 Welcome to the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. This is our seventh meeting of 2018, and we have no apologies. Agend item 1 is a decision on taking business in private, which is a discussion on the sub-committee's work programme. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you very much indeed. Agend item 2 is the Police Scotland's firearms licensing process. It is an evidence session, and I refer members to paper 1, which is a note by the clerk, and paper 2, which is a private paper. I welcome Superintendent Ronny McGoen, national firearms and explosives licensing, Safer Communities Police Scotland, and Drew Livingstone Service Conditions Officer, Unison Police Staff Scotland branch. I thank you for the written submissions, which are always helpful to members in advance. We will move straight to questions. Daniel, you have some—oh, sorry, big burn—we are Liam and then Daniel East. Thanks, convener. Good afternoon. I just wondered whether you might be able to kick off with a general description of the processes and the procedures around how firearms applications are handled. Yes. Certainly. In terms of what is now the system in Scotland, clearly we have had firearms and shotgun certificates for a significant period of time. With the legislation that came in in 2016, we added air weapons in Scotland to that certification process. They are very, very similar. There are slight differences in terms of air weapon process, but an application is submitted. It is drawn down online. It is submitted in physical form. It goes through a number of checks, so there are a number of background checks, clearly, as you would expect to be done on the applicant. There is a fee paid for that. It goes out, in this case, of a grant, so an initial first-time round certificate, or a renewal, so an existing certificate holder, who wishes to renew that at the point of expiry. That goes out to a local policing division, where inquiries are carried out, and invariably that will be an engagement between a police officer or a member of police staff who are conducting those firearms inquiries to engage with an individual and to establish that we are satisfied around matters of security, how the weapons are stored, etc. Once all of that process is complete, it comes back into a central administration team who initiated the whole process, and the certificate is issued from a central position. In a very potted way, that is the application and issue process within Scotland. I appreciate what you say about the changes as a result of air weapons being brought in the ambit of the process in recent times. What is generally the figures of applications that are made, that are then granted, and the geographical spread of that? In terms of the situation that we have now got in Scotland, the certificate holders across Scotland are 70,656. 50,696 of those are firearms or shotgun certificate holders, and 19,960 are air weapons. Those details are about a couple of months old, so those will have increased during that period of time. In terms of the numbers that we currently experience, the way that firearms and shotgun certificates manifest, and this is due to the implementation back in time in terms of the requirement for the certificate, is that we have a fluctuating demand. We have a three-year period where we have a gradual increase to a very high demand and then a two-year trough where demand is very low. The demand clearly fluctuates throughout that period. As an example for you in terms of what we are currently experiencing, we have about 150 applications per month in terms of firearms and shotguns and about 100 for air weapons. Those are for new grants. We have clearly a projected figure for renewals because we can put an accurate figure on those, because we know the numbers of existing firearms certificate holders. In terms of geographical spread, the significant numbers in terms of geography are in the north and northeast and also in Lothian and Scottish Borders division, so those are the heaviest in terms of the numbers of certificate holders. Is that pattern really changed at all over the years? No, that is very much consistent with what it was back in the legacy force situation, and part of that is due to the demographics of those areas. I appreciate that the air weapons component of the figures that you have given does not have comparable data going back any distance to firearms, shotguns and numbers. Again, what has been the trend of that over the past decade? It stayed fairly constant that there is a slight increase, but it is not an enormous increase. I mean, certainly at the point where the air weapons licensing came in, one of the points being made by those who had concerns about that was that, in a sense, if you had a process for air weapons licensing that was as bureaucratic as that for firearms shotguns, you may see people moving from air weapons to shotguns. Is there any indication of the figures that you have outlined that suggest that that has happened to any extent? No, what we are actually finding is that we have firearms and shotgun certificate holders who now possess air weapons as well, and we try to align the certification period of the expiry for all those certificates. I think that my experience of it is a slightly different demographic who have made applications for air weapons certificates. Now, that is a generalisation on my part, but that is the sense that I get. It is a different grouping of people, because, clearly, the possession of air weapons on many occasions is for a different purpose, and one of the stipulations within, certainly, the firearms and shotgun certificate process is that you need to provide good reason for the possession and use of them. Again, one of the other concerns at the time of the air weapons certification licensing scheme coming in was about that issue that you referred to before, where there are peaks in demand and that that was going to exacerbate that peak. Certainly, I know from a constituency level that there were time delays in turning around applications that you could almost predict. Is that managed to a great extent more efficiently perhaps than it had been before? Most definitely. The luxury that we have, I suppose, in terms of air weapon licensing, is the legislation that was created in Scotland. Clearly, in terms of the firearms and shotgun certification process, it is under the Firearms Act 1968 and the subsequent amendments, and