 Thank you everyone and welcome to the 13th meeting of the local government communities committee. I remind everyone that present Internet Services mobile phones and as meeting papers are provided in digital format, it may be used by members during the meetings. That's what we're doing if you see us on our ipads. We have one apology from our deputy cumnter, Elaine Smith, who won't be able to with us this morning, and I move to agenda item one, which is the decision and taking business in private. The committee is invited to consider whether to take item 8, consideration of its draft letter to the Scottish Government and local government elections and voting in private. Are we all agreed? Three. Okay, thank you members. We now move to agenda item 2, subordinate legislation. The committee will take evidence in parts 2, 3 and 5 of the Community Empowerment Scotland Act 2015. At this point, I welcome Kevin Stewart, Minister for Local Government and Housing. Good morning, minister. Good morning. Thank you for coming along. I also welcome officials from the Scottish Government community planning and empowerment unit David Millan, Ian Turner and Jeane Wadde. Thank you very much for coming along this morning. It's appreciated. One of the instrument's asset transfer request designation of relevant authority Scotland orders 2017 SSI 2016 in draft is laid under affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions come into force. At such sessions, the minister would ordinarily attend to provide evidence in relation to the affirmative instrument. However, given that the committee agreed to consider the suite of community empowerment regulations as a package, there are several of them. It will also ask questions in relation to negative instruments, which will also be considered later on in the agenda today. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the affirmative instrument, followed by an item asking members to confirm whether it wishes to take any further action in relation to the negative instruments. Are we all following that? I think that I hope so. I know that the minister would like to make some opening remarks, so Kevin Stewart can ask you to make some opening remarks to the committee. Thank you very much, convener. I'm delighted to be here to talk about community empowerment today. I'm very pleased to be bringing these parts of the act into effect. I've been working with and for communities for some time from my days working in the community on Aberdeen City Council as convener of the predecessor committee to this one and now as minister. This is a very important issue for me, and I want to see our communities in control and having opportunities to shape the decisions that affect them. The Community Empowerment Act marks an important step in that process and the parts that we are focusing on just now are perhaps some of the most significant aspects of the act. We want our public services to work more effectively together and with communities drawing on everyone's knowledge and abilities to achieve the best possible outcomes in the areas that will make the greatest difference to people's lives. Community planning is where all that comes together. The act sets out a process where communities and public service providers will come together to decide what are their top priorities for their areas and how to address them. This includes planning at a locality level for those communities that experience particularly poor outcomes, of course taking into account the distinctive needs of different communities. I believe that more local focus is the key to encouraging communities to get involved and once they get involved with community planning and authorities see the benefits of working with community bodies in that context, I'm sure that it will help to promote greater participation across all the areas of their work. If communities feel that they're not getting a chance to be involved in decisions about services, they will be able to make a participation request. That is another part of giving communities a confidence that they have the rights to be heard and of course taken seriously and make sure that public authorities also get that message loud and clear. Asset transfer is a powerful way of supporting communities to become more sustainable, improve outcomes and to reduce inequalities. The Scottish Government has supported community ownership for many years and there are many examples around the country of projects that have made a huge difference in their area. You heard from community stakeholders in an earlier session about these benefits, but there are still too many community bodies that are thwarted in trying to take over land or premises that could be providing real benefits to local people. I hope that the legislation in part 5 of the act will unlock some of these cases. It will make sure that authorities make a decision within a reasonable time and provide a proper explanation for any refusal, which of course is open to appeal to Scottish ministers. It's a statutory procedure and inevitably there is a degree of process that is involved. These are public assets and it is right that community bodies have to show that they are ready to take them on and have a realistic, sustainable plan with broad support from the community. Where they can do that, they should be given the opportunity and of course the support to make a go of it. Of course, we cannot legislate for behaviour and attitudes, but we cannot force people to get on. There is a culture change needed to embed community empowerment in all corners of the public sector. It is happening, but it will take time. Legislation is a start. It sends a clear message to public authorities about how we expect them to act and will give communities confidence that they have the right to have their proposals taken seriously. We have taken evidence from various people expressing the fear that local authorities in particular could take different approaches to asset transfer and could, if they were so minded, wrigol out of it under your legislation. How can you ensure a consistency of approach? One of the things that we always do in those regards, and I am sure that the committee will scrutinise what happens as the Community Empowerment Act is rolled out, we will look closely at what is happening across the country. We already have fairly good examples of local authorities who are already embracing aspects of the Community Empowerment Act without it being enforced. There may be a reticence in some places to go along with all of this. I talked about people and we cannot legislate for people. There may be some folk out there that think that this is not the right thing today. What we will do is scrutinise very closely what is going on across the country. I have talked about the rights of appeal to Scottish ministers if that is required. We will look closely at how many folk have to resort to an appeal process to get what they want. I would hope that, like myself, the committee itself will keep a very close eye, scrutinise, see if there are any areas that need to be tightened up. I want to look at this from the positive aspect, because I think that, as we see the roll-out of all of this, people across the country will be enthused by it. I hope that politicians locally will also be enthused by it. I am quite sure that very quickly we will see the benefits of people taking control, not only of assets, but also of being involved in shaping services. I asked a question last week. I think that we can all see the benefits of this, but where a community body takes over an asset, there is obviously a risk that it might fail. What do you think will happen if it fails? What would then happen to that asset? We are embarking on a new journey here. One of the things that has concerned folk in the past is how we treat failure. There will be cases, without a doubt, where things do not succeed. I have asked the Accounts Commission in a recent meeting with them that they and Audit Scotland take cognisance of the fact that this is new work. We have people taking control of things for the first time and taking a kind of failure. What we have to do is to look at the occasions where that happens, and hopefully it will not be a lot, and to see how local authorities and others react to that situation. I would hope that what we would see is a level of co-operation to ensure that folk are supported to the utmost. The committee has heard me before talking about community capacity building. They also know that I hate the term, but I cannot think of anything else. Hopefully, what we can do is, rather than see failures, to put in the help that is required to get folk through. However, where there are failures in the contracts that are drawn up, we will have to see what can be done to the asset if there is a failure in that regard. I would expect local authorities and other public bodies to make sure that there is a kindability in that regard. I might bring in some of the civil servants here. There is provision in the guidance. We have looked at the issues about how relevant authorities can protect their investment if things go wrong. There is advice in there about making provision for whether the asset should come back to the authority that previously owned it, how they might get money back if they have given a discount on it. That is something that there is guidance on. Sound on that bit. What is that guidance? It is something that is up to the relevant authority to decide what is appropriate in the circumstances. Obviously, if a community body comes in and they are paying full market value and the authority is not giving them any discount on it, they are just the same as any other buyer. It is theirs if they fail and they get sold. Because of the forms of organisation that they have to take to be eligible to do asset transfer, they have to have provision in their constitution that says what happens to any remaining assets if they fail after all liabilities are cleared, they may end up having to sell the property to fulfil debts. You can put something in the contract, either to say if the body folds that property comes back to the organisation that it was bought from. You can put something to say if it does not deliver the benefits that were expected and there was a discount, they have to pay back the discount to the relevant authority. There is a range of measures that they can use as appropriate in different circumstances. Convener, the guidance in this regard highlights that any such arrangements in terms of the payback should be proportionate and not restrict the community body's ability to develop their activities. There is a range of things within the guidance around about that. Can we stay with asset transfers? Any number of indicates the way to speak, but can we stick with asset transfers? Thank you very much, convener. Welcome, minister. Thanks for coming along this morning. I just want to ask you a question about what are inelegantly called allios, arms length, external organisations. You have helped to provide a letter to the committee about them and I understand why those bodies are not included on the face of the act but can be added by ministerial order. I have constituents who are extremely keen to go on 23 January with assets that are owned by EDI Group, which is wholly owned by CEC Holdings Ltd, which is wholly owned by the City of Edinburgh Council. What would be the procedure to invite you to add a group like EDI Group to the list of relevant authorities? One of the things that I explained in my letter is about a robust legal definition of an allio, which the Accounts Commission is going to look at. I think that it is important that we get the definition of allio right in that regard, and it is something that the predecessor committee wrestled with as well. Many of the assets that we are talking about, although they may be administered by an allio, may be wholly owned by the local authority itself. I think that, just because the allio's name