 We have the 13th meeting of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing in 2017. Apologies that they have been received today from Liam McArthur. Agenda item 1 is an evidence session on Her Majesty'spacker of Constabulary in Scotland's review of the SCPicles authority. I welcome Derek Pen authority, Her Majesty's?, her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary in Scotland and Jill Emery, assistant inspector of constability in Scotland to the meeting. Mae Mrydhau ddwc yn fanylmayd ag y cifysol hwnnig i ddweud i ddod o'u cyffredinol. Mae'n ddydig i ddod, yn ddigonio ar gyfer y cifysol hwnnig, y pethau mewn ysgolen nhw'n eu cefnod, ac mae'n riliad. Felly, rydyn ni'n dillent digwydd i ddod o'i ddod o'r cifysol hefyd yn ei gweld yn ei gweithreistau. I invite Mr Penman to make a short opening statement to committee. Thank you, convener. If I can, thank you for your comments in relation to the embargoed report. If I may just for a minute just differentiate our report from a confidential document that was leaked to one that was embargoed and was effectively a public document, also from our perspective we only embargo any documents really to support the convention of not publicising a report before it's laid in Parliament. That's the only reason and only time that we would embargo that. That's effectively to allow key stakeholders to be able to respond to the report. It's definitely not intended to restrict its contents or publication. We took a different approach in this time in terms of 30 post reports that we have done previously and not had an issue with embargo, but I was very keen that a number of external stakeholders were able to see the report prior to publication and also I was keen to make sure that we could facilitate that parliamentary scrutiny by your committee. There is a disappointment that the embargo was breached more for the impact on others than on ourselves because it meant that people yesterday were forced to comment when they were expecting to comment today. It would be my intention to write to everybody who received an embargoed copy, really just to request that we consider their own document handling arrangements and provide assurances over future arrangements just to allow me to inform my way going forward. That was my intention to deal with that and thank you for your comments. If I may move on, if I can thank the committee for its invitation to provide evidence on the inspection report and to open this in transparency of the Scottish Police Authority and also acknowledge and thank the committee for its scrutiny and also that of the Post Public Audit and Post Legislative Scrutiny Committee, we have closely followed the evidence sessions and we have taken cognisance of the issues raised by members in conducting our inspections. As you will be aware, I had initially planned a major inspection of the Police Authority during 2017, but we received a request from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on 20 April to bring forward the elements of transparency and accountability. I had the opportunity to thank Audit Scotland, who has supported HMIC in our inspection work and they have worked with my team and accompanied them on our field work and also our interviews with board members and others. That approach is consistent with their statutory duty to cooperate and share information. As you will be aware, my report was laid before Parliament yesterday and copies have been provided to members in advance of this session. While the report contains a number of key findings, my overall summary is that there is a need for the authority to genuinely engage with its stakeholders and listen to the views of those with an interest in the policing of Scotland. I have previously commented that effective scrutiny of policing in Scotland is essential in maintaining both legitimacy and public confidence. The scrutiny of policing must not only be effective, it must also be seen to be effective. While there have been positive improvements under the current chair, the recent parliamentary scrutiny and media concerns over openness and transparency have, in my opinion, weakened confidence in the SPA and attracted from its ability to perform its statutory function. While I recognise and fully support the need for members to have private space and receive confidential briefings in support of their role, I firmly believe that the formal scrutiny of policing in Scotland should be conducted in public. My report welcomes the recent decision by the SPA to revert to holding its committee meetings in public and publishing papers in advance, but concludes that there is a need to listen to the views of stakeholders to maintain public confidence, and on this occasion I consider that the SPA has failed to do so until it has been pressed by parliamentary committees. The SPA must recognise the legitimate interests of Parliament, local authorities, staff associations, the press and the wider public in the scrutiny of policing in Scotland. My report also looked at the issues arising from the recent resignation of board member Moy Ali and acknowledged that she has acted fully in accordance with on-board guidance. The report also highlights that there has been acceptance by the chair that he did not deal with Moy Ali appropriately and he has since made a public apology. I have also identified weakness in the current executive structures and I welcome the recent announcement by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice that there will be a review of the way that the SPA board can be better supported to deliver its statutory functions. As I said earlier, the report acknowledges positive signs of improvement within the SPA board operations over the last 18 months. The relationships between SPA and Police Scotland have improved significantly and the sheer development of policing 2026 strategy has been a major milestone. However, in my opinion, the effective implementation of the strategy will be critical in building a modern and sustainable police service and this will require effective governance and the genuine engagement of stakeholders. Other developments, including improved financial reporting, investment and change management, governance of police call handling and the implementation of board and committee work plans, are all evidence of good progress that we have identified in the report. There is also a genuine commitment from the chair and all members to support policing and drive improvement and I would want to recognise that staff at all levels of authority are working hard in doing their best to support policing. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that there has been significant improvements under the single service. The recent response by Police Scotland to increase threat level to critical is a real example where the speed of response and the level of co-ordination were simply not possible under legacy force arrangements. However, for me, there is a real risk that the continuing focus on the SPA and its weakness in governance will limit opportunities to highlight and indeed publicly scrutinise positive developments in policing. I think that this is a potential not only to impact negatively on confidence in the SPA but could have an impact more widely on the public's confidence in Police Scotland. I firmly believe that there is a need to look to the future to galvanise around improvements that we have identified to strengthen the SPA and collectively develop efficient and effective scrutiny arrangements for policing of Scotland that genuinely add value. HMICS and myself will work closely with authority and other stakeholders to drive these improvements as quickly as possible. Thank you very much, Mr Penman, for making an opening statement. We will move directly to questions. Before I do that, I remind members and witnesses that we are under a great deal of pressure today, time-wise, and we need to conclude this meeting at 2 o'clock. There may be some issues that members will not have the opportunity to question you on, Mr Penman, and I would be grateful if we contacted you if you would be able to provide us with written answers to some further questions. I refer members to paper 1, which is a note by the clerk, and papers 2 and 3, which are private papers. Perhaps, Mr Penman, can I start by asking you about the need to hold SPA meetings in public? There has been much discussion, as you will be aware, in committee meetings and in the media about whether meetings should be in public or in private. I accept that your report highlights this as did other reports, but I note that there is some lack of support from some board members to the need to hold meetings in public. Do you think that there should be strong guidance and criteria for what should be held in public and what should be held in private? Absolutely, that is the short answer. In terms of the criteria, paragraph 21 of our report refers to the legislation. Parliament has made it clear in the legislation that not only meetings but committees and sub-committees should be held in public. It allows for the authority to decide that some or all of them could be held in private. My interpretation of that is that there is a strong presumption that meetings should be held in public, and the proceedings should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, much in the same way that local authorities, and I would imagine yourself, conducted your business rather than holding general pieces of business from that. We have made a recommendation here that there is a need for the authority to develop its own processes and procedures to be clear about what is being held in public and what will be held in private, and to have a process where that is discussed between the chief executive and the chair or chairs of the committees. The papers that are held to be conveyed in private are endorsed with that as well, so there is an audit trail and a rationale on a case-by-case basis. We have been quite firm in this report on the need to have anything that is done in private to be properly accounted for. I believe that I have two supplementaries, one from Ben and one from Stuart. Can I appeal to you, you make your supplementary as brief as possible? Yes, just at this juncture, thank you, thank you, convener. I would be interested why were you able to ascertain why the current practice of holding a private pre-meeting on the day of formal board meetings was introduced? Why was that there was that presumption on private meetings? Our comment on the pre-meeting on the day of the public board, I think probably that is generally would be general practice where there would be a pre-agenda meeting or there would be an opportunity to brief members on anything that was going to be particular or a change of circumstances around the paper. What we had picked up on was the potential for that to be perceived or indeed for it to be conducted as a pre-meeting or a rehearsal for the full board, so our recommendation is that although it is appropriate to have a pre-agenda meeting to discuss the business, it would be inappropriate to run effectively a private meeting beforehand and rehearse effectively the discussions. Our concern would be that the members would discuss the substantive issues in the main meeting in private and then when you come to have the meeting in public it becomes perfunctory and things go through in a nod and then that deprives the public and other stakeholders to understand the discussions. And was the concern around that because of the presumption historically to hold meetings on private? I think it became the practice, if you like, with the SP where they were having these meetings, but I think that there is also a clear element for us around from the governance review that the chair and others felt that they should have the committee meetings in private and that was the best way for them to conduct their business. Do you think that it would aid transparency if the board always publish reasons why a particular agenda item has been held in private? Yes, it is a short answer and our recommendation effectively. I would envisage a state where if a agenda item or a paper has been held in closed session rather than private perhaps but in closed