 Dwellach. I would like to welcome everyone to this, the fifth meeting of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee in 2022. I would remind virtual members to place an R in the chat function on Bluejeans if they would like to come in on any of the issues. Our first agenda item today is for the committee to agree to take agenda item 4 in private, which is an item for the committee to discuss the evidence that we will be hearing in agenda item 3. Dwi rydw i'r cyflei aeth ymlaen gwybodaeth iSNP? Dwi'n gwybodaeth. Fel y gYNthid yma diolch i broadfyniadau cyflwyngisi ac i'r cwmdeithasgo rydyliau hyn? Rydw i gyd-fyniadau cyflwyngisi aeth rydw i'n gyflei aeth hyn. Dwi'n gwybod wedi'n gwybod cael ei dddangos i siaradau cyflei aeth a'r ddechrau? Mae'r ddau'r cyflwyngisi aeth i chi gyd-fyniadau cyflwyngisi? Dqiwyddaeth. Dwi'n gwybod. ëFor the Committee to hear evidence from the Acting Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland.í ëAnd I would like to welcome Ian Bruce again this morning to the Committee who is the acting Commissioner.í ëAnd we will move if that is all right with you. Ian Strait to questions.í ëAs convener, I will take the privilege of going first.í ëSo, as acting commissioner you have published an annual review, which has comes cymwylltech, ond y gwrs-d maison 5000 yn ei ffyniring. Ond y gall ansiwll gymunedol i gychwyn allan o'u ffordd i'r gwrs-d, ond dwy'r maen nhw fyddwn ni'n dod i chi'n gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio. Byddwn i'n gwrs-d, gan gwasi'n gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio i'n gweldio gweldio… … ac rydym chi sefydliodd yn ffordd i gaelio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio gweldio. O'r cyfrifio i ddim yn gwneud am y cymwylltion dysgwysiaeth yn cymysgol, cyfwyr ddechrau eiser i ddim yn gwneud atas i ddim yn gwneud o'r cyfrifious cymysgol o gylliddoedd y newid, ar yr audodusol ond a ddim yn awr yn cyfreifio. Mewn ddiolch yn fawr. Fy lle'n gallu wneud o'r cyfrifious cyfeirio sydd wedi ymddangos ei ddalun. Night's day. There's quite a lot of grounds to cover, I have to say, in relation to that question. Perhaps I might start with leadership and governance. I think it's fair to say that we've found ourselves in quite a difficult place, a challenging place in March last year, just prior to my appointment. I've been in post since April of last year. We did not need to wait for Deloitte to make a series of recommendations. I might clarify so that Deloitte's are our external auditors and they are appointed by what is Scotland and it was their decision to undertake a wider scope review of our office for a range of reasons. We certainly did have issues in terms of our leadership and governance and I sought to address those as soon as practicable from March onwards and then on a more formal basis from April. I think the first thing that I did and felt that I had to do was engage very meaningfully with the staff of the organisation and just to explain our role, our statutory role but also what the public's expectations were of us. We weren't working to a set of formal values at that point in time so in discussions with staff I made it clear that I felt that we ought to operate with a set of values including kindness and empathy towards those who came into contact with us and we discussed the other values that we should have as an organisation and those were then articulated in the form of a new strategic plan so that wasn't anticipated in the usual cycle for strategic plans but I redrafted our strategic plan and included that set of values and it really was about meeting the public's expectations of the way in which we should operate as an office and I ensured that all staff were on board with that in order to ensure that that would meet the expectations of our stakeholders and the public. I went on to consult on that strategic plan so that was with really everyone who comes into contact with us in one capacity or another. The Parliament, clearly the Scottish Government, all public bodies, all councils, COSLA, SOLA, SOLAS and so on. It was a meaningful consultation and all the responses that we had to that plan were ultimately incorporated into the final version so that was step one and it allowed me to re-engage with the stakeholders because a lot of those relationships had fallen away for any number of reasons. On the back of that I produced a biennual business plan and so it included a whole range of actions and ultimately it was revised to include all of the recommendations that had been made by Deloitte as part of the wider scope review that they'd conducted so all of those were incorporated into a biennual business plan and then staff, we hadn't had proper performance management framework in place so staff were all reintroduced to that over the same period and each section of the office, we have three, there's one that concerns governance, one for public appointments, one for handling complaints about conduct so all three sections have their own individual plans that fall out of the biennual business plan and each and every staff member understands that they make a contribution to that and they all have individual action plans on the back of that so everyone understands that their contribution ultimately leads to the achievement of our strategic objectives and those objectives have been agreed basically with all of our stakeholders. I could go on but I think that's kind of the big picture. I think that's very helpful and it's right to say for the record that the Deloitte report was although not published until with your report in October, actually covers periods up to an ending at March 2021 and the proposals that were contained therein and that was at the point that you became acting commissioner. If I can sort of look forward I suppose, I mean what's your current assessment of your officer's capacity now to move forward? It's a very good question. It's probably helpful if I provide some context so I've been in post basically not as acting commissioner but in my prior role as public appointments manager or incarnations of that since the office of a public appointments commissioner was set up in Scotland alongside my colleague Karen Elder who is currently the acting accountable officer so in terms of continuity we have plenty of continuity in relation to the public appointments functions of the office and in relation to the office's governance at sort of business manager level for one of a better expression. Where we had issues was in relation to the complaints handling functions of the office, there are no staff in the office at the current time who were handling investigations or supporting the handling of investigations under the prior commissioner Bill Thompson so he had investigating officers and a team of other staff who supported that function they have all left the organisation so that's some context for you and clearly that's been problematic. One of the recommendations that we had from Deloitte but I knew it was an issue anyway clearly was the fact that we had to fill existing vacancies as a matter of priority so during the tenure of the commissioner who's currently off we had recruited a new senior investigating officer and investigating officers he left, two of the investigating officers left so and it's quite a small office there are 12 of us overall inclusive of myself but the headcount prior to that had actually been a bit lower so we made a business case to the SPCV more or less immediately just saying look yes we need to fill these vacancies and we know we don't need your blessing for that but we really feel that we need some additional capacity as well so we made a business case to get an additional investigating officer and a corporate services officer one of the things that Deloitte had remarked upon was the amount of excess leave that the senior management team were carrying and it's basically because we are all engaged given the size of the office and operational activities you know what we have to do work and roller sleeves up along with everyone else but we needed to free up some more time to dedicate that to the governance of the organization I think that was right and proper so we also got an additional corporate services officer and that has proved very helpful to us whether or not that sufficient capacity is another question. Complaints volumes are rising quite significantly certainly in relation to complaints about MSPs but also to an extent in relation to complaints about councillors and board members and so I think and again Deloitte has recommended this we do need to do further workforce planning we are stretched at the moment we are carrying a backlog inevitably