 A always be meeting them. OK, good morning everyone and welcome to the 10th meeting of the local government communities committee in 2017. Can I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones and as meeting papers are provided in digital format tablets may be used by members during the meeting. That's my normal appeal that if we see our more computers that what we're doing we're looking at committee papers I promise. Apologies have been received from Elaine Smith or Deputy Campbell this morning who can't make it along unfortunately and removed the agenda item 1, Legislative Scrutiny of the Disabled Persons Parking Places, Scotland Act 2009. The committee will take evidence from Morhenbrooks, chief executive officer, Scottish Disability Quality Forum, Linda Bamford, convener and Keith Robertson, member, mobility and access committee for Scotland and vicarats in traffic management and road safety, Aberdeen City King. Thank you everyone this morning for coming along. I think that we believe that the Parliament does not do enough post-legislative scrutiny in legislation that is passed. I shall also indicate that we are joined by Jackie Baillie, MSP, who took forward the piece of legislation that we are doing in the post-legislative scrutiny. Thank you very much for coming along this morning, Jackie. You are welcome. We will move straight to questions, if that is okay with witnesses this morning and Graham Simpson for the first question. Thanks, convener. Just a general question for all of you. How do you think the act has worked? Do you think that it has helped to reduce the misuse of disabled persons parking spaces? I can go first, if you want. My name is Morhenbrooks and I am from the Scottish Disability Quality Forum. We are a member-led organisation. We are a national organisation. We also support 40 access panels across Scotland who are groups of disabled people and volunteers. Our members genuinely believe that, no, the act has not been successful. Still, it is not successful in its implementation, especially with monitoring enforcement. We have many anecdotals that you will see in the written evidence that we submitted. The anecdotal evidence is really outlining the fact that our members are not seeing the evidence of the act being monitored fully, and enforcement by local authorities and Police Scotland. Many of our members are saying that there needs to be more campaigning on the act to raise awareness to the general public around the misuse of disabled parking spaces. We feel that there has been a partial effect on the act. We took a straw poll just by phone in half a dozen councils up when we received the call for evidence. All of them said that they had put an afternoon traffic order on most of their bees and those who were still advisory were in the process, which is fine in its own. Under the TSGFD, the Transport Science General was directing legislation that was just being rewritten in September and October last year, so it now complies with that. However, where it does fail is in enforcement. There seems to be a difference between what local authorities feel, how effective it has been and what we experience. Although the possibility of enforcement is now there, the physical enforcement for on-street parking is talking only about off-street parking later, I appreciate it, convener, but there is a feeling on on-street parking that it has partially been effective. Linda Bamford, convener of the mobility and access committee for Scotland. Just to add to both what Morrin Ann Keith had said, the feeling is that the act in itself in the main is fine, but it is the enforcement issues that is creating some of the problems. Also, there is a big strand of education around why the disabled parking places should not be abused. I am aware that there was some campaign run before about mental health and awareness of mental health, the Knessy Me campaigns. There is a thought from a lot of people that this might assist, as well as the enforcement, which is key to protecting the disabled base for those who need it. I think that there needs to be, and certainly people are saying that there should be an awareness campaign just to highlight the issues of the need to keep the disabled base free for disabled people. Thank you very much, Linda Bamford. I know that you do not speak in half of all local authorities, but you can give a snapshot of the Aberdeen experience. What is your feeling? I would say that, in Aberdeen, we feel that the city centre locations and the busy locations can be enforced more vigorously than the wider area. We have a decrimson system, so we have our own city wardens and we can deploy them as we see fit. We have also, in the last couple of years, taken on a blue badge enforcement officer. We have noticed, within that time, an improvement in the use of bays and those using them. He has been very effective at taking blue badges off of people who should not be using them and are taking up those bays unnecessarily. Our warden service will take it to anybody without a visible blue badge when they are using those spaces. One of the issues that we might have is where somebody has requested a blue badge bay or disabled parking bay, and it is that space in time where the bay is not enforceable while we are progressing the TRO. Those bays can fall into dispute, and that is probably where the majority of the dispute comes in. I know that Members wish to pursue some of that. I was reading through some of the evidence for this morning's committee and I saw evidence that alluded to the fact that there is no longer requirement for signage beside each individual bay. I was just checking that as the factual situation just now. The latest TSRGD has taken that point. I know that that is clearly cost-saving to local authorities, but I helped scrutinise the original bill going through Parliament. I wanted discussions at the time, of course, because it is a cultural change, because you do not ever want to have to enforce it, because that means that there is an abuse of the system in the first place. I know that that is a cost-saving to local authorities, but do we lose something in terms of promoting a culture of responsible parking usage with no longer having the signs? I am just wondering in relation to that. I will bring you back in, Vicki Richardson, in relation to Keith Robertson. Thank you, convener. When we looked at the TSRGD, it was felt that the poles with the signs on were not required that there was sufficient demarcation in signage on the roads and the actions and such like that. From a user's point of view, the amount of times you would park your car and go and try to open your door and either smack your door off the pole, or try to get your wheelchairs from them on is in the passenger seat, so it comes up in front of me. It does get in front of me. I cannot get your wheelchair out because the pole is in the way, even though you might not know it, so you have to move your car so that you have half foot of the bay or half in it so that you can get a ticket for it. To be honest, there may be a trouble north. That is very helpful. Vicki Richardson, do you want to add? I will take you in first, then, my apologies. I will take you back in relation to the benefits of that, because there is a feeling that maybe the legislation is starting to evolve to make it more workable and more practical. If somebody takes you back in in that in a second, but Linda Bamford, do you want to add something? It was really just to add to Keith's point that with the poles, I know a lot of local authorities are also looking at the streetscapes in Streep Clutter and the poles being there are also a barrier for people with visual impairments and also for people that are going by on wheelchairs or indeed people with buggies and things like that, so it is beneficial for the movement of people on the floor of people if the poles aren't there. A lot of clarity relates to Vicki. Do you want to add anything in terms of the positive nature of that particular change? I would add the same, that