 Hello everyone, and welcome to the 90th meets of the local government committees committee in 2017. To remind everyone present, though mobile phones and as meeting papers are provided in digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting. We will get one apologies today. Kenneth Gibson in MSP cannot be with us this morning. We intend to move to agenda item 2 and will return to Agenda item 1 shortly after, so agenda item 2 subordinate legislation. The committee will consider the following 2017 negative instrument 187, 188 and 1893 instruments as listed on the agenda. Those instruments are laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provisions will come into force unless the Parliament votes on a motion to annul those instruments. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered 187, 189 at its meeting on the 13th of June 2017 and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. I set out in the paper the DPLR committee considered 188 at its meeting yesterday, following correspondence between the committee and the Scottish Government in relation to drafting errors in the instrument. The Scottish Government intends to bring forward an amending instrument which DPLR and this committee will consider. That said, no motions to annul have been laid. I invite members to make any comments on any of the instruments before us this morning. I want to make a comment on the building miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2017. It includes provisions to enable the building of recreational huts in the countryside, which has been a campaign that has been running for a few years. It is a very welcome to see the statutory framework around that to finally complete its journey. Thank you, Mr Wightman, for putting that on the record. I can ask if any other members have any comments to make on any of the statutory instruments before us this morning. There have been no other comments. I can invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to any of the instruments. Are we agreed? Okay. Thank you for that. Ends agenda item 2, and we will suspend briefly. Can I welcome everyone back to the 90th meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee in 2017? We now move to agenda item 1, which is post-legislative scrutiny on the Disabled Persons Park and Police Scotland Act 2009. First of all, I welcome Jackie Baillie, MSP, who is with us this morning, who was the member in charge of the bill when it made its course through Parliament successfully. Thank you for joining us this morning, Jackie. I can now move to take evidence from the Minister for Transport and Islands on its post-legislative scrutiny of the act. I can also welcome Humza Yousaf, Minister for Transport and the Islands, who is accompanied by George Henry, head of road policy, and Sharon Wood, senior road policy officer, Transport Scotland. Thank you all for your welcome this morning. I can invite the minister to make an open statement. Good morning, and thank you, convener, apologies for any mix-up with the timing. We're delighted to be here. Over the years, parking has become an emotive subject, be it on-street, be it private, be it footway parking or indeed disabled parking. There have been calls to either review or to legislate on this matter, but it is important to remember that parking can and does play a positive aspect in many people's lives. The provision of disabled parking bays has helped to improve access for disabled people to carry out day-to-day activities that non-disabled people often take for granted. Misusing such bays is not just impacting on access, it impacts on disabled people's ability to play an active role and a full role in our society. As Jackie Baillie MSP has explained during the evidence sessions, the disabled persons parking places Scotland Act 2009 seeks to make all-advisity disabled parking bays enforceable, as well as requiring local authorities to promote the proper use of such bays. I believe that the 2009 act has certainly improved the situation by ensuring that all on-street disabled parking bays are enforceable, along with those that are found in local authority off-street car parks. However, I fully acknowledge that the bill has not fully achieved its aims in relation to enforcement of disabled bays and privately-owned car parks, such as those, for example, controlled by supermarket chains. Indeed, the evidence that has been provided by local authorities in respect to the committee's post-legislative scrutiny and to my officials via the annual reports calls for changes in a number of areas, including, for example, section 8 of the act, removing the need for local authorities to contact landowners businesses to request agreement to enforce disabled parking bays on landowners behalf. For example, also removing the need for developing, consulting and publishing TROs to make disabled parking bays enforceable to reduce the cost impact on councils. Another issue is making the reporting requirements for local authorities less onerous. Since receiving powers under the Scotland Act 2016 to legislate on parking, we have been working with representatives from the parking industry, working with local authorities, disability organisations, the business community and, indeed, the motoring industry and the development and publication of our consultation paper. This is the first time that the Scottish Government has been able to undertake such a detailed review of parking in Scotland. As such, we are using this opportunity to review a range of parking issues, not just the issue of footway parking, which, of course, is usually important, but how parking is managed and enforced across the country, including disabled parking. As the committee is aware, since the introduction of the 2009 act, there has been considerable change in the parking landscape. We now have 18 local authorities in Scotland with decriminalised parking enforcement DPE powers. In addition, there has been legislation to expand the eligibility criteria for a blue badge, as well as powers to tackle misuse of the blue badge scheme. However, I acknowledge that we still have a long way to go to ensure that all disabled parking, be it on-street or indeed off-street, is managed and enforced in a consistent manner. That is why I am committed to working with local authorities on the issue, as well as the UK Government and, indeed, if necessary, other devolved administrations. My officials will be setting up a stakeholder working group consisting of parking managers from all local authorities in Scotland to explore how we can resolve the issues that have been raised as part of the committee's evidence sessions. The findings from both our consultation paper, which closes at the end of this month and, indeed, the committee's post-legislative scrutiny, will help to inform our next steps. As always, I am now happy to take questions. Thank you very much, minister, for those opening remarks. Much of the content of the opening remarks I think will return to in a structured fashion to tease out some of the evidence behind that as we go through the meeting. We have an opening question from Alexander Stewart. Thank you, convener. Morning, minister. You touched very much on your opening remarks about the objectives of the act and how that has been perceived and how well it is being achieved. Carrying on from that, do you believe that the act has achieved most of its