because we had staff vacancies during a period when complaints continued to come in and as I've said those volumes have been rising we're working our way through them as quickly as we can but I think there's at least a distinct possibility that we are likely to require additional resource the other thing to bear in mind is and that we are going to consult all of our stakeholders on this again I think traditionally there's been an expectation that we should be able to get through complaints faster than we have historically and I absolutely empathize with that so we will consult on KPIs for the office and clearly we'll come to the committee at that point in time and try to engage what the public's expectation is and the expectation of stakeholders is about how quickly we should be able to get through complaints and we will take that on board as part of our workforce planning to determine how many staff we actually require in order to get through the volume of materials that come to us the one other thing I might mention so I was the public appointments manager in the office I had a public appointments officer who'd been part time she is acting up for me as public appointments manager we simply could not fill her post because we could not determine for how long that you know person would be in post because all of this depends on you know what's going to happen with the commissioner who's currently off so we've been carrying that vacancy and it does mean that we are short of capacity in relation to our appointments as well the other matters are resolved you're unable to deal with that simply because of the situation that you're acting commissioner in essence someone's acting up to your previous position which leaves an incredibly difficult vacancy to fill on the grounds that no one would know how long they were in post with it quite so and it's quite an arcane area of work it's quite specialist you know certainly you would need to HR qualities you need to know a lot about diversity and inclusion because you know that's fundamental to to boards but also you know it's a regulated public appointments process and to have a proper understanding of that does take a bit of time but we are all relishing the challenge you know we are all working together as a team and I'm more than content about the the attitude of the staff I couldn't be prouder of that that's very helpful there's a few fairly specific points that I would benefit from your opinion on which relate to requests that were made in the Deloitte report and in the Deloitte report there is a section where they've numbered a number of recommendations with the responses both from yourself and others and towards the end of that it talks about the engagement with the SPCB and parliament to determine the reporting route for concerns about a commissioner I just wonder whether you'd like the opportunity to comment on that so it says in that the management's response in october there's it was agreed although we can do although all we can do is engage with the SPCB following the publication of this report which is now being published because you don't as you say you don't have locus in respect to that so I suppose my question is how did you feel about being asked to do something which was not your locus or was actually other than being able to ask about it there's nothing that she can do about it I frankly have no issue with that I recognise I hope and I hope all of the stakeholders that I've engaged with recognise this of me and of the office now that we are not some standalone organisation we are part of a bigger picture clearly the commissioner has to be independent in the exercises of her or his functions but I think primarily the expectation there is that that independence applies to things like how we handle complaints subject to the directions from this committee or directions from the standards commission for Scotland so yes absolutely we need to be independent but equally the parliament the public has a right to be reassured about the way in which the office operates and there should be something in place some measures in place to address concerns as they arise about the way in which the office operates so I have no issue with that recommendation and I have been engaging with the SPCB throughout my tenure about what we might do we entered most recently into more formal talks about that because clearly although I understood what the recommendation was and I've known for some time the reports themselves are relatively recently published the section 22 report came out in December so you know it was after that point in time that we began those formal discussions with the SPCB and just okay you know what can we do together how can we work together to ensure that our governance has the sort of oversight that people would expect to have in the future so to follow that up really that the final point 5.3 in the audit report was talking about there were wider governance issues that had been identified and there was a recommendation that the SPCB in consultation with the commissioner and the other office holders review whether the governance structure in place remains sufficient and appropriate and the response from yourself was that you were happy indeed happy to contribute to any consultation because as an independent commissioner and with regard to stakeholder engagement it is in contributing to that discussion that your role lies rather than seeking it out or enforcing it of course absolutely again I think so part of this issue is and it's linked to the paris principles but clearly organisations such as this have to be independent they have to be seen to be independent because otherwise you know the public isn't necessarily going to have trust and that's written into the legislation so you know I'm statutorily independent of the Scottish ministers and not subject to direction or control by them same goes with the parliament but I do think that really is in relation to the functions of the office so the regulation of appointments how we handle complaints about MSPs I think governance is a different matter and I think appropriate oversight of governance is something that we would all like to see whether or not there are sufficient checks and balances in place at the moment for parliamentary office holders is the wider question and I'm more than happy to contribute to discussions in that area that's very helpful one of the criticisms and it's quite a strong criticism was that the services of the audit advisory board were dispensed with what's the situation now with regard to the audit advisory board is it in place coming into place where are we at the moment I've been doing a lot in tandem I re-engaged with the advisory audit board as soon as I came into post so basically from May onwards they were engaged in the work of the office and engaged meaningfully so I'll give you some examples we had to you'll have seen the recommendations but you know we had to reintroduce a risk proper risk management policy procedures risk register so they assisted us with that and that's all in place now we were advised that we should have an independent internal auditor on board and and we had assistance from the advisory audit board with that they also assisted us with discussions with the auditors over the the wider scope review so we are fully engaged with the AAB and have been since May and and their assistance has been excellent thank you Bob I think you wanted to come in yes um thanks community um good morning Mr Bruce I was given a specific question that I get there's a degree of uncertainty because you're currently in an acting position and then there's a member of your team currently backfilling in an acting position your previous post and you outlined the difficulties and then been able to fill that post because of all those uncertainties but the organisers strike me has been awash with staff and the additional staff members would be of value for the organisation and I get that it may have to be a temporary position but how many years could a temporary post be put in place for that unfilled position and if matters resolved itself for the acting position that you and your colleague are in if there was surplus staff it doesn't sound to me this would be difficult to redeploy them to do other jobs and tasks within the organisation so have you made a bid to the corporate body to say we could do with a a three-year temporary post in this unfilled position we appreciate it specialist there's training will be required but should the other matters resolve themselves by goodness we can find a particularly important job for them within the wider wider office given the the constraints we