���˿���

We hope that, if the bill is enacted, the Scottish Government will deal with those matters more speedily and that designation will speed up. We even hope that the discussion that is taking place today will help to speed up the process of designation.

However, as you know, there is also a new mechanism in the bill that would allow a parliamentary committee to get involved, should it choose to do so. I will use the care example that is currently being looked at by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government may come forward in the next session of Parliament with proposals to designate parts of the care sector as FOI compliant. It would be quite a big political issue if the Scottish Government were to fail to do that, and a committee of this Parliament—it would be likely to be a health committee—could decide to use its time to consider the issue. It could put out a call for evidence, take evidence from all parties, including the Scottish Government, the sector and campaign groups, come to a view and make a recommendation to Parliament, which could then debate the issue. Obviously, changes to standing orders would be required to enable that to happen.

That would require a committee to decide that it was going to use its time in that way, so it would be likely to happen only for a big political issue. I hope that the fact that the Scottish Government would know that there might be enhanced scrutiny when ministers failed to act would help to drive designations.

So, you are referring to the designation of a new body?

Okay. The whole purpose of section 5—and, indeed, the whole bill—is to increase accountability and to drive designations. The reports are intended to drive awareness of the designation of bodies and to create the parliamentary space for such a discussion to take place. The policy intention is to incentivise the greater use of ministers’ power to designate. The intention of the 2002 act was always that bodies delivering public services would comply with freedom of information requests, so the reports would be a regular opportunity to review the Scottish Government’s work to deliver that.

Is the legal change that you were referring to the designation of a body following a vote by the Parliament?

I think that that kind of detail would have to be put into standing orders. The advice that we got was that it would not be appropriate for that level of detail to be included in the bill.

It may well differ from one designation to another. If there was a view that the designation of a body needed to be done speedily and the matter was discrete and capable of being curtailed, it may be that the implementation could happen in a very short time. For other matters, it would be different. I think that that would have to be laid out in the proposal that was put before the Parliament.

Yes, and it would depend on the framing of the motion that was put before the Parliament. It may depend on the circumstances, and there may well be occasions when that is part of what the Parliament is debating. There may be different views. Different political parties might take different positions about how speedily something could happen. There could be agreement on the principle, but some people might say, “This will take longer to implement,” while others might say, “No, we want this done now.” That would be a matter to be debated.

In reality, how quickly the order could be implemented and the designation made would depend on the nature of the designation, so it would be unwise to have a standard rule.

That is the hope. I was asked to take the bill forward partly as a result of frustration about the glacial progress of new designations. The hope is that, if Parliament debated such matters on a standing basis, it would move the issue higher up the agenda and lead to more designations. In such debates, ministers would probably want to be able to say that they had intentions and plans and to give commitments to the Parliament, which we hope would be honoured.

That is the intention, and section 6 has been drafted on that basis. Again, it is a technical amendment. With the bill, we have attempted to bring together all the changes that have been recommended for which there seems to be a strong body of support or a consensus, and this is one of them. The provision has been drafted by parliamentary draftspeople, and the wording in the bill is the drafting that they felt was robust. We have had alternative versions, but this is the version that we were advised was appropriate.

I think that that would be clear in the publication code that the Information Commissioner produced. Those information codes would be specific to sectors or perhaps even organisations. Their requirements should not be onerous and would depend on the organisation’s resources. This is about a culture change, not putting additional resources into functions. It is about how people use the time.

A consultation process would lead up to the publication code. Therefore, to use the specific example that you have cited of local authorities, which are a large and significant set of bodies, I imagine that there would be an intensive consultation process with them about what might be in the publication code.

The offence would be a criminal offence. The set of circumstances that are likely to lead to the Information Commissioner and the Crown Office wishing to proceed with a prosecution would probably be such that the view would be that it would be appropriate for the legislation to be in place.

I am not sure of the exact nature of the consultation that would take place in relation to the criminal offence. There might be a need for consultation in relation to proactive publication and the type of information that is published. However, in relation to the destruction of records, the threshold is so high that—