the midpoint between the two rivers. In terms of the east coast, clearly, if I recall correctly, one of the first debates that this Parliament had in 1999, and indeed the first debate that I spoke in, was in relation to the order that was put forward in 1999 for devolution, where the civil jurisdiction order of 1987 was ignored and a new boundary was established that effectively removed 6,000 square miles of waters from Scottish jurisdiction. Clearly, there have been various attempts since then to persuade various UK Governments to revisit the 1999 order. That's not happened because of this new issue, however minor it may be. We're using that opportunity again to ask for a revision of the 1999 order. If I can be absolutely clear, on the east coast, the proposal is to revert to the 1987 order, and on the west coast, the proposal is to set GPS coordinates of where that line would have been and was in 1999, and to hold those as the fixed points rather than to allow a moving point, which is the midpoint that has changed. You'll have GPS coordinates based on where that fixed point was in 1999, and that will be where you want the official boundary to be drawn. Is that correct? Effectively, yes, but I'm bringing colleagues here who are experts on establishing the coordinates. I don't know who would want to come in. I'm not sure if that is correct, because my understanding is that you are wanting a geographical description rather than a coordinate. The problem is there isn't because a coordinate has been specified, and the midpoint of the river has since moved away from that coordinate. If you have a GPS coordinate that says that's where the boundary is, that sticks for all times, is it not? It would be if that was what was chosen. Okay, so it would be better to have surely a fixed decision on this rather than one that could change again. What we're looking at here is the interaction between the marine boundary and, effectively, the existing Scotland-England boundary. There's an interaction between these two boundaries. That's an option that we're saying potentially, but what we're saying is because at the moment, the point that is used shifts over time, and the 1999 order doesn't account for that. We've left with a gap, which we have included within the marine order here, so we're closing that gap, but in terms of revising the 1999 order, we have to find a way through negotiation of making sure that, should the sands shift in the future, it doesn't leave a gap between the Scotland-England boundary. What should imply that you need a fixed point? No. Well, it depends how you define... Sorry, Mr Ferris and I will now debate for this issue amongst ourselves. On this point, Sarah Boyer. The boundary is a cube, but not exactly this one, come back to me. Sorry, but I picked up from the cabinet secretary's earlier remarks that the intention was to find a solution that took account of a shifting boundary in future. A fixed point, as Mr Russell has been intimating, surely wouldn't have that effect. Can I just clarify exactly what you're thinking here? Well, our thinking is that it would make sense to have a geographical description, so there's two boundaries hitting each other here. One is the marine boundary and one's existing Scotland-England boundary. Therefore, because the marine boundary has been established by the 1999 order and because the other boundary is established by the midpoint between two rivers, where the coordinate finish for the 1999 order to meet the previous middle point of the two rivers, then that coordinate becomes defunct, because the middle point of the two rivers has shifted, because the sands have shifted leaving a gap. It seemed to us the easiest way, in terms of still a fixed point, but the fixed point would be wherever the middle point happens to be, or the two rivers. From the GPS point of view, will it? Not from the 1999 order, no. We may be making heavy work of this, but it does seem to be a fairly important point. The setting of a boundary as being the midpoint of two rivers is perfectly understandable when you thought the rivers didn't move very much and you stood there and looked out with your spyglass and said that's where it's to be. If we have the capability of setting this by using satellite technology, shall it be best simply to have the line defined by exactly where we believe this boundary to be and to have been, and that would be the end of the matter? Otherwise, we're going to come back to this in a few years' time. Clearly, we're asking for revision of the 1999 border. There's two issues at East Coast, plus this issue in the Solway. Who knows when the negotiation will go with the UK Government, but we're not proposing to reopen the Treaty of York from 1237. It establishes the common law border between Scotland and England, which is one of the borders in terms of two boundaries we're discussing here. One is the Scotland-England border, the other is the marine boundary coming in from the water. And the point that I'm simply making is the marine order from 1999. Sixty point where the previous midpoint of the two rivers was, but that's now shifted. Therefore, that coordinate has left a gap of 200 metres. So now we know that, as Sark runs out of the Solway sands, that these are shifting sands and somehow or other we've got to pin this down. If only Alexander II had genuinely thought about their own Scottish adjacent waters boundary order, we'd have had to sort it. I also have a boundaries and borders question, and it's not about lines on map per se. This discussion has actually flushed out the fact that we have to think about time, space and depth, and in the marine environment it is not as easy as lines on maps and negotiations. And my boundaries question is less a national question, because that's been a very good debate we've just had. It's actually about the regional boundaries, and I say that having watched regional boundaries on maps between planning authorities and I think in the marine context the cross boundary discussions between those in charge of the different regional areas will become more important. And it's as much to flag an issue for the future. I think that the fact that you're selecting Shetland and Clyde as our two starter points is very intelligent, but it does beg questions about boundaries between Clyde north and south. The convener's first questions about the islands off the north of Scotland and Orkney are quite interesting. But you look round the map, there will be cross boundary issues, and I think that it just needs to be factored in for the future. It's not about where the boundaries lie, it's more about activities and species that will cross boundaries and will not remain in the regional area. So it's to factor some kind of protocols or some kind of discussions between those responsible for the different marine activities within those boundaries that this is not going to be a big issue at the start, I think, but it's something you need to think through about how the different organisations in the different areas will be required to relate to each other over time and to have those regular discussions. It's very fair point from Sarah Boyack, and clearly, as this process evolves and more regions are established, our intention would be to make sure that they're working closely together. And then at the UK level as well, but I think that my concern was primarily inter-reaching within Scotland. I think that we're talking about two or three areas where there are several local authorities such as the Tay and the Forth area, whatever that's called, and also the one between Highland Murray and Aberdeenshire in the Murray Firth. So, you know, there will be a need for that kind of co-ordination. But anyway, the boundaries have been proposed. Are there any further questions with regard to this? In which case, if not, then we'll move to agenda item 3, which allows for the motion 12904, asking the committee to recommend approval of the affirmative instrument Scottish Marine Regions Order 2015 draft. The motion can be debated for as long as you like, but at least up to 90 minutes, but hopefully it won't. So, we will therefore start in the formal process now with the cabinet secretary speaking to and moving the motion. Thank you. Although I am tempted to use 90 minutes to continue my debate with Michael Russell over how to establish the Scotland England border, I will forgo that opportunity. And just thank the committee for their questions and just simply to reiterate that we're very keen for regional marine planning to be bottom up and for local decision making to be built into the process as much as possible, albeit within the context of the national marine plan that's been adopted. And therefore, this is clearly an important point of establishing the boundaries of the marine regions to allow us to then establish the marine planning partnerships and then allow that process to kick off the future. So, I thank the committee for their time. And I formally move the motion. Thank you. I'd just like to say that there's clearly urgent issues in many places that the marine partnerships need to be set up and active. And it's clear to me in areas that I represent that we have incursions by a prong of a scallop dredging and things like that, which is already agitating many people who want to see this process moving quickly. And we wish you every success in getting the authorities, especially whether there are several that have to work together to do so speedily. Does anyone else wish to ask any points? And if not, then does the cabinet secretary wish to wind up? Thank the committee for their co-operation. Thank you. I'll put the question then to the committee members. The question is that motion S4M-1204 in the name of Richard Lochhead be approved. