 Rhawn Counter-State, Fife and the City Council's Committee, and welcome to the 60th meeting of the local government community committee in 2017. I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones and, as members' papers are providing a digital format, tablets may be used by members during the meeting. Apologies for being received by Elaine Smith this morning, because our deputy commissioner unfortunately cannot be with us this morning. We move to agenda item 1, which is the post-legislative scrutiny of the High Heads of Scotland Act 2013. The committee will now take evidence from the Minister for Local Government and Housing on its post-legitim scrutiny of the act. I welcome the minister for local government housing, Kevin Stewart and his officials, Paul Kaquette, chief reporter and Julia Robertson policy of the Scottish Government. Thank you everyone for coming along here this morning. Minister, I invite you to pass me some opening remarks. Good morning, convener committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak to the committee today. Post-legitim scrutiny is a key part of the Parliament's work, and I applaud the committee for carrying out the scrutiny of the High Hedges Scotland Act now. The act was intended to recognise the detrimental impact that high hedges may have on people's lives and the enjoyment of their homes. The fact that there was no legislative solution in Scotland to resolve disputes between neighbours prior to the introduction of the act means that it is crucial to monitor its effectiveness. The act gives homeowners and occupiers a vehicle through which they can take positive action to resolve disputes about high hedges when all other options have failed. It means that individuals are empowered to take action through their local authority, which can enforce decisions that strike a balance between the competing rights of neighbours to enjoy their homes. For a number of people, the introduction of the legislation brought hope that years, sometimes decades of stress and negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing, would finally be addressed. However, I am aware from the evidence submitted to the committee and people writing to the Scottish Government that there are some people who feel their expectations of how the legislation should operate in practice have not been met. In May 2016, following discussions with Scott Hedge and local authorities, the Scottish Government published revised guidance to accompany the act. It was hoped that this would address some of the concerns that had been raised during its first two years of operation. However, a number of issues are still being raised and I therefore welcome the committee bringing forward its post-legislative scrutiny. When considering high hedges, it is important to remember that the hedge owner and the hedge neighbour may have completely opposite perceptions of the harm and impact of a hedge. There are two sides to any argument, but years of unresolved disputes lead to greater and greater inability to compromise and the possibility of finding a mutually agreed solution that delivers a reasonable and balanced outcome diminishes. That is why both hedge owners and hedge neighbours need the act and the formal resolution process to fall back on when all else has failed. The Scottish Government is keen to listen to the concerns being raised and is open to suggestions on how the legislation or the accompanying guidance can be improved to ensure that it is working as it was intended to and that homeowners can continue to enjoy their property as they wish to. That is very helpful, Minister, for setting the context, and we will move to questions now. The first question is from Graham Simpson, MSP. I just wonder if you can give us your general impressions of how effective the act has been in the light of some of the evidence that we have heard and the concerns that you have mentioned already. I think that it is very difficult for me to give a general impression of how the act has worked nationwide. What I would say is that constituency MSP, the act has worked well for a number of my constituents. There are still some constituents who are quite unhappy with the outcomes that they have experienced, but I would say that in many circumstances where there have been disputes for a long period of time, it has been helpful to many people. Do you think that councils have been working within the spirit of the act? As Mark McDonald told us, it is really there as a last resort. Do you think that, in some cases, it is not being used as that? Again, that is difficult for me to judge what is happening in all 32 local authorities, but in terms of the spirit of the act, as you describe it, the policy memorandum, which accompanied the High Hedges Bill, stated that the principle policy objective of the bill was to provide a solution to the problem of high hedges, which interfere with the reasonable enjoyment of domestic property. Does that by providing an effective means of resolving disputes over the effects of a high hedge where the issue is not being able to be resolved amicably between neighbours? The best potential, as far as I am concerned, for resolving disputes lies in the pre-notice stage before the formal procedures of the act start. That is where the maximum scope for resolution lies. Once formal procedures come into play, it is not so much the spirit of the act but the letter of the act that comes into play at that particular point in time. You heard that in evidence from Kevin Wright of Aberdeen City Council earlier on in terms of your deliberations. That leads neatly on. You mentioned Aberdeen City Council. Mark McDonald last week told us that, as far as he was concerned, a definition of a high hedge was as contained in section 1 of the act. The evidence that we have heard from home owners who are unhappy with the act and the perceived inability of it to deal with their issue has raised concerns with us about what actually is a hedge. I am just wondering if you agree with Aberdeen City Council's observation that, if the trees and or shrubs and questions cannot be defined as a hedge in the first instance, the trees and or shrubs are considered to fall out with the scope of the act. There has been some debate about definition of a hedge over the peace. Originally, in terms of the guidance that was published when the act commenced, there was reference to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a hedge. However, officials received a number of complaints about that as several local authorities were quoting the definition and using it as a reason not to consider an application. At the time that the act was introduced, the definition was felt to be adequate. However, if the committee feels that the balance of evidence that they are hearing supports a change to the definition, I am open to considering such a change, but definition is always very difficult in those regards. From my perspective, having sat in the committee that originally scrutinised the bill, the dictionary definition that has been removed from guidance was a good definition. However, I am interested to hear what the committee may have to say on that, and we will look at that in terms of your findings. Just given your experience with the act as it went through Parliament, is it your view that this is not an act that is designed to deal with trees and forests and woodlands and shelter belts? No, it is not an act designed to deal with trees and woodlands and forests. As the committee looked at all of that originally, you could imagine the amount of things that came into play. We took evidence not only from people here in Scotland, people who had experienced difficulties, but we also took evidence from other jurisdictions as well. There was an argument in certain quarters at that time that the act should cover single trees, for example. We know that certain other jurisdictions, including the Isle of Man, allowed for interventions when it came to single trees. We felt that at that time as a committee that that was unworkable. On your main point about woodland, we took evidence from the likes of the Scottish Wildlife Trust around those areas. That is why it was with the evidence that we received from other jurisdictions and other bodies that the act was written in the way that it was. Given that, and that reflect evidence that we heard from local authorities that the act was intended to deal just with hedges, specifically high ones, do you agree with Aberdeen City Council that if foliage is not a hedge, it cannot fall within the scope of the act? In other words, do you agree that the definition of a hedge is an important element in the interpretation and operation of the legislation? I think that the definition is an important element, yes, without a doubt. I am just going to ask to be followed by Rhyngid Barclay. Mr Simpson, can I just check perhaps that the committee has been looking partially at this from the wrong angle? If I put a scenario towards you, Minister, where someone plants three or four small trees, not a horticulture, that is irrelevant for the purpose of the question, and it forms an artificial barrier that blocks out sunlight and prevents reasonable enjoyment to the neighbour, does it matter whether that barrier is three or four small trees or a hedge? What is it that is so special about—I know that it was not your bill, Minister—that is so special about hedges, about reasonable enjoyment of a property as opposed to other forms of plant life? This bill, in terms of its scope, dealt with high hedges. It was not a nuisance vegetation bill or anything else in that regard. The scope of the bill, and it is a question best asked of Mr MacDonald, who put it forward, was to deal with nuisance high hedges and not other forms of plant life or vegetation. Do you think that the Government would be open? Our committee has to deliberate on the evidence that we have heard, but my gut tells me that if someone creates a particular barrier between one property and another that stops reasonable enjoyment of that person's property, it does not matter whether it is a hedge or whether it is trees and the legislation does not seem to deal with that. The definition in the act itself dealt with lines of trees that could form a hedge. You can have a line of trees that does not form a hedge. I am not a horticulturalist, either. That comes back to the definition of what is a high hedge. A line of trees can form a hedge, a line of trees can be there and not form a hedge. If we looked out of the window behind you and looked across to the Scotsman building there, you can see a line of trees. Some folk would look at that line of trees where there are gaps, and some would argue that that is maybe a hedge and others would argue that it is not. That is one of the things about definition. That is why I am willing to look at anything that you put forward in terms of definition. The Oxford English Dictionary definition was there originally in the guidance. It was removed because it was seen as being too prescriptive, but that was the definition of a high hedge. It was originally in the guidance. It is the same point. When we spoke to Mark McDonald, he confirmed that trees and shrubs are included in the act. The key thing is not whether, when they are planted, they are a hedge, but what they grow up to be, do they end up forming a barrier that blocks out people's light? He was certainly of the view when he appeared before our committee that perhaps guidance should be revised. What are your thoughts on that? I am quite happy, as I said earlier, to look at the guidance and recommendations from the committee, but what I would say to the committee is that the guidance originally had the definition in there from the Oxford English Dictionary. The guidance was changed because some folk were unhappy about that particular definition. If you can come up as a committee with a definition, I am quite happy to have a look at what you come up with. Have you got that definition that was removed? The Oxford English Dictionary definition. I do not have it with me at the moment. I am looking at others. Not with us at the moment. It is quite a lengthy definition of what a hedge actually is, but we can certainly provide it to the committee. And you felt originally that that was a better definition than one way ended up with? Again, Mr Simpson, I think that the key thing in all of this, as a listening government, that definition was removed from guidance because some folk felt that that was too prescriptive. If the committee decides that that should go back in, then I am more than willing to look at that. You mentioned earlier that you had issued revised guidance last year. Revised guidance in May 2016. Convener, because of the complexities of the guidance and the fact that I do not have full knowledge of every aspect of the guidance, even though it is in my briefing here, can I bring Ms Robertson at this point to talk in more detail about the changes to that guidance? Absolutely, Julie Robertson. So, the Scottish Government received quite a number of letters