it is reducing Streep Clutter and a lot of our streets are quite narrow as well, so the removal of that sign is going to allow more space for wheelchairs and the like. One little difficulty, although it is possibly not a difficulty, as you say, it is a cultural thing, is when our advisory spaces go in ahead of promoting a TRO behind it, we just put in the road markings. So now there is no distinction between what is an enforceable bay and what is just an advisory bay in the interim, so we were seeking guidance from that earlier. That's it. Graham Simpson, do you want to come back in on that further? Yes, so just on the TROs, perhaps you could explain to people what that process is and how long it takes and why you think that we shouldn't have to go through it. Okay, if we proposed putting a disabled bay, we take that proposal to committee. We'll also put an instruction out for an advisory bay to be marked on straight. The committee will decide if that proposal can then go forward through the consultation process and we will then take that through statutory consultation and public consultation. If we receive any objections to it during that time, we'll have to take it back to committee again to get a decision made on that objection and then we can implement. Now we have about five committee cycles a year and we will take disabled bays to each of those committees, but the time involved with taking them to those committees and then promoting them and advertising them on straight is quite resource intensive for our team. So how long could it take to be up to a year or something like that? Yeah, I would say six to nine months. And there's a cost involved, of course. Yeah, it's office time preparing those reports, going through the consultation process, reviewing all the feedback or any feedback that there is, but it's also the delay to the customer. I mean somebody in the interim could be using that space who doesn't have a blue badge and there's nothing we can do to enforce that. Do you think that perhaps a simplification of the act would help so that you didn't have to promote a TRO to make it legally enforceable? Yes. Thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. In STF written evidence, you highlighted concerns about local authority progress in converting advisory bays to enforceable. I'd just like to hear a little bit more about that if you're satisfied that they've taken sufficient action on that front and also do local authorities have processes in place? We heard a little about it there to ensure that all new bays created are enforceable and that redundant bays are removed. Difficult to answer is because there's no consistency across Scotland and across all the local authorities. Obviously Aberdeen Council are obviously making steps, they've got the processes in place, they're taking action where necessary, but you have a number of local authorities out there who are not complying with the act as well. Because we're a national organisation, we are hearing the voices of disabled people across Scotland as a whole. So when we are hearing information that, yes, they're not being enforced in certain local authorities, it does raise a red flag, of course, for yourselves, but it's difficult to obviously, what we are trying to say as a national organisation, there needs to be consistency in how the act is enforced and how blue badge holders are convicted, I suppose, in a sense, going forward or how they are treated, to how that communication is taken forward and how that makes sense. I hope that's answered that. If it's okay to add, then you don't mind just picking up what Morrin was saying of the 32 local authorities. Currently, six of them are in the process of applying for decriminalised parking enforcement and nine haven't applied and have no intentions of applying in the near future. So that brings us to just under 50 per cent of the local authorities in Scotland that don't currently have decriminalised parking enforcement powers. Henry, I just want to add to that. Keith Robertson. There seems to be more enthusiasm for wanting a better word for authorities that have decriminalised parking to put road traffic orders on the bees and change for advisory. Ones that haven't decriminalised, as Linda was saying, just now 18.75 per cent of the councils are in the process of applying for decriminalisation. 28.13 per cent of councils have no intention from what it can make out of decriminalising. Therefore, the only way for roughly 47 per cent of the local authorities in Scotland to enforce their parking base is through Police Scotland, and we respect Police Scotland. I think that the resources, the competing resources that they have, enforcing parking would be pretty low down on our list. It's simply not their job, and traffic warrants are done away with. Something has to be done to get local authorities, to Greek and Welsh parking, because they work without that. There is no enforcement at all, and if there's no enforcement, there's no drive to put road traffic orders on advisory base. So it's a bit of a cliché postcode lottery, really. Thanks for those answers. The enforceable residential base can be used by any blue badge holder. Is there a need for residential bays to be allocated to a specific blue badge holder? For example, is there a need for people who have trouble getting parked in their space that's near their house because it can be used by anybody? I think that it's a tricky one. I spoke to a couple of my local council colleagues, and some of the applications for disabled parking bays outside residential properties are either withdrawn or not taken forward once they explain to them that it's not just for their sole use. I think that it's in the fear that if that bay is marked as a disabled parking bay and there's other neighbours roundabout, or if it's a busier residential area, then they may not get the use of the parking bay at all, which is outside of their house, so that actually works as a barrier to the individual applying. I'll take more from Brooks, and then Keith Robertson. I'm really just to support what Linda was saying. Again, we've heard from a number of members who have obviously been through the situation where they've applied for the bay themselves, but they've been used by others. Obviously, they've either been misused by others who are non-blue badge holders, but they've also been used by blue badge holders as well. It does seem to be a huge barrier for disabled people who are going through that process of applying for a space in the residential area and unable to use it for themselves. Whether that road is a trunk road that is looked after by Transport Scotland or whether it's a local authority road, it's still a public highway, and there is no mechanism to enforce a blue badge for a particular person. I actually think that, even if there was, it would put so many complications into the system. There are many problems of people passing away. They die, the councils haven't told that that's happened, so the bay sits for God knows how long before it's removed or taken away. If there was enforcement for individuals, which I really couldn't say it would be so complicated, I couldn't really say it was working, to be honest. It would be so complex. Before I bring Ruth back in, I just want to add anything to that. I have content for now, thank you. Okay, a couple of bits for supplementaries in relation to this one. Just to be clear, because we weren't to go through this in a structured fashion, it's about the Balfour advisory and enforceable bays, and in a residential setting as well, I'll take Alexander Stewart and Jackie Baillian as well. We've talked about some councils that are not going to move on this at all. You've indicated that a number of them are not prepared to do that. Are we also finding that in some city centre areas, where that is the case, that disabled bays are being removed by the council? Because I've seen that, or I've read of that, and I've had constituents contact me on that specific issue, where people are not enforcing to try