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. So, I thank Richard Lochhead and his officials and we will convey this information and we will now have a short suspension. Thank you. We'll make a start again. So, the fourth item today in the agenda is to take oral evidence on the Scottish Government's consultation on mandatory public sector climate reporting. And we're joined by a panel of stakeholders and I welcome everyone to the meeting. Just for the benefit of you all, the sound is controlled automatically. You don't have to press buttons or anything like that. You will be brought in as I see fit. So, just indicate by raising your hand you don't need to shout out or anything like that. I'm sure that you'll all be just dying to contribute to what we have to say. I'll go round the room starting off with Bruce Kylo. Just say who you are, what you're representing and then we'll identify people around the room just now, okay? Thanks. Thanks very much, convener, and thanks to the committee for having us here today. I'm Bruce Kylo, head of policy and planning at Stragway Partnership for Transport, the regional transport partnership for the west of Scotland. Thank you. Sir Roy Boyack, Labour list member for Lothians. Neil Kitching, work in the strategy team in Scottish Enterprise. Dave Thompson, MSP for Scala Cabaran Barnoch. Grant Ferguson, member of Napier University. Claudia Beamish, South Scotland and Shelley Minister for Informat and Climate Change. Jenny Neville, Scottish Ambulance Service. Mike Russell, MSP for our Garand Bute and Abnormally Obsessed with the Treaty of York. I'm David Seath from Police Scotland. Chris Wood, Sustainable Scotland Network. The late Alex Ferguson, for which I apologise MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries. I'm Julie Robertson from Sustainable Glasgow in Glasgow City Council. Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland. I'm Rebecca Bell, Sustainability Officer at Clackmannanshire Council. Angus Macdonald, MSP for Falkirk East. Neil Deesley, I'm Sustainability Manager with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Graham Day, MSP for Angus South. I'm Rob Gibson and I'm the convener of this committee, but also the MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. We're going to kick off some questions and it doesn't need everybody to answer if they don't feel the need to, but to just indicate, as I said, Graham Day is going to ask the first question. Thank you, Kivir, and good morning to the witnesses. I'd just like to ask those present what their experiences are of the current approaches to climate change reporting and where they feel it could be improved. Anyone want to raise their hand and start us off? Yes, Chris. In local authorities, we have been doing the Scottish Climate Change Declaration reporting for the last six, seven years. That's very much what the new mandatory reporting has been based on. I think we found it useful. It gives us a, ties in things like the carbon reduction commitment figures, what we find out through our sort of energy billing systems, et cetera, and an opportunity to look at what's happening across the wider region. So I think it's been a really useful process to actually try and quantify what we're doing. There have been lots of interesting challenges in terms of data accuracy, et cetera, but the process has evolved, and we have a, at the moment, the last year was a relatively stable format to report to. Neil Deasley. Yes, just to give a perspective from SIPA, we've been reporting voluntarily, actually, for some considerable time. Over that time, our process has evolved considerably, and we've got better at it. We've got more efficient at it as well. What it does do is help us to really understand where we need to prioritise our efforts, our focus and some of our resources into reducing our own emissions. It helps us to pinpoint where we can target our efforts. A good example of that is being able to understand, for example, our transport and travel emissions. From that, we're able to target particular sectors of those emissions or particular parts of the organisation so that we can drive down those emissions and also drive down the associated costs as well. For us, though, that 16-year period that we've been reporting has been very helpful, I'd absolutely agree that there are lots of challenges, particularly around getting the right data in the right format so that you can understand it and use it. However, it's nevertheless proven to be very helpful for us. That's a point that we want to develop as we go on. I guess that a subtext to this is how seriously do you all take climate change reporting? Grant Ferguson. I think that from the university sector, certainly our university, we, there's the national monetary reporting universities do every year in terms of scope 1, 2 and 3, but internally as well we have our own targets, carbon management plans. I think that the sector certainly takes it seriously. It's in our university strategy, that sustainable, ethical environments should be supported and driven. We believe that having that outside view on where others are is very important to learn from others. In terms of your question, it's very important to us. Jenny Neville. Yes, I certainly think that the Ambulance Service takes it seriously. It is quite challenging at the moment to try and collate all the data that has already been suggested. I think that we probably recognise that we have a bit of a way to go, certainly, to achieve what's proposed in the papers. Okay, Bruce. Lowly, I agree with what everybody said. From our point of view, it's very simple. It is about reducing our emissions, ensuring that we're reducing our carbon output, but it's also about saving money and getting that message across. I think that's something that we've most certainly tried to do. The chap across Chris mentioned the carbon reduction commitment. That to me is a classic example of something where you can put a monetary amount on your carbon output and the efforts that an organisation makes to try and reduce that will reduce the cost of that organisation, so it's actually very simple. Similarly, within SPT, we've got our carbon management plan, we've got our target, and a lot of initiatives that we are taking at the moment to do with ground source heat pumps. We're working with Glasgow Caledonian University on using the excess water that comes out of our subway system, what we can do with that, various other initiatives that we're trying to take forward. So I think that from the RTPs, regional transport partnerships point of view from our organisation like ourselves, we do take it very seriously for those very basic reasons. Julie Robertson, yeah. So Glasgow City Council, again, finds it a very useful and important tool for awareness raising within the organisation. Obviously, it's taken very seriously. We have to go through a variety of frameworks and committee approval to actually sign off the process, so it really gets that awareness at the very highest level. In particular, most recently, the most recent reporting declaration had a lot more questions around climate adaptation, and I definitely feel that that was much more helpful for us to try and raise awareness of adaptation, climate mitigation, well-covered adaptation that helps to push that agenda much further forward. David Seath. If Scotland's a relatively new organisation, we're still pulling together a lot of the restructuring that's still to be done. Nevertheless, we have introduced the carbon management plan. We have got some experience in the past of voluntary reporting, so it's not completely new to us, but coming from 10 separate organisations, it's difficult at the moment to get a standard across the country, but that's one of our intentions to make sure that we are consistent throughout the whole of Scotland. We don't have any reservations about the need to do it. We are signed up to do it, right up to executive level within the organisation and within the authority itself. All consider it to be of critical importance. I'll be clear on that, Mr Seath. In terms of Police Scotland, does that carbon management plan take account of the impact of operational changes? To give you an example, in the area that I represent, we've seen CID, garage and traffic police relocated to Dundee away from Angus, which obviously has either a positive or negative carbon impact. We also see officers moved about all over the division, and that'll be common to many parts of Scotland. Is that taken into account when you measure your carbon impact? Absolutely. We're measuring all dimensions of it. It's not just what's done in our premises. It's how we move about the country, how we police the country, and we measure everything that's possible to measure. We're perhaps struggling a little bit in scope 3 areas, but certainly in scope 1 and 2 we don't have an issue with it all. It's part of our on-going strategy to rationalise a lot of the things that we do to get the benefits off the 10 organisations coming together, so that is factored into our calculations. When were the baseline figures for this established for the measurement? At what point? Last year, last financial year. That was the baseline that we took because that was our first year coming into it. When will we start to see figures that we can look at on the progress that you're making? In the pilot year, we will report on previous year to see how we've got on, in comparison with the targets that we've set. Like most organisations, we will meet the requirements by 2020 and we've got a plan to get to 2020 and what each year we need to do to do that. We will be able to report back on last year, which was our baseline that was here before. We will report on last year as our first. Just to be clear, will that be broken down at the divisional level or will it just be a national picture? We're only holding information at the national level at the moment, but I'm quite sure that we could provide regional variations if so asked. Thank you, that would be useful. Bring in Rebecca Bell now. I just wanted to record my colleague from Glasgow who said that Clap Manager Council also takes its climate change reporting very seriously. I've been compiling the reports for the last six or seven years now, so there's been six reports in total. They go through our committee process before they're submitted. We also have a carbon management plan, like most of the other public bodies here, and we have a sustainability and climate change strategy, which is our way to try and address the public bodies duties. Do you think that it's easier in a smaller council than it is, for example, in Glasgow, to draw those things together? I think that it's possibly easier in terms of the stuff that you need to speak to, and there only ever being one person that you need to talk to to get the information from. However, I imagine that in terms of the way that the data is gathered through billing, through water bills, that kind of thing, I imagine that that's probably about the same kind of system, so