e and people getting into work. We saw the disruption that was being caused. We worked closely with Network Rail and train operators to devise a plan that would help to overcome that. What we saw very quickly was that metal theft was going much wider than the transport network, and it was a supply and demand, and it was economics because the price of metal was going up around the world. However, it was starting to affect critical national infrastructure, local authority housing stock, faith buildings and a whole range of areas across ultimately communities that affect businesses. BTP has led a number of national campaigns against that. The first one was with the help of the Home Office and a £5 million grant that brought about some legislative change. Of course, if committee members will know here, we have done something similar in Scotland through £600,000 from Transport Scotland grant, and we have encouraged, engineered and collaborated across critical national infrastructure with utilities, police forces and other law enforcement agencies to bring about the figures that you quote, the railway figures. 52 per cent reduction in metal theft across Scotland has been brought about by the leadership that BTP has shown in that campaign and the way that we have galvanised other law enforcement agencies, local authorities and utilities to better protect their assets, more enforcement targeting metal thieves, working with scrap metal dealers and new regulation and the Parliament and officials and ministers to change the law. That is the contribution that BTP has made around metal theft, which I think has led to that reduction. Does anyone else want to comment? I think that perhaps in the vein of what the area commander just said that those butyl metal theft operations resulted in generating many crimes, some of which were off the railway, but dealt with an entirety by BTP, meaning that they were detected and reported positive crime statistics. Those were all transferred to Police Scotland, so they actually have the benefit in their statistics. We are integrated in the common aim of justice in Scotland. Having a visual presence at the freight yards and the network railway yards is absolutely crucial. My members have certainly advised me that seeing the BTP police visit those locations on a regular basis is crucial. The link between the BTP police and the staff is crucial, because the BTP police know the staff and the terrain of the railway, so that is crucial. On the merger between the BTP police and Police Scotland, from a staff perspective, a trade union perspective, we can see the BTP police expertise and knowledge being lost if the merger went ahead. Potentially the BTP police would be swallowed up as a result of the Police Scotland resources. If you take, let's say, Edinburgh Waverly and Glasgow Central, Glasgow Queen Street, if there was an incident taking place of antisocial behaviour within the Prince Street and we had the BTP police within the concourse of Edinburgh Waverly, the BTP police would be expected to deal with that antisocial behaviour activity and Prince Street. Therefore, losing that expertise, that knowledge in terms of dealing with any forms of assaults and antisocial behaviour taking place, where it would be on the concourse at the stations, Edinburgh or Glasgow, or God forbid, on our actual train. We certainly get a lot of information coming to the trade union about verbal and physical assaults, which is a big concern for us. We are engaged in transport in Scotland and in conjunction with Scotland and the BTP police about the possibility of using body cameras in order to address the issue of antisocial behaviour and physical or even verbal assaults. What is coming over loud and clear from my members up and down the country is keeping the BTP police expertise and knowledge and the presence of the BTP police on the railway is crucial. It is fundamental. If I may, I should declare a membership of that in the parliamentary group, and it is not very often that I would take a different view from Michael. In relation to that, I share his view on the retention of a specialist service. It was to go back to a point that Mr McBride made earlier and maybe just an opportunity. Maybe I heard it wrong, Mr McBride. You weren't inferring that Police Scotland would deploy officers other than risk assessment, and that risk assessment would clearly show the requirement for that additional training. You talked earlier on about the need for specialist training and almost an inference that there could be people deployed who have not been given that specialist training. Is it back to the track safety competition? Yes, yes. I am not actually sure that the point that I made or that you are quoting me on. Sorry, let me rephrase it. Given the contractual requirements, never mind the legal and moral requirements, no one would be deployed, no police officer, regardless of how bad he would be deployed in that way without having the necessary training. That would certainly be my best and professional advice to Police Scotland colleagues that they should not do that. Stuart McMillan followed by Alexander patiently waiting, and then we have Mary Fulton in May. Thank you very much, convener. I just wanted to talk about interfaces that have come up. There appear to be something like 40 to 50 trains across the Scottish border each day. The UK, London in particular, has passenger trains going to the Netherlands, to Belgium, to France each day, and freight trains are coming from Spain and Germany on a regular basis. Indeed, we have just had the first freight train from China that has just arrived in the GB network. The numbers of vehicles involved in that appear to be greater than those that cross the Scottish border. It is worth saying that, at 12.15, there had been 7,393 trains operated in the GB network and 766 trains in Scotland. At the moment, there is an interface between 766 trains in Scotland and 40 trains across the border. In relation to the way in which interfaces with Netherlands, Spoorwagen, SNCF and SNCB are managed and how they work with BTP and railways generally, does that actually work? I appeared to hear the suggestion that it could not be made to work across the Scottish-English border, but I am endearing that it is causing huge problems with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other jurisdictions that are connected by train. It was Mr Goodbrand who first raised the subject of interfaces, but I could be corrected. I am sorry, Mr Stevenson, but I am not in possession of any facts regarding the policing of the railway in Holland other than the fact that there was the decision to take the policing. I heard the point about policing in the Netherlands, Spoorwagen and the network. That is not my point at all. My point is that we have trains crossing borders to other jurisdictions. I am one of the issues that was raised earlier, was that having a different jurisdiction in Scotland from England would be a major problem. I am just wondering if you could tell us about the problems between London and Paris, London and Brussels, London and the Netherlands. I have no evidence to answer that particular question. I do not think that I have suggested for one moment that there would be difficulty in cross-border between Scotland and England, because we prove now that there is not a problem. What we suggest is, and what we are drawing an influence from, potentially due to a