 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the first meeting of 2024 in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have apologies this morning from co-cab stewart MSP, our convener, and that is why I am chairing this morning's meeting. We also welcome in the public gallery, we have acting deputy president Abigail Boyd, member of the legislative council in New South Wales, Australia. You are very welcome to our committee meeting this morning. Our first agenda item is to agree to take item 3, which is consideration of today's evidence session in private. Are members happy to agree that? Great. Thank you. Our second agenda item for us then is to hear from the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and I refer members to papers 1 and 2 in our briefing packs. I welcome to the meeting Jan Savage, executive director and Jim Farrish, Shelly Gray and Claire Methvin O'Brien, who are all commissioners of the SHRC. You are all very welcome to today's committee. I invite Jan to give us an opening statement. Thank you very much. Good morning, convener, and members of the committee in the room and joining virtually. It is a real pleasure for members of the commission and I to be with you this morning to explore the work of the Scottish Human Rights Commission over the last year, the final year of its current strategic plan. I confirmed to the committee that our annual report for the period 2022-2023 was laid before Parliament on 31 October, in line with the commission's statutory obligations under section 15 of the Scottish Commission for Human Rights Act 2006. We recognise that this session also provides an opportunity for committee members to engage with the commission on the wider work over the course of the last year, since we last met with you in November 2022. It has been a significant year for the commission, a lot of change and positive development at the Scottish Human Rights Commission. As members are aware, the commission has undertaken a major programme of strategic and operational transformation. That is focused on internal change to promote stronger governance and stability as a public body and support a new work programme more externally focused using our mandate to shift our priorities from reactive policy analysis to more proactive work to address human rights violations and denials in communities across Scotland and really working to address the accountability gap as it has presented itself to the commission. Outputs of the commission this year in that respect have highlighted the scale of that gap in many significant ways. To summarise some highlights, we have begun work on four new spotlight projects to highlight the lived experiences of people across Scotland and show us and you as Parliament where human rights are not being met. At the moment, we are looking at that in places of detention, including long-term detentions under the Mental Health Act, in the complexity of the current access to justice system across Scotland and in the communities out of Edinburgh, taking the commission this year into the Highlands and Islands and engaging directly with people in the communities where human rights are. A recent research on attitudes to human rights tells us that, although support for human rights in Scotland is growing and has increased over the course of the last four-year period, most people still do not know where to go to get help with human rights or information about their rights. With Fulfilled Our Duty as a national human rights institution to provide evidence to the United Nations and the Council of Europe in respect of evidence around how human rights are being enjoyed across multiple international treaties. In June 2023, the commission published a paper exploring the emerging trend of calls for new public bodies, new commissions and new commissioners to uphold the human rights of particular groups of rights holders. We looked at that through the prism of those rights holders and what those calls were telling us about their experience of access to justice in the current system. We recognised in that paper the role of the commission within that experience. In respect of our operations, this year the commission appointed its first executive director and I was pleased to take up this role in January 2023. The role has provided stability to governance and leadership of the commission's operations, including the implementation of the work plan that was just described. We have implemented a shared services agreement with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, which now provides financial services to the commission, HR support, management accounts and learning and development building on our shared facilities. Staff turnover has also reduced within the commission from around 50 per cent in 2021-22 to zero in 2022-23, and the trajectory continues to date. I am also pleased to report that we have filled all vacancies following a successful recruitment round within the commission over the summer, which now takes the commission to its full capacity for the first time since 2021. An independent governance review was commissioned, completed and accepted in full by all members of the commission with us today and has now been implemented at pace. Our independent governance review also highlighted recommendations to the Scottish parliamentary corporate body to address the disparity in the mandate of the commission in respect of other UK-NHRI mandates. There was a recommendation to increase the number of members of the commission to promote more diversity and pluralism across the commission, and for our legislation to be reviewed to make provision for an interim chair should that be required. Upon the demittle of our chair in June 2023, in the absence of this provision in our current legislation, our members of the commission here today have acted on a monthly rotational basis, supporting myself and the team, and I have to thank them on behalf of the commission for their collaboration, strategic leadership and support through this interim period. At that time, to provide governance continuity, I was appointed by Parliament as interim accountable officer, and upon the recommendation of the independent governance review to separate that accountable officer role from the role of the chair, this has become the permanent arrangement as of September 2023, upon the invitation of SPCB. All of these outputs have been delivered by a small organisation, so we have a head count of 15 staff and a budget of £1.3 million, and I must at this point committee pay tribute to the tireless work of the commission staff team and the recognised trade union in the last 12 months to dedicate themselves to such an ambitious internal and external work programme to both strengthen the commission and increase its outputs to deliver greater accountability for invisibility of human rights denials in Scotland. Building on the governance review recommendations, the evidence through our treaty monitoring work and spotlights and the findings over June 2023 crossroads paper, the current commission is clear that there is much more this commission could do to monitor and increase accountability for human rights violations for the people of Scotland with the powers and the resource to do so. The commission is committed to working with Parliament in this session to explore all routes to exploring the potential for an extension of the mandate. The human rights bill, which will be presented before Parliament in due course, presents one