the Home Office effectively dictates the guidance and the practice in terms of that. What we have managed to do in terms of air weapon licensing is that we have managed to stagger renewals. That has been a very busy and industrious period for us since the implementation of the legislation, but it has now put us in a position where we have effectively flatlined that demand. That is a position that we would love to get to in terms of firearms and shotguns, as well. Clearly, for resourcing purposes, having a demand that is effectively steady from now and moving forward allows you to provide a resource model that clearly does not have to accommodate those fluctuations. Is there any way—I mean, notwithstanding the point that you make about the genesis of the legislation—is there any way in which you can move towards more of a smoothed-out application process for firearms and shotguns? Not without Home Office approval to do it clearly, but there is a growing appetite every four-stown south, and I have regular contact with them. In England and Wales, the same situation arises when in this period of high demand followed by a period of low demand, and that presents the same challenges for everybody in terms of how you best resource that. Projecting forward to your high demand, because the vast majority of it is coming from nules, is fairly easy, but then it is what you do with those resources when you get into a period of low demand. How do you then efficiently utilise those resources? How do you provide best value in terms of those resources? That is the significant challenge. I think that we are going to come on to that sort of point. Mr Stewart, I think that you are next. Yes. Just to help us to understand about resources, I wonder if perhaps Drew Livingstone gave him the chance to participate here and could describe the roles undertaken by administration staff and how they fit with and differentiate from the inquiries officers who are uniformed? Yes. From what I could gather, the administrative function would deal with more the kind of processing of applications where the inquiry officers would actually go out into the field and attend addresses and check premises and ensure that the firearms would be checked and kept in facilities which were in accordance with legislation and would ensure that firearms could actually be stolen or acquired by other individuals and also ensure that the individuals with those weapons are fitting proper individuals to be holding those weapons. I thought I heard, and I may have misheard or chosen to mishear what the superintendent said, that there were some civilians made visits to assess. I am getting a nod. Is that the unison staff that are the administration staff? Do they also participate in that? No. Following the Cullen report in some parts of Scotland, we had firearms inquiry officers who were actually employed by certain specific police divisions, pre-merger, and that carried on into Police Scotland. What happened was that the business decided to review exactly how that work could be conducted and decided that they did not need as many civilian firearms inquiry officers until some of those individuals or posts were made redundant. They would compensate for that with a more flexible deployment model, which would mean that division police resources community officers would have to then fill that 10 per cent of their time would be spent on firearms inquiries. The administration staff that are involved in firearms during the two years when there appears to be a lower demand are doing other activities, one must logically assume. In particular, superintendent, how does the balance between those two sets of resources? In terms of numbers, the administrative provision that is entirely as described, which does the processing elements of the certification process, there are 30 administrators and there are three members of police staff coordinators, and they are based on a hub basis in different regions around about Scotland. At the time of the review of the structure, the first iteration and then the following iterations up to implementation of the new model in 2015, there was a reduction in member of police staff full-time firearms inquiry officers. That was adjusted to 14 in 2015. As Drew has said, that is supplemented now by police officers who are carrying out the inquiry part of it in their communities. You have indicated that the numbers of certificate holders are rising a bit. How are the costs, because part of the justification for the national police service was increased efficiency and improved outcomes through standardisation of approach? How is that working in this area? Is the national model delivering what it is expected to deliver? In terms of the clinical costs that were laid down in paper back in 2015 at the point of implementation, we were undoubtedly achieved because there was a removal. At that time, we had 33 full-time member of police staff civilian inquiry officer posts, and they were reduced to 14. In effect, that is how the calculation was done. We removed that number and we had a figure that came from that. That was what was presented as the savings. In reality, some of that work, clearly, as described, went over to—full intention at that time was for it to go over to community officers within communities in Scotland, because there was a natural logic in terms of that, and it was to allow flexibility. The intention was never that those police officers became full-time firearms inquiry officers and had or did exist in the legacy forces, so there were a number of full-time police officers or firearms inquiry officers. The intention was that they would be flexible in terms of their approach. The rationale behind that was to deal with that fluctuation that I described earlier. The number of full-time civilian firearms inquiry officers meant that there would be a surplus during the period of low demand. It was viewed at that time that the most efficient use of resource was to take the baseline figure, so the number that was required of civilian firearms inquiry officers for low demand and supplement that with police officers to deal with the increased demand during the periods of high demand. Daniel, I know that you were to come in next, but Margaret Scott has a question that follows on from that. It was on the inquiry officers and the fact that there had been police staff in the past. I noticed from the unison submission that the firearms licensing