from people when the act first came into force, raising a number of issues that it experienced with our early applications. So, officials worked closely with Scott Hedge and also with local authorities to go through the guidance to try and identify if there was anything within that guidance that was perhaps causing problems. The Oxford English dictionary definition was of a hedge, not of a high hedge. Obviously, the definition of a high hedge is within the legislation, but where the legislation says that it is a hedge, we were trying to define what that was and that is what the dictionary definition was for. We received quite a lot of correspondence from organisations such as Scott Hedge, who I know you have had evidence from, that that was restricting the applications that local authorities were considering. They were sticking to the strict definition of what was a hedge, and I think that they were taking the same views as perhaps some members of the committee that it should not matter if it is a hedge or if it is another type of vegetation. So, in agreement with the local authorities in Scott Hedge, that dictionary definition was removed. The guidance was looked over in detail by Scott Hedge and by local authorities and others. We also worked to get at the crystal mark from the plain English campaign to make sure that it was easy for members and public to be able to follow and to be able to understand. I have to say that I disagree somewhat with Mr Wightman and Mr Simpson in terms of the definition. The act clearly states the definition of a high hedge, but where there is inconsistency is nationally in terms of how local authorities are interpreting the guidance and the legislation, and that is the real issue that we have heard evidence from before today. For example, with regard to fees, there are varying levels of fees across the country in terms of what local authorities apply. There is also an inconsistency with regard to who takes responsibility at local authority level. Some people have planning look at it, others send out treat experts or whoever it might be to assess whether a hedge is a high hedge. There is also an issue around about timescales and how long that process takes. There is a real inconsistency across the board at local authority level. I honestly do not think that that relates to the interpretation of what constitutes a high hedge. I wonder if the Government might consider setting out more structured guidance to local authorities in terms of how the process is carried out nationally. Again, I am willing to look at those things, but in terms of how local authorities go about their business or set fees, that is something for them. I think that the committee itself, if it were, for example, to say that there should be full cost recovery for all of these works, may end up in a situation where fees rise dramatically. As it stands at the moment, my understanding is that the cheapest is in the Clyde at £182, while the fee in Glasgow is £500. The highest fee in England, I understand, is around about £600 mark. I think that you will have had evidence from some of the local authorities that Glasgow said that the fee should be the same as for a planning application, because it is the same amount of processing and also that there is a greater ability in terms of costs because of the rights of appeal. If the committee were to want to try and create some uniformity around about fees, in terms of discussions with COSLA, which, of course, would have to be undertaken, you would find that the position would be, if there was going to be a uniformity across the country, that that would be for full cost recovery, which might end up with a greater level of fees that might impede some folks from taking action. The other question that I wanted to touch upon was various examples that we have heard of whereby people are served with a high-hedge notice, and the neighbour then comes along and cuts down every second tree to circumvent the legislation. The local authority comes back, carries out an assessment and says that it is not a high-hedge, because every second tree has gone. Do you have a view on that? Do you think that we need to look again at tightening up that part of the legislation, where the Government does? I will bring in Mr Cackette at this point here, because, obviously, in his and his reporters role in the DPAA, they have a view on that. I understand the position regarding the concerns about cutting down every second part of the hedge, and I understand that the position mainly relates to people who do that before the notice is served, in other words, to avoid that situation arising. It can happen afterwards, and I will deal with that in a minute. However, in the situation in which it is cut down beforehand, that is certainly a risk, and I can certainly see the frustrations of people who feel that they are in a process whereby the legislation is seen to be circumvented or attenced to circumvent it. The point that councils would make in those circumstances, of course, is that, technically, those are no longer high-hedges. That does not address the fact that, underlying that, that suggests that there is still an issue to be addressed, and therefore that the role of pre-application variation is therefore vital. When you have a role before they serve a notice to try to get amicable resolution, that is what is a good thing, but that opens up the possibility that people take that kind of aise of action. It is quite difficult, I think, for councils when they serve a notice to do anything other than serve it on the basis of the hedge as it stands when they serve the notice. If it is amended, if the hedge is altered by the time they serve the notice, it is quite difficult. As far as the experience of DPA is concerned, there is a lot of flexibility in what we do, because we are trying to achieve a sensible resolution of the issue before us, but the starting point from DPA would be whether the hedge is served at the time that the notice is served. If a hedge was different, either because somebody cut down part of it, or just because, after the passage of time it looks different or the impact is different, the normal situation would be that the reporters would seek to identify what the hedge was when the notice was served. I know that there are some cases where they have sought photographic evidence at the time because it is suggested that it has changed in the meantime, so they would make a judgment in most cases in terms of what the hedge was like at the time that the notice was served. I will pick up on that a little bit. There are a number of parts in that process, so there is a pre-application that could involve mediation. That would not cost either party any money, would be my understanding. At that stage, the neighbour with the hedge may take remedial action and the problem may go away. That would be a positive thing. We heard in the very first evidence session that there was a deterrence feature where that was happening in some parts of the country. That was a good thing. If that does not work and the application goes ahead, and just before the high-hedge notice is served every second year, whatever it is, my score, if we are saying, is cut down, is it possible to have the guidance and enforcement action always on the basis as if the neighbour had not altered her hedge in any way? Could that enforcement have been removing the structure entirely? Does that fly in terms of the law, in terms of the regulations? My thought is that it would be tough if you ignored the pre-application, you ignored the mediation and individuals put in an application. It is going to become self-evident that the neighbour is going to lose that one and enforcement notes will be served and you try to circumvent that by tinkering with the hedge. If the enforcement would have been taking the whole thing away or getting everything below two metres of what have you, can that still be enforced in the law? I will answer the second question first, because what the reporter will look at in making a determination in those cases is the whole circumstances. We will try to achieve a fair balance in trying to look at getting an outcome that recognises the rights of both parties. If indeed what has happened is in the meantime there has been some suggestion that one party has acted in that kind of way, one of the issues for the reporter is to say that they can do two things, one of which is to remedy the immediate problem and the second, as the highest notice can do, it can set out steps to be taken to avoid the problem recurring. I would imagine in that situation if there is a belief that the steps were taken simply to circumvent in the meantime, but longer-term steps are to make sure that they cannot just let the hedge grow again and start becoming the problem, then the notice could maintain certain steps to try to avoid that situation arising. The normal situation is that a notice would have two components, one of which is the steps to be taken to remedy the difficulty and the second are the steps to avoid in future it recurring. Avoiding it recurring might be the risk where someone takes steps in the meantime just to get around the notice. If there was a hedge when the appeal was taken, the reporter could deal with it and take that into account in varying a notice if that is what they choose to do, to try to minimise the risk that the person has behaved in that way, we will simply then effectively ignore that by allowing the hedge to grow again and become the nuisance that it was before. There is the capacity and scope within the decision-making process to guard against that. I apologise for asking it again specifically in relation to that, but if the reporter was going to serve a notice in the original hedge which said, could that specify, remove it completely or remove everything to below two metres? Yes, sorry, I could do that. The notice would specify what the remedial action should be, but in the meantime, the neighbour could come along and do something less than that, and the reporter could go, oh, that's okay then, surely that's not acceptable? He could do that because that would depend on the circumstances that it would arise. They would have to make a judgment as to whether they would uphold the notice that required the lower level to be maintained or they could vary it along those lines. So does the guidance say that the reporter should base a high-hedge notice on the condition of the hedge at the point of application or the condition of the hedge at the point where the notice is served? Just to be clear, the question, I think, was to do with whether it is a high-hedge at the point where the notice was served, and I think that that's why that point is relevant. The fact that the condition might have changed is a factor that the reporter can take into account, so if the condition has changed, yes, they could do that. Convener, we should maybe go over what would happen under normal circumstances anyway. If there was no change, if it went to the reporter on appeal, the possible outcomes from that appeal are that the reporter can uphold the local authorities' original decision, or the high-hedge notice. They could co-osh the decision with or without issuing a high-hedge notice or the high-hedge notice issued by the local authority, or vary the terms of the notice that has changed the work required or the compliance period. I think that that's what Mr Kaquette is describing there. What's the picture across the country then? Minister, you said that in your initial statement that you spoke a lot about the pre-application process. How do we collect data across the country as a Government to make sure that this is having the intended outcome? We've heard it anecdotally from some that it's working very well, and from others that it's not working at all. I'm sure that the truth lies somewhere completely in the middle, but where's the data to back this up? It's obviously local authority data that you want, rather than the appeals data. In which case, I'll take in Mr Robertson, please. Yes, so the Scottish Government doesn't collect data from local authorities. There was no requirement under the legislation for local authorities to provide that data with us on a regular basis, as with other pieces of legislation. We would expect that some local authorities will keep a record of the applications that they process, but we know that where an application is dismissed by a local authority, they don't tend to record that information because they don't view it as being an application. Local authorities would keep records of the applications that they accept, that they receive and that they process, and then, obviously, the DPA will keep records of the ones for the appeals, but the Scottish Government doesn't collect any data on it. So there is data for the appeals when it reaches the stage of the DPA, but there is no data collected by the Scottish Government or no onus in local authorities to tell the Scottish Government each single piece of data. What I would say, convener, is that, going back to Ms Galruth's