opportunity to do so, as does the opportunities, which will present themselves through the Public Finance and Administration Committee's inquiry into a strategic approach to the commission on landscape in Scotland, and the commission welcomes that inquiry and its scope. In summary, as a commission, we have sought to bring a renewed focus on the purpose, the priorities, the visibility, the impact and engagement of the commission, as a public body centred on our mandate tasked with protecting and promoting the human rights of everyone in Scotland. The commission is looking forward to SPCB advertising for a new chair in due course soon to lead us through that next period of strategic development for the commission, and we are now looking forward to delivering a new strategic plan for the period of 2024-28 to Parliament, focused on developing the commission's role as the human rights watchdog for the people of Scotland. I will conclude my remarks there, convener. Thank you very much for that, Jan. That's very, very helpful. I'm going to kick off with some questions just on a couple of the points you raised. You talked about the spotlights and that shift from being reactive and doing policy and reactive policy analysis to being more proactive. When thinking about the top priorities, how did you determine that those were going to be the priorities and how does that feed into the next strategic plan? I'm happy to take that answer first. The commission, at the February meeting, agreed that that shift would take place in this year and the staff team then worked up a series of eight potential options for the commission to consider in respect of topics. The basis of that evidence at that time was the best available information through the treaty monitoring process, through reports from civil society and other human rights defenders where we saw evidence of systemic and human rights violations at scale. There was a decision-making framework that has been published on the commission's website, which guides the process through which the commissioners considered those eight proposals, and through that each was scored and the four emerged as the priority. Those four priorities have allowed the commission this year not only to spotlight human rights denials and transfer some of our resources to focus in that way, but they're also helping the commission to learn in action about different methods of utilising its existing mandate to monitor. For example, in places of detention and in respect of the mental health act, we are allowing the time to do a deep dive into how human rights are being experienced in those settings. We don't want to preclude what the findings of those recommendations will be, but that allows us to bring evidence to Parliament and other duty barriers around the lived experience of individuals as to how that is currently being actioned. We are also looking at bigger systemic issues around access to justice. I think that this committee will be as aware as the commission is of how systemic and challenging that is, and will allow us to bring some further evidence to bear to guide future priorities into the next strategic plans about which particular areas of the access to justice system the commission may feel is appropriate to focus in on. Our work to get out of Edinburgh and into the communities where human rights are actually experienced has been a huge priority for all of the commissioners this year. We've really been encouraged to do that, and it's allowing us not only to bring rights to life in communities but to pilot a new monitoring model potentially for the commission to move forward with. Certainly into the new strategic planning period, we're very interested in exploring how the model from the Highlands and Islands may now be expanded to develop a monitoring model for the commission in other regions and communities across Scotland. I could supplement that by adding that, more generally, we refer to the terms of our act, the Scottish Human Rights Commission Act 2006, and the reference there to the international human rights treaties to which the UK is a party, which sets the outer perimeter of our mandate, and the extent, the severity and the irremediability of any human rights abuses or violations that we are aware of. That feeds into the decision making framework that Jan was referring to. I suppose that the new monitoring model, and obviously you piloting it, you gathering information around it. How is it that you identify and track success of what you do? How are you looking to shift that as your priorities and focus have shifted? How will you be looking to measure your own successes? Across the commission this year, the monitoring of impact and success has transformed quite significantly. We have a KPI framework, so key performance indicators identified across each work programme of the commission. That includes the spotlight projects. Success factors emerge from the spotlights themselves. Once we know the evidence in terms of the impact that will make on individual rights, we know that, at this stage, the impact that we want to have on levels of engagement within local communities, with rights holders, with duty bearers. We seek to understand the human rights that are at stake and ensure that that is reflected in our monitoring work. The commission now works on a data and evidence-based driven basis to report against those key performance indicators on a quarterly basis to the commissioners. We monitor spend and all those other controls through audit and risk. Jim, do you want to come in? I think that if you look at the work that was done for the governance review as well, some of the identified shortcomings were the lack of visibility and the perceived lack of impact for those that we are there to represent. That has played a major part in focusing us on how to look for, take this current year and those four highlight projects, but also how to frame our strategic plan for the next four years. To be honest, it is a sad reflection on the commission that it was not understood what it was there for and what it had done in the past. The next four years are about resetting that. It will not be done overnight, but it is vital that we are seen as being the rights watchdog. We are on the side of the rights holders as opposed to a perception that we were supporting government as opposed to doing the work for rights holders. That is subtle but strategic shift towards action, not response. Thanks, Jim. That is really helpful. Clearly, the successes that you have had in the last 12 months lay the foundation for that subsequent work. That is clear in what you have all said so far. My final question before I bring Paul O'Kane in. Jan, you mentioned that there has been a delay in recruiting the new chair and that there have been broader conversations with corporate bodies. I am also a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, so I have that knowledge of those conversations as well. You have talked about the transformations that you are looking to deliver. Has the delay in recruiting a new chair been problematic? Obviously, it has put additional work on the existing commissioners. How do you see those conversations with the new chair when they are in place, taking place in the context of the evolving rights landscape in Scotland with potential new powers and new work that you will have to do? I think that there are two aspects to that. There is the resilience of the organisation and their ability to plan. I think that it has not been