Chamber and committees

One of the submissions that we received was from a local authority that is concerned that, because of the increased costs to the budget, there could be an impact on operational policing. Although the amount is not massive compared with those in some of the financial memorandums for bills that the committee is dealing with, the increase is still significant. Can you reassure the committee that there will not be an impact on operational policing due to the updated costs for the bill?

Thank you for that. There appears to have been some miscommunication between the bill team and the Scottish Government. For example, it seems that Police Scotland’s change of position is due to the statutory duty in the bill to ensure that officers have undertaken training. Police Scotland has said that that key point was unknown to it, but you say in your response to my letter that Police Scotland has always known that. There seems to have been some kind of miscommunication in that regard.

I understand that Alzheimer Scotland remains unconvinced by the argument that we require additional commissioners.

That is funny—I was going to talk about that part of Allan Faulds’s submission next.

That takes me to the point that I was going to raise with Allan Faulds. In your submission, you said:

“We would suggest that at a minimum, all Rights-Based Commissioners should report directly to the Scottish Parliament.”

What would the mechanism be for that? If it is not committees, are you talking about commissioners going before the whole Parliament? How do you envisage that working in practice?

It was—I quoted you word for word.

I have four members who are keen to come in.

We have been chatting for almost 75 minutes, and we have about 15 minutes left. I will let John Mason in in a minute. He is the only person who has indicated that he wants to come in. After that, I will ask each of our witnesses to think about what they would like to say as a final comment. Perhaps you could touch on an area that we have not covered so far, or you could re-emphasise an area that we already have. I will leave it completely up to you.

I will let Adam speak last, so that he can catch his breath, apart from anything else, and because he spoke first.

Rob Holland, you made an interesting comment in your submission. Many of the submissions that the committee has received and much of the evidence that we have taken refer to concerns about the risk of duplication. However, in your submission, you said:

“Potential for overlaps in function is put forward as an argument against Commissioners being established. We would contend that overlap in function should not be seen as a problem, but rather the means of ensuring that individuals do not fall through a gap in ‘the system’.”

However, if there is duplication in the system, surely that confuses the issue and makes it difficult to deliver the outcomes that people require.

It appears that the updated figures that the police gave you were accepted as read, and I am pretty sure that that was said by your officials in evidence. Rather than their saying to the police, “Hold on a second, how do you come to this sum and that sum?” it seems as if the police have said, “These are the updated figures,” and the bill team has said, “Okay, fair enough.” That is not usually what happens. Usually, whatever the bill is, people query the costings.