have on our time at the moment so I think it would be probably helpful just to make it clear that we did advertise that post and at the time we advertised it we advertised it for so at that point in time it was at least a year but potentially more we also spoke to the parliament about the possibility of secondment none of those routes were successful for us it's quite a difficult market at the moment to get new staff on board we've been working through a pandemic while all this has been going on as well so so we certainly tried to fill that post we were very successful in respect of the other ones I think the new people that we've on boarded so you know we've got three new IOs and a corporate services officer recognize something about the values that we had as an office so in terms of recruitment I think we've done quite well and I understand what you're saying but but I think it is quite a specialist post and I'm not sure it would be best use of resources for us at this precise moment in time to try and just fill that and train someone up and then try and redeploy them into some other area because every post in the office is quite specialist notwithstanding that I've said we are planning to do further workforce planning and that's currently scheduled for March and April and that's the point at time and time at which so again you know we're talking about relatively short timescales we recruited had people inducted the new people in October you know it's just that recent and they are now all working on cases their probationary period ends in March we have no issues but it ends in March and at that point in time we'll do that proper workforce planning and then we'll go to the SPCB with a proper business case we've already done so Melanie Stonic who I mentioned earlier who's who's acting up for me currently has already prepared you know a really excellent forward plan for the appointments activities of the office and I think we've got a good handle on the resource that we'll need for that and and if there's still uncertainty I will certainly take on board the suggestion that we might look to fill a post for say three years and if we've got that spare capacity for appointments I'll certainly make use of it over that period. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a barrier that we weren't seeing as a committee to fill that post and I thank Mr Bruce for clarifying that that position. Thank you Bob. I'm not going to pass over to Tess who has a question. Thank you hello Mr Bruce. It's really good to hear that you've got business plans in place and a risk register but when and I realise you're in an acting position but you've had a lot to do since March April looking forwards when do you think you'll you know with everything staying the same in terms of current staffing and filling that post do you think you'll be able to reach a position of compliance full compliance? Are we talking about compliance with the directions from the Standards Commission? So the commission confirmed to the Parliament I think it was November last year that I've been fully complying with the directions since I took up post so we fully comply with the directions. Great okay. Sorry I was just going I'm not sure whether it's the the directions from the commission or indeed the proposals in Deloitte's audit report about. We've made significant progress in relation to Deloitte's audit report. I did take some notes just of some of the things that we do have in place already. I should say as well so I gave Deloitte's an update in advance of their evidence session with the Public Audit Committee so they know where we are up to January. We don't just have a biennial business plan in place we also have a tracker so we know what progress we are making against all the recommendations as well as the actions that I've introduced myself because you know I think there are other things we need to be getting on with. That's looked at at the senior management team meeting every month so we know exactly where we are. It's discussed with all the staff every month so everyone knows exactly where we are. I've mentioned engagement with RAB, the appointment of an internal auditor. We've re-established regular and meaningful senior management team meetings. The minutes are all available on our website so you know it's all transparent everyone can see what we're up to and where we are with things. We have a stable staff contingent for the first time in a long time other than that one unfilled vacancy. The updated risk management policy and registers in place and we updated all of our HR related policies. Staff wellbeing was fundamental to our recovery so all of those were updated, staff were consulted on them, those have all been rolled out. We have an advanced draft of the investigations manual that was recommended that's now a version four and it covers all the investigator functions of the office. Angela Glennart, senior investigating officer has done an amazing job on that as well as getting through the day-to-day work and we'll come out to all our stakeholders to consult on that and all the KPIs in it so we made progress in relation to a whole raft of the recommendations that have been made. That's helpful, Tess. So risk register and you've got a performance management framework in place. What about the training programme and the continuing professional development of staff? Is that in place as well? Yes, extensive. Every staff member, as I mentioned, has their own individual action plan so it's incumbent on all the management. We each have direct reports so we're all aware of what that staff member's plan includes. This is what I need to do. Their training needs are discussed on the back of the activities that they need to engage in for the following year and then we arrange training for them to ensure that they have the skills that they need. We've had an extensive amount of training, both internal and external, over the preceding four months. The induction of the new people was really comprehensive so we built up a whole suite of materials that just wasn't in place previously in order to do that. We anticipate by handling more cases about, for example, sexual harassment so we got external training in from rape crisis Scotland so that staff understood how to engage appropriately with survivors, for example. That's fine. Can I just ask you also, Mr Bruce, where do you actually get your HR support from for recruitment, for training and for induction support? Sure. We do all that in-house so, as I said, I've been engaged in public appointments, which is fundamentally about recruitment and selection since the office was established. I know that's to boards. What does it mean that we do it in-house? Does it mean that your team do it yourself or do you get support from professionals? No, we do it ourselves. Melanie Stronick, who I mentioned, she is an HR professional. She's CIPD accredited and I've got about 30 years of experience in HR-related roles. That's fine, so you've got somebody CIPD accredited, thank you. I'll just interrupt because I think that Sue wants to come in on one of Ian's answers. Sue. Thank you, convener. Thank you very much, Mr Bruce, for all those answers. We've heard a lot about the training, the induction and you've reintroduced the review system. You've also mentioned about recognising sexual harassment and engaging with survivors, but I'm trying to ask and ascertain what systems have you put in place to allow members of your staff to feel confident about raising issues of concern about current work and practices, governance and maybe some issues that they're uncomfortable with within their working practice? Yes, it is a good question. It's a very small office and we've engaged, so I've said we do have monthly meetings with staff, so they're semi-formal, but that's all about the work of the organisation in general. We have SMT meetings, so the senior management team discusses how we're getting on as an organisation. Staff can contribute to the things that the senior management team should be talking about and they can comment on any decisions or question any decisions that the senior management team make. Staff preferences are something that it's very important for us to take account of, so one of the things we did by way of team building was Myers-Briggs-type indicators, and quite a lot of the staff in the office are introverts and don't like talking in public meetings about matters of concern. If you have to know that I'm a red, I'm a pure, I'm a like this one, so I suppose I'm probably trying to drill down on a bit more of a safe base, a whistleblowing type thing, you know, something that's not known, it's anonymous, you