different command structure, a different crime recording system, a different communication system between two different forces, there could potentially be a problem. I am not suggesting now that there is a problem between Scotland and England, in actual fact, quite the reverse. It is a successful policing model that works now, and hopefully it will continue to work in that way. On the 17 return journeys that there are for passengers a day between London and Paris, who records the crime? I am not sure the answer to that question. So it has not been of such a character as to come to your attention. Cross-border, at least in that one particular instance, has not been an issue. There is always the opportunity, if you want to provide further evidence at any point, after today's session, if there is something that you are not aware of and want to go back and check, the committee is happy to receive it. I think that we really need to move on. We got the point that Stuart Stevenson has made, unless anyone has got anything substantial to add to it. Just very quickly, if it helps the committee, the example that is used is a much more controlled environment. It is a port with all the port controls, and I am not sure the levels of crime, but in terms of crime it would work exactly the same way as we have described here. It would be, if you like, the end station destination, so crimes that are coming in to St Pancras, it is an international port, would be recorded there. For reasons that were given by others earlier, you have the victim, you can get statements, you can start off the inquiry, but it is a much more controlled environment. I do not know the crime statistics for the Eurostar and that is the operations of that. The trains that pass between the Scotland and England border, as I think Mr Goodman said, works effectively just now. I suppose what the proposal will bring in is almost like dual controls. We are asking two organisations to think in completely different ways from what they have done hither to and how crimes would be recorded or how incidents would be dealt with and their competence as they cross the border or don't, as the case may be. I think that we will move on. Alexander, followed by Mary. Thank you, convener. One of the benefits that we were given for creating Police Scotland was that there would be specialist policing across the whole country and that there would be a seamless transition for the employees' rights and conditions. That was not quite the picture that we have today. For your own organisation as you move forward, ensuring that there are rights and conditions for employees, we advise that it should be as seamless as what happened with Police Scotland. It is an interpretation whether you felt that that was a seamless transition. I do not believe that the members and the employees of Police Scotland saw it as a seamless transition. I have major concerns about how that could be managed and how it could be maintained, retained and sustained for individuals and employees of the British Transport Police as we go forward. I would like some views on that. That point is a major concern for the British Transport Police Federation because the officers of the British Transport Police have dual status. I think that you have already heard that they are employee stroke police officers, but what they are not is crowned servants. In Police Scotland, the transfer among the eight forces was crowned servants to crowned servants. To date, we do not know and we have not been shown what the legal mechanism is for a transfer of an employee to a police service who are crowned servants. It is a major concern. I know that Mr Matheson himself has sent a letter to myself to circulate amongst the officers in BTP Scotland. We hear the term triple lock guarantee, but the terminology that is used in the letter and the memorandum policy is that the ambition is the aim where possible. In my mind, it does not give a triple lock guarantee and it continues with that level of uncertainty for the British Transport Police officers. What exactly will their terms and conditions, their pensions look like when or if they transfer into Police Scotland? It is a major concern. Mr Hawke, you know from a staff perspective, we do not represent the BT Police employees, not our members, but from a staff perspective, terms and conditions are crucial. From an RMT perspective, any attacks on the terms, conditions, pensions or real-weighty passes, we would not hesitate in taking industrial-weight action and issuing the ballot papers. Certainly from an RMT perspective, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the BT Police Federation in terms of their members protecting their terms and their rate conditions. It has not been unreasonable to have a guarantee of their terms and their rate conditions being protected to go forward. Mr Burnley, staff and TSA members are in fear now of the proposed integration. They cannot see what is coming, for sure. Do not find any comfort or reassurance anywhere, and it feels like we are being pushed towards a life and career cliff edge where you will either be pushed or jumped and we have no idea what the landing of a leg is. Initially, Tupay was mentioned and discounted, understandably. A version or form of Tupay was mentioned and discounted again, understandably, and the latest mention was of Cabinet Office transfer of staff or similar regulations. That would be between you remaining within the same employer—that is not the case here—and you remaining within the same pension fund, which is not the case here. I have to report that there is fear among the staff about what might happen in a number of ways. One major fear is that we could not remain with TSA, we believe, once transfer had been completed and we would be with a union organisation that does not understand the lead-up to this or our paying conditions anyway. Most staff who have options will take them. Please do not think that the numbers of staff you expect to transfer will transfer. That will not be the case. That is one of the main cruxes about the numbers that we are looking at, because the information that has been given assumes that there is a transfer going to take place of a number of individuals. That is the quality, skills and the package that comes with that. However, in reality, you believe that that is going to be much more diminished than it would be because of the fear and the anxiety that is being created because of the situation and the way that it is going forward. In response to Mr Stewart's question, it is important to make a couple of small points. One is that I would never presume or assume to speak for members of support staff in terms of how the transfer from their former forces into the police service of Scotland went, but certainly from a police perspective, given that terms and conditions were well, certainly meant to be. However, they were by and large universal but one or two local nuance. That resulted in very little difficulty whatsoever. Whilst I understand why Mr Goodman made a reference to Crown Servants, we are not actually Crown Servants in Scotland. It is very common short-hand that translates wrongly north of the border. It might be angel stancing ahead of a pin but, in truth, it is not the status of police officers in Scotland. However, there are clearly issues in terms of transferring what are employed police constables into those that hold an office of constables. Certainly