there's probably not much difference in that sense. Julie Stewart I think that it's fair to say that we've obviously been reporting since 2008 now, so we've come to a point where we do have a fairly set structure in terms of gathering the data, but it can be a bit difficult to go through the sheer number of people, but we're pretty much there. Do you want to say something, Neil Kitchin? Yes, Scottish Enterprise, we already report our carbon emissions and we have a carbon reduction target to 2020. What we would say is that the reduction of mandatory reporting will increase consistency across the public sector, and more importantly it will increase awareness and profile of that. It's very easy to set up a carbon plan, set up carbon reporting, and over time the interest in it can fade away, but I think that with mandatory reporting that is going to push it right back up into the top management managers and leaders. Do you want to take that up to stay? Claudia Beamish? Claudia Beamish Thank you, Nina. Good morning to the panel. I represent this committee on the Public Sector Climate Leaders Forum and have followed with interest—I represent the committee as an observer, although I'm allowed to speak occasionally—and I followed with interest the developments towards the position that the Scottish Government now has on the consultation, which I would like, therefore, to pose a question about and to seek views from the panel today on what the view is of the proposals to introduce mandatory reporting specifically. Who's going to go first on that? I'm dying to have a mandatory reporting from Neil and then Becca. Neil Kitchin Well, our position is very clear. We're very supportive of the proposal and the elements within the proposal. We have, through our own involvement in the Climate Leaders Forum and through the Officers Group that's the support site, we've been active in working with other partners to help to develop the proposal itself. We're very supportive. For us it's very much a logical next step from 16 years of voluntarily reporting to a process where we're moving towards more consistent mandatory reporting. We're absolutely supportive of the process and we will actively participate in the pilot trial of the proposal for this current reporting year that we're in, so absolutely. Rebecca Bell We're also supportive of the concept of mandatory reporting, both because it's likely to prompt more climate change activity in the organisations and also because it's a way of recognising and celebrating the progress that those organisations have made and a way of identifying whether there's areas of weakness and tailoring support to those. I would have that reporting is probably going to require additional time and resources, but in the long term that will lead to improvements in the way that we handle climate change. My final point would be that analysing the reports is probably the most important thing and ensuring that we're reporting for a purpose and that purpose is to improve the way we tackle climate change. There are interrelated questions here and I'll just throw this one in, I think, to this. As we're talking about mandatory reporting and reporting in general, Rebecca Bell raised the interesting point that the discussions probably raised the ideas about how we can reduce emissions in public bodies. That's really where we've got to be focusing. Is reporting such the thing that changes people's behaviour in discussing that or other factors? Let's try and take that forward just now. Mike Russell wants to make a specific point. I'd be particularly interested to follow that up, convener. I'm interested in Rebecca Bell's remark that reporting will prompt more climate change activity within the organisation. I'd be interested to know in specific ways that individuals within the organisation will be driven by the process of reporting to change. This is a hearts and minds issue, but it's also a practical issue in terms of actions that individuals will take within the organisation, within universities, within the ambulance service, within the police. I've been interested in hearing that in the responses. We'll just add a wee addition to that so that you get a rounded picture. Absolutely. Mike Russell is right in terms of changing behaviour within the organisations, but I wonder what impact those actions are having on changing the behaviour of your workforce as individuals. Between you, you must employ a considerable number of people. The committee is very much focused on behavioural change being behind what we need to do to achieve what we're trying to do here as a country. I wonder if you see any evidence of, if you as an organisation are demonstrating how important this is, you're beginning to see your workforce as individuals outwith the workplace changing their behaviour as well. I think that the reporting will help us to deliver more on the ground. I think that bringing it to the attention senior management of members, we have very, very supportive members across all parties down in South West Scotland. That works very effectively. There's some really challenging issues like adaptation in particular where the decision cycle is going to be well out of political cycles. Things are going to happen in 40 years, 30 years, 50 years that we need to take account of and start to plan for now. That's going to be a challenge. In terms of what we do practically, yes, we run a cultural change programme, we have carbon champions, we've got about 7,000 staff, we have a much, over the last few years, the level of awareness with staff, we do a sort of annual survey just to see where we're up to and whether people are taking account of these things. We're running about 90% at the moment, which is fantastic, so it's much better than we originally anticipated. I've had to change the metrics slightly to maintain at that because we were getting nearly to the hundred. But we still need to do work and actually identifying we're doing great on waste. We think we're doing pretty well on transport, we want to check the figures on that. Buildings, we're doing okay, but we need to do a lot more and it's whether you go for the residual resources solution, do we go for techy fixes on boiler controls and that sort of thing. There's a wide range of ways and actually trying to get our estate managers to focus on this sort of thing, so as opposed to maybe new build is quite a challenge and it's trying to get it so embedded within the organisation that the individuals do remember the simple things like switching the lights off makes a big difference, but equally well you've got the your investment programme looks at carbon. This year we've done I think down about six and a half percent on our emissions on buildings, some of that's down to we've lost about half a million off the budget as well which is fantastic, but that's down to oil prices I think primarily, so that's had a really positive impact for us financially this year, but it's probably a short-term benefit, so it's trying to take account of all these sort of different factors coming in from a whole range of different sources and get it properly embedded within the organisation. Can I just clarify a point you talked about seven thousand employees are you talking about Dumfries and Galloway Council or the sustainability network? No no no this is I'm using sort of work example I'm an energy manager and sustainability officer for Dumfries and Galloway council, so use that as a day-to-day example I think across the Stirlingmore Scotland network you're probably talking hundreds of thousands of people you know sort of well into six figures with all the different authorities. I've already developed that point with Julie Robertson where there's quite a lot of these people and then David Seath. Again I would just raise the point about reboting and how it kind of keeps it very high in the agenda in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Throughout Glasgow City Council carbon mitigation you know has been a long-established process and there's a lot of work being on undergoing and currently undertaken in regards to that. However with regards to behaviour change in terms of staff we actually have energy awareness officers and we have kind of ongoing campaigns about switching lights off and many different things that you can do in terms of reducing carbon. The importance that I feel that the reporting brings to that is obviously keeps it high in the agenda. In terms of adaptation however I do feel that it's linked us a lot of support in terms of taking part in innovative initiatives. Glasgow City Council takes part and is actively involved in progressing regional adaptation strategy and action plan titled Climate Declide. The reporting gives us a bit of a push and it sort of influences the support for that kind of innovative action that's kind of over and above maybe what would be within the realms of a city council. Again as my colleague here mentioned sometimes it's at timescales obviously climate change you're looking way into the future 30, 50, 80 years at you know political cycles and things it's not necessarily easy to sort of combine the two so again it can allends support for those longer term initiatives. David Seath. To inform you about some of the things that would be doing within the police service there is a forum called the national police estates group which represents all police forces throughout the United Kingdom and part of their work has been to produce an eco handbook which deals with environment impact but this booklet is aimed at all the staff it's not just aimed at management staff it's for everybody and it explains quite clearly what their contribution can be to improving the climate of the organisation it gives some practical tips about what they could do some of the things that we've just heard about and so we need to spread the message rights throughout the organisation it's not just for the people who are collecting data analysing data producing information or reports it's for everybody. Becabelle and then Neil Deesley. Thanks I think there's two ways in which reporting is likely to drive improved climate change activity I think firstly there's the cliché that what gets measured gets managed and if this becomes a mandatory thing then and shining a light on what the organisations are doing in terms of climate change I think that's likely to drive sort of sharpen the people's