a restricting factor in our work towards the strategic plan. That work has been undergone and is almost complete without any impact. The risk comes with the resilience of the organisation. There are only four commissioners and one chair. During the period of the last annual report, that was down to one. There are aspects of resilience that we need to think about going forward. That is framed in the number of commissioners and the status of the chair. We are more than happy and content to do the rotational chair aspect, but that is probably at the very margins of the legal position, the statutory position within law. I think that that is the biggest aspect of the resilience. It has not prevented us from moving forward, but it does make you wonder if something happens in the coming year. Without an existing current chair, how do we address that? Should there be other demittances from the office? I think that it is about the resilience of the organisation. As we have described, we have had an effective process of managing that situation. The timing with the governance review influences things because there were recommendations in there, so that has been able to be taken into account by the corporate body and how they take the chair role forward. We are in a very ambitious transition year. We are going into a very busy and important strategic plan, so it will be important for the capacity of the organisation and for Jan's day-to-day work and the support that Jan has in place. I think that that is right, but if that position was to be delayed for several months or so on, we would really start to feel it. I do not think that that is going to happen, because I think that the plan is January, so that is great, but I think that it will make a big difference to have that capacity. In one final point, you asked about the impact of the change in human rights landscape and the position that we find ourselves in in developing a new strategic plan and welcoming a new chair into the commission. There is so much change ahead, so we reflect that. Our thinking in respect of the current development of the strategic plan is to reflect the potential for the changing mandate and the landscape of the commission moving forward. Of course, our legislation provides for the commission at any point over the next four year period should the chair decide that we review again and look at ensuring that our strategic plan remains fit for purpose in that new landscape. We are very, very live to that. I will bring Paul O'Cain in now to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to everyone who is joining us in the room on the panel. I suppose that my first question this morning is focused around the resourcing of the commission. Obviously, the commission has not used its powers inquiry for it. It has had to pause litigation work, because of capacity issues. Perhaps a question for Jan, in the first instance, does the commission have sufficient financial and staffing resources to meet its current duties and obligations within Scotland? If we look ahead, because we know that there are going to be I think future challenges and future new duties and powers, if you like, perhaps as a result of the human rights bill. I do not know if you might want to comment on what those may be and the need perhaps for further resourcing in order to cover those. I am happy to respond in the first instance. In terms of the commission's current resourcing, it has been a pretty static resource for the commission since it was first established. In the current year, we have a budgeted expenditure of £1.3 million, a projected spend into next year's requested from SPCB of £1.4 million, so modest increase year on year to account for inflationary increases related to staffing costs. It places the commission in a position whereby it is sometimes not helpful to make comparisons, but if we are looking at resourcing, the commission has a really broad mandate. It is tasked with promoting and protecting the human rights of all people in Scotland and all communities across all international human rights treaties. Public bodies in Scotland are tasked with that role for one treaty that is resourced in a commensurate way. For example, the Children's Commissioner is absolutely not to pass comment that they do an exceptional job, but we need to bear in mind that the mandate and the structure of the commission is to do that job across multiple and numerous human rights treaties and instruments for the benefit of everyone. The opportunity for the commission every year to consider how to fully utilise its powers is an interesting one. In his strategic issue, I think that various commissions have grappled with over the years. The power of inquiry in the commission's current legislation is quite a limited power. It can only be used in a certain set of circumstances around a certain set of issues. Under taking a public inquiry, as the committee will be aware of, is a significant undertaking for an organisation that requires setting up witness processes, compelling evidence, ensuring that you have all the documentary and governance processes in place around that. The judgment that I believe of previous commissions has been that that would have a significant impact on the ability of a commission to do all the other work that we have already described this year. It comes down to a balance and a choice. Is the commission resourced currently to deliver its existing mandate? There have to be strategic choices made every year in respect of that. Looking ahead, we know that the environment is freebrile in that respect. We know that the Public Finance and Administration Committee is going to have a look at the resourcing of existing commissions and also to look at how that may impact on the asks and the calls from other places—civil society, Scottish Parliament, members and Scottish Government—to set up new commissions and so on. Where the commission is most concerned with is using that as an opportunity to look at that monitoring mandate. We are clear that an increase in resources for the sake of an increase in resources is not what that is about. We must also look at the powers that are mandated to that commission and what it has in its toolkit in order to monitor better and take action around potential violations. I would probably refer the committee to a paper that the commission published in October, which looked at the powers of that commission as compared with the powers of other national human rights institutions that are operating in the UK just now. That would be the Northern Irish Human Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Both of those bodies can take forward own name litigation in respect of human rights violations as experienced by individuals in respect of the actions of the state. That commission cannot do that. Those organisations can provide advice to individuals. EHRC does that through a helpline function. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission does that in a separate way. That commission is prevented in legislation from providing advice to individuals. Both of those commissions can undertake investigations, which have a greater statutory footing than our current spotlight work does, for example. That commission cannot do those things. That is about an exploration of the potential route forward for the powers of the commission, as well as extending the footprint potentially of the commission to deliver a stronger role in monitoring accountability in human rights terms. I think that Jim Orr Shelly wants to come in to that as well. Just briefly to add as well, when we have been looking at potential new powers for the commission, just to quick points, one is that we have analysed that first and foremost through the lens of what would that mean for rights holders in Scotland and their access to justice. That is our starting point. I think that I will go back to what Jan Cymru said. That is not about a kind of ask for additional budget or indeed additional powers for the sake of it. The other thing when we have been speaking with other commissions is that it is being quite clear from those commissions that have quite a large suite of powers, if you like, that enables them to, in response to particular issues, decide that this is the power that would most appropriately help us to tackle that issue. For all commissions, there is always a strategic decision each year and in relation to each issue about which powers they pull on, but the ability to pull on different mechanisms is very helpful for some of the other commissions that we have spoken to. That was all. From my perspective coming in, what surprised me is how much change has to take place dynamically within any given period in the sense of priorities. As requirements come in from the left side, something has to be dropped off in the interim. From a purely practical point of view, the resourcing means that the staff are very flexible and that is to their good character. They are happy to do that and capable of doing that, but it is not necessarily very good in the sense of how they plan a strategic approach. Even in this current month, some of the things that we need to do have been altered because something has come in that has a greater priority. Resourcing is not just about the amount of money that we have as an organisation. It is about the number of feet that we have on the ground that can deliver once against the strategic plan and two against the necessary things that come in from the side that need to be addressed. That is part of going back to the strategies. Having the four key projects for the year, is to give us some focus to keep us driving forward, as opposed to getting caught in the backwash of other activities. Paul, I will go back to you. I answered some supplementary questions that I had, but I suppose that what is interesting is the discussion and debate around powers for a purpose and new powers for the commission, but with that sense of purpose. I noted in the crossroads report that there is consideration around the wider landscape, and the increasing call for commissioners on a variety of issues that would impact on the human rights of individuals. Within Parliament and perhaps more widely, we are having a debate and a discussion around the need for commissioners and the growth of commissioners and the challenges therein. I do not know whether you want to expand more on your views of that increasing call for commissioners in different areas and perhaps how those calls interact with the work of the SHRC, and we have heard a wee bit of that already. I suppose that what role does the SHRC feel that it could play, perhaps instead of some of those options being taken forward. Obviously, I would not refer to any commissioner proposal in isolation, more broadly, just on the principle. The commission took the decision quite early on in 2023 to take a look at the issue. Emerges is a trend, has not it? That has been reflected here in discussions in Parliament also. The commission's interest over the course of the first part of 2023 was less about the what, so the output being six or seven calls for different commissions or commissioners. Our concern is more around the why. Why are people, communities, civil society, parliamentarians and Government feeling that this is the option now? What does that tell us about how human rights have been experienced by those particular groups? More importantly, around how access to justice is being experienced for those particular groups. That led the commission to consider that question to be reflective and quite sympathetic. We are the body that is concerned with the motion and protection of everyone's human rights. From the commission's perspective, that trend is significant evidence of challenges in the existing access to justice system in Scotland around human rights, fundamentally, and the majority of those proposals were around rights-based issues—not all of them, but most of them. We took the time to think about what that means for A people's understanding and awareness of the commission, their engagement with the commission to date, the resource and the reach of the commission. We are reflecting things that we have already covered this morning. We are a small commission with a limited resource and actually quite a limited mandate. The papers suggested that there may well be a correlation between those things. People are struggling to access justice. The role of the Scottish Human Rights Commission as part of that system, perhaps, could be strengthened. It is not the answer, it is not the panacea, it is not the answer to everything, but we reflect that there could and should be a potentially greater role for the commission in that landscape. That is not just our advice, that is what the United Nations would say in respect of the powers of national human rights institutions and that is the case that we have already explored in other parts of the United Kingdom. That analysis did reflect that, for rights holders in Scotland, access to justice is worse through their national human rights institution in Scotland than it is in any other part of the United Kingdom. That is not where we would wish to be as a commission and it poses a question for Parliament to consider. The role for the commission in respect of where Parliament goes next in terms of consideration of the value and the merit of commissioner proposals is ultimately not for this commission to decide. What we can do is inform, but we certainly sought to inform the debate and to grasp the issue through the report in June. We really look forward to engaging with the Public Finance and Administration Committee's inquiry. We welcome in particular the breadth of the scope of that inquiry, so not just to focus on the implications to the public purse, which of course it must, but to look more broadly at that strategic landscape and what the experience has been for rights holders. We really look forward to continuing to be a very influential part of that process. Thanks, John. Does anybody else want to come in on that? Paul, back to you if you have any other questions. No, I think that that was really useful in terms of that wider piece of work around commissioners, so I will pause there. Thanks, Paul. I will bring Fulton McRae in now to be followed by Meghan Gallagher. Fulton, over to you. Thank you, convener. I was unmuted there. Good morning to the panel. Thanks very much for your evidence so far. I've just got a couple of questions and they broadly follow on from Paul O'Kane's line of questioning. Obviously, you're funded by the SPCB, but we know that the 2223 budget is a cut for you of around about 22 per cent in the previous year. Have you had any discussions or any indications given to you about why this cut was made and what do you believe the impact is on your operation planning going forward, in addition to what you've already said? Do you want to pick this up first? In respect of some fluctuations, I guess that the first thing to say is that the