and get out of that situation, and they're removing the bays. Have you had any information with reference to that? No, I haven't. In fact, I've heard the opposite. I've heard that there's been increased disabled parking bays available across all local authorities. That's one thing our members are saying, and it's just how it's being enforced. That's the issue. To rate what Marvin just said, what we find, and I travel over Scotland, whether it be Edinburgh, Perth or Aberdeen Inverness, we tend to find that there's actually more bays. They're taking more cognisance of the percentage of population that have problems with mobility, and we've seen an increase in them, not the other way. If somebody has a space taken away from them for a very good reason, it could be a technical reason, a reason for their physical use of it. They could be pretty aggrieved at that. I would suggest that it's being fed through, but in general, I would say that local authorities are right across the border and increasing their bays. I agree with Marvin that he said that. I feel as if I need to be a witness rather than a questioner. I start by thanking the witnesses, because many of them helped to shape the bill way back in 2009. I feel the need to start off with what the bill is not. The bill is not about the misuse of blue badges. That came in separate legislation later. Equally, the bill is not about designating bays for particular people, because that's separate legislation that deals with that. If I can maybe put this as a question to Vicky and get a conversation going, the context is local authorities rightly said that traffic regulation orders are far too difficult and long a process, so we'll just create advisory bays. What we had in Scotland was a situation where there were more advisory bays than there were enforceable bays before the legislation came in. Is that a correct understanding of the problem? That's my understanding. That's helpful. What the act then went on to do is not touch traffic regulation orders, because traffic regulation orders are contained within the Road Traffic Act, which is reserved, which I found surprising at the time. I couldn't change traffic regulation orders. What the bill did was require people in the first 12 months, local authorities, to take all these advisory bays, remove the ones that were no longer used, consult people, and then make them all enforceable with one TRO. Is that the process that Aberdeen went through? Yes, we did. I couldn't say that it happened in the first year, but we have gone through it and we have audited our spaces. We continue to do that, but it's generally on advisement from the public and through reviewing the blue badges as and when people move house or notify us that they've moved house or they've passed away. Okay, so in Awana, there was an instant difference made to the number of bays that became enforceable. That would be fair. Okay. Can I ask you now, because I'm assuming you're a road specialist in a way that I'm not. My understanding is that Road Traffic Act has changed again in relation to bus clearways and that there's no requirement now for a traffic regulation order. Now that wasn't the case in 2009. It is the case now. Is that a route that local authorities would prefer to use in terms of designating future disabled parking places or is there a balance to be struck between a TRO which notifies neighbours and other interested parties and just giving the local authority the right to do it themselves? We did a quick scout round the team before I came over and apparently we've had one valid objection to a disabled bay for the installation of all the disabled bays we've had in Aberdeen. So I feel that the TRO process is not providing much feedback during that consultation process and therefore if we could just go straight to instigation there'd still be a feedback system for the members of the public because they can come back and tell us that it doesn't suit for whatever reason and we'll still monitor the situation but yeah we don't feel that the consultation process is actually providing much valid feedback. Okay so what I'm hearing and this is my final point convener in this section what I'm hearing is there is a way of making it even easier to designate disabled parking places but what I'm hearing from the rest of the panel is actually the key issue thereafter is enforcement so there's not problem per se with the legislation or the process it's a problem then with implementation and enforcement and I wonder whether I could open that out to the rest of the panel for comment. If I could start off and that one certainly the information that we've been getting back from our members and those we've consulted is that the act is fine albeit there's acknowledgement to the local authorities that it may be a bit onerous but the act in itself is fine but it's the enforcement that needs to be more robust. If the parliament was going to remove the need for a road traffic order under the TSGRD which has just it's just become devolved to parliament I believe the only concerning disabled people would have would be would you still have the same enforceability as a road traffic order would have and that would be crucial to persuade disabled people that it would still have that enforceability is crucial because while the legislation in the main has done what it's meant to do for on-street parking and I do stress very strongly on-street parking you know off-street parking is a totally different kettle of fish and if it's not enforced then one quickly gets around you know the communities and everybody enough dog parks in it and there's none more frustrating than driving 30 or 40 miles to go to shopping centre can't get parked and have to drive home again because you can't get your wheelchair out. More from Brooke Shass. Just really to sum up what both Lindsay and Keith have said enforcement is the main ask here from especially our organisation and our members accessible parking itself isn't it, can't speak, is an essential part of independent living for a disabled person and it's following up what Keith is saying there you're driving X amount of hours to get somewhere unable to park it adds stress to that person's life affects their health and wellbeing at the end of the day as well. Thank you can we rewind slightly I want to come back and explore enforcement a little bit more we've rewind slightly and Vicky Richardson was was talking about the potential desirability to have not require only RTO and that that would be speedier it would be more affordable it would be a lot of a much more smoother system you mentioned Vicky that there was only one occasion where there was a valid objection received I'm just wondering if you can tell what a valid objection would look like because I'm not I'm not clear because I would have thought the disabled baby would be based on need and reason abilities I'm just wondering what that valid objection would look like to be honest I don't know exactly what that one was but it would be if the location of the bay were inappropriate so it may have been an officer error that resulted in the location being chosen being inappropriate for whatever reason okay and before I come back on to look at enforcement again I'm just wondering just thinking about not town and city centres and village main streets that I'm thinking about and in the communities if you like in the suburbs and in the housing schemes where disabled bays appear is there any balance given to the percentage of parking space designated to disabled bays because there's some streets where there's a lot of poor souls out there who have got significant mobility issues with blue badges about the balance between enforceable disabled bays and if you like just general parking spaces on on our road is there any consideration given to that? We do have situations where that has occurred and we've got mixed residential areas and we do try to balance the needs of all the residents it's not always easy and residents are not always happy with that mix because the disabled