 Welcome to Citizens, Patricence and Public Petitionser's Committee, and we will be being our last meeting of 2020. Before we begin this morning, I would just like to make a general comment in respect of a certain amount of social media commentary that has been promoted since our meeting a fortnight ago. I think it is important to understand ish inspiration that all the members of this committee act impartially in support of advancing our petitioners' aims. We don't do that necessarily with any personal commitment to a petition, or because we support it or because we oppose it. Our responsibility is to seek to advance the aims of the petition as requested by the petitioner. However, when it becomes sydd gyda mi yndych yn edrych yn roedd gyrfaen hwn, ddych yn fawr yn gennymol o'r iawn. A i'r bwysig yn gweithio ar� hyn o nhw'r bwysig, ni'n fawr yn gennymol o'r iawn, am ddod i'r bwysig i r hyn o'r iawn. Ond, yn fawr yn gweithio, rydyn ni wedi ymdwyllfa i'r hwn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn. O'r bwysig yw o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn o'r iawn. It is simply that at that stage we have been unable to take the aims of the petition any further forward. And of course it is open to any petitioner after a period of time to bring forward a fresh petition. And it may well be that in the circumstances at which exist at that point that the aims of a petition that weren't capable of being advanced can be taken forward at a later date. So I simply want to explain that. fel ddigoniaeth yn y ddigoniaeth gan gyda aethau rhai o ddigoniaeth, rydyn ni'n bwynt i roi siarad yn lawn o'i ddweud. Gweithio mae'r gweithiol yn cefnodd ein siarad, rydyn ni'n dweud ddweud eich ddryg iawn ynghylch fail. Rwy'n rhaid i eich ddigoniaeth gyda parlwynau a gleif iawn. Mae eich ddweud i'r parlwnau, mae eich ddulliannod. Felly mae eich ddweud fel ddulliannod. Mae eich ddechrau a'r reguwnio. We are the ones who are holding government to account in so far as we are able so to do. That brings us to agenda item 1 this morning, which is just a decision on taking business items 4 and 5 in private later on. That will be to discuss the evidence we hear today and also just to anticipate how we might want to take forward our inquiry into the A9. Are our colleagues content? We are, thank you. That brings us to item 2, which is consideration of continuing petitions. The first of those is petition number 1862 to introduce community representation on boards of public organisations delivering lifeline services to island communities. This petition has been lodged by Rhona Mackay, Angus Campbell and Naomi Bremler on behalf of the used economic task force. I am pleased to welcome the petitioners to today's meeting. Angus, who has joined us in person, and we are joined online by Rhona and Naomi, who will be contributing remotely. Welcome to you all. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce community representation on boards of public organisations delivering lifeline services to island communities in keeping with the Island Scotland Act 2018. We last considered this petition at our meeting on June 14. At that point, we received an indication for the petitioners that they would very much like to give evidence in respect of the petition, and we agreed that that is what we would do, so we have the petitioners with us this morning. The committee obviously has a number of questions that we might wish to explore with you, but before we do that, have one or other of you agreed that you might be an introductory spokesman on behalf of the three of you in respect of the petition? I agree that one of us would do all the talking, but I am quite happy to. The question is, do you have anything that you want to say to us in advance, or would you be content for us to move simply to the questioning first? There will be an opportunity to sum up at the end as well if we do not cover ground you would like to. We would quite like to say a few words. Carry on, please. Whoever is going to do it, am I nominating you then, Angus? Rona, are you content for Angus to take the lead here this morning? That's fine, you are. Thank you very much and we do appreciate the fact that you're giving time to give us that opportunity to speak to you. All three of us come from island communities in different parts of the geography of the islands, but all three of us have also been involved in trying to make communities better, trying to make living better in the islands for quite a long time. One thing that stands out to us, like assort them, is the fact that very often decisions are passed down upon the islands without island input. Having worked very hard on the islands bill for many years, we had hoped that maybe that would have delivered the sort of change that the fabric of the bill was designed to do. Unfortunately, we feel that in terms of public appointed boards, there is still a deficit in terms of the skills that are needed to make the correct decisions from an island perspective and indeed from a public body perspective. There is a route to getting better decisions, making better use of resources, better outcomes, and that is to recognise the skills of actually living and working in the islands and the knowledge and experience of what island life is as part of the skill mix that you should have on boards which are dealing with lifeline services for islands. It's of crucial importance to island people that both these decisions are the best ones and we get the best outcomes, but also that islanders feel part of the system and feel that they can influence what decisions are coming to them. So that is the crux, if you like, and the basis of what we're doing. I could go into some of the more specifics below that, but I'm aware you'll probably want to move on to questions, Chairman, but that's an outline of, I think, where all three of us come from and we've all been involved in examples, plenty of examples, where a more informed decision could have got us all to a better place and to better outcomes. So I'm happy to proceed on that basis. I don't know if my companions want to add anything to that. Rhona Nolmeist, would either of you like to say anything before we move to questions? Can I say if you'd like to speak, can you just raise a hand because the screens are so far away if you're indicating anything down below I won't see. Okay, we're fine to move to questions. Just by way of a general question then, can I ask what are the petitioners' views on the Scottish Government's approach of addressing representation on boards through their recruitment processes? And as I say, anybody who'd like to speak, just let me know. I'll maybe kick off. I think we all feel that has not moved on in terms of getting that island voice on to the decision making process. We had hoped that island proofing, which was one of the principles of the Islands Bill, would have maybe have brought that through in a much more proactive way. But we're not seeing that happening. We're not seeing islanders. There are examples of it, but we're not seeing that the skills that islanders can bring of walking the walk and living that life, coming to the table of decision making. We still see many decisions being made, which even from the outside we know are not going to be successful because that extra information isn't at the table. And they actually create damage to our communities. But also, I think for the country as a whole and for government, the best outcomes aren't attained, as I said before. And this affects so many other parts of people's life, because when you live on an island, everything is interdependent. So, I mean, choices on population, people staying, young people, what they're going to do with their lives, if they feel they don't have the ability to influence how their main services have been delivered, for instance, then they're going to make the very obvious choice not to be there. And that is continued to happen. The latest census showed the Outer Hebrides, for instance, at minus 5% in terms of population, on a few places in Scotland that had gone down. And there's plenty of skills on the islands. There's plenty of people who do have board skills that you need in other ways, as well as that island knowledge that could be brought to the table. But they do not feel motivated to get