earlier point, if those things are added in, if those complexities are added in in terms of data collection and then a compliance with having to report to Government, that would add to the cost. Again, I come back to the point of, if you are going to look at costs and try and create uniformity, in terms of discussions with COSLA, if you were going to have a situation where you wanted, and I'm willing to look at it, as I say, wanted us to collect data, analyse data, again, that adds to the cost. I'm not sure the Government should collect data or not, I'm just trying to establish what data currently exists, so any data that currently exists would be at a local authority level. Do local authorities collect the data in the same way? It's a matter for each individual local authority, I don't know how they would collect that data, Mr Doris. Is there a requirement for local authorities to retain such data? Not in the legislation. Right, so local authorities may or may not retain all the data. If they do retain that data, they may have different procedures and processes for doing that, so even if they did report it to the Government, we could have 32 different ways that they could do that. Yes. So a really stabbing fish in a barrel, how is blindfolded here without any evidence being in the barrel in the first place that we want? Again, convener, I'm willing to look at all of these things, but if you're adding to the complexity of this, the cost of this is going to be much, much more, and the cost of this, of course, falls on the person who is asking for the notice. I'm willing to look at all of the matters that are being asked about here. I will look at the findings of the committee very carefully indeed, but if you choose to go certain routes, I think that you've got to recognise that there are implications to going on those routes if you require those kinds of changes to legislation and guidance. Okay, can we put cost to one side for a second minister? We'll eventually deliberate and report on this in the normal way. I'm asking for your thoughts not on cost. I'm asking for your thoughts on the fact that there's no requirement for local authorities to retain any data. There's no guidance on how that data should be retained, even if they did, and no requirement to give that to the Government, and no analysis has been done. And this committee is conducting post-legitim scrutiny. How on earth can we do that? Well, I think first of all, before you look at anything else, you should ask yourselves, as a committee, what is the benefit of keeping that data and collecting that data? What does that actually add? Minister, can I stop you a second? We're not asking the committee, we're asking yourself as the minister what your thoughts are on that data and whether it would be of value. So we'll ask ourselves a question, minister, but could you answer the question that I asked you? Well, I've got no evidence, convener, which would suggest that the collection of a massive amount of data would actually help in dealing with the difficulties with high edges. No-one said that it would be a massive amount of data, which would be willing to explore the possibility of the consistent recording of data across 32 local authorities. As I have said to you throughout all of this, convener, I'm pretty pragmatic about this. I'm willing to look at any of the findings of the committee and look at that carefully, but what I would also have to do is look at the implications of adding to certain of those things, which of course I'm willing to do also, but I would have to be convinced that there was a real benefit of adding to the bureaucracy, which inevitably adds to the cost, which means that that falls on the person or people who are applying for the notice. Okay, I'll do what I push further on this, minister. Let's try again, because I think that there's a slight divisiveness there in using cost in relation to that. Now, there's no requirement in local authorities to retain data, so let's say that that was up to them. Might it make sense to say to local authorities, you know, if you did decide to retain and store data, it would be quite helpful for the Government if you did it in this way. It's not a requirement, but it would be quite helpful to the Government to do it in that way. At some point, whether the Government or this committee, for example, might want to conduct a piece of post-legit scrutiny, that may be a value. Do you see a value in that, minister? I don't know what the value or lack of value would be in having uniformity in data collection across the country. When you talk about the uniformity of that collection, that could cover a myriad of different ways of doing it. I don't see what the benefits are at this moment of collecting large amounts of data about this and reporting it centrally. When all that is likely to do is to give us an indication of how many notices there are in each local authority area, how many are upheld and how many are not, we have a fair indication in terms of data from the appeals that come to Mr Caquette and where things are working or not working. Adding to the amount of data per se, which will definitely add to the cost, I can tell you now that there would be no doubt in terms of discussions with COSLA about this, that they would say that there will be an additional cost to this. In this case, that additional cost would fall to the folks who are making the notice. I don't know whether there is a benefit or not to that. I have been pretty open here in saying that I am willing to look at any of the recommendations put forward by the committee. I don't think that I have been avoiding or anything. I am saying that I am willing to look at the evidence that you have heard and the recommendations that you put forward. Minister, I merely say that you have spent two minutes answering a question that you have answered already, but not the question that I just asked you there. I will repeat again. The question that I asked you there is a pretty straightforward one. Local authorities may or may not collect data on this. There is no requirement for them to do that. Would it be helpful if they collected that in a consistent manner? I know what you said in your answer. The only thing you alluded to in my question was the fact that you don't see a benefit in local authorities collecting data in the same way, which staggers me, actually, because that is a huge benefit. It is something that this Parliament has been seeking for many a year. I cannot believe that we are having a disagreement on this one. Do you see a value to local authorities collecting data in a similar and consistent way, whether that is compulsory or otherwise? I am saying, convener, that I have made it quite plain that, if you or I at a point asked local authorities to collect the data in a similar and consistent manner, the likely who it is is that local authorities, via COSLA, would come back and say that there was a cost to that. That cost would end up being borne by the notice pair. I have to say that I have had COSLA given evidence to this committee and to the health committee when I was the deputy chair of that. Whatever your debate in the tailgate, there is a cost. That is what they do. That is their fall-back position, anything that you ask COSLA to do. I still do not think to particularly answer my question, minister. Jenny Golden. I am somewhat confused when you say that there is certainly going to be an associated additional cost to that. We do not know that that is going to be the case. Surely if you strip out 32 different layers of bureaucracy and put in place something standardised across the country, that actually reduces bureaucracy and reduces costs because there is a standardised approach to how you do it? I have to say, convener, that I do not know how each local authority is doing it at this moment. It may be an adjunct to other systems that they currently use. If you want consistency across the board, it may well be that a new system would be required to do that. I am not an IT expert in this regard and I would not in any way shape or form want to sit here and say how each local authority is currently gathering up that data, because I do not know. I appreciate that, minister. I think that our concern is that we just don't know what the picture is nationally. I mean, the Scottish Government has no idea what the picture is nationally because Mr Cackette is only getting the evidence at the very end as it stands at the moment, so you are only finding out what the process has happened. We do not really have an idea of what is being done before you get to that stage. You have got to look at this from the post-legislative scrutiny side. I am willing to look at the recommendations that you put forward in that regard, but what I would say, and I repeat it again, and I am sorry if I am being repetitive, is that it may well be that that comes at a cost. In this case, those costs are borne by those folks who are applying for notices. Would it be the case possibly that, if those costs became excessive, that less folks would apply for notices and would not get the benefit out of the legislation as is? In terms of the costs, we know that that is up to local authorities, so you are making quite an assumption to say that that cost is going to be passed on to the person applying. It is obviously up to the individual local authority how much they charge, not central government, so we cannot assume that they are going to increase costs. It may well be the case that local authorities would increase costs. It may, but it may not. It may or it may not, or I could go back to the previous line of questioning about cost and whether there should be uniformity of cost across the country. If it comes to the stage where folk are looking at full cost recovery for this work, as is the case in certain parts of the country and not in others, you may see a rising cost if there is a rise in the bureaucracy around all of this. My initial question was whether you are taking out 32 different layers of bureaucracy to have uniformity. It is not about increasing bureaucracy, it is about streamlining it and having a more consistent approach. That gives us a picture that we need, which is the national picture, to hold to account this legislation. We do not have it just now. Or, convener, it could be the case that, as I said earlier, what is being recorded at this moment in time could be as an adjunct to current systems. If you want the kind of uniformity that is being suggested, that may mean putting something else in place, which may come at a cost. Let us assume that there is no cost to any of this. Let us say that the money tree exists, and it is cost-free. If we can press a button and get all the information, do you see a value to having that information, minister? I think that it is probably best to ask Ms Robertson, who deals with this on a day-to-day basis, whether there would be any advantage to Government at all having a national picture. We have a national picture in some regards through the appeals process. Does that, having each individual application, each refusal on all the rest, add to the Government? Okay, the minister does not have a view on whether or not there is value to having information, but Julie Robertson does, Julie. That is not what I said, convener. Why do you not tell me again what you said, minister? What I said is that I do not know if it adds anything to us having the information from each local authority about how many applications there are, how many are refused, et cetera. I do not know what value that adds. Ms Robertson may have a view on that having a value or no. Okay, well, that staggers me, minister, Julie Robertson. I know that, when the first anniversary of the act being in place, we did write out all local authorities to try to get an indication of what had been happening within that first year, how many applications. We did get numbers back from them, but I remember a few years ago now, it was just around the numbers of applications that they had received. We have not had any need or any cause to go back to them to ask for that information in the last couple of years. For other legislations such as the antisocial behaviour legislation, I know that there are provisions within the legislation that requires local authorities to collect numbers such as antisocial behaviour orders and to provide that should ministers request that they do not have to give it to us on a routine basis, but for information like that, there is no set way how they should collect it or how they should present it. As a former councillor, I would be staggered if councils did not keep this information. I would imagine that all councils have this information. Would it not be an idea if you simply ask for it and see what is out there? That could be asked for, as Ms Robertson has already said, but in terms of uniformity and retaining that information at a local level, that may come at a cost. As you well know, from your days in local government, as I know from my days in local government, if central government at any point