environment for all public bodies is tough. We're very clear and we're made aware via SPCB routes that opportunities to extend the budget of the commission would have to be considered on merit within that context, so we're mindful of that. Where there have been fluctuations over the past couple of years for this commission, that's related to, in part, some of the high turnover issues that I referred to earlier, so we had a 50 per cent turnover within the commission in 2021-22 that had an impact then on the commission's run rate going into the following year, and so there was some work that had to be done to right-size that. We also do have a temporary staff member, a legal fellow that's been added into the commission's headcount this year, which is not a core part of our budget moving forward, but that's an element that we're piloting. There's an explainable change there in respect of that shared services agreement that I spoke about earlier with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, so that's to the tune of around £35,000 each year. That's a transfer, essentially. The saving is to the public purse, but it doesn't then reflect in the budget of the Scottish Human Rights Commission moving forward, so there's explainable reasons for that. We are ambitious, as you have heard, and we're really very keen to expand the footprint of the commission, but that has to be done at an appropriate time and at an appropriate pace. Thanks, John. Fulton, back to you. I think I made the mistake there of muting myself in between questions, and I didn't realise you can unmute yourself now, so the system's totally changed, doesn't it? I thank you very much for that answer, and I suppose that we're moving on to talk about your ambitions. I know that the Scottish National Action Plan 2, which is published and runs to 2030, sets out 54 actions across eight priority areas, and I won't go into what those are. There's a couple of examples here, including the general justice system, the school education system, but I wonder, based on what you've said in response to the last question there, and also what you've said throughout today, how realistic are those actions and how do you plan to measure them? In respect of SNAP 2, the responsibility for the delivery of those actions is the Scottish Government and other duty bearers. The Scottish Human Rights Commission played a role in facilitating an independent secretariat to work across civil society and other stakeholders and rights holders to develop the action plan. The commission's role from 30 March, when that action plan was delivered, and as you say, it's the second version of second iteration of a national action plan, the commission's role now is around accountability and to work now to hold the Scottish Government and other duty bearers to account on progress made to deliver across those 56 recommendations. Actually, the commissioners just last week wrote to the minister to request an update on the first part of that work plan, which was a prioritisation exercise. The Government and all of us accept that 56 recommendations can't be delivered within one year, but certainly an early commitment had been given by the Scottish Government to that leadership panel who developed the SNAP 2 action plan to prioritise which actions they would be progressing with at this early stage. At this stage, the commission doesn't have visibility of what that prioritisation is, so that's the first step. Once we know what the priorities are, the commission will then take a view on how we formalise that monitoring role over the course of the next strategic planning cycle. I'll bring Jim in on that too. I think that the difference between SNAP and SNAP 2 is the manifestation of our revised strategic approach insofar as being very clear that this is not ours to deliver. We participated and contributed to its development, but it's not ours to deliver. Our role is now to, to some extent, hold those responsible feet to the fire and deliver over time. We did some work just recently for the strategic plan, and what was interesting was that the stake rights holders were aware that the duty bearers had covered the legislation, the legislative requirements, but the delivery of services didn't necessarily match. That's where we can interject ourselves now and say, you've said this in plan X, but we're not necessarily seeing it delivered on the ground for those rights holders that should be benefiting. We're moving into a different sphere of operation over the next four years and we need to be clearer about what our responsibilities are and who our responsibilities are to make it clearer so that people understand our role and function more readily at the end of the next four-year cycle. Thank you. Fulton, back to you if you've got any other questions. We've had SNAP, as you've mentioned, but we're now on SNAP 2. The data that you harnessed was back in late 2017 when you had about 1,500 people participate through various different community events, your online surveys and, of course, your national participation event. Since then, of course, we've had a pandemic, we're currently experiencing a global cost of living crisis. I'm just wondering, the data that you harnessed during that point in time back in 2017, do you think that that data is still relevant to the actions that you've managed to gather, the action points that you managed to gather from that point in time? I'm just interested in the ever-changing world that we're living in and the action points and opinions of the Scottish people back in 2017. Do you think that that's still relevant now? It's a really good point. I think that the key point is that we look at lots of different sources of information insight into people's experiences of their rights. I think that a lot of the issues that were within that work done, as you say, back in 2017, the evidence would suggest that those issues have only been augmented by things like the pandemic and through some of the mechanisms that Jan's spoken about, the monitoring work that we do. That's where we gather that type of intelligence. For example, the work that we've done around monitoring the convention on the rights of disabled people, the pandemic was a big issue within that, as you would expect, as it's cost of living and so on. That work, although, as you say, it is a few years old, is still very relevant. You can draw a thread, if you like, through the more recent work that reaffirms and says that, in relation to those issues, here's what's actually worse than things for particular groups. I was going to say something else there and it's gone out of my head, sorry. Also just supplement what Shelly said by going back to the question that you raised at the beginning, convener, around how do we measure our impact and success because I think it's related. Those are notoriously hard issues in human rights, in the study of human rights and the way human rights laws act on society. How do you measure whether they have impact in changing things on the ground for people, longitudinally, over years? The nature of change in society in public institutions is very complex, but that means that it's something that's very important for us to focus on. We have identified that as an area where, as an organisation, we want to up our game. Part of that has involved commissioning work on a theory of change for SHRC so that we're better informed about the possible mechanisms through which, given our specific legal mandate and the limited nature of the