focus maybe particularly those of people who maybe don't see it as their job at the moment and for us at CLACs looking at the reporting form we're going to be reviewing our governance arrangements around climate change which again I think will really sharpen up how we're doing and how it gets embedded throughout the organisation. In terms of behaviour change the sustainable Scotland network has produced an e-learning module which is a basic module available to the whole of the public sector it's aimed at all staff not those whose job is climate change looking at the duties looking about the science around climate change and then giving suggestions about what they could be doing in their day-to-day jobs to address it. Yes, Grant Ferguson. We've heard about the reporting side it's the detail that gives you the savings and the progress which you can then use to motivate people to continue their contribution and to empower people because that's the important thing because the central control is what the techies do behind the scenes it's the people that the day-to-day work they have control over the lights but also what they take home and with the students you know that we've got the equal schools projects coming through the primary secondary schools the students come into the higher FE sector they then go into industry hopefully we can continue that cycle of learning and awareness and respect for the environment that they can take to their employer and they can contribute the wider context and also the commute that's the other thing we try to promote the cycling we're part of the the the cycling project within Edinburgh the promoting public transport getting people to beyond our boundaries do as much as they can so it's a as much a gain for us reputational we want to be seen and to do we teach it we want to do it but also what contribution we are to the wider Edinburgh and and agenda. So Neil Deasley. Yeah I was just going to give a practical example of how we translate the data into into kind of actions if you like and I wanted to use the example of travel it's something that we measure very very closely we pull an awful lot of information together each year to enable us to to understand our transport and travel and what that then enables us to do is to we actually set targets most years for for reducing our transport and travel in particular sectors or in particular parts of the organisation and what having the having that information available to hand and monitored every year allows us to set those targets and then to monitor those targets and also to put in place carrots and sticks in terms of for example carrots making sure that the right infrastructure is available to staff to do the right thing so by rolling out things like video conferencing and a software package that we use called intercall that allows a kind of file sharing a live file sharing across computers at the same time allows people to do that business and to have meetings without actually needing to travel so that's enabling to do the right enabling them to do the right thing but also is much more convenient for staff but also the other around it enables us to identify where we actually need to be a little bit harder and to actually prevent what we might call bad behaviour and a very good example of that is flights where we actually actively manage them very very closely now and to the point that they require very senior managers sign off to do so and that's enabled us to to drop by 95 per cent right we've got three big transport users coming up to us now we've got David Cairo David Seath and Jenny Neville to just comment on these bits please so Bruce first of all delighted to hear every day starting to do that bit for transport that's what SPT's all about but trying to encourage people to use sustainable transport active travel and we were delighted to put considerable resources into that over the last few years and we're continuing to do so subway modernisation the fast link bus scheme in Glasgow anything that we can do to support organisations in moving towards more sustainable travel then we're delighted to do so as I said earlier on it's about reducing your carbon and also saving money and as we all know now particularly with the active travel cycling it's good for you and that was really just one of the points just coming back to your question and in terms of the reporting I think it's important that organisations use it to reinforce the change one of the things that we've found over the last few years as I'm sure others have is it's very easy to do the low hanging fruit it's when you get down to the ones which are harder to do you know during the subway modernisation we're changing the lights we're doing all sorts of we're totally changing the way that we operate that system and we're trying to embed environmental thought into that as we do it and that's the tough bit so if the reporting can assist with that we're fortunate in SPT that we've got very supportive members it's very supportive senior management who try to build us into how we go about our business so I think it's about reinforcing change and just back to your point about about the workforce I think that any organisation that's serious about climate change should really start from the bottom up with their workforce read an initiative over the last year which we'd refreshed we called it make it second nature which was really appealing to the workforce not as just as employees of SPT but also as individuals I think people are a lot more educated now about climate change and the effect it can have when you see the energy bills that come into your house so they're more appreciated of that but this was just to again reinforce perhaps what people were hearing when they were at home doing it in the office as well or in their workplace and they would see the benefits both within the organisation you know saving money saving energy does make more room for more jobs or more work but also they'll see a benefit in the house as well and David Seath will then Jenny Neville. I'd like just to add a little bit to what I said before about who we require to educate here one of the key things that we're saying to staff is please take this home don't just stop it at the workplace you can actually make a considerable improvement to Scotland as a whole by taking the same things that we're asking to do at work to home and apply that in your home environment so that's one thing that we're keen to emphasise and we want to transport roughly three and a half thousand vehicles running about Scotland sometimes it's difficult to say to people when you've got to respond to an emergency well by the way you've got climate change duties here and can you take your foot off the gas please your driving style does not suit that so there's a conflict there and how we balance that but there will be issues at times when we have got to respond to emergencies and climate change perhaps is a secondary consideration however that's the minority of times that our vehicles are on the road so we are educating drivers about responsible driving when they are we are introducing zero mission electric vehicles where we can and again that has got to go further than just the workplace we need to take it outside the workplace as well true i mean we could look at a lot of these things in a great detail but i think at this stage we you know we have to take it on you know trust that we will be able to get more detail at some point in the future but Jenny Neville your vehicles do have to travel fast on occasions yes they do we've done quite a lot of similar initiatives to the things that others have mentioned around estate adaptation encouraging cycling schemes video conferencing all these kinds of things but there is no doubt that the majority of our emissions are created by the vehicles that we have which are responding to patient demand whether that's accident and emergency demand or patient transport demand i think we've done quite a lot already in terms of trying to use energy efficient vehicles and moving towards euro six compliant vehicles but obviously there is a cycle time for doing that in that we obviously have to retain our vehicles for a period of time and so that that's not something that we can do overnight i think the thing that will probably help us the most in terms of impacting on our emissions going forward is the the work that the ambulance service is doing in terms of progressing its new corporate strategy which is taking care to the patient in support of the government's 2020 vision and if we can achieve that reduction in the amount of patients that we take to hospital that should reduce our mileage and the associated carbon emissions i would imagine he wants to ask a small supplementary thank you computer i'm aware that the i'm scottish ambulance service are in discussions with scottish fire and rescue about co-location i mean obviously finance is one of the drivers for that but is carbon footprint part of that as well yes i think that's certainly the case and we have co-located in a number of places around scotland and we do actively look to continue that but obviously that can be a difficult thing to achieve as well because people have established estate they don't always have space but certainly where we're looking at new builds and things there there is that type of opportunity and we have taken that where possible and not just co-locating with foreign rescue in the police but also with other health service partners too in terms of hospital co-locations and gp practices and things in certain parts of the country. Sarah Boyack i wanted to ask a supplementary brief supplementary on that and it's partly for yourself but presumably applies around the table this year procurement where you're procuring goods or services or vehicles or energy equipment from outwith the organisation and the challenge of making sure that your staff know what they need to be procuring but also whether the private sector who are offering kit for you to buy they are beginning to meet those kind of climate targets or clear carbon reduction targets in terms of the type of services and goods that you're buying is that beginning to shift yes but i think it's probably slower than we would like it to be and i think it can be difficult in terms of making sure that the staff have the skills to be able to assess the differences between goods and services