 Rwy'n credu'r ddweud i ddim yn yourbluadu i ddeitu cyrraffedd mewn 2015, ac mae'n rhaid i ddim yn meddwl i ddim yn dweud ychydig iawn eu cyd-teimlo iddyn nhw i ddim yn eu cyfweld. Rydw i ddim yn ddweud i ddim yn meddwl i ddim yn ei gweithio ddoch i ddim yn eitem ni am y parhau o'r llesiau viaddyn nhw i ddim yn ddiddordeb ni i ddim yn ddigwydd yn cyju'r llesiau, ac mae'n ddigwethaf i ddim yn dweud i gael i ddim yn cyfgondodau'r dyma. Gordon MacDonald has given his apologies for this morning, and I welcome James Dornan, who is here as his substitute. I can also welcome James Brown, who is one of our modern apprenticeships, who has joined the education committee. Welcome, James. Our first item on the agenda this morning is to take evidence on the Public Records Scotland Act 2011, authorities amendment order 2015. I welcome Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs and her supporting officials from the Scottish Government. After we have taken evidence on the instrument, we will debate the motion in the name of the cabinet secretary. At item 2, officials are not permitted to contribute to that formal debate. I invite the cabinet secretary to make any opening remarks. The purpose of the draft order before the committee today is to amend the schedule to the Public Records Scotland Act 2011 to ensure that the records of the designated public authorities are managed in accordance with the 2011 act. The schedule lists designated authorities subject to the act's provisions for improving records management. The authorities listed must comply with part 1 of the act, which, among other record management practices, requires that proper arrangements are in place to ensure that records created by or on behalf of the named authority are subject to a records management plan that has been agreed by the keeper of the records of Scotland. The draft instrument amends the designated lists of authorities on the schedule, adding those that have been created, modified or whose names have been changed and removing those that have been abolished since the act came into force. It is necessary to update the schedule to ensure the effective management of records under the 2011 act. The keeper consulted with and obtained agreement from the public authorities affected by the proposed amendments, and the keeper continues to work with the proposed designated authorities to assist their preparation to fulfil the statutory responsibilities that are incurred by being listed in the schedule. As detailed in the business impact and regulatory assessment that was undertaken here, the financial implications of the proposed order will be minimal. The draft order will only financially impact on bodies that do not already have record management arrangements in place, which is a requirement of the 2011 act. As I have mentioned, those bodies have been consulted and are content with their inclusion on the list and the financial impact that they will have. Furthermore, those organisations that already have records management provision will not incur any significant cost as a result of being listed on the schedule to the 2011 act. The proposed order will play a vital role in ensuring that the policy objectives of the 2011 act are met. By amending the schedule proposed, we will ensure that all public records created by those authorities are properly managed and safeguarded for future generations, and I am happy to respond to any questions that members of the committee have. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I ask if any members have any questions that they wish to put Mary. On that particular point, I am also a member of the Public Audit Committee. We had a report on Glasgow Prestwick Airport, which is listed in this order. We were told in the past that commercial confidentiality was an obstacle in terms of gaining certain information, but I note here that it is in the public interest for the public records of Glasgow Prestwick Airport to be properly managed and safeguarded as evidence of how public money is used. Page 6, convener, paragraph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Paragraph 5, page 6, I have just quoted from. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary what difference does the order make in terms of record management, in terms of commercial confidentiality, in terms of, if I can just say, the Public Audit Committee of this Parliament auditing, scrutinising and examining how public money is spent in Prestwick Airport? Well, clearly, the issues around Prestwick Airport can be dealt with by the relevant minister in relation to the issues around the management of Prestwick Airport. In terms of publication of information, that is a separate matter than records management. The issue around—I'm not sure if MD and this committee took the bill through at the time—the national records management system is really important. It came from, you'll recall, the historical abuse cases where many different local authorities didn't keep records or bodies didn't keep records of children in particular, so that was the premise of having the records management. The record management itself is having a plan to make sure that you keep your records, and how your records are then used publicly will also be a matter for whether it's in for different bodies, freedom of information, or Public Audit, or Audit Scotland. However, if you don't have a record management system in the first place, you could quite easily have a system where you're not keeping records properly. One of the reasons that we have the bill, or as now is the act, is to make sure that not only is there a proper management system, that the management system allows you to determine what you keep or what you don't keep, because, particularly in a digital age, it's important that there's an understanding of what is important to that particular organisation. The act itself, the