from preliminary examination that I have undertaken on the arrangements that exist between Cabinet Office and how those relate to the two-pay principles, I do not see them as being insurmountable. Currently, within the Police Service of Scotland, we have officers that have a variety of different terms and conditions based on when they joined and what their particular arrangements were. I suspect that we have very few that are left that are entitled to our rent allowance. We do have a large number that are entitled to transitional housing allowances. We also have officers that joined. In fact, I know that we do have those that are entitled. We also have a very small number of officers that are actually directly responsible down to Mr Finnie, who secured very bespoke arrangements based on the promises that they were given before they were due to start in 1994 versus those that they were actually given when they started in October of 1994. We have those that are in different pension schemes, both what is known as the 1987 pension scheme, the 2006 pension scheme and the 2015 pension scheme. If, and or indeed when, the decision is taken to take the step to take the officers of the police service of Scotland, I know that one of my responsibilities for looking after what would soon become my members would be to engage in the most proactive of terms with the British Transport Police Federation, with whom we have nothing but the best work in relationships that I could describe in any event, to make sure that we understand all of the nuances of what apply to the differing elements of entitlements that exist for police officers across that range to make sure that they are transferred into the police service of Scotland. Whilst I know that it will not necessarily be a clean and simple thing to do, the nature of bringing people into any organisation is always going to result in some kind of differences along the line. I suspect that, at some point, as happens with all organisations when they evolve over time, it is that they get closer to something that looks and feels very similar to everybody rather than having different numbers of people on different elements of entitlement. As indeed is currently the case in the police services now. I am conscious of the time that I have asked questions and responses to be as succinct as possible. I am going on with the main line of questioning and I hope that, at the end, the supplementaries that some people have indicated that they would like to ask, we will have time to ask them. Mary Fawld by Fulton. My main question was very similar to Alexander Stewart's question, because I want you to ask if you have been given any long-term guarantee about the terms and conditions. I asked the question last week about the terms and conditions of staff upon transfer, because it is my understanding that TUPID does not apply. Assistant Chief Constable Higgins said to me that he had been assured that the Scottish Government was working furiously to ensure that the current conditions of service of all British transport police will be honoured, and Mr Foley said that it was his belief that that was the intention. I take it that the witnesses today have been given no guarantees that that will be the case. We definitely have not been given guarantees. I very much welcome Mr Steele's stance that he would be supportive of the officers if they transferred over to Police Scotland. There is a slight stumbling block and that is that British transport police officers are under a contract of employment, under the Employment Act. They do not and are not employed under police regulations. Again, it is questionable whether our members can indeed be represented by a police federation that is written within their statute under police regulations, because we exist, the British Transport Police Federation, under the Statute of the Railway and Transport Safety Act, not under police regulations. I am not suggesting for one moment that we cannot achieve that, but there are a lot of obstacles in the way that nobody understands. It has never been done before. There is no legal mechanism to allow it to be done. Yes, we can use COSOC, but that is no guarantee to an officer who may transfer a year or two years down the line for that to change, because it has no legal binding guarantee for those officers to keep their terms and conditions, their pensions, their free travel in some cases. Unfortunately, we do not have that guarantee. My concern is that, over time, there will be a natural erosion of terms and conditions. If British Transport Police move in with their enhanced set of terms and conditions, over time, that will be naturally eroded. I accept the point that Callum Steele makes, that there are a number of different legacy arrangements across the Scottish police force, and different officers have different enhancements. However, if officers leave, those enhancements are not maintained, so there will be a natural diminishment. I am concerned that the same would apply to British Transport Police. Mr Steele? I thank you, convener, and it is specifically on the point that was made by Mary Fee on the question of whether the position is actually one of enhancement or one of betterment. I am not entirely sure that that position has actually been answered. It is certainly, I think, a bold statement to make it as a position of fact. There are certain elements where the conditions of BTP officers are certainly better than those of Police Scotland officers, not least in respect of the entitlements for travel on the rail network, but, again, certainly from my understanding, those vary depending on when people join the BTP. However, in terms of general terms and conditions, I think that it would be a bold step to state that there is a risk of deterioration for anyone coming into the Police Service of Scotland, because at this point in time, I would like to think through no small effort down to the work of the Scottish Police Federation, among others. We have significantly better terms and conditions than many other police officers in other parts of the UK, and there is a danger of trying to get into Alps and Oranges here, but I certainly know that in many elements of the conditions that apply for the Police Service of Scotland, they are superior to those that are replicated in England and Wales, and I do know that, to a large extent, but not exclusively, the BTP conditions service are more closely aligned in general terms to those in England and Wales than they are in terms of general terms. If I could just turn to the substantive points on the question that Mr Sure asked and Ms Fee around the terms and conditions, it is undoubtedly true that this has caused significant angst and uncertainty among staff. Staff who we expect to go out every day and police the railways in the really successful way that has been acknowledged by the committee, ministers and others. Angst is driven by complete uncertainty over the legal mechanism and what guarantees that legal mechanism may well bring. If I could just use an example, and I know that Mr Goodband has asked for this question a number of times from officials and others over the legal mechanism, but some of the staff in the BTP in Scotland have said, why would it be the 284 of us? Why is the wider organisation not, if I could use the phrase, at risk of going across? Because we don't know the legal mechanism, and why would it be us necessarily? Now, that