involved because historically they haven't been valued as contributors to boards. We're trying to change that. Naomi. Naomi, if you can hear it, if you'd like to speak. Apologies, my unmute button wasn't working. Yeah, just really to add to that, and I guess take it back to the question. We believe that the island voices underrepresented across the boards that we've given example of. And I recognise the action that has been taken to address other underrepresented groups across boards, women, younger people, et cetera, over the last number of years. And I think our position is that we'd like to see similar action in relation to the island voice and people living and experiencing island life on these boards also. To emphasise that, the narrative within the island's plan and within the reporting, uploads the creation of the plan and everything sitting around that as being with the input of islanders. When I think we all would appreciate that meaningful action is usually best served by those that are living and breathing the set of circumstances, the challenges and the opportunities that exist. So I think rather than having that input, it should be islanders as part of the mix and I think we'll achieve a lot more by doing that. And I think, as has been said, islanders are pragmatic, we have to be. I think we experience the highest complications often with life, with access, with access to health, with running businesses. And on that kind of experience, I really think we're best placed as part of a wider mix to pragmatically consider delivery and how delivery should happen in the context of the challenges of living in that environment, but also in the wider challenges, the fiscal environment and all those different aspects. We do that every day, so I think we've got a lot of skills to bring to that. Okay. Obviously these are points that both Rhoda Grant and Alastair Allyn have represented to us in evidence they've given to the committee. Alastair Allyn was reflecting on CalMac and appointments there in his evidence last time. I'd be interested to have your reflections on the appointment of David Beaton as a non-executive director of the board of David McBrain Ltd in relation to being a Sky resident. I mean, is that an exception rather than an evidence of practice or does it illustrate that the current recruitment procedures can be a successful avenue to ensuring or achieving the aims of the petition or has that kind of fallen? How do you reflect on that appointment? It's very hard to talk about somebody within one board without knowing either the individual or the ins and outs of it. He is a Sky resident and you can have a discussion over whether Sky is still an island or not as well in that process, but what we're asking for, I think, is something above an individual getting on a board from time to time. It's the fact that the skills that are required to make good decisions on these boards should reflect the fact that you should know the area you're dealing with. It's like a business knowing its customer base and that should be identified in the skills matrix that is behind any appointment for any board that deals with islands, particularly when it's lifeline services. So I feel a little bit inadequate in terms of talking about that one thing, but it's still a long way short, I think, of having that recognition that there is extra value to be gained from having that knowledge from island residents in there. Just as you have for health and safety audit and all the other skills that you need to run an efficient board, that should be part of the matrix of skills that you put behind your board requirements, we would say. Rona, sorry, you were off-screen, so I didn't see that you were seeking to come in a moment to go, but in relation to this and the other question I asked, you would like to contribute. Yes, I think we need much more. It's a passive process at the moment and it's a competitive process and I think we need much more than that. So instead of leaving it to chance who gets on a board depending on how they performed in an interview or what they wrote in their application, I think a much more considered process which involves islanders and the different councils that rips in the island to have something much better, which means that we can ensure that we do have the best people on the board rather than just leaving it up to people to choose through interview process and through such like, because it is very much a chance whether somebody bothers to actually put their name forward for it and do they actually understand what it's about? I mean, there's a lot more advertising last time when they looked for new members of the CalMac and the Hyal boards, but still it lacks just some, you know, getting together with islanders and being much more considered in that process rather than, I think, at the moment it's all really done on the mainland. It's people on the mainland that are deciding whether somebody's fit to go on a board or not. And I think it needs to be reviewed what the skills are and we certainly need to have it put in that we do need the skills, you know, that the islanders have and the knowledge and the understanding of what the needs are here. Thank you very much. I was bringing in Fergus Ewing. Yes, thank you, convener, and good morning to our petitioners. I'm struck that the petition was lodged on the 24th of March 2021, which is two and a half years ago, and since then we've had no less than four ministerial submissions, most of them fairly short. Excuse me, and I wanted just to go back to the arguments advanced by the three petitioners in their submission, the early submission, which put forward four specific suggestions and these were in brief, reserving a place on the selection panel for the chair of Hial, assigning three seats on the Hial board to people who live in communities. One should be retained for the co-opted member of Hytrans, at least one council allocated on the board from either Western, Orkney or Shetland. Now, the reason I mention this is just to set the thesis here, which is that what surprises me, and I never wished, of course, to be unfair to any Government minister, but what surprises me is that I cannot find in the four responses we've had from the ministers any specific answer to any of these suggestions, which I find very, very disappointing and something that I think I've been inclined to pursue, but to enable us to pursue this and pursue it in the best way, I just wonder if the petitioners feel a bit frustrated that you've put forward some specific suggestions about how things could be improved. Here we are two and a half years later and we don't actually appear even to have had an explicit, clear, direct answer to any of them. That does seem to me, Angus, if I may, to be somewhat unsatisfactory at the very best. Yes, I think frustration is probably a word and we've kept in touch and kept together over this period, but it's been quite disappointing in terms of not seeing a process that would lead to something coming out the other end. I think a lot of what you read out there where the original was because it was specific round Hyal, for instance, at the time and there's also been specific round CalMac and to go back to the point of when the individual has been appearing on the board here and there, I think it's because the case is good and maybe it's to fend off having something put down in regulation in terms of what the principle should be, but it has been very frustrating and disappointing to be honest with you that what we think is a win-win for everybody that can bring us to a better place and when you turn it on its head and ask why would you not do this, there seems to be no obvious answer why you would not have the best skills on a board to manage the resources of, again, after-island services. Would it help if we made, as a committee, some specific request to the Scottish Government, current Minister, I think we're on Transport Minister number four at the moment in the session of Parliament to see what specific ideas they can come forward with and if you do, would it be possible Angus, excuse me here, to teach my granny how to suck eggs, but I'm sure you must have many occasions pondered between the three of you, actually. How can we advance this? Because the reply seems to be, oh well, we