is over the door of a building, it does not mean to say that that is not owned by the public body itself. Obviously, that is a matter of negotiation between the public body—in this case, the council and the community organisation—to see if that asset could be transferred. The difficulty in all of that, of course, is that allios come in many legal forms. Developing and securing agreement to a robust and precise legal definition of allios would be a major undertaking. Audit Scotland will be doing more work on allios in 2017-18, and we hope that that will inform further developments. If you do not mind, I will take in Jeane again to add to that. My question is not about the definition of allios. My question is not about the definition of allios. My question is about a relevant authority that meets the criteria of section 78, which the EDI group does. It is a company wholly owned by one or more relevant authorities or, in fact, it is owned by other companies that are wholly owned by the relevant authority. In other words, it meets the criteria in section 78. There is no question about that in my mind. There is no need for complex definitions. It meets the statutory criteria. I am asking you what the process would be for anyone—a member of the public, an MSP, City of Edinburgh Council—to persuade you to put the EDI group, or any similar group, that meets the requirements of section 78 in the schedule of the act. At this moment, designating individual allios as relevant authorities might not be effective, as there is nothing to stop the local authority creating a new body instead, for example. Existing definitions of allios could include private or community organisations who are mainly funded by a local authority or companies owned by other public bodies, including Scottish ministers. I think that there is work to be done in terms of the definition of allios. I think that we can come back again and look at all of this. However, I would go back to my original point that, in some cases, just because the allios' name is over the door of a building, that building may be wholly owned by the council and should not necessarily limit the possibility of asset transfer, as far as I am concerned. I am aware of that. I am talking about property that the title deeds are in the name of—in this case, and I do not want to focus on one case, but this is a particular case in my constituency—own by EDI group. EDI group meets the definitions of a relevant authority that could be nominated, could be put on the schedule by ministers. I am just asking what is the process by which anyone who wishes to see such a relevant authority put on the schedule, what is the process by which they invite you, persuade you, make the case, what is the process for you responding? Just before you answer that, I think that we would all like to be clear. I thought that the additional powers in secondary legislation that you would have to come back and add by addition relevant authorities to go on the schedule would be done in the round. I did not think that one potential allio would be petitioned upon. I thought that you would look at the matter on the round and look at allios more generally and take the powers, or would it be one individual allio? I suppose that is what I would want to clarify, Mr White, but I just want to check that. We would have to look at allios in the round. I will bring in Jeane and then I will add comment myself. The legislation does allow individual bodies to be named. It has to be done to a statutory instrument, as we are doing with Historic Environment Scotland. In general, we do not name non-statutory bodies in legislation because they can just go and change themselves. If we are concerned that authorities are trying to use allios as a way of avoiding asset transfer, naming one would not stop them doing that. That is what I was trying to get across in my previous answer to Mr Whiteman, convener. I think that we should allow Audit Scotland to deal with the aspects of the work about the definition and look to adding in other designated bodies at a later date. Andy Wightman, do you want to follow up on some of that? We have a relevant authority here. It meets the requirements of section 76 and 78. I just wanted to know how that process is done. Anyway, I will move on and I have one other question. Is it an asset transfer? It is not an asset transfer, so I will come back to you. Right. Do you have any other member of any question in relation to asset transfer? Alexander Stewart. Thank you, minister. I think that there is a real appetite and there is a real enthusiasm across many local authorities for this to work, and we have seen that. Within my own council area of personal commerce, we have had capacity workers and trying to engage in doing all of that. I have also seen in my own council area where an alio has been re-evolved to try and become some other different organisation to try and become part of what you are trying to achieve. My concern is that we need to ensure that there is no avoidance and that that has already been touched on this morning. If there is an attempt from a council to try and deal with moving it into a new role or moving it into a new name or creating a new body that gives them an avoidance process, what scrutiny and what governance would we have in place to ensure that, if we thought that that was being processed, we would have managed to capture that as we go forward? Avoidance itself would not be particularly beneficial to the local authority. You know that we have the right of appeal to Scottish ministers. I think that we should look at this in a positive light rather than always concentrate on the negative, because thus far, without having all aspects of this act in place, we have already seen some very good work going on right across the country. I think that it would be particularly daft politicians in local authority areas if they were going to put major blockages in place to allow people to take over an asset if they are capable of doing so when those folks can see what is happening in other parts of the country. However, we do sometimes get situations whereby illogicality does take place. That is why it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that the act is working appropriately in every part of the country. I reiterate again that one of the things that is in place is the appeals to Scottish ministers, and that is something that those folks who may want to block should be somewhat wary of. I will bring in Jeane as well, please, convener. I acknowledge what you are saying, and I believe that there is a real opportunity here but, when I was taking evidence previously, Minister, I talked about organisations that, in two different situations where one had found it very successful and had found it a great opportunity and everything had gone right and it managed to transfer the asset and it was a win-win situation for everybody. However, in a very similar situation in another area, it had gone all wrong. They were not too different in what they were trying to achieve, but, as I said, one group felt that they had achieved it miraculously and everything had gone well, and one group was left with a bad taste in their mouth about how this had to go through so many loops and so many things, and it did not work at the end for them. They were left being disappointed from that massive enthusiasm that had been created to then being disappointed and disillusioned by the whole process because it had not worked. Convener, those things have happened without the act being in place. I could give examples of good and bad too. I will give an example without naming an organisation, but a transfer of a piece of land, which has been derelict for a long while, took over four years in one place to get illegal agreement. That is a lot of risk adversity in some regards because the local authority obviously felt that they had a requirement to protect that asset for what I do not know in these circumstances. However, the act itself gives them the ability and the backup to proceed with greater speed and gets rid of the risk of adversity that exists in certain places, but not in others. I think that we can pick the good and the bad examples of what has gone on thus far. We can certainly see that some local authorities have made major movement in this area without the legislation being in place where others have not. I think that the legislation itself gives them the backup to take out the risk of adversity and, hopefully, will allow them to get on with the job so that people can have positive experiences, rather than some of the negativity that has happened because there has been a certain amount of risk of adversity. We have heard suggestions that one of the things that a public body could potentially do would be when a request for asset transfer is an asset that they have sat on and done nothing with for a long period of time and they suddenly moved to dispose of it. The suggestion was made that there should be a freezing of assets at a certain point within the process to stop public bodies doing that. How would you respond to calls for that to be brought into the legislation? I think that this issue, if I remember your official report rightly, was raised with the committee by Ian Cooke from DTAS. He said that the guidance should be more robust in this regard, since a community body has put in a lot of effort to prepare business cases while the property could be sold in the meantime. This convener is not really a matter for guidance or the regulations. It is set out in the act, section 92, where the submission of a formal request is the only clear starting point available for the legislation. The approach suggested would be similar to community right to buy, where a community body register is interested in the land after which the owner cannot sell it to anyone else until a decision has been made on the community's proposals. Do you contend that the balance is right within the act in relation to that? I think that the balance is right, convener. Also in relation to that, I think that it was from Bruce Kyllow from SPT who mentioned one of the aspects that the public bodies may have is a land bank or asset out there that may form part of a future strategic interest for that public organisation. That might be a reason to have to turn down or refuse an otherwise reasonable request for an asset transfer. Is there anything in the legislation or guidance that points out how long something can be sitting in a local development plan for where nothing has actually happened to it? You could use the land designated for an airport rail link or you could have it designated for a tram or you could have it designated for housing, but it's been sitting fallow for 10, 15, 20, 30 years and a community wishes to access it. At what point would it be reasonable to say, that may be your aspiration, but it's been your aspiration for the last 10, 15, 20 years and the community wishes. Should there be a limit upon that strategic approach? Perhaps those are bad examples, minister, but you could imagine a public body citing a strategic reason for not giving land, which could just be a block to—I'm not suggesting SPT, we're suggesting that, but that could be a downside to that approach. I think that if something is set aside for a strategic reason and we all know that some major development take a fair while to come to fruition, I think that that is a good reason for saying, you know, this is something that we cannot allow a transfer of. I think common sense has to apply in some of those regards, because if we look at a rail line, as you've suggested, that in itself, as I say, may take that 10, 20 years. If you look at some major projects that have taken place in Scotland, some of which are taking place now, it has been a fair while, if not decades in some cases, before that has proceeded. I think that it would be incumbent of a local authority or other public body to look at what the needs are for delivering that