 Good morning and can I apologise for the slight delay in the start of this meeting this morning, which is the 13th meeting of the Standards Procedures and Public Appointments Committee in 2022. I note that we have apologies from Edward Mountain MSP, but in this place today we are joined by Sue Webber MSP. Morning Sue. Agender item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Felly, os ydych yn gweithio bod Ymgyrch yn 5, 6 a 7 yn cynny'n gwybod i'r cyflwyno. Mae yw'r ffordd o gydag o'r peth o gydag o'r cyflwyno llwyllus, ond mae'r ddim yn gwybod o'r peth o gydag o'r prysgoreddau a'r cyflwyno a'r rhannu o'r gwybod o'r cyflwyno o'r llwyno o'r cyflwyno o'r rhannu o'r cyflwyno o'r gwybod i'r cyflwyno o'r cyflwyno o'r Gwylliant. Os ydych yn gweithio bod yna'n gweithio? Mae'n gweithio. Items 2 a 3, we are going to postpone to a future meeting, Time to be Agreed, which takes us to agenda item 4 on the future parliamentary procedures and practices. I welcome to this evidence session. Artemis Panner, the national co-ordinator for Scottish rural action, Bill Scott, senior policy adviser for Inclusion Scotland, Charis Scott, promotion engagement manager with Christians Against Poverty and Mari Wiley, chief officer of the Highland 3rd sector interface and TSI Scotland, being the body of charities that support the 3rd sector across Scotland. Those witnesses are joining us online. Good morning. Here in committee this morning, we have Liam Falley, former or now former MSYP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, but also the former vice chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament and also Kimberly Somerside, policy engagement officer for Voluntary Health Scotland. I welcome you all this morning. For those who are joining us online, I remind you to press an R in the chat function on the blue jeans if you would like to come in on any of the issues. I am hoping that this can be in the form of a round table where we can get some conversation and discussion through me so that you can help with the report that we are in the process of preparing. I am going to kick off, and I will probably kick off if I may, with you, Artemis, and work through those witnesses who are joining us online before inviting those in the room to contribute, to ask, to what extent you normally engage with the Parliament and how has it been different since Covid? The enormous question about what we have been through in the last 18 months and how that has affected your interactions with the Parliament. That is with regard to the frequency of engagement on issues, who it was that you engaged with, committees or otherwise, and also the ways that those engagements happened. Good morning, Artemis. Good morning, Martin. Good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for this opportunity. My organisation, Scottish Rural Action, acts like a platform to connect our members to decision makers in government at all levels, so local, Scottish, UK, European. Our members are individuals, many with lived expertise of intersectional issues, and we also have members who are organisations, development trusts, businesses, second-tier, all with an interest in rural and island affairs. As I said, we are a platform between our members and those in power. Members normally engage a lot with the Scottish Parliament and through all available mechanisms, including petitions, briefing to MSPs, committee appearances, prosperity groups and activities that are facilitated through your in-house participation and communities team. Since Covid, as an organisation, we have been looking at and we feel that it is important to examine three aspects of parliamentary proceedings. The first aspect is in relation to the number and types of participation entry points, so, as the Parliament website says, how do you get involved in Parliament? In that respect, we have found that most participation entry points remain about the same, so petitions, electronic briefings for MSPs, committee proceedings and apologies, I am looking away at them. I am just checking my notes here. Online consultations, cross-party groups, they all remain at similar levels. What we have found is that many publics fell off your radar and we would strongly urge the committee to examine the potential positive impact of them in the context of your current inquiry. On a very positive note, we found that entry points and participation opportunities that are facilitated through your participation and communities team have increased. The things such as virtual site visit, briefings for your committee members, focus group consultations and things like that. Those are invaluable and should be built on. That is the first aspect in relation to the ways that you get involved in Parliament. The second aspect is accessibility. You have entry points, but are they more accessible because of Covid or less accessible? From a rural and island geography perspective, most of those entry points became more accessible due to the move to online proceedings. That is interesting to us, because although hybrid approaches were used in committees before and cross-party groups and pre-existed Covid, it is the normalisation of online proceedings that has helped. Before, people would think that it is not socially acceptable to not turn up to Parliament in person and would make a choice accordingly. Normalising online has made online participation a lot easier and has probably hastened some technological advances that make those experiences a lot better like today. Clearly, there are still a lot of barriers that are generated in this process, so barriers for our members are in relation to those who do not have good broadband access or IT skills or technology in their home, those who are living with caring responsibilities or with a disability. We need to talk about the level support and flexibility for those members of Scottish Rural Action and also members of the public. Very quickly, the third aspect that I think is interesting to us— Sorry, Artemis. My apologies for speaking across you. It is certainly the intention of the committee to look into those aspects later on at this round table discussion. It was really just to capture your experience over the last 18 months or so. I had a question that went in my mind and it has completely slipped out on something you said. There we are, my deepest apologies. If it is all right, Artemis, I may welcome back to you on that when it comes back into my adult brain. No problem. Bill Scott could ask you for the same with respect to your experiences from Inclusion Scotland's point of view over the last 18 months. Very, very similar to Artemis's point of view on this. In many ways, the move to online has persisted disabled people in participating in parliamentary business and contributing evidence to committees. For disabled people, particularly in rural areas, the journey to Parliament could be so energy sapping that they just would not even consider it, even if accommodation was provided and things like that, or whether social care needs are really high. Again, coming to Parliament was quite a difficult and strenuous experience. It has opened up participation to a whole range of disabled people who otherwise would not be able to take part. With the move back to face-to-face meetings, there is quite a large proportion of disabled people who are not online. The option of appearing in person is still good for them, because they would not otherwise be able to take part. I am probably in the Parliament every other week normally, and I think that I have not been in the Parliament on business now for over two years. I will be attending for the first time next week at a committee session, but I think that this has been a really good experience online. I think that