Chamber and committees

Yes—the committee looks forward to receiving that correspondence.

We now move into private session.

The committee will now take evidence on the draft Digital Government (Scottish Bodies) Regulations 2022. I welcome to the meeting the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, Tom Arthur. He is joined by Albert King, who is chief data officer in the Scottish Government, and Francesca Morton, who is a solicitor in the Scottish Government. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you. That was helpful.

You mentioned performance and the backlog. I know that the target was missed and that the backlog has actually increased. I recognise that you have come through a challenging period and that the pandemic has put pressure on the services. What are the challenges to reducing the backlog? You mentioned that the shift to remote working had put additional pressures on ROS. What are the targets? I think that you said that there is a new plan for delivery. By what date do you hope to have things back on track?

That would be helpful.

Mr Burnett, are the questions on separate issues, or would you like to ask them together?

Thank you, minister.

You mentioned pilots. How long would a typical pilot last? Will the processes for evaluation of all pilots be consistent? Will there be a similar approach to deciding whether a pilot should continue in the longer term?

As we have no further questions, we move to agenda item 3. I remind everyone that only members and the minister may take part in the debate.

Motion moved,

That the Economy and Fair Work Committee recommends that the Digital Government (Scottish Bodies) Regulations 2022 be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

Motion agreed to.

That was helpful. You said that you are making good progress and are going beyond the targets. The corporate plan says the target would need to be revised to 80 to 90 per cent of new cases. I appreciate that this is the first time that you have appeared before the committee but—this is probably a silly girl question—can you tell us why we ended up with such a big backlog and why we are in this situation?

Thank you very much for your attendance this morning, Ms Henderson. We will be in touch about the best way for the committee to keep up to date with the work of Registers of Scotland. We appreciate the evidence that you have given us.

You have committed to send us some further information on analysis, and on something else—