know, that sort of reporting internally for yourselves because you've got quite a lot of change going on and you've got a lot of upheaval perhaps, and don't just cut that to your place. Yes, so staff can report concerns anonymously, but no staff have taken up that opportunity. Far and away the majority of the staff, their preference is to have discussions with their line managers about issues that concern them, so that's what they've made clear to us, but we pretty much formally consult them on everything that concerns them, as well as things that wouldn't necessarily be obvious depending on the sort of organisation that you belong to that you wouldn't necessarily think that that doesn't really concern staff, but we engage them about every aspect of the organisation's work, including what happens at the senior level. It's possible because it's a small team of 12, I think you said, so you get to know everybody quite well. We did bring out the, so we did update the whistleblowing policy and all staff were consulted on that in June. I think it's worth saying this about whistleblowing and it's maybe not commonly understood, so it's quite a high bar to make a protected disclosure. For a staff member to make a protected disclosure and that's quite a difficult thing in and of itself, you basically, you're talking about criminal activity or covering up criminal activity, so having a whistleblowing policy in place is all well and good, but by reference to the legislation it's not sufficient. You need to have other reporting routes and that's why we're quite keen to engage with the SPCB about the nature of our governance and where staff might go outside the organisation if they've got concerns. I think there needs to be a route there and it doesn't necessarily have to be that very high bar of criminal activity. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Bruce. Do you think now at the moment that your office is sufficiently resourced to do the run and maintain work that's required because there were some very serious, a very serious picture painted in the annual report that was alarming, so how do you feel right now? Unsure and I'm being quite honest with you. As I've said, we've been taking stock throughout of how we're getting on, but there are so many variables. There's the backlog, there's the additional volumes, there's the additional complexity, but workforce planning is absolutely on our agenda for March and April and all members of the senior management team know that that's something that they have to be engaging in now, so I'd mentioned Melanie had done some work on it already in respect of public appointments. I should say it's not as though she's not without support. The corporate services officer that we brought on board, she is largely dedicated to supporting public appointments at this point in time, so there is support in place there. Angela Glyon, the senior investigating officer, she meets her entire team at least once a week, so they have a case huddle, but they also discuss governance, how they're getting on, how quickly they're getting through the complaint volumes. They've also had discussions most recently about what the KPI should be set at, at least for consultation, so workforce planning is part and parcel of the activity that's going on at the moment, so we'll draw that information together, we'll take an initial view, we'll ask our stakeholders how quickly do you think we should be getting through this stuff and then we'll have, I think, a clearer picture of what our capacity should be to meet everyone's expectations. Because the backlog alone will require a huge amount of personal hours. Yes, we've got more investigatory hours, so more capacity than the office has ever had in its history. We are talking about quite a small team, so just even adding one additional investigating officer has added quite significantly, and they're all full-time, so under the prior commissioner you had people on variable hours contracts. So, yeah, things have been changing, they're still changing, and we'll certainly look at all those different variables and come up with a plan and go to the SPCB and we'll cut our quote according to our cloth and what the SPCB thinks about our proposals. So, not confident, but I mean, I'm just conscious that in terms of resourcing, you've got things coming in by the day, then the backlog, small team, and then you say, well, how can we manage what we've got, plus everything coming, so basically you need additional support. It's perfectly possible that we will need additional resource equally, and ultimately it will be a decision for the SPCB to make, and it's for me to make a proper business case. We are talking about public money, and clearly we all need to bear that in mind. The office operated at a certain budget for a number of years, and as I've said, I think there were some historic concerns about how quickly we might have gotten through the work, but it has been and continues to be a changing picture in terms of what's coming into the office, and I think we all need to recognise that as well. Thank you. Can I just quickly come in, Mr Bruce? Thank you very much, and what it was when you touched upon the actual SPCB in terms of its input and support as well in terms of resources. I note from your biannual report that you've produced that it's to be confirmed in terms of contingent on SPCB agreement and funding. Since that report's been produced, has there been any movement there at all? No, I do have to say that the SPCB has been very supportive over this period, so they approved the business case that we made for the additional posts to be filled, and they subsequently approved the budget for the year, because obviously the annual report is historic, so our budget for the coming year has been approved, but as I say, we do have more workforce planning to do, and it may be that we need to go with the SPCB for some contingency funding in relation to the year ahead, if we do go ahead with recruitment and that's approved, but clearly that will have longer-term ramifications for our budget going forward. No, thanks very much. That's been… Thank you, Collette. Just with regard to the investigation manual that you've talked about, which is in draft form, getting to that point where it's going to be shared, there was much discussion in both Deloitte's report and the other audit report about an external investigator overseer, second opinion externally, and reading through it, it would appear to be my understanding that you would like the opportunity to internally review on the back of this handbook that previous decisions made before moving to an external advisor or assistance. Is that right? It's something that we have under consideration, so I'm not ruling anything out. I have to say that this for me is potentially one of the most problematic recommendations, which is why I've said, you know, really we need to discuss this with the SPCB. I think we need their agreement and some funding in order to take this forward. We already conducted an internal audit of all the statistical information that had been produced over the last couple of years. We needed to satisfy ourselves and everyone else, I think, for that matter that we were reporting on a like-for-like basis, so we did do that. We provided the Standards Commission for Scotland with all of the decision letters that had been issued during the period in question, so they've had an opportunity to look at those. I don't think that the legislation anticipated us ever finding ourselves in a situation like this, so you're asking someone external to review the decisions of a commissioner when it was that commissioner's place to make those decisions. Some of those complaints and the investigations are historic, so that has an impact on what records are available, witness recollection and so on and so forth. There were no set procedures in place, which is why we have to have a manual and the procedures that were in place were in flux. What would an external person use in order to compare what was done against what perhaps should have been done over that period and what happens with the results of an investigation of that nature? I have to say as well, so it has proven problematic for us in as much as, yes, the recommendation has been made. The section 22 report has said what it said, we have received quite a number of people who had complained to the office previously, even going back to Bill Thompson's time coming to us to say, I need my investigation reopened because the conclusion that was reached wasn't one that I was happy with and far and away the majority of those who are coming to us with those sorts of concerns, their