 I welcome everyone to the 11th meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in 2019. We have apologies from David Torrance and I welcome Rona Mackay, who is attending as committee substitute. We have three items in the agenda this morning. Agenda item 1 is the consideration of whether to take agenda item 3 in private. Our members agree to take item 3, petition 1319, on improving youth football in Scotland in private. Thank you. Agenda item 2 is the consideration of continued petitions. The first petition for consideration today is petition 1693 on establishing an independent water ombudsman lodged by Graham Harvie on behalf of the Lowlands Canals Association. Members may wish to note that, since the petition was lodged, the lead petitioner, Graham Harvie, has stepped down from his role as chair of the Lowlands Canals Association. We recently received a written submission from Graham Harvie, which the clerks have provided us with for our consideration of the petition today. At our last consideration of the petition on 20 December 2018, we discussed the role of the Scottish Public Service ombudsman, the implications of creating a new ombudsman, and the current repair backlog, as stated by Scottish Canals. In order to explore those and other issues, further members agreed to invite Scottish Canals to give evidence. I would like to welcome to today's meeting representatives from Scottish Canals. I welcome Cassin Toplay, the chief executive, Richard Miller, director of infrastructure, Claire Lysgow, director of finance, and Josie Saunders, head of corporate affairs. I invite you to provide a brief opening statement of up to no more than five minutes in total, after which we will move to questions from the committee. Since taking on the role at Scottish Canals last year, it was an aspiration for the Scottish Government, and one of the tasks that it provided me was to work closely with the boating community, as well as many of the other communities that we serve. We are here today to talk about the boating community, so I will keep my evidence within that sphere. It is clear that the boating community has felt that they have not had the close and good working relationship with Scottish Canals for some time. As a consequence, we have worked very hard over the last year to build on that, not only within looking at how we look and use the canals, but also how we live and utilise them. The canals have a £70 million backlog, as we have stated previously. That is a figure that, had we implemented and had the finances to do so, we would bring the canals up to the state of repair in terms of new. From the perspective that we have to be realistic, that from that £70 million there is a proportion of that, there is immediate and ready repairs. Richard has always had an on-going and good working relationship, as has Josie, Katie and Claire, although those can deviate at times, depending on what is happening within the business. It is fair to recognise the willingness from the management team to continue that working relationship in the past and in the future. In terms of the asset as a working heritage asset, we have to recognise that, with the age of the asset, there will be on-going repairs and maintenance that is required off the asset. Working with the boaters and explaining the asset management strategy, incorporating their views and the issues associated with the canal, I think that transparency around the state of the canal has certainly helped that relationship. I cannot, as I sit here today, guarantee that the canals will always be open and that we will always be able to fix them and maintain them. What I can say is that we work readily to ensure that they are safe and that they are compliant in terms of what is required of them. And by speaking and working with the boaters, we can make sure that that extends throughout Scotland. Today, we are looking specifically from LCA around a Walter Zombiesman, which focuses particularly on the central belt of Scotland. Of course, Scotland's canals are 240 miles of canals across Scotland. With that in mind, we also have to keep in mind the Crennan and Caledonian canal, which will also bring to Scotland a significant amount of tourism, transit and activity along the Scottish breadth of the geography. We are happy to answer any questions that the committee may have for us today. From our perspective, we are happy to be objective about the issues that are presented to us and honest about the journey that has led us to this position. I suppose that you will be aware that the focus of the petition is on what can be done if people are not satisfied with what you are doing. You have outlined a problem and a challenge, but the question is if people are not satisfied with what you are doing, what recourse have they got. As the committee understands that the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman has no powers to assess overall quality of the service that has been provided by Scottish canals, it is also unable to investigate matters relating to rent and service charges as they are in an excluded category. Who deals with those issues, including any disputes with Scottish canals if not the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman? As I have submitted in the previous submission, we follow a complaint process internally, and those complaint processes are processed and have managed through that. The particular issue around the pricing is clearly a motive one, and I completely understand that. The context of that is that, at the time that those discussions were under way, we had such varying degree of inconsistency in the pricing along the canals that we had two bursts sitting right next to each other that were entirely different pricing structures. From that perspective, it was appropriate and fair and transparent that we implemented something for the wider usage of that across Scotland. We did that in an open and transparent way, as you know. Coming back to your main question around what is the process, we would use the internal process that we have already used, which allows individuals to raise the complaint to be formally investigated, and then, following that, the two-stage process escalating to the SPSO. I understand that there is not specifically a space that individuals could complain about the pricing as the SPSO underlines. However, there is an open and fair dialogue around how we have got to that, and bearing in mind that the boaters and the community have been part of that consultation. With that in mind, I would question whether or not the numbers associated with that complaint are reflective of the overall process in individuals involved in that. However, there is no recourse. If you decide that that is the cost, that is the cost, it is a monopoly. You might say that it is transparent and reasonable and necessary, but there is nowhere else for the complainant to go. As it currently stands, there is nothing that would stop the Scottish Canals putting on a significant hike on the pricing, other than the fact that we have already agreed a pricing strategy with the boaters, and therefore that will not change in the forthcoming period. I think that the other thing that would obviously mitigate us doing that is that we are an NDPB. From that perspective, we would not look to act in such a commercial way that would put individuals in hardship. From our perspective, we want the boaters on the water, so we would not want the prices to be such that it would exclude individuals doing so. However, there is the heart of this, so there may be good intention, but it is nothing that compels Scottish Canals to—they could, if they wished, hike prices further. At the end of the day, part of the Scottish Canals' remit is to act as a commercial operation in that aspect. Of course, what we would want to do is to make sure that the commercial aspect of boating and the pricing associated with that is relevant. Yes, there is the opportunity for the Canals to increase prices in line with market in the future, but that is all that it would ever be. The commercial operation, which is necessary because there is a short foral in money to sustain the Canals, might mean that you would make decisions that people using the Canals would be unhappy with. That might be the case, yes. Okay, thanks. Good morning to the panel. From some of the submissions that we have received, there are significant concerns being raised that the on-going canal maintenance is suffering as a result of Scottish Canals' focus on asset investments. Would you say that the right balance has been struck between asset investment and canal maintenance? How would you respond to concerns that Scottish Canals is diverging from its statutory obligation to maintain the Canals? I would respond first to your second point to advise that, certainly within the framework agreement, Scottish Canals are asked, as you know, from the submissions that we have presented, to act in a manner that would allow us to be able to regenerate the canal but also make the best use of the canal, which includes commercial operations. The canal cannot, in isolation, stand alone with just boats on it. I think that the boaters would absolutely agree to that. The reality is that the canal is so vibrant because of the other activity that runs alongside it and therefore making it a much more pleasurable and enjoyable experience, not just for the boaters but for the walkers, the cyclists, the dog walkers, etc. From that perspective, the expanse of what we need to look at in the canal cannot solely just be focused on one area. The Canals, as you know, going back 15-20 years, were a place where we kept our shopping trolleys and couches. It was a really poor dire state and quite an embarrassment to Scotland in terms of where they got to. To be able to maintain that, to have a very positive flourishing environment, we have to have activities along the canal. Those activities have to be things that draw the community in and that the community wants to be part of. From that perspective, that is why the commercial and the regeneration arm are really hand-in-hand for us because we want to make sure that we do not lose that vibrancy. The first part regarding the balance of commercial and asset, I will also ask Richard to comment on this in a moment, but the commercial and asset go hand-in-hand as much as we can never be fully financial, fully financially sustainable, with £10 million, which I absolutely agree is a lot of money for anybody. However, in investment terms, that £10 million can only be recycled through so many activities at any given time. Consequently, we have to ensure that we have a balance between the commercial activity, revenue-generating activity and sustaining and delivering on our core business. I would also like to highlight and underline that the grant and aid cannot be used for those activities. The Government grant and aid that is given for our statutory responsibility of looking after the canal of £8.5 million this year cannot be used for anything other than the canal. To give you some context, in the accounts that will be published very soon, the staffing costs alone for Scottish canals is £9.5 million, so that any of the monies that we are generating have to maintain not only the canal but, obviously, the running of the canal, and where that money goes is to ensure that wider piece is done. We are already contributing to the running of canals throughout commercial model. What I would like to do is pass to Richard just to comment a little bit more on that, and then I would be happy to take further questions. In regard to the asset management strategy, this is something that we have been working on for some time. I think that, as a very appropriate for a public organisation like ourselves, we look after 140 miles of historic waterways that are between 200 and 250 years old that do have inherent risk because they are engineered channels that hold back water. Therefore, there is