project. In those cases, it would be fair and justifiable if they were saying that that was part of that strategy to build whatever it may be, that they refuse in this case. I'll take in Jeane Wood. Absolutely. There are certain areas that you can see will be needed in the long term. Of course, I would mention that there are some excellent guidance now on what's known as mean-while use, so an authority can say, well, we know we need to keep this, but we're not going to be doing anything with it in the next five years, and they can allow, for example, community gardening, when, obviously, it would be temporary use. However, there are things that can be done so that it just doesn't lie that they're looking ugly for all that time. I've forgotten the organisation that does that guidance, but there are some excellent guidance on that. Thank you very much. We'll move on from us at Transfair with Ruth Maguire. I'd like to hear your thoughts on participation requests. The evidence that we've taken from organisations has all been pretty positive, and you mentioned yourself that there's good work already going on. One of the concerns about the participation request aspect of it was the impact that it might have on already good relationships that public bodies have with their communities if things are formalised. I'd just like to hear your thoughts on that. I think that if there are already good relationships between bodies and public authorities, then there's probably very little need for those communities, community organisations to use participation requests. Again, we can already see across the country local authorities that are taking cognisance of the views of communities when it comes to the shaping of services. In those places that are already carrying out all that work, it would be rare for participation requests to be used. I think that the likelihood is that participation requests would be where there are not so good relationships and communities and community groups think that they are being ignored by the public body when it comes to the shaping of services. My hope and sometimes our hopes become reality and sometimes they don't. My hope would be that there is no real use of participation requests, because I hope that this legislation will change the attitude of public bodies to ensure that the level of consultation and engagement with communities and community groups at the beginning of the shaping of a service gets rid of the requirement for the use of participation requests. We already see some very good practice in terms of engagement. I hope that that continues. I hope that we don't see a huge amount of usage of participation requests, and I think that where there are already good relationships, where communities are already fully involved in the shaping of services, I cannot see there being any tensions created with this new legislation at all. How do we go about educating everyone about that then? What can the Scottish Government do to make sure that people know that they are really that sort of fallback thing, that that's not the standard way that we want to engage? Just as a wee follow-up, do you think that the participation request process might be helpful where there's conflict within communities about what should be used if there's perhaps two different communities of interest, or if something stretches across localities that that process could be used to help to resolve that? In terms of where there is already good engagement and good examples, I'm probably going to bore the committee by saying something that I say very regularly. I'm extremely keen to ensure that best practice is exported right across Scotland. We have got many bodies involved in this sphere who can help us in terms of getting the message across of where good practice is taking place, and trying to persuade and congeal others to follow suit. Organisations, for example, like Ditas, who can help us in this regard. Where there are conflicting views within communities themselves about the way forward or how a service should be delivered. Again, I think that rather than relying on participation requests, which in those kind of circumstances may cause some difficulty, the first objective there, if I was in that situation representing those communities, would be to try and get the different opinions around the table and see if there is common ground to be found there, to actually garner where there is agreement, what can be done in terms of moving forward in the agreement first of all, and then trying to work through the individual bits and pieces of conflict that exist. Before the end of this evidence session, we will come back and walk up some final questions and ask that transfer, but we will continue on some other themes at the moment. Andy Wightman I have a brief question about—it is not in relation to the existing SSIs, but in relation to the act itself. Do you have any plans to bring part 8 on common good registers into force soon? Have you got a timetable for that? I will take in Jeane first of all. There is work on going to develop the guidance that is needed to bring that into force. Okay. Do you want to add anything before we come back to Mr Wightman? What I would say to Mr Wightman is that I will look at that very closely and I will write back to the committee. One of the things that the committee is probably very well aware of is that during the course of the scrutiny of the bill, I took a keen interest on the common good aspects of that because of difficulties that I faced in my past in determining whether or not land was held in the common good fund in Aberdeen or not. I think that we are moving forward in this regard, but I will write back to the committee to give more detail and timescales for the committee and Mr Wightman. Okay. Anything else, Mr Wightman? Do you want to add? Okay. Kenneth Gibson Thank you very much. I apologise for coming in late at the start of the session so far, but I flew this morning, I'm afraid. As my colleagues not to get too close. Anyway, it's just regarding asset being supportive of you there, Mr Gibson. I like the way they just lept away. The asset transfer I think is very much desirable when the community is in favour of it. I think we would all like to remove as many barriers as possible to that actually happening, but I want to ask you about the converse. A few years ago in North Ayrshire we had an issue whereby communities were effectively told that they were going to have to take over community assets or the assets would simply be closed due to a removal of local authority funding now. There was a bit of an outcry about that and at the end that did not actually take place, but there was a lot of anxiety in communities because not every community wants to run its asset. Quite frankly, a lot of people are quite happy to volunteer in a local community facility, but they don't necessarily want to have to go through all the hassle of ensuring it and maintaining it, etc. How do we ensure that, while the act allows communities who want to take over assets to do so, that at the same time it's not used as an excuse by public bodies to effectively dump, for want of a better word, unwanted assets on to community organisations who may not have the capacity or the desire to take over and run those? Communer, I would be very unhappy if anyone was to use this act to try and foist assets on to communities. Very unhappy indeed. This community empowerment act is to allow those folks who want to want to take on those assets to do so. It may well be that in the future we will see many more communities gain the capacity and it may well be that in the future we will see many more communities, some of whom at this moment don't feel that they can take on an asset, will move to do so, but I would be extremely annoyed if this act was used by any public body to try and foist assets on to communities that don't want to take control of those assets. Thank you very much for that. I mean, it's just wondering if the Scottish Government would if there would be any redress for communities in such a situation. I'm just thinking of the fact that a public body might just say that this is costing its x amount a year, but we'll just tell the communities how they're closing or they take it over and basically put a shotgun to the heads of local community organisations. That's really the kind of worry I might have at one of those. Local authorities will always have the ability to look at their estate and the assets that they have and it may well be that a local authority chooses to close an asset. We know that this happens on a fairly regular basis, sometimes with the approval of the community, sometimes not, but what I would not want is a situation that Mr Gibson is describing. If a local authority chooses to close an asset, to dispose of an asset, obviously there should be consultation with the community about that, but what I would be unhappy about would be that situation that Mr Gibson describes whereby the gun is put to somebody's head and said, take it over or close. There should be engagement about closure, there should be alternatives given to communities, suggested alternatives about where services that are maybe delivered in those buildings can be delivered elsewhere, but this act is about empowering communities, not about foisting assets on people. Can I ask one additional point on that, Mr Gibson? That's a really good line of questioning. In my constituency, a local community centre run by Glasgow Life and Allio was closed in Coder, but through work with the local authority, the land was transferred to local housing association, there's now a new community centre there, it's been very successful, £1.2 million of Scottish Government money to help fund that. Following Mr Gibson's line of questioning, that was a liability for the local authority or the Allio, it was costing significant amounts of cash to staff it, to repair it, it was a run-down liability, so there's now a cash saving there to the local authority. Is there any guidance at all within the act or the statute instruments in relation to when community groups take on assets like that, in this case it was a housing association to be fair, whether that should come with a dowry, because there will be a significant financial saving to a public body or a local authority, as well as a cash receipt. Jeane? There's nothing specific in the guidance about that. There's not a great deal of specific advice on what should be done in terms of funding, because obviously the authority may be looking for that saving to use for other services somewhere else, but certainly if they are getting a benefit from giving it over to the community, if they can support the community in some way with cash or with making a contract for services, that's always a good thing to do to support them to make a success of that asset. Beyond that, it's up to each public body to look at what takes place as part of the transfer, but you know, convener, and you've described it yourself in terms of the example that you gave. In some cases, the transfer of the asset opens up the opportunity for the community to tap in to other pots of funding. We've seen that a fair bit already without the act being in place, and the situation that you describe sounds like the community has managed to access funding from the Scottish Government. This is not an example that I'm aware of off the top of my head, but we all know that in other places, the opportunity for funding from lottery, which wouldn't have necessarily been available from the local authority, or other organisations or trusts, often come into play when that transfer takes place. That's helpful. I was merely pointing at when there was a success story in relation to all the partners getting together. I was just wondering whether there was any guidance around that, but that was the reason for following up Mr Gibson's line of questioning. Can I check with members? Are there any additional questions at this point? Okay, there