complaints weren't even made during the period that the auditor is recommended should be looked at. I suppose the final point on that is there's potentially a concern about precedent, so how many commissioners by act does one go in order to have their homework marked and by whom? So it's not the case that you are saying absolutely no to an external advisor, whatever it's going to be called, however in some sense that's not the question that's immediately in front of you without this manual and that there are other factors that need to play into that about the independence of the commissioner and the independence of the commissioner when those decisions were made and the protections that are built in in respect of councillors to the commission and in respect of MSP complaints to this committee that there is a structure and it's how that would interrelate with that structure and indeed the statutory requirements of the independence, would that be fair? Indeed, no, absolutely. As I say, I don't think any of the legislation ever anticipated a situation like this arising and I'm not sure how the legislation would handle that sort of thing. Maybe we're saying we have one precedent but only to an extent and as much as we'd had quite a significant complaint about the office and I did commission someone to review that independently but that was a complaint about us. That wasn't a complaint about a councillor in MSP that was a complaint levied at the office? It was although ultimately heading back it connected to a complaint about a councillor but you know as the person who conducted that review said it's really not my place to determine whether or not commissioner's decision was appropriate or not and the legislation just can't handle that. Just in terms of the external independent review, can I ask, and it's maybe just your opinion really, what do you think that the disposals that you give out in regards to the findings of a complaint are fit for purpose? So perhaps I'm not understanding the question correctly but might I rephrase or? Well I suppose for instance the disposal of censure? So we don't make recommendations about sanction at all or the role of our office determine really just whether or not the relevant code has or has not been complied with and yeah, no not at all. Thank you Claire. Tess did you want to? Thank you. Just on some things to Bruce that you blessed, when there's a complaint against your office, who actually investigates that complaint? So complaints about us and the normal run of things we have and I've rewritten the procedure there as well and it's now published so there's a route of appeal to me but they're handled by staff and then it can be escalated and then eventually it would come to me for appeal and in the event that an individual is still dissatisfied they have recourse to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. So you and your office investigate your own complaints against your office? Yes but we're required to do that. Okay and then it goes sorry to? The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman if people are unhappy so yeah there's a complaint standards authority which sits under the Ombudsman in Scotland and the CSA has brought out basically a set of procedures for all public authorities to follow and including ourselves so that's what we follow. Okay thank you. In terms of so the council complaints are not a matter for this committee however there is a key relationship between your office and the standards commissioner and it appears to have broken down so could you please share with this committee what workers have you undertaken since taking office to restore this good working relationship and what progress are you making so I suppose it's the what did you start off doing to build the relationship and then key milestones? Sure I got in touch with them straight away frankly I mean you know it's all of this stuff about people fundamentally but I know I got in touch with their executive director straight away and with the chair of the standards commission so you know that was immediately on taking up post we had a really productive chat about where we were and what we're going to do going forward. Key milestones so we instituted almost immediately so I now meet with the standards commission twice a year so you know that's a formal meeting and we discuss issues of mutual concern and interest. The staff are in regular contact with each other from both offices and over and above that so the whole investigatory team and me meet with the executive director and key members of her staff fortnightly again to have just you know a discussion about what we have in the pipeline respectively guidance additionally we've worked alongside each other so it's really all about as I said we set as part of a bigger picture and that's about the ethical standards framework in Scotland and we'll have you know distinct roles to play but equally we want to support each other and other organisations to improve all of that so we worked together as offices to assist the Scottish Government to revise the codes of conduct for councillors and board members that was lots of work but really worthwhile because you know we think the new codes that have come out you know I can make determinations people understand what's expected of them the standards commissions being able to produce guidance on the back of that so we work together on all sorts of things and I would describe it as an excellent relationship so you'd say it's the relationships being mended it's an excellent relationship but I mean you know that's that's a commissioner marking his own homework and I'm sure you know that they'd be best placed to provide you with an independent view thank you very much Tess I'm not going to go to Bob thank you convener um there's a few questions I wanted to ask Mr Bruce it may be you've kind of partially answered some of them already in the course of your evidence but I suppose it's an opportunity for you to put anything else on the record that you feel that is required clearly reading the report in your comments that there's been a lack of continuity with regard to responsibility for handling of MSPs complaints and you refer to that within your statement within the the angry report and your accounts you've alluded to why that might be the case already but it might be helpful you've put on the record this morning why you think there has been such a lack of continuity so a relatively small office with you know a certain number of investigatory staff we had a prior commissioner who I know had a relatively hands-on approach in respect of MSP complaint handling although some of that was devolved within the office that commissioner's clearly not in post none of the staff who handled MSP complaints are in post nor have they been in post for a while so the commissioner who's currently on leave engaged with someone from the northern island assembly to take that work on for a period um ultimately he had to go back to work for the northern Irish assembly when it was operating again um and I was asked to take the work on which I did um that was meant to be a temporary measure um and I was to be replaced with a senior investigating officer who left the organisation so so that never happened so basically I've been handling MSP complaints since I took them on um while I was still the public appointments manager so I think that is problematic in terms of continuity um it's it's a very complex area of regulation for want of a better expression for this office and I've had to learn on the job um I've not done that alone I've drawn on quite extensive legal advice and continue to do that to to inform me um and and clearly because it was problematic um well I discussed this quite early on with our senior investigating officer it had to be devolved so she's been fully trained to take on responsibility for those complaints as has the entire investigator team so everyone involved in investigations in the office now handles MSP complaints and and we have that continuity going forward and they've all been provided with the same legal advice and the investigations manual covers exactly what we need to do in relation to MSP complaints I mentioned backlogs it is an area in which we're doing fairly well um you know from the annual report that we have a major complaint that's still under investigation so I can't discuss that but in terms of everything new that's come into the office um I checked yesterday that the most aged complaint is from the 15th of December in respect of MSP complaint handling so we're more or less up to date with those can I can I check um are you suggesting that issues with continuity