that are being offered in a consistent way i think there is a challenge there and we've probably got more to do on that obviously we use quite a lot of items that come from collaborative contracts so we're then supported by the larger buying authorities that have more resources in these areas and certainly where we're contracting on our own behalf we are starting to put more evaluation criteria into the procurement processes that would pick up on these types of issues so we're certainly addressing it but i think there's more to do Claudia Beamish just before i bring anyone else in on this because i want to try and keep this rolling on to just in terms of the mandatory reporting for those organisations that haven't commented on buildings i note from the pie chart by source that 67 percent of emissions in public sector come from buildings and it would be helpful if we could hear from you about how either the mandatory reporting will help with focusing minds or whether there's good practice at the moment just briefly please yeah i was going to ask is there anyone who's against mandatory reporting that's good i'm glad we've got that in the record and so therefore what you're doing about this very large chunk in the pie chart the buildings anyone want a particular point there yes i think it's well established one of the best building rich organisations i suppose that there are i think it's well established practices in place because it's the it's not the national reporting it's driving that it's what's happened over the last decade on building improvements the technology changes the carbon investment that we've got in the university we've got a ring fence carbon investment fund that self feeds itself so that it pays for projects the savings go back into the fund that replicates or allows you to invest and we've been able to save 35 percent in our carbon emissions over the last five years so we've we're no different from anybody else we've invested to save the bottom line improves in terms of finance the bottom line in terms of carbon improves so the established systems and that scope one scope two is the easier bit to record because everybody's doing that it's a scope three in procurement that's the difficult bit because that's where you get the 99 percent of the savings that are in your your buildings and your in your infrastructure the procurement is the more difficult bit i think the buildings is well established carbon management plans that have been in existence for many many moons now have driven that change detail what you're going to do when you're going to do it and what you're going to invest and publicly having them available on the internet or internet sites good seath and then neal kitchen thank you good one of the key planks of our corporate strategy is to rationalise our estate so we're evaluating all our properties right across scotland and one of the factors that we take into consideration is the carbon production a carbon emissions associated with that property so that's a part of the valuation it's not the only criteria which will decide whether we should retain property or we should divest ourselves of that property but it is an important one so and because it is such a large contributor has been has been pointed out to our greenhouse gas emissions we really need to tackle that one first it should get the biggest hits there if i could come back to carbon footprint from procurement we are aware that a model has been developed for the police which will enable us to say exactly what our carbon footprint would be from procurement activities depending on what you purchase different factors conversion factors for different commodities where it's ic key where it's uniform it's possible to to come up with a number which was represented that's quite a big number right and neal kitchen we released nearly all of our office properties most of these leases now are five-year periods so when we looked at our property estate the first thing we did was upgraded all the lighting systems so they tend to have very short paybacks of say 18 months to two years so we can do that within a lease and financially benefit from it the difficulty is there the easy ones the difficulty things thing is the things like boiler upgrades which might be a seven-year eight-year payback external wall insulation might be 10 15-year payback there's no financial incentive or no financial case for us to upgrade our buildings within these parameters and so that's a bit of a stumbling block for us okay and neal diesley system going to pick up on the point about rationalisation and i think that's that there are real opportunities here both for carbon savings and for and for financial savings we have been in a process of of rationalising our estate we've moved from two buildings to one in sterling three to three to one in in Lanarkshire but the other point I wanted to make was about the opportunities for co-location for actually sharing buildings across the public sector we've started to do that in a number of our buildings in Aberdeen we share with SNH in sterling we share with SNH in Perth we share with Scottish Government there are big opportunities to do more of that and the carbon savings and the financial savings will flow from that thank you I think we'll try to move into Jim Hume's question just now yes thanks very much for thanks very much for that convener we've heard it i think Rebecca Bell said we need to time and resources and Jenny Neville mentioned about a way to go so it'd be quite interesting to hear from some of the organisations how prepared they feel that their organisations are for the new mandatory reporting measures what steps they need to be able to comply with the proposed reporting requirements. At the moment we don't we don't do any mandatory reporting there's no requirement for us to do any such thing so we're starting from zero base on that and it certainly will involve us on a steep climb to make sure we've got resources in place to actually complete what the expectation is here at the moment i'm not sure that we have got sufficient resources because we don't do anything at the moment it's not part of our plan to collect a whole series of data more than we've currently got so it's going to impact on us somewhere but we will have to face up to that and come up with a solution and it may well be that the solution rise and other organisations contribution that they can help us pull together and show us how things can be done simpler than maybe we anticipate it's going to be because none of the carbon information that you get falls out of anything we currently are supplied with you don't get how many tons of co2 from your electricity bill you don't get it from anything else at all actually someone's actually going to calculate something to do a thing and it's not just about the analysis of the data it's what information you take out of that and the information part of believe of the report that's been proposed is key for me it's what is this what is the message that we're starting to put out here and identifying what needs to be done in the future to make things even better than they are now supplementary on that point yes thank you very much appreciate your candor mr seath but to be clear was it the case that under the old police regime the different forces that nothing was being done oh no that's not true the only force that was caught by crc was strathclyde however when strathclyde ceased to exist and police scotland came into effect there's no requirement for us to record crc not in this round we will be caught in the next round effectively so it will it will eventually come to us but right at this moment the time it doesn't apply so chris would you yeah we i guess reasonably well prepared because we've been doing it on the local authority side but i think the other thing from the ssn point of view ssn have been involved in through the climate change declaration reporting over a number of years have been heavily involved in developing the manager reporting so i think there is a resource there that will help organisations like police scotland you know the fact that police scotland has gone separate created us sort of work challenges because we're now having to disaggregate the police scotland and the final rescue services from our existing carbon management plan but still recognise a lot of good work that went on in the past through both those services so i think yes i think there are resources out there that will help with the the data collection whether it's resource efficient scotland ssn who are very involved in the helping the public sector across the piece to understand what the numbers mean we analyse the reports that are happening at the moment so there will be a report out shortly looking at the last round of sccd reports i think other agencies do very similar things so i think there is a resource out there to support that um and that's probably an area that needs to develop on further to make sure we're all sort of singing from the same song sheet and being fairly consistent in what we report grant ferguson and then rebecca bell i think we're reasonably well placed to fill out the return the only reservation is that we're lucky enough to have a resource within university to do such a thing we have an energy manager we have a sustainability team that do because we're big enough we want to do it the challenge will come more i suspect with organisations that don't that this is the first time they've had to do it we do monitor report we do voluntary reporting we're different the other challenge we'll face is that we report on our financial academic years which is different from this reporting period we report from the first august through the third first of july and everything we do so what we'll report as a sector on another apartment crc we'll have one set of stats and then this will be another set of stats and they won't marry up because we're different reporting periods so colleges universities will have and some of the organisations will have that challenge but in terms of stats i think that a lot of what's there is available some more robust procurement still is the Achilles heel because the robustness of the data we we've gone through carbon masters carbon standard and externally validate on the the electric and the gas use and the water uses is all easy stuff but the the level detail so that the other reservation