objectives, or are there some objectives that you still think require to be looked at, or are there other things that may well come from the act itself? I took great interest in reading the transcripts of the evidence sessions. I was not able to watch them live, I am afraid, of other commitments, but having read through the transcripts, I would associate myself with the remarks of Max, the mobility access committee, whose view was that the legislation had partially met its aims. I would agree with that. As I said in my opening remarks, there is no doubt that there have been great successes in terms of on-street parking and local authority off-street parking. For example, in 2015-16, 13 local authorities—we could get data from 13 local authorities issued 8,000 penalty charge notices to motorists that were misusing disabled parking. There is evidence, however, that it would be foolish not to recognise the criticisms—very fair criticisms—from particularly disability organisations about the inconsistency that they thought applied between on-street and off-street parking. That was a common thread from almost every single disability organisation that came in front of your committee. I do not take that lightly. The act has met some of its aims, but we need to go further than others. That is why the post-legislative scrutiny is important, alongside our consultation and some of the stakeholder management groups that we have. The idea that we have heard from many people about the potential of trying to have a public awareness campaign to promote, once again, and to identify some of the areas that the public needs to be aware of and the problems that that can cause for individuals. I would like to tease out from myself whether there is any possibility that the Scottish Government might be prepared to take that forward, because that has certainly been called for by a number of stakeholders and organisations to try to create public awareness. The answer is yes, that we would be interested in speaking to local authorities to the police for a hard-hitting campaign on that. I think that your suggestion that you alluded to was a very good one. I do not think that people understand quite the impact it has on a disabled person when they cannot get access to a disabled parking bay, because somebody is misusing that. They might think that they are just nipping into the shop for 10 minutes and it is a close or that they might think that they have children and that it is fine for me to use it, nobody else is using it just now. However, the impact that I could have in somebody's life is something that unless you have a disability, you realise that. I would be more than happy to have those discussions, if I will have those discussions with local authorities and police. I would not commit to saying that we will certainly have a public awareness campaign, but I think that it would be right for us to explore what we should do in that respect. Thank you, convener. Supplementary thanks, convener. There was a survey done by Churchill Insurance. They found that nearly 12 million drivers across the UK have admitted in one year to parking where they should not, which is a staggering figure. Going on the idea of having a public awareness campaign, we need to get across the idea that, for disabled people, their disability lasts a lifetime, but somebody can just park in their space for a few minutes. It is only a few minutes to that person, but it is a lifetime of disability. That is a clear message that we need to get across. We almost need to embarrass people into not parking in disabled spaces, just to make that point convener. It has to be cultured or unacceptable across the board to use and abuse disabled people without permission. Do you want to add anything further? No, I would be interested in the Churchill Survey. I have not seen it, so I do not know if my officials could ask you for some of the detail on that. It is quite shocking and statistic. There is nothing more to add other than that I agree with what the member says. Jenny Gilruth With regard to Alexander Stewart's initial question, minister, in your response, you spoke about inconsistencies in terms of how the legislation was being applied and the fact that it partially achieved its objectives. In terms of where we are nationally, does Transport Scotland currently gather or hold any statistics on the numbers of enforceable bays or on the numbers of advisory-disabled bays? I asked the question of Transport Scotland. We had a pre-meeting yesterday this week. We do not have those statistics in that it is not a requirement as part of the legislation for local authorities to tell us how many bays they have, whether they are enforceable on the advisory and you can imagine that that probably changes week by week. Unfortunately, some people might pass away who had disabled bays on the street. Of course, there will be new developments and so on and so forth, but that is not to say that you cannot have a rolling or evolving document or spreadsheet, for example, that would provide those statistics. What we can do, because we do not have those statistics and we are more than happy to ask officials to go to local authorities and ask them for that information, is not to say that every local authority will necessarily have all of that, particularly the advisory bays, but we are more than happy to ask the question and then report back to committee, because we do not hold that information, nor is there a requirement to have that information. Thank you. Just as a follow-up to that, has Transport Scotland been aware of taking any action recently to improve the availability and enforcement of disabled parking places? Perhaps, if Transport Scotland has not, could that link to Alexander Stewart's second question, which was with regard to a public awareness campaign? I think that the biggest change in this landscape for me over the last few years has been DPEs, and I prefer to do that, such as decriminalising parking enforcement. I think that that has been a huge take-up of that among local authorities, 18 that have it, three in the process, and I think that the others will, for the ones that certainly feel that they can afford to do so. Others will come on board and I can come back to that point perhaps in later questioning, but DPEs have been the biggest and encouraging local authorities to go down that route where they can. It is something that Transport Scotland has been doing and I, as minister, encourage local authorities. We are also looking at what comes out from the committee's evidence sessions, because it will, as well as the improving parking consultation, perform what we do next. There is more that we can do, and we recognise that. That is why the consultation, which is a very wide-ranging consultation, is not just about enforcement of disabled parking, but also footway parking. Some other issues are in that consultation, which members might be aware of. That ends on 30 June, when there is an extension for local authorities, I think, because of local authority elections until the end of August. DPEs, alongside any measures that come out of the consultation, alongside the evidence session that comes out of this, the timing of all of this is pretty good. We will help to inform what our next steps are on that. I think that I have already made mention on the public awareness campaign that Jenny Goldruth is suggesting is