existed with the previous team uh with the the previous uh commissioner and that those haven't been replicated with the new staff because I'm just common sense commit dangerous thing Mr Bruce but you would you would vote we'll get the corporate memory my next question in a second but if you have people with experience in investigating complaints even if there's maybe issues in how that is done consistently and then you have a whole new set of people to investigate complaints who are new to the organisation you might think there's more likelihood of inconsistency not less likelihood of inconsistency so I suppose when we're talking about a lack of continuity investigating MSP complaints we'll be talking historically under a previous set of staff and can you say a little bit more about what you've done with this current team to make sure that there's a consistency of continuity in how investigations take place? Sure um so under the commissioner who is currently off we lost all investigatory staff so everyone or anyone who may have handled MSP complaints left the organisation yeah I took on responsibility for MSP complaint handling and I've been doing that for two years now roughly are you leading in every case now Mr Bruce you're not delegating any of that? No no absolutely so the entire investigatory team that now works to me who are so they're not all new so um but two of them are let's say two years in post and we've got the three others who are new but all of those have been trained in MSP complaint handling by me. Okay so and is that different from how it used to operate? Um I am so I did say loss of corporate memory has been an issue so I had no involvement in MSP complaint handling under the prior commissioner at all so I am not entirely clear how it was handled I do know that he took personal personally took part in MSP complaint handling and I think it was devolved to possibly one other investigating officer possibly two but I okay I don't want to dwell on that for obvious reasons I don't want to dwell on that I suppose what I'm trying to do is look forward as much as look back but as far as this committee would be concerned is you have a team of I think five in total I think I think you mentioned and you would lead in all complaints but you delegate the day-to-day operation of of dealing with the processes around those complaints and the details and investigations to your team yes and your role would be to make sure there's a continuity of process yes yes so is that a reasonable absolutely yes absolutely and the buck stops me in terms of decisions so as I said we have an investigations manual we've got a full set of procedures which also covers MSP complaint handling so I try to give you an example um there are a set of tests that need to be met in the legislation in order for investigations to proceed so we have an assessment form and every staff member who takes on a new MSP complaint needs to go through each part of that form and and to provide reasons for their decision making in relation to whether or not a complaint should proceed that then comes to me and and I ultimately make the final decision on whether or not their judgment has been appropriate and what should then happen with that complaint so so it is delegated it will continue to be but but I make the ultimate decisions and just for clarity that investigations manual is that the manual has been operation for some time or is that a new manual it's it's new so we're now at version four as the auditor's recognised we didn't have something formal in place that was being operated so so our senior investigating officer had to basically populate all of that it's not as though we had nothing in place so it's fair to say that the prior commissioner did have a manual but it wasn't being operated so some of the material from that has been brought forward and some of that did relate to MSP complaint handling thanks mr president once you put that on the record so there's a completeness of evidence this morning now I was going to ask about workforce planning I think you've probably covered that but wouldn't you ask it anyway just because of any gaps that you want to fill in so could you say a little bit more about what workforce planning you are undertaking to address the high staff turnover and you mentioned the lack of corporate memory I suppose it's about stabilising it's about recovery and you've kind of said a lot about that but the key thing is what about resilience carry organisations it's one or two people to not be there and there's a significant challenge so you've mentioned workforce planning but can you maybe link that to future resilience yeah no you are absolutely right and it's particularly challenging in an organisation of this size but I have made it clear to every section that I want people to circulate around so for example the investigating officers I need at least one or two of them to become familiar with public appointments work we always had fail safes in the office I've mentioned Melanie but it's a bit of a joke in the office but you know we often spoke about what happens if such and such goes under a bus and what do we have in place for that person to be covered so I do understand and I agree with an accept your point that we do need to ensure that we've got cover for all the different sections of the office including fail safes and our workforce planning will include that okay I think MSPs that that would chime with us where we employ staff for one thing but in reality the demands of the office means you you deploy them as you need them for your business needs and I think staffers would would recognise that as well moving on you're also found that based on legal advice you obtained the operation of the investigation process as amended in August 2020 and in particular the assessment process did not comply with the required legislation what confidence do you have that the MSP complaints handled during this period were assessed properly you've spoken a lot about getting that continuity getting that consistency going forward but if we just have a slight look back what confidence do you have that investigations were assessed appropriately sure um well at the time in question I was assessing them so inevitably I'm going to say yeah I know I have considerable confidence um but notwithstanding that and I think it's it's fair to say this you know I wasn't trained in MSP complaint handling I you know I had to learn on the job um I was quite clear with the commissioner at the time look if I don't know something here we need legal advice on it and and I would say that the legal advice you're referring to didn't concern MSP complaint handling I hope that gives you some assurance it absolutely was about handling of complaints for councillors and board members I'm not really sure how to interrogate interrogate the wrong word to miss the present minute that way but I'm not sure how to probe further in relation to that because of course you would give that that reassurance and I think you've put the record today where whatever you thought there was a lack of clarity or you weren't sure you saw external legal advice as you went along I suppose there's a degree of reassurance there and convener I think some of my colleagues want to expand on this point further rather than me hogging this whole line of questioning I would anticipate Mr Bruce there may be some further questions in this area convener very kind deputy convener just before I hand over to Collette really I'm going to state the obvious but I think it needs to be stated when you were talking about devolving the investigations with regard to MSPs to your staff you were talking about devolving the process the actual decision on whether or not there is or is not at breach rests with you in your role as acting commissioner but as an independent commissioner and those final decisions are of course always taken by you based on all of the evidence that's presented to you following the investigation that would be right with no question and we have an audit trail for all the decisions that I make in the office I'm very grateful for that Collette yeah thanks very much convener and just following on from some of the question that our co-convener submitted can I just ask about the the MSP complaints that were dismissed as inadmissible during the relevant period in that we're subject to you know external re-examination and you know well they really you know looked at again and if so what progress really sure so no the the recommendation relates directly to the directions that were issued by the standards commission for Scotland and that relates to complaints about board members and councillors