says that you must do things in a certain way or use a certain system, that comes at a cost. In that case, Mr Simpson, as I have been keen to point out throughout, that cost is likely to go on the person who is making the notice, which might mean that there is less likely to be folk coming forward meeting the notices. I am not suggesting that there should be uniformity. What I am saying is that there is probably a lot of information out there already. Whether it is uniform or not, it does not really matter to me whether it is. There will be information out there that is already being collected. Surely it is just a matter of asking for it. If you were to ask for it, you could pass it on to this committee. I am quite happy to ask for that information and pass it on to the committee. That is not a difficulty at all. Coming back to a question that you were asked at the beginning, one of our difficulties in post-legislative scrutiny is that we have asked a number of people that we have invited and spoken to local authorities. From the point of view of the users of the legislation, I am quite clear that the people whom we have heard from are the people who are unhappy with it, in the sense that people who are happy with the legislation do not tend on the whole to write letters to committees about how wonderful it is. I wonder if I could return to the question about to what extent you think that legislation is working and has had a beneficial impact and has managed to substantially remedy many of the complaints that were there before the legislation was in place? I will look at this, convener, from a constituency viewpoint where I have the most evidence of what has happened. I have a number of constituents who, over the years, have had difficulties around about high hedges, and for those folks who have managed to get their case resolved through this legislation, they are very happy people. Many of them did not have to resort to the notice, because when the legislation first came in, some problems seemed to resolve themselves. It would be fair to say that I still have a couple of constituents where the difficulties that they face have not been resolved, because the trees that are causing them problems do not fall into that definition of being a high hedge. Do you have a view in a small number of instances where people have bought properties where there is already a hedge there that causes problems? There should be some onus on those buying properties to be aware of any problems like that in advance of buying properties? I am not aware of any cases in my own patch around that. I will turn to Ms Robertson or Mr Cackette and see whether they have come across any such cases that have crossed their desks at any point. No cases like that, I am aware of. If somebody was looking to buy a property where a high hedge notice had been issued, that would be made known to them when they were buying the property. I suppose that it would come down to the individual owner or the person that previously owned the property might not have had the issue with the hedge that the person buying it would. If the person buying the house then had an issue with the hedge, they would be expected to undertake the pre-application requirements to speak to the neighbour to perhaps go through mediation first, but I am not aware of any. I am certainly not aware of any appeals that have been taken, which that issue has arisen. In terms of what the reporters do, they try in looking at appeals to achieve a fair balance and in looking at the right answer, mindful of the respective interests of both sides. One of the factors in that would be the fact that the hedge is pre-existing. I think that that would be a factor that would be reasonable and legitimate to take into account in deciding the outcome. In terms of the original scrutiny by the previous committee, if memory serves me well and you may want to check on this convener, there were some folks who came forward not necessarily about hedges on neighbouring properties per se, but wild woodland, including hedge, in areas where new-build housing was going up and what the impact of that would be. If memory serves me well, I think that there was some evidence from the Scottish wildlife trust in that, and it may be worthwhile going back and having a look at that. I have touched on appeals throughout the morning, but can I ask some more clarity with reference to it? Do we believe that the appeals process is robust enough? That would be my first question to you. From that, I can then follow on to some others. Mr Kaquette and his reporters are dealing with the appeals process, so I will let Mr Kaquette answer that. There is no real evidence as far as we have seen from the number of cases that we have got to suggest that the way in which we carry out appeals is lacking in robustness. We have, as is our record of number of appeals, broadly consistent with the evidence that was provided to the committee earlier from local authority witnesses about the numbers declining. We had a peak initially, and the numbers have gone down. We have had 149 cases that have come to us in total, of which 119 are effectively live cases, if you like, or cases that are required to be determined, and that has declined over the peace. We know that we face certain challenges in the way in which we require our reporters to determine the cases before them. As I said earlier, they are seeking to achieve a fair balance and reflect the rights and interests of both sides in coming to their decisions. Of course, many of the disputes are relating to entrenched positions from the parties who are not always keen to see a fair balance, and they are keen to see an outcome from their point of view. However, from our perspective, we see no particular evidence of difficulty in that respect. Sometimes, because we know that there can be difficulties between neighbours, we find that we sometimes have to have more than one-site visits, because it is not possible to have a site visit with everybody willing to be in the same garden as each other at the same time. I guess that the only other bit of information is a relatively small number of cases that we have had. I would say that I am grateful that we have had no appeals beyond the DPA. There is the capacity to go to judicial review and, hopefully, along with that, continue that has not happened as yet. Do you think that the act should allow for an appeal in circumstances where the local authority has decided that it is not a hedge? In one sense, that is definitely for me, because I deal with the operational aspects of things. As a general observation, there is no reason why that should not be the case. I can see that people regard that in some ways as an oddity that you can appeal against certain aspects, such as the finding that there is no adverse impact or the finding that the server noticed, but you cannot appeal on what is a question of fact effectively as to whether something is a hedge. First, it is not always an easy question of fact, as we know, but it is nevertheless a question of fact. The only word of caution that I would say, I guess, if a change along those lines was to be suggested, is that, because that is a matter of fact and is a matter of discretion of the local authority, if a reporter were to decide that something was a hedge, then the question is, what do you do next? Did they refer it back to the local authority to start over again, or does the DPA take over, in effect, the function of the local authority in exercising discretion as to what to do? Does it take on the dispute resolution process at that stage? I think that you need to think through reasonably carefully what the implications of that would be, not least because, if the DPA do it, you have closed off the appeal route, because we would be deciding the notice at first instance and then the appeal route is excluded. It would be a possibility to do so technically, but I suspect that the best way would be for us, if we agree with the appellant, that this is a hedge that would be referred back to the local authority then to re-decide, but that, of course, just adds time. When we are talking about appeals against the decision that act talks about that, can go to ministerial level, have we had any that have gone that far and progressed that way? Well, the right of appeal is to ministers at the end of the day, and the legislation itself allows for ministers to delegate the decision-making process in accordance with what has happened in planning, for example, to delegate the decision to be made in the name of ministers by a reporter, and that has been reversed in the practice of the Government since the act was implemented. It is quite hard to see in some ways why, given the subjective element that a reporter would make in an assessment, how and how he would work at which cases should go personally to the minister to decide when that is not normally the sort of role that a minister would play by analogy with planning, where the vast majority of cases are delegated to reporters for decisions. The most important national strategic decisions are often called in by ministers, and it is quite hard to see in which and why high-hedge appeals would fall into that sort of category. Can I just check, minister? Mr Stewart was asking about an appeals process for the applicant. If it was not deemed a hedge, does the Government have a view on that? Mr Cackette was quite helpful to tell us the complexities of that. As I said, I am quite willing to look at the recommendations that you make in this regard. Mr Cackette has spelled out the great complexities that there would be in that regard. Beyond that, convener, we would have to look at the cost aspect of that, because at this moment in time appeals themselves do not cost any cash. If the DPEA is involved in a huge amount more, that is something that we would have to look at, too, I would imagine. The committee is appreciative that you look seriously at the recommendations that we make, but I assume that you may or may not agree with some of the recommendations that we make, but I suppose that what we are looking for is that you also follow the evidence trail, and you do not just respond based on the recommendations, but what the Government's views are in terms of post-legislative scrutiny. That is quite important, as well, because there is evidence that we are receiving that not all is well with the legislation, necessarily. There is a growing view that there might have to be changes in it. The Government may or may not agree with our recommendations, but are you, minister, on your team, looking at the evidence that you received? You may have your own ideas on how to change it, and that is what I have tried to tease out quite a lot today in relation to what the Government's views are, as opposed to specifically looking at the views of our committee once we make an informed set of recommendations. The Government has been pretty pragmatic in dealing with the legislation, and I refer you back to one of the initial answers that I gave, because guidance was changed as recently as May last year. I am not sure if all those changes to guidance were necessarily beneficial or provided some of the folk who thought that there should be a change in guidance with what they expected. I think that the other aspect of this, and if I go back to previous days, in terms of our initial scrutiny of the bill as a committee when I was on it, we recognised that there would have to be ironing out of certain things in this regard, and that is why one of the recommendations that we made at that point was for post-legislative scrutiny on this one. The Government is pragmatic. As I said, we have already made changes as they have been suggested to us in guidance. I will look at your recommendations, and of course I will look at them from the evidence base. It may well be that if any other changes were required, we would have to do a fair degree of consultation, because a number of the responses and the witnesses that you have had are not necessarily the same folk that previously gave evidence. I think that Mr Wightman hit upon a point in terms of some of the woodland et cetera aspects of this, where again we would probably have to go and consult with some of the wildlife bodies as well as some of the folk that you have taken evidence from here. However, anything that I do in terms of that overview of your recommendations, if we were to choose to do anything, we will do that on an evidence-based approach. Okay, minister. Time is upon us, so thank you very much for your evidence today, minister, and Mr Cackette, and Mr Robertson. Thank you, the three of you. We will shortly move to our next agenda item, but can we just suspend briefly, thank you. Welcome back everyone, and I move to agenda item 2, which is post-legislative scrutiny of the Disabled Persons Parking and Police Scotland Act 2009. The committee will take evidence from local authorities in Police Scotland on its post-legislative scrutiny of the act, and we welcome David Brown, Service Manager Network Management of Five Council, Campbell