always a requirement for us to find a balance between how we are investing in the core infrastructure of those, the locks, the lock gates, the reservoirs and the aqueducts, and the maintenance and the operation that we deliver on the canal. I think that that asset management strategy, which has been totally aligned with international best practice and has actually been, I think, a forward-looking plan that people have seen as best practice around how we have done this. We have looked at those questions, and what it has brought forward is some really challenging questions for Scottish canals around about the amount of money that we have and how we spend that and how we prioritise that if we don't see the increase in funding that is required, how will we make decisions that are sensible, rational and make sure that we keep the best of the canal's operational. We are absolutely determined to keep all those canals operational and in navigation because we know the value that the towpath and the water space brings to Scotland is massive. There is no doubt that that is the very core of what we are doing here. However, I think that the asset management strategy, which I know has been contentious with some of the boaters, has helped us to understand what our liabilities are, the level of investment that we require and how we should invest. We have been very lucky. We have worked very closely with the Scottish Government and we have seen a substantial increase in our capital investment, but there is still a requirement for revenue. Revenue is very important to when you are running 250-year-old structures because there is a lot of patching and repairs that you need to do, and that can only be funded out of revenue. Therefore, we have had to create and look at the business to make sure that we have a balance between the commercial side of the business and developing new revenue streams so that we can develop and do those patch repairs. Our revenue funding has remained static right through the recession. In the past, in about 2009, it was up at 11.5 million, moving to 12.5 million. However, since 2011, it has been static at about £8 million, a slight uplift this year. Revenue is really important to us in the task that we need to do, and having that balance within the business is something that we are striving to deliver. You have £9.5 million staffing costs. Given the challenges that you are outlining in that you face, have you ever looked at making efficiency savings within your own administration? I am thinking particularly of director salaries or higher-paid salaries—I mean, 9.5 million staffing costs are quite high. I will start to take that forward, and then I will pass to Clarey, the finance director, to comment further. In short, we continually look at the efficiency. When you look at the staffing numbers of the organisation, they have not significantly varied over the last eight years, and therefore I am confident that the organisation has not lost control of its staffing costs in terms of the numbers. What we have seen is a combination of increases around things such as the Scotchland wage and the uplift in pension costs and corporate costs. Of course, with a very static GIA £8 million, we have incurred those costs internally, which clearly eats away at any of the money that we are producing in terms of profit. In terms of the director salaries, the previous chief executive was on a different salary, and through the movement of his role, there was an opportunity to review that. In line with the Scottish Government policy, there was an aspiration to reduce that by 10 per cent, which is currently being achieved. Clarey, I will ask you to comment further. Good morning. I think that we should be bearing in mind the cost of public sector pensions. Scottish Canals has moved from its DB pension scheme to a DC pension scheme. As we have done that, that will have an impact as those members in our old closed DB scheme move on from the organisation in one way or another. We have moved to a DC pension scheme where we have got more certainty over our future pension costs and liabilities, but we are part of the Scottish Government's public sector pay policy, so we have taken year-on-year increases in line with pay policy. We have no incremental pay increases, so we have capped any movement in the overall wage bill from an annual increased perspective in line with Scottish Government pay policy, and we have made that move from a DB to a DC pension scheme as well in an effort to reduce that overall wage bill. We have also done quite a lot of work over the last 18 months or so on productivity to ensure that we are getting the biggest value from our workforce that we are maximising that productivity. As Catherine said, we have not increased our overall head count. Just to clarify, did you say that the director's salary had been cut by 10 per cent? The chief executive has been cut by 10 per cent, but under the tier, the chief executive has made... There has been no change in the people in post. The number of directors has reduced recently by one. Does that indicate that perhaps previously it was top heavy and it was too high? In terms of the structure of the organisation and how we have aligned our operations to try and build in greater productivity and efficiency, we have streamlined what we do, and therefore we felt that that is an organisation that the structure and the directorship structure was more appropriate with one less person. Richard, the work that you are doing with the asset management strategy, how can you illustrate how your return on investment is contributing to the operations and maintenance of the core canals? I think that what we can prove is that we are tirelessly developing and we had, and I think that, as you saw in the papers, there was a £10 million, what we call the dowry, when we split from British waterways to becoming Scottish canals. As a result of monies that had flowed south of the border when we were one UK organisation, we were able to prove the case that monies had flowed in that direction and that, when we split away to become Scottish canals, we had required those and we needed those back. We were successful in achieving £10 million of investment. We have been using that as a commercial investment pot, which has been invested, some in capital growth and developing, and those sites have always been around about the canal, close to the canal, opportunities that will add value to the communities. You have to remember that the canals of Scotland, there is a million people live within three kilometres of the canal and 20 per cent of Scotland's most challenged communities are on the banks. We very much worked with the board to focus that investment, to bring a double whammy in regard to delivering beside the canal, but also delivering in some of those challenged communities. Therefore, we have been making and seeing capital returns that will be reinvested to help to grow. We have also put half of that money into developing revenue opportunities that have increased our income. When you look at the stat accounts, you can see that the income coming into Scottish canals has increased tremendously over the past few years. As Claire says, there are challenges within the business as to the corporate overheads and the growth in pensions, but also the living wage and following government policy have had implications. It is about time. £5 million is not a lot of money in regard to developing income streams. Those things take time, but there is no doubt that they are moving in the right direction. We are beginning to see those returns back to the business. What we need to do over time is work and develop those, and therefore they will tip into bringing value to the canals in the future, too. Do you agree, then, that the resource that you are talking about is sufficient that is being directed to the canal maintenance rather than the asset development? I think that canal maintenance and asset development is the same for me in regard to what I would see as the asset management plan looks at the foundation structures. We have 4,100 major structures and then 140 miles of canal banks and embankments and tow parts. What we do through the asset management strategy is look at what is required to keep and maintain those in good condition. You can see that, from the work that we have done recently, we have done a lot of work around Llythgo and improving the embankments there, because the canal holds back 31.5 miles of water. We have done works at the Nesweir, where the Nesweir holds back almost 2 metres of Loch Ness from Inverness. Therefore, we have been identifying the public safety pieces that we need to do to make sure that those canals are here for the next 250 years. However, we have also been looking at delivering the defects and making sure that when we see problems on the canal, we are tackling them and managing them so that those assets do not slip into decline. It is a balance between the two. Have we got enough money to do that? The answer is that we are challenged. We have seen an improvement from our grant in aid and we are seeing an improvement from the income that has been generated from the commercial developments. However, have we, at the moment, got enough to do that? The asset management strategy clearly shows that we are somewhere between £2.5 million to £6 million short of getting to what we would call steady state, which is having the canals into a situation where they are sustainable, they are maintained and they are fully operational. At the moment, we are operating with risk, which means that we are challenged when major failures happen. We are watching, we are monitoring and we are inspecting the canals every month, every metre of the canal is looked at. However, as you saw last year with Twecker and Bonnie Bridge, things do happen that are of a scale that we cannot afford to fund under the moneys that we have at the moment. Can we flag up something around which, in the submission that we have received, you talked about the Scottish Canals Asset Management Strategy? On page 8, under canal strategies, there is a comment that, quote, budget prioritisation may not necessarily include navigation, although it is an important consideration. Does that mean that using the canals is not a priority for Scottish Canals? I think that that one line in context of the entire report obviously does not sit well on its own, but in the entirety of the report what we are saying, as Richard has emphasised, is that we have to take safety before navigation because of the funding scenario. So absolutely our priority is navigation and absolutely it is maintaining the canal, but in the context of the asset management strategy that is setting out the challenge, what we are saying within the report is that actually we have to look at safety risk prior to navigation. Richard? I think as a public organisation and these canals do look like sleepy backwaters that wouldn't worry anyone when you walk along them, but there are inherent risks in there. There are reservoirs, there are embankments and there are structures in there that if they failed, and we have seen across England and Wales in recent years significant failures that have then caused local flooding and challenged and cost a lot of money to the public purse to fix and insurance companies that we must make sure that we maintain and look after those canals and keep the villages, the towns and the people in the communities close to the canal have to be number one priority. Then we have put staff and visitors safety because we have 22 million visits to these canals every year. A lot of people out there using them, very successful tow parts, we have got to make sure that they are safe. We are absolutely determined to keep the vibrancy on the water as well. It is critical, but it does come at a cost. The locks and the lock gates, and we have seen that recently. We fixed a lock in Falkirk lock 6, and it was a significant investment £350,000 to fix a lock chamber. When you start to spread that across 90 locks and some of them are much, much bigger, it is a real challenge. What we have done in the asset management strategy is to create a blueprint that allows us to understand that with our heart and soul says that we want to keep everything open, we want to keep all the plates spinning. However, in times when money is difficult, we now have a blueprint that says that if we have to, we would have to deploy the asset management strategy, but we have a blueprint of how we will do that, balanced against public value that exists from these canals. I understand the issue of safety, but the danger is that the logic of your position would be to just stop them because it is something that people can go and see but do not expect them to actually use them. That is what I read from that. Navigation is like a bonus, so it is not a working heritage asset. It is something historical that we can go and look at. Can you understand why people would have those anxieties? I absolutely understand the anxieties. I am in constant conversations with the boaters about this to understand, but it does come back to that. With limited money, you can only do so much, and we just cannot do everything that we need to do, and that is clear from the model that is within the asset management strategy. We are challenged. We are in a much better position today than we were a year ago when this petition came in, and I think that is thanks to significant investment from Scottish Government. However, the canals have a 250-year-old structure that does not come with any plans or any design code or necessarily any consistent construction has hidden challenges within it. We are determined to make sure that we keep them safe, we keep our visitors safe and we also keep the navigation on board. However, as I said, we cannot do everything if we do not have the resources. We have to have a blueprint to allow us to prioritise. It becomes a self-fuling prophecy. We do not have enough money. We have to think about safety, so we cannot prioritise navigation. We end up in a position where there is not enough money to do the thing that we would really like to do. Do you not see that? That feels like you are not challenging the level of budget that you have. You are using the budget and developing the area around it perhaps, because you are not prioritising navigation. Navigation is a statutory part of what we deliver, so it is at the very heart of what Scottish canals is all about. However, the monies that we have to manage and maintain the infrastructure are limited, and that is the same in any public sector organisation. Therefore, we have to make hard decisions. Over the past year, the conversations that we have been having with Scottish Government on the back of the model that we have created and the back of the engineering science that is the asset management strategy has given us a clear agenda for conversations. When problems happen, we have a small contingency of our own to deploy against those problems, but if it is of scale and if we identify something that is large, we have no choice but to go back and have a conversation with the Government. We have been doing that. We have done that with Addresic Pier and Twecker and Bonnie Bridge and Caller Key, which was a major failure on the Caledonian Canal in 2015. We have had those conversations with Government. That is the agreement that we have between ourselves and Government that if significant problems beyond the scale of what we have and are able to afford, we can have those conversations and say, look, this is the problem. Using the methodology that is within the asset management strategy, this is where we are, but how can you help us with this challenge? The other thing is that working with volunteers has been critical to this as well. We are changing the way that we are operating the canals and working with volunteers to help us to tackle some of these inherent problems with the canal infrastructure is definitely a way for the future. I will not labour the point, but if you say that your budget priorities are not navigation, you are going to have any conversation, you are going to have the Scottish Government, it is not going to look to funding to prioritise that. Can I ask Brian Whittle? Good morning to the panel. Investment is one of the key issues here and a number of submissions have suggested that there is a lack of investment from the Scottish Government, which is a contributory factor into the lack of maintenance. There is a £70 million backlog, which we have had rinsing missions in and you have said again today. In your opinion, are there other contributory factors that have led to the backlog of £70 million of repairs? I think that we just have to be absolutely clear that although our funding model has not changed, we are much similar to any other public body. I would be cautious to use the word of lack of investment because the Scottish Government has reviewed the funding model as best it can and we have fallen within that process. As Ms Lamont has asked, we have genuinely put forward business cases for additional funding and presented why it is needed. Like the public sector, there is not enough money to go round and we can sit within that bracket. That is the first thing that I would say to that. You are right. This is not something that happened overnight. This is not something because the Scottish Government did not have enough money to give us over the last three years that it has suddenly come to this position. You have to remember that the canals have been around for 250 years and prior to coming on to being Scottish canals in terms of British Waterways in 2012, it was obviously a UK canal network. It is fair to say that the assessment of the state of the canal at the time potentially did not reflect the requirement of the investment needed. Therefore, the issue around the backlog is not something that has happened over the last five years or as a result of lack of investment in that period. If I could... I mean, I would view our canal system as a real asset to Scotland. We talked about the development of that asset and the surrounding potential, not just in navigation. I wondered, just personally, if you think there's a way here where you're moving towards a kind of self-sufficiency, is that the direction of travel perhaps that the Scottish Government is pushing towards this idea of self-sufficiency? Aspirationally, absolutely. That is the direction that we'd like to head towards. However, I reiterate that £10 billion on an investment commercial cycle will only go so far. If we were standing alone in our costs, all things being equal, then clearly, the amount that we're able to generate through the revenue and commercial capital would be significantly more and therefore would be much more self-sustainable. Those things don't stand and still and therefore the costs have to be balanced year on year around what we're able to bring into the organisation versus what is going out. We certainly contribute significantly to the cost of running the canals, not least the infrastructure from the income that has been generated from those commercial and revenue activities. I would underline again that the grant in aid has not been the money that has generated that, that has been the commercial capital. I would also underline that that commercial capital is a long-term thing, so you look at the Falkirk wheel and the money that we're able to generate through the Falkirk wheel, that is a significant contribution to the running of the canals. Do you have a blueprint timescale when, if you were getting towards a position where the backlog could be cleared and in that position where there's a self-sufficiency element to it? We have several models around when the backlog could be clear, depending on several investments along that period. As you can imagine, that's pretty fluid, depending on what money is available and how that comes in over that period of time. I'm also realistic about what is achievable in the next 10 to 15 years around the commercial modelling and the maturity of that. We work on various models, and neither one of them gets us to a position in the next 10 to 15 years where we are self-sustainable, but we continue to grow the income. By growing the income, that allows us to invest further in the canal. I am talking about the asset management of the canal, the backlog, not recycling that revenue back into commercial capital. We have to be clear that we are using that money to do that. I would like to go back to the subject of mooting prices. One of the towns that I represent at my constituency is Cercantilloc, which is obviously a canal town. A year or two ago, I can't remember exactly when, I had constituents come to me horrified at these sort of exorbitant price rises. In fact, some people were actually made homeless because of it, and they felt that they had absolutely no recourse. I appreciate that predates your appointment. Can you tell me what has changed and what reassurance you can give that that will not happen again? I will give you some context around that, and then I will ask Josie to comment a little bit more around that period, as Josie supported the consultation and the development of that with Katie. We have agreed the price and consultation, and we have put in a timeframe. Is it 20 years? Is it 20 years that we said? Sorry, no, the period of which the increases would hit, the period in which the increases would develop. When we consulted on the pricing consultation, we agreed that no more than an uplift of £100 every year to get to market rate that was established. That could take up to 20 years to get to. The reassurance that I would give is that, within that process, we have already identified a way in which to limit and mitigate, to your point earlier, as well as Lamont around the costs. It is about £8.80 a month, which is the maximum that we would look to implement any further costs. I will ask Josie to comment further on that. I think that the process of the pricing consultation was clearly a challenging one. It is probably worth saying at the beginning that no other canal authority has managed to find a methodology for setting fair and transparent prices. It is one that every canal authority is grappling with and is looking to Scotland to learn from. Whenever you are dealing with price increases, particularly surrounding residential accommodation, it is always going to be a challenge. We did not enter into that lightly. The process was embarked on publicly. We knew that it had to be independent of Scottish canals. We knew that we would need to bring in independent consultants. We knew that those consultants would need to be independent of our boating customers as well to be able to understand what is out there in the marketplace, what are the market demands, and how to look at varying facilities and opportunities available to our boating customers at each of the locations along the mooring sites that we operate, and to try and come up with a sensible methodology for setting those prices. That is what Gerald Eave and Bill Finger GVA were brought on to do. As part of that process, they met with boaters and held public meetings at each of the canals. The feedback from those sessions was that boating customers told them, and they consequently told us that they needed to extend the brief to go and visit each of those mooring sites. That is exactly what they did, and they did that without Scottish canals. They went along and met boaters. They saw what made each of the mooring sites attractive, what facilities were available, and they took away that information. The feedback from the boating customers looked at their desk-based research and came up with a methodology. Is that methodology perfect? I do not know. Is it the only one out there? Yes, it probably is. What that did do is lead to a set of prices that formed the recommendations, which we then took