so the recommendation doesn't relate to reinvestigating MSP complaints the auditors didn't raise any concerns about that so I take the end that the door is firmly closed on that aspect of it then we haven't had a recommendation in that area um I suppose if the committee feels that those investigations should be independently re-examined it would be open to the committee to issue directions to make that effect I would guess I suppose my concern really would be that if it was you know the similar complaints that came forward and we're basically dropping the ball in that aspect of it and there is a huge issue on a certain you know area then it's maybe something I don't know if you've got a feel for if that that was something that was you know that was coming through strong there I think we're getting into quite tricky territory here because we're talking about judgment and I mentioned a commissioner marking their own homework earlier so you're asking me basically for a view on whether or not ultimately the recommendations I was making to the commissioner at that point in time should be re-examined um clearly I'm going to say I don't think so because because I was doing my best to make the appropriate recommendations in terms of assessment at that time but ultimately yes you know the decisions about whether to proceed and how to proceed were were the commissioners um and and so there's been a recommendation in relation to councillor and member complaints and whether they should be re-investigated um so I suppose the answer um if I'm going to shorten it would be it would be for the committee to take a view on whether or not it feels that assurance in that area would be helpful um might it help let's say that the position um became apparent because of questions that were being asked by our equivalents in relation to councillor cases that came to them um the previous committee um and the previous session um as far as you're aware never raised those questions with the commissioner in relation to MSP complaints no that's helpful okay thank you um sorry can I can I just ask as well really and you have touched upon it is um but just to seek further clarity is what progress has been made with the backlog of MSP complaints which you referred to in your statement um and that's prefacing your annual report and accounts as well sure um so there's the very large complaint the super complaint we call it in the office so and I can't talk about it but you know that the numbers are there um so that is still under investigation and it's very complex and there are an awful lot of moving parts but if we set that aside and we have had quite a few MSP complaints in this financial year additional ones so again the trend there does look to be that that those are on their eyes we have worked our way through all of those up to 15th December so basically you know there's there's no backlog in relation to those right okay and and just finally um the annual report in the counts actually show a very steep rise in the volume of complaints received against MSPs um how is the office coping with you know obviously the workload in terms of that and um and how confident are you that they will be investigated fully um so and line me your statutory obligations yes um so the super complaint I think is the main one and and all staff are working on that at the moment and and we've also you know as well as everything else um so we have regular meetings to discuss what progress we're making there but yeah I think if I go into detail then perhaps we're in difficult territory um I am not sure how long it will take us to complete that investigation and how much additional resource that we will need so clearly it's that's part of our workforce planning as well um how does one put this I am not sure that that represents what's going to look like regular business for us I think that's let's call it a relatively rare event um so in general the trend is an increase in MSP complaints but you know not an astronomical one it just so happens that that's super complaint um yeah has posed particular challenges for us at a time perhaps when we may not have wished for them but but I absolutely understand my responsibilities as do all the staff um and we do intend to investigate that fully as well as everything else that comes into the office you know we don't set things aside because we're busy that just wouldn't be right okay okay well hopefully going forward that's super complaint there's lessons learned in in the gates to need for the the volume and concentration of staff in that aspect so no thank you very much thank you collect bulb I think you had a follow-up question yes um sorry to get hung up on on the process Mr Bruce I suppose so we know that you leaned in all MSP complaints but you delegate the day-to-day investigation responsibilities to one of a team of five they're all fully trained in a new and refreshed investigations manual and they're encouraged to talk to each other and draw on each other's support so we've got all that so when you then get that final report on your desk from the investigating officer it will make a recommendation about whether the complaint will clearly almost miss what at that point because it's got to that extent and recommendations within it and the working is shown that the way out that evidence and you as commissioner have to decide whether you are going to agree you ratify sanction this is the way forward or to change the ultimate decision been made now where you agree with your investigating officer and that moves forward in the process fine but there must be situations where you won't agree with the recommendation made by your investigating officer and that's okay that's an important check and balance in the system but when you don't agree with those recommendations what is the process in terms of deporting your investigating officer to if you like continue professional development or review of the case at that point what happens so is there a supportive learning experience for your investigating officer or I suppose what happens and separate from that do you I'm not asking for the number but do you keep track of the amount of times where you agree with the conclusion of your investigating officer and when you don't agree because obviously any commissioner not just yourself in that in commissioner's role if there's an increasing number of situations when you don't agree with the conclusion of your investigating officer that might point to issues or weaknesses or challenges within the investigating process to begin with so what I thought was going to be a pretty straightforward question might be a little bit more complicated now but I think it would be helpful for the committee to know. Sure I'm very happy to talk to you about the operation of the office so let's start with the first part of your question yes so there's a formal process in place in as much as you know a written report recommendations comes to me and you know do you agree do you disagree so all the investigatory team handle all the different types of complaints you know they work through them and I get a report every week in the form of an email so I have a summary of all the different cases some of those involve MSP complaints so we'll talk about those so I provide my written response in relation to their report any draft letters they've prepared and then in the email so that's all done on a sort of formal basis in writing as I've said we've got an audit trail where I feel that I need to discuss a given report where I you know I may disagree with some of the conclusions so we have various options for doing that sometimes if I think it's a team learning thing I'd mentioned that so Angela and the team the senior investigating officer on the team they have a meeting at least once a week so I will join them for that meeting and we will go through all of those cases and we will collectively have a discussion about where I might have disagreed with a particular decision that's been taken and we would go through my reasoning and but it's not just so the buck stops with me I get that but equally I'm not infallible so we would have a proper grown-up discussion about why I've reached my conclusion and I would ask them you know why have you reached your conclusion and we'll come to a settled view together collectively on what the appropriate response is we need to learn as an organisation and you know very often every day is a school day for us very often you get things in that you've just never seen before none of us have ever seen before and you know we need to take a view by by comparing that with the applicable legislation so that's the way that we operate