advertise posts, but we don't get the applications. This seems to be a pretty pathetic approach because I know from work in the islands over many years as Minister that there's a huge number of very able, knowledgeable, experienced people all over the islands, and I just feel that the current efforts to reach out, to empower these people to benefit from their local knowledge and direct experience of whether it's ferries or seamanship or seamal or hyal and get them involved not only on the board but also senior management positions and disperse jobs to the islands. When I was Minister for Rural we did mys to devolve disperse a couple of crofting jobs to the commission in the western Alves. My God, it was difficult, I can tell you. The grand promises start off and then they get diluted as they go through the sausage machine. This is a very long question and it seems to me that there's so many other approaches that could be done and I wonder if you think that the councils could really play a structured part here in coming up with specific recommendations of people that might be suitable to serve on the main bodies, seamal, calmac and hyal because I know that the elected councillors are very often really plugged in to their communities. For example, would that be one way where we could reach out to empower people on the islands that is not currently done? I think that's one specific way you could certainly do it and that's why when we talked about the original paper where council representation is important I think it's a much more active dynamic in places like the western Isles for the relationship between councillors and communities so that is one way but I think you have to recognise that there are a lot of islanders who maybe tried over the years to get onto to these other bodies but today it is very hard I have tried so hard and I'm sure two colleagues could tell you the same to encourage people to go but they feel that it's not a welcoming place, that it's not a place where their skills will be taken to the table and that they started to disadvantage so many just will not put forward and that applies to much of the communities where you see on consultation a lot of community consultation fatigue as we call it because they've been through the process before and have not been allowed to affect the outcomes and therefore feel what is the point to getting involved again so we need a much more positive approach to saying the skills matrix that we need from that include your skills as an islander and there is an open door there for you to come and be part of this of course you still have to go through a selection procedure but I think it should be made much more open and welcoming to islanders and encouraging Have you ever had any feedback from people who have been keen to apply to play a part but when rejected has there been any systematic review or consideration or work done to consider why this has happened because many of us suspect that the selection process results in what you might call the usual suspects, a sort of pool of ken speckled figures getting picked again and again and kind of discriminates against newcomers outsiders, outliers and people basically that live on the islands and I'm afraid that's my view from having been involved in quite a lot of selection work over the years and maybe I'm at fault as well as anybody else but if you're saying Angus that there's a cohort of people who've been spurned in your view unfairly and that's created ill feeling what can we do about that can anything be done has anything been done about it is there something that the committee which I'm sure would be willing to pursue if there's any concrete things we can do anything specific that you think we might be able to do about this and obviously I'm conscious that Rona and Naomi may wish to come in and comment to some of these matters so easy to be rude to people that are on I apologise before I come back to Angus Naomi could I come to you and see if you'd like to comment and some of the themes Spergus has been developing there thank you for that and sorry I'll just check you can hear me before I start yes thank you for that if I could pick up a couple of themes I totally that point that Mr Ewan made around cutting across from boards to senior management right down to the doers I think that is so important and there's so many missed opportunities to really expand on that and use the skills and the knowledge of people right across all skill levels in our islands and that issue around consultation fatigue of people flying in reeling out the same presentation about our statistics about the situation on islands and having the same conversation that is repeated day in day out national transport strategy review of the islands plan it's the same over and over again and we don't see the change we see the consultation being done to us we just don't see the action on the back of it and give one example we continue to see for example the use of the index of multiple deprivation the Scottish multiple deprivation index for the allocation of funding for various different funding streams such as the community bus fund and we know that the Scottish index of multiple deprivation is not a good tool is not a good indicator for island paces and for remote Scotland because it looks for pockets of deprivation and deprivation in islands is not in pockets it's dispersed and often hidden but again we keep seeing policy decisions being taken in the centre not reflecting the situation in our islands and it's hugely frustrating because we feed that in at every opportunity and never see the difference being made if I can respond also to the point around boards and the recruitment process I've served two terms on an NHS board and I currently sit on the board of a regional transport partnership I have and I must highlight before I say this is pre Covid I have applied for other roles and I feel that my complication that this is pre Covid and before we did more online my complication would probably take me three days at best to be able to attend interview I feel sure that that has meant that I haven't been shortlisted because I felt sure that I met all the criteria and also I've also applied for other posts not non-executive but government related posts and for example my travel expenses wouldn't have been I was invited for interview but my travel expenses wouldn't have been covered so I decided they really didn't want an islander so I didn't attend so I think there are real examples where the system is a barrier to people like me, people like Rona being able to get involved Rona would you like to comment? Yes I just like to say that I don't think there's any people more capable than islanders to go on committees I think about when land reform came in it's the islanders that have taken advantage of that so we have 72% of islands are community owned now and we've reformed we've taken what was a awful problem with absentee landlords and we've turned it on his head and we've taken ownership of land and control and we've run our own land now and we've done the same with energy so you've got islands which now generate their own energy and they have taken on that control far more in terms of community energy than on the mainland and so we've got committees of volunteers who have put up winter buying projects which have been £20 million in the making so if we can do that in our voluntary time being on a committee is easy for us we do this all the time the third sector really is the strongest in the island is because we do so much in our voluntary time so we're extremely capable and probably far more experienced of being in a committee and understanding the different roles in a committee than people from the mainland and certainly from the central belt when everything's done for you and by the market we're used to trying to combat injustices and taking control of our our own resources and I think transport's just the next one and land we need to sort this out because the problems be getting becoming so bad at the moment our ferries and our plane services are worse than they've ever been they're in much better service in the 80s and 90s than the ferries than we do today thank you very much Fergus Eilish can I bring in Faisal Chowdry? Faisal Chowdry thank you very much thanks