Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2024
That is not a position that the committee has taken, and it is not contained in the recommendations of the report. The recommendations of the report, which I will come on to, are quite clear. That was certainly not within the scope of the inquiry and what we considered.
We have concluded that now is the time to establish that model. I believe the inquiry to be a considered and comprehensive piece of work, in which we sought first to establish how the model is working in practice, including by considering the respective roles of the SPCB, the parliamentary committees and the Government. We then looked to understand what was driving the increased number of proposals to create new commissioners, and considered possible alternative models and the case for a review.
The evidence that we heard was compelling. It is absolutely clear that the current model is no longer fit for purpose. Without a clear and coherent framework underpinning how the overall landscape should operate, it has evolved in an ad hoc way, with individual proposals being agreed on a case-by-case basis. That has led to a disjointed landscape comprised of a collection of individual bodies with varying functions and powers.
There is strong evidence of overlap and duplication across the commissioner landscape, which we heard was currently being managed through collaboration and, in some cases, through a range of written agreements and memorandums of understanding. There is considerable concern, including from existing commissioners, that adding new bodies into the mix would increase that confusion and duplication that already exists. As summed up by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland,
“the proliferation of Commissioners offices will be a costly exercise and may not provide good value for money for taxpayers, especially if there are multiple bodies tasked with intervening on similar or identical matters.”
Current accountability, budget setting and scrutiny mechanisms were also found to be, at best, wanting. We heard from the SPCB that it faces challenges in dedicating adequate time and resource to provide comprehensive oversight and governance of supported bodies. We heard that the SPCB’s function in this respect has evolved in a haphazard manner and that the governance role sits uneasily alongside the SPCB’s other core purposes.
Conveners told us that parliamentary committees regularly experience capacity issues in scrutinising the effectiveness of post-holders against a backdrop of many other work programme commitments. Current post-holders told us that their experience of committee scrutiny varied, but all said that they would welcome more regular engagement with committees.
A significant number of witnesses also highlighted challenges in assessing aspects of commissioners’ performance, including whether they have made a difference, whether they are delivering on their core purpose and whether they provide value for money.
At the time that we published our report, six proposals for creating new commissioners were being considered, each of which could be defined as proposals for new advocacy or rights-based bodies. My colleague Liz Smith, in summing up, will speak more about the evidence that we received on the drivers for the increase in proposals to create that type of commissioner.