bays take up so much more of the available parking space if there are a significant number of them but we will generally audit the whole area and obviously those without mobility issues can park that bit further away and walk if there's available parking in the area. That's helpful because I apologize Vicky please continue. Let's just say we don't have a formula it's on a location by location basis. We might want to tease out in the future because if there's no consultations and objections processes with RTOs it might be worth teasing out in the future about what that balance might look like because if we make this work there could be quite rightly lots more disabled bays if we get the enforcement right a process around that it might be important to just get what the criteria is for for balance as well but I just wanted to explore some of that but Vicky you also mentioned that Aberdeen taking the step of appointing an enforcement officer now I wonder if you could just say a little bit more about how that works that would be quite helpful. Well the enforcement of the the bays themselves are carried out by the city wardens but we do have an additional officer who's a blue badge enforcement officer so he will be looking into areas where people are part with blue badges but their blue badges are out of date or copied or being used inappropriately so he's just trying to ensure that those using the blue badge spaces are the appropriate people. Is there a process if someone not someone inappropriately using a blue badge, if someone without a blue badge parked in an enforceable bay and one of Aberdeen's wardens identifies that or the enforcement officer identifies that what's the process that happens at that stage? They'll be issued with a penalty charge notice. How much is that? It's £60 but it's reduced to £30 if it's paid within a short period. Okay I'm just wondering about obviously there's financial implications for local authorities but naming individual local authorities if you speak to constituency sometimes like local authorities not Aberdeen are quite good at chasing a fine system to maximise income and this might actually be some of my constituents might not like it but this certainly appears as if it could be an opportunity in relation to that. Anyone get any comments in relation to how enforcement doesn't necessarily have to be a costly basis but could be in everyone's interest? How do we improve enforcement I suppose is the question I'm asking? I think one of our members suggested an enforcement hotline number again that could reduce cost with staffing resources in that sense. You've got one main hotline number that you can obviously report to if someone's parked in a non-blue blood shoulder's parked in a designated parking disabled bay. Cost wise it is difficult but I personally feel and probably our members probably feel as well that obviously a penalty is the way to go but whether that obviously does make a difference to people's attitudes at the end of the day that's causing the issue. People are not understanding and appreciating the needs of a disabled parking space and that education needs to be increased as well as obviously enforcing a penalty to ensure that they understand that there is a penalty to parking in these spaces. Yeah, it's certainly my experience there's nothing like a fine or points on your licence to focus the mind for awareness raising in relation to breaching a parking offence so we've got the balance right in relation to what the consequences are in terms of fines or whatever in terms of enforcement. Keith Robertson? No, Corbyn. I don't believe we do. I believe if people were actually fining them more they're less likely to do it again, basically. I do think that local authorities, while they may not be able to reach a financial level, if you want, that the service isn't actually paying for itself through fines. I think that for the future there's a possibility of that, especially if they go down the roads to maybe using collaboration the same as we're starting to do in the roads maintenance where authorities are getting together to look at enforcement instead of this piecemeal we've got where every local authority's got a different scheme, a different method of enforcing or enforcement, sorry. I don't know why, because it's rather a new concept, that there's not more collaboration between local authorities to join up and say, right, let's look at enforcing or parking together and running one scheme between three or four or more local authorities. It makes sense to do that. When I parked out in the front today, I don't have any app on my phone for Edinburgh parking, but I got a message on my phone that said, Edinburgh's city parking, please show that you're authorized to park in the disabled bay you're in, and I thought, because I was on the phone one day to see which it was, or I wouldn't have seen it, it didn't make a noise, which was a pity, but that came up on my phone, I thought, that's smart, that really is a smart ticket and it is best, don't even have an app, and yet it came up on my phone to say remember when we put your blue badge on your basically on your windscreen, I thought that was very good. Yeah, so I mean I'm taking the point that you're absolutely making about more clever use of technology, better working between local authorities, but even within a local authority would you've got, you know, dog wardens, litter, graffiti park, and there's a whole range of things local authority staff are seeking to deal with infringence and enforcement on. Before we move on to the next line of questioning, just any other suggestions in terms of enforcement that you might want to put on the public record, then we'll move on to our next line in questioning, more from Brooks. A member led organisation, I mentioned earlier, we also work with 40 access panels across Scotland, we support them, we don't govern them, but we support them, but we've been working for a number of years to try and get the access panels to become statutory consultee status, so they are fully recognised within the local authorities to be consulted with basically. Currently many of the access panels have got good relationships with the planning departments, i.e. looking at accessibility of general accessibility in communities, but this would be a good area to get access panels involved. These are groups of volunteers with various disabilities, their lived experience would be vital to provide that consultation, support, knowledge, evidence to local authorities to help to progress issues like that. It would also be very good for public support, because rather than just the council looking for other gimmick to get money from, if that access panel is actually suggesting some of those enforcement strategies, you get more consensus in relation to it. Before we move on to anyone else, I want to suggest Linda Bamford. It was just to come in on the back of that, just to say that with enforcement people may not be aware of the consequences if they don't have a disability of using a disabled place, but they are knowingly using it, because you can't miss them with the signage that's there, so they are knowingly using it, but maybe just not aware of the consequences, and hence it takes me back to the education and awareness campaign on around the use of disabled spaces. I think that the other thing is to tie that into the fact that meeting it becomes more morally and socially unacceptable to do so. Andy Wightman, thank you for coming this morning. I just want to talk about the private car parks or off-street parking that Keith mentioned. By help of a committee, perhaps, if you just outlined the situation that existed before the act came into force and what the act was attempting to do in relation to off-street parking. Before that came into force, off-street parking, private parking bays, was a mix of how they were signed out, how they were drawn on the tarmac or the surface. There was no signs up saying they'd get enforcement, there was any enforcement, there was no enforcement