���˿���

I will be brief. I explored the issue in discussions with the Scottish Human Rights Commission. I also discussed it with ministers in the context of the proposed human rights bill, because I assumed that that would be happening some time soon. Obviously, it is not happening, so those discussions did not go very far.

However, in those discussions with the Scottish Human Rights Commission, it said openly that any change in its structure—it is understandable that its starting point would be its structure—would involve having rapporteurs on disability and older people. I think that the approach should be stronger than that but, even in those discussions, there was a recognition of the need to have something distinctive for each group.

We currently have a children’s commissioner, and I see no reason why we cannot look at how to incorporate that in a wider structure. However, at the moment, there is a strong case for a stand-alone older people’s commissioner. It may be part of a wider structure in the future, but even the Scottish Human Rights Commission thinks that there is a need for that distinctiveness.

Public engagement is important for commissioners. Young people engage with the children’s commissioner, and older people in Northern Ireland and Wales engage with their respective older people’s commissioners. It is maybe not as easy for the public if we say, “If you have a concern or issue over older people, you need to engage with the Scottish Human Rights Commission.” People in Wales and Northern Ireland know what an older people’s commissioner does, which is important.

To gain the support of older people, the commissioner needs to be a specialist older persons organisation, it has to involve older people in all aspects of its work, and its priorities must be informed by older people. There is a strong case for a stand-alone older persons commissioner. Currently, the Human Rights Commission does not carry out that particular role. There is a strong case for commissioners in all these areas to work together under an umbrella of shared services and shared research facilities. However, to reform the Human Rights Commission effectively, we would still have to create distinct commissioners within that structure for older people, disabled people and children. We might come to do that eventually, but at the moment, there is a strong case for a stand-alone commissioner for older people. That role cannot be carried out simply by tweaking the Human Rights Commission.

Yes, absolutely, I consulted the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. You will not be surprised to know that part of those discussions was whether we could change the role of the Scottish Human Rights Commission to incorporate a lot of the proposed work.

My engagement with those commissions highlighted that, in my view, there is still a gaping hole when it comes to older people, but it also demonstrated the importance of putting in place proper processes so that work is not duplicated. In my consultation document and proposals, I have set out that it is important that we do not duplicate work, that the Scottish Human Rights Commission and others carry out distinct work and that an older people’s commissioner would carry out different work. We should not have duplication.

I also looked closely at the effectiveness of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland—I think that that office is very effective—and at the work of the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales and the Commissioner for Older People Northern Ireland. There was an extensive look at a number of organisations, including specific consultations with the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, before I made my final proposal.

As a committee convener, I get that committees have a lot of workload challenges—as a member of the Economy and Fair Work Committee, which I chair, you know that full well—and we have difficulties every time we discuss our work plans. I happen to believe that need to do more at the committee level of what we might call routine scrutiny than we currently do. Often, there is a desire to do inquiries into lots of things, but are we getting routine scrutiny correct?

As I mentioned earlier, there are a host of bodies beyond the commissioners. Even in my committee, we look at Consumer Scotland, enterprise agencies, the Scottish National Investment Bank and all sorts of other organisations. A piece of work should be done that considers the full extent to which committees are effectively scrutinising all those different bodies. When it comes to how committees are structured, that should be a higher priority.

For the stage 1 process, my proposed bill is to go to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee for scrutiny. In the case of commissioners, I believe that a scrutiny process should happen annually. The committee in question would scrutinise the commissioner’s work, whether their annual report has delivered particular outcomes and how effective the outcomes are. Those—if you like—service committees would have a role to play over and above that of the SPCB. That would take the weight off it, which is why it should happen. It would not be done too regularly, but nothing is wrong with the relevant commissioner lodging an annual report. All committees should be regularly scrutinising commissioners over and above the SPCB’s work.

No, it would not necessarily do that.