Public Records Scotland act, is about improving the standard of record keeping and making sure that there are records being kept. The use thereafter for public bodies like Public Audit would be a matter, say, for the committee to determine in terms of what they request or Audit Scotland to determine. This is just to make sure that the right records are kept and that they understand what records must be kept. It's a slightly different issue than what then becomes public. I understand the point of the question, absolutely. I do understand all that, and I think that all that goes without saying, and I haven't been here for a week while. I think that everything that he's saying obviously is known and understood by every MSP in this Parliament, but the fact is that, on page 6, the comment that I made made me think, or it seems to imply that in the public interest, public records being properly managed on how public money is used, that is saying to me that there's an improvement in the system of Audit. There's an improvement in openness, an improvement in accountability and transparency, and all I'm asking you—I'm not asking about what data has to be kept and not kept, but I obviously understand all that—what I'm asking you in the process of accountability and transparency and scrutiny of the public pound, is this order going to improve things or not? It depends how it's used by the bodies that then look at the records. Do you have thought that we would know that? All this is about managing records. It's not about what you do with the records, it's about making sure that you've got records there in the first place. TS Presswick Hold Company Ltd, otherwise known as Glasgow Presswick Airport, is a publicly owned company, as the member has set out. It's wholly funded by the Scottish Government. In a manner like David McBrain and Caledonian Marine Assets Ltd, which are all, which themselves are already included on the schedule, so it's similar to how Caledonian McBrain has been managed, and the public interest of the public records can be properly managed and safeguarded. It's the management and safeguarding as evidence of how public money is used. It's also named as a public body on the Scottish Government's directory of national devolved public bodies. That's maybe an issue for the Audit Committee. I understand the point that's being made, but in terms of the record management, it's been treated similarly to the David McBrain Ltd and Caledonian Marine Assets Ltd in that way. I know all that and, to be fair, convener, I'll just go back to my first question. What difference does this make to the information that we have already? If they are keeping the records the way they should do in alignment with the records management system, it will make no difference whatsoever. Indeed, some of the bodies that are on the schedule are already complying with the 2011 act. All this order does is to make sure that, in terms of the legal requirement to keep the records and the standard of the 2011 act that they're actually named. It may well be that we understand that none of these bodies already are complying with the act, but this is about the record management system, not what is done with the records once they're managed in the way that they're expected to. Some of the company organisations will already be doing that. Thank you. Thank you, just to follow on Mary's question. Having met the new board of Presswick Airport, that's Presswick Airport, not Glasgow Presswick Airport, their understanding of governance and record keeping, I think, is paramount, so I have less concern about that. However, Cabinet Secretary, having sat through the Land Registration Act in the EET committee, it was some concern about the amount of records that were kept and also the use of them. Who's going to audit the records and make sure that they are fully compiled and cover all of the requirements? That's the first question. The second question is, what's IT involvement is being checked because, again, we had a problem with an IT system that, frankly, ran totally out of control and was not being used because those who might have been used it like surveyors didn't think that it was fit for purpose. Who's going to audit the information and make sure that it's okay? Two, what's the IT involvement and who's going to check that to make sure that it is fit for purpose on all of those public records? I might ask whether you should come in as well. In terms of the keeper's responsibility—that's laid out in the act—the job of the keeper is to ensure that the management plan is sufficient to make sure that the required information is kept, but it also allows them to understand what their determination is and what isn't kept because, again, the initial purpose of the bill was to address a situation where very personal information to children just wasn't kept in terms of children's homes or indeed different authorities. It's not the job of the keeper of the records. National Records of Scotland is a very important body, but it can't sit and go through the content of every single public body that has a record management plan. What it can do is make sure that the record management plan produced by each organisation is fit for purpose. In terms of making sure that it's IT compliant, that's one of the reasons why we brought in the legislation as well, is to make sure that, in the digital age, there's good systems. This is a systems management as opposed to auditing the content. Obviously, for different organisations, the content of what is kept, what is used for, will be dealt with by a variety of different agencies that hold these individual organisations to account, but what they must do is provide evidence. One of the things that is in full achievement of compliance is using a variety of agencies. My question is very simple. Who is going to audit to make sure that the information