resources that we have, we can most effectively trigger positive impacts for public institutions, for rights holders and in society more broadly. That's work that is currently in hand, and I think that already has been mentioned the work on assessing attitudes in Scotland to human rights. That is a piece of research that we've commissioned prior to us being imposed, but which we intend to commission on a repeat basis so that we have at least the beginnings of a sort of data set that gives us something to evaluate in terms of whether things are moving in the right direction or what are new and emerging trends or areas of difficulty. Thank you. The reason I'm asking that question is because SNAP2 is described as the living action plan. I'm just wondering in terms of the scope to perhaps include SNAP and a human rights bill, how do you see that working if it's an ever-changing environment? How do you think that would fit into the scope of legislation that would perhaps be put through here in Parliament? I guess, in one respect, the human rights scheme and the monitoring and evaluation of how the human rights bill is having an impact would be one way to, if not, implement the action plan, because it's probably not being designed to be implemented fully within legislation but to implement elements of the accountability system around human rights in Scotland in law. I think that that's definitely one way that that could be considered. Of course, other actions that have been identified in the SNAP2 action plan relate to the strengthening of the legal framework around human rights in Scotland, which will be delivered in time through the Parliament's consideration of the human rights bill. There are different types of recommendations within SNAP2, which is why the initial advice to the Government was to undertake that prioritisation element. However, in terms of monitoring as Claire's outlined, we are considering our on-going monitoring role and how that may align to the SNAP2 priorities over the next four years of our strategic planning cycle. The new human rights bill gives the opportunity to develop a stronger monitoring system and monitoring scheme in Scotland for human rights more generally. Shelly, do you want to come in on that too? Briefly, to add as well, I think that some of the wider work around SNAP, the first iteration, and the second has been around trying to build a stronger human rights culture in Scotland, and that will obviously be a critical part of the new legislation as well. Thinking back to the first SNAP, I was involved in the first SNAP in a civil society role, many of the kind of barriers to making progress against those actions and recommendations. One was around resourcing, but another was a lot of those kind of cultural issues around capacity and awareness of rights and capacity amongst duty bearers in particular. I think that some of that wider building a culture of human rights work is another thing that connects those two issues of SNAP and incorporation. Finally, as on data sets and monitoring, as you have just mentioned, one of the concerns that I have had with the Scottish Government for quite some time is the lack of data that records on human rights-based issues or other issues that are contained within the action points that you have raised. Is that something that you are actively encouraging the Scottish Government to do, to record more data, to make sure that we can benchmark against the action points that contain the 54 action points that you have outlined? I think that that is something that, certainly, MSPs would be keen to see, so we can effectively scrutinise the work of the Scottish Government in terms of the action points that you have highlighted within your report. Yes, that is the short answer to that question. I know that that is a point that the Commission regularly raises in its reporting to the United Nations and the Council of Europe. The data quite often just is not there to prove progress or otherwise. That is a weakness in our human rights monitoring system in Scotland for sure. As you have heard from the Commission earlier over this next four-year strategic planning cycle, the Commission wants to be clear around the data set and the methodologies and the processes through which the Commission will utilise to play a stronger independent monitoring role in that space. Thank you very much. I will bring Carina Adam in now to be followed by Annie Wells. Thank you, Maggie. It is lovely to see the panel this morning. I apologise that I cannot be there in person. You have touched upon the new Scottish human rights legislation. I was just wondering, I know that you have done quite a lot of work into this and it is on-going. Can you give us a bit of a reflection, your own reflections on that work so far? Any strengths, any weaknesses that you see there? I think that from the Commission's perspective, this is the fulfilment of one of its strategic objectives of the last strategic plan, which is to strengthen the legal framework around human rights in Scotland. The development of legislation that will achieve that is a great thing for Scotland and the potential for the creation of a stronger legal framework is significant. Indeed, that is the recommendation of the United Nations that the State Party should seek to progress that. That commission is absolutely committed through the continuation of the rest of this year and into the next strategic planning cycle to properly scrutinise and support Parliament in its work to deliver legislation that maximises the protections available through the Scottish legal framework for access to justice for individuals in Scotland. That is our priority. Over the next four months, the commission is doing a deep dive into particular areas of the bill as it is being developed. That is evolving all the time because of the change in landscape, which has been referred to earlier. Lots of things are now being clarified through Supreme Court judgments and the development of other legislation in the space of incorporation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, for example. The landscape has changed significantly from when the legislation was first proposed and continues to progress as it has been developed. At this stage, we have not seen a great deal of detail from the Scottish Government in order to provide an assessment or analysis of the model that has been proposed, but that is certainly—the Parliament has our commitment—that that is a core role, core function of the commission and that will continue to be our priority. I think that Clare wants to come in as well. Yes, just to emphasise amongst the points that Jan has raised there, we do see it as an opportunity, and as she mentioned, UN bodies do encourage routinely states to incorporate human rights treaties. The human rights bill is clearly aligned with the recommendations coming from international bodies in that respect, but what is very important to us is that the resulting legislation should be intelligible to public authorities and also to rights holders. There is no avoiding the fact that the devolved context and the constitutional issues associated with that do pose challenges in terms of incorporating human rights instruments. Our focus within that context will be striving to achieve and inform the development legislation that empowers public authorities with intelligible duties, as well as rights holders, and to pinpoint the preconditions for that legislation to work practically to a positive effect