convener good morning panel I have a question from what colleague Fergus was asking earlier do you think there's a barrier for the board members because you have to have specific technical skills and knowledge about the highlanders is that do you think is this the reason where people are not coming forward to become board or board members? that there's not the skills there absolutely not I think the skills are abundant it's just getting the mechanism and the encouragement and that's what we're trying to build a framework for that to come to the fore so that people do feel encouraged to use these skills that they already have to use that ability to help the process so I don't think and with respect it's the response I get sometimes you know is that skill based there on the islands but I think as Rhona said many of the jobs that are held by island people even on a personal basis and there's huge examples of yes the skills are most definitely there the abilities there I think what we're asking is to open the door to that and allow that to come in and benefit both the islands and benefit the organisations so a pretty emphatic yes to that one one more questions I have aside from the board set accusation in what other areas do you believe the communities could be better presented to increase accountability in island communities well I think there's many examples of that I mean the board places definitely a big one because of the role boards play in setting the direction for some of these services also having the policy control over the management of a lot of these these services coming to the islands em but I do think that if you filter down from that as Fergus had mentioned actual management being located on the islands that is a huge help because if you were a manager who wasn't sitting in an office on 9 to 5 remote from it but actually had to go to your own home or back to your own community I would suggest you would at times make very different decisions and better informed decisions I also think there's a big place for communities to have a permanent say on how services delivered and my own closest one to that is probably the CalMac situation where you have no permanent tie-in to the local communities to understand what you're doing, what the effect of that is and there seems to be a disrespect for the fact that there can be positive input from communities into these sort of things it's very much a we know best, we are professional people who run ships but it's not about delivering it's a metal from A to B it's about how do your communities live and thrive with that service that you're providing so I think there's many aspects of getting the communities better plugged into all these functions to make them a better service here Thank you very much I was struck because it is I think something that is very easily said that the skill sets might be deficient in some technical areas but to paraphrase you I think that was the mainland speaking to the islander and the islander speaking to the mainland would say you lot can't walk and chew gum at the same time there whereas we are used to doing that in a regular basis is that kind of in other words the skill sets are very often underestimated of those people in the islands I will ask you to comment but that was the conclusion I drew Morris Golden The Scottish Government has suggested that there are other ways for community interests to be represented on public boards and I just wondered from your experience if this assertion is correct I would certainly agree there are ways of community interests to be representative but why would you not also include that participation on boards I mean it is a crucial part of the process of where the decision making is for island life you shouldn't be choosing where islanders are different from other people in terms of the ability to go and get involved in things if they so choose so I find that if you do restrict to saying well we'll find a space for you here or a space for you there in one it's a bit disrespectful but two I think it's missing the point we're trying to make is that in all the crucial areas of decision making we have something to add to the mix and we should be have an entitlement to go in there and as someone else said on the mix you look at where underrepresentation happens in other parts of society and we try and help that equally for islanders in these situations we should try and find a mechanism to make it better what we're trying to do so to paraphrase you feel that community interests would be best represented with a community board member in the room rather than feeding into some process that others then decide on the community interest for example is that correct? that's absolutely an important part of it because that in itself will probably make the whole issue of designing how communities feed in better directed and better managed because you have that knowledge of island life sitting at that level and I think that's crucial to just try and do it through various one-off initiatives and we've seen a few of these over the year I think are both not fully effective but also sometimes not the best use of time or resources so if you don't have somebody at the strategic level representing the island boys then you're not going to design a system that's best suited for islanders or you have less chance of it let's put it that way thanks for that and final question for me convener I wonder about if the size and turnover of relevant public boards could hamper relevant representation are there opportunities arising or is it the case that even when they do that islanders are looked over for these positions we certainly feel they're looked over because their skills are not recognised in the matrix that people are looking for the other side of that coin if you're asking me as I think both Ronan and Naomi had mentioned are there examples out there of whether it be community land and you can you can pick south use for instance where a £13 million harbour was funded, built and operated by a community in a lot shorter period of time than any public body would have done there's perfect example of the skills that are necessary for that so I hope that in a way answers your question thanks, that's very helpful Naomi, I saw you nodding along a moment ago and I just wonder if there's anything you'd like to add I guess I'm just agreeing with everything that's just been said over the last period the one point I would make is my experience of being on a board it is a matrix of skills that makes a good board perform well it's not an individual it's one particular responsibility so I don't think it's somebody on a board that is the community representative it's somebody or some people on boards that have that as part of their mix so they will bring you've heard from around the table people within island communities have massive skillset there's a lot of experience here in finance, in audit all those other attributes that are required for that skills matrix and I think it's just bringing that island element into that mix as well not in isolation but as part of that kind of comprehensive mix that's required to make a board perform well Rona, is there anything you'd like to add in respect of those questions? Yes, I think just to say that community engagement doesn't work at all that level of representation hasn't worked for us when Heil were putting forward the remote towers project they made the decisions to do the remote towers project at board level and then they went out to the community to do their community consultation and they chose who they consulted with so they chose to consult with Highlands and Islands Enterprise were invited to come and see them, councillors were invited and certain representatives but they didn't and some community councils but they decided who they would talk to and when they would talk to them and how that engagement would be done and at the engagement it was said very strongly that it is not something the community want but they'd already made the decision a few months before to go ahead with it before they actually sat down and properly started engaging and that just feels awful in a community when decisions are made without you that really do affect you and all you can do is go to these engagement sessions say what you think but