 Good morning, and I would like to welcome members to the second meeting in 2018 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. Our first item today is for the committee to take evidence on one proposed cross-party group. The group that we have to consider today is the proposed cross-party group on shared parenting. I would like to welcome Ivan McKee MSP to the meeting. Ivan is the co-convener of the group. I would like to invite Ivan to make an opening statement about the purpose of the group. Thank you very much for inviting me along this morning to talk to the committee. The intent is to set up a cross-party group on shared parenting, and there are two main purposes, two main objectives, areas that we want to cover there. The first is to do with the issue of gender stereotyping, which is clearly an issue that pervades society in many manifestations. We have seen the area of parenting assumptions about gender stereotyping, which we think are not helpful, and we see that as part of a wider gender stereotyping across society. By exploring that, understanding that a bit better, it puts us in a better position to make some progress in that part of the agenda. The second area is that there is academic research that shows that children that spend time with both parents post-separation or divorce do better in their life chances. We see that as feeding into the agenda of closing the attainment gap, which we think can be a very positive contribution. Children see both parents after separation. That helps to challenge gender stereotypes at that very impressionable age, so we see that as being very positive. The group has had its first initial meeting, and I have been very encouraged and surprised by the amount of interest that has been from organisations and individuals. You will see from the documentation that we have cross-party MSP participation in the group. We have got a dozen organisations that were expressed their interest and managed to get along to the first meeting. At that situation, we would like the committee to approve the group so that we can move forward. Part of the work programme will be to explore research into the area and understand what the situation of research is to invite speakers along. There are many other countries, particularly Scandinavia and some United States, that are much further advanced in this area than Scotland. We would like to learn from their experiences, so international speakers could contribute greatly to that. We are very open to any suggestions of other external groups that should participate in the CPG, because we want to involve as many people as possible in the group. There is a great cross-section of support that we have from organisations and individuals. So, when you are planning to progress it, is it your intention to look at specific individual topics to try to hone in on some of the research that you have indicated has come from other parts of the world? Yes, for sure. If you look at it, we have some indication of what we want to consider there. Some of that will bring in people who have experienced a senior level in the court system and the legal system. Other areas of focus could be exploring the research in more detail and bringing in people and academics who have done work there. Another area could be, as I said, to bring in speakers or people who have experience in how shared parenting operates in other countries and what we can learn from that. Thank you. I wonder if, where you say that you are going to talk to young people who have experienced shared parenting and also consider shared parenting situations where there isn't conflict as role models of best practice, would you also envisage looking at the situations and the experience of young people where there has been conflict? Oh, yes. The reason why that was in there is because there is sometimes an assumption that when you start talking about this area, you end up looking at the situations where there has been conflict. Members of the group felt that it was very important that we looked at outcomes in the round because, in many cases, there isn't conflict and those often don't get profile. However, we are keen to talk to and engage with groups that have experience in situations where there is, unfortunately, conflict and I understand that. I mean, I have met myself with Scottish Women's Aid prior to setting up a group to take their perspective on it and have a discussion with them. They don't want to join the group at this stage but they have a very constructive and fruitful discussion about their perspective on, unfortunately, a number of cases where there is domestic abuse. Do you think that organisations that you have on, maybe like the SPAC, would assist with that? Absolutely. As I say, we are very open to invite other organisations and there was a discussion about that but it should be included. I think that you have got engender coming in later. That was one of the organisations that we planned to approach to see if they would be interested because they clearly got a perspective on gender stereotyping, which we think could be very helpful. We are very keen to widen out the perspective as broadly as possible. Can I just ask a further question, convener? You talk about gender stereotyping and the roles of mothers and fathers but, obviously, in society today, we do have different family situations, so you may have the same sex appearance in the situation. Would you also be including, you know, you're talking specifically, mothers and fathers? That's a very good point, actually. I'll take that point back to the group. I think we'd be more than delighted to do that. At the initial meeting, that didn't get raised, but it's something that we should include. I would probably want to expand or, I think, the group would want to expand to make sure that we do have a session that specifically looks at same sex couples and the situation there post-separation. Okay, thanks. Thanks, convener. Any other questions? No? Thank you very much for coming along today. Ivan, the committee will consider whether to approve the cross-party group agenda item 3, and we'll inform you of the outcome of that discussion. Thank you very much. I will suspend shortly for a change order of witnesses. Our next agenda item is an evidence session on the committee's inquiry into sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct. Joining us today are Cheryl Gedling, industrial officer of the PCS union, Katie Matheson, co-ordinator of the Scottish Women's Rights Centre, Davie Thompson, campaign director of White Rib and Scotland and Emma Trottier, policy and parliamentary manager for engender. We're not asking any of you to make an opening statement, so if it's all right with the panel, we'll start directly with questions. Can I ask the panel what the common barriers are that discourage those experiencing sexual harassment to come forward to report the harassment and what about those who witness harassment taking place? We'd like to stop. So engender submitted our written evidence. I'm just going to highlight what we had said were the barriers. One, I think, is the existing procedures or the policies are spread across multiple documents. So when I was trying to sort out what the procedure was for reporting, investigating and sanctioning sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour, I really struggled in finding out where to go to find that information. And then once I had found it, it still wasn't clear to me where or who I was supposed to report it to. So it seemed it was very dependent on who the person was, the perpetrator, and where the action occurred. So it was very confusing to me to sort out what I would need to do if I was sexually harassed. I think the other barrier is the lack of clarity around confidentiality. So how is that information and personal information protected during reporting and then into the investigation? And then finally, I think another barrier is that it's not clear what the sanctions would be for the person who committed or for the perpetrator of sexual harassment. And I think that can be a real disincentive for individuals coming forward to report that kind of behaviour, not knowing what the penalty will be and not having the assurance that there will be a penalty. So I think that those are a few of the barriers. I know everything that's already been said, but it's quite difficult to work out what people should do, but to a degree that's understandable because of the number of variations that you have that could come about in terms of whether it's somebody working for an MSP that's wanting to report, somebody who's working elsewhere in the Parliament, somebody who's visiting, somebody who's here as a contractor or whatever, whether they've got that role as the person being harassed or is actually a perpetrator of it, and it makes it look a very complicated process to work out what should be done when. I think that the answer to that is that the difficult bit should be for organising how things get dealt with rather