Chamber and committees

How do the costs vary because of that? Would the cost for Police Scotland or for the individual officer be different and would the costs be handled differently, depending on whether the person is in the service or has left?

It is a good example and others should follow it. The idea of having very precise figures—going down to £134 or £474—is just unrealistic, frankly. Some of the figures are clearly rounded—the SPA potential costs of £259,000, for example. The committee might disagree with me, but I think that that is the right way to do it. When it comes to a figure with £134 at the end, I would just drop the £134, because there is no way that anyone can be that accurate when they are making such forecasts. That is just my comment by way of support.

In paragraph 30 on page 9, for different organisations, you compare £10,000 materiality as a percentage of their annual budgets, which comes in at 0.001 per cent and suchlike. Would it be better to show the materiality as a percentage of the actual costs of the bill, which would be something like 2 per cent in some cases? Would that be more helpful?

One of which, at least, is an immaterial saving, is that right? It sets off some of the others.

At any level?

That is interesting.

Finally, paragraph 107 of the financial memorandum, on page 23, talks about the PIRC making

“recommendations to the Chief Constable”.

That is under the heading “Unknown indirect costs”, so there is a lot of uncertainty in that respect. It would depend on what those costs were. The memorandum goes on to state:

“If there is a cost in implementing the recommendation then this indirect cost cannot be quantified.”

Can you give any examples of that? What might the PIRC recommend? Is it just that the variations are so wide that you cannot put a figure on it?

I do not know what kind of thing the PIRC would recommend, but let us say that it was some piece of equipment such as a camera or new cars—whatever it might be. Is it just totally unpredictable as to what the PIRC might recommend?

Right. So, even in a revised financial memorandum, that aspect would stay the same—it would still be unpredictable.

If we take forestry, I think that we have been planting more trees than elsewhere in the UK, but that is not enough, in a sense, because the potential for tree planting in Scotland is presumably huge, and it is bigger than in the rest of the UK.

That is helpful—thank you.

You have talked about damage, adaptation and mitigation. On adaptation in particular, you have said that you need more plans, costs and data. Is it the case that it does not matter how much data we have, because we are still very uncertain about where we are going? Can there ever be enough data to give us solid projections?

I am not sure that I understand or that I am explaining myself very well. In Police Scotland’s evidence, it says:

“The legal costs involved in defending such challenges vary but will always be significant. An example of the level of costs that can be incurred was provided”,

and it goes on. Police Scotland seems to suggest that the costs would be different. If an officer had left, they might want their own legal representation, whereas they would not if they were still in the police.