process that they are currently standing are not entirely effective and certainly not efficient. There is simply no good reason why the function of firearms inquiry officers should not be carried out by police staff. Could you elaborate on why it is not effective or efficient in your view as it stands? Prior to the structure of being implemented in 2015, we became aware through attendance at a divisional meeting. It would be a missive meeting to specify which policing division it was, but at a divisional level there was an intention from that division who were concerned about the removal of a number of police staff civilian firearms inquiry officers that they would be unable to cope with the demand. Prior to the structure being implemented, it was advertised for police officers to apply for full-time postings within the structure that was not presented in the initial business case. They then changed the name so that they would become firearms licensing coordinators and they would adopt a couple of different tasks. Primarily, that was so that it would not be seen as backfilling. That was not the picture right across Scotland, but it was certainly the picture in a couple of different local policing divisions, and we are aware that that is still happening. It has been backfilling on a permanent basis. In terms of cost-saving methods, you look at cost-saving, efficiency and effectiveness, and those have to be weighed up. However, if it was advertised as police officers, have you any figures to say that that was costing more than it was when it was previously done by police staff? We are uncertain. We do not have sight of that. We have raised challenges at a number of different levels within the organisation and the SPA. Prior to the business case being approved by the board, it was the 25th of August, I believe, or 27th of August. It was the day that Stephen House resigned, but it was certainly the day that the board was due to implement the structure. We had notified the board prior to that to make him aware of what was happening, that the structure was not as it was being advertised. It was not the structure that had been consulted with the staff who were affected. I notice that you have come to a considerable concern that no concern was expressed at that board member. The points that you raised were not looked at and that HMICS goes on to criticise very much the fact that the SPA seemed to have stood aside and done nothing to inquire, to look for more information or to ask how the process is working. If I could convene and ask Mr McGoughlin, HMICS also says that they would have expected Police Scotland to be reporting to the SPA of ways in which the model, as approved, has not been implemented. We are looking at the efficiency and effectiveness that seems to me to go to the core of whether police staff could quite easily have done that, in fact, perhaps more efficiently. The issue that was presented to the project team, which developed the current model, was very much about the fluctuating period. Just to explain in terms of the 30 administrative staff, what has happened during this period of low demand is that they have utilised that to effectively remove all of our backlog of paper records, of uploading old records on to the now national firearms IT system, etc. They have been utilised to a great degree of effect during this period of low demand. Could that have happened for full-time civilian firearm inquiry officers? Actually, there was a rigidity around their role profile at that time, which meant that it would have been very challenging and very difficult to find alternative roles or alternative functions for those individuals during a period of low demand. That is why they opted for the model of taking a baseline, which serviced the low period of demand and complementing that with police officers. The intention was never, and it has never stated in any of the documentation that was presented that there should be full time within that role, but it should be part of a flexible approach. The initial number that was put forward was 185 police officers to be trained, who went through a three-day course in firearms inquiries. The 185 was, as individual numbers, way above what was required, but it afforded that flexibility. That put against the geography of Scotland and the diversity of each of local policing divisions was considered the best number to start with. Clearly, from the HMICS report, that number has increased in terms of the number that has been trained. Again, in the documentation that was presented internally to the Government's regime within Police Scotland and the SBA, it suggested that that was actually a natural logic that you would increase the number of trained police officers because that increased the flexibility. On the flexibility point and the police staff point, Mr Livingstone, can you comment on that? From our perspective, we had a business case and a structure that was presented to the trade unions as part of meaningful consultation. In actual fact, they delivered a structure that was not meaningful because it did not bear any resemblance to what was actually implemented. That provides and presents its own challenges. If you are presented with something saying that we need to make X numbers of police staff redundant, you expect that that will be borne out in how the structure will relate to that in future, but it is not. You have just replaced them with police officers. It is certainly a matter of concern. I would have expected the SBA to be picking up on something. If I could comment on it and it is just a comment, I understand that its meeting as the SBA is a board meeting today. I would still have expected someone to be here answering the very serious concerns that have been raised about the issue. I will let others get in. First of all, I thank Dr Livingstone Unison for flagging the issue to us. It was a useful opportunity to do so. The key issue that seems to be at stake here and highlighted by the HMICS report is how the implementation of the new model has taken place as compared to the plan. The point that you just mentioned is that the plan was that 350 police officers would be trained. We now have 1,000 supported by 14 civilian staff, which is the critical issue. You just said that 1,000 was a natural result of the implementation of the plan. Why were the 350 figures used then, if that was not the natural expectation? No, I think that in reality 1,000 