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Annie Wells, is there anything that you would like to say?

Excellent. As there are no further questions, I thank you for attending the committee this morning. We will consider whether to approve the application for recognition at agenda item 2, and the clerks will inform you of the committee’s decision in due course.

I welcome everyone to this meeting of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. We have a number of agenda items, but the first is a cross-party group application. We are invited to consider an application for recognition of a proposed cross-party group on the Scottish games ecosystem. I welcome Michael Marra MSP to the meeting. Michael is a proposed co-convener of the proposed group on the Scottish games ecosystem.

Good morning, Michael. I invite you to make an opening statement about the intentions of the group.

Before I throw you to the lions of the rest of the committee and their questions, you will be aware of the substantial number of CPGs that exist and you will also be aware of the obligation that Clare Adamson and you will take on as co-conveners. I know that you have had an offer of secretariat support from outwith the Parliament, which is good to hear, so I will phrase this as carefully as I can. You do understand the personal and individual responsibilities of an MSP as a co-convener to comply with the rules, standing orders and expectations. I know that some members have found the time commitment to be challenging.

Agenda item 2 is, as discussed, consideration of whether to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party group on the Scottish games ecosystem. Does any member have any comments to make before I formally put the question?

It is nice that Michael Marra and Clare Adamson recognise the number of CPGs that exist. Michael raised the point that this particular group seems to cross a number of other areas, so it will be interesting to see whether they follow your suggestion, Alasdair, about joint working.

If we are happy with that, is the committee prepared to grant the group recognition?

Members indicated agreement.

As no members of the committee have any questions, I will ask a final one, which is an important one, although you have answered it in the application. Are there no existing cross-party groups that cover in any way, shape or form the proposal for a group for the games industry?

Excellent. That brings an end to the public part of this meeting.

That is an interesting question. I go back to the choice that was made at the turn of the millennium of having commissioners for ethical standards and freedom of information. Commissioners were seen as being independent of the Government, much more than independent of Parliament, and that requirement was to give them a level of authority that would allow them to act in their quasi-judicial role.

The Ethical Standards Commissioner’s involvement with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ meant that they had to be independent of the Parliament but they also had to be seen to be distinctly independent of the Parliament. That needed a phrase to carry a weight.

At the time, the concept of a commissioner was perhaps different to what it is now. In the intervening period, the public’s view of commissioners and indeed commissions has changed so substantially as to undervalue or perhaps reinforce the value of someone who is independent of Government and of Parliament undertaking the roles that we have given them by statute.

In respect of those who answer to my committee, the annual reports, conversations with the commissioners and the interaction with people who interact with the commissioners is such that those who apply for FOI adjudication or who come through the Ethical Standards Commissioner understand the commissioner’s role, importance, significance and independence much more than the general public does.

You need first to take a step back and talk about the transparency of funding of the Parliament’s responsibilities. If you speak to most people about the Scottish Parliament’s budget, they would basically say that it is for this building and the people and the support that sit around this table. In reality, it is far wider than that. I am not sure that the importance of where that funding goes is genuinely understood

To come specifically to the question of the commissioners, it is an old adage that if you ask people, they will always say that they want more money. The challenges that Covid threw up required, particularly in relation to the two commissioners that answer to my committee, a thorough look at how the work was done. The Ethical Standards Commissioner had an explosion of cases that had to be dealt with and processed properly following the requirements of statute and following the obligations that sit on the commissioner. That led to them reviewing the personnel who sit behind that. Rather than, say, cap the costs or set a minimum—and this goes back to who takes responsibility for this—the commissioners should have a real deep dive into what they are required to do, how to do it and how to make that more efficient.

It is an interesting proposal because we need scrutiny outwith the existing scrutiny. If we put aside the current resource implications, if such scrutiny had occurred and had been conducted enthusiastically, some of the challenges that have occurred with commissioners in the past would have been spotted earlier, if I am honest. They would have come out. As well as the formal scrutiny that takes place, there is interaction between commissioners and committees at different levels and in different ways that could allow concerns to be raised and then explored.

One of the challenges is the compartmentalising everything that we do. We miss bringing together the overview. At the end of the day, committee scrutiny is about having a level of oversight, looking at the whole picture and picking up on the alarm bells as well as what works well.