than for seeing where somebody who's wanting to report it fits in. For them, that should be quite straightforward. They should be able to go to a document that clearly says, well, this is your position, you're somebody visiting the Parliament and you feel you've been harassed or you're working for an MSP and you feel you've been harassed by somebody else in the Parliament or your employer or whoever. So for the person reporting it, they need to be able to clearly identify their position. Through the procedures, it clearly states that what they are feeling uncomfortable about is actually harassment in terms of how it's been seen by those procedures, and therefore it's something that they feel they can report. They need to be confident that there's clarity about that and how the report will be carried out. In particular, the first step, who do I go to, needs to be abundantly clear, and that should be quite clear regardless of which of the categories we've talked about you fit into. It should be reasonably clear who you report to. It might even be the case that it would be good for there to be somebody in the Parliament who's independent of the various different organisations working in the Parliament building who could be seen as an adviser, who somebody could go to in sailing. I've got a concern and I'm thinking of reporting it and be able to discuss it with them in the first instance. Somebody who's not aligned to any particular part of the organisation could help to simplify things for people. If they make the decision that they want to report it, they really need to be confident about what's going to happen next. They're not going to enter into a system where they don't understand what the next step is going to be. Like you said, it's about anonymity. Within that, you need to know who's going to know about it, how many people are going to be involved in this and who are they, so that you can be informed when you make your decision. One of the things that needs to be clear as well in the guidance that comes out eventually would be the penalties for anybody who interferes with the fact that you have reported, who's going to influence you taking that report any further. If there's anybody who decides that bullying the person who's made the report or explaining to them in strong terms that it's going to be bad for them as well as the person who's carried out the activity, that kind of thing has to be clearly not acceptable. I'll place one to let somebody else carry on. I think that there's barriers before somebody even comes forward to make a report. I think that there's barriers often in workplaces and in different cultures as well. People will often be very concerned about speaking about something like sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can cover a whole range of behaviours from inappropriate comments through to sexual assault and rape. Sexual harassment is a huge term and we know that it's really difficult for survivors of any kind of sexual violence to come forward and make that disclosure. I think that there are procedural issues, but barriers are about creating cultures and workplaces where people feel comments, sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour that would never be tolerated. The first step is almost looking at that and creating a culture in which people feel comfortable. That would lend itself to people feeling comfortable about coming forward and thinking that they would be taken seriously if that kind of culture exists. Those barriers exist before we even get to looking at procedural things. I'm going to quote from TUC research that was done in late 2016, so as we just tip into 2018, it feels really very relevant. Women don't report sexual harassment because they think that it's going to have a negative impact on their careers and on their working relationships. Just under a third of the women who participated in the TUC's research which resulted in the report still just a bit of a banter said that's why they didn't report it. Almost a quarter of women don't think that they'll be believed. One in five said that they're too embarrassed to report it, which is a really, really important point as well. It's a very embarrassing, disempowering thing for women to experience in the workplace. There's fears of around 15 per cent of women that it's going to have a negative impact on their career. 12 per cent of women, and it's such as what colleagues have said about the clarity of the procedures, said they didn't report it because they didn't know how to, and very worryingly around 10 per cent said they weren't aware they could report it at all. So the procedures are really, really important, but I think the culture is really important as well. I know that's what you're trying to get to the heart of with this consultation, this process you're undertaking here. I think within the Parliament itself there's a really specific culture. It's quite a unique working culture. There's a very close working between politicians, staff and MSP aides, and I think that that adds sensitivities into people being able to either report behaviour they've experienced themselves or behaviour that they witness as a bystander, and concerns about your career and reputational damage are particularly important within the Parliament as well. The long hours working culture as well, which regularly involves evening or weekend working, is also an issue. In addition to the reasons that are outlined from the TUC research, I think that there are particular reasons within the Scottish Parliament why this behaviour might not be reported. Within that TUC research, is that only on women? Yes. David Thomson had made mention of an independent person that someone could go and report their concerns out with the parliamentary structure. Would you see trade unions having a role in that? I think that that's crucial. I think that one of the incredibly depressing things about the research is that only 1 per cent of women saw their trade union as a place to go to. There are a whole range of reasons for that, including some of the ones that I've already mentioned, but it's just not seen as a workplace issue. It's seen as more of an issue for a person to resolve themselves. One of the key recommendations from that research that the STUC strongly supports as well is for unions to be seen, certainly as a first point of call, even if that's a sign posting members in the right direction. Unions should be a crucial part of addressing the issue. I want to explore some of the key features of workplace policies and procedures that would support a positive environment and inspire confidence in some of the characteristics of good reporting mechanism. In answer to the convener, all of you have touched on a lot of that. Cheryl, when the convener asked about the role of the trade unions in that, would you envisage equality reps or health and safety reps taking on that role? What about people who weren't in the trade union? People who aren't in the trade union should immediately join the appropriate trade union and get great representation from the appropriate trade union. To touch on that, one of the things that came out of the STUC's response was that everyone that's involved at all in the Parliament should be strongly encouraged to join the appropriate trade union. That's something that's possibly missing from the guidance generally and something that could be very quickly and easily addressed. I would certainly see equality reps as having a key role to play here. Clearly, anyone who's undertaken that role needs to be appropriately trained and for that training to be refreshed on a regular basis. What would really assist, though, in terms of the cultural changes that's needed is for those equality reps to be given the time that they need to perform that role properly. That links with a fair work agenda as well. I'm here today with two hats on because I'm supposed to be covering the STUC response as well, but I think that progressing the fair work agenda possibly a little bit more quickly in relation to equality reps and what we have so far would be extremely helpful as well. Can I just ask further on that? I should have said that I'm a member of Unite, perhaps having had the answer to that question that we got. You've said that PCS hasn't dealt with a lot of sexual harassment complaints, but that's not because necessarily it's not happening. Repotent is not commonplace. Do you think, then, that because it's now under so much scrutiny, do you anticipate changes in that? That would just be speculation, of course, but when you look at the research—there's other significant research around the underreporting of sexual harassment—it wouldn't be impossible for that to be the case. As I said, there's a number of reasons why that's not reported, but there was a big response to the TUC research, and that's why it's a very worthy piece of research to look into in more detail. In that sense, the Scottish Parliament is just like any other workplace for a variety of reasons. It