Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 10 June 2020
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am sorry—you caught me off guard there.
There are only 23 minutes left before we all want to be out of here, so I will try to be brief. I will simply remark on the fact that the reasons for our having the bill are important ones, as was set out by the minister and Iain Gray.
As Ross Greer said, the bill deals with the balances that exist between rights and responsibilities and between obligations and expectations I will add one more to the many reasons that others have already set out for the legislation’s importance. Giving people the ability to see information about them that is being disclosed at job interviews is a welcome development, because foreseeability is an important issue.
The main line of questioning that I pursued throughout stage 2 and during the evidence that the committee took at stage 1 was on the two-part test. One of the most important concerns that was raised then was about whether information that would not be disclosed in relation to a criminal conviction could be disclosed if it formed part of what is known as “other relevant information”—or ORI. Such principles being in the bill helps greatly. The guidance that will be made on them will clearly be hugely important in ensuring that such information is safeguarded, and that information that would not be disclosed as relating to a criminal conviction is not disclosed simply because it involves other relevant information.
The General Teaching Council for Scotland plays an important role in regulating members of the teaching profession. It has been in touch with me to state its concern that information that it needs in order to understand and assess whether people are right and proper candidates to be in that profession is simply not reaching it, from either Disclosure Scotland or Police Scotland, both of which have cited reasons relating to the general data protection regulation.
It is somewhat ironic that PVG information is required to gain accreditation in the first place. However, if there is new information about a police investigation, and even if Disclosure Scotland is made aware, the details would not be passed to the General Teaching Council, nor would the police alert it. That is an issue that requires some urgent attention. The Information Commissioner for Ireland has said that that information should be shared, and my understanding of GDPR legislation is that information sharing is permissible when it comes to child protection. I urge the Government to look at that.
18:40