is way beyond the expectation. Initially it was 185, it went to 350, which was probably quite reasonable. The issue around the implementation comes from the point that there perhaps was not enough cognisance taken of geographical differences, and there perhaps was not enough autonomy provided around how the service is provided within the structure of local policing. I, for one, have responsibility for moving forward the recommendations within the HMICS report, certainly welcome the recommendation that outlines national standards, so service standards, should be defined and published. With the degree of localism and the focus of localism within Police Scotland moving forward, perhaps the best model, and it will be subject to review clearly, but perhaps the best model is allowing that autonomy at a local level to decide on how best that service can be delivered. I think that everybody would accept that, with the initial plan in 2013 and the iterations that came thereafter, it was very much a single model driven from the centre, but that is not the same as the current approach or culture within Police Scotland. So, as an organisation clearly, we have grown and we have matured during that period. I think that the focus on localism within 2026 takes us to a very good point in terms of how that service can be delivered in the most efficient and effective way of moving forward. At the point of implementation or agreement for implementation by the SPA, there was a review period that was placed on it, and it was subject or caveated that there should be, within a two-year period, a review conducted on the effectiveness of it. Now, I was not in post, but my understanding is that that was stalled because we knew that the HMICS inspection was coming. So, rather than start a review process internally, allow HMICS to carry out that inspection. What it clearly highlights is that we now need to look at demand. We need to look at demand nationally, we need to look at demand locally, and we need to develop a model that provides the most efficient and effective firearms licensing for Scotland, not just from the point of view of the public parts, but clearly from those customers who pay for that service as well. Just following up on two of the important points that you have just made around national standards and localisation, I will follow up on both of those. First of all, on standardisation, is that work to develop and implement national standards? Is that work under way? When will those standards be ready for roll-out? It is under way. In terms of a number of those recommendations, they are under way already. So, around about the performance framework, there is already a significant amount of work that is on going in terms of that, and the standards very much align to the performance framework. In terms of the standards, we have always had some in place, so the 16-week renewal period for renewals, of which we hit 99 per cent success in terms of those. We have internal targets that we aim for in terms of our business, but as HMICS has clearly highlighted, those should be published. As a customer within the service, you should understand the agreement that Police Scotland is entering into. If you are a new applicant, what can your expectation be? What is reasonable in terms of the turnaround of that application? If you are renewing or submitting a request for a variation, what is the reasonable time period that you should expect? I think that that degree of transparency is entirely achievable and is entirely appropriate given the nature of the service that we deliver. The work is already under way in terms of that. When will that work conclude? When do you expect to roll out? We have got 23 recommendations, and there are varying timescales in terms of the achievement of each one of those. I would have to say that the performance framework is moving along particularly well. Police Scotland is developing a framework for policing in terms of performance just now, and we have managed to benefit from the assistance of expertise that is in the force doing that just now. If everything goes according to that plan, we will have a performance framework within the next three to six months. I could publish standards tomorrow, but the reality of that is that until my performance framework is in place, I have no mechanism by which to gather the information that says that I am achieving or I am not achieving. More important for me is that if I am not achieving, why is the business not achieving that? What do we need to change in terms of that? On the point of local divisions, I welcome commitments to empower divisional commanders to apply policing policies in a way that is relevant to their local circumstances. That is very important. I understand one of the key issues here is that some local divisions have ended up creating essentially standing specialist units to look at firearms licensing. That is one of the key drivers behind the fact that we now have 1,000 officers that have been trained around 350. Is that correct? I think that clearly what we have across Scotland is very much a patchwork quilt in terms of how those inquiries are conducted. Some divisions have taken a smaller number of people who have become more focused and that has become a greater part of their role. Now, there are upsides to that in terms of once the skills have been acquired through the training course, then they are actually assessed in terms of their competency throughout a 12-month period, and that process is much easier because you are doing more. There is an upside to basing it on that way, but I suppose that flexibility is ultimately what this is about. It is not my role to prescribe to local policing how they do that going forward. Once we have actually got into the process of looking at that full demand and carrying out a review of how we deliver the service, and clearly within HMICS there is a recommendation for us to do that, to look at adequately, efficiently and appropriately resourcing firearms inquiries, because those are two very different entities. The administrative part of it is very much a function that is centralised and is most efficient in that way, and then the inquiry part, which involves engagement with service users, is the critical part in terms of how local policing delivers that. I think that the big variance in terms of how it has been implemented and just in terms of the sheer numbers would certainly point to a