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I am not sure whether Mr Hogg wants to come in, but that point leads nicely into my final question, so I will ask it now, and Mr Hogg can reflect on both issues.

When the committee initially spoke about this in private, one of the things that we grappled with was that 16 and 17-year-olds who are not currently on supervision orders can theoretically still be referred to the children’s reporter. Although there is no presumption that they will be referred, in theory, they can be. Can witnesses confirm whether that is the case?

I checked again on the Scottish Government’s website before asking that question, and it says that they can still be referred to the children’s reporter. That might happen only in specific circumstances, but they can still be referred. They do not have the protection of not being kept in a cell or being unable to waive the legal right to a lawyer, and safeguarding protections might not exist, but my understanding is that they can still be referred to the children’s reporter. Does that happen or am I wrong?

I knew what IRD stood for, but my colleagues possibly did not, so thank you for explaining that, Claire.

I have one final question but, first, would Mr Hogg or Mr Donnelly like to add anything on that point?

That is very helpful. Maybe I was a daft laddie during the briefing session, but I do not think that that was made clear to us. Mr Hogg, do you want to add anything?

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?

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 agree with that, but anyone looking at that snapshot in time could go, “Oh, my goodness, there were 700 complaints. What on earth is going on?” I also accept that you are bound by very clear rules in statute and guidance about how you can interpret the data and what you can say publicly about it. Without dwelling on the matter—there are other matters that I want to move on to—would you take on board that, if one MSP were to allegedly err in some way and 200 complaints came in about it, all a wee bit different, the consistent way you report that, which is to say that there are 200 complaints, might give a false impression to members of the public, given that you are bound by confidentiality and cannot say that it is in effect one complaint about one MSP? Seeing that snapshot, members of the public might think, “What on earth is going on here?” Is that a reasonable point and would you look at ways in which you could say more about the number publicly and report more clearly? Where there are constraints, perhaps you could share with the committee how we could overcome those constraints.

I am pleased to accept that as a relevant matter that should be addressed.

I would like to move on to the complaints about ���˿���: 738 in 2020-21 and 760 in 2021-22. Those have melted away, and I think that we all know about the reality there. Let me give you an example, rather than talk about specific cases. If I were to err somehow—not that I would do that, you understand, Mr Bruce—and a complaint came in, that would be one complaint. However, if 30 people complained about me slightly differently, that would be logged as 30 complaints. If 100 people complained about me slightly differently, that would be 100 complaints. Could you say a little bit more about the numbers for 2020-21 and 2021-22 and why they have melted away? An outsider looking in might think about those numbers, “Oh, my goodness, what on earth is going on with those ���˿���? The place is an absolute riot. Look at all those complaints.” It is a wee bit unfair on ���˿���. They absolutely should be held to high standards, but the data that is given by your office needs to reflect the reality, not just the raw data. Any information that you can give on that would be very helpful.

I may come back in after Edward Mountain’s line of questioning about welfare, but I will end for now as I started, by thanking you and your team for the improvements that you have made to the organisation so far in a relatively short time. It is important to put that on the record.

I appreciate that.

I think that Mr Mountain alluded to the welfare of ���˿��� 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 ���˿���. If someone complains today—and I know that some unique cases can be complex—should they expect admissibility to be established within weeks?

Can I start by welcoming you to your permanent position and thank you and Ms Glen for the hard work that you have clearly been doing to turn the organisation around? We should put on record what you say in your report about “rebuilding a plane in flight”. You have had to do the day-to-day job and the bigger-picture stuff at the same time, so I think that the committee would agree that thanks are required.

That said, I will now scrutinise various aspects of current performance. Your website says:

“Current initial review time: 8 months.”

We know that that might come down to seven months. Then it says:

“We are very sorry that it can take up to 8 months to conduct an initial assessment of your complaint. We are doing everything we can to reduce this time.”

However, we heard from Ms Glen that that is not the case for complaints about ���˿���. That is not clear on the website, nor does the website give an average time for an initial complaint to be assessed as admissible, so it gives a misleading picture of the performance of the organisation. That is unfair to the organisation, but it is also misleading to members of the public, who may be deterred from making a complaint about an MSP. I would welcome some reflection on that before I move to my next question.