would not be unreasonable to assume that there is a level of underreporting. We took some evidence from the Parliament officials at a previous meeting, and they're now confirming that there's one helpline that people can contact, and it's an external helpline. Do you think that that's going to then make a difference? I'm not asking the whole panel, I'm not just asking Cheryl. Will that now make a difference? Just if there's anything else that you didn't give in your first response to the convener about barriers that you want to talk about, which would make for good reporting mechanisms? I would just say that the very existence of robust procedures and making that aware across the whole Parliament, so that people are working here under the knowledge that this won't be approved in any way, shape or fashion. It's easy for a group or an organisation to say that we've got a zero-tolerance policy and things. That's just step one, you have to demonstrate that you've got a zero-tolerance policy on it. So there has to be induction training for everybody that comes into the building, that they're aware that this wouldn't be accepted here, and that initiates the prevention processes that mean that your robust procedures hopefully won't even need to be applied. So harassment comes from an abuse of power, so the people who have that power know that everybody is encouraged that, should there be an incident, you report it, that in itself starts to be preventive. John, on that point, is that okay, convener? Just to ask the induction procedures, would you then think that examples of sexual harassment would be something that could be included there? It's because of what Cheryl Gedling said earlier about people perhaps thinking that it's a personal thing rather than a work issue. So would that be helpful in an induction procedure? Yeah, I think so. If there are a lot of people, it's good. There's a degree of confusion as to what people mean when they're used over harassment. So yeah, training in general, training in what it is, training in what can be done about it, training, you know, as Cheryl mentioned about bystanders, you mentioned about what can witnesses do, how do witnesses feel confident to come forward? Witnesses hopefully can feel confident to step in before it even gets to the point that somebody needs to report something because it's already been dealt with in stocks that happen in the first place. So if you have a general atmosphere where active bystander activity steps in at an early stage, then you get to the point where you don't need to be applying these procedures because the report doesn't need to be made. So encouraging folk in that way, I think, is very effective. I think a helpline is a really helpful thing. I think it's really encouraging. I think that if that's linked into other processes within the Parliament, that would be really helpful as well. So we've talked already about having an independent or third party that somebody could go to, for instance, if the helpline had a connection into that as well. So that people are able to go to it, maybe, in confidence, discuss their own situation, but then if they do want to take action that there's somebody independent that can take them through that process as well with clear ways of proceeding with it, I think, could be a difference. Ending with True Union health and safety equality rip be the kind of person that you would be talking about? Yeah, I think so. There's a lot of training around sexual violence awareness as well because I think it is really important that the correct messages are given when somebody makes a disclosure of the first time and also for people to understand that what you were saying about it is often seen as being a personal thing. I think that one of the difficulties with an experience of sexual harassment or any kind of sexual violence is really difficult if you're in a situation which is undermining or traumatising you to then make clear decisions or do it within a tight timeframe. So I think having a bit of flexibility is usually important. I just wanted to come in on the point about induction and learning and that it isn't just about a one-time sexual harassment training course that you've done that you can just check the box and say, okay, I've done this, it's all settled, I'm good to go now. It's really about continual learning for any employee in the Scottish Parliament and part of what will fall into that is being able to collect and share data on reporting investigations and then sanctions for that kind of behaviour so that it's a continual awareness, it's not a one-off and it's not just a checkbox that people can say, okay, we've done this now, we're set. Thanks, thanks. Can I just before I ask the question to ask, I just wanted to do a couple of things. The term that we use and it picks up really on what's being discussed, the term harassment, in some way that suggests it's repeated but of course it isn't, it can be a one-off incident. Do you think actually the terminology we use, we have to look at that so that people can be better understanding what they should be reporting and how they're reporting? Do you think that term harassment could even put people off because they think, well, it was just a one-off incident, I don't have to report it particularly if it's what might be described as low level so that terminology, should we be looking at that, do you think? I think potentially that could be an issue, one of the, in my submission I gave you some feedback about where there was lack of protection for women that had been in contact with the Scottish Women's Rights Centre and one of the survivors that I spoke to it was a very serious assault that happened to her but there had been years of sexual harassment but because she worked in a male dominated environment where that was almost seen as being banned to her or daily exchanges, she didn't realise the risk that that posed because the culture was so common within that culture so it was really hard for her to then identify what was escalating and I think she could never have known what was going to happen but the culture and the terminology probably played into that. It's good for people to have a better understanding of what is actually being referred to, no matter what the title of it is, it's an understanding of the behaviour and more importantly people understanding what behaviours that are unacceptable for them to use and acknowledge the fact and look inwardly a wee bit to acknowledge the fact that perhaps some of those behaviours are things that they have touched on in the past and are no longer acceptable. Yes, sure. I think that that's a really important point actually and we've seen some of the really vile reporting and a lot of the press and media haven't we about goodness me, you can't pay anyone a compliment anymore, it's political correctness gone mad and all of these appalling people at crawl out from under stones when things like this are exposed. A great starting point is the equality act definition which I think makes it really clear what sexual harassment is actually in a kind of brief and really where it's easily easy to comprehend. To come back to the point that Elaine Smith made about using examples I think that's invaluable actually it's really important to do that so that people are very clear about the kind of behaviour that's not acceptable. There's a spectrum isn't there of behaviour of course but all of it is unwanted behaviour and actually even to use the term low level is quite interesting that you use that term actually because that's usually part of a pattern of behaviour that goes on for some considerable time but is a huge huge issue because it's in welcome to the individual concerned. I think it's important to remember as well and again it's particularly in the context of the Parliament that this doesn't just happen within work to be work related. It takes place in social media as well which is a huge, huge part of working life these days. It takes place at social events and it takes place at official events out with the workplace too so anything you're doing in connection with work is work so it isn't okay to indulge in that kind of behaviour at an event in the evening or the weekend either. In some ways it's similar to that. In the agenda submission it says that the Scottish Parliament has never tolerated or ignored social harassment or inappropriate conduct of any kind or in any form which I imagine all organisations would support that. I think that within the Parliament or within the MSP code of conduct there is this presumption for informal resolution so I suppose what are the positive and negatives of informal resolutions before complaints go to a formal process? Do you think that there is a place for those or would you suggest that it should immediately go to be reported and go through the formal procedures? I think that it just depends on the nature of what's getting reported. If somebody's independence is going to be involved whether they are of the opinion of their