session then the rationale for that being there would be included on top of the paper on the header so that there is some transparency around the decision making of that. We would also expect agendas for closed sessions to indicate that the substantive matters are being discussed if not the detail. The only exception to that would be areas of things such as national security. A very specific point from your report, Mr Penham, when you say that I consider the decision in August 2016 to allow committee chairs to hold meetings in private was precipitous and should not have been implemented until former board approval of the new corporate governance framework in December 2016. Was that decision made unilaterally by the chair? Was there any challenge to that by other senior members of management? Specificly, are you aware of the chief executive challenged that decision, please? I am not. The reason for precipitous was good governance for me would have looked like all of that being discussed and those proposals being taken forward and then agreed at a formal meeting of the board. What happened is that they moved to the practice without having the formal discussion and decision at the board which we felt made it precipitous. Specificly, are you aware of any challenge to that decision from the chief executive at all? No, not specifically. I am aware, clearly, as the board reflects that we are using members generally about holding meetings in private around that and they are probably well known from there, but I am not aware specifically. I do not know if Joe is aware of anything. I think that it is the position of most board members that there was an expectation that the cabinet secretary having written to the board in June accepting the recommendations that that was the go ahead to implement the governance review in its entirety and that the fact that the chair had indicated an intention to review the review in six months' time gave comfort to members that anything that emerged would be looked at again in quite a short period of time. Recommendation 8 in your report is a recommendation that a development session with the chair, chief executive and all board members should go ahead to ensure that there is a consistent and clear understanding of guidance. Do you have a concern that the dysfunctional relationship between the chair and the chief executive of the board impacted the board in the way that it functioned and operated? For me, I think that I have drawn in the report what you consider to be a good functioning relationship between the chair and the chief executive, and that has come from guidance provided by Audit Scotland to all boards. We would say that we did not find evidence of that within the SBA. I think that that recommendation there is more pointed towards our discussions with members and testing their understanding of on-board guidance, and in particular the issue around collective responsibility. Among some members, I think that they found that it would be inconsistent if they dissented against an agreement, they would then find that difficult to publicly support it, and their view among some members would be that if they did dissent, they would have to resign from the board. That is not what on-board guidance says, in fact. It encourages, I think, a free and frank exchange of views. That recommendation there is really, we think, a need to get everybody who is involved in the SBA members and officers together so that there is a shared understanding that everybody is aware of what they cannot do. Is there not a surprise to you that, particularly in the position of chair and chief executive, would appear to be unaware of that kind of good practice? I mean, again, my view would be that it was the chair who has misinterpreted the guidance in relation to that, and that followed through in the letter from Roy Alley rather than the chief executive. In fact, my understanding is that the chair did not discuss it with the chief executive and did not give him an opportunity at that stage to say that the chair's interpretation was wrong. So I do not have evidence to say that the chief executive's understanding of on-board guidance is wrong. What I do have evidence of is that the chair's interpretation of it was on Julie Narl under those circumstances from it, and, effectively, that had an impact on, I think, his dealings with Roy Alley. I have some experience, both in my ministerial life and before I came to Parliament, of difficulties between executives and non-executives. I just want to ask, was some of the difficulty between the executive, chief executive, who is an executive and the chair, who is essentially non-executive, due to a misunderstanding on anybody's part that one managed and the other had oversight? Again, I am referring to paragraph 127 of the report that sets out about being essential, the roles of the chair and chief executive are clear in their relationships. I do not think that they were within the SPA. I think that there are also issues in relation to the extent to which the chair and members would draw on the advice of the chief executive as well. There is also a wider issue that will be identified in the report, which would be non-executive members effectively forming the role of executive members in some cases. Where board members are effectively doing the work of executive members, in many cases to fill gaps and to do the right thing or working hard to do that. However, that is another thing that we have picked up on. Very briefly, and perhaps to close this off, it does that, therefore, lead us to a position of that we need to go beyond simply codes of conduct to actually providing training to board members as to what it is like to be a non-executive. As distinct from perhaps many of the roles that those people may have fulfilled in other parts of their life, where they filled an executive role and moved to a non-executive role, it is a fundamental transition that not everyone is readily capable of making. That is a very good point. I think that on-board guidance to the training at Scottish Government should address that. There are perhaps some other