comes from, if you go back to what I said before, a culture of specialism, a conscious decision to join a specialist railway police force, and people are saying, why would I want to transfer into something that is much more generalist? The pension arrangements are quite different. A funded scheme, not an unfunded scheme, with different accrual rates, different contribution rates, different benefits, different opportunities to retire, different indexation start points, massively complicated, if I could quote Mr Higgins again, massively complicated, but BTP are working with the Scottish Government and Police Scotland in the workstream around terms and conditions to try and unpick this and see how it might, if you like, transition across. However, it is undoubtedly extremely complicated, has caused great uncertainty and angst among the people who serve you in the BTP in Scotland. Just at this point of information, members will remember last week that Mr Folly undertook to give an explanation of why BTP did not apply. He has since got back to the clerks and referred the explanation to be made by the Scottish Government, so just as a point of clarification on that. I would like to ask the panel, it might be best directed at Mr Goodbunt. Where are the majority of resource season assets for BT situated firstly on a UK basis and then on a Scotland basis? It may be also for Mr McBread. Well, each division, and there's four in total, have centralised specialism, i.e. crime scene investigators, crime scene managers, detectives, specialism within the CID, reactive, proactive, and then there's the centralised force specialism, which is in London at force headquarters. In a case of a major incident, a murder investigation of that nature, resources to support the already resources within the divisions will be deployed from our force headquarters. I think that, like most other police forces, we are caralled or concentrated around a number of hubs, as Mr Goodbunt has just explained. In Scotland, the majority of our resources, like police Scotland colleagues, are in the central belt. The reason why I asked about that line of questioning was actually coming back to an earlier point from yourself, Mr McBread, where you had spoke about the significant cost increase if police Scotland are involved at the start of an investigation or an incident or whatever. What circumstances would there be where police Scotland would need to be involved at the start of an incident and how often does that occur? I just missed the start of the question there, that I had said that there would be an additional cost increase. Yes, it was an increase, I think, 50 per cent was maybe what you said. I think that what I said was that we know that criminal disruption on the railway cost-sex amount, we know that if local police forces attend first, it will take normally at least 50 per cent more time and therefore additional cost to getting the railway recovered and people moving again. I said that 50 per cent was more than time, okay, so that was my misunderstanding, but how often does that happen? How often across Scotland would you say that an incident has occurred on the railway that the police Scotland are first to respond to? If we use the figures for this year, police Scotland attended first to incidents on the railway 1.8 per cent of the time, so two incidents in a week out of about 250 incidents, so about 1.8 per cent of incidents, police Scotland turned up first. Okay. What sort of incidents are they most likely to be? I think probably right across the spectrum of criminality, so it could be trespass, vandalism, antisocial behaviour, disruption at stations, incidents on trains and they may be called to intervene, so it will be a wide spectrum of things that they'll be asked to live across. Okay, so in terms of when Police Scotland arrived at the scene or when BTB arrived at the scene, you would accept that there is joint upworking arrangements in place between the both services? Yeah, absolutely. We collaborate on a daily basis, I think, as I said earlier. We plan together for most big events. Police Scotland are planning for the policing of the event. We are normally always planning for the mass transit system in thousands, tens of thousands of people moving to go and see whatever the event or concert or sporting event happens to be. Okay, and do you think that—just to finish off, convener—do you think that the confidence that we heard in last week's panel from John Foley, for example, and Bernie Higgins, which we've heard about from other members? I'm not saying that. The confidence that we heard from John Foley and Bernie Higgins last week in relation to the merger being successful, do you think that a lot of that has come from how current operations are and Police Scotland obviously being already involved in the incidents and feeling that the merger can work successfully? I don't know that I picked up the confidence if I'm honest. It might very well have been that and I may have missed it. Well, I've got quotes here. I think that other people had mentioned them earlier. Just to get everyone in. John Foley said that we are extremely confident that we'll deliver the merger successfully, and Bernie Higgins said that I am confident that the transition would occur and it would be done in collaboration and partnerships. I'm probably on record both for the Superincendence Association and the divisional commander to say that if we are talking about policing and perhaps the difference between arresting someone in Central Station or Waverly Station or Aberdeen Station as opposed to arresting them on the high street, there is no difference. You know, police officers are police officers and they'll be able to do that. Where I think the specialism, the cultural difference in a specialist police force comes is in the discretionary effort that we bring and the discretionary benefit that we bring to the travelling public, to the train operators and actually the wider Scottish economy, allowing service recovery by honing our police procedures and ensuring that they do not disrupt any more than is necessary. Getting the service back up and running so that people can get to their work or business meeting is where we really add value. I'm not convinced yet, although we are working with Police Scotland to share our procedures, that that will be available on day 1 on 1 April 2019 or any time soon after that. I think that it could be quite disruptive. Just an observation. Police Scotland would not have access to railways if there was a derailment or a collision or any trespass on a railway. If Police Scotland officers do not have a PTA certificate, they can't go on or near the running line. Mary Forill by Liam? Yeah, it was just really, harking back to an earlier point, but actually following on from what Fulton said, because it was in a relation to a question that was raised last week and that was John Finnie that had raised it initially. I'd had to follow up one and it was really about asking how the British Transport Police were deployed across Scotland and we received the figures back as part of supplementary evidence this week. You can see that, obviously, the central belt is quite a heavy presence there. I suppose that the thing that I find more concerned is just that I suppose that there is less of a presence as you move up towards my constituency, Angus North and Merhyns, up around the north-east and across to the