Chamber and committees

My concern is about significant issues—that is what it says in the 2020 act. What are you doing to publicise problems that are significant, either because of the safety of the product or because there is a substantial impact on the public because of a particular item? There does not seem to be anything.

You are saying that it is your responsibility to raise awareness of the database. I had a look at it, and it is probably the worst website I have ever seen in my life. It is a list of descriptions, with hyperlinks to click on that take you to a long list of attributes to that item. Then, at the very bottom, you click on another link and you eventually see a photograph that is about the size of a postage stamp. It is not user friendly.

There does not seem to be anything proactive about making alerts to the public. I know that you guys are not front facing in dealing with individual consumers, but you put out two alerts on your Twitter account in the past 48 hours. One, for bikes with a high risk of injury, has had 140 views, and the other, for a vacuum cleaner with a fire risk, has had 152 views. Do you think that that level of hits is acceptable? What will you do to address that, bearing in mind that we are a population of 5.5 million and that the website that you are pointing everybody to is not user friendly?

You do not have to set up a separate database. What I am getting at is how you should publicise something significant. I am not talking about every single item. If you want to be linked to that website, that is fine, but how do you deal with the significant issues outwith that? You also have a responsibility to ensure that the website remains up to date. The information on the website relates to the recall of goods register, and there are opportunities to highlight and register wider pieces of Consumer Scotland work where relevant. That is the responsibility that you have, but that work does not seem to be happening.

How does the public find out?

Thanks very much.

Good morning to the witnesses. I want to ask you about the recall of goods and product safety. Under the 2020 act, you have

“a duty to establish, or secure the establishment and operation of, a publicly available database of recalls of goods in Scotland, where either there is a significant risk to individuals or the scale of recall is significant.”

That is from your annual report. Can you give us an update on where we are with that?

That happens only if the customer has registered the product. If customers do not register their product, which is the case with most people, they will never find out unless somebody rolls out some kind of publicity regarding the issue.

Given that I do not have a legal background, I am looking for a bit of clarification. In relation to the second category of land and property, which is covered by the unlocking sasines project, you said that there is no state guarantee of title. What does that mean?

Do you see the remaining 4.4 per cent that you spoke to Kevin Stewart about earlier gradually being nibbled away or are you at a point where it is not worth trying to investigate because of the costs involved?

Is that because there is no proof of ownership?