issues in relation to the maturity of Police Scotland at certain stages and the turnover of staff at a director level within Police Scotland that is leading some of the non-execut directors to behave and fulfil that role. I would need to say that I am not criticising them for doing it or how they are performing it, but there is an issue that I think could be boring some of that until that stabilises. John Swinney Oh, right, okay, thank you. It's not as corrigorous as I thought. I would like to ask about the role of staff associations, Mr Penman, because you do allude to that in your report and indeed a new phrase on me, the strategic engagement forums. Now, I understand that the chief executive initiated quarterly in six monthly meetings and is that sufficient? It certainly wouldn't have been my relationship with senior people when I held at a staff association position. More importantly, do you know if that comes about as a result of engagement with the staff association's union? John Swinney My mandate, my needs are not my words, they are the authorities' words in terms of the forum. I think that the intention behind that was to create a structure where the chief executive, not the chair and the members, but the chief executive could actually start to engage with the staff associations. I think that there is a theme throughout our report about the authority understanding and respecting the role that the staff associations play in policing. As you know very well, Mr Finlay, the police federation has a statutory duty around welfare, but also it's a duty around the efficiency of the service, and they're not necessarily a trade union per se, and they're not just about the terms and conditions of their staff, they're very much around the efficiency of the service. I know that the committee draws heavily on staff associations, and I know that the reason you do that is because you want to understand what the issues are that are affecting policing. I would say that that is the same approach that should be applied consistently by the police authority, by the chair and by the members. We found that our engagement with the staff association has been very productive, unison in particular, and it always provides us with real quality information and product around that. My short answer would be that it's critical that the authority understand the role of staff associations and engage with them fully. If I can push on, do you know if that structure was put in place following consultation with the staff associations unions at all? It may have been involving engagement with them in terms of what was looked at. I do know, though, in the report, it says that the staff associations do not think that that is sufficient, and they're looking for further and more improved ways of engagement. It's very difficult to argue against having a forum to discuss matters, but engagement should be on an on-going basis. I wonder if it suggests some allays that you need to put a structure in if a relationship isn't such that people feel that they can pick up the phone. It is, of course, beyond welfare and efficiency. It is also, in many instances, when there's a substantive change in the workplace. There's a statutory obligation for consultation with the staff associations and unions. In my experience, as a chief officer in policing and others, you would want to have an open door policy and a good engagement with the staff associations who are able to come and raise issues with you informally and give you the opportunity to deal with them. One of the issues for me was not excluding staff associations from the committee meetings, because there's a real value in them being able to attend that to hear first hand. Having said that, the people committee and the chair of that has introduced a process recently that is looking to invite staff associations. Rather than just to sit in the room and observe, she has asked them to come in and sit round the table and participate, not as members, but to be able to participate in the meeting, which I think is a very helpful way forward. Good afternoon. In the report, it highlights the fact that there was concern about the lack of genuine engagement and a failure to respond to the concerns of stakeholders. Did you form a view of how the culture was allowed to develop within the organisation? I could maybe just start by talking about the feedback from board members. There was a sense from interviews with board members that there was a huge task and that they were very committed to achieving improvements for policing, but that perhaps stakeholders, including the media and the public, weren't recognised as part of the solution to addressing those issues, and hence the desire to get on with the task, as they might have seen it, as opposed to engage and have the distraction of taking on opinions from elsewhere. I find that astounding, given that stakeholders included the SPF, who are better to tell them and give them exactly the kind of information that they so desperately needed to hear in order to have the review. Is that it, really? That was the reason why they thought they were best placed just to look at the issues themselves and move on, and stakeholders were really just a hindrance and anerotation? Clearly, board members would not recognise that description at all, but there is a sense from their interviews that they were very committed to achieving improvements that perhaps had not quite recognised the need to include others in order to arrive at those solutions. There was also, in terms of the governance review, a group that was put together from various stakeholders. There was no evidence to show that the views were sought from those individuals. It wasn't clear how they then went through and were permeated into the actual outcomes from that. There was also an expectation among stakeholders, although they were initially involved in the detail of the implementation of the governance review. They weren't engaged any time after that, and there was certainly a degree of unhappiness among stakeholders that they weren't involved until such times as it was put as a done