then you're just completely ignored so community engagement does not work for us that way at all that's not what we need is a seat at the table and some powers to talk and give our opinions when decisions are forming we're running a few minutes over but Fergus Ewing you'd like to come back in yes I'm just looking back to the very first ministerial Scottish Government submission which was 8 June 2021 one of the points made there was that in some public bodies convener principally that the national parks were cited as an example there is actually a requirement that some of the members of the national parks be residents locally and therefore that is not a wild kind of radical idea it's something that already is present in the law and that's why I mentioned it so I just wanted to ask just two things firstly of our witnesses whether there should be either a requirement that a certain number of board members should be resident in the islands or and or waiting extra waiting given in the decision about selection where a number of criteria will be no doubt about competencies will routinely be fixed but it seems to me that there should be a resident waiting so that the way that the system works at the moment to discriminate against people in the islands as we've heard from Naomi in particular and on a general basis can be counteracted so that there's a sort of 20% or 30% waiting in favour of people from the islands for any board or other significant appointment or senior managerial appointment I wonder if these are ideas which the petitioners feel it would be sensible for us to pursue perhaps also convener with the ethical standards commissioner who I think is responsible for public appointments and that's referred to back in the submission of 8 June 21 in more detail I'll just park that there I don't know it, I think Naomi was the first to mention her absurd experience of not being able to attend three days of your life and expenses you don't get back, I mean no wonder he didn't want to go to the interview so if you have been able to do it by video call like this and there was a waiting in favour of yourself as an island resident is that something that you feel would help to counteract the problem that we've been kicking around to no effect for two and a half years now and as I come to Naomi we're going to have to draw this evidence session to a close so if you'd like to answer that point and then I'll come to each of our other two witnesses as well and if there's any final comments you'd like to add as well that would be very helpful Naomi I'll keep it very short I would totally conquer with both your and and all suggestions that I think they would be really useful avenues to have formal consideration Thank you very much Rona is there anything you'd like to add generally speaking that we may not have covered or any final point you would like to offer? Yes, I'd like you to say that it's completely in line with democracy matters, this would be a great example of trying to devolve decision making down to the communities where it matters so I think this really has to there's a good timing for this to go through Thank you very much and finally to you Angus is there anything you'd like to add by way of a final thought? Just to say I think we'd all very much agree that would be a real step forward to have that in there and also to maybe above that to have a duty to show that you tie into your communities that these areas are dealt with that you can truly say you have that place in your community so you could do it and if you don't mind I've been in this year and it's not this isn't about me but I did a consultation with the transport minister on the ferries and I went right across the islands including up to Orkney in Shetland and we got nearly a thousand people out for these things and the number who said the fact that we have someone with island knowledge coming to speak to us makes a huge difference to the conversation and one little example in the middle of that a senior civil servant stood up and said you know does it really matter if you can get off the island today tomorrow or the next day now if you don't have that awareness of what it means to islanders one chap in the front stood up he didn't stand up actually he had a walking stick he said I'm getting cancer treatment in Glasgow and I've missed my last three or five appointments because of that and you're asking me does it really matter can I get on and off the island that's the sort of awareness and knowledge that we are trying to get into the system so that when decisions are made they're made in the best interest of the people we're supposed to be serving thank you for that and thank you to you all in fact for your evidence this morning this is a petition that was lodged at the start of this session it's maintained the interest of the committee since 2021 as Fergus Ewing has said very grateful for the evidence of all three of you this morning and colleagues can I get your agreement that we will consider the evidence further in private at a later date I do what we hear from the minister some answers and the ethical standards commissioner we will do that we will consider that later on and therefore thank you all again and I'll now suspend briefly to allow us to move to the next item thank you welcome back can I at this stage offer an apology from our colleague David Torrance who's unable to be with us this morning and the committee send our best wishes to David and look forward hopefully to seeing him again in the new year to the next of our continued petition which is petition number 1610 lodged by Donald McCarrie on behalf of the A77 action group that's petition 1657 and this petition 1610 to upgrade the A75 lodged by Matt Halliday petition 1610 calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to upgrade the A75 lodged by Matt Halliday for its entirety as soon as possible and the petition 1657 calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to dual the A77 from Ayr Whitlets roundabout south to the two ferry ports located at Cairn Ryan including the point at which the A77 connects with the A75 we last considered these petitions in April when we agreed to write to the minister for transport Kevin Stewart we're joined this morning by our colleague so good morning to you Brian and I'll invite you to comment in a moment the response that we have received states that transport Scotland officials are aware of the EIA report on the A75 and A77 and are considering its findings however he notes that the report only appears to reflect the positive impacts of dueling and doesn't consider the outcomes of the strategic transport projects review 2 noting that the report does not provide any benefit cost ratios to summarise overall value for money the response also states that prioritisation work for the STPR2 recommendations is being undertaken and will feed into the publication of a delivery plan later this year take it early next year it's probably me now until that work has been completed it will not be possible to provide time scales for delivery of individual recommendations the petitioner expresses that the then minister's response seems to disregard the report he highlights the positive inward investment seen in Mabel since the completion of the £29m bypass the submission also questions how the Scottish Government's target of zero road fatalities by 2050 will be possible when the conditions of the south west of Scotland's road network are considered Finlay Carson was unable to join us this morning our colleague Finlay Carson but he has sent a written submission in support of the petition that in the past five years there have been seven fatal collisions on the A75 and in light of the UK Government's £8 million funding for improvements to the A75 Finlay suggests that the Scottish Government should redirect any budget savings to accelerate improvements on the A77 Brian, before I invite members to comment at this stage is there anything you would like to contribute to our discussion thank you very much good morning to the committee thank you for the opportunity to again speak on this particular petition which has been running since I was a member of this petition committee in the last term I think that since the last time we discussed this things have moved moved forward in that