tech has worked generally very well. What I think we miss a wee bit is the informal chats with MSPs when you are visiting one MSP or coming in to give evidence to a committee. Quite often there is a chance of bumping into somebody in the cafeteria or on your way to and from a meeting, and it is missing those opportunities. When you build up relationships with MSPs and parliamentary staff, that is what has been missing from the online experience. That is very helpful, Bill. Thank you. Charis, what comments would you have about the experiences of the last 18 months? Yes. For us at Cattle, we provide debt advice. We have a network of debt centres across Scotland, so we work with people predominantly that have a low income across Scotland. Before the pandemic, we did not have many opportunities in the Parliament. We would take part in consultations and work with local MSPs where we had debt centres to raise awareness and have referral processes. However, the pandemic has opened a lot of opportunities to work with Parliament. There are probably a couple of reasons for that. Partly, the issue of poverty and debt has become more in the public awareness and radar over the past couple of years because of our collective experience and an openness to the input of faith groups in the work recognition that they are doing across Scotland at this time. Over the past couple of years, we have had the opportunity to take part in work with the Committee for Social Justice and Social Security, particularly on their low income and debt problems inquiry. We have done that both from a perspective of our experience and expertise, but also in facilitating experts by experience to take part in those kind of sessions as well, and then in our involvement with the cross-party group on poverty. That has opened up having the hybrid options, as has been a real positive experience on the whole. There are still issues that others have highlighted around barriers, but it has opened up the opportunity for people, regardless of location or caring responsibilities, to take part in Parliament where they would not have previously. Thank you, chair. That is very interesting. If I can come back, do you feel—I do not know whether you can answer that in a sense or whether you are not—about those access, but do you feel that it is more your Parliament over the past 18 months because of that access to a wider group of MSPs than perhaps your experience before that? I think that it is certainly heading that way. I think that, certainly for the people that we have worked with that have taken part in expert by experience sessions, that is definitely a growing feeling for them of feeling heard and feeling valued in their experience and being able to make a difference in the desire that they do not want anyone else to experience what they have. They have been motivated to take part, and they have felt really valued by that experience. Thank you for that. If I can turn to you, Mari, coming probably from as far afield as anyone, how has the last 18 months of the experience been for you with that interaction? I thank you for including the TSIs on that today. I am pulling significantly from my own experience based up in Highland, but bearing in mind the wider experience across the network itself. In a lot of respects, in terms of the specific issue, the experience has been quite positive. In the past, the perception that I would say from our more remote and rural colleagues across Scotland is that we have tended to draw on individuals in the central belt to participate in issues that are connected to the Parliament or an engagement more broadly with MSPs around specific issues. I think that what we are starting to see now is that people are not having to make decisions about trying to evaluate the value to some extent of attending the Parliament. For example, if I was not doing this digitally, I would have had to come down last night, I would have been at the meeting this morning and then I would have had to travel back, and that represents a significant amount of time away from other activities. We have to make an evaluated choice. I could not agree more with Artemis's point about the normalisation, because people in Highland, people in remote and rural communities in our islands are not unaware of the fact that we could join them in previous to March 2020 digitally, but we had to make an evaluated choice about whether or not that participation was going to really work because we sat at meetings where it hadn't, but what is socially acceptable now is very different to what it was then, and that has been a really positive change to it. Overall, what we are saying is that people are able to participate in a much more normalised way for more remote and rural communities. We are saying that the ability to engage people who may be closer to subject to experts rather than trying to channel that expertise through other individuals who are closer. All in all, I would say that it has been really positive. One of the things that I would point out is that we have had some really good engagement from parliamentary outreach, but the fact that we can do that digitally, so it is not just about us participating into the Parliament digitally, but with the Parliament participating with us digitally, I do not feel as guilty in asking an individual whether that is an MSP or whether it is a member of parliamentary staff to participate with us, because I am not asking them to make a six and a half, seven-hour journey, and potentially a normalised way. Actually, it goes both ways, and it is nice not to feel so guilty in asking them to participate for all the while as well. Overall, it has been quite positive, acknowledging all the barriers that I know that we are going to and that others have already acknowledged as well. Thank you. You should never feel guilty about demanding your MSPs to do work. Do not worry about that. Thank you. Kimbley, if I could come to you. Experience over the last 18 months? Yes. Just by way of background to Vaughan's Health Scotland, we are an intermediary organisation and network for health charities and other voluntary organisations working in health. The core purpose of our organisation is to tackle health inequalities and improve the health and wellbeing of the population. By nature of that purpose, we engage with the Parliament over a number of portfolios, but primarily the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. For the past seven years, we have been secretary at the Health and Equality's CPG. The Health and Equality's CPG is definitely what we engage with in Parliament in the most. That has moved entirely online, as I am sure you are aware. We largely see the same number of people attending, but we do not have to cap attendance, which is a big thing in the past that would have had to be capped. We do not have to cap any more. We are getting about the same number of MSPs attending as well. It is hard to engage that number of people. If you are talking about 60 attendees online, it is not the same experience as it was in person, but, as other witnesses have already said, that engagement is far wider now. We are managing to reach people who we were not before. The one thing with the Health and Equality's CPG that has been missed is the annual reception. That played a really big part in creating networks and communities. Not just with MSPs, but within people working to tackle health inequalities played a big networking role. The other big area of engagement with us is the participations and community team. I have so many great things to say about them that they really are fabulous. Their role cannot be understated in engaging Parliament with communities and managing to get communities into Parliament. We link up our member