out to consultation. The recommended prices, because we had said right at the beginning that this was an independent process and was carried out not by us but by a third party, with every party's input, recommended prices and the methodology behind it would not be challenged. We would all have to accept those. However, what Scottish canals committed to doing is ensuring that, where we could, we would implement them in a fair way. The consultation that went out was not around the recommendations in terms of how they stood and what methodology was behind that, but it was around how they were implemented. As Catherine said, the feedback from that consultation was from customers that they were concerned that some boaters might face financial hardship and hence the decision to cap those price increases at any financial year at £100. One of the other things that came out of that consultation was that most of our boating customers wanted an average of about a year's agreement with Scottish canals. We made it really clear that that year's agreement could be extended to three or five years if, for example, someone had a child at a local school or if they had parents in an area or for whatever personal reasons they needed to be able to have security of tenure. That still stands. I think that I'm sad to hear that some of your constituents have been forced off the water as a result of those prices. I'll be really keen to pick that up. I should say that many of them weren't happy with the independent review either, but put that aside. I think I'll come back to the convener's opening remarks on her question. Boaters have no recourse, so basically you say you're engaging with them in an open and transparent way. How does that actually take place at public meetings? Yes, we have public meetings on each of the canals either every six months, depending on the location or every year. Myself, Catherine, Richard and a number of other senior managers from Scottish canals attend those. We have a volunteer group that meets regularly, which some of the members are here with us today. We're in the process of trying to establish some of our boating customers and representative of our boating groups, a advisory group that would help to identify how we could spend some of the resources that we have available where they should be prioritised in terms of weed management or in terms of encouraging volunteering in other areas. We also have individual meetings. Myself, Catherine and a number of the people around this table meet regularly with individual boaters and groups. That's a really important part of what we do, being accessible. Can I just put the point to you that one of our submissions alleges that many boaters are frightened to speak out at these meetings and fear of being penalised that they might get their licence or not have their annual mooring renewed, and one boater was allegedly threatened with possible legal action for expressing an opinion. Do you think that that's satisfactory? I would fundamentally disagree with any of that behaviour happening in any of the meetings, and I've never experienced it in my tenure. I don't know when that happened, but I know that when I joined the canals, I sat with the boating community and we agreed the matrix of the meetings. As a matter of fact, Ronnie Rusack chairs the meetings to ensure that there is a balanced approach to the meetings and that it is open and that it is a safe space. It's fair to say that I don't know when that experience was. I certainly can hand in heart say that it has not occurred during my tenure. There has been a culture change in the dealings with boaters. Do you think that they should have more rights, whether they are living there or paying for the facility as a leisure facility, should they have more rights? I think that there has been a shift change in our relationship with the boating community. Again, I would underline that there are really good relationships at an operative and management level between individuals but, corporately, there has been an absolute shift change. We have all benefited from that. In terms of their rights, I think that that shift change has allowed rights that already exist to be expressed and to be utilised. We have seen significant changes as a result of that with the expression of what they would like to see or whether they have challenged particular issues. We have progressed along that using the boating meetings to be able to implement changes or requests that they have made. Those are minute. There is an action log that identifies what they have asked for and what we have been able to deliver against that. There are rights there that, possibly owing to the previous relationship, were not utilised to their best effect. I am very conscious of time. You mentioned the advisory group. I wonder if it is possible for us to send us details of reference when it may, who is a membership, how often you are going to meet, whether that has been established. Equally, you talked about the £70 million repair backlog. It would be interesting to know how much of that is regarded as critical, which would be helpful, but it is not absolutely disastrous if you do not do it. That was my last question given that the nature of the petition. Do you accept that there is less protection for users of canals or rights to complain in Scotland than in England? Based on my conversations with CRT, and I would hold my hands to say that I am not the expert here, but based on the conversations with chief executive CRT, I would say probably not, his view when I discussed the matter with him and took counsel from him on this, was that, even with the Ombudsman in England and Wales, what the Ombudsman does is only review what the processes are that they have used and therefore does not really provide what the boaters are seeking to achieve in Scotland. I think that what we would be looking at is an entirely different setup based on the advice that I have been given, but as I say, this is not my air of expertise in terms of the Ombudsman's. We would have to look at what their remits are and how far they could go within that. Ms Topley, your secondment finishes in December, I believe. It appears that the communication between Scottish Canals and the use groups has improved. You are clearly going to leave a legacy of that improved communication. What happens when you are not there? That is clearly something that the boaters have been concerned about. As part of my engagement with Government, we have been looking at ensuring that the replacement of an individual that comes into the post is really clear on what the priorities are. I reiterate my opening statement. The first thing that the Scottish Government asked me to do was to look at the relationships and how they had broken down and how we could look to develop those going forward. That is fundamentally a part of the recruitment process for the new chief executive. Equally, we have a new board in terms of the board, and we are clearly experiencing the benefit of that knowledge coming through as well. Two parts are inherent in the new chief executive recruitment process. Two, the culture, the experience, the way that we have engaged has changed and, as a result of that, that has been embedded as a legacy. We will continue at a senior level with the board and the executive team. I think that there was one last issue that was flagged up, which was about the question of the chair of Scottish Canals. Does that understand that somebody is serving a second, three-year term and has been confirmed as having been awarded a third term, which the petitioner regards as unheard of? I do not know whether that is an issue that might want to come back to us around governance and satisfying the petitioner and others that there is a transparency in it. I am not aware of the current discussions on going between the chair and the Scottish Government, as you can imagine, as a matter for the ministers. I am confident that the ministers would not act out with the normal governance process, so I would have to explore what that consists of. I would be happy to report back to the panel on that. I thank the panel very much for your time today. We are taking slightly longer than we expected, but many of the things that you discover and interest in an area that people have got a lot of focus on and people care about passionately, but we do not really realise and understand it in our workings of it. There are some things that we have asked from you, which I hope you will be able to provide us with further information. Equally, if there are things that we have missed in our consideration, we will be more than happy to hear from you on that as well. We have to think about what we do next. We want to reflect on what we have heard and, perhaps for others, if they want to respond to what has been heard, inform our work. One area that I think that we need to satisfy ourselves on is the question of whether, because the focus is on where you go with complaints around the ombudsman, is it the same as elsewhere in the United Kingdom and, if not, is there something that we could look at there? I think that that has been the focus of petitioning and we shouldn't forget that. I would say that the evidence that we have heard from both sides that there are definitely points to a cultural change and an improvement in the relationship between the parties, but I am still concerned by the fact that there is no recourse and that the relationship is totally reliant on the attitude in culture of Scottish canals on the board. We would always revolve around that, so I think that that is something that we need to consider. The point that Rona Mackay makes is that there is a direct impact on people who are not just using for leisure but who are living on the waterways. I think that that is again something that we want to reflect on. With your agreement, we will reflect on the evidence and will come back to a further session with some conclusions, but there will be an opportunity for people having heard what we have discussed today, if they want to make further comments, that would be very useful. I thank you very much again for your attendance, and I will suspend briefly until our witnesses to leave. If I can call a meeting back to order, I welcome Eileen Smith, MSP, for consideration of this petition. The next petition for consideration today is petition 1463 on effective thyroid and adrenal testing diagnosis and treatment. The petition was lodged in December 2012. It was first considered by the Public Petitions Committee in session 4 with consideration continuing in session 5. The committee published a report in the petition in March last year, and a debate in the petition was held in the chamber in December. At our most recent consideration of the petition in February 2019, the committee discussed the chamber debate, noting that several members had acknowledged the work carried out by the Public Petitions Committee in relation to the issues raised by the petition and suggested that this work could be continued by the Health and Sports Committee. The committee therefore wrote to the Health and Sport Committee to draw its attention to calls made during the debate for a short focus inquiry. The response from the Health and Sport Committee, which is included in our meeting papers, notes that the series of assurances provided by the minister to the chamber during the debate and agreed to write to the Scottish Government seeking an update on progress. A response was received from the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, and was sent on to our committee for information, which is also included in our meetings papers. The minister's letter lists a number of recent developments relevant to thyroid testing and treatment, including the publication of guidance for thyroid testing by the Scottish clinical biochemistry network in March of this year. The minister's engagement with all health boards in Scotland to clarify the Scottish Government position on T3 prescribing, and the minister's commitment to engage directly with people who cannot access the treatment that they should get. We have recently received some additional written submissions that have been provided for us today in hard copy, including a submission from the petitioner. The petitioner expressed their disappointment that the new guidelines, quote, merely parat the same tired old ideas and take no account of the wealth of new evidence. Other written submissions are from people who continued to have a negative experience with regard to T3 prescribing. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Maybe it would be useful if we could ask Elaine Smith to come in at this point. Thank you very much, convener. It has been a long petition, and I do not think that at the moment there has been any real resolution on effective diagnosis and treatment for thyroid sufferers, despite the best efforts of the petitions committee over those years. Those sufferers are mainly women and are disabled under the act, which is something that has come out enough. It is a lifelong and curable development taking chronic condition, and it does come under the disability act. In some ways the situation is worse, because at the start prescribing T3 under the care of an endocrinologist was not a problem, and now it is in cause to the cause, as we know. Llorian Cleaver, who you mentioned in the petitioner on hundreds of other women, are still having to privately buy desiccated thyroid hormone from abroad, and their choice is to pay for their life-saving medicine or to suffer and possibly die. For example, women in poverty do not have that choice to buy from abroad that those women have. If we could just remind ourselves that desiccated thyroid hormone is a medicine that was used here as the standard and, in fact, the only treatment until synthetic theroxine was invented, and then it made a big profit for drug companies, and there are still women around to remember how well they were on DTH prescribed by the NHS and how unwell they have been since they were changed on to synthetic T4. I have spoken to those women. We might also recall that it is officially admitted that 10 per cent of patients on T4 do not do well, but many are unable to convert. In America, it is 15 per cent, and we all think that it is higher than that. However, no one is telling us or the committee what is happening to that 10 per cent. There has been no answer to what is happening to them. For example, NHS Lanarkshire has recently assured MSPs that unlicensed drugs are used frequently, and they are using one just now for eye conditions. They are doing that due to cost effectiveness, and yet DTH is not used because it is unlicensed. There are questions around that. Why not DTH? We have had no real answer to that. I have got several letters. I am sure that the committee has had them all recent. Obviously, there is no time to read them out, but the main thrust of them is about being unable—still unable—to get T3, with NHS Tayside seemingly the worst offender and Grampian a close second. If we look at the minister's letter, it seems to be commending the guidelines that were published in March. However, they are not new. You have got Lorraine Cleaver's comments on them, and you have got Dr Midgeley's response. Two of the references are 20 years old, and they also referenced the archive to 2006 guidelines. We are no further forward with that. Dr Midgeley has questioned Dr Colhun's reasoning on those guidelines, saying that they are basically erroneous, and the statement is provably incorrect. He has sent Dr Colhun two recent papers by eminent thyroid experts. I think that that really needs further consideration. The draft guidelines are also out from NICE, and they have no clinical evidence base in them, so that is causing an issue today as well. At the Scottish Women's Convention health presentation, which I am not sure the committee has ever had any feedback on, it looked at thyroid. The committee had considered that they could do that. Lorraine Cleaver said, and I think that it is fair when discussing this petition and whether or not you might decide to close it, that she said that she had talked about her experience and this process. While we have made progress within these five and a half years, people are still paying for private blood tests, consultations and thyroid medication online. We are basically paying the fortune for what we should be rightly provided on the NHS. It is still a battle. Often it feels when we hold round tables with surgeons and consultants that it is a bunch of professional men telling a bunch of women who are actually living this life that they are wrong, so that the fight still goes on. I really feel that a proper listening exercise by one of our committees is to listen to the voices of the women sufferers that need to be carried out. Their voices need to be heard. When the committee heard directly from mesh survivors, it made a huge difference to their cause for justice. We have not achieved it yet, but it made a huge difference to that cause. I think that women patients' voices need to be put on the record in this Parliament, and it is unfortunate that the health committee seems to be moving back from that. I hope that the Petitions Committee might consider doing around table to hear women's voices, to hear directly from the sufferers. The minister's letter refers to the questionable guidance, but it also says that he is currently working with boards. I think that the committee might need to hear from him to update everybody on how he is working with boards, what they are saying, considering that we know that Tayside and Grampian still aren't supplying T3 to people that need it. He mentions the endocrine interest group, but nobody seems to know who they are and what they do. I don't know if the committee knows who they are and what they do. We don't know if GPs are in the loop. Have they been advised to refer to endocrinologists, the 10 per cent that don't do well? Are they advised that they have to keep prescribing T3, if that's what's deemed necessary? If you look at the Scottish Women's Convention, it's calling for specialist thyroid nurses. We need more women endocrinologists, and we need the same funding and level of concern that diabetes is given. To close on that convener, Llorraine Cleaver also needs to be heard before the petition is closed. I would ask the committee not to let down the sufferers who are hoping for a better outcome to take some evidence to hear their voices before concluding to see whether or not the aims of the petition have actually been achieved. Sadly, at the moment that it really doesn't look like it, there's not a lot of answers, there's a lot of suggestions of what might be by the minister but no actual concrete answers. Thank you for that, Elaine. I'll just open it up to comments from the committee. Brian. I think that Elaine Smith, for the way that she's led, led this very passively, I would say, obviously. Just to assure her that in no way do we underplay the issues that predominantly women, but not just women, are facing, and I have actually spoken to several who have suffered this. I think that the aims of the petition were to make T3 more readily available and as a treatment. I was looking at a quote that the minister said during his debate in his contribution to that, and he said, "...a consistent prescribing policy towards T3 being introduced throughout Scotland and the application of this is part of our commitment towards safe and effective treatment for patients diagnosed with primary hypothyroidism." Reading into that, there's definitely a commitment from the Government and the Government Minister towards T3 being introduced into the NHS. As we know from the number of submissions and from Elaine Smith, there are areas where that is not happening. I wonder whether that should be done through local MSPs and whether the Petitions Committee, much as we've spent a lot of time and effort trying to push the petition forward quite rightly. I wonder whether the effectiveness of what we are trying to do here would be outweith by the effectiveness of local MSPs picking up that baton for one of our better expression and lobbying the minister to say that what he thinks and what he wants to happen actually is not happening. I think that there's something, there's a logjam within the boards because if the boards, if Joe Fitzpatrick, the minister has written to the boards, all boards are applied, all boards are committed to this, however not all boards are actually carrying this out. He has then said that he would work with the relevant boards to better understand their process. How can we, as a committee, benefit within that process if Joe Fitzpatrick is currently trying to work out what that logjam is? I'm so wonderful to hear Elaine Smith's passion and there has been a lot of work. I like your idea about having a round table. I think that that might just go back the way. We know what's out there, we know what the commitment is, but how does Joe Fitzpatrick take that process forward is my question, and can this committee put pressure on him to do that? I'm not sure. I think that we should hear from the minister. I think that there's too many answered questions and I think that there is a logjam, there's a lot of confusion and I think that the best thing would be to hear from him and ask him those questions. I think that if we're going to do something further about this and it seems to me that we spent a lot of time on this, it's important that we have an outcome here that at least partly satisfies the petition. The only thing left to us, quite a fact, in my opinion, would be to speak to the minister. I just wanted to make the point that no one wants to disappoint any petitioner. The petition has been with us since 2012. There is a cost to spending a long time on one petitioner that we are unable to hear other petitions. We will always have to strike that balance and that's what we're wrestling with here. It's not about diminishing the issue, but I think that the core issue that's been identified with huge other issues that people can campaign on through their own MSPs and so on. The one fundamental thing is a guess from members. Joe FitzPatrick said that he's going to sort this. He's got assurance that it's sorted, it isn't sorted. If we made one commitment, that would be the only commitment that would be to bring Joe FitzPatrick before the committee and ask those questions. I think that it would be fair to say that we would not want it to go beyond that because I think that the Public Petitions Committee is not a substitute for the Subject Committees and it's not a substitute for the normal business of campaigning and putting pressure on government via your own local MSP about your individual circumstances. I think that it would be very much in those circumstances that we would I'm not sure if it satisfies anybody for a simply to continue it to no purpose if it's not actually affecting change, but my own sense is that that would be one thing that we could do, but we would be very clear that that's what we were going to do. That's a one session. Elaine? Thanks, convener. Obviously, depending on what Joe FitzPatrick would say, then you would take a few, I would presume. The idea of MSPs writing to him individually, they are doing that. I'm being copied in, but it still doesn't seem to be—and as far as Joe FitzPatrick is concerned, I'm sure that he's very committed to trying to make that happen, but if boards are telling them that all is well, but patients are telling us that MSPs are all is not well, then if it's a log jam, it is, but it also wasn't just about T3—could have put that in the record—when it first started, T3 wasn't a big issue. It was about effective diagnosis and treatment for thyroid conditions. That also included overactive, grave disease, underactive, the whole gamba of thyroid conditions, but it