and actually there still isn't. There still is no enforcement. You may see a sign in the supermarket saying you'll get £100 if you say that. I've never ever seen an enforcement officer in a private car park ever and I've been a wheelchair nearly 40 years. I think that these signs are put up, I may be wrong, but I think that these signs are put up as a tick box exercise. There is no consistency in private car parks. When I phoned some of the local authorities to get a sort of store bowl, I asked them why they thought just anecdotally that was the case and between them they gave two main reasons. One was that private car park owners, whether that be supermarkets or actual car parks, didn't want to spend money on putting proper markings in place and secondly they didn't want to find the majority of their customers. I've had personal experience of that where a supermarket went in and said, out of X amount of beads you've got, nearly half of them had no blue badges, could do something about it and they said no. I said, why? They said, because we look after customers, they said, I'm a customer. I said, yeah, but you're the minority. That's not unusual, that is not unusual. Saturday I went in the usual supermarkets car park, there were 14 bays, six had no blue badges on them and the people that were coming out were not disabled or had a mobility problem of any kind. It's not in force, it's a huge problem and unless, I honestly believe, unless legislation is put in place it's not going to happen. The legislation, just to be clear, provides that local authorities should enter into negotiations around making them enforceable. Some of the evidence that we've got from Edinburgh City Council, for example, suggests that they sent 19,000 letters to non-domestic rate properties, 5,300 responses and only 32 indicates a desire for enforcement. What is the kind of scale of transfer from, or what's the kind of scale of places that are being, that private operators are agreeing to, to have enforceable across Scotland? Take you back in this, I'm wondering, because others might have a view in relation to private spaces and how the use or abuse of the enforcement or lack of it, they are not a promise that I will take you back in. Keith Robertson, do you want to add more from Brooks? I don't have any figures around the scale of what the issue is, but the majority of our members are telling us that the biggest problem that they have with disabled parking is within private off-street parking, especially in supermarkets and health centres, in particular, is a huge issue. There's no enforcement there. Of course, it's what we're hearing as well as an organisation. We go out and deliver information advice to employers quite widely. We're going to go down the training direction soon, and this is what I'm coming to. Employers feel uncomfortable challenging it with disabled people or non-disabled people in the terms of they don't want to lose people's business quite rightly what Keith said, but there is an issue there that what needs to be tackled is education and awareness and disability equality and awareness. There are organisations like ourselves that can tackle that, but there is a wider campaign required across Scotland, across accessibility in general, but homing in particular issues with accessible parking, for example, to accessible housing. There is a wide cultural attitude change need to happen, but the biggest issue that our members are saying is that when it comes to private parking, they know that it's not enforceable. You and I, who are not disabled, we know it's not enforceable, so of course people abuse it. Linda Bamford. I was just picking up again on one of the issues that were raised about the local authorities engaging with people providing private off-street parking. I know that almost 20,000 letters is a lot to put out just to get about 30 returns, but of interest from what I've seen when I looked at that, there wasn't one follow-up to the returns. In my mind, if the letters had been with the right intent, then the follow-up would action and the hope that changing the system in some of the 32 off-street private car parks may have had others to follow. In my mind, not following it up, show the letters maybe to be a tick box exercise. Picking up on Morrin's point about health centres, there seems to be a really big issue in health centres for disabled parking, and there's hidden costs to that as well. I spoke to a few people about that, and some of them hadn't attended the GP appointment because they couldn't get part and had to go away again, so the hidden costs are to the health service with the misused GP appointments. Thank you. Fick Eritzen, can I just maybe bring you in at this point? I'm just wondering. Again, poor Aberdeen. Thank you for giving us, and thank you for coming along, but is taking Aberdeen show a little bit today in relation to local authorities? Would Aberdeen City Council enter into discussions with large supermarket chains that I've got car parks there? Here's just one to pluck from thin air. If a private supermarket said, we'll give you a few thousand pounds a year, could you just add this to your public space for enforcement? It would help fund your enforcement officers and wardens, and they could forget about that conflict between whether it's their customers or not, because they could just blame it on the council if they wanted. Is there not a much more sensible way of doing this? Certainly when the changes were made, we did approach all the private car parks and again didn't get a high response or any response, and certainly no processes were taken forward from that. We do engage with upcoming developments, so projects that are new where changes are being made and try to get them to take on these as well, but again, there's not much take up on that. If they were to come to us, that would be great. If they were to offer money to assist with the enforcement costs, that would be thoroughly acceptable. I don't think stepping out of line by saying that. We may have to compel them, of course, Mr Nixon, but this place does make noise, so that's just our thought. Andy, am I going to follow up on something? That's interesting. The off-street parking is a catch-all. It's everything that's not in a public highway, so it includes things like health centres. It does concern me that public facilities paid for by the public purse, particularly things like health centres and hospitals, that we've got a particular problem. It also strikes me that it's a bit bizarre that we have to go down the route of making these parking bays enforceable under traffic regulations further to be a guarantee that people with disabilities can get access to a place to park their vehicle. Is my surprise shared by yourselves? I mean, it's one thing to have expectations of what a law firm might do with its car park that's available to customers or a small furniture retailer or something, but for health centres it seems a bit bizarre. I was waiting to Keith to put up his hand there because I said I would let him back in earlier and I didn't, so my apologies. We'll take Keith Robertson and then Linda Bamford. The last question first. There was a specifically out lay down within the traffic side of the general road direction legislation of how a disabled be should be laid out. That's there for a reason. You go into private bays, some of them are wide enough, some of them have no hatchings at the side, some of them have no hatchings at the back, which for real, relaxes vehicles is essential, some of them aren't long enough. It's just a mishmash, so they have to have a particular layout and that layout is then enforceable. Without having that particular layout, it's not going to work unless you start to have mobility bays and disabled bays and I'm bringing my smash, which I would suggest happens. A disabled be should be a disabled be, following on to what Linda was saying. I think local authorities out there have tried and have tried their best with private car park owners to get them to enforce their