Dempster Road Service and Mark Henry Road Service, North Ayrshire Council, Chief Inspector Mandy Paterson, Police Scotland. Thank all of you for coming along, and apologies from Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson, who understand was other commitments this morning that he has to deal with. Thank you everyone for coming along. We are going to go straight to questions before I do that. Of course, I should say that I have been joined by Jackie Baillie MSP, who was the member that took the original piece of legislation through Parliament, so thank you for joining us this morning, Jackie. Can I maybe start off just by asking where the local authorities present are in terms of converting advisory on street bays into enforceable bays? That would be a good helpful starting point. Mr Brown. I will kick off. That is a relatively straightforward one for Fife to answer. We had a lot of advisory bays on street when the act first came in, and we converted all your on-street bays to enforceable bays. Everything that we have on-street and off-street in our public managed car parks are all enforceable disabled bays. Okay, so good story there. Mr Debser, were you going to come in? Yes, thank you. For North Ayrshire, we have converted all our on-street disabled parking spaces to enforceable bays with a total of 407 days. We have promoted four orders since the act came in, and we review that regularly. We also have 187 off-street parking bays in our own council car parks that are also enforceable. Okay, I am just wondering, because obviously there is significant progress being made by the local authorities that we have present here today. That is maybe a bit patchier across the country. I am wondering if you have got any views and diplomacy is always welcome, but any views of my other local authorities have perhaps been a lot more reticent in taking the steps that they are required to take in this area? Convener, if I may, I... I hear if I left the silence there long enough some of the answer, Mr Brown. Thanks. I would have to say I am quite unsure about that other than that I am aware that some authorities are moving towards DPE, which may be a method that is going to allow them to take steps towards that. We are getting towards the stage where the majority of the 32 councils are taking DPE, and I think that all things are entwined together. You need that enforcement to be there to allow the enforceable bays to be promoted in a way that is worth doing it. We will absolutely come into enforcement this morning. Can I ask in relation to private car parks or private spaces where there is an obligation under the terms of the act to approach those private car parks and those owners every two years with a view to working in partnership with them in relation to making those bays enforceable also? What has been the experience of the local authorities present in relation to that? Mr Dey? Well, we have, in terms of engaging with them, a notice that we put in the local newspapers asking if there was an interest in them engaging with us for enforcing or making the bays enforceable. We have not had any interest expressed from the private car park operators in that respect. Okay. Thank you, Mr Brown. Yes, convener. We have not followed the Edinburgh example of writing to several thousand authorities either. We concentrate on getting our own house in order first, particularly the on-street and off-street car parks managed by the council for general public use, mostly town centres and shopping areas. Beyond that we have done the housing areas, other council facilities and so on. Through that process we have taken on board some of the hospital sites in Fife and we are currently working with a couple of clinics who are keen to come on board as well through the DPE. What we have done in terms of the wider two-year approach, if you like, to the private sector, is that we have a page on our five council website, effectively, which is there 24-7, 365 days a year, suggesting to any private operator that wants to pursue this option with us to get in touch. Like my colleagues here, we really have not had any uptake of that. What we do is we have local discussions with private car park operators such as Supermarkets, for instance, when there are development discussions through our development management teams. We will tend to ask whether they wish to embark on coming under the wing on that basis or how they are going to manage their car parks. We have had no take-up whatsoever through that process. That is our approach at the moment. We heard that the last evidence session was represented by the NCP. It seemed quite happy to consider working in partnership with local authorities. Let me double-check the gentleman that we had at committee last week. I want to put his name on the record, but I apologise if I do not have that on my notes. I have just caught my committee clerk out. It was Duncan Bowens, managing director of NCP. He seemed to apologize to Duncan for not recalling his name there, but he seemed really quite keen to talk to local authorities and say, is there a deal to be done that might make sense? A lot of car parks that are not car parks in the sky but just open car parks were with the barrier to get in. It might make sense to do some proactive work on that. In relation to the evidence that we have had there, I do not want to target that company particularly, but there might be a number of companies that take a similar view. Is that perhaps an opportunity for your local authorities to approach them or whether the private car park operators specifically are a URA to take that forward? Certainly from North Ayrshire's point of view, we do not have any NCP car park private operators. It is supermarkets, so we would not have an opportunity to take that forward. I think we have one NCP car park. I am aware of one surface car park. There are a couple of multi-stories associated with shopping developments that are privately managed as well. Again, I do not think that there is a great opportunity in Fife to do anything with NCP. Maybe one car park, but obviously other local authorities hope that they are following this. That particular piece of scrutiny will be proactive, Mr Brown. We have just done that. My experience of the privately managed ones in Fife that are run properly by the likes of NCP or the shopping centre developments is that they are well run and they do enforce parking out with bays and the abuse of any disabled bays. One of the things that we had in evidence last week was whether or not the enforcement switch is over to the local authority or otherwise to have some formal partnership agreement that is evidence to see that conversation is taking place and there is effective enforcement, which is the outcome that we are all looking for anyway in relation to this. We also asked supermarkets as well to be fair to Tesco. I am mentioning them because they believe that a good story to tell despite us probing them at the last evidence session in relation to this. Supermarkets seem to want to protect their own brand, their own quality of service, if you like, within their own car parks and maybe a slight resistance to working partnership with local authorities. Either of you deliberately targeted any particular supermarket chain to see what partnership agreements can be reached there? I have to say for North Ayrshire, no. We have not actively engaged with them in that respect. It has only been an advert requesting an interest from themselves, so we have not actively pursued that. Okay, Mr Brown. Can you ever say any discussions that we have had with them have tended to be through the development management process when they are either doing alterations to existing premises or looking to establish premises in Fife? On the whole, they do not seem to have an appetite to have the councils running their car parks for them. I think that the brand comes first, and I think that they want to keep control of what is seen as their premises, their car parks. I was left with an impression—it was a one-off evidence session, but I was left with an impression that supermarkets by and large would like to do the right thing. They would like to go beyond whatever minimum standards would be. It is just that we are not sure in that sector what minimum standards does or does not look like if you are a person with a blue badge holder who needs that car parking space, so definitely opportunities there. Do you think that this is something that you might go back and approach some of the supermarket chains? Perhaps not individual stores, because I think that one of the things that we were concerned about is that they are really quite busy store managers out there dealing with 1,000 things at a time, but perhaps corporate affairs individuals within the large supermarket chains to see if there is an opportunity there. Are they at a local authority level or are they even at a causal level, for example? I think that having read the evidence sessions that you have had previously and seeing all the issues that they are discussing, it is something that we certainly need to consider. It is interesting that you are saying how they are looking to go a wee bit further than what legislation requires and things like that. If I can just throw something else in to give a bit of context, when we have discussions around supermarket and retail part developments at times, we often try to apply council design standards to layouts, so the type of layout you would expect to see in a public car park operated by your council, which will have very clear circulation routes and layout basing and so on. Retail parks and supermarkets often want to have completely different layouts, which we think are not best suited to the mix of pedestrians and vehicles that you get in a car park, but on the whole they always want to stick to what fits their brand, what is their layout and that is their way of doing it. They are all packaged up together and they like to do what they do. It works successfully for them. Their customer is first, the brand is there and that is how they like to take everything forward. However, having seen all the evidence and the discussions that you have been having, I think that there is an opportunity there for us to further engage with supermarkets. I should stress that I am not sure that, if I articulate that accurately, I am not saying that they all want to go beyond minimum standards, I suppose the point that I am making is that I am not sure what minimum standards would look like or what that consistency would look like across the supermarket sector. I think that the point that you are making, Mr Brown, is that there is that balance between their corporate brand and what they want to do for their customers and what a local authority would expect in the planning and delivery process for an acceptable parking scheme for blue badge holders. There is maybe scope for a bit more clarity around that. I found that exchange very helpful, but we will move on with questioning now and we will go to Andy Wightman. Some local authorities have called for regulations to be amended to allow enforceable disabled persons parking bays to be crached without the need for a designation order. Does anyone have any views on whether that would be a good thing to do or not? Certainly, I think that that would be a positive step. It would save a lot of time and the bays themselves would be cubbing enforceable, so I think that that would certainly be a positive step. I am quite pleased with the comments from our colleagues here. We have a seven-area committee set up, which is where the orders for these bays would be reported to. That, in itself, brings quite an honourous process as time-consuming. It can be six to nine months from the time that somebody is granted a bay, if you like, in a residential area to the point where it becomes weakly enforceable. You have that period between perhaps marking a bay on the ground for them to use it, but it is not actually enforceable, so anything that could go towards removing that would be helpful. One of the downside potential, of course, is that statutory process is subject to public consultation and the interests of other property owners, road users and so on. Are you concerned that other users of the public road might not have the same opportunity to be consulted on such proposals? Virtually everything that we do now on the road network involves heavy consultation, whether that is required by a statute or not. It is something that we do on a regular basis, is engaging the communities, locals and people that are affected. I would just see it as an extension of that when we are looking to promote these bays. I would echo what Mr Brown said. Glasgow City Council has called for a repealer requirement to engage with private car park owners every two years. Does the panel have any views on that? Given that we have not been doing it, because we see it as extremely onerous, or not doing it in the fashion that, say, your Edinburgh or Aberdeam has done, we would probably say that that would be a good thing