Highlands as well. I suppose in that sense that if we are looking at a specific transport division within Police Scotland where those officers are trained, I feel that that would give me more comfort anyway, that if there was an incident in some of those other areas that aren't so well staffed at the moment, there would at least be a presence there that were capable of dealing with that necessarily to get your comments and thoughts on that. I would probably go back to what I said earlier. We've just completed the demand review work and from 9 April we are changing how we look and feel to adapt to the demand. The demand in the north-east for BTP is primarily football based with quite a lot of work and effort done with the offshore industry because of some issues that can arise when people come back on shore. Some particular trains that come down from the north-east all the way down to Newcastle that have to be policed right through seamlessly across the border because of the risk of disorder on those trains. I also said before that the number of calls that Police Scotland—that's a two-way process—go to some of our calls. I said 1.8 per cent, so it's about two every week that they will attend on average. We receive over a thousand missing persons inquiries and requests from Police Scotland over the period of year, just to give you one example. In the last two weeks we've received four requests for specialist search capability, trackside looking for evidence or missing people that we supply back in. It's a two-way process. However, our analysis of the criminality and the disruption on that line and in the region of the north-east is causing us to change our staff profile and not just the numbers that we have there but the times that they work to better meet that demand. It's not related to that, but it was particularly for you, Mr Burnie. I was about the staff survey that was carried out and the results of that. I was just wondering how many the staff took part in that survey. I see that 37.5 per cent indicated that they would be intent on leaving, some through retirement but many through an expectation that they think they'll be made redundant post-transfer. Have you been given any indication that that would be the case, that that's what would happen, that the staff would be made redundant? That's certainly the case, we believe. One reason being that we've seen the removal redundancy of staff in Police Scotland already, we know of their low morale. We want no part of that, obviously, we're safe and comfortable where we are. If we do transfer across, we will be on average £3,000 a year salary less. We don't know where the post would be. I will also note that Police staff roles in Police Scotland vary regionally, meaning that the same role can be differently paid and have different conditions depending where it is in Scotland. That is all adding to our anxiety and conclusion that if we have an option to go elsewhere before then, we should go elsewhere. Is that somebody from Police Scotland? Is that what you've heard from the Government? Is it just your belief that redundancies will take place or have you specifically been told that? In terms of the salary, you mentioned that as well. Is that something that you believe to be the case or is that something that you're told is going to happen? We know that that's the case. We have checked this out. With who? The GSEC, with the respect of Police Scotland. If there's more information that you can provide to committee on that, I think that that would be helpful and it would allow us to move on. Liam is followed by Douglas. Those are supplementary, so if we've got time, we'll do it. John and Ben had said that they wanted to come in. I might give Calum Smith the opportunity to come back. First, in relation to the confidence that Fulton MacGregor indicated earlier, we had similar expressions of confidence from SPA in Police Scotland in the run-up to ISEC. Clearly, what we need to do is satisfy ourselves with that confidence. I want to touch on the issue of morale, which is mentioned by a number of you this morning. I think that the way in which any change process is clearly difficult. With Police in 2026, we have the prospect of a reduction in the number of police officers. I would perhaps ask Calum to steal what the likely impact is on the morale of officers within Police Scotland if in order to facilitate the transfer through the negotiations that are coming at the moment, it is felt that they are coming in on terms and conditions that are preferential to those that Police Scotland officers have. For Mr Burnley, in particular, the staff survey referred to has upwards of 40 per cent indicating a feeling that they would be leaving the service through one means or the other. How disruptive that is in terms of maintaining any sort of service at a point of transition, which, as I say, all of us accept that any transition, any change is going to be difficult, but the order of magnitude that has been quoted in that staff survey would give rise to any concern in any organisation. Thank you, convener. I will get to Mr MacArthur's questions presently, but I think that it is important—to some extent, I will slightly contradict what I said earlier about speaking here about the terms and conditions of support staff. I suspect that there are unison colleagues who will be watching this broadcast and are now screaming at their television sets, but the harmonisation of support staff terms and conditions in the Police Service Scotland has not yet taken place in a way that the service would expect. Rather than identifying that that is a problem and something to be feared, I think that that shows that the two-page principles under which staff came from their former forces into the Police Service Scotland have actually been adhered to. The same principles could only apply to Police staff or support staff members coming from the British Transport Police Authority into the Police Service Scotland, so that is not something that would result in a diminution in terms of conditions that would result in the maintenance of what they currently have under the principles that TUPI clearly act at least until such time as you get to the position of harmonisation at some point in the future, because no one can ever have what they had in the past forever. On the specific issue of the impact of the number of reduction in numbers and morale, there is a very distinct difference between police officers and reduction in numbers to support staff and reduction in numbers, given the position of redundancy. Police officers—certainly those who hold the office of constable—cannot be made redundant. As such, the morale impact for those who are losing their job does not really exist. It is only for those who are left because people have not been replaced as a consequence of retirement or through natural attrition. Self-evidently, there is a morale issue if the loss in numbers results in a reduction in capacity and those who are left during the work of those 400 or so have certainly been floated around just now. In the sense that if there is a deal to be struck with BTP to allay the concerns that have been expressed today, we are expressed at the round table and are very evident in the written evidence that we have received. In the sense that there will have to be the claiming of some success that those terms and conditions have been protected with the migration of BTP into Police