car parks through local authority, but all they need to say is not, not interested. That's it, gone. If the figure isn't zero, I would suggest, anecdotally, it's very, very close to zero. Even if there was a decent update, half the local authorities in Scotland couldn't enforce it because they've not decriminalised the parking, so only a touch of 50 per cent could have enforced the enemy. So unless every local authority decriminalised the parking, it's a waste of time for those that haven't. There has to be a consistency here, as well as an education programme. I think Keith picked up in most of my points, but just for clarity, some of the NHS buildings, some of the larger hospitals, do have private operators that enforce parking, but this is parking overall as well as the disabled base, but in the main most health centres don't have enforceable parking and therefore they are more liable to abuse of the disabled spaces. Can I just check what other witnesses want to add to that before you come back in, Andy? I agree with Linda. So, in Edinburgh's case, as an example, they say that of these 32 businesses, they were advised that they were responsible for meeting the standards that Mr Robertson outlined before a TRO can be progressed, and since 2009, not one traffic regulation order has been progressed, et cetera. That may not be typical of the whole of Scotland, but it would be fair to say that 2009 act has made very little difference to the provision of disabled parking and off-street parking. Do you want to add to that? Just what I've said before, the majority of our members don't agree that it hasn't been successful. I know a couple of supplementaries in off-street parking, Graham Simpson followed by Jackie Baillie. Just to be absolutely clear in my head on off-street parking, let's take a multi-story car park owned by a private operator. They may have half a dozen disabled bays marked out. Is there anything legally that they can do if they chose to enforce those bays without involving a council? Linda Barford, you'd like not to be sure incidentally? No, I was just going to add that to my knowledge, places that do have private enforcement companies will fine, but they'll fine for parking and out with the time within your ticket or parking in a disabled bay without a blue badge, so there'll be fines or penalty charged notices across the board where they do have a private enforcement provider with a service level agreement with them for that purpose, but in other places that have private off-street parking that don't have an agreement with a private company for their enforcement, then no, they're not enforced at all. Of course, the private company doesn't make it enforce, but they just need to get a private company to pursue the person, so I'm just wondering around if people are not sure that that's fine just around enforcement, Keith Robertson. I think there's something that we mustn't get mixed up with here. A private car parking company doesn't recognise a blue badge, so you don't get free parking. It's the same expense as anybody else, and given only 42% of disabled people in Scotland, actually in employment, most can't afford a park in these very expensive car parks, so while they may be laid out properly, the cost, I mean they can't park there, we mustn't get that mixed up with the supermarket car parks, health centre car parks, who would recognise the blue badge and there would not be a charge at all, but they don't enforce it. There's a difference between the two. The private car park and the company, they're enforcing it, proving something, because if you don't bear it, you can't get out of the barrier. They'll not let you out, so there's a difference there. That's a really interesting distinction, because the situation I described, of course, in most cases, you'd have to go through a barrier, get a ticket and then pay to get out. I used to use a multi-storey car park in Glasgow, I won't name the company, it was a major parking company. The disabled bays were routinely ignored by able-bodied people and nobody ever got ticketed. It just struck me as a ridiculous situation, but you've described it perfectly. Do you think that's something that we should tackle? Keith Robertson nodded in his head the difficult bits, how we tackle it, of course. Jackie Baill is really keen to get it. I suspect to ask a question, but also perhaps suggest I can, just for the record, Jackie, at some point we will have you there as a witness as well. Absolutely, that would be great. Perhaps with the permission of Graham Simpson, she will have to be able to ask a question. What do you think? I think that it will be appropriate. It's amazing how much you remember from back in 2009, our principal problem, I think. Maybe I'll try and pose this as a conversation with Vicky if she doesn't mind. At the point that the legislation came in, was it not the case that we couldn't legislate in respect of private car parks and off-street parking, particularly if it was owned by a business? I'd have to be honest and say that I'm not entirely sure. I would suspect that, yes, that is the case. That was indeed the case, which is why the legislation is framed in the way it is. It did, if my memory is correct, a number of things. Firstly, it asked local authorities to identify all the off-street car parking and private car parks at the date of the act. Then, where it was council owned or managed, the council was to promote a tiaro to make them enforceable. And the third bit, which is where we couldn't really legislate, was to get local authorities to encourage private sector companies to do the right thing. Would that be a fair interpretation? Yes. Okay, that's great. That was helpful to Dillian. That may be called leading the witness, of course. That's very helpful to me. I'm asking very closed questions in order to facilitate everybody's understanding. The intention of the Bill was, in relation to private car parks, but only where the public had access. Those car parks, office buildings, et cetera, were covered by the Disability Discrimination Act. I would turn to Morvan as well for confirmation that that's a correct understanding too. Excellent. That's good. Okay, to the meat of this, you're absolutely right. This was the weakness, if you like, because all we could do was encourage. But I would ask for your view, because my recollection at the time was there were some supermarkets falling over each other to compete for that customer base, so we're putting in disabled car parking. We're getting private companies to enforce it. I typically remember Asda, who, to this day, still do in my local area the enforcement activity, and then they take the money that they generate and put it into grant-making activities and do so in a great blaze of publicity. They surveyed their customers, and the interesting thing about them, because it's all about the business case, they understood that it wasn't just disabled people that thought it was a good idea. The entirety of their customer base, by a huge percentage, thought that this was a great idea. Is that the kind of thing that you think can be encouraged in the future? Certainly, the bill did some of that, but it's how we encourage more of it, and that's less about legislation and more about understanding their customers. I think that was kind of a question. I could kind of confirm, I have a large supermarket in my constituency that does the same thing. We're very keen to get me to go on and get my picture taken beside what they do. That may or may not have been asked, of course, Ms Bailey, but that was kind of a question that more than Brooks is going to answer. Again, it's coming down to consistency across Scotland, isn't it? You've got really good supermarkets operating in that manner, bigger supermarkets in bigger cities doing the right thing and correctly, but then I live in Alloa, and I've never witnessed our local supermarkets ever enforcing any parking bays. One comment I was going to make, though, with our social media activity, what comes up quite a lot is people posting up pictures of Sunday illegally—you can't really call it illegally, can you?