training that it's something that could be resolved in a relatively low level way and in a low level I mean I'm talking about the resolution process rather than the activity. I was writing that what I was thinking is that it really should be up to when we discuss informal and formal that that should be really up to the person to decide and that they should have all the available information on what an informal complaint versus an informal complaint entails so that when they make that decision it's an informed one and as of right now as the policy stands I'm really not sure what either entails for people who experience sexual harassment in the Scottish Parliament. Absolutely I couldn't agree more it really needs to be for the individual to decide for themselves what's most appropriate for them. I haven't said that one of the benefits of informal resolution is often that it can be done really really quickly fortunately formal processes where the best will in the world sometimes take longer so it's really crucial that both of those avenues of resolution are available but it is only ever for the individual to decide with all of the information available about what each option means for them what the potential outcome is as long as there's clarity around that then the individual must be able to decide for themselves. Can I just have a very quick actually slightly unrelated but it was a you made earlier about the embarrassment that people face and that's why that do you think it's important in that reporting process and perhaps once the initial complaint has gone in perhaps follow up evidence taking etc that people are able to access a person of the same sex or to actually do that reporting and is that happening at the moment in enough cases? Well in answer to that probably not for a variety of reasons but is that important? Yes absolutely I mean well I just like everything else it comes down to making sure that time and money is available actually to resource this properly but the benefits of doing that so the individuals choose how best they should be taken forward for themselves are really significant actually because again that's another barrier to reporting you know I would go to that I would go to that well gosh let's criticize ourselves I will go to that union rip but that's a 60 year old man and I'm not going to share that experience with him as a 24 year old woman so I think that is a really important point and that option should be available. I would very much agree with that I think when we think about survivors reporting sexual crimes to the police like women and male survivors as well are given the option of whether they want to speak to a female or a male officer so I think it's really important most people prefer to speak with a female in that situation whether we kind of disclosure think it is really important that they have that opportunity as well. Great thank you very much and good morning going back to the point that was made which I think is perhaps one of the most important points in all of this and that is that most people would probably agree in principle that there should be zero tolerance of harassment but then when it comes to the point of having the confidence it's so often justified that this it's not really harassment I don't have a right to report it no one will take me seriously etc and I think a lot of that has to do with justifications of harassment on the basis of some other reason and he mentioned the parliament particularly which has a unique sort of power balance and a unique way of working. How do you clarify in people's minds what is wrong particularly in those that want to report it that they are perfectly they have the right and the liberty to report something when they're justifying on the basis of a unique set of circumstances in terms of power balance or they work in a particular environment which is very male dominated and that just is part of the culture and that's bigger than just questions around the parliament does that make sense is your question how do we encourage people to report basically my question is how do you ensure that people understand what the definition is of harassment and that they know that they therefore are perfectly it's within their rights to report it I think it's the culture I think it's a case of through training people and through encouraging discussion about it and making it a very open subject matter people get to know because they get to understand what other people think and what everybody agrees is acceptable and isn't acceptable and on the whole people know I mean if it's one of those situations where if it's concerning you that it's happening to you it's probably not acceptable but that doesn't mean you'll convince yourself if it's not acceptable so if the general atmosphere is such that this is just doesn't happen here because we just do not build with it and if it's seen happening somebody's going to comment we're not going to wait till you report it somebody's going to make a comment in practical terms how do you get the message out there in really practical we know we've got posters we've got emails around the helpline in practical ways how do you do that I wonder if there's like awareness campaigns I know that the unequally safe scottish government have recently looked at funding and awareness campaign I think that would be really helpful and to focus on like what is what is sexual harassment like perpetrator's behaviour rather than focusing on sort of victim survivors you know so that the messages that are going out are really kind of about this is not appropriate behaviour it's not acceptable so that people when they're experiencing that are seeing that and saying well that that is what's happened to me and that's not acceptable and there's also a really clear message going out to people that are perpetrating that behaviour as well so I think like having awareness campaigns is a really important thing and I think that some of the things we've touched on already about kind of culture within workplaces but also about like embedding within like from the induction period all the way through that that's something that's a kind of constant conversation like if you think culturally in our society there's so many mixed messages we give out about gender-based violence anyway that it's not surprising they're all within the workplace as well so I think it is about trying to unpick some of the messages and then and then reframe them. Just to come in on the back of that to you know to agree with everything that's been said it's that I mean it's a really difficult question isn't it to how do you give people the confidence to to come forward there is something on the process being very clear I think and that's not off-putting being clear that there's a leadership role I think for every organisation as well that employs staff of any kind to make it clear that this is not acceptable behaviour one thing that is obviously really difficult because of the nature of sexual harassment is to get robust kind of data and monitoring for instance there's a I appreciate parliament staff on civil servants but I think it's useful to touch on the civil service employee survey which is done every year it does look into harassment it does look into the willingness of staff to call out unacceptable behaviour and I think being able to kind of monitor broadly the how people feel able to do that and unfortunately the statistics on that show that they don't feel any more able to do that than they used to 10 years ago which is perhaps a failure of the policies and procedures I think confidentiality is a crucial point as well people need to know they can come forward and describe their experiences that they will be believed and that no step will be taken in the process without them agreeing to that step as well so some of this process some of this is cultural but I think training another are issues around mandatory training but I think training should be mandatory on this for every member of staff every politician without fear or favour so it's quite clear that everyone is held to the same standard sorry just I should have mentioned earlier when I was putting together the written submission I had contact from somebody who had actually put a quote in the paper and it actually related specifically to the parliament her experience and I think the thing that she really wanted me to convey was that something had happened which she considered to be less serious which she did try to report through a number of different avenues and she still not received any kind of feedback from that and when she then experienced sexual harassment within the parliament she didn't feel that she could come forward and report that at all so I think there's a really important kind of comment in there about not waiting for things to escalate not not thinking that it's only the kind of high end of you know sexual assaults and sexual harassment but to be thinking about that actually this is like a continuum of violence that women