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I appreciate that.

I think that Mr Mountain alluded to the welfare of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ so, keeping time constraints in mind, convener, I will hold back on that and ask a supplementary question later. At this stage, I will ask about the process for complaints about ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. If someone complains today—and I know that some unique cases can be complex—should they expect admissibility to be established within weeks?

I will be brief, because Mr Mountain made the points that I was hoping to make. I want to take a slight step back to consider all MSP cases—not just cases such as Mr Mountain’s, in which there is no admissibility, but those in which the most significant breaches are found. Breaches can be incredibly minor—there have been a few of those already in this parliamentary session—or they can be really significant and attract a lot of media attention. It is, of course, for your independent investigation to rule on them and for this committee to agree to those rulings, as appropriate, and decide what sanctions might look like.

Within all of that, there still has to be a duty of care for the individual who is complained about, irrespective of what they have or have not done. I would welcome your general reflections about where that duty of care sits, Mr Bruce, because the committee is grappling with that. It is not your primary role, so where does the duty sit, even in those cases in which an individual has quite clearly done wrong and is sanctioned deservedly? Does the duty of care sit with the commission? The Parliament has to reflect on that. Do you have any thoughts about it?

That is very helpful.

If I am reading my scribbled notes right, I think that you report the number of active cases. If you cannot give me this information now, do not, Mr Bruce, but I am trying to be clear about what can and cannot be provided. How would the committee monitor the number of active cases relating to MSPS, if that is in the public domain? It might not be our job to do so—I do not know.

I think that what you are saying is that the KPIs are tailored to each circumstance, so you cannot give a baseline report about whether performance on the time that it takes to investigate each case is improving or deteriorating, because each case is so specific and unique—or can you? What baseline data about the speed that the office is operating at to make a determination on a complaint could the committee look at?

What I am doing is flagging up that, although it is not for us to scrutinise councillor complaints, given that your team can investigate both types of complaint, there are direct consequences—including some positive ones—and we may have to look at that in a bit more detail.

My final question is not about welfare, as I will let Mr Mountain lead on that. As performance and corporate governance are improving dramatically, we should look at the risk register. Perhaps due to my incompetence on the internet, I was able to find the risk register policy but not the risk register itself. Is that a public document? If it is, what are your top two risks for the organisation?

I am not trying to undermine confidentiality and privacy arrangements. Once admissibility has been accepted, if it is—and I know every case is different, so it will be difficult for you to answer—how long should a complainant or the individual complained about imagine it might take for a report to be forthcoming from your office? How do you get a baseline for that and how do you measure performance?

I apologise for cutting across you, convener. I would never normally do that, but Ms Callaghan made an important point about automatic enrolment. We might want to draw the matter to the attention of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. When I sat on the Social Security Committee and convened it previously, it looked at the automation of benefits. Given the connection between our interest in the issue and that committee’s interest, it might be worth making it aware of any correspondence that we have. Apologies again.

The comments have been helpful, although they do not relate directly to the statutory instrument. It is helpful to highlight the fantastic work that the Scottish Government has done on free school meals and the approach to universality. The substantial increase to the school clothing grant has made a massive difference to constituents across the country.

Mr Kerr is right that we need to maximise uptake. Any correspondence to the Government that draws attention to the successes of those policies and asks what we can do to enhance take-up will be really welcome. We always welcome the qualifying criteria, which Mr Marra referred to, being kept under review—budgetary considerations to one side. On that basis, I am happy for us to write to the relevant minister.

I promise that it is not just an add-on to the previous line of questioning. My question is inspired by Bill Scott’s earlier comment that, in some cases, there might not be continuing costs because some young people will move on to positive destinations in further or higher education. However, at another point, he said that, once we have signed folk off as having reached a positive destination, we do not monitor the situation to see whether those positive destinations are realised for the period of time for which the statutory obligations exist. You cannot have it both ways: there is either on-going monitoring or there is not. I am genuinely a little bit confused about that.

I suspect that, if we debate that issue further, there will be a bit of mission drift. I should acknowledge that I am an Educational Institute of Scotland member.