is bona fide and 100 per cent complete? You can't possibly—that's not the purpose of the legislation. The legislation as scrutinised by this Parliament by your predecessor committee was about the management system to make sure that they had a system by which they had a gold standard of how they kept their information. For different, whether it's education, whether it's housing, whether it's police, whether it's whoever it is, will have their own bodies that scrutinise their own detailed content of what they have and the information, but I think that it would be wholly unrealistic to expect the keeper of the record archives of Scotland to have either the staff capacity to interrogate the content of every local authority or every public institution to test the veracity of the information. Random audit doesn't involve huge numbers of staff. In fact, even if it was outsourced, you would still have random audit of making sure that the records are correct and the process is right. That's why the audit and compliance for the relevant professional bodies or the different areas will do that for the relevant areas. What you can't expect the records management system to do is to interrogate the information. It's a record management system. It's not a record interrogation system. We now move on to agenda item 2. As indicated, we'll move to the formal debate on the instrument, which is item 2. I invite the cabinet secretary to speak and to move the motion. I move the motion that the committee approves the order. Any contributions from members? Okay, cabinet secretary. I don't suppose you need to respond to that. Therefore, I'll put the question that motion S4M-13600 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Agreed. That's agreed. Thank you very much. I will suspend briefly to allow the cabinet secretary and officials to leave. Our next item is to consider various pieces of subordinate legislation that are listed on the committee agenda. Do members have any comments on those instruments? Mary. The only comment that I would make as a signed up member of the awkward squad is, for example, we keep being told that there's a failure to comply with 28-day rule. If I look at page 5 in relation to St Mary's music school, the Scottish Government has provided a letter to the Presiding Officer, which is fair enough—that's fine—paragraph 19, page 5. I wonder, convener, why is that letter not provided to this committee in terms of openness and transparency, so that we're aware of why they can't comply? I just feel that that might be helpful for future consideration. It's in the annex. If you look at read paragraph 19, the last sentence is, The correspondence is reproduced at annex C. It says in the papers that they're online. They're not reproduced. It's not all printed out, but it's available online. It says in your papers that these are available online if you wish to look at the annexes. I realised that it wasn't in the papers, but I'm not that exercised to go online to look for it. However, I think that it would be helpful in future. I can't imagine that it's a witty document. I think that it would be helpful if you saw that. I think that the problem is that either the clerks on me would know which ones members would be particularly interested in, and we can end up with a lot of them. The situation is that the decision has been taken that it's easier to just point to the online copy rather than print out all multiple copies. To be fair in this case, I think that that's about the only one in this bundle of subordinate legislation instruments. I think that it's about the only one that has existed in the past. If there is a common reason for not complying, I think that it would be helpful for the committee to know. No, I'm not disagreeing. There are a number of annexes, although there are more than one. I take the point on board to make sure that everybody is aware that the annexes are online and are available to view if you have any questions or wish to look at them. Any other points? This is not a big issue, but my time on the legislation committee. Page 4. The Scottish Government has acknowledged that the instrument contains an error but does not propose to amend it. It then says that the error is minor. In nature, however, there is a matter of good drafting practice that considers the error should be corrected when a suitable opportunity next arises. Time after time, after time, in that committee, we ask that whoever is drafting the legislation or drafting it or is made sure that it was absolutely correct so that there was no doubt or misinterpretation should we get into a question over that. It's just a record. Can we please ensure that we give the message that we expect the highest standards of draft legislation and draft orders to be presented to us? I mean, this has been an issue going back all the time. I've been here and I think that's a fair point made. I think that it has been raised numerous times. I think that on this occasion it is a very minor drafting error on this one, but I accept the point that the principle is the same. The next time it will be a bit more, you know, less minor, more major. No, no, I accept the principle. If the committee wishes, I'm quite happy for us to write to the Government if that's— I think that we will find that the convener of that committee is very sympathetic to that view of how legislation is drafted. Do you wish a letter written to the Government? No, okay. Okay, the bank, the points made, it's on the record about trying to ensure the accuracy of draft instruments and the points well made. Any other points by members? Okay, does the committee agree to make no recommendation therefore to the Parliament on these instruments? Agreed, agreed, thank you. The committee has previously agreed to hold the next item or next items in private so therefore I now close the meeting to the public. Thank you.