are experiencing and the things that people might consider to be less serious actually really affect how we see the more serious things and also whether or not we feel confident about coming forward and I thought it was really interesting that she made that point I wondered about sorry no the other thing I wondered about was just about like having champions within the parliament you know people that are really skilled up in working we talked about union reps earlier but sort of champions and in the way that I think one of the suggestions that we made in our paper was you know you have lgbti champions in other workplaces and maybe about having a similar sort of approach or adapting that kind of approach and looking at that in terms of sexual harassment great just a follow-up in terms of duty of care to both those that have reported and the perpetrator throughout the investigation and sanctioning process what are your views and how to ensure that there is support available to both sides it's a difficult thing isn't it to I think there is a duty of care and I think that within a work setting often employers when there's situations with sexual harassment they feel that they have to support the survivor quite rightly but then also they have a responsibility as an employer to to the person who's been accused and it can often depend on the size of a workforce whether not it's possible to sort of separate those people and create kind of safe spaces and make sure that the interactions are are much more managed or that they don't have contact with each other and I think the point that Cheryl made previously as well about workplace is one thing but there's all sorts of things associated with your work at evenings and weekends and whatever as well and there's also third parties that can come into those situations so I think you have got a duty of care and I think it's so individual as well I think it's about working with an individual survivor around about what has happened how do they see it what do they feel would be something that they that they feel would be beneficial to them and then seeing you know if you can find a way forward around about that I think that that would be a role for a trade union rep I mean we routinely represent members who have well perpetrators and who have suffered an acceptable behaviour so I think extending the role of the union rep to do that gives it that kind of independence as well because it is challenging to respond to that you know if you approach HR or personnel you know they are seen as the kind of organisational response and rightly or wrongly there's a sense there that the person of a higher grade is the person that's most likely to be supported so you know hope that doesn't sound too controversial but unfortunately there's a lot of people's experience so I'm going to add you know certainly from a trade union perspective I would expect trade unions to be playing a key role in this I think a very significant role in terms of independence. A huge wealth of experience in front of the committee today do you have organisations that you've worked with who you see have best practice in this area in terms of culture in terms of supporting people come forward that you can share with the committee or policies that you've seen developed in other areas that you would think would be transferable to the Scottish Parliament or areas that we could look at? In my submission I've given just a few campaigns that I thought might be of interest in you know in terms of thinking about the culture on the messages so there's a lot of work happening in schools and universities and colleges just now looking at addressing sexual harassment and I think there's probably things that can be learned from them in terms of thinking about awareness about working with men about being positive actions for change about advocacy and policy and stuff like that so I think there's examples out there in terms of universities and I know that recently closed the gap of also being funded to look at accreditation for employers I think that's quite an interesting approach as well that could be worth considering. I just say that our organisation, the way that we're in Scotland is about educating men about these issues and getting men to realise that there's a benefit to everybody for these situations to change and there's room I think for that type of training to come into the general training that might take place within the Parliament building just to touch as well on the duty of care side and the balance of it. I think that what's important on both sides is that there's timescales within the procedures that people know how long this is going to take and then also that there's clear guidance on what should happen in terms of the effect that it's going to have on both parties' work and environment. Sharon, I agree with that. I think that there's something around the clarification of policies. I mean, as you said, there's a wide range of experience here and you'd be drawing on the experience of the people sitting around this table as well. Rape Crisis and Glasgow is referenced in the STC submission where some good work has been done. I was at the Scottish Women's Commission events where we can half a go, which was about sexual harassment. There's somebody from the National Union of Students who was talking about work that was being done in Dundee. This was around what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. It was called, is this okay? It was just a simplicity of that. It was appealing. It's that sense of, is what I'm doing okay? It seemed to be a really useful way of making people reflect on their behaviour. One thing I would say is, even if you have the best policy in the world, if it's not implemented, then it has no credibility. So policies are fantastic but they need to be followed and adhered to, otherwise people will still not come forward and report. I think that touches on the example that my colleague gave here about why somebody wouldn't come forward and report that. To be fair, I don't think that there are easy answers to this, which is why this is still significantly under-reported, why it continues to be a huge issue. I think that working with the groups that are here today, giving evidence and working with the STC in the trade unions, is a really positive way of taking this forward and giving people confidence in the process. It's quite general in those types of procedures that the focus is all on when do you report, who should report, how do they report, what's going to happen when they report. There should be a lot of onus in the procedures on the perpetrator in terms of what it means if you perpetrate those activities, how it's going to affect your work, how it's going to affect your position here. If we're talking about abuse of power, people need to realise that that power will not protect them. It might give them the feeling that they have the right to do it and give them that kind of entitlement in their head, but it doesn't give them the power to be protected. That needs to be clear as a result of how those procedures are written and how they get made available and easy to use. Alexander Stewart The STUC talks about that over 50 per cent of women are likely to be harassed during their work lifespan. That's a staggering statistic that we have to acknowledge. Prevention, and you've touched on prevention today, is about the key to monitoring, to coaching, to supporting, but the employer has a role within that to ensure that they monitor what's going on. If there's a trigger that happens within the environment of the workplace, how that is managed. It would be good to hear your views on what you believe that trigger should be and how people would feel appropriate to ensure that their employer was on their side. As we've touched on today, that faith or relationship between the individual and the employer still has some distance to go to believe that they're going to be taken for real and taken on board. I'd like to expand on that, if you can. Can I just pick up on that figure then? It's higher than that—four fifths of women report sexual harassment, unfortunately. It's even more of a staggering figure than you had originally thought. One of the suggestions in the S2C submission that I think is interesting is that rather than wrapping sexual harassment up with discrimination and bullying generally—for instance, dignity at work-type policies that we've seen coming through workplaces in recent years—having a specific policy around sexual harassment, that's certainly something that's worth exploring. That means that we can get disaggregated data that's touched on the civil service employee survey. Although it reports on bullying and harassment in the workplace, there's no disaggregation there to dig down into whether or not there's a sexual harassment element with that. There will be, but, of course, it's impossible to tell. I think that the other difficulty is around how you monitor—obviously, I know that the Parliament's undertaken a