have been none. Can I thank you for your evidence agenda item two? And can I move to agenda item three? We're still on subordinate legislation, and for this item, the committee will formally consider motion S5M-02700, calling on the local government committee's committee to recommend that the Parliament approve the draft asset transfer request designation of relevant authority Scotland order 2017. There's now a debate where only the minister and members may speak. Can I ask whether or not anyone wishes to move it first? Okay, before we move to the debate, I'm just checking, so I get the order right here. Can I ask you to move the motion? I formally move the motion, convener. Okay. Now would be the opportunity for a debate. Do any members wish to participate in a debate at this point? Mr Whiteman. Yes, thank you. This is a very short order designating a new relevant authority. I hope future orders can be as expeditiously granted in the past. Thank you, Mr Whiteman. Any other members wish to make any comments at this point? Excellent. We do like brevity from time to time. Minister, the shortest of debates, but would you wish to sum up, is part of that debate? I'm quite happy, convener, to leave it as is. As you well know, I've got a great interest in this. I hope that the committee itself will continue to scrutinise all of this to the same degree as the predecessor committee, and I'm happy to come here at any point to talk about community empowerment further. I am sure we will have you back, ministers. Thank you very much for those words. So the question is that motion S5M-02700 in the name of the Minister for Parliamentary Business be approved. Are we all agreed? Okay, we are agreed. And the committee will report on the outcome of this instrument in due course. We now move to agenda item 4, which is still with subordinate legislation, and I will now list through a whole series of negative instruments. The committee will consider the following negative instruments. The asset transfer request procedure Scotland regulation 2016, SSI 2016-357. The asset transfer request review procedure Scotland regulation 2016, SSI 2016-358. The asset transfer request appeal Scotland regulation 2016, SSI 2016-359. The asset transfer request appeal were no contract concluded. Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-360. The asset transfer request designation of community transfer body Scotland order 2016, SSI 2016-361. The community empowerment registers of land Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-362. And if you're still following me, anyone who's listening, the community planning locality planning Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-364. I've put those on the record. I now want to point out that in relation to a number of these negative instruments, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee reported on a number of the negative instruments due to technical errors or lack of clarity, and the Scottish Government has agreed to bring forward some amending instruments where required. Those errors do not affect the policy being implemented by the instruments. We want to put that on the public record this morning. These instruments are laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provisions will come into force unless the Parliament votes on a motion to annul the instruments. No motion to annul has been laid, and I invite members to make any comments on the instruments that I have just listed through there. There have been no comments. Should I ask the committee—well, I will ask the committee whether they agree that they do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments? Are we agreed? Thank you very much. That ends that section of evidence. Thank you very much, Minister. Thank you, convener. Thank you, committee. And we suspend briefly. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to local government committees committee. When I moved to agenda item 5, payment to returning officers in Scotland, and rarely for our committee, we are slightly ahead of schedule, which is all good. The committee will take evidence from a number of witnesses to explore the purpose and appropriateness of providing payments for fees to returning officers for the conduct of elections in Scotland. I welcome this morning Malcolm Burr, chair solo of Scotland, Mary Bacathly, convener of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, and Mary O'Donnell, chief executive of Glasgow City Council, Andy Hunter, chair of Scotland and Northern Ireland branch, association of electoral administrators, and Elsa Irvine, director of electoral administration and guidance, electoral commission Scotland. I thank you all for your attendance this morning. By the way, we are doing a short focused inquiry into payments for returning officers for elections, and we are going to move straight to questions. Thank you for indicating that you do not wish to make any opening statements. There has obviously been a degree of public concern over the level of payments of returning officers, and we have some very helpful evidence for a number of you giving evidence today in relation to the purpose for that, the separation of powers and legal responsibilities between jobs as local authority chief executives and as returning officers, and that is all very clear there. I do note that Mr Hunter said within his submission that any remeriation for any position should be regularly reviewed and evaluated, and that of returning officers should also be the case. I wonder if we can start off with a very general question, asking the witnesses whether you appreciate why there is public concern in relation to the level of payments, and do you agree with Mr Hunter that now might be a good time to review those payments? Who would like to start on relation to that? Perhaps I can start, German, and thank you for your welcome. Public concern is an interesting concept with elections because 92% of the public, I think, believe elections are well run, and certainly it hasn't crossed the desk of the organisation which I represent, that there is significant public concern about the amounts received by returning officers. Those amounts vary considerably from 2500 for single smaller rural constituencies to higher figures, but I think that without getting into the complexity of the role and all that kind of material that we make them onto, I think that we would say that it is a system that has been in place for some time. It has not been a matter of public report or concern for many, many years. Any system benefits from review. There are certain aspects of it, for example, the expectation that deputy returning officers who play a key role in the delivery of elections are remunerated from the returning officers fee, as it were, of our charity, is a very strange and somewhat anti-Diluvian way of looking at that remuneration of public servants, and any system, I think, would benefit from review periodically. This system has not been reviewed for some time, and certainly Solace would certainly be very happy to contribute to such a review. Who would like to go next in relation to that? I think that, from the electoral commission perspective, we are very concerned about making sure that there is public confidence in our democratic process. As Malcolm said, that comes through strongly. There are high levels of satisfaction with the service that is delivered, which we should not take for granted and we cannot be complacent about. That is down to a considerable amount of hard work, but having said that, it is not unreasonable that there would want to be a review of the fees that are set to make sure that public confidence can be maintained and the commission would be more than happy to be involved and to support that work. Mr Burr did not think that there was any concern in relation to it. Do you think that there is concern? People have to actually know about the payments to have concern, I suppose, but my post-bag is when people do know about the payments that there are concerns raised, and that is not incidentally undermining the role of what we think is an exceptional performance in the running of elections in Scotland. There can still be public concern, so it is good that you think that it is a good time to review it. Do you understand that there is public concern? It is not something that has been raised with us as an electoral commission in terms of the inquiries that we are receiving. We are not seeing evidence that this is a widespread issue. However, if that is an issue, it is not unreasonable to look at this to make sure that public confidence can be maintained. Yes, we have high levels. We do not know entirely what sits behind that. If there are concerns, I think that it is time to look at it. Mary Picathe? Yes. As members will be aware, I frequently refer to the fact that the Electoral Management Board works on the basis of trying to do everything to build the confidence of electors in the integrity of our system. I cannot say that anyone has raised with me any issue specifically about fees. I do think that the issue of fees is actually quite well known. I think that there has been quite a lot of media coverage about that. It is not something that people raise with me. They have concerns about lots of issues to do with elections, but not specifically this one. However, if members are receiving those sorts of concerns, you are quite right to instigate some sort of discussion about that, which is what you are doing. I think that we would be quite happy to participate in that process. The last thing that returning officers want is for the integrity of the election process to be undermined. All local authorities have job evaluation schemes that we use to assess the worth of the work undertaken by staff. Given the issue that we are discussing today, I think that all returning officers through SOLAS and EMB would be happy to participate in a review of the evaluation of the role of returning officers. Okay. Thank you. Mr Hunter, I should probably come to you first. I plucked out one sentence from your evidence. Mr Hunter, do you want to add anything? No, in particular, I concur with everything that has been said. Yes, like all things that we are spending public money, we should always be confident that that is done appropriately, so that is part of the reason that we are sitting there. However, part of the issue is also understanding the public about what the role is. It is not widely known, necessarily, right across the board. I think that perhaps some of that is why some of the inquiries that you receive around the payments are raised. Again, that is part of the transparency and confidence in the system that is understood out in the public domain as well. Okay. That is helpful. I think that other members want to follow up in relation to the appropriateness and remuneration of the payments, but one of the things that we were trying to explore in an earlier evidence session was that there are only so many hours in a day, and there are elections pretty much every year. Sometimes, twice a year, the job of a local authority chief executive is a pretty demanding one. I know that MSPs, myself included, correspond with local authority chief executives. It is a very challenging and significant job. Looking at Mary Pethli's submission, you talk about a complex and extensive work programme that is the responsibility of the returning officer to separate from chief executive duties to undertake. For brevity, I will only give part of that list. I will talk about a communications programme, the publication of all relevant statutory notices, the nomination process, the production, dispatch and verification of postal votes, the identification, booking and equipping of polling stations, the recruitment, appointment, training and remuneration of presiding officers, polling clerks and other polling staff, securing a suitable count of venue and its operational set-up, including cabling and media. I will stop. There are five