lack of planning or taking those things into account. Indeed, the HMICS report said that the new model was inadequately evidence and insufficiently consulted upon within Police Scotland and externally. I am just wondering whether you would agree with that point and what you are now doing differently in terms of developing new standards going forward. I think that there is an absolute recognition that the demand profile that was used in terms of developing a resource model was relatively basic in its nature. It looked at a linear function or a linear process and it more or less counted the hours equivalent to people in terms of how much it took to do each one of those. Firearms inquiries are far more complex in nature than that. There are peripheral issues that wrap around that linear process and some of that was not taken into account at the time. The new demand profile will have to be based around a properly completed and fully assessed demand profile. I absolutely believe that we will pull out far more and stronger evidence than was there at the first instance. First of all, why do you think that we have ended up so far away from the original model? Most importantly, on that point around consultation, what are Unison's thoughts about the level of consultation that happened but has that changed? Has that improved? Has that lesson been learned? On that particular issue, I think that it is no coincidence that this was one of the last structures that came forward under the Stephen House era within Police Scotland. When we started to see the business actually try to apply flexible deployment models, another such model was the removal of citations officers. Most of that work then passed to divisional policing and the divisional coordination unit would then have to resource that. The ethos was very similar in that police officers would be able to carry that out 10 per cent of their duties over such a period of time. That will equate to each officer conducting two inquiries a week and handing out citations to citations a week. The reality was that the figures that were presented were based on central Glasgow. Obviously, the geography there is somewhat different. You have a large number of commercial premises, so police officers would go in and hand out perhaps four citations to a variety of different people. The logic that was being applied was not suitable or applicable to the whole of Scotland, so we have a similar kind of issue within the fire arms licensing structure where it was based on very optimistic projections to levels of failure demand. If you consider citations, police staff can go to addresses and access them more readily because people who have citations out for them know that they are not going to be apprehended the minute they open the door to a police officer. Therefore, police staff can attend addresses and access them easier than police officers, because police officers are on the risk of being apprehended by them. The number of repeat journeys that police officers would then have to make to those addresses is factored in. In a way with fire arms inquiries, there are similar sorts of challenges regarding demand failure. One of the issues that people are making us aware of and our members are still operating within that structure is that there is a poor flow of information in terms of what applicants actually require to supply to them. An experienced police staff, fire arms inquiry officer, will know that the individual has to have their application and their photograph ready when they go out. We are having issues where police officers attend those addresses and that material is not ready for them, so the inquiries then take longer or they then have to make repeat journeys. We keep hearing that the business requires a flexible deployment model and the ability to flex resources and demand. One of the consequences of that is that structures then lack stability. One of the issues that we raise frequently is the level of transience of police officers within policing. If you do not have an officer that is going to serve as a community officer for 10, 15 or 20 years, they may decide to take up other opportunities within policing, which may see them redeployed. That then has consequences in terms of how staff then have to engage with those individuals internally but also to wider stakeholders also. I was going to say that a lot of what I was going to say has really been touched on, but I just wondered what your thoughts are on the on-going changes that have been made on the command profile performance network. Do you think that that is the performance framework, rather? Do you think that that is going to solve problems that were there at the outset? I think that some of the feedback that we are getting from our members is very constructive. Particularly issues around GP mandating and some of these national processes are very, very good and provide a solid platform that reduces risk. Our big concern is the level of transience and fluidity of officers within the organisation and whether that addresses people having the prerequisite skills, knowledge and experience and also consistency to engage with the wider public, particularly those licence holders. That was certainly an issue in a theme that came through in the HMICS report. Do you like to comment on that, Superintendent? Yes, as I have said, the numbers that we reached in terms of those trained were never envisaged to that level. It is not unique to firearms licensing, it is prevalent across many areas of policing where you have transience, so you have people who move on that are given training in terms of skills for one role and then move on. Some of that absolutely needs to happen because we need to develop our people, because ultimately they are our most important asset in those who serve communities. I think that going forward, as I have said, part of the action plan or the improvement plan that comes from the 23 recommendations is to look at, do we currently have the best model? Is that the most efficient and effective way to utilise our resources and to provide a service for the public? Most importantly, is that the best way by which to safeguard public safety? Ultimately, that is the principal priority in terms of the licensing programme. I do not have an absolute yes or no just now, but what I clearly would like to see and I will commit and invest time in terms of doing it is to ensure that that review goes wider than what