survey, and I think that it's really, really significant that that was done. It will be very interesting to see the results from that, but it's difficult to monitor those, because they're shrouded in secrecy. For instance, often, particularly with more serious cases, for one of a better phrase, there's a gagging agreement that a resolution is reached, but people involved in this are not allowed to talk about it, including the person who's the victim of unacceptable behaviour. I think that this is something that we're going to need to look at, because while it's shrouded in secrecy, we're not going to be able to change the culture, we're not going to be able to resolve it, so I don't have any easy answers to that, but it's something that needs to be looked at. I very much agree in terms of the confidentiality in the gagging clauses, like the women that I spoke with. That was something that was quite relevant for them. One woman, it was impossible for her to talk about what was happening while it was going to tribunal and there was investigations at her work and all those kind of things, and rumours started going about within her workplace about her conduct, about whether or not she had done something wrong, whether or not she was being disciplined, and that was obviously really difficult, and it played into all the power and control issues that we've talked about in terms of sexual harassment. For the other woman that I spoke with, she had, I think, six meetings in 12 months, and it was really onerous process for her, and it looks like there will be a gagging order when it comes to conclusion, and again, that's really dreadful because what has happened is that both of those women are no longer in their place of employment, both the perpetrators are still in their place of employment, neither of the women are able to talk about what happened or the process where it went to tribunal and what the issues were with that, and the perpetrators are continuing to be, if you like, unaffected by that without the impact on their career or their financial safety or security. I think it's just so unequal and it plays into the inequality of women in the workplace where we think about women who are often more likely to be in part time or less secure employment, and so I think it is a really big picture when you look at it. The gagging orders or the cover-up that people believe takes place, or even if there is an inquiry or an investigation, it's a whitewash to some people, and you've identified individuals who have gone through that trauma and have not got the right resolution at the end of the day, and we need to ensure that we get that message across that it has to be looked at in the round, and we have to have confidence in the system. Or once again, it's not going to benefit the individuals who feel because then the reporting won't continue to happen. It will be underreported again. I think that you're right. I think that it is about confidence. Both those women, they weren't employed in the Parliament, but both those women's experience, what they both said to me was that they felt the whole process was about protecting the organisation or service that they worked for and its reputation rather than about what had happened to them. They were really serious attacks and have had really long-term effects on those women. Both of them are not in employment anymore. It's been a really difficult thing for them and has a huge impact. When any organisation is trying to make the procedures more robust on this, they have to go through an element of a kind of pain period, if you like, where they suddenly are applying a lot more frequently, but in doing so, get the message across it. There's just genuine zero-tolerance and genuinely unacceptable and we will take part in doing something about it. Then you get back to the other side where that message and that culture just becomes pervasive around the organisation and starts to reduce the number of instances and therefore the need for it to be reported. The sanction at the end of the day is what individuals want to see. They want to believe that they've been dealt with and they want to see something happen. If that doesn't happen, then there's little point in the process. That comes from knowing that you've been believed, knowing that you've been respected, that you've been dealt with professionally, that you were put first rather than the organisation was put first. I'm knowing that there is going to be a sanction for that kind of behaviour because at the moment it's not clear that there will be and how that sanction is going to be decided by who, under what criteria, and all of that is absent information at the moment, which I think is a massive barrier. All those things have a preventive effect as well because the potential perpetrators are aware of all those things taking place, so it works from both sides. Thank you, convener. Thank you. Good morning. I draw members' attention to my entry in the register of members' interests. Also, just because we've been discussing the STUC submission, I just put on the record that the STUC is my party's landlord—very fair and excellent landlord, but there it is. I wanted to ask some questions about sanctions. In particular, one of the things that Cheryl Gedling mentioned early on is that this, the Scottish Parliament, is an unusual workplace. One of the things that's unusual about it is that there's a group of people walking here who cannot, under any circumstances, be dismissed for something equivalent to gross misconduct or what have you. I think that there's a great deal that we can do and that the Parliament is doing to address making it easier to challenge inappropriate behaviour, helping somebody to understand why their behaviour is inappropriate. At the other extreme, we can obviously be more robust at making sure that behaviour that meets a criminal standard is dealt with as robustly as it needs to be. Is there a gap in the middle? There's obviously a democratic argument as to why MSPs can't be dismissed from their seats, but is there a counter case that that protection should be removed and if so, how should that be done and what kind of behaviours might fall into that area where we might have difficulty in the future? Are you weighing the duty of care with the sanctions that can be imposed on? There's a range of sanctions that would be available if an MSP had been found to have carried out serious behaviour and that range of sanctions does not include removing them from office. Is there a gap in comparison with other workplaces where a person ultimately, if the behaviour was serious or persistent or it could not be successfully challenged in other ways, a person might be dismissed from their post? Is that something that we should look at and if so, what is the range of circumstances that might not be amenable to the sanctions that we currently have available to us? Yes, there is a gap, undoubtedly. It could be regarded as, in those individuals, the MSPs that you talked about being held to a different standard. Five minutes left of this session. I'm not sure that it's been a lot of time talking about this, but to confirm that the Parliament is serious about looking at this and addressing it, I certainly think that it should be considered. Perhaps a useful starting point would be that you used to tell yourself gross misconduct, so what other workers would be dismissed for doing, I think, would be certainly that type of behaviour, which is a whole range of things covered by that, including sexual harassment. That would certainly be a good starting point to look at the types of behaviour where you would consider whether or not someone should be allowed to continue serving as an MSP. I'm guessing that there's a code of conduct for MSPs as well, and I wonder if that's something that's been looked at in terms of thinking about the different kinds of behaviours that we've talked about in terms of sexual harassment. I would agree with Cheryl that it does fall short. There is something missing in there, but I would also just put a caution in there about whether it meets a criminal standard. I think that, often, people don't go forward and formally report to the police for a whole number of complex reasons, so that wouldn't necessarily be where I would think that the gaff always exists. I think that, often, when people do report as well, because, particularly with sexual crimes, there's often not other witnesses, so often there's issues about whether or not a case could proceed anyway, so I think that that, in itself, there's questions about how effective that would be as being your kind of further extreme. It's possibly the ultimate example within the Parliament situation where the power that's been given to somebody by virtue of the fact that they can't be removed opens up that idea that you've got such a strong power there that could be abused and result in harassment. If there's no sanction that can take that power away, then there's no sanction to be concerned about. I don't know