did become an issue of T3, which is why I said at the beginning that T3 looked as if it may be being sorted, and then things got worse during the course of the petition. I appreciate it, but I think that the petitioners are disappointed perhaps that the health committee hasn't taken on board the sort of direction. If you like, I know that you can't make any committee do anything, but the direction from the committee that you would have liked them to maybe do a short inquiry, because the voices of the women—I know that they're out there, you can read—you've got the 50 examples that were given many years ago, but they haven't actually been on the record. They did, they weren't featured in the end and the excellent report that you did, but those voices weren't featured. That's why I think it would have been important for that committee to take it forward, but that's something that obviously I need to take out of here and try to progress. One of the conclusions could simply be that we would be recommending the health and social sports committee take it further, but it isn't possible for a whole-of-government policy to be fed through the Public Petitions Committee, and that to be the means by which any policy has changed. I think that our job is to shine a light on some of those things and inquire, but I am now concerned, and it's not just about this individual petition, but we're ending up in a place where you're in the system, you're in the system and folk are not able to get into the system at all. I think that's something that we have to be alive to as committee members briefly, Brian. Just to align Smith here, when I sat in the health and sport committee as well, and it's not because, the reason we haven't done anything with this particular issue, it's not because we don't want to, it's because, as all committees are absolutely rammed with equally important issues, and it's in the system that we just haven't got to that. I think that, although we're very much alive to the very compelling case that Elaine Smith makes on the broader issues around this, I think that in terms of the focus of the Worker, the Petitions Committee, I think that we're agreeing that we would want to hear from the Minister for Public Health on that gap between what he thinks is happening and what we are being told is in fact happening. That's a broader issue about public policy. How do you actually break into that process where somebody thinks one thing, the lived experience is something entirely different, so we would be agreeing to a session on that. If that's agreed, can we move on? I thank Elaine very much for her attendance. If we can move on now to the next continued petition, which is petition 1545 on residential care provision for the severely learning disabled, lodged by Anne Maxwell on behalf of Muir Maxwell Trust. At our meeting on 10 January 2019, we heard evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport in relation to action called for in the petition. We discussed the publication of the coming home report written by Dr Ann MacDonald, which looked at out-of-area placements and delayed discharge for people with learning disabilities and complex needs. That report made a number of recommendations that the Cabinet Secretary committed to implementing and which the petitioner feels supports the action being sought. At the evidence session, the Cabinet Secretary offered to meet with the petitioner a major commitment to support research that establishes the level of need for those with profound learning difficulties. I wonder if members have comments or suggestions for action. I don't think that we've heard anything back from the Cabinet Secretary on the research that he agreed to do, so it may be that it would be worth asking me that, because it was quite a significant commitment that she cut across the conversation about whether it was necessary or not and said that she felt that that should happen. I think that we would maybe write her to ask how that has to be progressed in order to establish the level of need as it has been identified in the petition. I also wanted to get some clarification around the fact that the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory does not have an existing data set in Scotland that includes a marker, which we did bring up with the Cabinet Secretary. I am unaware of how she is progressing with that. I think that that is the same question as to how she is going to do that and how we are going to identify—you can't see your meeting need if you don't know what the need is. I think that we would be having made that commitment if we go back to and ask when she is going to fulfil that and how she is going to fulfil it, I think, would be useful. I also think that the Cabinet Secretary's commitment to meet with the petitioner would like to see how that is progressing and what feedback you can get from that. Is that agreed? We will write to the Cabinet Secretary to follow up on the commitments that she made at the last session. If we can now move on and for this petition, I welcome Edward Mountain MSP. The next petition is petition 1591, lodged by Katrina MacDonald on behalf of SOS NHS on the major redesign of healthcare services in Skye, Lochalsch and South West Fos. We will consider that petition in June 2018, shortly after Sir Lewis Rich's report from his independent external review had been published. At that time, we agreed to keep the petition open for a minimum of six months until I time for the recommendations in that report to be implemented. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport welcomed the report and stated that she expected the recommendations within it to be delivered in full. To work towards this, the Cabinet Secretary indicated that regular meetings and progress reviews would be carried out. A recent submission from the petitioners is included in our meeting pack. They state that they were concerned that Sir Lewis's six-month review identified concerns that progress and implementing the recommendations of his report was being hindered due to factors including poor communication and slow activity. Encouragingly, however, they indicate that the one-year review, conducted a little over a week ago, was much more positive. They appear to be happy that community representatives have met the UNHS Highland Chief Executive and Interim Chairman and are out of the belief that the priority recommendations will be implemented within the coming weeks. Kate Forbes' MSP is unable to attend today's meeting but has asked that the following statement be read out. I am sorry not to attend the committee on behalf of my constituents as I have been at most of the other committee hearings. This has been an incredibly long saga and the tireless commitment of my constituents should be commended, as well as the support of the petitions committee members who have kept the petition open. That has given my constituents the comfort of scrutiny and accountability. The cross-party work on that, with Edward Mountain MSP and Rhoda Grant MSP, has also proved invaluable. Since the Richard report, which was announced in October 2017, by me and Ian Blackford MP, there has been a thorough review, a series of recommendations and significant progress. Ultimately, last May, it was agreed that Portree hospital should, under no circumstances, be closed. A fortnight ago, Jeane Freeman came to Sky and Calhash to meet campaigners and healthcare professionals and it is safe to say that there is far more hope and confidence. I thank the petitioner's committee on behalf of my constituents. That is from Kate Forbes MSP. I wonder if it would be a worthwhile task. Edward Mountain to make a contribution at this point and then we will discuss what we will do with the petitioner. Thank you very much convener. It has been a great comfort to the people on Sky that the petitioner's commission has been looking at this. The problem has been, as you are aware, is a redesign carried out by NHS Highland without consulting with the people on Sky to any extent. I would agree with what Kate Forbes says that there has been significant improvement. Just to remind the committee that when we started this process and Sir Lewis Ritchie had gone through his recommendations, which had been accepted by the Government, just barely six months ago, there were still five that were classed as red, i.e. active but major concerns. There were eleven that were classed as amber, which was active with some concerns, and there was only one that had managed to be closed. We are now in the situation where there are still two that are red, with major concerns on them, and there are 14 that are amber. There are no green ones, i.e. ones that are on track. There is still a huge way to go in the redesign. I am sure that I do not need to point out to the Petitions Committee that there has been a significant restructuring of the board of NHS Highland, which is still bedding in. We have a new chief executive, a new chairman of the board, and the people of Sky do not feel confident that the new system is working. I want to quote just purely a remark from Lewis Ritchie's latest report, which goes like this. Although good progress has been made, it is important to note that the majority of recommendations are marked as amber and several are still marked as red. There is therefore a clear need for on-going intense focus on pushing forward with the delivery against the objectives in each workstream. We cannot be complacent. I know that the Petitions Committee is always under pressure to look at new petitions, but the point is, as you rightly said, convener, that it is your job of your committee to shine a light, and you have done that on this, but I would ask you to keep the light focused on this problem. Maybe for another six months until we get the next update from Lewis Ritchie to find out whether all his ambitions and the ambitions of the Government have been delivered would be appropriate. Therefore, I would urge that the petition is kept open and reviewed in six months' time when the next report from Lewis Ritchie will be delivered and we can see whether his recommendations have been delivered by the Government and whether the people of Skye can feel confident that they are getting the health service that they demand. Thank you, convener. Notwithstanding Edward Mountain's contribution this morning, I am a weekly subscriber to the West Highland Free Press, and I was extremely heartened—I know that you do not like to use prompts, but I was extremely heartened to see the headline in last week's West Highland Free Press, around-the-clock urgent care to the gym at Portre hospital. The campaigners are certainly welcoming that. Clearly, congratulations have to go to the campaigners for getting it to this stage, also the local MSPs and the health board, but also Sir Lewis Ritchie and the new interim chief executive, who I think brought a wee bit more enlightenment to the views of the health board and the chair of the health board. In many ways, I see this as a good news story, but taking on board the fact that there are still all these amber situations highlighted, there clearly is work to do. Given that there has been a significant rethink up to now, the petition has done its job, and I would be minded to close the petition at this stage. Remind the campaigners that they have an option to come back to this committee should there be continued problems in the future, and they do not see the changes complete that they are seeking. At the moment, I think that the petition has done its job. I do not think that it is possible for this committee to keep an intense focus on specific issues around the area. It is very clear that the local elected representatives continue to do and will intend to do, so that focus would not be there. It would be a question of whether sitting with us is going to enhance that or not. If we were closing it, it would be to write to the Scottish Government and highlight the specific issues