Chamber and committees

One of the challenges that we have had historically, and have at the moment, is the lack of a national framework for measuring success in relation to Gaelic. We have the Government’s Gaelic language plan, and the plans and strategies that the bòrd has produced. However, beyond plans, we do not have clear national agreement on a framework for measuring success. The Government’s Gaelic language plan references the national performance framework not because there are clear indicators in it but to show the interaction between Gaelic and a range of other indicators, such as housing, communities and so on. What has been the barrier? Why are we not sitting here with a clear, nationally agreed framework for how we measure success in relation to Gaelic language?

You make an important point about ownership, and a clear sense of ownership and accountability being a way to improve outcomes.

My next question is about whether the bill makes it clear how we measure that. It is going to give the Government much more accountability, and it will, we hope, put more scrutiny on the Government. However, from our perspective, and from a wider societal perspective, the question is, what are we scrutinising the Government for? How do we collectively as a society judge whether we have been successful, and how does the Government itself do that?

I am looking for your perspective on whether the bill itself makes that clear. Do you look at the bill and think, “It will be clear to me, five or 10 years from now, how we measure success based on what is in here”? Alternatively, could there be something else, either in the bill or external to it, to make it much clearer how we are going to measure success?

Does anyone else have a perspective on what a framework for success looks like?

Thank you—that was really useful.

What impact will the bill have on your ability to measure success and on what success is defined as? Will the bill in itself have any significant impact on the challenges that you have just mentioned?

Are there any provisions in the bill that would change how HIE measures success?

Where should that sit in relation to the bill? We cannot be incredibly prescriptive with our measures of success in primary legislation because we do not know where we will be in 20 years on all sorts of fronts. However, the bill is an opportunity for us to create some requirements in that space.

Thank you. I will put the same question about measuring success to Donald Macleod and Joanna Peteranna. In the current policy landscape, before we take into consideration what the bill would do, are you clear about how you are supposed to be measuring success in your areas and what the metrics are? Is that something that you are able to do? Is the data available for you to confidently assess whether or not success is happening?

I will put the same package of questions to Joanna Peteranna. Is Highlands and Islands Enterprise clear on how it should be measuring success currently? Will the bill change anything in relation to how you measure success?

The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s written submission suggests that more direct scrutiny of the commissioner’s budget separate from the scrutiny of the SPCB’s overall budget would be beneficial. Nothing is immediately stopping any committee from deciding to do direct scrutiny like that, but it does not ordinarily happen.

What are your thoughts on that? On the one hand, you could say that it would allow for a more effective level of scrutiny than currently. Given our incredibly tight timescale for budget scrutiny and every committee’s wide range of responsibilities, it would immediately come up against an acute version of the capacity issues that we have just discussed. Do you have any thoughts specifically on separating scrutiny of the commissioner budgets from that of the overall SPCB budget and specifically assigning that to committees as a specific part of their overall budget scrutiny?

Finally on capacity, if every one of the currently proposed commissioner models were to be agreed to, how would that impact your committee’s workload? As a member of the education committee, I am aware that some of the proposed commissioners, whether for disabled people or learning disabilities, neurodiversity and autism, have direct relationships with substantial areas of the committee’s scrutiny. Would the obligation to scrutinise the work of those commissioners aid the committee’s ability to scrutinise or would it displace other important work?