Hansard

It gives me great pleasure to open the stage 3 debate on the Public Records (Scotland) Bill and to invite members to agree to pass the bill. I thank members of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, the Finance Committee and the Subordinate Legislation Committee for their hard work and careful scrutiny of what is in essence a technical bill. I also thank members for their comments on the bill during its passage and the organisations and individuals who provided oral and written evidence to the committee and briefings for members on the provisions.

The bill is about improving the management of public records by named authorities. It amends the Public Records (Scotland) Act 1937 in relation to court records. It is the first bill about Scottish public records in more than 70 years. As I said during the stage 1 debate, the bill has its origins in Tom Shaw’s report on the historical abuse of looked-after children, which was published in 2007 and was accepted by all the parties in the Parliament. Tom Shaw’s powerful and compelling evidence on the bill to the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee showed the human cost of record-keeping failures. He repeated his recommendation on the need for new legislation to cover all public records. That is why we introduced a comprehensive bill that covers all the functions that are carried out by the public authorities that are listed in it.

The bill will not mean that authorities need to keep everything—far from it. Good records management involves identifying the records that are important and have long-term value and drawing up agreed schedules that say how long particular records should be kept. When authorities engage private or voluntary organisations to carry out functions on their behalf, the records that those organisations create will be covered by the bill. That addresses a key element of the Shaw report.

The bill provides a definition of “public records”, which is necessary to ensure that those responsible for managing records know which records fall within the bill’s scope and know the obligations that will be placed on them. The definition also ensures that the keeper of the records of Scotland, who will produce guidance on the form and content of plans and who will have powers to scrutinise their implementation, knows which records an authority’s plan should cover. Only then can the keeper assess whether the plan makes proper arrangements for the management of those records.

Nowadays records can be kept in a variety of formats, the range of which clearly could not be envisaged by the 1937 legislation. The definition therefore ensures that the bill is future-proofed, as it must cover records in any format.

In its stage 1 report, the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee agreed to back the bill’s general principles, taking the view that there was a strong moral obligation on public authorities to manage personal records effectively. It agreed that Tom Shaw’s report and the experiences of former residents of residential schools and care homes in trying to trace records formed a persuasive argument for legislation to address known deficiencies. That view was fully endorsed by Parliament’s unanimous support for the bill at stage 1 and I am grateful to members of all parties who spoke in that debate.

Before stage 1, both the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the voluntary sector argued that the bill should focus only on high-risk records and that the definition should be removed or narrowed. However, although it makes sense in practice to concentrate on high-risk records, managing only certain records within an organisation is not good records management practice. The keeper would find it difficult to agree a records management plan that took such an approach, as it would create uncertainty about which records were covered and who decided whether they were low or high risk. Instead of excluding types of records, the bill allows authorities to assess levels of risk and to make provision in their own records management plans to manage different records differently.

The Government responded to concerns that were voiced in evidence to the committee and during the stage 1 debate. At stage 2, Elizabeth Smith and Ken Macintosh made important points about the need for the bill not to be disproportionate or to create a heavy burden on public authorities, particularly the voluntary sector. To address those issues, I moved 28 separate amendments, all of which I am pleased to say were accepted. The Government also accepted 25 non-Government amendments lodged by Elizabeth Smith that, along with the amendments that I have moved and the Parliament has agreed this morning, further improve the bill’s language and tone. I think that Elizabeth Smith probably holds the record for the number of Opposition amendments that the Parliament has accepted to a bill—she might want to check that—but together all of the amendments seek to emphasise our aim of encouraging partnership working and continuous self-improvement rather than dictating solutions.

The stage 2 amendments made it clear that the keeper will not seek to impose a one-size-fits-all approach in every case. The Government’s intention has always been that the keeper should work closely with authorities to ensure that the records management regime takes account of particular sectors’ needs and respects their judgments about risk. Different sectors will have different records management plans based on individual needs and their assessment of the risks that they face. The bill permits professionals in the various sectors—child care, policing, health and the other areas—to make such decisions within an overall management framework. Moreover, named public authorities across Scotland including the Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, local authorities, the Scottish courts, the national health service and others will be required to produce and implement a records management plan to be approved by the keeper.

The improvements for record keeping enshrined in the bill will, I believe, address the problems identified in the Shaw report and provide a solid framework for improving records management in Scottish public authorities for many years to come.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the Public Records (Scotland) Bill be passed.

11:38