Scotland. Against that backdrop and the context of the debate around policing in 2026, it is surely a goodness that that will give rise to some degree of, if not resentment, at least a questioning as to why there is this debate happening over here where there is a treatment of officers coming into the force in one way and a separate debate with Police Scotland officers, which is happening in a very different and more difficult context. I do not agree and the reason I do not agree is because there is a fundamental difference between those that hold an office and those that are employed. The one thing that probably has not been explored up to now is the question of what happens to those that are currently employed when they hold an office. Do they then maintain their entitlement to redundancy and some of the questions that are associated with that? Personally, I cannot see how that is possible. Whilst there are advantages to being an employee, there are also some advantages to not being an employee and the holder of an office. On that single particular issue, I do not think that those two are compatible. There are efforts, in fact not efforts, that are provision in the Police Service in England and Wales where there is the capability to apply for a form of voluntary redundancy although they do not call it such to forget the terminology that they give it. There is no help from my colleagues to my line. No, it does not matter. Either way, redundancy and policing does not work. I see the opportunity for when, because we have not. We have deliberately not stepped into the national territory of the British Transport Police Federation on this. I see the opportunity that when, or if we have these discussions, the maintenance of the terms and conditions that those that are currently there are something that should be quite easily secured, because we did secure some of the protections that would be expected for officers from the former forces. I am getting the commune from the former forces in terms of the residency and the positions that could be applied to them in terms of transfer. It is only right and proper that the same thing would apply for Scotland. If it is very brief, I can take Douglas and then John, but it will have to be very brief. It is just two final points based on the evidence that we have received. First of all, on the staff survey, which I thought was interesting, 37.5 per cent said that they were intent on leaving, yet the other 62.5 per cent, it was not a ringing endorsement to remain with BTP coming into Police Scotland. They said that they cautiously said that they intended to stay. We have looked at morale, but I wonder if we could briefly go round the panel, and I will have a separate question, Mr Steele, but looking at the potential for the loss of experience, not just the morale that means that those people will not continue, but the loss of resources and the loss of experience that we in Scotland would suffer as a result of those figures if they bear any resemblance to what actually happens with the lack of officers coming forward. Just on Mr Steele, because he mentioned transition, I think that it is fair to say that as part of this panel he has perhaps been more supportive of the plans than the others. I wonder what his view is, and I saw his tweet last week about the evidence given by ACC Higgins and how he was very impressed by it. ACC Higgins mentioned the luxury of having two years to implement those changes. Given the problems expressed with the creation of a single force by the Scottish Police Federation and its members, do you think that even with that luxury of two years in ACC Higgins' words, is this the right time to be doing it? With the uncertainty over Police Scotland, all the problems that they still are going through and the problems that your members are highlighting on a daily basis, is this the right time to be integrating BTP into Police Scotland? If you could be very brief. In brief, convener, in terms of that very specific question, that is ultimately a matter for Parliament and one under which the Scottish Police Federation will have a little control, but I do think that it is important to deal with the question of support. The Scottish Police Federation has maintained neutral on this question and remains neutral on this question even now. What I have done in my evidence today is highlighted what I consider to be some of the areas that could work and how the federation and the service would approach them. We have not and would not make a position on a body of employees that are not our members. That would be wholly inappropriate. Ultimately, when Parliament makes that decision, then we will get to that particular state. You were not casting aspersions to your evidence in general. If there is anything that you have not added or that you would reflect on and want to add, the clerks will be happy to receive any clarifications or additional information. Briefly, anyone else wants to comment? Just briefly, in terms of Moral, from a staff perspective, on-train, gate-line and at-actual stations, Moral is at a rock bottom position, as far as staff is concerned. We are greatly concerned because we obviously engage with our members up and down the country. They are greatly concerned about what the ramifications and implications will be for the BT police going forward. If there is any thought of taking away the BT police from a railways, we will be greatly concerned with that position. It is crucial and important that we retain the BT police with the knowledge and expertise that they have. That is crucial in order to ensure that we have a safe railway in Scotland. The demographics for the division, if that is the proportion of the force that is to move across, shows that there are somewhere in the region of 30 to 35, maybe up to 40, people who are approaching towards the end of their service, if I could put it like that, and who may choose to go. That is the sort of number that you are looking at. In terms of trying to retain them, we have talked about the uncertainty. If those people with that service do choose to go, then we would be looking to fill them from within Police Scotland. Therefore, again, I would go back to the submission that I made in writing. That specialism will possibly take a hit right away. That concludes our line of questioning. I thank the witnesses for what has been a very detailed and very helpful evidence session. Douglas Ross. I wonder, convener. We heard from the panel and, indeed, from members some difference in opinion and very crucial information that we received last week from ACC Higgins. Some of us had concerns about training. Other members did not have concerns. Given that this is a vital aspect of what we are discussing with BTP integration, can we ask for a full response from ACC Higgins as to what he intends Police Scotland's training for current and future officers coming into a specialist railway division and all 17,000 officers? We need a full and detailed analysis of that. Our witnesses today have raised concerns and others who think that it is sufficient to have that information in front of them before we reach a conclusion. I agree that we will ask Mr Higgins for that information. I now formally close this meeting. That concludes the 10th meeting of 2017. Our next meeting will be 21 March, when the main item in business will be a further evidence session on the railway policing bill. Thank you all very much.


