Chamber and committees

Thank you. That concludes the committee’s questioning. Do you wish to make any further points before we wind up the session?

How is the success—or not, as the case may be—of such a commissioner measured? One thing that this committee is concerned about in a whole host of areas is outcomes.

Okay. Thanks.

Audrey, you have said that a victims and witnesses commissioner

“should be for a time-limited period”

and that

“Parliament would want to see clear evidence that the post of Commissioner has noticeably improved the experience of victims and witnesses.”

How do you envisage the Parliament being able to scrutinise that effectively?

I am sorry to interrupt you, but that is one of the things that we are trying to grasp—how we evaluate the difference that the commissioners make. If a commissioner was not there, what would the difference be? For example, what would the difference be for children and young people? Could the work be done by the Government or any other organisation? There are issues of democratic accountability as well, of course.

The commissioner gives you a lot of evidence and the committee asks a lot of questions and so on, but how do you evaluate her effectiveness? Do you take it at face value or do you examine the commissioner in other ways to see whether she is delivering the work that she is supposed to do in relation to her remit? How do you assess that in relation to her budget and whether she is delivering efficiently and effectively against her budget?

Good morning, and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

Agenda item 1 is an evidence-taking session for our inquiry into Scotland’s commissioner landscape. We are joined in the room by Audrey Nicoll, convener of the Criminal Justice Committee, and remotely by Clare Haughey, convener of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. Good morning, and welcome to the meeting. I intend to allow around an hour for this session, and we are going to move straight to questions.

Audrey, I want to begin by asking you about your committee’s report on the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, in which you said:

“We remain to be convinced that a strong case has been made for the establishment of a Victims and Witnesses Commissioner. Instead, we consider that better outcomes may be achieved by focusing spending in areas which have more direct and immediate benefit for victims and witnesses.”

How did the committee arrive at that conclusion?

I did not see any change in the figures.

Adam, we touched earlier on the commissioners in Northern Ireland and Wales, and you say in your submission that Wales and Northern Ireland have had older people’s commissioners since 2006 and 2011 respectively, which is a considerable period of time. Your submission states:

“Both have had a positive impact on the experiences of older people, working together with older people to stand up for their rights, enact change and seek justice when things go wrong.”

What have they been able to achieve that we have not been able to achieve in the same space here in Scotland?

Craig Dalzell, at the start of your submission, you said:

“We believe that the Scottish Government is developing a risk-averse attitude in expanding the growth of Commissioners as it allows Government to claim the credit when policies are adopted and are successful but to ignore ‘inconvenient’ advice or to pass blame for failure.”

Have you got any examples of that?

You talk about the Government developing “a risk-averse attitude” to expanding the growth of commissioners, but a lot of commissioners are coming from the ground up. Rob Holland, Adam Stachura and Jo McGilvray have made it clear that they are keen for additional commissioners, so it is not as if the Government is rolling out loads of commissioners to avoid responsibilities. A lot of them are coming from beneath. That is one of the issues that the committee is trying to address about the expansion of the entire landscape.