UK Government connectivity fund has indicated their desire to help with the upgrading of the A75 I think initially we had both the 77 and the 75 were taken as a group we didn't want to separate them but that has happened given that the 75 is a euro route and my concern with the 77 is that because the 75 is now going to be looked at significantly by the UK Government we have a fairly hefty MSP Cabal looking at the A9 and the A96 my colleague Fegasun has been very vocal in his desire to have the A9 and the A96 I would like to refer to him as a hefty Cabal though Mr Bittle added together he has been very vocal in that and with a number of colleagues have pushed very hard for the A9 and the A96 my fear is that has overtaken the concern of the A77 which has been long running it was first came to my attention really when Alex Salmond in opening the Cairnryan facility had promised significant upgrades to the 77 and the 75 and subsequent transport ministers have offered the same assurances STBR2 has been going for some considerable time now with very little movement at all the impact as you quite rightly say convener of the Mable Bypass even though it isn't dualled I was an opportunity missed has had a huge significant impact on the health and wellbeing of Mable as well as inward investment and has changed that whole aspect of that town and that was a £29 million investment there I think the evidence is there for everybody to see the impact significant dualling and bypassing some of the towns along the A77 coupled with the fact that it's 110, as we've said before 110, 44 ton lorries come off of the Cairnryan crossing every single day and travel up that route and the one that's not mentioned is that there's a major distillery on that route as well where 50 wagons come out of there every day and it's a connection between Northern Ireland probably the EU and Central Scotland and beyond and at the moment that road as everybody will agree has been on that road and seen that road is not fit for purpose so my concern here is that the A77 is falling further and further down the list of priorities as other things take over and the concern I think on the A77 is that they will be eventually it will be kicked to the curb and nothing will be done about it so I would ask that the committee continue to consider and continue to put pressure on the Scottish Government to maintain their promise to deliver significant upgrades to the 77. Thank you very much Mr Whittle for that and obviously members have had an opportunity to consider whether the papers were received to have any proposal suggestions from colleagues as to how we might proceed Mr Ewing I'm broadly supportive of the petitioner's aims and I should just say I don't think I'm part of a cabal because cabals operate in secret and we have to do that but Nairn is still waiting for his bypass and I see the arguments about the benefits to Mabel of the bypass and very practical benefits to people so take that into account I do think that Mr Whittle and I know Emma Harper and I believe Finlay Carson are pursuing this with others and although I come from the opposite end of Scotland I think the rural transport network really needs to have far more attention not only in the Highlands but also in the south-south west of Scotland and I think the feelings that Mr Whittle expresses are amply expressed and there are relations people down there that feel forgotten as the citizens of Nairn do for example as well and this is a rural issue frankly affecting the whole of Scotland and maybe more resources, more cash and capital budget needs to be devoted to building roads rather than some other schemes which I probably better not mention so could I suggest then therefore to take it forward we do write to the Minister of Transport that I did notice that the previous Minister of Transport urged us to close the petitions I did wonder whether the Minister should really be urging us to close petitions I wonder if that's not really for Parliament to do but just set that aside for the moment to write to the Minister of Transport to seek an update on when the STPR2 delivery plan will be published and an indication of whether the delivery plan will set out time scales for the delivery of specific recommendations and information about the Scottish Government's approach to prioritising these recommendations and secondly to ask whether the Scottish Government will redirect any STPR2 budget savings that arise from UK Government funding from the A75 to accelerate improvements on the A77 so thank you very much colleagues content that we initiate those actions we are so thank you very much we'll keep the petition open we need to get that information thank you very much Mr Whittle that brings us to petition 1971 to take robust action to stop motorcycle theft lodged by Kenneth Clayton on behalf of the motorcycle action group the petition calls on Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the actions available to help prevent and reduce motorcycle theft by empowering police to pursue and tactically engage thieves and reviewing sentencing policy to allow the courts to implement tougher punishment for the motorcycle theft including the use of mandatory custodial sentences for those carrying weapons or groups who threaten individuals with violence we last consider this petition at our meeting on 3 May and we agreed to write to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service we've now received a response from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service which provides information on the outcome of the cases noted in the Crown Officer and Procurator Fiscal Offices submission to the committee the response also states that the SCTS are not aware of any evidence that cases involving the theft of a motorcycle are taking any longer to prosecute through the courts than other types of offence and we did get quite a detailed schedule in fact by way of a response I wonder if in the light of that colleagues of any suggestions as to how we might proceed Maurice Golden Thanks, convener I'll close the petition under rule 5.7 of standing orders on the basis that Police Scotland has a comprehensive standing operating procedure in relation to vehicle pursuit and remains committed to tackling the theft and reckless use of motorcycles with road policing and locally based initiative teams response, community and CID officers continuing their efforts to identify offenders prevent and deter further incidents and engage with communities the Scottish Government has previously stated that judges are best placed to decide on the appropriate sentence for each offender and considers that mandatory sentencing removes discretion from the courts and finally the Scottish Courts and Tribunial Service are not aware of any evidence that cases involving the theft of a motorcycle are taking any longer to prosecute than other cases Mr Ewing, do you have a suggestion? I'm just going to support Mr Golden's suggestion to close the petition but I just wanted to I think it would be a remiss not to add that the response we've had from the Scottish Courts Service is tremendously detailed and maybe an example to others who respond to us in their submission they say that two individuals spent five hours studying the cases I think this was at my request and they've given a complete analysis of every single one of them at the disposal and whereas from my calculation only 19 appeared to have led to a guilty plea in a sentence with 28 either being deserted or not called or not guilty or guilty plea not guilty plea accepted I mean that's the justice system in operation and therefore I just thought in closing the petition I'd like to thank the Scottish Courts Service for taking our request very seriously indeed and for the diligence with which they pursued the request for information that we made Yes, I'd like to endorse that as I said in my remarks I thought it was a very comprehensive response and greatly appreciated by the committee Are we content with colleagues to take forward Mr Golden's proposals? We thank the petition very much and we have had that comprehensive response and I think in those circumstances the committee will close the petition petition number 1988 review the process for the disposal of household raw sewage has been lodged by Sue Wallace