enough about parliamentary procedures to suggest how you go about changing it so that MSPs can be removed when they've been democratically elected. It's kind of over to you guys on that one. There's a massive gap there. If we're talking about gross misconduct, I think that it fosters the very culture that we're discussing today that we have shared all of our concerns about failure to your responsibilities to your citizens. They want to be represented by someone who has been, I don't know what the word was, found, convicted of a gross misconduct. I think that it's yet another barrier to women coming forward that there is no punishment for that kind of behaviour. What's the incentive of reporting if, at the end of the day, you're still sitting in a room with the person who's sexually harassed you or worse? Thank you. Just finally on this, is there also anything that any of you would like to suggest by way of other sanctions short of a final step that might have been used successfully in other workplaces that we should be aware of but which haven't been considered as part of the code of conduct? Are there any other steps by way of sanctions that might be worth incorporating into our code of conduct short of that absolutely last resort? Can I ask what it would be possible for us to write to you about that? Can't be really helpful. Yeah, just to give that some thought, and I have people I need to consult as well, obviously, I'm not speaking just on behalf of PCS today. No, that'd be really helpful, thank you. Thank you very much, convener. It was just to explore a bit further the MSP issue that my colleague Patricia Harvey raised there, and from two different angles, I suppose. In the end, with the MSP issue, we talked about gagging orders, and perhaps some women MSPs might be a bit reticent about coming forward for a couple of reasons. One is the publicity surrounding that. It would be played out in the press if it were to be made public, and that's maybe something that any MSP is actually depending on the nature of the sexual harassment. I'm just using the term women because that's the majority, but they might not want that, so that's one point. The second point would be in the end, I suppose, an MSP would lose their job, because that would be up to the parties and the whips, and so if they were removed from their party list, for instance, they couldn't stand to gain if they were suspended or expelled from their party, they might be able to sit to the end of the session, but in the end they would lose their jobs. However, it takes me back then to the point that I did want to talk about, which is the role of party whips. It might be easier for members to complain about someone in another party if they're just looking at the political perspective, but it might be far more difficult to complain about someone in your own party when you consider the politics of it as well and what damage it might do to your party. That's a whole other issue around MSPs. I think that the whips are very, very important, and therefore I would ask—I think that it was Katie mentioned earlier—that it's important to be able to talk about these things to another woman. I make that point just simply because, as well in my party, up until change of leadership, the whips were all men, and I think that that is a barrier to women being able to discuss this sort of thing. I don't know if you have any opinions on that. I did want to ask one further question that was just—perhaps Katie, you could comment on that, because you did mention that earlier. I think that you've hit the nail on the head. You need to have women that people can go to to discuss it with. It might be that there's a whole range of options around about what's happened for a particular set of circumstances, but I think that if it's all male whips, it's going to be really unlikely that somebody is going to feel that it's an open avenue for them. It's interesting that you managed—you mentioned about damage to the party, because I think that's what people fear about damage to the reputation of a service or whatever as well or an employer, so that's always there. One thing I would say is that that first response that somebody gets is really important. The people that I've spoken to talked about how their managers—like the people who should have made the initial response and managed that process—weren't equipped to do it, and they had poor responses, and that really undermined their sense of power control in that situation and played into all other things that had gone on. I think that it's really important that there are women that people can disclose to and that are properly trained and able to take forward that function as well. As I may, I would say to your comment that it goes back to the massive power imbalance in 65 per cent of MSPs or men, and that this being a bigger issue about women's representation in political and public life. I could ask another question about some slightly different convener. It was actually around the Equality Act—I'm trying to see where I read it. I think that it was the STUC said that, in 2013, the third party harassment provisions were repealed. That led me to wondering about third parties coming into the Parliament. There are obviously a lot of events that lobbying goes on. There are all sorts of third parties and there are all sorts of employees and MSPs in the Parliament who could be affected by that. If staff or MSP staff themselves were subject to sexual harassment at those events, under that repeal, does that mean that there is no recourse? There is no legal recourse. It is one of the reasons that the STUC is calling for that to be reinstated, which is why it is getting the policy right. Given the sense that it will still be addressed, I mean, to be fair, you want most workplace issues to be addressed and dealt with well before you go anywhere near a tribunal or a legal case. That is very significant and is part of the power imbalance as well. It's made the situation worse, there's no doubt about that. That doesn't mean it can't be addressed. It doesn't mean that people don't have the option of taking an issue forward. To make a point that's been made several times during this session, it's absolutely crucial that the policy nails that as well and covers specifically the third party issue. Good morning to the panel. I've been struck, particularly by something that David Thomson said, which was preventing potential perpetrators. It suggests that much of what we've spoken about today in terms of process is about deterrence and accepting it. Perhaps that is the only option. The panel would like to speak about how we more fundamentally change the culture and Emma Trotter touched on this with the issue of the overall power imbalance. However, I'm keen to explore some of the reasons why men, and it is predominantly men, would commit those acts in the first place and how we more broadly as a society, but specifically within Parliament, change that culture so that maybe in an ideal scenario we don't have to think about deterrence because people would not be thinking about committing such acts in the first place. That's the kind of whole being for us existing this way. I've been in Scotland as a bit educating men and educating them about how we can change the attitudes of men as they're growing up from being young boys. We're really talking about cultural change across the whole country rather than just within a Parliament dome. If that's successful, you would have less of a problem to consider. However, once you get to the stage of people coming into the building, you need to address it within those walls. It's a long-term project to create prevention by changing attitudes, but it can be done. It's been done in a number of different campaigns to do with C bill wearing, rink driving and all sorts of different campaigns. It's about ensuring that prevention is properly funded, properly getting spread across the country and having a wide enough effect. You're talking about a generational change, so I'm waiting to see the results of that. One of the hardest things for us in other prevention campaigns is proving that you've been successful because we're talking decades down the line when you have full success. Even in terms of influence, you're not there on the day somebody doesn't do something because of something you said in a training session. Those are always difficult things for prevention campaigns, but that's the sense that what you're getting to is the idea of cultural change across the country. What we've been talking about is the things that could happen within the Parliament building or what can happen with every organisation across the country. Just building on what has already been said that you're looking at a generational change, so going all the way back to looking at young girls and boys and the social norms that force girls and boys to take on certain roles when they're in school. Girls to be more caring and passive and boys to be strong and tough. That's where we need to start