I echo the points that have been made. During my discussions on the proposal for an older people’s commissioner, it has been put to me that the Scottish Human Rights Commission already does the work that such a commissioner would do, but that is not the case. It is absolutely clear that there is a gaping hole when it comes to standing up for the human rights of older people, and I believe that a commissioner for older people would fill that gap. We can see evidence for that in the work that the children’s commissioner has carried out for children and young people.

It has also been suggested to me that we should go back to having a minister for older people, but it is important to stress that the positions of commissioner and minister are very different. Ultimately, ���˿��� and ministers make policy decisions. At the end of the day, the buck stops with our democratically elected politicians.

However, in my view, there is still an important role for a person who is independent of Government to play in providing advice, putting forward proposals and carrying out scrutiny to a level that, with the best will in the world, individual ���˿��� do not have the capacity for. Because of their independence, the role of a commissioner is very different from that of ministers and ���˿���. In addition, an older people’s commissioner would fill a gap that is not being filled at the moment by other bodies in Scotland.

The extent of the reactive work would depend, for example, on whether a parliamentary committee—

It would be an advocacy commission, but it would also put forward proposals on policy changes.

I thank the committee for asking us along.

Like Jeremy Balfour, my starting point was very much the need for a strong independent voice—in my case, for older people. We had the stark eye-opening experience of the way in which older people were treated during the pandemic. We all saw the issues around “Do not resuscitate” orders, the challenges of loved ones in getting to see their relatives in care homes and the sheer appalling death toll of older people in care homes. That really opened my eyes to the extent to which the human rights of older people were being marginalised. In my view, there was a big gap when it came to strong advocacy for older people when those big decisions were made.

Why, specifically, should we have the SPCB supported model? First, the commissioner needs to be independent of Government and, crucially, they must be seen to be entirely independent of Government. In my view, that would be strengthened by the Parliament, not the Government, appointing the commissioner. Secondly, the commissioner needs to have strong statutory powers, such as investigative powers. That was the overwhelming view that came across in the consultation on my bill, in which there was strong support for that particular model.

There is already a good example in the office of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, which has done outstanding work. It has conducted a number of important investigations and has made a real difference on mental health counselling in schools, standing up for the human rights of children in secure accommodation, and the effectiveness of policies and procedures on restraint and seclusion in Scottish schools. We already have a model that works, and I was very conscious of that model in putting forward my proposal for an older persons commissioner.

We are having a debate about the number of commissioners and the need to keep the costs of commissioners down through things such as shared services. That becomes easier if the commissioners who are most likely to share services are based on the same model. We have a tried and tested model for commissioners, and I believe that that is the best model for a commissioner for older people.

Absolutely—and we can go beyond that and talk about the number of quangos whose combined budget is £6.6 billion. That raises a host of issues around shared services and scrutiny. The issue goes way beyond commissioners, and there is a feeling that commissioners are being singled out, particularly the SPCB supported ones.

We should look at the positives. The fact that proposals for commissioners are coming forward shows that it has been recognised that commissioners represent a positive policy intervention. We have seen positive work by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, which is a good example of something that is actually working, and I will come back to that later. We are not alone: every part of the United Kingdom has a children’s commissioner. Further, Wales and Northern Ireland both have an older person’s commissioner, and there is a big campaign to have one in England as well, which probably shows that there is recognition that having such a commissioner is quite a positive intervention that upholds the rights of older people in those countries. All proposals have to be considered on their merits, and my proposal will stand or fall on its merits—I hope that it stands, of course.

The final point that I will make on that is that it is quite difficult to say to older people that we are now full up with commissioners and that, if a proposal for an older person’s commissioner had been put forward earlier, they might have got one, but they are not going to get one now.

You have to look at each proposal on its own merits. In my view, commissioners play a positive role, and the debate is about how we support commissioners and deal with the challenges around scrutiny, shared services and funding.

Do you want me to address the issue of the extent to which I looked at the criteria that the Finance Committee set out?