is about the validation process it's only about validation process what that means collecting it but then the validation process could take as long as if not longer so 20 days could easily become whatever it's going to be and the last thing i'd like to say is it's important that we make sure from year one we set a standard because there's nothing worse than getting a mandatory report that changes because you set yourself up for delivery and then things come in it has to evolve i understand that but when the goalposts move there's nothing more galling and getting your systems ready and then the goalposts have shifted and you've invested time that you could be doing other things with so um a few points there but i think our university is well well placed so Rebecca Bell and then Neil Deasley i think clap manager council is reasonably well geared up for the new reporting although i think the the new reporting format requires a bit more quite a bit more detail than the climate change declaration reporting does um i've been advised by my colleagues that i think most of that will be doable whether it will be possible to gather it together for this year or even next year is another matter but i think it's something that we will be able to work out in time the only thing that we don't that it looks like we're not going to be able to do is um our waste arising clap manager doesn't clap manager council is a as a local authority obviously collects waste across the area and that's that's what we measure and that's what we report on to see to so we don't measure our our own estate waste arising and i understand that there isn't the capacity or the resource to be able to do that anytime in the future so okay Neil Deasley and uh Bruce Keiloh um yeah just very quickly thank you um yeah i think we're quite lucky coming from from having quite a mature reporting process so so hopefully um our anticipation is that we will just need to reorientate what we do to fit um the new requirements now that will require us to do some things that we haven't already done it will require us to do some things that we do do already in a different way um and it will also have implications that we probably might need to to reset some baselines for some of our targets because we as we migrate into the into the new system but but generally you know we feel that we're able to um you know to to take on board the new process and are prepared for it i would absolutely echo the the points that have already been made about the need for support and about sharing good practice and about sharing the learning and about sharing the journey really for those of us that are all coming at this from from different points along the journey so absolutely support and capacity building is key just to pick up very quickly on the point made about validation we have externally validated each of our reports for the last um 10 or 12 years or so and the reason we do that is not just so that we're absolutely on the money in terms of being robust and accurate so we get a third party to come in and evaluate the claims that we're making and the data that we present we do that not just for accuracy and robustness but also because actually it helps us to improve our process every year every time that review process happens every time that validation happens we get better because we get recommended recommendations from somebody looking at how we do it from a third party and that over time gradually improves our process so we do do it and we will continue to do it and fit it into the into the new template process so bruce carlaw are you getting better yeah i think so i hope so um one things for sure we will be ready whatever the the government come out with we'll obviously comply with that i think the the point that grant made earlier though is that there are organisations where there are they are smaller um where it might be a bit more of a challenge and i think that's probably why it's important that in coming out with these formal reporting requirements that the Scottish government issue very clear guidance to try and to keep it as simple as possible they offer up training as much as they can and i think appreciate that over the first year or couple years for some organisations allow it to evolve and i think that you know it mentions in the regulations about penalties and things like that i think there has to be a period to allow these things to bed in and allow organisations to mainstream it within their organisation and see how that settles down but as i say clear guidance from the government keeping it simple and making sure that organisations like ourselves and others can build on what's already there and the more similar to what was there previously the better i think okay and julie robertson one resource again as i say we've managed today and voluntarily reported from 2008 so the structures there it might need a slight bit of tweaking however in terms of the validation and the proposal for validation we do see that as a slight stumbling block potentially in terms of additional resource potential cost associations with it where there's maybe not an identified budget so we would pick up on that one of our recommendations was potentially to go down the line of a peer review potentially with maybe some of our higher further education and university establishments just picking up again on rusie's point about guidance i think especially for organisations that haven't done it before the guidance is really key i think we'll just be quite interesting and we've heard from the police that it's starting from zero and we've heard from Glasgow city and they'll need resource but Glasgow city council have given a resource i just wondered what kind of resource that was and was it financial implications is it actual people or is it just a change of culture that has actually happened within the organisation i suppose it's a combination of things i think there's been a sort of a change in culture within the organisation but particularly in terms of resource that may be needed for validation i think time resource and cost implications that may be associated with that a number of the data streams that are collated within that are already validated so you know it's maybe potentially a consideration of the usefulness of this sort of additional element of validation and potentially the sort of time it would take to go through this process for us to be ready for reporting on an annual basis good i think that kind of probably sums up quite a lot of people's job very well indeed can we move on to the next question please about training and so on and support to Angus McDonald thanks convener it's actually falling on from Jim Hume's original question and picking up on Bruce Kyle's point i'm just curious if the panel feel that there's a need for support or training in your respective organisations to allow you to comply with the reporting requirement yes david seath agreed there's absolutely no doubt about that and i couldn't sit here and commit to say we would successfully be able to complete report without that starting from the position that we're currently in i'm not saying that we've got zero resource but we don't have a lot of resource and certainly we want to be able to do it smart and in the most efficient manner possible and we believe that that we could be facilitated through training and so if there is a training out there we would like to know where it is and how do we access it okay good point and uh Bruce Kyle just just really picking up on something that joe said the other thing that i'd add in there is is the expertise that's available out there um there is a finite resource pardon the pun but a finite resource in terms of the expertise which organisations like ourselves or MDLs we may choose to buy in um and if things do get too complicated for example in relation to any validation of our climate change reporting because i think that's something again and obviously if that has to be done then there's a resource implication for that if you're having to to spend more money i think that the when any kind of new piece of mandatory reporting like this comes out i think the training is is essential really for even for those organisations who feel that they're on the ball because we want to make sure i think the whole point of this is really to ensure consistency so that people can you know look across different organisations and see you know compare like with like and i think that will be really important in getting that message across again from a resource point of view that does come in there and i think that's something that for example an organisation like ourselves we would very closely monitor um and i think that might be the opportunity of the Scottish Government as these things come in the mandatory reporting does come in that the organisations such as ourselves and those around the table are given the opportunity to feedback on how it's going beyond what is just in the climate change reporting but also resource training skills expertise those are the things that i think should be monitored as well as just how we're performing on the carbon reduction so rebecca and then the julie yeah i agree that um i think support and guidance is going to be key really for this particularly perhaps some guidance on on standards of reporting um sorry i forgot the point i was going to mine will just come to that point in a minute or two but fair do's you know you're quite right guidance should you think is a key issue for organisations like local authorities that have been reporting voluntarily for quite some years probably this the value is in is in the peer support such as that offered by the sustainable scotland network whereas those who are starting from scratch on reporting are going to need much more tailored support and training and i think after the year of of trialling the template and voluntary reporting using the new template i think it will become clear where where the mouse supports needed and hopefully then that can be tailored suppose from our point of view the guidance would be essential really as a point of clarification on a number of potential terminology or because of the slight changes what to do if data isn't available especially for the first round of reporting just exactly what would be expected and the other thing really to pick up on make not be essential for Glasgow City Council but