an eminently sensible one that we will wait to see the evidence that comes forward from both consultations and committees, and then perhaps tailor a campaign around what are the most pertinent issues. In terms of the on-street disabled parking places and with regard to local authorities, are you satisfied that local authorities have taken sufficient action to convert advisory base into enforceable base? The short answer to that would be yes. The 18 local authorities that have DPE 3 that are going through the application process, I think, are absolutely moving forward. I understand that not every local authority feels that they can financially make the case of going through the DPE process. I think that there is a bit of work for us to do in government with those local authorities and talk to them about sharing services with local authorities that are neighbouring that have a DPE, and I can come back to that later in questioning. I think that local authorities are doing a good job, and the on-street, as a member talks about, the on-street parking, local authorities are doing a good job. Generally, the evidence sessions reflected that. I think that there were still some criticisms of local authorities to an extent from some organisations, but my view would be that, generally, local authorities are taking sufficient action, as she asks. In your written submission, minister, you say on the second page that we have that it's become, and I'm reading from your submission, it's become clear from the responses and information provided by local authorities that the statutory obligations in providing enforceable disabled persons parking places are placing considerable demands on their resources. I wonder if you could expand a bit further on that and tell the committee whether the Scottish Government has provided any financial or practical support around the tasks of identifying and converting the advisory base into enforceable base? That's a really good question. I'll go back to the legislation when it was passed in 2009, and obviously every piece of legislation comes with a financial memorandum. As those things tend to go, I know that, as Gillian Martin, for example, has taken forward the seatbelts bill on school transport, that this is done in conjunction with local authorities, where local authorities are affected. Conversation will take place with COSLA. There will be a negotiation, a discussion about what they think will be the cost impact of that, and, generally speaking, local authorities, when the act went through the cost implications were going to be met from existing budgets. That's not to say that, for some local authorities, they feel that going down the DPU route for them would be financially—it simply wouldn't stack up. That's where we have to do a little bit of work. Perhaps we should be exploring with local authorities. We have done this to an extent, but we have explored with local authorities that whether they could partner or have some sort of even service level agreement with neighbouring local authorities that may have DPU, how can they share so that some of the cost could be shared, and that would lessen the financial burden that some local authorities feel that DPU could place upon them if they had to set up everything themselves. I am happy to explore that. My officials will be taking forward that approach in a little bit more detail with stakeholders, including COSLA and Scotland, as well as part of the stakeholder group that I spoke about in my opening remarks. It is worth stressing that any local authority that takes forward DPU, the whole point is that it is meant to be self-financing. That is one of the criteria as far as they can possibly make that proposal stack up. I suppose that I will take that a little bit further from the original proposals in the legislation. Is it the case that the cuts over that session to local authorities have had an impact? You talked about the stakeholder group, and I suppose that that takes me back to the author of the bill who is sitting round a table with us. I wonder whether she is too shy in retiring to put that to herself, but I wonder if she has been asked if she wanted to be included in the stakeholder group, and whether that might help to inform that process. It is Jackie Baillie's MSP that our deputy convener is referring to. For the record, everybody had a wrys smile on their face when she was described as shy in retiring, but I simply have not commented on why that was the case. I do not want to get a toon fro with any members about local authorities' budget settlements. I would make the point that they have more spending power than they have had previously, and so on and so forth, but we would end up getting a bit of a toon fro. I do not want to take that away from the fact that I absolutely understand that for some local authorities, going down the DP route for them would financially simply not stack up and be too difficult. Therefore, I think that there is a responsibility on this Government to try to work with local authorities and try to find some sort of solution to that, whether it is a hybrid DP or sharing services or a service-level agreement with local authorities that are neighbouring. It is for parking managers of local authorities to come round the table and be part of that group to inform what we are doing, as opposed to MSPs or, indeed, any other elected members, councillors or otherwise. However, if an approach came from any member, I would look at that, but, as I said, the moment that the stakeholders group is particularly for parking managers, Jackie Baillie, Elaine Smith or any other member of the chamber could, of course, input, could write to me, could write to my officials, could input on a regular basis. I am genuinely very open-minded on that issue, because we have a shared aim, and our shared aim is to ensure that people are not misusing disabled parking bays, and, indeed, that our services, right at a local level, are as accessible as possible to everybody, regardless of disabled or able-bodiedness. Thank you. I am sure that those comments will help to build Ms Baillie's confidence in making an approach to herself. We will move to Mr Whiteman now. Thank you, convener. Thank you, minister, for coming to see us today. We have heard concerns from disabled organisations about inconsistency in the level of enforcement between different local authorities across Scotland, and I wonder if you have any views on that, in particular on their concerns relating to what they regard as minimal levels of enforcement, where Police Scotland remains responsible for parking enforcement? That latter point about Police Scotland's ability to enforce misuse of parking bays, we would only have to look at the incidents that we have seen across the United Kingdom in the past couple of months to realise how strict is the police across the United Kingdom. There are a number of threats and priorities that they face, and misusing a parking bay, understandably, for police when there is an emergency or a crisis, might not, of course, be top of their priority. That is not to take away from the impact that would absolutely have on somebody with a disability. That is why we encourage local authorities to go through the DP process to decriminalise the parking enforcement in their local authority area. From the evidence session, when I read the transcripts, the police officer who was