—but parking in a disabled parking bay without a blue badge. They're posting it up on Facebook, and you get screens and screens of comments on it, but then what's not being picked up on either is hidden disabilities as a huge issue as well. You don't necessarily have to be a wheelchair user to be using these parking bays, so there needs to be an approach. These good supermarkets, for example, who we should follow full by example, need to spread that message, encourage—really, that chain needs to encourage all their supermarkets to do the same. I'm an Audi shopper personally, but—again, it's awful. It's just awful every time I go there. I actually just want to—you see the workmen sitting in their vans, and I'm one of these annoying people if you've got your blue badge. That's just because I'm more aware of it. I know what's right and what's wrong in my book, and it comes down to attitudes and awareness as well. Can we explore that further? Jackie Baill is right to talk about encouraging, but that language is used carefully because it's about what there's the power to dictate and what there's not the power to dictate. I also have a big ask. If we put to the side where the power sits to dictate in legislation, would it be reasonable to suggest that any private car park, be it a supermarket or whatever, that doesn't have a verifiable approved enforcement system for disabled bays should have to be part of the local authority strategy at any expense around that, but it should be enforceable? If that requires a law change, that just requires a law change because it seems crazy that we have to rely on the goodwill of large multinational companies that are making millions of pounds, including off of disabled people. If there has to be a law change, should we just work out how to do it? Mr Robertson? I would agree, convener. I also think that we would assist local authorities in their own enforcement schemes to become more cost effective if private companies were buying into them, not buying into the local authority enforcement. I also think that the public would have more confidence in that enforcement. I know one supermarket that, before the legislation came in place, placed their bays and a certain percentage of the procedure put to charity after legislation came in place. It also leaves users open to what can only be described as hate crime. I've faced that before, and since a man with a four-by-four pack were bought behind it, blocking four or five bays off, I put my head out of the window and said, excuse me, Paul, could you move it? Because I need to pack him there, and he was wanting to drag me out of the car and beat me up, and I got my wife to put my wheelchair out, and he saw that and went, sort of thing, but sometimes abuse that you take of people who are parked where they shouldn't be is nothing short than hate crime. It can be quite frightening in times like that. I'm not four-foot-eight, although I look at a six-foot-doll, but somebody's looking at me, and it's still quite frightening. Doesn't matter what size you are, no one should be in fear and harassment, but thank you for putting that on the record. In turn, we're not designing what a law change would look like, or whether it's achievable or not, but is it desirable, Linda Bamford? It was just to say that the system that you described would be desirable, but I think on the back of that, the system that Ms Bailey described when she was talking about that, but it's not about the penalty charge notices and generating income, it's about reinvesting in the community with the grant schemes and then making awareness into that. That link back into reinvesting in the local community I think would be very important for all the people using that supermarket or that car park in the community. I do recall a large retailer levy that the Scottish Government brought in for retailers above a certain square footage selling alcohol and tobacco was quite controversial at the time, but that raised cash. There's always procedures by which Governments can look at incentivising the private sector to do the right thing. Any additional comments in relation to law changes of what have you more from Brooks? I think what you've put across, it does make sense to go down that route with private land owners, for example private car park owners, being more accountable to the local authorities for the parking spaces there. I think what, at the moment, again is an attitude there for private owners to just not take responsibility whatsoever, and again that rails people up and causes confusion about what's right and what's wrong. Okay, thank you very much. I'm looking at my fellow MSPs. Any additional questions at this stage? Alexander, yes. We touched on at the very beginning you talked about a campaign, a sort of public awareness campaign. Now, what Mr Robertson just talked about, the aggression that someone is—all of that, how would you suggest that it should be put in place to try and manage that campaign so that we get the message out to the public about disabled parking and the abuse that takes place across the piece? I think that you need to go down the route of you've had mental health campaigns, you've had hate crime campaigns out there as well. You do need to have a hard-hitting campaign, visual, plain English out there, simple for people to understand, but really getting really hard-hitting in the sense that people using disabled parking spaces when they shouldn't be really does affect disabled people's lives, and that's what needs to be targeted. Yes, there are cost implications there, there's resource implications there for local authorities and private car park owners there, but the hard-hitting campaign to raise awareness and change people's attitudes generally towards disabled people and their needs, it really needs to focus on, you know, the same as us, but we have a right to have a—a wheelchair user has a right to a disabled parking space so he can go to his local health centre or do his weekly shopping, but also raising the awareness of hidden disabilities is very important, not just targeting that wheelchair user. It has to be disabilities across the board. Keith Robertson, just before I let you in, we are just going towards a close of the session. I'll give everyone an opportunity to come back in at this stage. The committee is looking at what further scrutiny we're going to do in relation to this particular piece of legislation, so any suggestions you might have and how we take this forward will of course decide how we want to take that forward, but this is your opportunity to say what you might like us to focus on or what you might like us to do, Mr Robertson. Thank you, convener. On those resource implications, especially for supermarkets and such, yeah, there is to the people on these supermarkets, but I spend my money in supermarkets like anybody else. Surely I've got the right to the same credibility as anyone else. If there was going to be an education programme or publicity programme, I think for me it would be in two parts. One part would be bottom up for informing members of the public what was right, what was wrong and what was decent and what is not decent to do. The other side of it I think is informing and educating the businesses themselves and that I think would be a top-down exercise. I think you start with a management because that's who makes the decisions. They've got to understand first that what they're doing is wrong and then get that fed down to their workforce, so I think that there's two parts to it. Public, bottom up, actual owners of the car park, supermarkets, whatever, top down. Thank you very much. Anyone else want to put something on the record before we close this particular evidence session? More from Brooks. Really just what I said earlier, a consistent approach to enforcement across all local authorities. There is good work being done currently, you can see that, but there is more to be done, but the general