Chamber and committees

It is a pleasure for me to be here, in front of the committee, to discuss everything to do with my remit and the committee’s remit. I hope that members of the committee are aware that, over the past couple of years, I have sought to have a good working relationship with the committee and with the convener in particular. It is important that that continues over the coming period.

I am sure that there is a whole sack of matters and that we will touch on many topics. That is why I have the equivalent of an MGM chorus line of officials with me. I look forward to discussing issues with the committee.

As I said, we discussed that with the Electoral Commission yesterday. We will be within that period of six months, which is what the Electoral Management Board wants, too.

I invite Iain Hockenhull to add to that and to give you some further detail.

You bring up a valid point. On the whole, there is a cynicism about the political process in general, worldwide. People have more access to data than they have ever had in their life, not all of it accurate, so we end up with various attitudes and people thinking that the whole political process is a disappointment and is not working. That is where we, as politicians, have to take on the responsibility and act with maturity, in a leadership role, to ensure that we push things forward.

I do not have anything right here, right now that enables me to say that we know for sure that people are intentionally keeping themselves off the register, other than the anecdotal information that we all have.

We are aware that, when the voters have something that they want to vote for, they will go through the registration process and come out to vote. There have been a number of experiences in my time in the Parliament where that has happened. That is why I always revert to the fact that, regardless of our political persuasion, it is down to us to make sure that the public engage and want to vote. We are part but not all of the solution.

He has said that on numerous occasions as well. [Laughter.]

Yes.

That is a fair comment.

No. The change of leadership is irrelevant to the situation. There has been an on-going programme of improvement and moving things forward. As Jill McPherson has already said, there was a conversation between the political and civil service leadership, which was between me and JP himself. Earlier this year, I told him that I was not happy with the way that things were, that it was a problem, that we could not continue like that and that things had to change—

I will answer your question as carefully and concisely as possible. We still believe that citizens assemblies are a way forward. Do we have financial constraints? Yes, we do. The level of citizens assembly participation that we were looking for will need £2.8 million to set up. That is challenging at this time, as you will be aware. When everyone in every portfolio and across portfolios is looking at their budgets, it is difficult.

Are we engaging with the public in other ways? That is why I asked a question in return. We are using other panels involving the public to ask the same questions and to engage at a smaller level. The enthusiasm is still there; the question is whether I can get the funding. Obviously, funding has moved and it will now be from the individual portfolio that is asking the question of the citizens assembly. We are looking at individual portfolios to deliver, and they are looking at that, but they also face challenges.

My opinion about citizens assemblies in general and how we go forward with them is that we should do what other nations have done and keep the questions pretty simple. The first two questions that we asked were wide-ranging: how do we save the planet and what is Scotland’s future? Those are big questions and it is difficult to find out what we could deliver from those reports. The Republic of Ireland used citizens assemblies to deal with questions that its politicians found difficult to discuss in their Parliament: they were able to use the public to push them forward. For example, a citizens assembly was used to discuss abortion. Assemblies provide an opportunity to really look at a subject.

We have committed to look at council tax and how local government is funded, and it would be interesting to hear what the public said when they got all the facts and figures in front of them. We politicians have kicked that question around for all the time that I have been in the Parliament and it would be an interesting subject for a citizens assembly. Our main issue, at this stage, is getting funding for the assemblies, but we are still engaging with the public through other means to answer such questions.

I will bring in Doreen Grove. This is one of her pet subjects and she will be able to give you a more complete answer than I can.