Welcome, folks. This is Tom O'Brien of TFNN. We go five days a week. We go 10 hours a day. We go 24 hours a day on the internet at tfnn.com. Always remember, folks, whatever you think about, you bring about whatever. You focus on growth, whatever it's having a great day, safe day. It's making a great week, folks. Your truth is personal to you. Your own opinions and point of view reflect your own agreements and are personal to you. It's no one's truth but yours. Knock it off! Let's take a look at it out here. We had the Dow Industries finish up 329. Nasdaq up 99. S&P's up 31. Window dressing in spades, folks. They were buying the financials. They were buying the transports. They were buying everything, actually. But both of those sectors, substantial buying and then both of those sectors had been down, had been hit for a long period of time. Gold contract. Gold contract down $7 trading at $12.9150. You've got Silver down 4 cents, $15.07 an ounce. Light Sweet Crew goes topside up a buck and a half. $61.65 a barrel. We had with the oil contract. In fact, let's look at the oil contract. So what we had with the oil contract is that this had been pushing the $60 level for about two weeks, had volume on the push and just couldn't basically get up and away from this area. I did it today. I did it out here. You had the $647,000 contract. You took out the consolidation. This thing is set up now that $65 would like this game. And where I'm going with the $65, by the way, folks, is this. That is the lows when you take a look at how we actually came down. Because when you just look at this in the aspect of how we came down from October of 2018, down into December of 2018, you know, this thing can go right back to $75. That being said, however, is that what you're going to see is that from May of 18 over into August of 18, you get some lows out here that are laying out there about $65. So I expect you're going to get a little flack there. Now, let's go take a look at the gasoline market because as this goes topside, you know, gasoline was up 1% today. So you get unleaded, trading $1.90, and we all care about where gasoline is going. That's for sure. The top of this consolidation is at $192. And it's just about the same type of setup. In fact, let me go XB1. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to put this on a continuous contract, get a better feeling of on a longer basis of what this is doing. Oh, interesting. Yes, see, so this is pretty wild. So what we've had in the actual gasoline contract is that this has gone from the $124 to $190. This is flat into a supply line. So there are different charts. There are definitely different charts because this one here has a month's supply line that's laying out right where we are. $192 going all the way up to this $228 area. That is saying gasoline is going to have a lot of time going to higher price versus the oil market. If we go take, actually, we're going to look at the TLT. Notes and bonds, yeah, they pull back. Bottom line, they pull back tremendously lighter volume. The TLT, now I'm going to show you how this difference is. TLT pulled back at 16 million shares versus the break top side with 13 million. So that is saying the TLT, yeah, it can get down into this price point of $122.85. And the TLT, remember, is the 20 year plus ETF structure. And what a 20 year plus means is that the only thing they can put inside of that ETF are Treasury bonds that have more than 20 years left in their lifetime. And so you can remember something. Treasury bonds laid out of 30 years, right? So as long as they can be out there 10 years, they can buy, sell whatever they want as long as they're 20 plus. If we do go over and we take a look at the 10 year note, you're going to see the difference in the volume characteristic. Meaning we came down on 1.5 million contracts and I believe this is 2.7 we were going into. Yeah, 2.5. So 1.6 million contracts versus 2.5. And then inside of the 30 year, same type of equation, 30 year come back with 310,000 contracts. You're back a point and a half and that was going into 5.540,000 contracts. What we did have last week, which was pretty cool, folks, in the mortgage market, the mortgage market, the average 30 year mortgage went from 4.4 to 4.17. That was the largest drop in 10 years and on a weekly basis. King dollar, what do we have with King dollar? King dollar is still holding tough. Bears, bulls, they're fighting this out over. Bulls have been winning. It's over the 96, 685 again. We got over there on Friday. Bottom line is that not only over there, it's up here three days in a row right now. So that's saying that your probability is pretty good that 97.160 is going to get tested. And what this is going to be about is the Euro. The Euro is right at the lower end of this consolidation that has been in quite some time. We had broken down and you broke hard in the Euro the week of the March 6th. Now it came right back top side, but the longer this lays here, at this 112 area, the higher the probability is, man, you can be down to 109 and a hot beat and you can actually get out of 103. And I believe if we look at 103, that's been a low. Yeah, that's that's been the low in the Euro. Yeah, going back as far as I can go back, I believe. Oh, no, no, no, that's right. That's I remember that that's right. 82. Yeah, it was an 82. It was at 82 and 2000. And it was at 64 and 85. Interesting, man. Yeah. So bottom line is that, yeah, it can get it can definitely get to lower price. British pound bottom line that the palm wants higher price, you know, and, you know, Brexit hasn't disappeared, folks. Bottom line will hear something about it. You know, next few days, Parliament has taken over the aspect of the votes coming in, as well as the aspect of what they're going to put in front of the House of Commons. And, you know, we'll see where this shakes out. They're saying that Theresa May faces a second attempt by UK lawmakers to force the government to maintain tighter ties with the European Union after the Brexit. If they succeed, May could have decided whether to U-turn and break her promises, risking a split-nerve party or call for an election. Stay right there, folks. Come right back.