other bullet points listed there for brevity, but if I then go to the next section in your submission, you talk about management responsibilities for returning officers, which includes commanding, the required staff and resources to deliver a well-run election, drawing in the necessary support, skills and expertise from across the local authority council, overseeing the planning, project management and risk management of the election and corporate lessons learned from previous polls, identifying any action that is necessary to mitigate any issues arising, and I will stop there. There are four others on that list. Given the demands of a local authority chief executive, given that those are payment-specific to being a returning officer and the independence of that, some things have to give from the day job, surely. How do local authority chief executives do the day job, which they are pretty well paid for in the first place, and do all this as well, where there are additional payments? Yes, it is a complex and demanding day job, but when the requirements that are placed upon us by the returning officer duty come into play, and that is by no means just in the few weeks immediately prior to an election, it is year round that we have responsibilities, but when those requirements have to be covered, then they are covered. Now, in my own case, and I can only talk for me, but in my own case, that would normally mean working longer hours, so if I normally try to manage my work in a 60 or 70 a week, I would just work longer for the required period of time, so I would give up my Saturday or my Sunday or whatever that I would normally maybe try to protect to give me some work-life balance. I am not looking for sympathy in all of this. I would hesitate. I absolutely emphasise it is demanding, and there is no doubt at all that the responsibilities and the accountabilities that come with the returning officer job do add to the demands on us, but we do have people who work with us on this. We are not suggesting for a minute that every single task that you have highlighted is carried out by ourselves with no support. That is absolutely not the case. I am very well supported in my authority by people who are either doing the work because it is their day job, that is the day job that we employ them for, or because it is, as with me, something additional to the day job and that we would expect them to be remunerated for that as well. Now normally that remuneration would come from the maximum recoverable allowance, which is what Parliament allocates to each of us for running elections. That could be in the basis of additional responsibility payments, overtime, or a particular fee that would come from the returning officer as well. So there are all sorts of ways in which we would make sure that the staff who do some of these day to day tasks are properly remunerated. I was certainly conscious from your last evidence session minister that there was some suggestion that we were, if you like, looking after ourselves and not taking care of the people who work for us. I would suggest that that is not the case. I am very anxious that the people who are involved in the elections at every level, from those who work in the polling stations for a 15-hour day, from those who work in the counts often overnight, are properly remunerated and that goes right through the entire process. I am tempted not to correct any of the witnesses. I love that idea of being called minister but I am merely humbled by a major convener or Bob Osefais, I can assure you, but thank you for that. Before we take other witnesses in, there are only so many hours in a day. Last time I checked, there are only seven days in a week. I think that lots of people sit round this table and know that it's like Saturdays and Sunday working and long hours. You could say that's the gig that we signed up for, but there's no additional monies there, nor should we. We're well paid for our job, quite frankly. I do believe that local election executives are very, very well paid for their job. I get that there's additional responsibilities there. I'm merely pointing out that surely something has to give, there must be some part of the local authority day job that gets delegated to other officials. I wouldn't find that to be my experience at all, convener. We carry on with our day job, we add these additional responsibilities to that and the additional tasks that have to be done, but I can't recall a situation where I've had a significant part of the day job has had to be delegated to someone else. But delegation does happen more often during election time. You know, that's genuinely not my experience. I don't have a whole team of people who work for me to whom I can delegate tasks, but I certainly don't delegate any more than I normally would, which would be a reasonable process of delegation of responsibilities of the day job, but I don't find myself having to do that more often in the run-up to an election. I don't know if my colleagues want to add anything to that. I'm curious to know from our other witnesses that I just do find it, and I totally take it face value, Ms Picathly, what you're saying absolutely, but I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that all these additional duties that I read out and nothing gives in the day job that everyone's well paid for. I commend you that that's the case. What's the experience of others around the table? I agree with Mary. I'm a committed chief executive, and I'm also a committed returning officer. I have one officer within Gladys City Council who has election within his title, my election coordinator. I also have a number of colleagues who step into election roles in the preparation to assist me in the running of the election, as Mary has highlighted, but I don't delegate any of my chief executive role to anyone. That's my role, and my role alone in my organisation. Again, without looking for any form of sympathy, what does go on, and maybe MSPs around the table will experience this themselves, is that there's personal sacrifices that you have to give in the run-up, in the preparation for elections, particularly if there's more than one, if you take this year in context. It's those of the sacrifices that I return officer. Personally, I give to ensure that the elections that I am responsible for are run with transparency, robustness and full integrity. Is the delegation that happens more delegation of some of the response about the ultimate legal responsibility that always sits with yourself as returning officers, but is the delegation of some of that work, I assume, goes to officials? Mr Miller, I think, Mr Miller is my election co-ordinator, but if I can reflect in the Scottish Parliamentary elections in May of this year, we have a significant electorate in Glasgow across eight constituencies. I have to plan the training for my poll staff, who number around 1,100. I have a number of staff who carry out training on my behalf, but it's training that I've prepared and it's training that I attend. I can't be in seven training rooms at the same time every night over six nights, so I have staff who will conduct the training on my behalf, but it's training that I've prepared. I have with David a number of constituency managers who help me identify appropriate polling stations, so I have 501 polling stations across 202 polling places. That's a significant exercise that I couldn't undertake on my own, so this is where you start to build your election team in the planning for elections, ensuring that you're using the right resources in the right areas to identify what needs to be put in place to ensure that you deliver that election on the day with precision accuracy. Does anyone else want to add anything to that before we move on? I know that Mr Shoot will bring in a second, but can I just check that there was media reports that some returning officers give monies to charity or they pass some of the monies down to other staff. I'm not seeking to compel you to say what you do, there's an appropriately what you do or don't want to share, but I don't know if you want to make any comments in relation to that. I think I'd be like most people, I would not want to say anything about my charity giving in public, it's not something you do to get some sort of public kudos, but I certainly would normally share my fee with deputy returning officers who work for me. Any other comments in relation to that? That would be my position to chairman, I have on occasion shared the fee with deputy returning officers. I think all members around the table will appreciate that I receive the highest fee as returning officer in Scotland. Like Mary and Malcolm, I've been asked that question on a number of occasions and I've always responded on the basis that I wouldn't want to disclose what I do with my fee, but what I would advise committee is that a number of people and organisations do benefit from the returning officer fee. Okay, thank you. Mr Shoot, would anyone else have any additional comments in relation to that? I'm not a returning officer so I can't answer directly, but in terms of the fees that are delegated down to the deputy returning officer, those are clearly marked and the accounts have to be returned by returning officers, so they are open, they aren't that part of it, the user fee in that way is made public or can be made public. Okay, thank you very much. Alexander Stewart. Can I carry on from some of the questions that we've had from the convener? In a local authority or in some local authorities you have a chief executive, you then have deputy chief executives in some local authorities, not all but you have them in some, and in some of those cases then the presiding officer of a local authority is the chief executive. The deputies can sometimes be the assistant chief executive, whatever they want to call themselves. They get the role of being the deputy to the chief executive, they then sometimes get the role of being the deputy to the returning officer. You then have in some authorities a director of democratic services, you would then have an election team, the election team are employed on a Monday to Friday basis to manage elections. I know that this all happens in my relatively small council in Perth and Ross, so I'm seeking some clarity initially about is there a similar broad cross some other local authorities that you do have a chief executive who then deputises his or her role to other chief officers, who then deputises their role as a returning officer to the same people, and they're all receiving similar salaries. That's my first question. Well, I've certainly never had a deputy chief executive to whom I could delegate responsibility. I do have three directors, which is an awful lot less than perhaps I used to have, but they have their own responsibilities for running their services, so I don't think the role of deputy chief executive is ubiquitous. I think it's horses for courses, each local authority will set its own structures. I don't have a head of democratic services either. Democratic services would be rolled up in the responsibilities of a third tier officer, so we don't all have those sorts of structures, but there are good people with lots of experience in running elections who work with all of us as part of a team to deliver elections. The team effort counts, and I think there are concerns that, as we move forward, some of that expertise and experience will be lost in local authorities, as we have to face up to very challenging financial circumstances. At the moment, I can speak for myself. I have a very committed, experienced team, and I look forward to working with them as we get closer to elections to benefit from their experience, expertise and teamwork, which is what gets us through our very demanding times for us. I have one officer who is our election coordinator. I don't have an election team. The resources that I call on in managing elections are handpicked, and they are not necessarily