this conversation if we want to talk about changing culture in Scotland and pushing for women's equality. I think, though, that what I wouldn't want to lose sight of right now in the landscape is that there is a power differential that has to be taken into account in the Scottish Parliament and that that power imbalance does create an environment that fosters coercion and exploitation, and that's not something that we can lose sight of, but that these conversations that we're having today about sexual harassment policy and practice can have an impact. I would just say that, in terms of prevention, I agree that it's really important to go right back. Great Price of Scotland has been going into schools and recently expanded its prevention programme, and I think that going in and talking about attitudes and relationships and equality and consent and all those things from an early age is really important in terms of shaping people's understanding of relationships and of how they relate to other people. I think that that's really important, but you mentioned deterrence, and I think that the deterrence aspect has to come with consequences, and that's what, in a way, you've been trying to get to earlier on, is what is the consequence of this behaviour and things like gagging orders paying to play into a situation where we can't talk about what the consequences are because you wouldn't be allowed to do so legally, and I think that's one of the things, like, there has to be clear consequences for having perpetrated those kind of acts, but until we can start seeing what they are, I think that that's hard to deter it, and I wonder if, if we're talking about awareness raising campaigns that we talked about earlier, there's stuff about attitudes, but could there be stuff about consequence as well? Well, you asked why men do it, well, they do it because they can, you know, and unfortunately, as we've seen recently, they're doing it, unfortunately, and possibly bigger numbers than they have been in the past. Some of the campaigns that have been run, I think, is that there's a budget, I think, for social changes, like, I think about things like CME and zero tolerance, so I'm not sure if that's something that the Parliament can fund, but I think that that's quite useful in awareness raising around domestic violence, around mental health. I think that there's a real role for the Parliament in leading the way on this, and one way of doing this is looking at your internal procedures, but it's about what you say to the people of Scotland as well. I think that what your peers do is really important. Again, this came up at the Scottish Women's Convention session that took place recently around, you know, if you like, a group of men sitting, having a bit of banter in the pub, for instance. You know, it can be really, really challenging if something that you personally find unacceptable has been said to actually call that behaviour out and challenge it out. So some of the achieving societal changes is massive. Clearly, we're not going to resolve that round the table today, but it's changing that kind of behaviour and giving people confidence to call out their own peer group, their friends and family when something unacceptable is said and done, and the role of the bystander in this, I think, is really important to look at as well on something that needs to be developed. I'd be keen as well just to hear the panel's observations on political culture, just to give a very simple example. This committee has worked in a very consensual and constructive way to explore a serious issue. Now, later on, the footage of this will be uploaded onto the Parliament's YouTube channel, and I can guarantee that if you go and look at how many views it gets, it will be dwarfed in comparison to an hour and a half or so when First Minister's questions begin, which is adversarial, combative, and is reported on by a press gallery dominated by male political journalists. So I would just be keen to hear what your observations are particularly about political culture and the masculine, testosterone-filled, adversarial, combative nature of it, and what role that plays in politics. It's just about all aspects of society, because it's how we bring young boys up to think they have to behave to prove themselves better than another, rather than working with Peersby combative against them. It's what we teach you. It's about, you know, you've got to be good at sports, you've got to be stronger, you've got to be bigger and better. If you're going to be recognised as a real man, we need to change that. We need to change the way we bring up children and how we stereotype them, and then that feeds into how the political culture and the generalistic culture starts to affect things once you have people growing up into that that have a different ideal in the first place. I think, like, whether, you know, there's been so many things in the press recently, like a bit Westminster and in Hollywood, and people that have made appointments to different roles, where they've made really horrendous, misogynistic comments in the past and stuff, and what I find really amazing about that is that there seems to be a debate for a period of time about, is that enough for that person to be seen as not suitable for this role? And you're like, where's the debate in that, you know? Like, surely if somebody's making, like, really, really inappropriate comments or threats online, or have said things that are just completely out there, whether it was two years in the past or 10 years in the past, it does, you know, show an attitude, and I think sometimes I find it surprising that it's not taken more seriously immediately. One of the things, as well, is that you've got to engender an atmosphere where people challenge that type of thing. And I mean that in the old levels, not just at political level, but clearly it's good if leaders are commenting on it and being more appropriate in their choice of words and how they put down misogynistic comments that are getting made. But it matters, as well, within a family situation. There's a lot of work, as Katie mentioned, getting done by rape crisis, going into schools and working with children. And we've done some work in the past in schools as well. And children get on board quite quickly with us. They don't naturally want to be abusive and they get the programme and the idea of how you can be better in your behaviour with other people. But if they go home and they don't see any evidence that supports that, do you quickly lose that support that they've given on the day? So if they go home and they say, this is what I was doing at school today, and the reaction they get from parents or somebody else in the house is, well, that's a lot of rubbish, you know, bother about that. Or there's a comment coming on the television that's extremely misogynistic to the point of explaining how to sexually abuse women and nobody's in the room says, that's ridiculous, that's just totally unacceptable. Or makes comment when it's dismissed as that's just locker room banter and says, like I've been in locker rooms, that's not locker room banter, then there's nothing supporting the work that's getting done in the schools. So we need to be changing that at all levels and have more men involved in bringing about the change so that they are there as role models. In the sense it's really easy to answer to how you change political culture, which is, let's have more women, that's 50-50 and beyond. That might sound like a little bit of a kind of trite point, but you cannot be what you can't say and if you don't see women in the chamber here and Westminster, which it might be combative in that chamber, but good God Westminster is absolutely horrific. I mean, I think, you know, a credit where credit is due in terms of the way business is done here, but you need to change the political culture and there needs to be more women coming through into the movement in every possible way, but there need to be more women MSPs. I mean, is that I'd like to see more women in politics and I'd like to see more political parties making an effort at ensuring that 50 per cent of their candidates are women. Thank you. I thank the panel very much for coming along today. I think it's been a really interesting session. I just want to put on record that I am a member of unison as we've discussed so much about what trade unions can do and the role that they complain in this area. I thank Cheryl and Katie for agreeing to provide the committee with some written evidence to one of the questions, and we'll move into our wall adjourn to allow the witnesses to leave. Agenda item 3 is for the committee to consider whether to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party group on sheer parenting, and I'd like to invite members to comment on the evidence that they heard from Ivan McKee. Thank you very much for those comments. The group approves the cross-party group of sheer parenting, and we now move into private session as previously agreed.