here said that they would love councils to take on the responsibility of enforcing parking, because, again, it frees them up to do other things. However, where that is in the case and the local authorities that have not gone through the DP process, it is simply not acceptable for me that there exists that level of inconsistency where disability organisations are coming to this committee and saying to me and to my officials that they feel that this is just not getting the priority absolutely, so try to understand both sides of it. Therefore, the evidence that comes out of this, the consultation responses that we get from our improving parking and Scotland consultation, will help to inform our next step, because I think that that is one of the areas where there is a real challenge where local authority cannot make the DP stack up financially, but, at the same time, we have to ensure that it is not falling behind in enforcement of parking, particularly when it comes to misusing disabled parking base. I hope that that will be some of the work that we take forward. You mentioned the stakeholder group. Will other disabled people's organisations represent that? At the moment, the stakeholder group is taking the local authority parking managers, but I think that it would be sensible for us to reflect on those parking managers having a session with disability groups—many of the ones that are represented here—and having a particular session with them, whether they should be a particular representation on that group is something that I will reflect on with the organisation. I will come back to George who has been leading on some of that work. What disabled groups have been part of the improving parking in Scotland consultation stakeholder working group, so we have liaised with them in the development of the consultation document. We have a forum, which is called the Roads for all forum, which discusses a number of issues around our road network in Scotland, and disability groups are featured on that as well. That is helpful, because there are a lot of very nuanced issues that are often not easily articulated or easily heard in public life that came to us when we heard evidence from those groups. I wonder whether you have mentioned the ability of some local authorities to adopt decriminalised parking enforcement systems and, perhaps, the financial challenges. Are there any other ways in which the Scottish Government could perhaps assist in enabling them to take on enforcement? Just what I have mentioned before, we have an obligation to work with those remaining local authorities, so there are 18 plus three that are going through the process. There may be others that indicate that they might have an interest, but there are clearly some who are probably not going to go down that route because of the cost implication. I think that there is then an obligation for us to perhaps work with those local authorities to say, right, how do we get to some sort of hybrid solution here, where either, as I said, you can partner with a neighbouring local authority. That might make sense, since to some local authorities others it may have to be more of a service level agreement, where councils can share facilities and can share the costs of enforcement. There are similar arrangements in place in one or two local authorities, where a particular local authority is providing the back office support to another authority at a cost, but that cost is way less than what it would have been to have to set up everything from scratch. That is probably the route that we would have looked to go down in the first instance, but, as I said, previously we will also work with COSLA and Scots to explore a bit more in detail about what are the financial burdens that those local authorities that are going down the DPU route, what is it that is restricting or prohibiting them from doing so, and we will work closely with them as part of the parking manager's stakeholder group. I just want to ask about private carparks. We have heard that there has been a reluctance on private carpark operators to make their base enforceable. Do you have any views on that? Obviously, I noted the evidence from some local authorities and, indeed, some of the groups representing people with a disability as well, but I also found the evidence that you took from Tesco and NCP very interesting. I think that what came out of that is that you probably had Tesco here, who were one of the best in terms of practice, and I was very encouraged by what they were saying in terms of the technology that they were going to be bringing in. I think that the number plate recognition that they spoke about even bringing it in-house, I thought that they articulated very well the fact that they want ultimately as many people coming to their supermarket as possible, therefore making the experience as good and positive as possible for those with a disability was absolutely in their interest. It would be wrong to tar every business because there are a few bad apples that are not enforcing it properly. My view is that where we can assist local authorities in their conversations with private businesses or landowners, where we can make it less onerous, we should certainly look to do that. However, where there is good practice going on—I thought that Tesco demonstrated in its evidence session that there was some good practice there—we should ensure that local authorities just let those businesses get on with it because there is no point in draining local authority resource when it can be used for on-street or off-street parking. My view is that we continue to speak and engage with local authorities, but I would caveat all that by saying clearly from the evidence that you took that there is some good practice going on. There is good practice going on, but there are also car parks where non-disabled people are routinely parking in disabled spaces and are getting away with it because they are not enforceable. Particularly in city centres, when you consider that 42 per cent of disabled people are in employment, not all of those will drive, of course, but a good number may well do. They need to be able to get to work, but we need to have the spaces for them. Very often, they will be using private car parks, so it is important that those spaces are available and they are not being used by people who are not really entitled to use them. Should we be going further in terms of making those bays enforceable? I think that there is a lot of evidence that we have to sift through. I think that we certainly have to explore how we make enforcement better. Enforcement is different from making bays enforceable, I must say, but we must look at how we make enforcement better. I am not adverse at all at looking at this through the parking manager stakeholder group, but there is also another stakeholder group that we have, which is private parking. I am looking at specifically the issue of private parking. This is an issue that is raised with me by many MSPs across the country, and I most recently had a meeting with Murdo Fraser on this MSP on this very issue. We are taking forward some of those issues raised in a way that is not requiring necessary legislation at this stage. A single code of practice that is agreed by, for example, the two major parking bodies, the BPA and the IPC, is also looking at whether there is a need for a single appeals process, for