grade-related. It's about ability, and that's been the case in Glasgow for many years. I wish to emphasise that point briefly, Chairman, that the structures such as the R of Directors, Heads of Service, etc., for chief executive duties, are not generally replicated for elections. Often, the deputy returning officer will be at service manager level, but he has someone who has experience of elections. I have been involved in elections for the past 17 years at every level. I have seen how it has grown, how the yearly event has grown in capacity, but what we have found is that, during that time, there has been a reduction in staff numbers across local authority, but the election team is still expected to do a similar role that they were doing 17 years ago to ensure that they have all the policies and procedures, and we have seen a massive increase in postal votes over that time as well. From my experience, I have seen an army of individuals having to come together to manage an election to ensure that that election is run effectively and efficiently. They perform the role. The returning officer, in my view, is an overseas, has a co-ordinating role, manages from the top and gives direction as to where things should go. I acknowledge the fact that the returning officer receives the money, and some may choose to distribute that money in other ways. However, for the army of people who take part in an election, I would not suspect that many of them would see a remuneration getting to that level. I can only again speak for myself, but I would try to ensure that everybody who played a specific role over and above the day job got some form of remuneration for that for their work. People do not work in elections for the money. We are not in it for the money. We are committed as local authority officers at whatever level to make sure that we run elections that, at the end of the day, we can all be proud of and we can take some pride in the fact that everybody who is entitled to vote could vote. People were not kept waiting in queues, etc. All of that is not done because there might be some money at the end of it, but because we are committed public servants who want to deliver a good job in what is a core element of our civic life and the democracy of the country. It is one of the most interesting and demanding roles that we play, but I can honestly say that the work that people deliver on our behalf and alongside us as part of the team is often the best example of that public service ethos coming through in the way that we tackle those responsibilities. Whatever the time is, on the night before the election, I have to literally close the door and push people out and tell them to go home and get some sleep, because I know that they will be back again at five in the morning, manning the election office, waiting for the first call to see that the janitor has not turned up or whatever. This is not something that people do for money. Mr Barth. I would just wish to emphasise that it is certainly my practice, and I am sure that it is my practice of all returning officers, to ensure that whichever council employees perform duties for the returning officer, there is a remuneration of some kind that emphasises the separateness of the role. Do you want to add anything, Annabelle MacDonald, to that? No, I think that what Mary and Malcolm said is absolutely accurate. Those staff who work with me in the running of elections are all remunerated, and we have a scheme for doing that, in terms of the rate that we pay associated with the responsibility that those staff undertake. There are on-going tasks that are looked at throughout the year in terms of new legislation and planning, for example, for next year's elections with the new counting system that we are all familiar with how that operates so that it runs smoothly on the night. Do you want to follow up on that, Alexander Stewart? I'm content, thank you, convener. Okay. Mr Gibson. Thank you very much, convener. I'm Andy Hunter, and in your paper you say that the returning officer duties are the personal responsibility of a returning officer, and as such are answerable directly to the courts for any question or failure in these duties, the returning officer is not responsive to the local authority. In Mary Keithley's paper you say that with administration of elections is totally removed from local authorities it can be a challenge to access the resources and staff that are necessary to deliver the polls and the count. Is it not the fact that, despite the supposed separation, which the papers talk about heavily, it is in reality the part of the chief executive's role to be the returning officer? For example, can the returning officer say something? I'm working 70 hours a week already. We've already heard that chief executives talk about the fact that they continue to do their day job throughout this process. Can a chief executive say, really frankly, given the amount of work that I'm doing and given the fact that I've got a life outside the local authority, I'm not going to be the returning officer? We might just take some reflections, because I promise Mr Hunter, this time when you were named chief executive, we'll allow you in first. Mr Hunter, if you've got a reflection on that before we go to those that have been the returning officers over a number of years, Mr Hunter? The chief executive, unless I'm mistaken, doesn't have to accept that post. It's an appointment by the elected members of the council. They could pick someone else that felt it wasn't impacting on their day job, if you like. There are other ways to do that. I don't think it's an automatic expectation that it's the chief executive that it has to be or it doesn't have to be like that, although some areas do feel like that. If it's not appropriate for that council, then there are options available to them to work in a different way, if need be. Just on talking of resources of the council, if I can, if I can give an example from my own council, we do bring in an external person to support the election team, because the resources that are available to the council now are extremely tight, and we find that in a much more suitable way than trying to take a member of staff out of their day job to support the returning officer and their duties. Mr Hunter, I don't feel the need to answer this one, but do you have any deflections on that question before I bring out all the other witnesses? Andy has made a lot of the points that I would have made. Across Scotland, as I understand it, there are two returning officers appointed by their local authority that don't also hold the job of chief executive. It's important to note that, within the legal framework, there's a requirement for councils to put resources at the disposal of the returning officer to help them to discharge their function, and that is an important thing. When you're looking at somebody who's a chief executive or another senior officer of the local authority, even when they're not acting in that way, they have the ability to command resources and have good local knowledge, which enables them to deliver the role on the ground. The scale and the local knowledge and experience is really important to remember. If we're talking about polling stations across Scotland, we're talking about 5,000 polling stations at the election, and I think that having people in each local authority that understand that area and have the ability to command the buildings and the premises for that use is important. I suppose that I was just going to reflect on the fact that, yes, there are other models that could be used. The fact that the returning officer can, if it's the chief executive or indeed any other senior officer in particular authority, can ensure that the resources are made available for the proper running of the election, I think that's helpful. I have heard of a situation where, because our staff resources are diminishing all the time, one service in one authority had decided very late on that they couldn't release the staff to work at the election and that they needed them at their risk. Now, the returning officer who happened to be the chief executive was able to say that simply can't happen. These people have been appointed, they will turn up. I can't remember to be honest if it was for polling day duties or at the count, but they will turn up and they will be able to be freed up for this purpose. Now, that's really important because normally it would be difficult to replace someone at very short notice to carry out these responsibilities. They wouldn't have had the training that's required and they wouldn't necessarily have the tools to do the job, so it is very important that we're able to say these premises can be used, these staff can be used and we can carry on using these resources. I think in other models where perhaps there's a centralized elections administration national office, that has been some of the issues which have bedevilled those organisations, actually trying to find those thousands of staff to work on the day, find the premises that are required, find the enumerators etc. I think that some of those models are looking to go back to something closer to the Scottish model, where the local knowledge and local resources are really important. Ann Marie O'Donnell, do you want to add anything to that? Really, I can only speak from a Glasgow perspective, but in running an election there is no plan B. Polling stations need to be open at 7 o'clock on poll day, and I suppose the two aspects of that are the polling stations and the polling places. The significant number of our polling stations, the overwhelming majority are schools, so having worked with education for those planned elections, those schools are closed on poll day as in service days, so that it doesn't disrupt the school year and the teaching year. Also in terms of staffing levels, in May of this year, just to put a picture of the scale of the resource, I had 2,800 people working for me that day across polling stations, across the count, across the election team and across my constituency managers who are out and about throughout the city, making sure that those polling stations are open, that they are not obstructed and that we have a count and all the boxes in poll post 10 o'clock. Having those resources at my fingertips means that I can call on them. I would consider that if the election is run out with the organisation of a local authority, it would be significantly more challenging to call on those resources. Mr Bartow, do you want to add anything to add to that? I went off the topic a wee bit, but the question is simply, do you know what chief executives have to do this, basically, job and understand that the answer was that 2 out of 32 they don't? A couple of things, just to follow up, convene. One, I find it, I don't know if everyone else feels uncomfortable about the fact that it's up to their turn-offs at the side whether he or she allocates some of the fee to some other member of staff charity or whatever it happens to be. I mean, I wasn't aware of that. I thought the fee went to that individual. Do you feel that the fee, regardless of what the fee is, should be specific to an individual and not actually be a situation where it's up to the largesse of the returning officer as to who gets what? I mean, it seems to me a very bizarre system. Mr Bartow? Yes, I agree with you. I think it's a nod situation. I think, just as a matter of principle, for every duty, task responsibility given in public life, it's customary to make a payment which reflects the duties and responsibilities. That should be the same for returning officers, for deputes, for anyone else involved in the election process, and that's why I support the idea of the system being reviewed. But on that basis, if duties are given and they clearly are given here, there is a very clear responsibility, anyone involved in performing a clearly defined and accountable public duty should be appropriately remunerated. Mr