if I think it's something for the individual for us to discuss together I will discuss it with the individual sometimes involving the senior investigating officer sometimes not am I tracking whether or not I disagree with people's decisions so not formally but clearly I'll have a view myself about how people are getting on I have every confidence in the people that we've recruited it was a good recruitment process so so I know for a fact that they had the skills that they required but remember you know they're just coming to the end of their probationary period all of this is relatively new to them and I don't think it would be fair to me for me to start reaching conclusions about who's good and who's not at this point in time what I can say is in my opinion their judgment all of them their judgment seems pretty sound to me maybe just convener that I think that's quite important Mr Bruce because clearly your team will be watching this evidence session the exchange of course they would be I would be if I was a member of your team absolutely probably watching it right now get back to your work if you are watching it right now watch it later but what I would say I wasn't casting aspersions on your team it was just more about checks and balances in the system and if the data was to flag up something that needs to be attended to perhaps it was a lack of clarity in the investigations manual or just or just a lack of clarity in processes more generally so for staff that are watching this I think it's important convener to say there's no aspersions on them it's more about trying to look at checks and balances in the system and the processes that underpin it and I think what you're saying Mr Bruce is it's not a case of the investigating officer goes away for three months and comes back with a conclusion on your desk there's a weekly review process and an ongoing basis so no one's going to go from a tangential path in the investigation that you're unaware of that's a more of a clincher approach to the investigations if I've captured that properly Mr Bruce. Very much so very much so I'll go beyond that so we are learning as an organisation and we are adapting our procedures all of the time and and that's in response to issues that come to us I'll give you one simple example so you know those team meetings it's not just to review cases if something comes up and we think we can do something better for the public here we change the way in which we operate you know the tone of all of our communications has changed since since I came into post but but we are constantly updating our letters to meet what we think are the needs of the public someone came to us recently and they'd made a complaint and it wasn't upheld but they came back and said I don't think I've been treated fairly because you know that I don't think you looked at all of the bits of the code potentially that you might have I'm paraphrasing a wee bit so we always do we don't expect members of the public to know what's in the code and what's applicable to conduct and what isn't but but because they'd raised that concern we'd had a chat with them we together as a team concluded look we could make it clear in the letters we can just say even though you didn't say which part of the code it was that you were complaining had been breached can we assure you we've looked at the whole code in relation to that conduct in order to reach a decision and that's why these are the bits of the code that are applicable so all the letters say that now that's the way we operate okay thanks mr was a convener i had a couple of unrelated questions but i don't know if you want to do those just now or not no please please move on thanks pal okay thank you okay so the last couple of questions from myself really I suppose is coven related that the necessities need for change in working practices and obviously they want to know what the satisfaction has been with appointment rounds when part on the part of the panel and body chairs maintained during the new ways of working during the pandemics obviously your office is very heavily involved in those appointments the process has had to be tweaked because of the pandemic what has the satisfaction been on of the panel and body chairs that have been had to engage in that appointments process what is the views and how it's been handled been I think it's been handled relatively well although kind of inevitable I suppose all organisations had to had to be agile during that period and it did take the government a wee while to put things in place that they hadn't anticipated they were going to need I mean we were quite fortunate in as much as we'd established teams and all that side of things just because that was in the in the run of our work as an organisation so all that was in place before the pandemic hit and it wasn't all in place with the Scottish Government so so it was an incremental process but I think they've done relatively well and people have been relatively happy about what's been put in place so I mean you know interviews being conducted remotely and so on and so forth and I anticipate we're probably looking at a hybrid model going forward but but generally I'm quite positive about public appointments in the way things have gone and my more recent discussions with the Scottish Government have been very productive I have to say and I'm quite hopeful about the future okay thank you I want to explore that further but thank you for putting that on the record and the final question for myself is that your annual report on accounts referred to planned activity which was suspended or postponed due to prioritisation of other work understandably so and can you explain more about what work was delayed and when you would envisage that those delays will be addressed so unavoidable delay I would imagine but can you say a little bit more about where those delays have been and when you think the office will to catch up on that? Sure I think we've more or less caught up I mean certainly we've continued to fulfil the statutory function so that is about our providing oversight using public appointments advisers of appointment rounds so that has continued unabated we'd anticipated perhaps running some audits but they weren't essential but you know it's just helpful to do that health check separately to the direct oversight that you provide this year I've decided to drop we usually do a collated report of applicant surveys so we haven't stopped running those we're still running them on a round-by-round basis and we're still feeding the results of those into the system but we won't have a collated annual report of applicant views this year simply because we don't have the capacity to do it and we'd stopped surveying panel chairs and body chairs for a period so the period in the annual report about their views on the processor on the contribution of the advisor all of that's been reinstated so um we do have other activities in our business plan and as I've said I think potentially we're going to need more resource in the public appointments function and clearly an unfilled vacancy and we need to sort that out if we're going to fulfil all our ambitions in that area um code of practice um has been slightly delayed but I expect to have that with Government either today or at some point next week for a you know a very final consultation I think we've more or less agreed everything that we need to there so so I'm not concerned and I don't think the committee should be. I've got no further questions because I just thank Mr Bruce for for his evidence in answering those questions this morning. Thank you Mr Bruce. Thank you very much indeed Bob um perhaps he'd be glad to know I think we're coming to the end but what I did want to pick up on possibly as a final question or statement from your um report was indeed the very final paragraph that you put where I'm going to quote this to put it on record I end by expressing my gratitude to the members of the senior management team and to every staff member in the office they have shown remarkable resilience and commitment to our work during an exceptionally challenging period I'm immensely proud to belong to such a dedicated team of people and grateful for both their positive attitude and their efforts. I think we've certainly heard today and from your report that there were challenging times in the past um but Ian can I thank you for coming today can I thank you for your full and frank answers to our questions and um I wish you and possibly more importantly your team all the very best going forward so thank you. I would now like to close the public part of this meeting and the committee will move into private.