example an independent appeals process, etc. There is a power of work that is going on currently. There is a power of work that will take on after the evidence session report. The committee's report comes out and our consultation is done. There is clearly an issue from the evidence session that you took of off-street private parking not being enforced to a level that people with disabilities expect it, so therefore it is incumbent that we do not close our minds to any of the options that can improve that situation. For clarity, you have a separate group looking at private parking. Yes, that has been running for a while, because there are a number of issues that were raised from MSPs to me and even to my predecessor. There are differences in how the approach to private parking takes place in England and Wales versus what is up here in Scotland. There are some current moves. There may well be moves, I should say, by the UK Government to look at private parking and Queen's Speech coming up today, obviously, and that will be dominated by other issues. Before the election, we were certainly told that there may well be moves to look at the issue from a legislative point of view. Now, post-election, I do not know what to see, but we will work very closely with the UK Government on that as well as our own private parking stakeholders group that we have. The general feeling was that we come together on this unified code of practice, which includes signage and enforcement and other such things, and we give it a trial period of time. If that code of practice is not giving reassurances to people, we should certainly look at other measures. As I said, we are even exploring the issues of independent appeals process within that as well. Councils have the on-going duty to contact private car park operators every two years. The evidence that we have heard is that they get very little response and sometimes no response. Do you think that we should remove that duty? Section 8 of the bill took quite an airing at the committee. Again, it would be wrong of us not to look at that issue, so we will certainly look at Section 8. We will look at that specifically through the parking manager's working group that I spoke about. That will be one of the issues that the group will look at and that we will have consultation with, because I recognised what some of the local authorities were saying. There may also be smart ways or other ways that local authorities can contact businesses that are perhaps less financially onerous or burdensome upon them, but we will listen to local authorities on that. As I said, I am not closed-minded to exploring whatever suggestions they have, but I know that Section 8 and the revoking of Section 8 have quite a lot of airing at the committee, so we are quite nice and aware of that. Can I perhaps just explore that a little bit? I take on board the points that are made about every two years having to contact private operators of car parks, but my concern would be that, if that obligation is withdrawn, even as imperfect as it is and as patchy as the implementation of it is, it could send out a message that local authorities no longer have to try to have that partnership approach. That would be a slight nervousness, but I take on board the points that you have made. The comments in relation to code of practice are well made, but I suppose that my constituents, such as Helen Spring, would like to see a quality code of practice, but they would be just as interested in the idea of a compliance statement from private car park operators, because code of practice is sitting there to aspire to. What we really need to know is that private car park operators are moving from a code of practice to compliance to that code of practice, and that narrative becomes quite important, so I wonder if that is something that you would give consideration to? Yes. First of all, I share your concerns that, if Section 8 was revoked, there may be unintended consequences of that, so we share that, and that is why, again, I would not commit to revoking it, but simply having the conversation with local authorities to see how we can make things less onerous and burdensome for them. In terms of the language, I think that your right language is important, so we will certainly reflect on that, but the message will be very clear to private car parking owners that, if they do not step up to this, and there are challenges, there are issues, and if they do not step up to this, we are not opposed to bringing and exploring legislation, so I think that that is a message that has got out to private car park owners, and they understand our seriousness on that. As I said, the UK Government may well be legislating on that, and I do not know for sure, but there has certainly been some talk of that previously. We may well be legislating on that, and where we can dovetail our work with the UK Government particularly on that, then we will look to do so. That is helpful, minister. I am just wondering in terms of private car park operators whether or not there has to be a monitoring process. If we get to the point of a code of practice and we get potentially to some form of complying statement at a local level, rather than at a corporate national level, I think that would be quite important for my constituents, how we, if you like, recognise or reward best practice. In days going by, we will be talking about things about quality standard marks or kite marks or what have. That would be a monitoring process somewhere down the line by some organisation, whether it is local authority or others, but it is not just about a stick to beat those who are not providing what they should be doing under the quality legislation quite frankly, but also about recognising best practice out there. Is that idea of a quality standard mark perhaps recognised by a third sector disability group perhaps could help form some of that, the thinking around that, to recognise best practice out there, but it is just important that there has to be some form of light touch monitoring regime across the country. Not every car park all the time, but just knowing that occasionally someone can pop in and see what actually are you doing, but it says in the tin in terms of a code of practice and potentially complying statement. I think that the wider point is a good one that is made, as well as a disincentive one that should be incentivising those who demonstrate good practice and best practice, so I think that the point is one that we will certainly reflect on and one that mirrors actually my own thinking as well. A couple of things that I would add to that. When it comes to the private parking standard, the code of practice that we are developing with private parking stakeholders, monitoring is absolutely essential and has to be a part of that. There is no point in having a code of practice and there is not any monitoring, and we simply do not know if it is working or not working effective or not effective. Again, once we develop that in a little bit more detail, we will make sure that the committee is kept up to date on that. In terms of a quality standard mark and parking for those particularly on the disability bays issue, it is not something that I have had a conversation on with my officials, but after this session I am more than happy to take up. I do not know if my officials particularly have anything to add to that, but