happened previously because we have a degree of time on our hands. We start to go into a rising demand again at the start of 2020. We need to have that review done and we need to have the most efficient way to manage firearms licensing inquiries in place prior to us entering into that period of rising demand, because that takes us clearly back up to the peak, which is around about 2021, in terms of those inquiries and those renewals. Would it be right in saying that this time around you would collaborate more with Unison who felt the first time that they were sidelined? I would say, and I hope that Drew would agree that in 2018 we were a different service than we were in 2013-14. Absolutely, the programme of modernisation and the programme of change that is taking place in Police Scotland is incredibly well informed and consultations are at the heart of it. One thing that policing has gone public in terms of lessons learned is that perhaps we did not engage as much as we should have on many occasions, and that is not coming from me as a superintendent. I think that that is coming from my current chief constable who said that publicly. We have learned lessons in terms of our development. We are still relatively young in terms of that growth, but consultation is absolutely key. At the end of the day, that was the bedrock of policing in Scotland. We had a strong tradition of consultation in the Legacy Forces and the SCDA. Absolutely, we are now back in a position where it is at the heart of every conversation. Can I just quickly ask a term that has been used a couple of times, demand failure? What does that mean? Failure demand is where you cannot actually meet the expectations or the requirements to deliver what I hate to use the term customer, but certainly the people that you engage with, what they come to expect. That could be failure to act on what is specifically required. For instance, having to do the same sort of work repeatedly would be an example of demand failure. A term that is used quite consistently within C3 division is quite common there. I just played some demand failure by not calling Ben as I should have, prior to your self-honour, so I apologise for that. Ben, please. First of all, I would like to ask you whether setting up the dedicated units in terms of correspondence with members has led to any of the members leaving Police Scotland or being moved into other roles within the service? Yes, there are still individuals that are still operating within the service. Obviously, the Scottish Government has a commitment to no compulsory redundancy, which is very welcome. However, that has caused some confusion around whether individuals were indeed made redundant within the structure, at which point we say that it is not actually the individual, it is the post that has been made redundant. There are still individuals working within the organisation and there were individuals that took the option of voluntary redundancy and voluntary early retirement. However, there are still people within the organisation in other roles that are entirely suited for those who are not for us to argue that. Do you please comment on that point at all? Yes, redeployment and that was the term that was applied during that period of time. There were people who were moved out of posts that fell as a consequence of restructuring and change. The numbers that I gave were accurate. We had 33 full-time posts, but 34 members of police staff who were undertaking firearms enquiries on a full-time basis, and that was reduced to 14. Some of them took voluntary redundancy early retirement when that was available during the phases of that and others moved on to other positions. However, I will reiterate the point that when that was happening, it was not to be replaced full-time by police officers. This was a flexible model that was being introduced at that time to allow police officers to do community duties and do firearms enquiries, but not to do one or the exclusion of the other. Mr Lewis, you are shaking your head. That is not strictly true. There were email correspondence that was sent out, which was basically looking for officers to work full-time as firearms licencing co-ordinators. That happened in July 2015, and those individuals are still in post. The posts were advertised looking for officers to take up those posts, and initially it was advertised as between the hours of 8.04. They were effectively carrying out the role of the firearms inquiry officers. If you were to consider it in the scheme of talking about a job evaluation scheme and whether those roles were perhaps 80 per cent of the duty that those firearms inquiry officers were carrying out, you would have to say absolutely, and they are still within that structure carrying out that role. Yes, there is a structure that has police officers. At the time of the implementation of that model, we already had in place what were called divisional co-ordination units in all of the local policing divisions. Those divisional co-ordination units undertook the responsibilities for the administration or the flow of information and inquiries and tasks in relation to firearms licencing. That is absolutely right within the governance structure. Local policing has the responsibility for the inquiries in their geographical areas. Those jobs were absolutely advertised, but they were not advertised to do firearms inquiries. They were advertised to do co-ordination roles within divisional co-ordination units, and they are still in existence. Some of those inspectors and sergeants who operate within those units are decision makers. Remember that the decisions taken to grant at the divisional level are done by chain inspectors and some renewals are done by inspectors. Those were the roles that they were undertaking, but they had a number of other roles or functions to fulfil as well. Those were not uniquely the roles to do firearms licencing co-ordination. Just moving on to the review of firearms licencing, which is a state that you are going to undertake in due course. Are there any more details of that review that you can provide, particularly the timetable to complete it? No, because that clearly has to go through our internal governance process first. It is on the improvement plan to do, and I have projected the date for completion to allow us to implement it before we can go into that period of peak demanding in. Clearly, we are an organisation that has a large number