deal at committee. Again, as I said in the opening remarks, the key learning from this is about the authority's ability to engage genuinely and effectively with stakeholders. What recommendation have you put in place that you think will achieve that aim, if they follow it? I think that it's just a general theme without a report. We didn't actually dwell on an individual item for that. I think that it comes through the whole number of recommendations about having that as a kind of key theme moving through from there. We didn't make a recommendation specifically about improving stakeholder engagement. I think that it's implicit through our report, and certainly we will be looking for that in evidence of improvement in the various things as we move through. With respect, when the SPA is concerned or doesn't seem to be anything that you take for granted, it's implicit. However, if I could move on, you mentioned media, and you described the board's decision to prohibit the media reporting prior to meetings by embargoing papers that's not desirable or sustainable. Could you elaborate on that? Indeed. What seems to have happened in the practice recently is that papers are uploaded to the public website in advance of the meetings, but there's in an attempt to embargo the press to report on them. It seems to me that you have something that's in the public domain that the media can then not report on. It seems to me not to make sense. It's neither desirable nor sustainable around that. My view would be that the papers should be released publicly before the meeting, and then the media would have the ability to report on those papers. Can I suggest that it goes a little bit further than that? The SPA decided to restrict the publication of papers on the same day at meetings, in part to mitigate against issues being played out in the meeting before the board had an opportunity to discuss it. What's coming through here is a real fear of the media, and I think that raises huge questions. To me it was more the specific issue around embargoing, and embargoing came from that very unusual set of circumstances about putting things in publicly and then trying to embargo them, which didn't make sense. The wider issue that you've identified is absolutely, I think that there was a view among members that having the media play out their reports in advance of meetings has somehow deprived them from the opportunity to discuss it freely from that and they didn't get an opportunity to play it. I have a contrary view. My view would be if those papers are out publicly, it gives opportunities to see what the media and others will make of those papers and it can actually help inform their own decision making. That would be my take, so I have a different view from where they are. As it is now, they have now agreed that their papers will be released in advance. Well, I think that that's a healthy way to proceed, but it does raise questions about the qualities and the skills and the talents of the chair when there seemed to be this fear of media reporting and to do whatever they could to circumvent that. I put it to you. You are now looking at the third chair, potentially, of the SPA. For various reasons, the previous two seem to have been deficient in many ways. Basic things like how do you have you experience handling the media? What kind of experience do you have engaging with staff? All of those things, is it not now time to look at how the SPA chair is appointed, which is currently by ministers, and perhaps think of having an appointment system more like the FOI commissioner or the HRI commissioner, the Public Services commissioner, where the presiding officer of this Parliament together with the cross-party of MSPs asks very pertinent questions, very searching questions on every aspect of the skills that the chair would provide. I suggest to you that it couldn't be any worse than the appointments that seem to have been made so far. We haven't offered a view on the extent to how the solution process would be. I say that very much for the committee and Parliament to decide if that was something going forward. What I would say is that it would agree with you that it's absolutely critical that the right person is recruited into the post of the chair with the right skillsets to take this forward. The solution process to that, I think, would be absolutely critical in doing that. The members of the SPA can appoint a deputy chair. Have they done so? Yes, they have. I think that Nicola Marcent has been appointed as a deputy chair, which was done, I think, at their last public board meeting. But prior to that, they hadn't appointed a deputy chair. Was that a feeling, do you think? I think that they had discussed it and had decided not to do that. I think that my own view of having a deputy chair is helpful because it provides additional resilience to the chair and additional support for them. I'm certainly supportive of the deputy chair role. It had been considered previously and discounted. Is there any view that perhaps Mr Flanagan should step down now that the deputy should continue instead? There are not discussions that I've had and I wouldn't see them to be discussions appropriate for me around how that would be and how they would manage his departure from the organisation. I think that you did recognise that you thought that it was right that he had resigned? Yes, and what I said in my report, again, as I was recognising the general point that Parliament and the Committee in particular must have confidence in the leadership of policing in Scotland. If you don't have confidence in the leadership of police in Scotland, then that presents real difficulties. Therefore, I understand why Mr Flanagan has resigned. I also welcome the fact that the Cabinet Secretary has agreed to expedite the recruitment process and do that as soon as he can. We've committed that within a report. In the meantime, Mr Flanagan will reply in the post. What I said in my report is probably looking at, given the nature of continuity, potentially, around some of the things that are on-going just now. As was provided, the replacement can