organisations and other stakeholders with Parliament, but they also provide learning for our members and our health policy officers network on how to engage with Parliament. They really are great. Beyond that, it is mainly committee clerks and engaging with committees. That is very helpful. Thank you very much. First part of the question, as the democratic elected voice of Scotland is young people, it is a natural link to link up with the Parliament that is the democratic elected voice of people. That has been really strong over the past 20 odd years and over Covid it has improved as well. There has been a bit of a common theme that the participation in communities team is absolutely superb. They have a vital role in the Parliament and they are very effective at taking feedback, which is really important, on what is not going right and where we can improve. They have actioned that feedback and they have probably showed quite a lot of good examples of youth participation in coming back and saying that this is what we have done to change things throughout our experience as well. We have a partnership agreement with the Scottish Parliament that the Presiding Officer has again signed, which is of course grateful to him again. That has improved the relationship between the SIP and the Scottish Parliament and over Covid when we are all online. That was clear because there was an additional effort made to get times that suited young people. That is the important part. I know that we will come on to it later, but the biggest issue is definitely to do with the timings of Parliament and how it will operate during working hours, if you will, and young people will probably be or should be in school or college or work etc. That is a massive barrier there as well. We are moving towards the legally binding incorporation of the UNCRC, and we are getting there slowly, which is fantastic to hear. We are getting to that point. I think that you said earlier that it is your Parliament, and I think that we are certainly getting to that point, and young people are certainly getting to that point, and they feel that this is a Parliament that represents them. There is a lot more work to do, and I am glad that this sort of inquiry is happening. I am going to invite various members of the committee to ask questions. As all conveners say, across the whole world I have now discovered, not everyone needs to answer the questions, but if you have something that you would like to contribute, please, as I say, put R in the chat function or indicate through me. Tess, could I turn to you please? This question, I will ask it first, and then I will invite each person to say something if they would like. The question is, what in your view are the positives about the changes the Parliament has made to its working practices? I know we have covered, if we are to miss first, you talked about normalising the online experience, but a negative about broadband, but if you could just think about a few of the positives from these working practices. I think that an enormous positive is something that was mentioned by Mary and others on this committee today. That is a step culture change towards recognition of civil society organisations as partners to Parliament in facilitating public engagement rather than a replacement for public engagement, if that makes sense. Our job as civil society organisations is not to speak on behalf of people with the real expertise, it is to give platform to people with lived expertise. That understanding, which the Scottish Parliament participation in communities has, is that you need to do that extra step, that extra effort to ensure meaningful participation in working with civil society organisations. That has been quite remarkable over the past two years, and it has been facilitated by a move to online models of delivery. Bill, would you like to go next? Sure. Very similar. Disabled people have been participating in the Parliament's activities possibly more than before the pandemic, and that is quite surprising, given the vulnerability of so many disabled people to Covid. Otherwise, they would have been trapped at home in many situations that were isolating because they were vulnerable in the first year, and they were able to take part in the Parliament's proceedings. I add our voice to the other organisations. The participation team in the Parliament has been excellent. We have done a good job in supporting people who have taken part in evidence sessions with committees. That is something that needs to continue, because it is that before and after support that is really important to people. They want to feel that, by giving evidence, they have made a difference. I know that the working committees are really important in influencing what the Government does and does not do. Knowing that a committee has listened to them and taken on board their views, it is there in the committee report and in the questions to ministers that the committee puts to ministers when they give evidence, all that is valuable in demonstrating to people that they have a genuine voice. Like the other organisations, the real experts of those will live to experience. We have been trying to get that message across for years, and I think that the Parliament has taken it on. We value the voices of those at the sharp end of policies and Government action or inaction. It has been a very positive experience in those terms. Long may it continue, and I hope that Parliament continues to involve people the way it has over the course of the pandemic. You talked about being a real positive experience and the option to appear in person, so the hybrid. There are a couple of things that we would highlight as positive experiences that we have had. I think that we have seen a real shift in an openness, like Bill was saying, to the experience of those who have lived experience and their expertise in the area. We really want to highlight the work of the committee for social justice and social security, and the recent inquiry into low-income and debt problems is good practice. They have worked very closely with us, including Scotland, to make sure that the experience of those experts is being a positive one. It has been accessible for them the flexibility in terms of video platform. We have been using Zoom for that to make it more accessible for people, which has been a real positive thing. The other thing for us would be recognising that experience in terms of paying those experts by experience. We would highlight that as a real positive step forward. Our clients have taken part in that and have been paid for their time as a recognition of their expertise. That is a real positive step that we would love to see and advocate for continuing as we go forward. I am having that kind of flexibility. For us, working to find ways to overcome the barriers to digital exclusion, there is definitely more that we can do on that, but we are seeing positive steps in the right direction for that as well by working with us to make sure that our clients have access to digital equipment, broadband and things like that in order to be able to take part in different evidence sessions. A couple of points of consciousness of time. As I said, a lot of it is very positive. It is the idea that I feel that the department is more accessible, based on my experiences but also on the feedback that we are getting. It is more important than that. I think that the impression that I am getting from the people who are now participating in parliamentary inquiries in events such as this is that you are getting a much broader input. You are not necessarily seeing as many of the well-count faces as in the information that is coming through from the groups that Artemis described as the civil