we will have a conversation with them on that. It is not something that I have at this stage, but I think that the idea is a good one. If I could just come in and add to that, when we look at the code of practice and better regulations of private parking operators, that includes us looking at standard signs, as well as the charges to which private parking operators are charging individuals. It is something that we will look at. We want standard signs, standardisation across all car parks, so that individuals are aware of the terms and conditions of the car parks to which they park, and it is easy for them to understand. I am just going to signpost at one final question about what Jackie Baillie is. I am sure that I want to pick through a number of items of evidence that has come up over the course of the session. However, quite often there seems to be a lack of clarity over the legal position of fines imposed by supermarkets and private car park operators. I do not want to sit hairs running because we just want people not to abuse disabled bays and help men's if you do to pay your fine, as far as I am concerned, but there has to be certainty in law in relation to that. I am just wondering if certainty in law is something that the minister would be minded to look at in relation to it. George, do you remind me here that contract law is reserved and that that is where we are working with the UK Government on that? However, it is an issue. I heard again in your evidence sessions that this concern—I think that Elaine Smith raised it and corrected the record office if I am wrong—was the issue of people who, if they are not a serial offender, have offended once and get a ticket slapped on your windscreen, just put it in the bin because you do Google search and you decide to wait up versus how the supermarket is going to take you to the court or not take you to the court and you choose to ignore it. That is where the public awareness campaign, perhaps Alexander Stewart mentioned in the beginning of this evidence session, could play a part. Certainly, the letting people know and shaming them into the fact that, when you do this, it has a real profound effect potentially on a disabled person, but notwithstanding that, where we can bolster and make more robust the enforcement, it is incumbent on us as a Government to look at whether that is in conjunction with the UK Government, because contract law, because essentially you enter into a contract when you go to your supermarket or any private car park, you enter into that contract, so can we have a conversation with UK Government debt on that? Most certainly, we continue to do so. We have a good relationship, I should say, with the UK Government on this specific issue, with an open exchange of views and information, but I think that it is a point well made and it is not one that is lost on us either, convener. I appreciate that minister. I am going to let Ms Bailey in on that. I know that there are a couple of questions that might have to more pop towards then, but you have been very patient, Ms Bailey, to let you in at this point. That is naturally in my nature to be patient, but there you go. I wonder whether I could just set this in a bit of context, because there is the bill, and then there is the context in which the bill sits. I am very conscious that what we have been exploring in part is the context rather than the bill itself or the act itself. Would it be fair to say that the benefit of hindsight tells us that the bill actually was future-proofed so that whatever the legislative context is, whether it is enforcement or traffic regulations or anything like that, that can all change because the bill sits within whatever that legislative framework is. Do you agree with that proposition? Yes. I think that the bill, to an extent, is future-proof, but there is something there that you have a bill and then you have the practical application of that bill. What we are seeing here is the practical application, the consistency, the expectation that people had of that. It is not practically being realised to an extent that I would want, and I suspect that members around this table would want. You are right in the sense that there has come further devolution. Members' bills that come forward from Government across this country, whether it is the UK Government or the Scottish Government, the parking landscape and the powers that exist, could change, but the aims of the bill to enforce disabled parking bays, to make them enforceable, that should withstand all those changes that take place. If that is a thirst of our question, if I am kidding it. It is that I wanted to tease out, because you are absolutely right. The bill was about making advisory bays that were on-street enforceable. It did not touch on the mechanism of enforcement or covered decriminalised parking, which I know that you are spending quite a bit of time and energy on. Therefore, in looking at the bill itself, it only sought to do a very small thing and relied on other things that were the responsibility of the Government or local authorities or whatever to happen. Let me focus on off-street parking, because that is where there has been a degree of debate. The Minister will be aware that legislation in respect of private businesses and part of that is private parking is reserved, and I would be delighted if we saw measures in the Queen's speech. That is why the bill adopted the approach of using local authorities to encourage, because we could not legislate directly. Other than good practice codes, I am right in saying that there is no current legislative remedy for this. Therefore, I come back to a point that the convener made. If you remove section 8 in its entirety, would you put it in its place? I think that the danger is that you send the wrong signal about what intentions are, and I wonder whether I could pursue this further. It has been suggested to me that, whilst local authorities will contact private businesses and car parks, private businesses and car parks will want to do it themselves rather than relying on the local authority to do it for them. That contact may have prompted, as the bill did, a flurry of private businesses saying, yes, we will do this, almost as a competitive thing with other businesses and supermarkets being the case in point. That has been prompted by the bill and indeed by local authority contact. Has there been any way of capturing that? That is a good question. There is quite a lot in Ms Bailey's question, so I will try to pick up and, if I have missed anything, of course, just to come back. She is absolutely correct, as I have already said, that contract laws are reserved when you take your car into a private car park, you are entering into a contract with the owner of that private car park, and therefore what we can do in the Scottish Government is somewhat limited, but I reiterate my point that the conversations with the UK Government on this have been positive, and that is good. We should continue that, so notwithstanding what may or may not be in the Queen's Speech, or indeed may well come forward from the UK Government, we would certainly encourage them to work with us, and they have indicated that they would be willing to have an exchange of information with us if they choose to move in a legislative path when it comes to contract a lot on this issue of private parking. We would be able to