around the areas that are red and amber and emphasise that closing it would recognise this was still a concern. We would be saying to petitioners that a new petition around this area is something that could be submitted in a year's time. It feels to me that that would be a more transparent position rather than a simple sitting in the public petition process without doing the job that you are suggesting for us, Brian. I see that petition particularly as a success for the campaigners. As you said, it is our job to shine a light on particular issues and to bring that to the Government and the powers that be. Those petitions get frustrated with lots of them. That is one that we have been very successful in. The campaigners and the local MSPs have been very successful. We have an outcome. It is the end of the decision whether this committee is the right way to hold the feat to the fire. I agree with Angus MacDonald that, perhaps, we have probably taken this as far as we possibly can in this incident. I like the idea of writing to the Government to highlight where there is work still to be done. I also, with the ability to bring the petition back, should it not reach the point where it needs to be. I am, for my mind, in this instance to close the petition. I do not think that we need to snatch the defeat from the jaws of victory. I would say to Mr Mountain that it recognises that there has been a compelling case made. There has been work done. There have been commitments made. The test will be whether those commitments are fed through. I would have thought that it would be a matter of some disappointment if a petition had to come back and that those commitments had not been matched by action in the ground and that people continued to be disappointed. I think that that in itself would perhaps concentrate on some people's minds. I wonder whether we agree that we would close the petition. We recognise the success of the campaigners and their on-going interests. There will be an intense focus. We will write to the Scottish Government and perhaps include, along with a letter, a copy of the official report, because it makes the case and highlights the case of what the areas are that we would want the Scottish Government to continue to respond to the local community about what potentially might be problems in this area. We would agree to close the petition. We remind the petitioners that they can return on the question, but we want to thank the petitioners and their advocates in the Parliament for the work that they have done. If we can move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1658, on compensation for those who suffered a neurological disability following administration of the pluserix vaccine between 1988 and 1992, lodged by Wendy Stephen. Members will recall that we were due to consider this petition at our meeting on 9 May, but due to time constraints agreed to defer that consideration. The petition calls for the Scottish Government to acknowledge and compensate people who suffered permanent neurological disabilities after having been administered with the pluserix MMR vaccine containing your abbey. In its submission of 24 March of this year, the Scottish Government acknowledges that some individuals affected by the vaccine may not meet the threshold for payments under the vaccine damages payment scheme. While it makes clear that it sympathises with those individuals and their families, it notes that the issue of compensation under the scheme is a reserved matter. It adds also that it does not have any plans to offer excrassia payments. The submission from the Department of Health and Social Care explains that the vaccine damages payment scheme provides a one-off tax-free lump sum payment of £120,000. It explains that the scheme was established to provide a measure of financial help in what it refers to as rare circumstances, where it is established that vaccination was the cause of severe disability. It refers to the two legal tests that are required to be passed, one, that the damage was caused by vaccination and two, that the disablement is 60 per cent or more thereby making it severe disablement. That is assessed on the same basis as the industrial injuries disablement benefit scheme, which is a widely accepted test of disability. In its submission of 28 March, the petitioner queries why the Scottish Government has quote, not challenged Westminster's insistence that vaccine damage claims be brought in England and nowhere else. She considers that it is unacceptable for individuals in Scotland who have been affected by the vaccine to be quote, treated differently from other Scottish groups in similar circumstances purely because the defective product was a vaccine. In her most recent submission dated 3 June, the petitioner provides further historical context referring to trials, CMOS circulars, published papers and MMR working group minutes over the period of 1987 to 1989. She considers that there remains a number of unanswered questions relating to the gathering, retention and accessibility of data from that period, which she asked the committee to pursue. I wonder if members have comments or suggestions for action. Angus? I think that, convener, clearly we've got a stalemate between the views of the petitioner and the Scottish Government with regard to the vaccine damage payment scheme. Given that the Scottish Government has no plans to offer excrecia payments, I'm afraid I see no other option to us but to close the petition regrettably. Any other views? I think that that would be my opinion as well. I think that it's been stated quite clearly that we don't have anywhere to go here, so I'm afraid I think that we would have to close. It's one of those petitions where we've come into a dead end where there's no other action that we can take. We have two very strongly stated positions and neither are going to move and to save regrettably. I don't see what the petitioner's committee can afford to do. The petitioner says that the Scottish Government could implement a scheme to address this, but the Scottish Government discrees. As Angus said, we are at stalemate here. I would be interested to know whether individuals who are in this circumstance can apply to the fund that is administered by the UK Government. Perhaps that is why the Scottish Government has responded in that way. We could encourage the petitioner to speak to an MP, because the conversation is reserved and administered by the UK Government is supposed to be administered in England. It is administered by the UK Government and therefore, presumably, covers all victims right across the United Kingdom. That might be something that could be pursued by her elected representative through that process. I share with you that there is no productive further that the committee can do, although the clerks would be happy to direct the petitioner towards the appropriate place in terms of getting the help that she might require and pursuing it further at a UK level. We would agree to close the petition on that basis. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1689 on hepatitis C treatment targets in Scotland. At our last consideration of the petition last year, we wrote to the Scottish Government NHS boards, alcohol and drug partnerships and the Scottish prison service. Responses have been received as well as a written submission from the petitioner. All of that information is contained in our meetings papers pack. In its written submission, the Scottish Government states that it is committed to eliminating hepatitis C as a public health concern and real progress has been made in this area. The submission also states that the targets for initiation and on to hepatitis C treatment are a minimum and the latest figures for 2017-18 show that the treatment target for that year was exceeded. A number of written submissions have been received from health boards in relation to the action called for in the petition. The petitioner's submission states that, while health boards provide sufficient funding to meet minimum targets, it was clear from the responses that exceeding the minimum treatment target is discouraged both through the setting of the HCV budget at the level of the minimum target and through additional measures. Some of the written submissions received from health boards explain that in order to meet and exceed Scottish Government targets, additional investment will be required. In its concluding remarks, the petitioner raises concerns that the Government seems to have abandoned its ambition to be proactive in pursuit of eliminating hepatitis C. The petitioner goes on to suggest that this ambition could be achieved by combining the Scottish health and bloodborne virus strategic funding with treatment budgets and ring fencing both at a health board level to encourage reinvestment of treatment cost savings into additional case finding for hepatitis C. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. That is really interesting. We have debated this in the chamber and the fact that we are talking about a condition or disease that can be eliminated. To me, that is something that we should be not just aspiring to, but driving towards. The cost of treatment for hepatitis C is something in the region of £10,000 a year, but the cost of treatment for the aftermath of hepatitis C, if it is not treated in the first instance, is huge. To me, that is very much what sits within the preventable health agenda, that this is something that we can proactively do in eliminating hepatitis C. I think that the petitioner has a very good case here and I think that I would be really inclined to push the Government on that one, because it is something that we can actually affect on the ground. The study that has been done in Dundee suggests that it could be done in as little as four years. Even in a cost-based analysis, that has to be something that we should really be ambitious towards. I completely agree that the Scottish Government's ambition should be to eliminate hepatitis C. The petitioner makes a very good point about how they could reinvest the savings from the treatment costs and then hurry up the process of eliminating hepatitis C. I agree with the comments from Brian and Rachel. I note in our papers that my own health board NHS 4th valley has raised the issue of additional investment to deal with the issue, and also neighbouring NHS Lothian has called for additional funding. I would certainly be keen to hear from the cabinet secretary whether that will be possible, because it seems that there is an easy fix here that can deal with it within, as you suggested, for four years. If we can get on and do it, let's do it. That is a question about money that has been used to identify hard-to-reach groups. I was struck by the fact that at least some of the health boards have come back and said that yes, there has been a clawback that they have used for other things. The fact that the treatment is now cheaper has not meant that they have treated more people. There is a short termism there, perhaps because of the budget pressures that we understand, but the idea of the potential to eliminate the benefits would come from that. I find that case compelling. It is a question of getting a sense from the cabinet secretary whether that is still their focus or whether they kept the target, because that was a target that was agreed on. We could reach more people with the same money, but why are we not reaching more people? We agreed to write to the cabinet secretary for health and sport and look at the question of the concerns about whether there is this desire to eliminate hepatitis C as quickly as possible and to ask for an update in any plan that the Scottish Government has to develop a strategy for hepatitis C elimination following the work of health protection Scotland. We add them to that, of course, because there are other factors that would have to be considered in things such as needle exchange programmes and so on to