society. The channels for information flowing into the Parliament are much broader, probably much more accessible. They are certainly taking account of a wider spectrum of views, which is all positive. That is probably at least a more inclusive approach. The only thing that I would highlight is Bill's point about the lack of ability to build the relationships up. When you all came into the room today, I suspect that you probably spoke to one another—I hope that you did—and that you exchanged. We do not necessarily get that opportunity if we participate digitally. My next question is going to be on the negative, so I have captured those two conversations before and after the meetings. Kimberleith, if you could highlight some of the positives, please. Yes. I largely agree with everything that has been said so far. I will not labour the points about how much it increases the third sector's involvement in Parliament, because as resources are stretched, it is far less resource-intensive to engage online and take an hour out of your day, as opposed to the entire day. From that point of view, we are finding that our members are enjoying the ability to give evidence online. From a capacity point of view, as an organisation, we organise a lot of events in collaboration primarily with the participation and communities team. To give you a real example, for the Health and Equalities Inquiry, which has just kicked off, we were able to participate and organise four events over the course of two days online. Sue was at those events and had multiple breakout rooms. Our organisation's breakout room was primarily other organisations working in health, but the other organisations that they collaborated with were bringing experts by experience and lived experience into the room. That was a really vast project over the Friday and Monday, and it would not have been—I do not think that we would have reached that many people had it all been in person. That is a really good example, because of the scale of it and because we were in breakout sessions. Online works really well. There were not the barriers that you face, sometimes with CPGs being huge, big, vast rooms that not everyone can contribute to. That really increased our capacity to be able to contribute to those events. Much wider engagement and capacity and resources would definitely be the main things for us. Great. Thank you, Kimberley. I am just—the word that Mary used was almost digital equals participation, subject to people having the broadband, etc. Thank you, Kimberley. I will not labour any points, as I know every convener in the world is a demon on the clock. In terms of what went well, is the disruption to young people's lives? I know what has been touched on, but it is really important to solidify that. I am currently interpreting my education to give you evidence today, so there we go. It does give out a really key—and obviously, as an organisation, we always hand forward young people with the experience that they have, whatever the inquiry be or whatever the session is. It is important that they hand directly from young people, but that requires disruption from school, work and college, plus all the travel time that has been mentioned about the rural aspect. That was halved by the digital element. We have had people giving evidence in one of their back-of-their-school classrooms, for example. It was a slight disruption, but it is a significant improvement. That links on to the thanks. There have been more sessions over Covid directly for young people, because that is really important as well. It is only young people—a couple of members from a committee on a team's call—provided that all young people have that digital access, that that is a significant improvement on previous experience, where you have to come into a room like this, which no offence is a wee bit intimidating for some young people. It is not a personal dig, but lights, cameras, big tables and things like that. That is a significant element. If you think about it, if you pop on to an online call, you are just going on, you are on your go, you have a chat and away you go again—a totally different experience. That also comes with support. You can sit on a team's call and, if you are panicking or whatever, you can have a text with someone who can support you as well. That is a really key element, because people might freeze in that environment, so it is really important. There is also the Your Views platform that the Scottish Parliament has. That is another vast—I think that it is brilliant, because young people can just quickly pop on a view. It is as simple as that. It is bringing that connection closer to young people and their Parliament, and they do not have to come into a big session, unless they do not have to write big long-screwds of information and pop a couple of sentences on a platform. That is fantastic. That is quite a lot of good experiences. Great. Thanks, Liam. In fact, we will go backwards in terms of—sorry. To pick up on Liam's very astute point about time, if it is all right with you, Tess, can I get Bob just to introduce his question, which is also slightly of where yours was going, and might allow us to try and identify possibly some solutions? Bob? Thank you and good morning, everyone. I have a very brief context to it. There is a consensus that, during Covid, there have been great opportunities taken to improve equalities, but every measure that is taken can, in itself, inadvertently create some forms of inequality. We have heard some of that already about remote is great, but if your device is not as good as someone else's or your broadband connection is not as good, so have there been any equalities issues specifically about the change? Things can get better, but inequalities between different groups can still increase. Do you want me to roll my second question together, Martin? Rather than just putting on record what the inequalities might be, any thoughts that you might have to addressing them? One example is that inequality could be on broadband. Could the Parliament give a book a specific suite where there is good internet connectivity close to where the person lives to make sure that there is no issue with connectivity or house space? Final thing, Martin—just in case I do not come back in on this—what I was thinking about and I think it was Artemis and Bill both mentioned this. If you have caring responsibilities, it is great that you can do that from home, or if you have a remote and rural that you can do that from home, but it should not cut off your ability to come to the Parliament, so could there be some inequalities around? Well, it is difficult to get you to Parliament, just you go remote and therefore there is no inequality that emerges in relation to that, and how can we address some of that stuff? Perhaps simply to a name-checked Artemis and Bill, we should give them the opportunity to come in, convener. Bill, do you want to go first? I think that you are right. I did touch on one of the inequalities issues that continues to exist, is that there are a fair proportion of disabled people who are not connected to the internet at all, about 30 per cent, about one in three, have no internet connection at home. To a large extent, during the pandemic, they have been excluded from participation, so we do want to see a hybrid model going forward, so that there is the option, at least for those people who do not have an internet connection to come into the Parliament if that is what they want to do. However, I think that your suggestion is that, if there were suites available, local third sector partners like GSIs could provide space where people could come in, get a good internet connection and give their evidence still not far from home to Parliament. That