come on that, so we will certainly keep an eye on that. What we can do outwith that is that our own words were limited, and she is absolutely correct. What we do on that is absolutely limited, but that is why things like public campaigns are very important, but also codes of practice with some teeth attached to them to the best of our ability are important. That is why taking the BPA and the IPC, the parking bodies that she will know, and taking them on the journey with us, because they have been part of the collaboration and the discussions, and taking them with us is very important. In fairness to the BPA and the IPC, they also want to see the misuse stamped out. It gives their car park and their industry a very bad name, so they want to see it, but they also recognise that it is not being done. I also share her concerns, as I think I said to the convener as well, that if we revoked section 8, the signal that could send out is one that could be dangerous. So, again, it is not that I think that local authorities at all for a second take this issue lightly, because they do have competing priorities. Undoubtedly, I know that, but I do recognise that some do view this contact every two years as being quite financially burdensome and onerous, but I also agree with the member. That is why working with parking managers is essential and important. I would also say to Ms Bailey that she mentioned the good practice being done by some of the larger supermarket chains. I think that there is an element of competition between better you and better you and so on. That is good and well, and that is to be welcomed. I think that where some of the difficulty may be is with slightly smaller businesses, larger businesses have the resource to do some of that. Particularly when technologies are involved, number plate recognition cameras are not cheap. Whereas smaller businesses may well not put the priority on this that we would like to see, and what we do in that regard is where we should focus on attention. In terms of a question about whether we monitor what business does to my knowledge, other than the reports that we get from local authorities, there is not enough information there about what private business is doing. Again, that is something that we should reflect on on the back of the evidence sessions that have taken place. I think that that would be very helpful because the measure of success, if you listen to local authorities, is that they have written out that nobody has responded to them. You do not actually measure whether that has had an impact on the business doing it themselves or making any changes, as the supermarkets, as one example, clearly did during the passage of the bill. My recollection of section 8 is that we do not prescribe how the contact should be made, simply the frequency, and I would invite the minister, as he suggested, to look at other examples. Fife gave evidence to us about an approach that did not wait every two years, but they simply put it up on the council's website and used planning as a mechanism to do that. Can I move on to the new powers that you have? This is something that I think would improve the impact of the act, because you have got new powers over traffic regulations, as I understand them, that may or may not remove the need for TROs, certainly removes the need for signs and street furniture, should you choose to do that, and potentially makes life easier for local authorities and enables bays to be designated much quicker. The problem arose because TROs are such a complicated process that local authorities, instead of going through that, just simply designated it as an advisory bay, which is how the problem came about. I would be keen to explore with the minister if he is minded to use the new powers that he now has to actually simplify the process and remove that particular burden from local authorities. I am always happy to look at how we simplify the process. I would not commit to removing the need for TROs, because, again, I would like to explore what might be the unintended consequences. I am dealing with the TRO and my constituency, and I won't say too much on it, but I know that it has some complexities attached to it. However, the positive of TROs is that it allows for consultation, not public to be consulted in a TRO, to give their expressions or objections either way, either in support or against the TRO. That element of consultation is quite important, and the TRO helps to facilitate that. Now, could we have a consultation process minus the TRO? Of course, we absolutely could. Can I look into that and give a commitment to explore it, but not give you a commitment of whether I would revoke or remove that particular criteria? In terms of wider powers that we may well have, she probably knows that Scotland Actors has come in more powers over signage, for example. Again, that is something that I am keen to explore, but, equally, I go back to the point that I have just made, that we have to be cognisant and aware of unintended consequences. If we simplify the signage process so that it is less financially onerous on local authorities, what we do not want to do is make disabled parking areas less visible, that would be the wrong thing to do. It is finding that balance for us is important. Generally, the commitment to look at both the TRO process and the signage process are things that we explore with the working group, and we have internal discussions in Government about them as we speak. Can I turn to enforcement, convener? If you will indulge me slightly on TROs, I will let you back in immediately after this, but it is just a final wee thing on TROs, because that was the little thing that we had left to mop up as a committee. Ms Bail makes a really good point in relation to TROs. I deal with them in my constituency as well, minister. Invariably, the local authority each time I request something to happen in terms of parking restrictions, it does not have to be an enforceable parking bay. It can be single, double, yellow lines or whatever restrictions that need a designation order enforced. The local authority tends to say that those are expensive to do, they take a long time, we will wait until we have a cluster of potential work in an individual area, and then we will wrap it all together, we will cluster it together and we will consult, and that is the one TRO. That can lead to lengthy delays and complete uncertainty to when relevant restrictions or alterations in restrictions come into place in my constituency. So, I am just wondering when you do look at new powers that the Government has in relation to those designation orders, whether you look wider than just a disabled parking base, because I think there is a wider issue in that, certainly, constituency interest of mine and other members may have had similar experiences at Siles Ministers, if perhaps you have got a similar experience in your constituency. Something that has come up, I would not say, fills up my post bag by any stretch of imagination, but it has been raised on a number of occasions with me that TRO process, perhaps, could be simplified. It could be more transparent, it is not understood well by the public because it is not articulated well, I think. So, in terms of your wider point, that this is not just necessarily about disabled parking base, it is a very important part. Obviously, the reason why we are here having this