³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Do the witnesses agree that the bill’s proposals will not result in any additional costs for local authorities or charities?

John Picton, do you have anything to add?

Thank you very much, everyone, for your evidence. Next week, we will continue to take evidence on the bill when we hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government.

That concludes our public business.

Welcome back, everyone. I welcome our second panel: Vicki Cahill, policy officer at Alzheimer Scotland; Mridul Wadhwa, the chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre; and Rami Okasha, the chief executive of Children’s Hospices Across Scotland, who all join us in person. We also have Shona NicIllinein, the chief executive of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, who joins us remotely.

As with the first panel, I have a few points to mention about the format of the meeting. I apologise in advance for this. Please wait until I—or the member who is asking the question—say your name before speaking. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues just a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you begin to speak. You can indicate with an R in the dialogue box in BlueJeans or simply with a show of your hand if you wish to come in on a question. Please do not feel that you all have to answer every question—if you have nothing to add to what others have said, that is absolutely fine.

Before we begin, I put on record that Bòrd na Gàidhlig requested to give evidence in Gaelic this morning. The clerks have spoken with colleagues across the Parliament with a view to facilitating interpretation of this evidence session, but we have been informed that that is not possible due to various factors. The Parliament is aware that there is an issue and is acting to resolve it as new broadcasting systems come into operation. We are truly sorry for not being able to facilitate interpretation at our meeting on this occasion and recognise that that is an unfortunate situation.

I now pass over to our deputy convener, Emma Roddick, who will, in Gaelic, invite Bòrd na Gàidhlig to give a short introduction to its evidence in Gaelic. Afterwards, an interpretation in English will be provided before we hear from other witnesses.

We will move to questions from Evelyn Tweed.

Would anyone else like to come in on that point? I do not want to put anyone on the spot.

We will now move on to questions from Foysol Choudhury, who is joining us online.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2023 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have received apologies this morning from James Dornan, and I welcome Evelyn Tweed to the meeting as a committee substitute.

Agenda item 1 is our first evidence session on the Charities (Regulation and Administration) Scotland Bill. The bill was introduced in the Scottish Parliament on 15 November 2022, following two consultation exercises by the Scottish Government in 2019 and 2021. Its aims are to strengthen and update the current legislative framework for charities by increasing their transparency and accountability, to make improvements to the powers of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and to bring Scottish charity legislation up to date with certain key aspects of charity regulation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Yesterday, the committee held an informal engagement session on the bill with a range of individuals from across the third sector as well as those representing accountancy and law firms, and those discussions have provided a useful introduction to today’s evidence taking and will help to inform members’ scrutiny of the bill. A summary of them will be available on the committee’s website shortly.

I welcome our first panel to the meeting. Joining us in the room are Jason Henderson, policy and public affairs officer at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, and Sarah Latto, policy officer at Volunteer Scotland. We are also joined remotely by David Gibson, the Methodist Church’s representative on the Scottish Churches Committee; Steven Inglis, team leader at Aberdeen City Council; and Madelaine Sproule, solicitor for the Church of Scotland. I welcome all of you and thank you for coming along this morning.

Before we begin, I will make a few quick points about the format of the meeting. First, I ask our virtual witnesses to please wait until I—or the member asking the question—say your name before speaking. Moreover, please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn on your microphone before you start to speak. If any of our virtual witnesses wishes to come in on a question, they can indicate as much by putting an R in the dialogue box on BlueJeans or simply by a show of their hand.

Please do not feel that you all have to answer every single question. It is okay if you have nothing to add to what others have said.

As we have a lot to get through this morning, I must ask everyone to keep their questions, answers and any follow-up questions quite tight. Colleagues in the room should indicate to either me or the clerk if they wish to ask a supplementary question, and committee members who are online should use the chat box or WhatsApp.

We will move to our first theme, with questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy.

I see that David Gibson, who is online, would like to come in.

Lastly, we move to questions from Jeremy Balfour.