Chamber and committees

What was the commissioner arguing for in the evidence that she gave to your committee, which you just cited? What gaps in delivery did she cite?

On that point, I have no scientific evidence for this whatsoever, but after 17 years in this place, I have the impression through casework that the public has a good understanding and is relatively appreciative of the work that the commissioners do. Whether they solve the problems is more difficult.

You raised a question earlier about how Covid had considerable implications. Do you feel that the public perception of the Information Commissioner or the Ethical Standards Commissioner deals with the issue satisfactorily?

Good morning. An issue that has been put to us by people who have given evidence so far is that one of the reasons for the proposals to increase the number of commissioners is that there have been failures in public services, which have resulted in new demand. I am sure that Ms Haughey will be aware of the Eljamel case. I can cite on-going examples of where public health services have failed former patients of Eljamel. I am sure that the forthcoming public inquiry will uncover some of that.

Ms Nicoll, some would argue that the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill was introduced because of pressures on the existing police forces, which are not able to do some of the things that we would like them to be able to do. To what extent do you feel that the people who have given evidence to our committee so far have a fair point about failures in public services?

At the moment, we are looking at the effectiveness of the commissioner landscape. When it comes to the particular commissioners, the statistics on what is happening to children and young people just now—whether those are about poverty, attainment or those who are able to fight their case, which is a difficult thing for children and young people to do—are not terribly impressive in showing that we are doing a better job for young people. That is, therefore, quite a challenge. As a committee, we have to identify whether that situation has come about because the commissioners are not doing a very good job or because public services are failing.

That is a very interesting reflection. In some cases, there might have been human error, with the people who were responsible for overseeing a case not having done their job effectively, but there could be system failure, too. In some ways, that is the more interesting point, because that might need legislative changes. What are your reflections on whether we should spend more time trying to address failures in existing public services or whether we should create more commissioners?

Ms Webber, do you think that the increasing demands on the children’s commissioner have come about because of a failure within the education system?

The previous commissioner gave evidence to the committee about this gap, which is important in this debate because the gap matters. It matters in the lives of children and young people and it matters to the conclusions that we come to about whether the oversight that the commissioner has is the problem or whether the problem is a failure within the system.

Mr Whitfield, you represent two completely different scenarios here because Ms Webber deals with a commissioner whose main interest is advocacy and, Mr Whitfield, as you rightly said, you deal with regulation and investigation. Do those differences commissioners’ roles change the public perception of whether they are successful?

Can you give us some examples of where there has been a huge gap between the delivery and what was promised?

Ms Haughey, you gave a very sensible response to the convener’s question about democratic accountability. As well as examining costs, which is obviously our meat and drink on this committee, we believe that the accountability line is very important. I now have far more experience of the health side of things because of my interest in the Eljamel case, and it seems to me that there was so much buck passing—it was always somebody else’s problem—which left so many distressed patients at their wits’ end, given all the trauma that they had faced. If we are to ensure that there are better public services, we have to decide how best to ensure that there is accountability in the system. I am interested in your views on how that could happen in the health brief.

Thank you, both.