and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the process for allowing raw sewage discharged from homes into Scottish coastal waters to provide additional funding for SEPA for enforcement and to introduce legislation to ban households from discharging raw sewage We previously considered this on the 8 March when we agreed to write to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency SEPA and the Law Society of Scotland The Law Society of Scotland's written submission outlines the process and requirements during the conveyancing process for properties with no connection to a main sewer or a private septic tank which I think was of interest to members of the committee The most recent submission from SEPA confirms that the review of its approach to regulating private sewer discharges has concluded It points to a service level statement which sets out SEPA's intention to restrict the majority of its complaint action in providing advice and guidance SEPA states that the owners will be placed on owners and operators to ensure that treatment systems meet the required standards and are maintained in good working order Deterrent action from SEPA will take place through specific campaigns targeted at known problem areas The petitioner highlights the selective nature of SEPA's approach and states that this will not help all areas She shares that a member of staff at SEPA informed her that they do not need to repair broken pipes The petitioner has asked that a new law be created to legally impose timescales for changing to private processing system or connection to the mains Do members have any suggestions or comments as to how we might proceed? I seek inspiration colleagues from Mr Gould I think it's concerning that SEPA's reliance on targeted enforcement campaigns rather than checking the robustness of individual systems I wonder if we should write to the Scottish Government to ask how it believes householders failing to meet their responsibility for wastewater discharge can be held to account in practice That seems to me to be a deficiency as a consequence of the evidence that we received Are there any other comments from colleagues? We are content then to hold the petition open and to seek that additional information We are, thank you very much Petition number 1993 reform of the financial support for social work students on work placements This has been lodged by David Grimm and Lucy Chaliner and the petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure social work students have access to adequate financial support during their studies for social work students on work placements and reforming the assessment criteria and adequately funding the bursaries for postgraduate social work students on work placements Last considered on 22 March will be agreed to write to the Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training and to the Scottish Social Services Council The response from the Scottish Social Services Council notes that the budget for postgraduate social work bursaries has remained at 2.655 million since 2012-13 and that 321 bursaries are made available It undertook a review of the bursary policies, procedures and processes in 2021-22 to ensure funding was being dispersed as equitably and efficiently as possible A review of the models that support practice placements was due to conclude in the summer of this year The Minister's response states that work is on going to explore the potential for changes to the support available for social work students in the context of workforce planning It also mentions that the Scottish Social Services Council is working with universities and the social work education partnership to explore additional funding models across social work education Do members have any comments or suggestions for actions in light of the fact that the bursaries fund seems to have been frozen for over a decade? Faisol Chaudry I had a roundtable meeting with the students earlier this year and there was loads of concerns from the students and the pressures they are having Could you ask the Scottish Government as part of the current funding arrangements being considered by the Scottish Government as the Ministers mentioned what consideration they are giving to issues such as the housing crisis and to place even more pressure on those students and whether this will factor into any decisions about the need for the bursaries Yes, I'm sure we can do that I'd be members content to do that I think we might also write to the Minister of Higher and Further Education to request details of this on-going exploratory work if I might suggest on potential changes to the support available for social work students I would just like some sort of reflection on the thought process that has underpinned the freezing of the bursary fund since 2012-2013 because clearly that must affect the number of students that is capable of supporting and that is over a decade so I recognise there are always pressures on funding and no doubt that will be part of any response but it has been over a very long period so there may be other issues that are underpinning this to know whether this work will consider the introduction of a bursary for third and fourth year undergrad students on work placements in response to the issues raised by the petition We might also write to the Scottish Social Services Council to ask what improvements it did make following the 21-22 review of its postgraduate bursary policies and maybe request an update on its review of practice learning finance and maybe also when it expects higher education institution leads on poverty issues facing students which I think ties in with Mr Chowdry's request in relation to housing issues as well Any other suggestions from members or are we content to proceed on that basis? We are, thank you very much That brings us to the petition 1999 Fully implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities lodged by William Hunter Watson urging the Scottish Government to ensure the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is fully implemented in Scotland Last considered by us on 22 March will be agreed to write to the Scottish Government to ask when its response to the Scottish Mental Health Law Review would be published The Scottish Government's response outlines its high-level priorities for inclusion in its reform programme priorities include reforming the adults within Capacity Scotland Act 2000 to reflect the requirements of the UNCRPD more clearly and further consultation and options to address deprivation of liberty in circumstances where people do not have the capacity to make decisions about their care and treatment The priorities also include supporting decision making reforming the Mental Health Act human rights enablement enhancing the rights and role for carers reducing coercion across the system and strengthening accountability and scrutiny in the system I wonder if members of any comments or suggestions to make Fergus Ewing? The petition has been remarkably persistent in having campaigned on issues relating to mental health and particularly the issue of treatment without consent for 20 years as I understand it and the issues are by no means straightforward I do think there is a case for keeping the petition open, convener is that whereas we have quite a lengthy response from the a Scottish Government in Annexsea of our papers which goes into the high level priorities for inclusion in our reform programme if one looks at the various components of that and there's seven every single one of them is at an extremely early stage the words are working towards exploring opportunities, early priorities this kind of language no criticism because all the issues are complicated but I do think the petition is entitled to to get a bit more than that and the issues he raises are important so I would just say that we should I believe right to the Scottish Government to seek an updated view in the petition in light of its response to the Scottish mental health law review and specifically to ask when its consultation on the adults within capacity law reform will take place and whether the petitioner can engage and the last thing I would say is that the Government accept that the law in relation to adults within capacity is something which needs attention I think the