would also be a good option, although in that situation, if you do not have an internet connection, you might be unfamiliar with using a computer, so you might need some support in doing so, or you might have a physical or sensory impairment that makes it difficult. Those issues need to be taken into account. There are still a proportion of disabled people and those with long-term health issues who will only be able to participate remotely, which is another reason why the hybrid forum should go forward. I have ex-colleagues who are still isolating at home, because if they contracted Covid, it would still be life-threatening because of their compromised immune system. There is definitely a need for a hybrid model to continue to take those equality issues for disabled people, but many older people find using the internet difficult. Getting back to building relations, I think that the opportunity to meet somebody in person, an MSP, represents either your area or an issue that you are particularly interested in. Being able to do that face-to-face, that opportunity should still exist. I think that the Parliament has always been much more open than Westminster, which I am also familiar with. I think that it is built on that during the pandemic. I hope that openness continues. I take on board what Liam Kerr said. Committee rooms can be intimidating for people the first time they see them, but what I often find when people come into the Parliament with myself and other policy team members from Inclusion Scotland is that they find a place very welcoming and open. I am looking forward to being able to continue to bring people to Parliament as well and to see the place where the decisions are made that affect their lives. I think that the Parliament has been good about being open in the past, and I think that online provides more access than there was before. It is a very positive development. I know that Mari wants to come in, but Artemis, would you like to come in, since you have a mention in the question? I agree with everything that Bill said. We need to offer people choice and financial resources if they want to come to Parliament in person and not create a tiered approach. That would be a disaster. Two more small things. One, the move of the Parliament to regard civil society organisations as partners in public participation is critical, because it is our role as civil society organisations to facilitate participation on an individual basis. We can work with our members and provide flexible support so that they can access things. Thirdly, I want to say very quickly that very small changes sometimes can make enormous difference if some of our members have asked whether they can provide very short video recordings as evidence on the platform. For example, some of our members would probably much rather interact with you through the chat, and some of our members would probably benefit from the ability to be able to phone in. That system sometimes creates the most inequality in participation on the day—the phone-in system. Just before I bring Mari in, can I just ask Artemis? Is your request really based on the fact that it is the Parliament that should be at its most versatile with regard to what we are calling hybrid interaction, rather than place any expectation on those that we seek contributions from? Would that be an ideal solution? I think that it's a bit of both. As I said, there's a role there for ourselves as organisations that have members who all individually have their own voice and views and experiences to broker that neutral understanding. Does that answer the question? Thank you for that, Artemis. Mari, I know that you wanted to come in. I think that Charis has a contribution. It's just a few points, because I think that you were particularly interested in hearing what could be done or what has, to some extent, been potentially building on. Maybe I'm leading to another question, but I think that we've touched on the inequalities and not going to labour those points to our agreement with all of them, but I also think that we can't be sight of the fact that we've seen some phenomenal changes in the last 18 months, some really positive changes and some inspiring stories in particular, particularly within our older people and within some of our communities with certain disabilities within Highlands anyway. We've seen some really, really great engagement, but the problem from an inequalities perspective is that some of the interventions that support individuals are not sustainable. We saw a number of really good digital engagement programmes brought in early on, but the positivity of that isn't sustainable, because the long-term longevity of what was being put in place wasn't necessarily thought about at the time. When we're putting in instances of interventions to support better equality engagement, particularly around digital engagement, we need to think about how we sustain that over a period of time, giving somebody a fully paid-up dongle so that they've got internet access for 18 months is great, but what do they do after 18 months once they've built up a dependency to being online if they can't afford to bring the dongle in themselves? I really like Bill's idea of the hubs, and that might be something that we could explore within the third sector, as a structure to support better engagement with the Parliament, because although we won't know really any communities, the digital option allows them to not have to travel to Parliament. It may not actually be viable for them to undertake an engagement session like this within their own home, while there are opportunities that we could explore with creating localised hub points where they could get that support digitally, especially if they're unfamiliar with it. I couldn't support more the concept of hybrid, but one of the things that the Parliament is true to potentially do is either to lead by example or to be more explicit in the guidance around how we bring in a functioning hybrid model and define what is an option for digital engagement, digital sessions, digital meetings and what is better to be led by an in-person meeting and how do we blend those together, although I don't read the task and find any answer to that. Thank you, Maris. Charis, you wanted to have a comment. Yeah, just to draw out for digital exclusion, I think, for people on low incomes, that's a real issue as well. I think particularly as we're seeing a rise in cost in living, the first thing to go for people is broadband. It's seen as a non-essential or kind of something that has been more flexible, so I think that's something that we need to bear in mind, looking at hybrid going forward. I think that for us it's been a couple of examples, both of difficulties and of good practice. We had one client that took part in the evidence session in November who didn't have access to the equipment or to broadband, so they travelled to the house of their death coach and did the session from there, which was a positive experience, but it's just recognising, I guess, the additional barrier that that creates for that individual, whereas another individual who was taking part had been given a laptop, or not an iPad, sorry, through Connecting Scotland, and that enabled them to take part more with a variety of different things that were happening and on a more regular basis as well, because they had access to skills development and training as part of that. The final thing that I just wanted to highlight as well was just that as part of those kind of processes, our experts by experience were given the opportunity to claim expenses around broadband or data usage, but that is actually a really quite complicated process to go through in practice, so it's just whatever we can do to