to do to repeal that requirement to do every two years. It is extremely onerous on the council. We think that there are other ways to do it, such as through local meetings, where we have local contact anyway. As we have done with our website, we think that that would be a good way to go. I would agree with that. We have only put an advert on the local papers inviting interest from private operators. There has been no take-up in that. We have regular meetings that we attend at the North Ayrshire access panel meeting. If there were particular issues that were raised, and there have not been to date, but if there were issues that were raised in the relation to abuse of disabled parking spaces, we could engage with a particular supermarket. We have never had to do that, because we have not had those issues raised with us. I will follow up on that. As you know, Mr Brown called for signage requirements in enforceable disabled persons parking spaces to be reduced. What kind of specific changes would you like to see happen in terms of signage? I think that we would be happy with the bay being marked and designated as a disabled bay, so the white being marking. You do not need the pole and the sign that goes with it. The bay is relatively easy to get done, to get that on the ground and get it marked out. The pole then has to follow up. It is slightly more, not engineering worse, but you have to dig a hole so that you have to start checking utilities and do all sorts of things, get that program. It takes a bit longer. The only distinction with the pole was what we tended to do was when the bays were first put down as advisory, we would mark it. It was only once the order was amended and that bay was added to the order, we would put the pole up with the sign. That gave us a bit of clarity about what were enforceable bays and what were not. Again, if we went to the point where all we needed was the bay marking, it would be instantly enforceable and we would not need the pole at all. I believe as well that the poles at times can cause disruption for the people trying to use the bay. It might hinder them opening a door or how they can park their car. It also adds to the street quarter as well. If it is something that we are generally trying to reduce, so if we could manage it without the bay, that would be ideal. That would be ideal. Yes, absolutely. We would agree with that. Of course. Mr Henry, I am not always... I sometimes do not spot people wanting to speak to the police telegraph to me that you want to say something and I would not get you, Mr Henry. The traffic signs regulations and directions that have been updated in the 2016 model now allow you to have the bay without the sign in the post. We are not taking away any of our signs in the post because there is no requirement except where we need to take any bays that are on the traffic regulations off and are revoked. We will then go on to remove that. That has been updated. It does not stop you to continue with that practice, which allows you to identify which bays are enforceable and which are not enforceable, but it is a resource and a commitment that the council would rather not have to do. The introduction of having the markings only as a means without the traffic regulation order to go with it would be a definite step forward, but it does leave you in the position of how do you consult with the locality that it is going into as a follow-up to that when it becomes unenforceable marking on its own. I respect that. I promise that we will talk about enforcement shortly. Another matter is that Mr Stewart got a question that he wanted to ask. Can I talk about the length of time and the processes that you have in place to ensure that a request for a new disabled parking place is handled quickly? The sort of timescale that that would take for someone to request and for it to then be put into place and then, if one was required to be removed, how long would it take for that redundancy space to then be processed? For North Ayrshire Council, it would take from the moment that the application actually arrives in the council and eventually lands on one of our technicians' desks, then the approval process for that is actually fairly swift. In terms of moving forward to the bay becoming on the ground, it can sometimes take a little longer. We suffer from a large amount of rain in Scotland, so markings have to go down when the road is dry, so quite often our whole backlog of markings programme can be restricted to only dry days. The time from the process of arriving on our desk is pretty quick. Moving on to the next stage can take anywhere between one to two months, depending on the programme. To remove something, we have our corporate fraud team deal with the actual applications that come in and they inform us of when the bays are due to be removed. Obviously, we have people on maybe that something is deceased and they phone in to say that the person in the bays is no longer required. We are keen to keep that moving on quickly because the management and the road space is obviously key for the roads department and allows other people to park in places that they may not be able to if there is a disabled bay. We follow that up and, once again, taking out the road markings is probably another one to two months period as well. Are you similar in Fife, Mr Bank? Yes, it is similar to timescales. When we get the initial contact from an applicant for the time taken for an officer to go and speak to them, visit them and decide what they are doing in the matter of one to two weeks to do that, we do most of the disabled bay markings for residential areas ourselves, so an in-house lining operation. So we have quite a degree of flexibility and ability to react due to that. So again, it is probably within a couple of months we would expect any bay to be provided. Occasionally you get a bay that will throw up other issues and there are other things to be considered or the resident may not want it where you are saying you can offer it and it can take a little while longer to work through that and come to some agreement of where you might provide it, but the process is fairly swift. In terms of removal, we do not always remove them in residential areas unless there is real pressure on the parking within that area, because again there is a cost to remove it and the bay being there is a facility that anybody with a blue bias could use at any time, but in areas where there is pressure on the residential parking and we have been asked to take them away, we will do so. Sometimes when a bay is given up by one person, the next person that moves in, if it is moved out, may qualify for a bay anyway, and in that case although our records show a bay is provided because a specific person asked for it, they are public base, but it is easy enough just to move them on. That was very helpful. That says me asking my supplementary question, which you put on the record, because not a lot of people realise that the disabled bay is an assessment of need in that street and it is not assigned to a specific blue badge holder and that can cause a lot of consternation, let's say just occasionally, but it is quite helpful to put it on the record. Jenny Gilruth. Just as a supplementary follow-up specifically to yourself, Mr Brown, if that is okay, because I know that you are here from the Kingdom of Fife, which is obviously where I have my constituency. I have a constituency case at the moment with a housing association. I will not name the specific housing association, but there are a number of constituents who live in this area who qualify for a disabled parking bay. I wonder to what extent you work with housing associations to compel them to ensure that there is enough provision in terms of disabled parking, because in this scenario, there is not, at the current time, enough parking for them in that area. It is interesting to hear that, because we do work with a number of the housing associations and, generally, if they want us to mark the bay for them and they want us to add it to the order, we will do that. I am not so sure that we are putting pressure on them, if you like, to provide a fixed number or a percentage number of parking bays as disabled parking bays, but we do, generally, the councils will work to the national guidelines that there should be six per cent within our car parks. It varies depending on the size of the car parks, but we will work to that. In residential areas, we would very much say that, again, it is the assessed need. If there is a need for those bays to be there, they should be provided, and it is the able-bodied people of the cars that should not necessarily disadvantage, but they should have to work that way a bit harder to get a parking space and get back to the home. To tell your constituents that you have raised it at committee, and I am sure that Mr Brown might even offer to further discuss those off-line relations to this specific case, that was a definite answer. Ms Gorif, that is quite handy. Graham Simpson I promise to the chief inspector that we will get to you, but not on this question. I just want to explore the different approaches of the two councils here today. North Ash has chosen not to pursue decriminalised parking enforcement, whereas Fife has. I wonder if you can both explain why you have gone down that route and what the impact of each of those decisions has had on blue budge holders and the misuse of parking spaces? Mr Gray We took up DPE powers in 2013. Up to that point, we had very strong relationships with Fife Constabulary, the police at that time. On their front, they were finding it more and more difficult to prioritise parking enforcement alongside all the other duties that the police had. We began moves at that time to take on DPE powers in Fife. Once it was brought in, we have a parking warden operation. We have 18 wardens that cover Fife, effectively on a seven-day a week—mostly 12-hour shift basis on those seven days. A big part of what they do is look after all the blue budge enforcement across Fife at that time. As I say, at the time when we moved to DPE, enforcement was less than what it had been previously, for reasons as I stated. There has been a lot more enforcement of the disabled base since we moved to DPE. The written submission gave numbers of how many penalty charge notices were issued for abuse of disabled base. Off the top of my head, I think, in round numbers, it was maybe about 1,000 out of 21,000 PCNs around those sort of numbers that we have issued on an annual basis. Mr Gray, before we take Mr Dey, Mr Gray? Yes, thanks. In 2011-12, we carried out an investigation. I cannot prepare the business case in terms of looking at the introduction of DPE. We obviously had engaged with Police Scotland in that respect and we had their support if we were going to choose that route. However, it really did not add up for us financially to go down that route. It was not affordable for us and we chose at that time not to pursue it and have not done so. Right. So, in the case of Fife, what you're saying is that enforcement improved when you took it on? Yes. Yes. Yes, most definitely. Okay. And in North Ayrshire, obviously, we don't know what the situation would have been. No, we don't know. If there are any reports of abuse and there aren't very many, I have to say, we would engage with the police to carry out a check-in on those particular cases, but we don't get a lot of complaints in terms of abusive parking within disabled spaces. Would people tend to come to you or would they tend to go to the police? I would imagine that they would go to both of us. We might get the first call and then we would raise that at our local police liaison meetings, which we hold on a monthly basis, or we may call the police as well to engage with them if there is a particular problem. So, Mr Brown, was it your council's view that police maybe have sort of better things to do, if I can phrase it that way? In other words, this wasn't a priority for them and that's why you felt you should take it on? I think it just, you know, with what they were being asked to do in other areas, it just wasn't seen as the highest priority. And I think also because there was the opportunity for councils to take that up. I mean, we've met regularly in roads ways on with Fife Constable at that time. So, you know, discussions started quite early around DPE and it had always been there. And it was, you know, I'd say, it was about that time, 2010, 2011, through to bringing it in in 2012 that we decided to make that move. So, yeah, that was, I think, driven by trying to seek a better level of enforcement. Because not only is it targeted at the disabled side of things, you know, just trying to get the town centre vitality in terms of generating turnover in parking spaces, make sure people were paying for their tickets and so on. You can only really do that if you have a reliable system of enforcement that's in place and working all the time. Yeah. So, chief inspector, I wonder if you'd like to comment on that, the sort of general view that the committees