be made speedily. For me, it is a balance between having Mr Flanagan remain in the post and bringing in interim arrangements to bring somebody else in later on. Perhaps it is about balancing those things together, but I think that other people will be better placed in me to make those decisions. John Gilruth, your second of your key findings is that there is strong support for the chair from all current board members. Given what you have just told us about Parliament and the committees having confidence in the leadership, what do you read into that? Presumably, that is a comment based on your findings that is subsequent to the committees taking the position that they did. I will pass on to John Gilruth's comment on the members, because John Gilruth was involved in interviewing all the members. That was my take, and it would be probably that people have different experiences and perspectives of the chair based on how the businesses are and what Parliament would see would be the evidence being provided by the chair to the issues that were presented, whereas a board would have a different view of the chair in dealing with the business of the board. I think that very much the reviews would be based on that. I think that they saw the improvement that the chair had brought in under their time, but perhaps I mean to John Gilruth. I wonder if you could just push on that point there, because you do acknowledge that they are appreciative of his leadership and the direction that he has brought to the board, and I think that it is important to have that on there. Nonetheless, presumably at the time of that comment being formulated, and I appreciate it, that Ms Emory interviewed people, those same board members were a mayor of the disquiet within that building about the conduct of the chair. In fact, I felt that it was quite unfair against the chair, and there were some very strong views expressed in support of the chair and a feeling that indeed the HMICS inspection or those aspects of inspection having been accelerated to look at specific issues about holding meetings in public and private about distribution of papers was disproportionate. Although I would stress that all members of the board cooperated fully and were more than professional in all the dealings that our team had, there was a strong sense that that was not really necessary and had very strong support and very positive feedback about the chair. I have to say that I find that very worrying. I wonder if you could clarify the current process for addressing concerns around a board member's conduct. Should anything arise? I think that we have identified that there is a gap in that. We would have expected there to be something within legislation, something within guidance, or something within the board standing orders would be the normal way in which those things would be dealt with. They did not apply within legislation or guidance, so we actually looked, or asked SPA to provide us with what the guidance was in the standing orders and they are not there, thus the recommendation for us coming forward. That led us to the conclusion. As you will see within our report, effectively in the chair's letter to Moriali, he effectively was looking to not appoint her to a board from there, which would take the view as in some form restricting her ability to act as a publicly appointed member. I suppose we are looking to say by what authority would you do that and by what process would you be able to justify that or authorise it as an appeals process. That was not there, and that is why one of our recommendations should be there to deal with that in the future. Are you confident that the experience that Moriali had will not be repeated, and is there support for board members should they find themselves at odds with the chair for any reason? I think that there is an important role for the chief executive in dealing with these situations where if there is an issue that has been around where the chair has a concern around a particular member, I think that the chief executive as a accountable officer has a role in both providing advice and also providing support around that. What we have said is that there needs to be some guidance around that and in our view there needs to be some right of appeal as well in terms of fairness that people can have an opportunity to look at that. Are you confident that that will be addressed as you have put that recommendation? I would think that it would be highly unlikely that the circumstances would arise again from there. I would like to think that if there was a case that could be escalated and it would be picked up by the executive if not that to Scottish Government. However, I think that it is something that has to be put forward earlier. I think that there is also another role for other board members in picking us up as well and offer challenge around some of those things if we feel that the actions are disproportionate, unfair or to question or challenge the chair. Again, I think that a good performing board would allow some of that to take place as well. Clearly, that did not happen before, so hopefully it would happen in the future. I would like to think that our report and the work of the committee and others have identified the standards that are expected and how things should be dealt with. Forgive my ignorance, because I suspect that it is in the legislation or elsewhere where I could see it. However, it occurs to me to ask, what is the process for dismissing a board member? Who does it? How is it done? My understanding is in the legislation where I think that the members are ultimately appointed by the Scottish ministers and I think that there is an ability for the Scottish ministers to dismiss them from office. In the report, I think that the removal of members is allowed within the process. On board guidance, we cover that as well. However, in that case, it was not about removing a member. It was about effectively, in my view, restricting a member's ability to perform a function. Thank you. I've got Mitchell and Rona Mackay's questions and focusing on recommendation 11 to ensure that the SPA