simplify that for people, I think, is really, really important going forward as well. Thank you, thank you, Chas. Liam, do you want to? Yeah, just to pick up on a couple of comments that are made, I think that you've made the one about is it, is the onus on Parliament to reach out, and I think that, as Artemis said, there's that kind of two-way street, but what's really key is that Parliament is going on us and doesn't engage with those that it's trying to reach out to, because that's really important, because it naturally needs change as well. Digital access was discussed quite heavily, as you'd expect, but there's also the run-up to that, so when emails, when papers are sent out, or as there's something that says, click on this link for more information, those are also things that need to be considered. It's not just about the meeting itself, Mr Run-Up as well. Two key elements that actually pick up quite regularly with young people on the digital front is the privacy element. Not every young person has somewhere in their home that they can go and sit, and it's private for them to give evidence. There's also body image concerns. A lot of young people struggle online because they can see their own face and they can see themselves constantly. You don't get that in person, so that's a serious consideration that young people go, I don't want to engage with online because they've got body image concerns as well. I'll leave it there because of time. Thank you, Liam. Kimberley, is there anything that you want to add? Yes, so just to echo what Liam said about the privacy issue, that's also an issue for people that are perhaps bringing to Parliament experiences that are very raw and challenging. So what I would say for that is more informal engagement, I think, would be really beneficial to some of those organisations. So those engagement sessions that we saw for the health and the qualities inquiry, having that private space to interact with MSPs and give that lived experience is really important because, as you say, it can be quite intimidating. I imagine to see yourself on camera but also be in this room. More informal engagement, and then the other thing that Bill sort of already mentioned, was engaging with the third sector and giving them the resources to bring people to Parliament. So again, the participation in communities team, I think, have a really important role and already played a really important role in that, but it's really just enabling people to engage through that community angle, I think, would be really important. On the thing that you were mentioning about Parliament reaching out, I think that Parliament has a really important role to reach out and one of the things that I think has been missing and you'll know better than I whether this has come back is committee visits to the community as part of inquiries. I think that that's something that's been really missed and something that brings more people to Parliament that might not have thought to engage in an inquiry, not everyone's sitting on the Parliament website looking at what the Health Committee is looking into. So it would be really great to see those return at some capacity as well. Thank you, Kimbley. I'm going to pass up to a great advocate of committee visits, Colette, would you like to? Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning and it's lovely to meet you all online and in person as well, so thank you very much. I wanted to touch upon the accessibility, what we've done so far, so would you like to see any of these changes continue? And one of the things maybe, how can we actually enhance that or tweak it maybe? And some of you have touched upon it, so taking that into consideration today, there's six of you here, there's four online and there's two here. Do you think that's the right balance? So just to contextualise, is there anything else that we can do to enhance your journey to interact with us here in Parliament? I think I'll go to Liam first. Yeah, thank you. So I mean to be discussed a lot, very positive experience over the past 18 months. I think that there is quite a lot to, main call is, let's keep hybrid proceedings, would be our main call. I think that there are areas for making that enhanced as you discussed. Leading time would be a big one, so requests through to attend at committees and the papers coming through is a really significant thing for SYP as well, because as an organisation, we never want to come to Parliament and go, this is my opinion. We want to say, this is the opinion of Scotland's young people, and we can't do that if we have a day or two's notice of what the questions will be, what the papers are. If we have over a week's notice, we can give you some of the best data we could possibly get from children and young people across Scotland. I'm assuming that's what the Parliament would want as well. There is one key element that you discussed about this element, and it's not happening today, which is lovely as tokenism is a really big concern. So the young people we'd provide would be volunteers. I'm not sure that our colleagues stay us around the room, but a lot of the time they go into meetings with those that are paid, and they're in full-time positions, et cetera. We need to really consider the value that we place on volunteers' time, and I know that we have discussed that, but is there going to be an aspect of purely a volunteer session? It's a two or three people who are getting that data as quick as you possibly can that you require for whatever your research is on and inquiring on, and then you can move on to others. I'm not devaluing those times, and if they are paid, of course, it's just about six colleagues here today. Would that be more efficient for those giving evidence if it was two sessions of three that were half the time? Something along the lines. Just to again think about that time element, but I'll leave it there. I'm sure others have great contributions as well. Thanks, Liam. I'm going to go to Charis and ask Charis what her thoughts are on that. I think that, for us, what we really value is continued learning. I think that the opportunity for people, particularly where there's a lived experience session, is for people to input into that afterwards, to grow and to learn and to take that commitment to continual improvement around that. I think that that is a really key part of it. I think that something that we found really valuable in the current inquiry that we're taking part in is that we've been having a hybrid approach into how we do that. Having organisations with the people taking part to gather together to get to know each other before coming into that experience, and then they're due to come into Parliament on the 6th June to meet with the committee at that point. We've had a lot of preparation and investment in that time beforehand. I think that what will be really important after that is to gather their feedback and their experience and then to a commitment to continual review and learning as part of the process. I can also put the same question to Bill. Yeah, I echo everything Charis has just said. I'm giving quite a bit of thought to what Liam said. This is my job. It's the job I love. It doesn't cost me anything. In terms of attending a committee session or coming in to see an MSP or minister. I'm very aware that although we never have any problem in getting disabled people to come forward and give evidence, that is partially because over half the disabled people working age are not in work. They do have time that they can give. I think that that time should still be valued and rewarded if it's all possible. We're very much in favour of paying people for the time that they give. However, there are a large section of the population