heard, not just now but previously, that, you know, maybe police are not enforcing this as... Absolutely. First off, I'd say thank you very much for the invite this morning. Mr Mawson, again, would extend his apologies for not attending. Probably the first comment to make would be absolutely, as a police service, we have varying priorities in events in recent weeks, obviously shows just exactly the breadth of priorities that we have to serve for the public. What I would say is, what I tried to do in anticipation of the committee today was to get a flavour of enforcement activity that's on going around the country, in particular in relation to areas that aren't yet decriminalised. And what flavour that I'm getting back, I've spoken to area commanders around the country just to get a sense of how things are. When it comes to our recording practices, there's probably a couple of call types that could come in, which would be assistance to the public or road traffic events. Now, there are 500 of each of these come in every week, so it was impossible to break these down to see how many parking offences or reports we were getting on a weekly basis. But what I would say is, how we tend to be managing these just now is that we seek local views on what is important at various forums, be it community council meetings, scrutiny meetings and from there we work out what activity we're going to undertake just to give a kind of idea of what enforcement is going on around the country. I'll speak about my own area command that I used to cover, Falkirk. That one was one where we could actually break down the figures in terms of disabled parking. So our community sergeant in response to local concerns, he did a three-month operation parking in general, because that's probably the one thing at one point that I would put forward. I don't get a sense that we are getting lots of complaints about disabled parking infringements per se, but we do have recurring queries around about parking in general which we respond to. So in the Falkirk area, there was a three-month operation took place. As a result, there were just over 300 parking tickets issued and 44 of these related to disabled parking infringements. For other areas that I got feedback from, Ayrshire division, they fed back that tourism tends to play a big part in when they get complaints around about parking, so they tend to enforce their activity round about that. What they gave back was that in the year from April 2016 to March of this year, they had enforced over 500 tickets. These couldn't be broken down to give specifics round about disabled parking. Murray, another area in which parking is not yet decriminalised, has parking as a standing agenda item around their community safety strategy group, so police work in partnership with other agencies round about parking. Just round about areas of decriminalisation, just to put some context round about that, there were colleagues that we spoke to in the Edinburgh area and Greenock. What they said was that where they get some feedback, they still work in partnership with some local enforcement officers, and they try to do the prevention piece, not just the enforcement piece, so they do education round about joint lettering just to raise some awareness. I know that Mr Wightman had a line of questioning in relation to this as well, and Mr Smith indicated that he was happy for Mr Wightman to continue with that, so can we take you in just now, Andy? Thank you very much, convener. Thanks for coming along today. That's very useful, chief inspector. What you're basically saying is that through your community engagement, you assess the extent to which this is a priority issue for communities. A common sense approach to be honest, a common sense approach in relation to our engagement with the public. What I haven't mentioned is that we are linking it at a national level as well with disability groups. The feedback that I got back from our safer communities was that while there are issues, parking was not one that was coming to the fore at that kind of level of engagement. People who need to make use of disability parking are, in the minority and the evidence that we have heard from them, not satisfied with the level of enforcement. Beyond a general level of engagement with communities around this, how would a blue badge holder or a group of disabled people in a community have concerns? How would you address those concerns specifically? What we have is the process for people phoning in. Absolutely, if there are infringements misuse of the blue badge, absolutely phone that in and report it as you would normally through 101. The advice that our control rooms have is that if somebody phones in and they're reporting just a parking infringement and it's in a decriminalised area, they'll be referred to local authority. However, if someone phones in and they're reporting misuse of the blue badge, that would be raised as a call for dispatch. What about persistent misuse of a particularly disabled parking bay? Would you elevate that and try to get more speedy response? Everything that we deal with is dealt with on a priority basis. If we have an escalation of an incident, that would probably be sought through our community team. Often what we see is issues, or I can think of one in particular in an area where I came from, where an issue over a disabled parking bay led to an escalation of general neighbourhood issues. Absolutely, when there is something that is beginning to escalate beyond simply the issue of the disabled parking, those are issues that our community policing teams would be looking at. I'm just wondering in relation to awareness in terms of disabled parking, irrespective of whether the bays are enforceable or not. There's a cultural awareness and a lack of acceptance that she would like to think in relation to abuse of disabled parking bays. Do you think that we have to return to the thought of a national co-ordinated information campaign in relation to that? Should we have to wait until all local authorities are in the same position with enforceable bays, or does that not matter? Do we just look at something meaningful now in relation to that? Obviously, one of the things that we'll do in this piece of post-legislative scrutinisation will not make recommendations to Government. It's just to get on record whether you think a national strategy to make sure that the public are clear that they shouldn't be parking disabled bays and the responsibilities that they have, because it should be a waste of both council officials and police time for dealing with abuse of parking bays, because people just shouldn't park there in the first place, of course. Every time we enforce a bay, because we have to enforce a bay, that's a loss, because if someone is not getting a space, they need to have equal access within society. Are there any thoughts in relation to national driver awareness campaigns? We're not particularly aware of a problem within North Ayrshire. However, given the response that you've been getting from the disability groups, I would suggest that an awareness campaign was a good approach to try and resolve the issues. You don't have to have a burning view on this. It's just to get something on the record. If you do, I'll take Chief Inspector and then I'll take Mr Brown in. I would say absolutely that in terms of policing, we put out joint messaging all the time. I have to say that it always comes across very powerfully when it's not from a single organisation. For me, there's a bit that, from a pleating perspective, we can signpost people how they can report, so it doesn't matter whether they're decriminalised or otherwise. I think that there are ways that you could manage it that would make it clear for people how they can get help. I think that there would be value in it. One of the things that strikes me is that every time we issue a blue badge—and it's not something that my team does, but elsewhere in the council we issue a blue badge—we give quite an amount of literature to the recipient of the blue badge about what they can do with it. We're not given that same information to the drivers who don't have one. I think there is a certain level of ignorance around it about what people who don't have a blue badge can and can't do, but there's also a certain element of people just think they can get away with it. I'm going to stop there. I'm going to be 10 minutes, but in that time a blue badge holder may come along, so it's a bit of both. Any sort of campaign that could raise awareness around those issues would be useful. I'm just going to give a name check for some members of the committee who have still to come in. Can you give us some—are we going to explore a little bit further some relation enforcement and the place that will take you in the second group? I want to give enough time for Jackie Baillie MSP to ask some questions. Can I just go back a little bit to the chat in relation to decriminalisation? I think that Mr Demps was talking about there has to be—we're in tight financial times—we have to look at the cost benefit in a business case for putting that forward. In terms of decriminalised enforcement, I can see that it might be easier in large urban areas and it might be more difficult in more remote and rural areas, but is there more clever ways we can deal with enforcement with wardens only deal with enforcement? I'm thinking of parts of my constituency where we could do with some enforcement in parking more generally, but actually you couldn't justify having someone whose job was just to do that enforcement. You could make a business case for that, but I'm looking at letters through and everywhere and I'm looking at supermarket trolleys half a mile away from where they should be and you start to join the dots and you go, there's got to be a job here for someone that could actually save a heck of a lot of money somewhere down the line. So just in terms of when you look at whose job it is to actually deal with decriminalised enforcement, have you looked at different models of how you could upskill existing, start to do, to multitask in relation to that? Are there opportunities there or is it just me as convener, get off in a tangent again and this wouldn't really work? What do you think in relation to that, Mr Dempser? It's not something we've looked at recently, but yes, it's something that we could look at. We have recently introduced a litter enforcement team. There may be opportunities to look at that and whether they could also be looking at enforcing parking, but it's something that we would need to look at as a council and make a decision on that. I suppose the root of my question is are there other models of decriminalised parking enforcement, which makes it more affordable for local authorities that you're aware of or do you think you could point us towards? Mr Brown has well been interested in what you think in relation to that. I'm not aware of any model that does the multitasking, if you like to put it that way. The whole DPE model is based on it being self-funding, self-financing, so you're striking that balance between issuing the number of tickets that generates an income that pays for the operation, so that's how the DPE operates. If we were to start bringing in other activities, you might upset that balance. We've discussed it, or many years ago, maybe 10, 12 years ago we spoke about in Fife about whether you could have one more than it does all, and the practicalities of it just didn't stack up. If you take the DPE, all the parking attendants, you know, they rely on technology to do their job, so they have to come in, pick up the handsets, which is linked back to the computers in-house, which then generates the PCNs and DVLA checks and all the rest of it, so there's quite a hefty piece of technology behind the DPE. So anybody going out and doing it has to have that. If you want to increase the number of units that you have, and people would have them, there's a cost implication there, so it starts to escalate when you look across the activities. It's talked about quite often, but we've not come across any real practical way of achieving that. That's helpful, was just a thought, Mr Simpson. Very quick question for Chief Inspector Paterson again. Do you think it would be a benefit to the police for all councils to take on this work, given the extensive demands that you have on your time? It's tough to be diplomatic here. Obviously, there's no public service than now that would say no to passing on the responsibility to someone else. That's a given, but the reality is that we work in an environment where we work with local authorities. For me, that would be a great win for Police Scotland. What we would say is that it would have to be something that was agreeable to both parties concerned. That would probably be the approach that I would take. Obviously, Fife has been very partnership oriented with the approach that they have taken. Others have different views on finance, so it's probably not an easy one to answer, to be honest, but I think that it would have to be