consensus from my members not enough is being done, so a more consistent approach to enforcement and a national awareness and education campaign most definitely. The culture of our society does need to take and really be aware of disabled people's needs. Okay, thank you. Linda Bamford? Yeah, it was just to, I know we spoke quite a bit today about the enforcement of the disabled base and the decriminalisation of the parking enforcement for local authorities, but just remembering is that the ultimate objective of that was that we had 100 per cent compliance with restriction with no penalty notices, so the enforcement of disabled base isn't about generating income, it isn't about putting out penalty notices for inappropriate parking, it's about getting 100 per cent compliance with the road traffic out. Okay, thank you. Vicky, do you want to add anything before we close the evidence session? I think I would support those statements that have been made. We'd ask again for the process to be looked at, to see if we can reduce the resource implications for councils in just getting those bays out there in the first place, and I think that might help in negotiations with private car parks as well. Okay, thank you very much. I thank all our witnesses this morning. It's been very, very helpful. We will be returning to this issue. I also thank Jackie Baillie for coming along and joining the committee this morning. We look forward to hearing from yourself in the future as well when we consider this matter further. So thank you. That ends agenda item one. We'll suspend briefly just to allow the witnesses to head off. Thank you. Okay, welcome back and we now move to agenda item two, which is a public petition. The committee will consider public petition PE 1539 in the name of Anne Booth. It calls on the Scottish Government to make an order under section 5 of the Freedom Information Act of Scotland 2002 to make all housing associations subject to the provisions of the act. At this point, I should declare an interest. Anne Booth is indeed a constituent of mine, and I know Sean Clarke, who is associated with the petition as well, and they welcome both of them to the public gallery today, although at this point the proceedings are unfortunate, so they're not allowed to make a contribution, but we'll welcome you here. This petition was previously considered by the session 4 infrastructure and capital investment committee, who agreed to keep the petition open until the Scottish Government had consulted on whether registered social landlords should be covered by freedom of information. Given that this was not due to happen until the following session, the petition was handed over for this committee to deal with. The committee agreed during its business planning session that it would consider the petition following the close of the Scottish Government's consultation. That consultation is now closed and received 71 responses that have been published. It is less clear, however, when the Scottish Government will be in a position to provide a formal response. At this stage, can I invite any comments that committee members may wish to make? Andy Wightman Thank you, convener. This petition has been running now for two and a half years. It's an important petition. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to bring RSLs within the freedom of information regime. My view is as much urging as has been possible, has been done. The Scottish Government is consulted on the matter, it's considering the consultation responses and it's considering its next steps. We don't have the power to introduce this order, so the Scottish Government ministers would have to do it. My view is that we have urged as much as it is possible to urge and, therefore, might be advisable to close the petition. Andy Wightman Any other comments at this stage? We have some options, Mr Wightman. I run through them just now. I would invite the committee members to consider whether they wish to take any action in relation to the petition. Mr Wightman has obviously suggested what one of those actions could be. Of course, we could close the petition and we could wait until the Scottish Government provides a formal response before considering our next steps, or we could write to the Scottish Government for an update and an indicative timescale in relation to the outcome of its consultation and update the petitioners in due course. With the committee's agreement, I would like to give my views in relation to what our options are. At some point, we clearly have to close the petition, although I think the appropriate time to close it would be when the Scottish Government has made its final decision on whether to introduce legislation or not. I think that it is reasonable for this committee to seek certainty over a timescale, as well as the petitioners to get some certainty over a timescale. Noting the fact that we are moving towards this petition eventually being formally closed, I would suggest to committee members if there is an agreement. At this stage, we keep it open, but just for the time being, and we write to the Scottish Government for an update and an indicator of timescale in relation to the outcome of its consultation. As I previously updated the petitioner, I do not know if that would be agreeable to the committee or not, Alexander. I would be happy to support that. It is important that we give due clarity to ourselves here on committee and to the individuals who put forward the petition. I think that to write and ask for some more clarity on a timescale would be very appropriate. After we get that, we will work towards the closing down of the process. Alexander has said that it seems a fair and reasonable way forward. That is a wider issue about petitions that stay open for a number of years, given certainty and finality to petitioners. We are very aware of that. It is also worth noting that, when the petition is eventually closed, the Scottish Government should it bring forward its legislation will be by affirmative instrument. At that point, the petitioners and others can give written evidence to our committee when we would look at that again. Just to confirm, we will write to the Scottish Government for an update, an indicator of timescale in relation to the outcome of its consultation and update the petitioner. Are we agreed to that approach? Thank you very much. We now move to agenda item 3, subordinate legislation. The committee will consider four negative instruments that are listed on the agenda, SSIs 2017, forward slash 61, 2017, forward slash 64, 2017, forward slash 66 and forward slash 85. Those instruments are laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provision will come into force unless the Parliament votes on a motion to annul the instruments. The last instrument 2017-85 in relation to non-domestic rates has not been laid within 28 days of it coming into force. It will come into force on 1 April. A letter from the Scottish Government to the Presiding Officer explaining the reasons for the delay is included in the papers. I wonder if, at this point, it would be useful to comment in relation to the subordinate legislation committee that drew this to our attention. It said that the committee finds the failure to comply with section 28 to be acceptable in the circumstances as outlined in the letter from the local government and analytical services division in the Scottish Government to the Presiding Officer, dated 16 March 2017, supplemented by a written response to the committee on the regulations. Has that been helpful to put that on the record at this stage? I should note that no motion to annul has been laid. Can I invite members for any comments that they may wish to make on the instruments? No member has indicated that they wish to speak, suggesting that perhaps no member has any significant comments or concerns. Can I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to those instruments? Are we agreed? Okay. Thank you for that. We do now move to private session, which is agenda item 4. Thank you.