of projects and programmes running just now as part of change and transformation. I need to bid to find my slot within that and provide the strong business case to get the resource to conduct that review with the skillsets that are required to do that. I suggest that the convener may agree that it would be good to keep the committee informed and, if you could undertake, to do that in terms of the review. Yes, absolutely. I am entirely happy to do that. There will be progress reporting in terms of the 23 recommendations. I am happy to undertake that part and parcel of that. I am happy to undertake that. I have a few questions. With regard to the last discussion, I thought that there was a lot of similar ground to previous discussions that we have had on the committee here with, for instance, custody suites and arrangements. I appreciate that it is not your own decision that has taken those decisions, but it seems to stem from the fact that police officers cannot be made redundant, but police support staff were seen as being capable of being made redundant or whatever euphemism would be used for that term, given the non-redundancy policy. However, it is important that we move on. Can I ask about the localism and decision making? I am heartened to hear that. It would seem to me that a central dictate about a format is inappropriate to declare an interest as a former police officer who served initially in this city, but for 27 years in the Highlands and Islands, where I have to say that I did undertake firearms inquiries, not after a three-day course as well, I may tell you. However, the discretion that is afforded there would seem to benefit to me, and I certainly do not suppose that Mr Lumison is suggesting that we would deploy someone, for instance, to barra from the mainland to undertake firearms inquiries when there are two officers there who could be trained. That would seem to be that it is going to be a mixed staffing of the resource. Is that the correct position? I think that my view is very much about localism and its truest form. You are absolutely right in terms of how you have picked up that position about the challenges of geography, and absolutely one size undoubtedly does not fit all here. I think that that is the importance of having a service-level agreement that users understand and then standards that local policing buy into in terms of delivery on. How that is achieved is absolutely down to the geography, the diversity and the challenging nature of each of those local policing areas. I think that that is the only effective way to deliver a service is through the provision of that autonomy back to local policing commanders. Mr Lumison, would you have a view that there will be a requirement for police officers to be used in some area? Absolutely. We were not hiding from the fact that it is not suitable for all areas. Certainly from discussions that we had within the branch about processes within the former northern area, it did not necessarily make logical sense that you would actually permanently station a member of police staff there. Certainly in larger geographies, I believe that. However, where you have firearms inquiry officers who are police staff that deal with a large number of inquiries but could make it from one side of the division to the other, and back again, whilst carrying out a number of inquiries, why not use them? It is a cheaper alternative. It offers your consistency, stability. We were always against the one-size-fits-all preset that was put forward. For the avoidance of any doubt, I was not suggesting, for instance, in the area that I, like the Highlands and Islands, should not have police support staff. I think that we need to maximise the use of police officers for something that requires police powers rather than others. Two further issues, please. This is about when someone chooses not to renew their licence and the monitoring of what happens to the weapons. Can you give us a brief outline of that, please? Perhaps more importantly than that, issues around revocation of licence connected with behavioural. We have a very robust process in terms of monitoring. I think that that has increased significantly and continues to be a strong focus for us. The GP process, which I think is an example of how it has been implemented in Scotland, through conversations with colleagues down south, is the envy of many other forces. It is an example of our commitment to ensuring that public safety is paramount and that we monitor all elements of a certificate holder's behaviour and a certificate holder's continuing suitability to possess firearm, shotguns or air weapons. In terms of revocations, yes, we have a number every single year as a consequence of the actions of existing certificate holders or as a consequence of concerns raised by GPs and that is a positive indicator in terms of how that engagement has been carried out. It is an on-going process. We introduced a new medium by which local policing officers could raise concerns and report on information in terms of incidents that were attended when a certificate holder was present, not necessarily as a culprit, but potentially even just as a victim, but where situations perhaps did not best sit with the continuing possession of those firearms. What we will routinely do is work with the certificate holder to find a resolution in the short term, so we will have weapons removed and, on the vast majority of cases that we do, I have to say that the vast majority of cases is done with the co-operation of the certificate holder. They will either be taken to a police station but, ideally, they will go with agreement to register firearms dealer and they will be stored there until such time is that suitability is reconsidered. Then, clearly following revocation, if the decision for revocation is taken and that is a decision taken centrally by my team, then the individual has a right to appeal and it goes through a judicial process thereafter. Can I ask one point? I am very low to use the ICT or bring it into discussions, but are you content that your systems are robust enough to know that if someone were engaged in, I don't know, disorder or minor violence, somewhere else that it would become apparent to Police Scotland that they are a firearms certificate holder? The one issue that has been highlighted in the ICS report is that we have a storm, which is our command and control system, which effectively manages all our