who, obviously, attending a committee session or a cross-party group, is time out of their working day. That means that it's costing them to come into Parliament and give evidence. That's something that more thought should be given to going forward. How can we involve people so that they get the full-brexy experience? We've been talking about the importance of lived experience, but there are people in low-paid jobs. There are people in jobs where they've been harassed or discriminated against who find it difficult to give evidence, both financially and in some instances, because it would endanger their jobs. The opportunity to give evidence in private to committee sessions—I've done that in the past over a billion of young disabled people in school, where we had a couple of young people who wanted to give evidence, but they would not have been comfortable giving that evidence at all in public about the ways that they were humiliated while they were at school. I think that there are things that can still do to tweak things to make sure that Parliament is genuinely open and accessible to everyone and that you're hearing full breadth of experiences. I'm obviously conscious of time, but if any of the others want to come in, I don't want to exclude any of you, either. Very quickly, I'm building on what everybody else said. A word of caution would be that we need to be mindful that the more informal, flexible and relaxed procession—the more accessible that procession probably is to wider range of people—conversely and frequently, what we find is that the less value we as decision makers, policy makers and society pay to the information that comes out of these informal, flexible and relaxed sessions compared to the formal, heavy and minute committees. It is about paying attention to any trade-off between access and the power of people who participate. I like my suggestion of hybrid or participation standards that the Parliament has that are quite transparent—I'm sorry, Mary, if I've just put words into your mouth, but that's the way I understood your statement. Sue, I know that a lot has been covered, but is there anything that— There has been a lot covered, and I just want to thank Kimberley for recognising how those four sessions went on Friday and Monday. To address some of the concerns from Artemis, the trade-off, the information that we gain from those informal sessions will very much shape our formal inquiry going forward. To me, the thing is about getting that richer evidence and involving many more people. I think that it was Mary that said that it's not just the well-kent faces, and I think that if this is something that allows to facilitate that, we need to grasp. How can we really capitalise on that and make it even better, as opposed to the one thing? Any changes that can make it even easier to engage when we're already done? I'm going to ask Liam, if that's okay, because I'm looking at you. Yes, no, that's fine. As we've discussed quite a lot, I know that a lot of colleagues want to come in with more. I think that there's a lot of discussion about the informal sessions, but that is really rich for young people. An example that improved it—a good example on feedback, as well—is that last session in the education committee wanted feedback on education work over Covid. It was going to be a session much like this on the platform that you use online, and young people went, I don't know how to use that, and there was all this concern in the change to teams. Young people know what teams are because they've had to go through a year of it in school, so they adapted very quickly to that, and the Parliament adapted really quickly to that. It's that kind of change, that feedback, that if someone you want to hear from says, I can't do that day, or I've got a test that day, I can't come out of school, or I'm sure that other examples would be given, how can Parliament adapt to that and get that information out? One young person will not work for another young person. I mean, a lot of, for example, myself have been battered around this sort of fear for a couple of years now, so I'm kind of getting used to how to get to fit it in, but for some young people it is a barrier. You come in, you've got people in suits, you've got bright lights, and you're sitting and you think, geez, oh, what am I doing here? We don't want that, we want people to go, oh, this is cool, I get to make a bit of a change here. And the key, the really key element that comes into play here is when a young person is giving evidence, giving their time to share their opinions, that the Parliament and decision makers are going back and saying, this is what we've done with your information, this is why it's valued, and that is the key element here. I think, Mairi, you wanted to come in. Yeah, thank you. It was just a couple of things, I suppose. I think we've got to think about this as building relationships to some extent, and I don't think how we'd be so off the mark to say that when you're further away from Hollywood, it is less a part of your working culture on a day-to-day basis, less part of actually just the culture in general. It's something that happens down there. It's not necessarily something that belongs to me in my community. I hope that I'm not misrepresenting things, but I think that that is a situation. So when you do informal engagement sessions, I think that it actually brings the consciousness of actually what's going on at Hollywood, how that works, how the Parliament functions, how the people are, what is a committee, what is an inquiry. It brings a lot of that much more to the forefront, and without that necessarily being in the conscious mind to it, I think there's an awful lot of people thinking, why would I, how is it relevant to me? And that's how we end up to some extent getting particularly, I think, before a more moorly is on a well-kind basis, because there are individuals who have taken an active participation in it. So the informal sessions, the visiting communities getting out and about makes a phenomenal difference in terms of preparing that cultural landscape for participation in what's going on. One of the things I would say, though, is bearing in mind that we can still use digital for geographic engagement. I'm not sure how it always plays out, but if the choice is that we don't get a committee, we don't get a visit from an investigation on inquiry or something like that into a remote and rural community because we won't be able to make the physical journey to it. It's just not economically viable or it's not possible based on calendars. Using a digital alternative is still better than nothing at all, and so actually making sure that we do use those alternatives as a way to engage even in a geographical sense is still something I would encourage you to think about. That's great. It's just if anybody else wants to come in, if not, I think I'm not sure if anyone else does. I'll be really brief, but just in terms of what the Parliament could do, I think going forward it would be really great if the Parliament could take a lead on this, so be flexible, be creative and ambitious because I think a lot of organisations are going through the exact same challenges that the Parliament is going through and will be looking to the Parliament for that ambition. It would be great to see some more in-person events coming back. We know that people really benefited from that in the past. We had a member of the health inequalities CPG prior to Covid, Scott Granger, who sadly passed away, but we know from him that it meant a real difference coming to Parliament and actually having that gravitas being in the building, engaging with MSPs and ministers directly. It made a real difference to him, so I think to lose that would