evidence session is that there are much wider issues around TRO. I am happy to have conversations with officials to have a conversation because local authorities feel that the TRO process works, whether they are comfortable with it, but we can have a wider look at whether or not there is more that we can do on that. I am certainly looking at TRO as well as looking at TSR GD as well, as I say now that we have devolved responsibility for the signage as well. You have lost me your acronyms there, minister, but I will gloss over that and I will pass back to Ms Bailey. Can I turn to enforcement? I heard a lot of what you said and was encouraged by the advance of decriminalised parking, certainly in my local area or at least one of them. The local authority is very efficient at issuing fixed penalty notices and I suspect that a lot of them do generate some income from it, but leaving that to one side, I had, at the start of the bill process, anticipated a reactive enforcement regime, if you like, recognising that city centres would invariably demand more activity than, say, a residential area, but I wonder whether coupling this with public awareness is something that the minister would also consider with his officials, because enforcement and public awareness absolutely go together and I am very conscious that the police will run occasional campaigns on whether it is seat belt compliance or mobile phone usage or whatever, so to do it that way would be quite proactive and I think would be welcomed, but to do it alongside public awareness, I think, is key, now eight years ago I asked the then minister, Stuart Stevenson, to run a public awareness campaign, he said he would go away and take a look at it, unfortunately nothing happened, I do think it needs to be a nationally led campaign and by all means local authorities and police and others should be in support of that, so I wonder whether the minister would consider it being a national campaign because it is about changing attitudes and you do that across Scotland, not just at an individual local authority level? Yeah, I should say that for the convener's sake and others, sorry, they often get lost in acronyms, TASRGD, traffic signs regulations in general directions, which is the manual that covers signage and it's covering for my colleagues since the devolution of your kind as your are generous, convener, in that respect. In terms of Jackie Baillie's point, I think that one that's well made, I just took part in a photo call for a mobile phone awareness campaign that we're doing, whether it's on hands for you or otherwise. People taking a look at the mobile phones actually can cause, will have fatal consequences in some regards and the importance of awareness campaigns on a national level is something that we're certainly signed up to. I don't want to give her an answer that simply says, look, I'll go away and look at it and we'll explore it and she understands that those competing priorities for national campaigns all have merit. What I will do is come back to the member perhaps after the recess on this having reflected in either way if I come back and say, look, I'm afraid that other priorities have taken over or indeed. I say, yes, this is something we'll definitely do, then I'll come back to the member either way. Again, I won't give a commitment either way here, but I will certainly look at it because I think that there's merit in this issue. Again, I have to weigh up with other priorities, literally behaviours that are killing people on our roads and that is where our focus is on the safety message, but that is not to say that a national campaign on this particular issue does not have merit because I absolutely see that it does have merit. It's just about weighing it up with the other campaigns that, of course, all come attached with resource and financial implications, but certainly I'll come back to her at some point after the recess because I want the consultation to be complete, which is for local authorities weeks extended to 31 August. Obviously, I'm looking forward to the report from this committee and then perhaps on reflection of that, we'll certainly cover my thoughts on an awareness campaign to Miss Bailey and, obviously, to the wider committee as well. I have one final question, convener, and that's on the stakeholder group. I noticed the minister's reluctance to have me along, but could I maybe just offer him the slogan, Nothing About Us Without Us, which is used widely in the disability movement. Having taken the bill through, I am reminded of the particular views of parking managers, and they have their perspective on the issue. I think that you'll find that a disabled person's perspective might be quite different, and hence I would encourage him, if not me, certainly to invite somebody from a disability group directly on to the parking group—not another group, but directly on the one that's going to make decisions about this. A couple of things. First of all, Miss Bailey should not take anything that I said personally in the slightest. She knows that I only have the highest regard for her, and she can put that in an election leaflet in the future, if she wishes. That might not help her. That's a point well-made. What I would do is go back to what George said, that disabled groups, disability groups and organisations are on a number of our stakeholder groups. This parking manager's working group is specifically looking at the local authority barriers or restrictions as they perceive it in terms of legislation, but notwithstanding that, her point about how we engage disability groups is an important one, and that slogan, Nothing About Us Without Us, is for us. An anti-apartheid slogan is now adopted by many organisations, but one that rings true for disability organisations and groups. It's certainly one that I think we should be cognisant of and aware of. Disability groups, as George has been saying, are part of a number of working groups, particularly on improving parking stakeholder engagement as well. We can reflect on including them in wider conversations, but the parking manager's working group is getting myself lost here in some of the wording of the working groups. That is specifically looking at local authority issues around the application of the legislation. Thank you very much, convener. Okay, Ms Baillie. Would any other members wish a question before we wrap things up at agenda item 1? Minister, just before we close this agenda item, we're, of course, very keen as a committee for you to revert to Ms Baillie with additional information, but we'd also point out that it's actually this committee that's doing the post-legislative scrutiny, so if you could make sure that you direct your correspondence in relation to this and the first instance of this committee. Of course, to Ms Baillie and other members of the Parliament, but we're doing a body of work, and it's only important and right that we get that information. I think it's been a member who will agree with my really informative evidence session. The Government would appear to be in listening mode, and we thank you very much for your thoughtful answers this morning yourself and your officials. Thank you very much. That concludes agenda item 1. Given that agenda item 2 is already disposed of, we'll now move to agenda item 3 on our work programme, and, as previously agreed, we will now move into private session.