should, as a matter of urgency, review its internal executive structures and provide the necessary capacities to support the chair, board and authority to fulfil its statutory functions. Do you have a view on how the SPA board could be better supported going forward? For example, what steps now need to be taken to ensure that the board has the appropriate level of expertise? Touching on the recruitment process that you alluded to earlier and the governance support in place to allow it to carry on its statutory functions effectively? I think that there are two answers to your question. One is about the board itself and bringing in the correct capability capacity and diversity within the board itself. I know that a lot of effort has been done in recruiting new members with a range of skills that would be viewed as necessary to support the board moving forward, such as financial, HR, ICT and a range of issues that would be supportive of that. The recommendation 11 is very much about the executive structures. The chief executive, the directors and the composition of the SPA and how it operates to support the board. Our view is that there needs to be a strengthening of the executive structures to support the board better, almost in a way, in terms of the clerk and the authority who would support your committee on that sort of member services within a local authority, and some of those skills that are needed to provide the expertise around their ability to provide scrutiny. We think that there is more to be done in that area. Is that the capacity or communications or a bit of both? I think that the capacity is just about the time and availability for people to do some of that stuff. There is also an issue about looking at what support the board needs, which I think is behind the recommendation and behind the cabinet secretary's recent announcement. Our view would be that we need to identify what are the skillsets that we need for the directors within the Scottish Police Authority, and then work out what is needed and then get the right skillset in there. So there needs to be an evaluation and analysis done of what skill gaps? I think that there needs to be a wholesale review of the executive structures within the SPA to look at specifically what is needed, what is its function and how it can best support the members and then build that for the future going forward. When you carried out your review, was it your opinion that the chair and the chief executive worked well together? No, that is the short answer to that. As I have said in my report, we identified elements of dysfunction in the relationship between the two. Again, if I could refer you to the paragraph in my report, which sets out what we would consider to be good relationships in paragraph 127, we would find an absence of some of that. A good example of that would be the Moiali situation, in which I would have expected the chair to have raised his concerns with the chief executive and the chief executive would not have the opportunity to offer advice. That did not happen. I think that, if it had happened, it might have resulted in a different outcome. For me, there are issues around valuing the relationship between the chair and the chief executive, understanding the roles, in particular drawing on the expertise of the chief executive. The authority needs to have a strong chief executive in my view to support the chair. You say that that did not happen. Did Mr Folly try to offer some advice, or was he happy just to do what he seems in all fairness to have done every time he has appeared here, sit quite quietly unless he has absolutely been down with the question? My understanding and specific issue is that he was not asked by the chair prior to the letter going out. How far can the official go in suggesting some advice in those circumstances? I have the view that the chief executive is a countable officer and an authority in the full-time professional, who has a very significant role. I would expect them to be able to offer advice and guidance around the chair and to work together as an effective team. The chair is a part-time function, a non-executive role. For me, the chief executive is a critical role in the authority. I would like to think that a good relationship with the chief executive and the chair are working well together and are feeding from each other in terms of their advice. If the chief executive has seen something that he thinks was a mistake, you would expect him to privately say, this is my opinion, of course it is up to you to make the final decision, but this is my opinion and the reasons why. Yes, I would think that that would be a good functioning relationship between the chief executive. If it was something that was significant and would have an impact on the authority or the policing of Scotland, it would have been incumbent upon the chief executive to have the same view with other members and have an ability where that would be shared with other non-execute members and the chair and perhaps have a discussion with them in relation to what the issue was. Good would look like a particular issue being aired by the chief executive with the chair and with other members to then allow other members to form a view and support the chair or assist the chair in his decision making. I think that it would be helpful that you mentioned a number of areas where you would expect the chief executive of an input. You gave the example of the Moye Alley situation. Could you outline the other areas that you think the chief executive should be strong and have an input? I think that the chief executive should have a view of all the businesses coming to the board and is able to offer a view to the chair and to members and to offer expert advice to them on that with argument and drawing into what is the specifics. I think that the chief executive should be effective to run the SPA from the executive side with the direction of the board. I would expect the chief executive to have discussions on most issues with the chair and on most of the substantive business that the board would discuss. Forgive me, your original