be a real shame, but also balancing that with being online as well. I would urge ambition, if possible. Can I just push you slightly on that point, Kimly? We've discussed the committees, the CPGs, the other areas of interactions. One of the comments that has been made on a number of occasions from different sources, and it picks up on your view of the word gravitas, that the hybrid method that we use reduces the gravitas and the importance of this Parliament. Would you agree with that, or do you think that it's something that we should be cogent of and guard against, or actually do you think that we are moving into a time when, from those who are outside that engage with the Parliament, you're fully aware of the importance of the Parliament and that she perhaps needs the Parliament to be aware of its own importance at times? I think that it is entirely within the power of MSPs to bring that gravitas online, so I'm really grateful to Sue for highlighting that those informal evidence sessions of camera that we're all online will shape the direction of a committee inquiry. That's a huge deal, and that brings gravitas to that engagement. I don't think that it's just the building. The building plays a big role, but MSPs' role in feeding back on what they have heard is where the gravitas really comes from. Thank you, that's very helpful. Mari, did you want to come in? Yeah, I think that's really interesting actually. I haven't heard that, but I'm not surprised that it has been raised. I think that that's potentially a sign that we're doing things right and that you're doing things right, because we're changing the model and shape of things, so that it's making people feel a bit uncomfortable with that change from something that they're used to. So I don't agree that the hybrid model reduces the gravitas. I think that actually what it demonstrates is that we have a much more accessible Parliament that's operating and trying to engage with people in different ways and new ways in its innovation, to some extent that's making people potentially feel a little bit uncomfortable, but I don't think I would agree. Thank you. Bill, you had a comment? Yeah, it's actually just a thought and it's something that we, as an organisation, at disabled people and disabled people's organisations, we've been considering going forward as well, and it is, if you are going out to a geographic area like the Highlands or the Frees and Galloway or the Borders or Gail and Buttes, it can still be difficult for people to participate, even though you're in one of the centres. So if you're in the Inverness, you're still three and a half hours away from Skye. I think that there's advantages in looking at hybrid methods even when you're on committee visits to locations because it enables participation by people who wouldn't otherwise. They would participate either by reasons of distance or again because of disability or other reasons, time-wise. So thinking about hybrid forums, not just for formal committee sessions in Parliament but also for those committee visits that I hope we'll see reinstated, I think would be a good tweak going forward to continue to involve as many people as possible from as wide a group as possible within various communities. I was just to pick up on something that Liam was saying just about barriers and the move over to teams call there. I think that there's a wider issue there of what are the barriers establishing or identifying those barriers before people come in as well so that it doesn't stop them and what flexibility we can have. I think that it's not necessarily about Parliament having all the flexibility but about working together to work out how to make it accessible for people. So just a couple of things with that would be, for us, we're working with people who are in low income or in debt, that's very stigmatising. So how can we make it safe for people to give evidence and to take part so that they can remain anonymous, particularly a high number of our clients have maybe come from a situation like domestic abuse where they wouldn't want to be public but they're sharing so having that kind of flexibility for being anonymous and still taking part. The other thing as well as being on a low income, the expenses system can be a barrier as well. So yes, it's great that expenses are provided but people have to make that outlay first and then claim the expense back and they might simply might not have the income in order to do that. So how can we remove that barrier for people as well? Thank you, Charris. I thank everyone who's attended today because for the first time in my experience as convener I get the opportunity to say that we have the slightest amount of time left if there is anything that any of those who are attending, not the committee, would like to put on the record which we could pursue in correspondence afterwards. So I'm just going to go around there in Artemis. Is there anything that you would like to have been able to discuss but have not been able to raise it? No, I think that that was very comprehensive but I will add my voice to Charris's and say participation fees for us would be something we would welcome as well. Bill? No, really nothing to add. I think my fellow participants in this panel have been very good at highlighting the other issues. Thank you. Thank you, Mari. No, nothing. Thank you for the opportunity. Charris? I think that that's covered everything for me as well. Just one very small thing. The participation in communities team, I hope that the committee will be hearing from them as part of this inquiry but I believe also there are other inquiries happening in Parliament on participation so I'm hoping that those will all link up to do with witness diversity and I think that there's a form that goes out to witnesses to gather diversity information. I think that there were a couple of things that we would want added to that. One of them would be education and then the other would be caring responsibilities. I don't know if that is something that's a possibility but it would be really good at this. It would be such an interesting time to gauge who's engaging with the Parliament and how that can be improved. I think that those two things are really, really key. We're just really, we welcome that so many more organisations and people can engage with Parliament primarily because of the participation in communities team so I'm really, really grateful for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Kimberly. Liam? Yeah, very quickly as well I suppose. We've discussed engagement a lot and that word is so unbelievably important. It can be understated enough. I suppose last call would be if you're ever in doubt about how to engage with a young person, ask them. It's as simple as it goes. They'll happily tell you no doubt about it. I think the most dangerous statement that could be uttered in this Parliament is we've always done it this way so try and engage and find out a way that works for everybody. Thank you very much for inviting young people to the table as well. Thank you for that and I think that that phrase shouldn't just apply to young people but perhaps should apply to anyone. Why not just try asking them? Can I thank you all for attending today both hybrid and in-person? I've found it a very, very positive meeting. I'm glad the technology stood up which is always the fear that people of my generation seem to have at this but can I very much thank you for your time and if there is anything that subsequently comes to your mind please feel free to write in or inquiry his ongoing but we're moving to that stage where we're going to be considering conclusions. So can I thank you for your attendance today and I'm now going to close the public part of this meeting.