in terms of legal aid, access to justice and the other issues that rights holders will need to be able to vindicate the new rights that they formally should have under the legislation. I would like to ask about the British Bill of Rights that has been scrapped by the UK Government. There is also an on-going live debate about the European Convention of Human Rights. We are talking about the landscape, but how does that affect future possible human rights legislation in Scotland, with that atmosphere and those on-going debates? Is that affecting your work in any way, in any future work? In respect of the past year and the period in the annual report, you will see that, as a committee, the commission did step in and provide advice in quite very strong terms to the Westminster Government in respect of its proposed Bill of Rights. The outcome was a good outcome in respect of upholding rule of law in the United Kingdom. One area of focus to flag from the commission's perspective as that impacts on the development of the new Scottish human rights bill for Scotland is that we need to be clear that any new powers and role of accountability that the commission is conferred with as a result of that process are not limited in scope to only those rights that are developed through the human rights bill in Scotland. For us, that is a really critical point in respect of maintaining accountability across all human rights that impact on all of our daily lives here in the United Kingdom. The protection of the broader legal framework around human rights is of foundational importance to the commission and continues to be. To that end, we absolutely do monitor the on-going development of other priorities and proposals from the UK Government, namely at the minute the legal migration act. We keep a watching brief on that, and where we consider appropriate as a commission, we have made statements and would intervene as required. It adds to the free-brile environment around the development of human rights. Our role is to protect and promote the protection of that through the legal framework. To be absolutely clear, we would oppose withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, and a constant discussion of that we find undermines the place of human rights in society and public authorities' confidence and the strength of their commitment to human rights, or jeopardy. It puts that in jeopardy, so it is not a positive environment. Okay, thanks. Karen, anything else from you? That's it, thank you. Okay, thanks Karen. Over to you, Annie Wells. Good morning, convener, and good morning panel. It's just really a question for Jan. You mentioned in your opening remarks that there's still people out there who don't know who to contact about human rights issues. I was just wondering if you knew what the reason is for that, and also how can it be addressed? Good question, Annie. Through the research itself, it's an interesting piece because it looks at how human rights have been experienced by individuals and how that differs across different communities, different parts of the country, different age demographics, etc. One of the biggest barriers to people knowing where to go is people understanding what human rights are in the first place. That's one of the reasons that the commission this year has taken that decision to get out of into communities, speaking to individuals about things that happen in your everyday life that don't necessarily ring true as a rights issue. You're right to housing, you're right to nutritious foods, you're right to clean water, you're right to environmental health. These things are all fundamental human rights, and our job as a commission building on the evidence through that research is to really build at individual level fundamentally an awareness that these are rights, you have them already, and that there are organisations and public bodies, including the commission, who are there to care about them and to ensure that you have every support that you require to make them real. We're exploring, again, through the Highlands and Islands spotlight work. The work in those communities is not just exploring the lived experience of people in those communities, we're also triangulating that with data and evidence coming through the case loads of constituency MSPs in those communities, with a thematic analysis of complaints received by our partners at the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in those areas about those issues, and similarly through Citizens Advice. We're doing everything that we can to get to the bottom of the question that you've raised because we do see that as really critical to achieving, it's a critical barrier in achieving a stronger human rights culture. I think Jim wants to come in on that as well. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think the reality is we need to, our communications need to be more accessible and clearer around about what it is we're there and what we can offer. And I think back in September we developed a sort of three-tier approach to communications and there's a new communications team working on that to try and make the communications more accessible. There is the need to have legalised and sort of theoretical responses to treaties but there's also the need to articulate that and how it impacts on or can impact on somebody's daily living who happens to have difficulty accessing a GP or legal services or whatever in any given part of the country and I think that's important part. And just one thing and it's a bit about what Ms Gallagher said is, I know the committee will know this but the correlation between poverty and accessing your rights is there and I was aware of it but I didn't realise how much of a barrier it was until I became a commissioner and I think that's something that we need to recognise in our approach but also in how we frame our communications and arguments so that people can see that we're there to help and represent them, not somebody else somewhere down the line that has a better understanding of what we're talking about. Okay thanks Jim and Shelly you want to come in? Yeah if there's time just to say as well I think the way that the commission works with civil society and community organisations is really important here as well so just as one example over the past year we've been involved in some work alongside Scottish Gypsy Traveller communities and in that instance we're talking about a group of people who are facing really really severe contraventions of their rights in various respects they're working with a community, a third sector organisation who has worked alongside them to enable them to take forward, well to think about those issues in terms of human rights, to take forward human rights monitoring and then to be taking that to the duty bearers and we've been working in that space as the human rights watchdog so we're kind of alongside those community members, that organisation to help with that process of actually holding those duty bearers to account because that's incredibly difficult for those communities as you can imagine. So I think it's sort of us being really clear on what our role is within that kind of the human rights system and all the bits that need to be there in order that people can see issues in terms of human rights and know how to then they can take them forward. Jan, did you want to come back in quickly before I go back to Annie? Just if time permits convener, just one of the softer bits of impact so in my day to