answer or your first answer to me. You mentioned a specific paragraph. Paragraph 127 is from Audit Scotland. It basically describes what is seen as being an effective relationship between the chair and the chief executive. For me, that is what Audit Scotland would demonstrate as being what good looks like with a chief executive and a chair. You agree with that? I agree absolutely with Audit Scotland and I say that there is probably an absence of that within what we saw in the police authority. Mr Penn, we are grateful for your report. It is very comprehensive. I think that its layout lends itself to evidencing all the points that you have made. You and your staff have had the benefit of more regular contact with the Scottish Police Authority and indeed the individuals. Do you have confidence in the chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority? My position around the chief executive is that there needs to be an effective relationship with the chair and they need to have the skillset that is necessary for moving on, policing in the new structures and refuse. I would hope that the recommendation that we have put in place, which is to look at the executive structures within the SPA, will also look at what skillsets and things are required from that and determine what the best mix of team and staff would be. Separating the individual from the role and to push a bit further, you could be saying that that has identified a training needs analysis for the role. For me it has identified two things. It is identified in fairness to the individual. It is identified an issue with him and his team where, because of abstractions of directors and in some respects I think confusion among various roles within the SPA director level that the chief executive has limited capacity, he is very busy, he is doing lots of different things and has been spread quite thinly. There is an issue around his capacity to be able to deal effectively with the work that he has. If that was addressed, that would have a positive impact. There is also for me something around the relationship between the chief executive and the chief executive, which has to be effective in the discussion to Mr Mitchell's question earlier. In your dealings, did the chief executive highlight capacity issues to you? Yes, absolutely. Very frankly, in conversations with him, identifying, he has four directors, I think, effectively. I think that one director is still available to him, one has been seconded, one is off long-term sick, unfortunately. He has lost a lot of that support that is there, and he has spread very thinly. We will be publishing a report on forensic services that Joe has led on that also identifies issues around his responsibility for forensic services over and above everything else. We believe to be too much for the role and needs to be separated. The capacity issue is effectively for the current chief executive, he is just very busy in spreading himself very thinly. Was he proactive in highlighting capacity issues, or is it just in reaction to— No, in fairness to the second conversation, he has been clear to us around the capacity issues that he has. Sorry, I meant in advance to others. Do you know if that has been raised? In terms of conversation with the board members, I do not know. The cabinet secretary perhaps? I do not know. Are you aware of stakeholders of confidence in the senior management of the SPA? Probably a question best led to them. I think that they are unhappy with the level of engagement that they have currently with the senior leadership of the SPA would be probably as much as I would be able to answer based on their inspection. OK, thank you. Mine is a relatively mechanical question. I just wanted to know if there is a formal system by which the non-execs and execs know what each other are actually doing. In particular, if a non-exec, for example, issues a letter, how does the chief executive see the copy of that letter. I'm used to an environment in my previous life where we had what we call the day book system and a copy of everything that went out had to go in the day book and the next person up the line had to initial it within a single working day to show they'd seen it. Is there a equivalent formal system by which people who are making the real decisions, whether exec or non-exec, are aware of the communication activity and the decisions that each other are making? And if there is not, would you care to comment as to whether there should be? My view would be that they're not certainly not aware of a process and one of our recommendations is actually about looking for them to improve things like their minutes and their record keeping of their minutes, the retention of them and doing them. So I think there is definitely an issue around communication. I think the issue in relation to my own letter, for example, probably highlighted where a letter coming into the organisation wasn't circulated to members and I understand that there is now a process being put in place to ensure that that happens again. So I would agree, yes, there needs to be a process by which there's better exchange and people are clear what their roles are. Do they have a register of things they receive, such as that which you would think might be an important communication? Not that we didn't look at that specifically. I mean, they absolutely will have administrative processes in place but that's not quite going to the same point. Okay, thank you. Thank you. As there are no further questions from members, can I thank both of our witnesses for coming along today? We really appreciate you taking the time to come along. We have covered a fair number of things today in a very effective and quick manner and I do appreciate that you have done that. If there are any further questions that arise, I will contact you and if you could perhaps respond in writing to the committee on any further issues that arise. So thank you again. I now close the 13th meeting of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing in 2017 and the next sub-committee meeting will be on Thursday, 14 September. It seems a long time away.