incidents, our resource attendants, etc. Then we have Shogun, which is our firearms licensing system, and currently there is no interface between the two. That is one of the recommendations that came out. Again, we have had early discussions between national systems and Shogun, which were developed by a private software developer in terms of how we can create that interface. Effectively, what that would do is then flag before the officers attend and address that there is a certificate holder or firearms present within that address. I think that absolutely when we get to that point, and I hope that we do, that will again increase resilience and robustness around that process. However, I am entirely satisfied just now that we have seen a significant increase in the number of concern reports that are coming in to us. That is not because the behaviour of certificate holders has dramatically changed. That is because our ability to monitor and receive information has been enhanced. I think that the fact that we have a national IT system where we can see wherever we are in the country the details around that certificate holder absolutely has assisted us in terms of that. Okay, that is reassuring. Liam Kerr, on that point, at the moment, is there a kind of manual work around that exists, that is part of the processes or procedures that officers would go through? How does that work in the absence of the integration between those two? There is no manual work around, unfortunately. What it would require is that if an individual controller either had knowledge already of a certificate holder or firearms being present, or that there was some other information that might lead to that being a concern, then clearly they have access to our firearms IT system and they can make the inquiry on that system. However, it would not be part of the triage process to access Shogun in the way that you have suggested in order to confirm what you already suspected or knew, or to inform you as to suggest? Not unless there is something within the nature of the incident or the information that is forthcoming at the outset of that that would indicate that that is a relevant inquiry to make. However, it is not routine for every single incident to result in an inquiry being made on the Shogun system. Mark Ruskell, if I could just return to the business case, I know that Unison had concerns that this did not, in fact, reflect how the firearms licensing structure would function in reality. Now, today we have established that some of the roles for police staff are now being backfilled by police officers. Who can give me the figures, then, of the implications of that? Is this something that the SPA should have been on top of and have the figures for? Or do Police Scotland have that, or Unison? Where would we get these? I would assume that Police Scotland would have to monitor exactly what the costs are. So, in terms of how has the position changed in similar implementation of the model in 2015, in terms of the number of police staff who are conducting firearms inquiries, we have 13 full-time, we had 14 in 2015. With respect, you have given me figures in terms of personnel, what does that equate to in financial terms? If I understand you correctly, Mr Livingstone, those police staff posts would come at not the same cost, a lower cost perhaps, in posts than replacing it with backfilling of full-time police officers. So, the police officer costs were fixed costs because of the establishment number that we have in policing. What I said was that the figures that were presented back in 2014-15 were fairly clinical in terms of what they did. What they did was to reduce the number of police staff full-time firearms inquiry officers from the original number of 33 full-time posts down to 14. What they said was that that equated to a saving and it was £653,317. That position of the 14 has only been reduced by one and that was through natural wastage. We have not reduced that number of 14 any further. But there are more full-time police officers doing roles, which were properly covered by police staff before. Is there a cost analysis? There are more full-time police officers trained. The demand has not changed, but in a period of low demand. There are some police officers who are carrying out firearms inquiries just now, but the number of trained police officers to carry those out are not all doing firearms inquiries. I would be very, and I think that the committee would appreciate some facts and figures on this because it seems to me that there is a little bit of a disconnect that perhaps I am not fully appreciating it if it was spelled out to see in business case terms how they had equated and worked out in practice. I think that that would be helpful. Mr Livingstone, could you help me out of here? In one particular division, I am aware of three officers who are carrying out the role full-time. That would have been a police staff person that would have done that. There were four members of police staff who were previously carrying out that function, and that was supplemented by police officers and other firearms inquiry officers. I think that that goes to the heart of it. This was a savings exercise. That was one objective, a very main objective. If that has not equated out as it has worked in practice, it would be good to know that. Again, the SPA should be here with the facts and figures at their fingertips, because it was them or that organisation that was supposed to be monitoring the governance and how that was operating in practice. Again, I say, convener, that they really should have been here. I think that perhaps people listening in have sent a written submission. It is not the most compelling piece of information that I have read, but we did have it. I wonder if there are, in the previous time, relative figures for the cost of operating the firearm system at various points—perhaps pre-13 and 14—and the personnel that were engaged in that. Perhaps something as simple as given was the cost of the operation. I appreciate that the operation has expanded with the addition of air weaponry. If some figures of that nature and the personnel involved would be helpful if that could be provided to the committee, thank you very much. Likewise, if you wish to make a submission on specifics of that, Mr Lamuxton, you are welcome. Mr Lamuxton, I thank you very much for attending. That has been very helpful. We are now moving into private session.