Gathley? Yes, I suppose that the fee is not the only sum that's made available by Parliament for us to run elections. Obviously, we each of us would have a maximum recoverable amount as well from which we would make normal payments to polling staff, to enumerators, to members of every election team. Yes, I was aware of that. Just one final point, then. Can we just double check? I don't feel the need to add anything to the door. How do you want to double check? Do you want to come in? Right. I didn't feel anyone was coming in. I think that everyone believes, certainly in this room, as far as I'm aware, that elections are run very well and very efficiently in Scotland. I certainly haven't had any complaints in the 15 elections that I've contested in my many years in politics, not a whippersnapper like Alexander Stewart here. However, I notice again in the paper by Andy Hunter that any fee applicable to the role can also be withheld for poor performance as determined by the sector of state following advice of the independent electoral commission. Has that ever happened in Scotland? Mr Hunter, and then we'll take Eosat Irvine after that. I'm not aware of it. I happen in Scotland and I'm also not aware of any circumstance where I would probably expect that to have happened. Eosat Irvine. Yes, the commission has had the power to do that in certain elections since 2014 and since that period of time, there's been no instances in Scotland where there's been a recommendation to withhold a fee. In anything before that in the years online? We didn't have the power previous to that. I'm not aware of any issues in the immediate period preceding that that would have led to that. We have a clear published procedure that we would go through to make sure that we were giving due regard to all the different aspects and the reasons for whatever has arisen and how it was dealt with, but there's been no need to even invoke that procedure in the period since 2014. Mary Pick-Aithley, in your evidence, you tell us that councils have to appoint a returning officer. It has to be a senior officer of the council, so there's no choice in that. You also told us earlier that you're committed to making sure that elections are run smoothly, properly. We all agreed that they are in Scotland. You're committed to public service. You're also very well paid. Chief execs are extremely well paid, so is it not reasonable to expect that chief execs or senior officers should just see this as part of their job, as part of the public service that they're employed to deliver? I think the reality is that it isn't part of the day job. The day job continues, and that's what we get paid for. I think we're not saying we're not well paid, but there are many people in public service who receive significantly higher salaries than we do. I think the issue though is around whether or not you could just roll up these responsibilities with that of the chief executive. I think we set out in our submission and I think indeed so do the AEA and the Electoral Commission, so did a number of your witnesses last week. Why that's not appropriate, so I wouldn't propose to rehearse all of that again. It's all there. As to whether or not there's any response, any option for a council to appoint a senior officer as a returning officer, again, we're working the law that we have here. There's a legal separation of duties. There's an accountability that comes with the role of returning officer that's different from the accountability of a chief executive or a director of law and admin or whatever the role is for the day job. There's a level of responsibility and indeed a level of work that requires to be done, which is remunerated differently from the day job. Those are the rules that have been set out by Parliament over many, many years. They're not rules that we've devised. They are what they are and I think it's helpful that you're having a look at that, but the legislation is quite clear. The separation of duties is quite clear and I think all of your witnesses have expressed why they think that that should be a very important consideration for you before you start reviewing the wider system. Well, I understand that very well. We all do understand that the legislation is what it is, but that's what we're here to look at. Whether that system that we have is the right system and I think you all seem to have accepted that there is public concern over these extra payments. Well, certainly we were all aware of that. So the question for us is should that system continue? What do you guys think? Well, thank you, thank you, Chairman. I believe that the system delivers very good value to the Scottish public purse for the delivery of elections. As I've said, it is I've been to a certain extent and therefore it may benefit, it may be time to review, but the principles of it are very important that those who manage, declare, return at whatever level those who are elected should not be accountable to those whom they declare elected and the processes and for these processes. There must be independence. The 1983 act put that very, very boldly, almost as though to say that there should be no doubt that the person who discharges these functions holds office quite separately from whatever other role he or she holds and usually that is chief executive of the council. So if that is accepted, then I would suggest the committee might want to look at the most cost effective way of delivering, making sure that these processes are properly observed, that elections are delivered efficiently, etc. And the current system, whatever is thought of it, certainly provides a very cost effective way of delivering elections as we have seen effectively. The may be case there, I may or don't know what to come in in relation to that. You don't need sometimes very hefty extra fees to carry out that role independently and properly, do you? I don't personally think the fees can be described as hefty in all cases, they vary considerably. And as I've said earlier, and as I have said, any system of remuneration should be separate from those who benefit from it. If the committee is minded to recommend a review of how these payments are calculated and made and there are various models for how that could be done, as my colleague from Glasgow has said, there are systems of evaluation that could be adopted, and certainly Solace would be happy to participate in such a review. Okay, anything to add, Mr Simpson, in relation? I guess the question for everyone really is if we were to get rid of fees for returning officers and move to a different system, either having no fees or spreading the fees across the team that delivers the election, would that affect the actual performance of that election team? Anyone want to, do you want some more clarity specifically on what's been asked of you, suggesting that? I'm merely asking, does money make any difference? Would you sign up to this if you didn't get any additional money might be what Mr Simpson is asking? I think I've already said, convener, I don't know of any of my colleagues who take on these responsibilities lightly, and indeed I know of none of them who do it purely because there is money involved. I don't think I have anything to add to that. This isn't something we're in for the money, where we do this because we have a personal commitment to, the same as yourselves, to upholding democracy and enabling democracy. I'm not sure, Amy Eddorn, did you want to add anything? Only to say that, I'm very proud of my record in assisting in the running of elections for only 20 years and being the returning officer for the last two years. It does come with significant pressure, it does come with significant responsibility. I think as my colleague reminded me, no-one goes into running elections to make a career, but it can end a career, and I think that's very important. We have to deliver these elections with precision accuracy, and if we fail to do that, then our reputation and our careers are jeopardised as a consequence of that. I think as Mary has already indicated, where there is work that is usually worth and there's recognition of the role that we do. As Malcolm has said, we're happy to participate in a review of remuneration, but I think the question I'd have is what are you looking at? Is it the whole process of elections or is it simply the remuneration of returning officers? I think it's important that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We look at what works very well, what's the great integrity that we have in the system in Scotland for managing elections. I think, in Mary, you've indicated that it's being looked at as a gold standard. Now, that doesn't happen without significant effort, but we're more than happy to contribute to a review of how that is managed. I'm tempted to respond to that, Mr Donald, but it's not myself who's got the line of question next, Mr Simpson. Do you want to follow up on that? Yes, thank you for coming today. I mean, the inquiry is on the appropriateness of payments this instance. It's a short inquiry, but as you'll be aware, the law commissions of England, Wales and Scotland have called for a review of the law in relation to elections in general in 10.9. They actually recommend that the lead returning officer and their function should be governed by secondary legislation, et cetera. The electoral law should set out the powers and duties of returning officers for all elections and the legislative competence of the parliaments and governments of the United Kingdom. Reform is coming, I think, as broadly agreed. The councils, as you say, have to appoint an officer of the authority. Section 27 of the 1933 act makes it clear that the office of returning officer is distinct. Malcolm Ewing said that remuneration emphasises the separateness of the role. Surely it's section 27 that emphasises the separateness of the role. The remuneration is governed by section 29, and that gives returning officers the authority to make a claim up to the maximum fees, et cetera. I suppose that my question relates to Anne Marie's last point, that a career can be jeopardised by failure to deliver an election properly. However, if the roles are distinct, presumably that's just your career as a returning officer over, it wouldn't impact on your career as a chief executive. Before you answer that, Mr Barber, is there anyone's career to be over, I should point out? Mr Barber, do you want to come in on that? I think that the experience of some chief executives who happen to be returning officers in other jurisdictions may give rise to questions as to whether it's the career of the returning officer that is jeopardised rather than chief executive. On the point of principle, I think, whether there's a distinct set of responsibilities of a statutory nature, giving personal legal responsibility for any act, a contract has been entered into, as it were, for the discharge of these duties. It is both appropriate and customary that, where duties are required of that nature and of that level of importance, that that is reflected by some means of remuneration. Would you accept, Mr Barber, that it's not the remuneration that emphasises the separateness of the role that is the statutory provisions in section 27 and that, in theory, in future, those statutory provisions in section 27 emphasise the distinctiveness of the role that could remain if the returning officer's role were wrapped into a chief executive role. They would emphasise that, when undertaking that role, they are no longer accountable to the council as they are in their chief executive role, and they almost step out of that role, so that the statutory provisions can continue to insist that it is a separate role, but that the remuneration itself has no role to play in emphasising that distinction. Yes, you're correct. The statute gives the responsibility. That would obviously require a discussion between individual returning officers and the councils that appoint them, but, yes, the