something that we felt was not going to be of a disadvantage to the communities involved. That should be the outcome, really, that whoever provides the service ends up the community to get the best. You should have obviously commented that they didn't think it was worthwhile for themselves to decriminalise, and I would say that it's not for me to disagree with that they've carried out their inquiries. There is still activity going on, obviously, for our service. I hope that that is an answer for yourself. I think that that's fair enough. Mr Brown, yes? In terms of the police, we operate the DPE enforcement, but there are offences that we cannot enforce, and we still rely on the police to provide that. If somebody is parked not on a yellow line, say, but they are parked in a dangerous position, for instance, it's not something that parking attendance under DPE can deal with, so you still rely on the police to come and deal with situations like that. That's one example, and there are several where your DPE operation can't deal with it, and it still has to go back to the police. Do you think you should be able to deal with it? Some of them, I think, would be useful, yes. If you've got wardens out there and you see dangerous parking, it kind of seems crazy that you can't deal with it. You've answered the question. Chief Inspector, without relying on your diplomacy any further, would you like to comment on that particular suggestion from Mr Brown as well? I would love to do that as well, if this is going to be a great mean for me. We have the power to agree nothing, I should point out to you. I think that we might just leave that one hanging then, Chief Inspector. Jackie Baillie MSP, thank you for your patience. I'm known for my patience, convener. Thank you very much. You're inviting me along to the meeting. I wonder whether I could just pick up some points with you, because obviously at the time when the bill was brought forward, it was five years ago, so things have clearly changed since then. I'm keen to understand, in terms of enforcement, certainly we said at the time whether we're only, I think, five local authorities that operated decriminalised parking. On that basis, we felt that the police's job was to be reactive, not proactive, and recognise that this would be a less important issue, perhaps, unless you're experiencing abuse of a bay. Can you give us an idea of exactly how many local authorities have now decriminalised their parking? My understanding is that there are 16 with two in progress. So the situation has changed, perhaps potentially, as less of a burden on the police, given that the parking enforcement is decriminalised in now half of local authorities, covering heavily populated areas. I think Glasgow and Edinburgh and others are included. That's helpful to know. I don't know whether you have the statistics for this, but my impression is that something like 85-90 per cent of the population conformed to the rules. Are you getting repeat offenders, or are you simply issuing one ticket, and then the problem is dealt with by and large? I honestly wouldn't feel that I could answer that with any amount of accuracy. What I can say is, since the introduction of our access to the blue badge scheme, which was one of the proposals from the last time we spoke at this, there have only been seven checks carried out by police officers in terms of suspected misuse of the blue badge. Four of these turned out to be being used according to the terms, and three turned out to be one was stolen and two were a fraudulent use. There are only eight offences in relation to misuse of the blue badge that we are enforcing. For me, on a national level, that isn't enough to bring in repeat offending. I'm not talking about blue badge enforcement. I understand that people conflate the two issues. I'm simply trying to get at perhaps if somebody has had a ticket for abusing a disabled parking bay, they might not do so again. It's really if there's any data to suggest that that might be the case. I couldn't comment on that. Okay, that's fine. Can I turn to resources with the local authorities? I remember quite tortured conversation, including with Fife, about the issue of whether there were sufficient resources at local government level. There were conversations between COSLA, the minister at the times, Stuart Stevenson, and myself, and leaving aside the fact that some areas clearly were more efficient than others at painting bays. Were you given any additional resources for the first phase, which was going back and designating all your advisory bays as enforceable bays? That was all picked up just through existing resources through our traffic management teams. Okay. That just became the priority for that time, and that was when the items had to be picked off. Oh, because my recollection was that the Scottish Government promised money, but there was an issue as the quantum of that money that was promised. There may well have been. I can't specifically recall that, but in terms of people resources within the service, it was all picked up within the existing resources there. So have you got a rough sum of how much it costs in Fife to do, leaving out the staff that you would have employed anyway? The one thing I do know is that we've spent approximately £217,000 on the signing part of the bays, for all the bays we've done, and we've put that in the written submission. The cost of the lining wasn't quantified, so don't have that to hand. I wonder whether Mr Dempster or Mr Henry might shine any light from your perspective? I'm not aware of any additional funding, but I can't confirm that. I don't actually know the cost of what they put. I don't have an exact figure on it, but it was within the service that the cost were met by the service. I don't believe that there was any additional funding provided for it. You all appear to have coped with that. Excellent. I always like efficient local government. It's a wonder to behold. Can I move us on to off-street private parking? That's been an area of considerable interest. If you can cast your mind back five years before the bill was introduced, would it be fair to say that supermarket shopping centres had disabled bays, but they weren't enforced? I certainly remember bringing the bill forward that suddenly there was this rush of a whole variety of supermarkets competing with each other, and indeed out-of-town shopping centres all coming forward with wonderful schemes of enforcement, and indeed some of them took the money from the enforcement and distributed it to local charities and got good publicity out of that. Is that typically what you think now happens that, although they may not have picked your enforcement scheme, they are now enforcing those bays because it's what their customers demand? We're certainly going to have some that do that. They definitely enforce the bays, they operate robust appeal systems as well, similar to what the councils do, and I think generally the fine income, if you like, is that they make, they reinvest it in improving the parking. I'm sorry, I couldn't answer that question. I don't actually know what the supermarkets, etc, do in our own area. So it might have been the consequence of the bill, and indeed anytime you advertise or are in touch with them that they actually may not choose the local authority, but they will choose to do enforcement because you've raised it with them. Possibly. I think they will look at all their sites on an individual basis pretty much as we will look at our town centres on an individual basis and determine from that which ones have the issues, where do you need to patrol, where do you need to concentrate resources, so a lot of these supermarkets, big national companies, I think they're looking across their portfolio and reacting where they need to. I am aware that within North Ayrshire that some of the private operators, particularly the supermarkets, actually carry out the enforcement, and they seem to do it in a sort of remote electronic way, so you're not particularly aware of an actual man with a high vis vest or jacket on, given tickets out, and you'll actually get the notification through the post. Now my understanding or my perception of it, looking from the outside as a decriminalise, not a decriminalise the enforcement through the police teams, that if supermarkets had the choice between a local authority pursuing the misuse of the bays and don't carry out their own enforcement, it seems to be that the revenue that's generated from that returns back to the supermarket, and if it was handed over to the local authority to deal with it, that revenue might be generated and returned to the local authority, so there might be an incentive for them to retain their own enforcement. Or to do creative things with it, which is give it to charity, which seems to be popular with their customers at least, the ones that didn't get a ticket. One final question from me, convener, if I may. The bill obviously at the time followed the existing legislation both in terms of enforcement and traffic regulation orders. Given that the regulations changed in 2016, the bill, I don't think, but I'll need to go back and check this, it was a long time ago, specified exactly what you needed to do, but referred to whatever the legislation was at the time that set out the requirements, so it would be an easy change to make, would it not? If the requirements of the main piece of legislation changed, then you could take away the requirement for signs or whatever, because I've just checked back on the wording and we talked about signs or markings, so actually the new change would be accommodated by the bill as it stands, or the act as it stands. Good, that confirms my understanding, thank you, convener. Okay, excellent, thank you Ms Bailey. Any other MSPs get any questions they want to ask at this stage? Okay, that would be in the case. Can I thank everyone for coming along now just this afternoon, a minute past 12, thank you for your attendance and we'll continue our post-legislative scrutiny, I'm sure you'll follow it, we'll keep you up to date with the progress that we make, but thank you this afternoon for coming to the committee. And we now move to agenda item 3, quite a lot still to get through members. Agenda 3 was a subordinate legislation. The committee will consider negative instruments SSI 2017 forward slash 120 and 2017 forward slash 149 as listed on the agenda. 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. It should be noted that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform DPLR committee reported on SSI 2017 forward slash 120 due to defective drafting and therefore the Scottish Government brought forward SSI 2017 forward slash 149 to correct the instrument. The DPLR committee subsequently reported on SSI 2017 forward slash 149 given that it breached the 28-day rule but found that the breach is acceptable given that it is timidly corrected the defects in the previous instrument. The paper from the clerks provides more information on the DPLR committee's consideration. Due to the breach of the 28-day rule, the Scottish Government also wrote to the Presiding Officer on the breach of laying requirements and this is also set out in the paper. So a lot in that there members, but no motion to annul has been laid, can invite members who may wish to make any comments on the instruments before us. There being no comments, can the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? That takes us to agenda item 4, which is the draft annual report. The committee will consider a draft annual report for the parliamentary year from 12 May 2016 to 11 May 2017. The report fulfilled standing order 12.9, requiring committees to publish the report, highlighting its activities during the parliamentary year. An updated photo of the committee will be taken at next week's meeting to replace the photo that is currently featured in the introduction, so best bib and tucker for that photograph. It can invite members to consider the annual report page by page, inviting comments as you go through the report. So bear with me and I will get my copy of the annual report, right, members? Okay, now we can go through this. I would think relatively briefly. In fact, I'll just leave that hanging rather than discuss each page because I don't think makes much sense, but you have it in front of you. I'll give you a few minutes to look through that. Are there any observations you wish to make at this stage? I'm sure that members have read it thoroughly before they came to the meeting this morning. Apologies to the wider public who have to look at photographs of us in relation to that report. Mr Wightman, did you want to make a comment before we move on? No, I'm just going to say that I'm content with the draft. In which case can I invite members to agree a publication date of Wednesday 31 May 2017 with the updated photo? Is that agreed? Okay, thank you. I think that that ends agenda item 4, and we now move to agenda item 5, consideration of evidence, which is a private session, so we'll move into private at this stage.