���˿���

I do not share that view, because extensive scrutiny of the process was undertaken by a specific parliamentary committee prior to the 2021 election. If my memory serves me right, the former permanent secretary made more than one appearance at that committee. The issues that pertained to all that went on in that period have been openly scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. I accept that that was not this parliamentary committee, but the issues certainly were scrutinised by a parliamentary committee in extensive and laborious detail—I do not think that any of us could say anything other than that—prior to the 2021 election. That is all on the record.

Essentially, the permanent secretary would make a contribution on behalf of the Scottish ministers. That is the only basis on which the permanent secretary, as a civil servant, can speak. Civil servants do not make individual appearances at committee: they represent ministers. It is crucial that, in all those cases, there is effective and open engagement with committees on the questions.

As I say, I am here to set out the lessons that have been learned from that process and how they have influenced the new complaints process that we have in place. I know that the permanent secretary will be happy to engage on any issues that the committee has on its mind.

I am trying to reassure Mr Lumsden that the complaints will come through a different channel, but they will have to be addressed, because we cannot have a situation where an agency worker is not able to raise their concerns. In exactly the fashion that Mr Lumsden has put to me, there could be two individuals sitting side by side, one of whom has certain rights because they are an SG employee, and another who has a different channel for raising concerns about their rights through an agency employment structure. However, I do not envision the investigators and decision makers being involved in handling an agency issue—we would have to handle that through proper management of contractual arrangements.

Yes, because the permanent secretary is also the principal accountable officer and, in the role of principal accountable officer, has particular obligations under other parts of legislation.

The information that the people survey gives us about attitudes of members of staff is published to give, I suppose, the committee the opportunity to scrutinise the progress that has been made in the general relationship between members of staff and the organisation and their experiences in that respect—hence, the importance of our looking at this from a variety of perspectives. As Michelle Thomson will know from her professional background, a people survey is a significant indicator of the health of an organisation and highlights the challenges to the leadership of the organisation to ensure that it is on an appropriate improvement journey.

However, although such measures are important in a general sense to assess an organisation’s performance, we need to be very careful about what we take forward as we chart progress on the continuous improvement journey. I certainly do not want that to be judged on whether the number of cases or complaints that we are getting is declining, because that is a rather negative way of looking at the issue. Instead, I want us to think very carefully about how we can demonstrably quantify progress in the organisation and how we are improving the experience and the capability of staff. All those different factors have to be reflected in the approach that we design as a consequence.

In relation to the briefing of ministers, the format—as with an awful lot of life in the recent past—was online. Briefing sessions were undertaken via Teams. Parliamentary colleagues will understand that a three-line whip was applied to those sessions. Mr Johnson will know what I am talking about there.

Thank you, convener. First, I apologise for detaining the committee this morning. A journey that normally takes me 90 minutes took me three hours.

I am grateful to the committee for the opportunity to give evidence this morning. Following our constructive session in January, I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee progress on the updated procedure for handling complaints by civil servants about current or former ministers and the continuous improvement programme that arises from it.

At the point of the previous evidence session on 25 January, the draft procedure had been published. We were in the middle of a discussion period with staff, staff networks, ministers, trade unions, stakeholders and, of course, the committee. The discussion period was constructive and respectful, and it resulted in a small addition to the procedure’s terms of reference, which I sent to the committee in my letter of 24 February, when the procedure came into operation. The feedback from the committee was instrumental in helping us to develop the guidance that accompanies the procedure.

I was pleased to inform the committee that the Government had appointed six external investigators and five external decision makers from a high-calibre pool of applicants to carry out investigations under the updated procedure. The group has since completed an induction session, which was led by the propriety and ethics directorate.

After the procedure became live, the proactive work that, when I previously spoke to the committee, I identified as being important to maintaining and improving a safe and respectful working environment is progressing as planned. Although we hope never to have to use the updated procedure, cabinet secretaries and ministers received a briefing on it after it came into operation, to ensure that it is fully understood from the outset. Communications to all-staff networks accompanied the procedure’s launch, and communications with staff have continued throughout March—in particular, for the launch of the associated revised staff grievance policy and procedure, which came into operation on 21 April.

In addition, I am pleased to say that the independent advisers, Mr James Hamilton and Dame Elish Angiolini, have been given final copies of the procedure and have been invited to consider updates to the Scottish ministerial code.

We are now looking to the future and to the activities in the continuous improvement programme for the rest of the year. The programme promotes positive standards of behaviour, seeks to prevent unacceptable behaviours and continues the work to create a safe and supportive environment in which staff can speak up.

The programme has already involved a range of actions beyond the development of a new complaints procedure. The programme’s activities are helping to embed the Scottish Government’s new vision “In the service of Scotland” and its five core values—integrity, inclusion, collaboration, innovation and kindness—at the heart of the workplace. Activities include the establishment of a propriety and ethics team to provide oversight and co-ordination on key issues and a review of corporate information management to improve how information and records are used, stored and processed.

In the past few months, we have held discussions with those who are most closely involved with the programme and our recognised trade unions in order to begin to establish measures of success for the programme. Those measures are intended not only to track the completion of the programme’s activities, but to chart how well we are doing them. The measures of success will ensure that we are aware of what best practice is and that we adhere to it at all times. They will also help us to identify the areas where we can become more successful.

The programme looks across the organisation at the systems and business practices that are designed to continue to build a positive working environment that people can thrive in. The activities that are planned until the end of this year consider different aspects of culture and behaviour and look at the ways of working that are in place. In particular, proactive outreach work that makes contact with network groups and satellite offices has already started and will be taken forward in earnest. Throughout this period, we will continue staff communications and our engagement with our recognised trade unions.

I look forward to discussing matters with the committee.

I suspect that I will rely heavily on the words “direct” and “indirect” in my answer but, essentially, we are trying to cover all bases so that we have the ability to intervene when there is a direct and explicit necessity to do so. The indirect provision is where we are trying to find every other possible avenue that needs to be closed off to ensure that we have a system that is appropriate for the challenges that we face. I would best describe the provisions in the new sections 86B and 86C of the 2008 act, which the bill introduces, as trying to get to that level of completeness.

I am not quite following Mr Fairlie’s question.

It certainly would, because there is no doubt in my mind that the fact that we had to make such significant legislative change—in extremis, twice, in the spring of 2020—indicates to us that our statute book is not up to date.

We are likely to lodge an amendment on the moratorium at stage 2. There are differing views on the appropriate moratorium period and on whether it should be permanent, so we are taking time to consider what the timescale should be. During the pandemic, a temporary moratorium of six months was put in place. In England and Wales, the period is 60 days. There are a range of views, and we are in the process of weighing up the different views and setting out the provision, which is likely to take the form of a stage 2 amendment.