make sure that it does not prosper again. It is not just a drug, it is the context. I accept that funding may need to go to find people, overcome stigma and show that people will come and be supported. My feeling is that that drive to elimination is being lost. We are not getting the benefit from the fact that treatment is now cheaper and therefore your ambition could be increased rather than just remaining the same. I think that we are agreed in that regard, and we are right to the cabinet secretary in relation to that. Of course, again, if the petitioners want to respond to what they have heard, they will be able to do so. If we can now move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1707 on public access defibrillators, and can I welcome Stuart Millan MSP for consideration of the petition. Members will recall that the petition was lodged by Kathleen Orr and that we took evidence from Kathleen alongside Stuart Millan MSP at her first consideration of the petition in November 2018. The clerk's note summarises the submissions received subsequent to the initial consideration of the petition. It notes that all the submissions were supportive of the action called for in the petition, but also raised some constructive observations about some aspects of it. For example, the Resuscitation Council UK and the British Heart Foundation suggest that less focus should be on defibrillators being fitted to the exterior of buildings over the size suggesting the petition. It is more about ensuring that they are placed in strategic locations where they are most needed. They note, however, that it can be difficult to establish with a high degree of accuracy where the optimum placement of defibrillators might be. As there is no public access data, mapping the locations of out-of-hours cardiac arrests, the same two organisations also refer to barriers to bystander use of defibrillators. Those are covered in paragraphs 14 to 16 of the clerk's note. Members will note that both organisations are clear in their views that the survival rate from out-of-hours cardiac arrest can be improved if there is an increase in public education, awareness, availability and accessibility of defibrillators. The petition also calls for defibrillators to be officially registered for the Scottish Ambulance Service. That proposal receives strong support from all those who responded, and members will note from the submissions that there is work going forward in this area. The Minister for Public Health, Sport and Well-Being refers to the work to develop a UK-wide defibrillator network. At a local level, the case-ness defibrillator campaign group sets out the work that it has undertaken to increase the registration of defibrillators in that region. I wonder if I may be calling Stuart Millan at this point if he wants to make a comment where we have got through the petition before we decide how we are going to go further. Thank you, convener, and thank you for your welcome earlier. Generally, I found that the replies with other submissions from the other organisations to be very useful and very helpful. You will certainly be aware, as well, convener, that Kathleen Orr has stated in her reply that the idea of a fixed of the 7,500 square metres is not a fixed position, but the one thing that it certainly has managed to do is engender further debate and further discussion and also highlight even more so the importance of defibrillators and access to them, as well as the issue of the training and understanding about how important defibrillators actually are. My final comment is just regarding the submissions that the reply from the minister, Jovus Patrick, where he highlights the issue of the university project that is under way. That is still to conclude, where he states in the reply that the project would be a good opportunity to revisit and consider requirements for pad locations. I think that he is very welcome in the fact that the debate, in my opinion, is not finished and there is still further work to take place in this. I would ask colleagues in the committee to certainly keep the petition open to undertake further activity in due course. Thank you very much for that. Any comments on how we take this forward? I just want to make a comment following what Stuart Scott said about the nature of the petition. Obviously, the committee is fully supportive of it and it has changed in the way that it has evolved from the intention. I think that that is so important, particularly from the feedback from the British Heart Foundation and the work that it has been doing on the project with Edinburgh University in terms of location. We know that the British Heart Foundation is working with Scottish Ambulance Service and Save a Life for Scotland. There are so many people who have invested interest in this. I think that what we have done so far as a committee, even though we are not sticking to the line of the petition's intention, is still there. I think that it is quite exciting how everybody is working together. I really would like to hear more about the Edinburgh project and what Scottish Ambulance Service is doing and other people who are involved in the collaborative process. I think that, first of all, I commend the petitioner for bringing this here and for Stuart McMillan in supporting his constituent. It is a hugely important petition. As Rachael said, it seems to have evolved through discussion with a number of agencies. I think that what is important is that everybody has agreed that we want a positive outcome in this. We want the best outcome in this, and everybody is throwing ideas into the pot here. I think that the way forward for us is probably if we could get all those agencies together in the one place. Actually hammer out what is the very best option going forward to get the best outcome possible. We made some sort of round table evidence session. For me personally, we would be very useful in taking this forward to its very best outcome. Thanks, Camilla. I think that we also need to get to the bottom of why there seems to be some not blanket reluctance but some reluctance to it with regard to the registration of AADs. It would seem to me that everyone would jump at the chance of having a collated list of where they all are, but that is one issue that I am particularly keen to explore if we do have a round table. I agree really with everything that has been said. I think that it is a hugely important petition. I think that we are on the cusp of something really good here. To bring the stakeholders together, it would be a really good idea and we could flesh out things that Angus has raised about the AADs. I would be supportive of having a round table evidence session. I think that we are all alive to the petitioner's views and the very powerful evidence that she gave of her direct experience and we are grateful to Kathleen for that. It feels to me that everybody probably agrees on the theory, but it is what the practical delivery of that would be. What are the blockages? What are the why people hesitant? Perhaps how does it fit into our broader issue of first aid and CPR and all the rest of it, and that idea of being able to cope with a crisis like that away from hospital settings? I think that there is a general agreement that we would have a round table evidence session with stakeholders. Perhaps those who have provided written submissions and suggestions could be part of that. We would need to look to who else we could include in that. We would want to invite the petitioner to feel that she would not want to be part of that, but that would be an option as well. Perhaps looking at the Ambulance Service, Edinburgh University and others who have been engaged in this area. Can we agree that we do want a round table session, but we will be able to delegate to the clerks to look at who would be most usefully brought together for that kind of event? We want it to be manageable, productive and to meet the desires of the petitioners at this area of work that is looked at thoroughly. Is that agreed? In that case, thank you very much and I can thank Stuart McMillan for his attendance. If we can move on to the next petition, which is petition 1712 on soul and conscience letters lodged by Laura Hunter. We will consider this meeting on 6 December 2018 and have since received submissions from the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the British Medical Association Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland. The Scottish Government has provided a clear response that the court regulates its own procedures and it would not be appropriate for Scottish ministers to comment on nor seek to influence the work of the Lord Advocate or members of the judiciary. The BMA's position is that quote is our belief that the use of soul and conscience letters provide a proportionate mechanism whereby doctors can offer important evidence to courts without impacting too significantly on the time needed to care for patients. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service make clear that any matters relating to delays or halting of legal proceedings are a matter for the court, including the ability to request further information. They also provide details of legislation that enables accused persons to appear in court via a video link or for proceedings to take place in the absence of the accused under certain circumstances. On the matter of providing evidence for your video link, the Law Society of Scotland raised a number of concerns about the reliability of its use. Ensuring that the accused is in a secured environment free of influence and made for confidential communication between the accused and the solicitor. With regard to the aim of the petition, the Law Society of Scotland stated that there could be better information made available for the public about the meaning and effect of soul and conscience certificates and the medical profession about what information is required. The written submission goes on to say that the Law Society is unaware of any current abuse of the process and that the courts have always had a discretion to look behind soul and conscience certificates when they are produced. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Number one, it would be quite interesting to hear from the petitioner about the views in relation to what we have received today. That was certainly something that we should be looking at. Obviously, the suggestions made by the Law Society of Scotland will be to ask the views of the British Medical Association to comment on the views of the Law Society, because it talks about the improvements that might be available to give people confidence in the process. We would like to write to the petitioner to seek the views in relation to the written submission that is received today. Is there anything else? No. The Law Society, if we are going to take evidence from them regarding that, will it be able to answer the question as to what would be an alternative? I do not think that it is suggesting that we take evidence from the Law Society. The Law Society of Scotland has suggested some improvements that are in the papers. What we are asking is for other organisations to comment on what they have suggested and the way of strengthening them. They recognise that they are not just about, I am not well and I cannot come to court, but they are potentially delaying proceedings. They need confidence in why the proceedings are being delayed and confidence in that process. A doctor might have to go to court to justify the fact that they have signed his letter. It is a different level than simply signing somebody off as being unwell. I think that we would want to get the BMA Scotland and any other relevant organisations to comment on the improvements that the Law Society of Scotland has suggested, and to get the petitioners' views as well. Is that agreed? In that case, I will end this public session of the committee's work and we will move into a private session.