act could simply declare who holds the role, provided that the independence of the role was safeguarded in law. Finally, the provisions of section 29 allow for the fee to include any pension payments. Are you aware if the fees do include pension payments routinely, or is it up to the returning officer to make a claim for that? Certainly my own does not, and I think that's the position across—I can't speak for all of Scotland. I think that it differs depending on the legislation that's passed. More recently, the provision for payments to be superannual has not applied. It was a more—something that was more common previously, but these are matters for Parliament when they're looking at the fees and charges order. Any way else want to add to that? I suppose I would just want to pick up Mr Wynton's very important point about the law commission reviews. I think that the law commissions across the UK are working very closely together on a review. That holistic process of looking at how the whole system, including the legislation, and those sorts of issues can be updated, modernised, kept fresh, kept as clear as possible for the benefit of voters is something that we've been very, very supportive of. There are issues around whether or not taking individual aspects of that out in one jurisdiction in the UK potentially not mirrored elsewhere would be something that you might want to consider. Mr Hunter, you'd wanted to come in, I think? I was just going to touch on the same things about superannuation. It's not in every—referendums generally don't allow for that. Return officers do, by choice, decide whether they do that or not. In any aspect, as Mr Burr has indicated, a review of the actual payments would be an element that would also need to be considered, whether that was the right thing to be doing as part of that remuneration. Finally, we heard evidence last week—I apologise, I don't recall—that the witnesses said that those remunerations are made not because of the labour but because of the significant responsibility that goes with that role. We've heard from Mary Piccati this morning that, in fact, it is, at least in part, for labour. You are working weekends, you are working extra hours to deliver this. Can you give us some flavour of the extent to which you feel that remuneration is a reward for responsibility and or the labour? I would like to illustrate that by way of example, Chair, if I may. My colleague Alastair Buckin, the returning officer for Orkney, members may recall, found himself incurring legal fees and being a party to an action in the election court following the disputed election of the MP for Orkney in Shetland, despite the fact that no party to that action questioned the conduct of the election. That is an example, I would suggest, of the personal responsibility. That has nothing to do with his employer. The fees there become the responsibility of the returning officer, even where the conduct of the election is not in question. That is perhaps an example of the payment. Notionally, I would have to say, in that case, reflects responsibility as well as hard work. Any other comments from witnesses before Ms White? No, I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I think it would be for carrying out the entire duties as laid out in the various bits of legislation. It would be to reflect the levels of accountability and responsibility, as exemplified there, but the tasks that have to be carried out, many of which are time-critical and require a huge amount of co-ordination. That is helpful, Mr Burr. The example that you gave from Orkney. Are you aware if the returning officer incurred any personal costs in relationship to his involvement in the legal action? I am not personally aware of that. However, if such a returning officer did find themselves either as a party at some distance or directly involved in the legal action, they would be personally liable for meeting their legal costs. That has to be the case. Unless the costs are covered by insurance. I think that one of your evidence suggests that insurance is routinely bought in by returning officers. Is that up to returning officers? Do you have any indication as to how many returning officers do ensure themselves against legal costs or not? I should imagine that all do, but not insurance policies, as we all know, do not always cover every eventuality. To the personal liability, insurance will not cover what would be considered a fine, so the requirements for the return officer to comply with the date protection act should someone within the return officer scope breach the date protection act and the commissioner felt that they needed to issue a fine. That fine would actually be personal to the returning officer and the insurance, as I understand it, would not cover that. There is only so much that can be done, so there are personal liabilities and dangers out there for returning officers that simply insurance would not sort out. Do you think that there are issues around reputation, as my colleague from Glasgow has outlined earlier as well? We saw what happened in Barnett earlier this year, where the returning officer, chief executive of the local council, I think resigned very quickly after a bit of a difficulty that occurred in relation to the registers that were available in polling stations. That had such an impact. I have one final question that I would like to ask. That is in relation to the sum of evidence. The level of payments depends on the size of the local authority. It depends on whether it is a European or a UK election, which should be determined at a UK level. If it is a Scottish election, it is determined in this place. Local authority election is determined at a local authority level. There are a variety of practices in relation to how returning officers decide to dispose of the income that they get, irrespective of how much that income is. There are a variety of practices in relation to that. Sometimes it is disclosed, sometimes it is not disclosed. There is a discussion around what additional burdens that place is, not responsibilities, but additional workload burdens that place is on local authority chief executives and their capacity as returning officer, whether there is a displacement effect or whether other people pick up work elsewhere, which is where I started my line of questioning in relation to the interaction between a substantial chief executive salary and additional monies to be returning officer. I am wondering—this might be more for Mr Hunter in Miss Irvine—but, given that muddied or inconsistent approach to everything, irrespective of the level of payment to returning officers, is there a need for more clarity and more consistency? Does there have to be changes? If you think that there does, it is a bit of a losing the witness, I know. If you think that there does need to be, we will eventually make some recommendations. What do you think might be a good direction of travel? Mr Hunter? At the very beginning of my outline, there should always be a necessity for review. It is always worth opening a transparent. If there is public concern about whether it is the amounts or the actual payments, then, absolutely, we should look at that and try to make that as transparent and clear as possible, whether it has changed or not. It is part of any review. The consistency would benefit widely that there was a bit more consistent approach to that. Whoever has actually decided how that is maybe calculated or worked in, I think, and so on, I will refer to job evaluation schemes as one way to look at that. I certainly would be happy to be involved in part of that review, looking at the information there. From the commission's perspective, I think that, as I said earlier, I am happy to be involved in any review. The important thing is safeguarding the principles of independence and accountability and making sure that anything that we go into is fully evidence-based and considers all the risks of any change to the system. One thing that I would say in relation to transparency, in relation to the EU referendum in June of this year, the commission is responsible for distributing the fees and charges that were set by the UK Parliament, but we distribute them. Once we have received all the accounts and all the claims for fees and charges for the election, we will publish a comprehensive report giving transparency, showing how that money was spent at that election. We have been calling on the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament to do the same in relation to European, UK and Scottish parliamentary elections in 14, 15 and 16. We look forward to seeing that being published to give greater transparency of what elections are costing. That is very helpful. I am going to follow up on that, but I want to indicate to the other witnesses that I am about to close the evidence session. I will give you an opportunity to make some final comments if you wish. We will come to that in a second. In relation to that call to the Scottish and UK Parliament or Governments in relation to that data and the publishing of that and the consistency, I will be very interested to see what the Electoral Commission does in relation to that, but in terms of how you publish it, is there a need for consistency? Publishing in the same way, using the same criteria, presenting in the same way, should there be a read across so that we can look at each of those elections and the lines by which you decide which payments go where and why they are made, should that be the same across all elections? Is there some joint working in relation to this? I think that there would certainly be a help. It would be good to understand the kind of comparison of costs and to be able to do analysis of the data and to understand what we are getting for our money as well. I think that that absolutely could be the case, particularly given we are working the legal frameworks in terms of how the maximum recoverable amounts are set are very similar. I do not think that that would be particularly difficult to achieve if there was joint working. From the commission's perspective, from our role in the June referendum, we would be more than happy to be involved in that. I think that Mr Whiteman has been gesticulated towards me and wishes a brief supplementary. It is just a final question. Mr Hunter, from the Association of Electoral Administrators, are returning officers members of your association? Yes, not all. It is obviously not automatic, but there are a large number of returning officers that are members of the association there. Therefore, when they travel to your annual conference in February this next year, do they do that under their own holiday time, at their own expense, out of their returning officer payments? I could not answer for each individual returning officer. I think that we will leave that highing there. I did say what we would do if we would give our local authority chief executives who have been returning officers on their number of occasions, and there has been successful running of elections in Scotland despite the fact that we are looking at the appropriateness of those payments across all elections, and we will report on that and potentially make some recommendations. I think that it would be appropriate not just to thank you for coming along today but to give you the opportunity for any final comments that you wish to make if you wish to take us up on that offer. Mr Bird, do you want to— Very briefly, I think that we are in the happy position of discussing a system that delivers well. That system places personal legal responsibility for a complex range of tasks on returning officers. It is a system that has grown incrementally. There is no doubt about that. Unlike any system, it would benefit time from time to time from a review and Solace Scotland will certainly be happy to participate in any such review. I thank all our witnesses this morning, and that includes agenda item 5. We now move into private session.