day role I get to see everything that's happening across the commission and I've talked about you know how we use data and evidence and how we monitor our profile and how that's increasing over the last year. One of my favourite bits of softer impact from the last while was an article I think it was in the Strath's Bay Herald just before Christmas and it was not prompted by the commission but a local journalist had seen that the commission was in that community and had just been provoked to write an article. They had studied human rights at university, they knew treaties, they knew the UN, they knew the system. They were a bit surprised that the commission therefore was in their local community until they found out a wee bit more and went along and had a conversation and they've said that it really opened their eyes as an educated person who thought they knew lots about human rights, about fundamentally actually what human rights are, what's happening in Scotland, what was happening right under their nose as a local journalist. For me it's early days but that's a really strong indicator of the impact of the monitoring model, the community engagement model, the commission getting out of Edinburgh, talking about human rights, witnessing human rights, that's an indicator of the potential impact I think this commission could have over the next four years if we continue with that model. Thanks, Annie. Back to you. Yeah, I'm fine with that. Can we be now? Thanks very much and thank you very much, panel. Thanks, Annie. Paul, you wanted to come back in. He's coming. Sorry, I decided not to touch anything because of the film experience but I probably should have, so apologies. My question now focuses on the universal periodic review. The commission had written to committee about the UK's fourth cycle of that periodic review which took place in November 2022. The commission had said that it would be encouraging both the UK and Scottish Government to work constructively together before the formal response was sent to the UPR report. Obviously the response was published in March of last year. I would be keen just to get an assessment and your view of the UK Government's response. If you might want to comment on whether you think that the two Governments did work on it together or whether there perhaps could have been more opportunity for that constructive working. I think certainly in terms of the detail around that we would need to come back to in writing, I think, Paul, but as I understand it, the UK Government in its response accepts about 40 per cent of the list of issues. As a commission, we are looking at independent analysis of what the norm would be in respect of trends, so there are details on that that we can provide in writing. Paul, do you want to pick up on anything else in that? Just to say on the record that it is important to the committee that we understand the view of the Scottish Human Rights Commission on it, and I think that we understand to what extent there has been collaboration or where there needs to be follow-up from our point of view, from a scrutiny point of view. I think that that undertaking to come back to the committee in detail would be really helpful. Great. Thanks very much. I just got a couple of other supplementary questions picking up on some of the comments that you have said. I was struck by Jim. You said that there is almost a mismatch between the legislation and what people know they should be delivering and what is delivered and people's experience of that. Shelly, you talked about the cultural or the absence of a shared understanding across Scotland about what rights are, should be, could be, must be or all those things. You spoke about your work with civil society and the work going into communities and those elements. I was wondering whether you thought there was a role for us as MSPs. Obviously, you provide training to this committee on a reasonably regular basis on different elements of human rights both in the Scottish and UK landscape but globally, too. You have also worked with the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Given what you say about the value of information in casework and the case loads that MSPs have in certain areas, can we be doing more across Parliament to help MSPs to better understand what they should be looking for so that they can come to you, they can come to us as committee? We can have a better understanding, a shared understanding, across all MSPs. Where would you say that you could support that work? That's emerged as a priority action for the commission through its final stages of development of the strategic plan for next year. We believe that we could do a lot more to support that capacity to building across Parliament at individual level, caseworker level and at committee level. That is something that the commission wants to prioritise. There are a set of principles, the Belgrade principles that the United Nations and the network of NHRIs across the world apply in respect of working with parliamentarians and the commission really wants to seek over and will seek over the next four years to strengthen that. The spotlight work gives us a model to share with Parliament, so in addition to the violations that we uncover and the reports that we want to give back to you on that, we will also be sharing the experience and the learning of what that model needs to look like if we were to upscale it and to work in partnership with MSPs and their offices more often. The short answer is that there is more that we can do. I think that the commission has also for a long time advocated for Parliament to consider its findings, so one of the limitations of the existing mandate of the commission is that we don't issue binding guidance, we can't really compel responses. Parliament can compel responses, Parliament can bring people together in the way that you are with us today, so there's probably a strength in relationship potentially to explore over the course of the coming years in respect of that, particularly if the commission is doing more work, as it will be, in monitoring violations. Thanks, Jen. That's helpful. I think that there's something very obvious. Those of us on this committee probably do think more regularly than others about the human rights deficiencies that constituents come to us with, but I'm assuming and maybe I'm speaking ill of some of my colleagues, but that's not uppermost in all of our minds when we're dealing with casework, so I think that there's substantial work, and maybe for us as a committee to consider how we share some of these conversations with our colleagues as well. We've done some of that work in some of the budgeting conversations that we've had. Equality in human rights budgeting is everybody's job, not just ours in this committee. Colleagues, committee members, are there any other last thoughts or questions you wanted to raise now? I don't see any shouting out from anybody online. Any final comments or thoughts you want to leave us with, panel? Just to say thank you for the opportunity to be here today and share what I think is quite an exciting and ambitious plan. We look forward to coming back and reporting on updates as and when you see fit. Thank you, Jan, Clare and Shelley. It's been an interesting discussion. I really appreciate your time and your thoughts this morning. We will move into a closed session now, so I will suspend the public part of this meeting now, and we will move into private session. Thank you very much, everyone.