a note on a double potential double counting as well when a lot more organisations are brought in and there's a potential for that sort of crossover and just making sure that everyone's kind of not reporting on each other's values. Good. Neil Deesley? Yeah just to re-emphasise the point i made earlier on about the there is a lot of expertise around the table and across the networks and bodies that we represent and i think there is a genuine opportunity for us to to work collaboratively together on the journey that we're about to to embark on in mandatory reporting. I just want to pick up just to pick up on one point that you mentioned there about that kind of like for like comparison which i think is actually going to be quite difficult and not necessarily in my view anyway desirable to be able to do because we're all public bodies with very different functions and duties and those functions and duties you know have implications in terms of on in terms of our emissions. We also have different levels of control over how we can control those emissions we're also very different size and geographically located and i think therefore that that desire for like for like reporting is one that that we would perhaps caution against that yes there is an opportunity for for i think benchmarking for for particular types of authorities but but being able to you know compile a dreaded league table of performance i think would be something we would we would caution against. I think yes Neil Kitchin. I would certainly like to agree with what Neil was saying there. Every public body has their own unique circumstances so there will be a temptation that somebody will go out and divide total emissions by number of employees where that would create a very misleading picture so in our response we'll be suggesting that there's a new section in the guidance right up front which enables you to briefly describe your organisational context so in our case we'd say we've got a thousand employees we have overseas offices through Scottish Development International we have an industrial and commercial property estate and we have a subsidiary of the Glasgow Science Centre so the reader needs to know that before they then look at our results. I think what follows on from that is what Claudia Beamish has just wanted to ask about. Thank you. It's the sort of challenging issue of sanctions or penalties or however you want to put it and there's obviously an awareness around the table and beyond beyond today that organisations are at different stages along their journey but I would value the committee would value some comment on the need for these, the need for sanctions in the future and if so what a realistic timescale might be for that, the need or not for sanctions. Anyone have a comment about that? It be, sorry. Yes, yes indeed, fair enough. I'm not going to pick anyone at random, you have to come up with some answers yourself. Bruce Kyllop. I'll step in first, I think this is quite a challenging thing as I'm sure you understand. It comes back to what I was saying earlier when mandatory reporting is introduced I think from the Government's point of view, there has to be an appreciation of how it evolves allowing organisations to make changes within the organisation particularly those as people have said around the table who perhaps haven't done this in depth as others before. So I think in the first two or three years perhaps if there was a more evolving approach taken to it where warnings or whatever work were taken forward and then as time moved on I'm never one for advocating putting fines in place, I think it'd be hung on and quartered when I went back to the office but I think that that's something that if it's like the carbon reduction commitment it is a financial penalty and it is one way of getting the profile of what you're doing in climate change up the agenda within an organisation and before committees and politicians and I think that's when they see that it's in hard facts and figures that's something that they've very much gets their attention so I think it's a it has to be by its very nature and evolving process and something that is done proportionately over time. David Seath and Julie Robertson Thank you. I think it's a very difficult area to go towards. I can imagine different scenarios whereby I didn't reach my target because of the degree days wasn't at the same figure as I had assumed when I made my calculation, the weather could have a big play on us, hard winter can throw your figures all over the place but because of that I may have to suffer some sanction at some point in the future so there could be a whole series of mitigating factors causing you not to achieve maybe the target run and not saying it's impossible but I think it needs a lot of thought, careful thought about how you would do it and I can't offer you a solution, I don't know what it should be, in fact we're already strapped for cash within the police service and we can't afford to use any more so we want to make sure that we did as best we could to meet our obligations. I think the fact that you would suffer reputational damage if you were found to be wanting would be quite a severe penalty on its own. You certainly wouldn't want to be named and shamed and that's about as far as how we're prepared to go at this moment. Really equine what the other colleagues have said there. Definitely I think because we're all starting from a different baseline I think really a sort of very slow progress into a level of compliance and a sort of tiered approach should be best taken. Initially guidance and support for organisations that may be not meeting the demands of the reporting for whatever reason that may be. Some thoughts that we've had was around maybe a compliance notice with maybe timescales or extended timescales for providing information and what the reasons why that would be essential. Again equine your comment there, the most severe punitive measure that we would suggest there was almost a name and shame. Reputational damage is just as off-putting as anything else to make people comply so that's how I would suggest that. Yeah just really to echo much of that which my view is that particularly in the early years we should support and not sanction and getting those support networks in place to bring everybody along on that journey to approximately the same places is where we need to focus our efforts particularly in the early years but clearly on the back of that it's useful to keep tabs and to keep reviewing the progress that we're making and what different public bodies are doing so that we can begin to identify where there may be issues that we need to tackle before we reach perhaps the concept of sanctions. So do you think that a standardised form you know is an important aspect of allowing this to happen? Does anyone disagree that standardised forms necessary in this case for us to achieve you know the progress that we require Chris? I think what is probably important is building some sort of review process maybe on a three-year cycle. I think it was an echo slightly comment that David made about degree days. I know for our consumptions it goes up or down by 10 per cent you know it was about 10 million kilowatts depending on how the weather fits in so that can actually throw things so we maybe need to mediate things to recognise that. I think that's a lot of wise words there. The guidance says specific public bodies which are to be included on the basis of influence or impact on climate change and it sets out some clear criteria about those area of large estates, large numbers of staff, high impact and influence, public bodies with large expenditure and those that provide an auditory or regulatory function. Is the list of bodies covered right or the criteria right? Who's first? No we don't think it's right. If you look at the schedule 1 and the list of bodies the police managed to appear twice and it's the same organisation that's doing the work so although it says the chief constable or a chief constable it also includes the Scottish Police Authority and we think that's the same so we don't think that the Scottish Government are looking for two reports. We think that one report would suffice for the police service within Scotland. It's a different thing for freedom of information and I think that's probably where the list came from where the chief constable can have different information than the authority would have access to but that's not true for climate change duties and we think that that should be revised to make it just the Scottish Police Authority. We would have to produce that report on their behalf. They would scrutinise it and approve it before it became into the public domain so that's one area that we believe is not right. I think though that the other criteria for whether you're in or not is valid and I think that you fit all the right buttons whereby any organisation that's there that does meet that criteria then should be able to or should make that contribution to submitting a report. Do you want to come back, Sarah, about any of that or no? Any other answers to the points that Sarah Boyack's made just now? I think they're all reasonably happy. The other thing is the issue about peer reporting which is actually quite interesting in terms of how you might make that work with that big list of bodies. Those of you that are small organisation, Scottish Enterprise, you made that point, it's not a lot of you, you have a huge impact versus local authorities, you have a huge staff complement but you've got a fixed financial envelope, that kind of compare and contrast and maybe the Scottish Government itself how it plays into all this process as the setter of the rules but also in terms of how it reports on its own performance, I think some interesting issues in there. Did anyone have any points on that just now? Yes, Neil Deasley. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah, but this comes back a little bit to the point about the validation process and how, if that's something that is designed to be pursued, how that might look like and there are different ways of being able to do that. The approach that we've taken is to actually get an employer third party for a small number of days to come in and look at our data and the way in which we analyse those data and the claims that we make on the back of them, that's a relatively small piece of consultancy project but an alternative way to do it is exactly as you've just described there which is to set up some sort of arrangement whereby public bodies are able to provide support and review processes that could contribute to that validation type process and I think it's probably something that's worthwhile exploring as a network of public bodies who are going to be doing this work. It certainly is a way of being able to bring some of that validation in without necessarily having some of the costs that you might think are built into that. I was going to make another point about validation but I'm sorry, it's gone completely from my head. It might come back to me. You may think about it yet. I'm Graham Day. Yes, that's convenient, whilst accepting entirely the example that David Sears has given. Isn't it really the case that no public body should be excluded? Nobody demars there, that's good to know. We agree. Grant Ferguson's… The validation side of things, I think, appeared to be your review is the best way forward because otherwise all we're going to do is hand over money to externals who are going to see this as a cash cow at certain points of the year. A few people are going to train up and doing it and at a certain pinch point, they'll be charging all the public bodies and would that not be an egg one face with carbon reporting costing the Government this or individual organisations. So that, I think, needs to be carefully considered. Good point. Chris, would you… Just a point on the validation side of your previous question. Sorry, I've got a tool. Basically, while we were talking, we agreed the standard reporting but Sarah Boyack was about… The comment about should all public body agencies be involved. Maybe the answer is yes, but do we need to have a almost like a dual scale reporting because it could be… Doctor's surgery then becomes part of that reporting. We may need to think about a light version if it extends beyond that existing hundred and twenty hundred and thirty organisations. If you've got anything new to add to this, fair enough, Neil Kitching. Just on validation, whilst I'm not against peer-to-peer reviews, I can just imagine it being quite complicated to set up and to make sure that you do the peer-to-peer review before the reporting deadline. An alternative that we're going to put on our submission is to do something similar to what currently happens with the carbon reduction commitment where you make your submission and then, I believe, SEPA do sample checks after they've been submitted. So everybody is aware that they could be subject to sample check, and I think that keeps everybody on their toes. So Neil Deasley and then Rebecca. Sorry, I've remembered what it was, I was going to say. Sorry, I left my brains on my rails for a short while, but I'm just going back to the points about peer-to-peer review and potential validation, which was that it doesn't necessarily have to be a validation process of the entirety of what's there. Actually, one of the things that we've done in the past is look at very specific areas, particularly around particular elements of data or particular ways in which we've interpreted elements and then reported elements of data. So there may be a way of being able to do something which provides that security and robustness that validation of peer-to-peer review provides, but is very much focused on one or two or three key areas that we perhaps are able to agree on, so that's the point that I was going to make in the follow-up. That's okay. So Chris, and then Rebecca. The peer review, yes, in terms of the CRC, yes, we, I think we had a seeper review a few years ago, but we do actually bring in consultants to do that as well, to just have a quick look over, and I think there is a risk of, well, we might have a challenge in finding the additional cash to do that, and I think the comment made that at the moment there's nobody really in a position to do that, so it may be that we would, part of our review, would be what we already do with CRC, but I don't think there is a body of people out there, so peer review, I think, potentially could be really, really a useful mechanism. I can think of a parallel where marine management plans are being developed in places like Shetland first, and they're offering their services, you know, on a commercial basis. There is opportunities for entrepreneurialism in public bodies here. Rebecca Bells. Validation, whether it's internal or peer review, I don't think in our organisation there's currently the capacity or expertise to be able to do that, and I should imagine that's probably the same across the public sector, so I think if that's the route that the Scottish Parliament decides to go down, then I think there's going to be a real need for training and capacity building to support that. Bruce Kyle and then Sarah Boyack come back. Thanks very much, convener. I think that the point about CEPA and the CRC is correct, but I think that CEPA themselves would struggle with the range of organisations that are going to be suddenly put under the reporting arrangements to be able to do that in any meaningful way. For me, the peer-to-peer review will accept that there might be challenges in doing that, for organisations. The sharing of best practice, I think, is absolutely vital in building up the expertise in that area, building up the expertise within public sector organisations for those who perhaps aren't the luxury of a dedicated team to look after it. I think that that is hugely important because, as Grant said, there will be a series of consultants out there who will make a fortune every year of the public sector, and that's not something that we'd like to see happen. We want to make sure that we're spending our money wisely, and we're sharing that best practice, building up the expertise so that we can take care of it ourselves. It becomes mainstreamed within our organisations. Sarah Boyack, to round up the stage. It's a really important discussion to have about raising the standard of knowledge in all the organisations, but also having something that is capable of being properly interrogated and something that, regardless of whether there's a sanctions regime that stands up to public scrutiny or independent scrutiny, your views and feedback are quite important in terms of thinking about—it's not just who's on the list, but the different challenge for different people on the list. Some fine detailed thoughts about how that works in practice, but also generally across the public sector would be useful to us in terms of our scrutiny process, but also to the Scottish Government in terms of designing a scheme that's going to be fit for purpose. I'm assuming that this is going to allow all these organisations to be even more granular about what they tell the Government and their submissions. Dave Thomson, another point, please, perhaps to pick up. Thank you very much, convener. It kind of falls on in a sense from that discussion. It's about the timescales for reporting. I noticed that there was a suggestion that in the first year it should be pushed back to November rather than to October. Of course, in the following years it would be within six months, so it should be the end of September. I just wondered what the reasoning behind pushing it back to the end of November rather than in October was in the first year. Obviously, folk will be learning the ropes. Whether the six months in the following years was a sensible timescale for reporting. That was certainly one of the views that came out of the consultation at SSNRAN, about 41 different organisations. Generally, there was a view that it should be pushed back. Partly CRC reporting, the deadline for that is 29 July, so we're not going to have the necessarily accurate CRC data for those organisations who were involved in CRC before that time. However, the second side of that was the committee cycle to get back up to, for our cases, our local authority committees. It takes probably six weeks, a couple of months, to get a report through, so end of July, end of September. October is quite tight because we will still have to pull the data together to get that beyond what we get with CRC, so I think the view was, yes, in theory it would be nice to do it by October, but in practice it's just because the committee cycles, it might be quite a challenge to do that, so I'm not sure whether the November and October, the following year, I think it was, maybe November, would be a better deadline across the piece, just to account for that sort of the time it takes to get that together and get it agreed by your committees or whoever's looking at it. And that being November rolling on? Yes, I would have thought so, yes. Unless it changed CRC, but that'll be a challenge to me because we've got financial year end and all the other steps before we can get to that point. And then you'll have the problem of getting your peer reviews squeezed in as well, you know? Yeah, or, you know, CRC, I think we put the CRC report up and then we get the review done there, you know, sort of, we don't necessarily look at that in advance or don't get the report back in advance, but it's just a challenge. On this question of timing and so on, Neil Deesley. Just a quick reflection, in all the years that we've been voluntarily reporting, I don't think we've met September 1, actually, so it's always been October or November time, so that probably is a fair comment that September is possibly a little bit tight. Okay, you got a star for reporting every year. Thank you for that. I think we've covered quite a big scalp of ground here. I'd like to thank all of you as witnesses. It gives us a chance to make our report to the minister, I'm sure, in due course, about what we think they should note. Your views have been very valuable indeed, and I'd like to thank you all for taking part in that. As agreed at previous meetings, the committee will now move into private session to consider draft letters on the review of agricultural holdings legislation, final report, and the Scottish Government's biodiversity strategy. At the next meeting of the committee on 6 May, we will consider the draft climate change additional greenhouse gas Scotland order 2015, as well as returning to correspondence on biodiversity strategy and the committee's work programme. I now close the public part of this meeting and ask the public gallery to be cleared quickly.