phrase they use is addressing long standing gaps so they admit there is a problem I think the petition is entitled to know when are they going to deal with the problem what timescale and how can he and others engage with that Thank you Mr Ewing I think that we will continue the petition and we will seek clarification from the Scottish Government on the points as identified by Mr Ewing, are we agreed? We are agreed, thank you. That brings us to agenda item 3 we have two new petitions this morning and as I do before we consider all new petitions for those who might be joining us for the first time we in advance of our consideration invite the Scottish Government and the Parliament's independent research body Spice to give some comment and information in respect of the petitions to assist us in that consideration The first of our new petitions is petition 2039 fair pay to student nurses while on placement and this has been lodged by Amy Lee the petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to pay student nurses for their placement hours the petitioner's experience on placement has been challenging with her stating that during the last three placements when used as a spare member of staff to cover absence she also shares that she took a 1,000 pay cut to study nursing the Spice briefing explains that over the three year nursing programme students are required to complete 2,300 hours of clinical practice and 2,300 hours of theory before they are eligible for registration the briefing also notes that applications to nursing have fallen from just under 8,000 in 2022 to 6,450 in 2023 a really rather dramatic drop in a very short space of time the Scottish Government's response to the petition states that it is not possible for student nurses to be employed as nursing staff before programme completion and entry to the nursing register regarding financial support the response states that eligible student nurses and midwives in Scotland receive the highest level of support across the United Kingdom do members have any comments or suggestions for action may I Faisal Choudry I had visited the Edinburgh College of Cytil campus where I visited nursing classes and programmes leaders had mentioned concerns of students not taking up nursing and midwife because due to lack of support we need to we need to make this career path more attractive to one of the points mentioned was more financial support for student nurses I believe paying students nurses for their placement hours would be a relief I am beneficial to attracting more nursing students in their future and one solution to filing up the gap in nursing vacancies not only helping to financial support students but on the long term it will promote nursing and midwifey as a valuable career choice Thank you Mr Golden I think with being new petition I think we should write to stakeholders seeking their views on what the petition called for and to ask specifically what the causes may be for the decline in applicants to nursing and midwifey courses and I suggest some stakeholders could include the nursing and midwifey council the Royal College of Nursing and the National Union of Students Building on Mr Choudry's comments and Maurice Golden's suggestions of those organisations to whom we write do colleagues of any other suggestions to make Thank you We welcome this new petition Thank you very much to our petitioner Amy Lee and we will hold the petition open and now seek information from the bodies that we have identified and consider the petition again in due course when we have that response Our final petition this morning is petition number 2054 to establish an independent review into the proposed spaceport development at Skolpeig Farm in North Uist This has been lodged by Colin Anderson and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to establish an independent review into the proposed spaceport development on Skolpeig Farm focusing on examining whether there is any conflict of interest for Western Isles Council Commnail Nan Alansar as the authority who approved the plans and are taking the project forward the process for purchasing land and Skolpeig, potential errors and omissions in the environmental impact assessment of the proposal and the economic case for pursuing this project Mr Anderson tells us the spaceport proposal has attracted little public support with the public objections outweighing support by a ratio of 45 to 1 The petitioner also raises concerns that the proposal has been fast tracked which has limited the public scrutiny of the process In responding to the petition it had a direction requiring planning authorities to alert them to new planning cases for spaceport related development was issued in June 2020 and this allows the Government to have a national overview of development in the planning system that is spaceport related while offering the opportunity to put in place additional safeguards and intervene, if necessary by calling in applications In this case, it has stated that ministers gave full and proper consideration to the proposal and determined that it did not merit calling The response also states that the Scottish Government is supportive and principle of space projects that will contribute towards the ambition of becoming a leading European space nation and deliver economic benefits to the local region We've also received submissions from the petitioner and from a local resident Angus McNab which set out their concerns about the way in which the process to determine this application has been carried out Concerns include but they're not limited to errors in the economic impact assessment a lack of effective and timely consultation with the public and a general lack of transparency around the council's intentions for the Scolpeig site Westerner Council have also provided submission responding to the issues raised by the petition as well as highlighting that a stakeholder and community consultation is due to begin in the new year in January as part of the airspace change proposal that has been submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority Well this is obviously a live planning application and in the light of that I wonder if members have any suggestions as to how we might proceed Fergus Ewing Well it is a live planning application and I cannot really see it having pondered this how it would be correct for us to interfere in a process where there's a very clear set of rules established and where the petitioners and others who have objections obviously have the ability to submit their objections to the local authority for consideration of those objections as part of the determination of the application So we want to try to reach out to help petitioners in every case but in this particular instance in this particular circumstance I cannot see how it would be other than interference with a legitimate existing process to seek some sort of review of a process which is still in process If people are dissatisfied with it at the end of that they can have a further petition to this Parliament about what they may see as defects in that process and we have considered applications of that ilk before Last thing I would say is I did note and I just wanted to record the fact and I'm very grateful to the council for the time they've taken to give us extensive briefing in this issue which is unfortunate and I just wanted to allude to that whilst expressing thanks to the council for pointing that out to us Thank you very much Mr Ewing It's open to this committee if the focus of a petition is about a national issue but in fact I think the focus of this petition is much more specific to the individual planning consideration which is live and in those circumstances you probably are correct to suggest that we move to close the petition given that it would be an appropriate for us to involve ourselves in that process Are members content that we pursue that recommendation We are I thank the petitioner for the petition I understand the depth of feeling in relation to the issues concerned but I'm afraid in this instance and at this time the committee is not able to advance that so thank you very much that draws us to the end of our public session we'll be meeting next on the 24th of January 2024 we now move to consider items 4 and 5 in private as previously agreed