People dying to hear what I got to say All right, appreciate it It's going good. We're working hard. There's definitely a culture that we're trying to build Like the way we're heading but a lot to improve on and we got really high Expectations for ourselves, especially as a no-line and everything we're trying to do offensively. So Heading in the right direction. Just you know, we got a sure up a couple things Yeah, I mean regardless just as an offensive lineman as a pro you got to be ready to play next to whoever they put in You know by you and It's good to see younger guys get reps and learn what it's all about and Yeah, it's good work, especially as an older guy. It makes you have to think a little more and Builds your you know game as well. So like I said heading the right direction Just gotta keep working keep climbing each day Um, yeah, I'm loving the new staff. I love our philosophy offensively the mindset what we want to do run the ball all that stuff and Now it's just about executing it, you know, we can talk about all of it, but now we got to go out there and prove it and That's just every day on the field working and I know we're putting in good work and just gonna keep building with time Focus in Yeah, I think I think we do a good job in practice of simulating it so Just keep you know repping those looks getting your Body or technique your mindset everything acclimated that kind of stuff and it's gonna carry over to Sunday And you know, we make that a big point of emphasis that you know, we want to outwork everyone we're playing so That's what training camps for so that's what we're we're building up to right now Yeah kind of similar to You know whoever's playing next to you on the line It doesn't matter who we put in there as an offensive line our mindset is we're gonna create opportunities for Whoever's back to make place because we have athletes like there's no question about that We have guys that can make plays and now let's put them in those situations where you know, let them shine and We're building towards that we you know, I feel like as a group where you know guys are getting a better hold the offense and understanding you know What is the design? What do we think it on each play and? Yeah, I can see it coming together Yeah, definitely Matt He's definitely been one of the guys that I've seen just taking a big jump this year Even just his demeanor in the building his confidence how he's carrying himself And it seems like he's even had more fun too, so that's a good thing and I think he's doing a really good job He's smart guy. He's getting us in the right position on plays and you know as a center You got a big You know task ahead of you with calling out everything and making sure us five or set up for success and He's definitely definitely heading in the right direction Sure, I think yeah last year. I mean no question was weird just going straight into real football Yeah, I'm glad we got you know preseason back, you know workout kinks get used to Like you said with new staff. What's it going to be like what to expect and Yeah, I think we're preparing and Playing on doing a lot of good things and setting ourselves up for you know a successful season Yeah, definitely. It's We got a lot of stuff in this is kind of a point where especially You know if you're new to this or younger guy your head can kind of start spending a little bit But you know, I think for the most part we're handling everything.  We're doing a good job communicating and making sure we're on the good, you know, right page and You know nuts outside though. We got you know a long way to go Okay Yeah, well, you know first thing I noticed with him he's very talented I think he's gonna be a good player You know Obviously like you said with Caleb out. He's you know playing right tackle now as a rookie and that's a hard thing to do You know, I was in the same position my rookie. I remember doing that and it's tough Like I said, we're we're you know, 10 days in now We got mostly offense in and your head's kind of spinning. So with him, it's just improving daily and you know You know kind of talk about feeling comfortable with each play knowing what are we doing? What's the design? You know the bigger picture of just I'm blocking this guy. So Yeah, he's coming along and you know You know as a vet is an eight-year guy You know, it's my job to bring him along. And so yeah, take a lot of pride in that All right, thanks


I really do believe that because of the genetic testing, finding out about the brackets to mutation, essentially it saved my life. I would tell somebody who's considering joining the Genomic Services Research Program to do it. Absolutely. Your voice matters.  And hopefully, you telling your story is going to help change the way that we approach genetic testing moving forward.


So, I have a friend that I do a lot of outdoor activities with and I'm always interested in the kinds of questions that he asks me. These questions always start out something like, so you're a biologist, why is it that the sky is blue or why does this fish have this particular coloration or why is the water the color it is on this particular day or it may range all the way up to something like what is the doctor trying to tell me when he talks about a particular condition. I'm always curious to see what kinds of questions come from this guy and it always starts well you're a biologist so just because one's a biologist doesn't mean they know everything there is to know about life which is a good time to think about this concept of levels of organization. There are many different approaches one can take to the study of life and so what we're going to do is just list all the different ways that that we can approach the study of life and have a little discussion about each of them. So we start off with what we call the atom and certainly if you've had a chemistry class or a physical science class in high school you know know about the atom hopefully. The atom is the smallest complete unit of matter. Now it's important to understand what we mean by the smallest complete unit of matter. There are things that are smaller than atoms we have subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons and electrons and mesons and bosons but these subatomic particles by themselves do not represent any complete piece of matter so the atom is the smallest complete unit of matter. Now we mentioned the term matter which we should define. Matter can be defined as anything that takes up space or anything that has mass but something has mass it takes up space so sometimes people just say anything that has mass and takes up space. Things exist that aren't matter but those are things like emotions or thoughts but anything that that takes up space within the room or the environment is considered to be matter. One of my favorite tricks to play on students is I'll ask them to to think of something that is not matter and I'll write on a on a card because I know what they're going to say and almost always somebody in the room will write down air and they'll say air is not matter but then I remember a car that I once had and I had to crack the window a little bit to shut the door because when I tried to shut the door and tried to compress all of that air it didn't work very well and I had a hard time getting the door shut so anything that takes up space even the air in the room is is matter. There are different types of matter and the different types of matter are called elements and these elements are arranged in what we call a periodic table. Popular elements include things like gold like to have a lot of that or silver or platinum, hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon all of these are different types of matter which we call elements and of course there are different phases of matter and the different phases of matter are things like solid and liquid and gas. We'll talk about water a little bit later in different forms that water can exist in. Solid water of course we call ice gaseous water we refer to as steam and liquid water well we call it water so the atom is the first in our levels of organization. People who study atoms are called chemists. The next level of organization is the molecule level and we have a molecule when two or more atoms are chemically combined. A good example of a molecule would be a water molecule and of course a water molecule is composed of two hydrogens and an oxygen so we have two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom that make up a molecule of water. So here we have three atoms that are chemically combined. We could talk about larger molecules like glucose or or DNA and we'll talk about all of these later. So the next level of organization I like to include is the macromolecule level and the macromolecule level just recognizes that there are some molecules especially important to life that are very large molecules that's what macro means is large. Macromolecules include things like proteins, DNA, polymers and that's in an upcoming chapter that where we'll learn about the macromolecules important to life. The next level of organization is what we call the organelle level. Organelle literally means little organ and organelles are parts of cells that have specific functions. For example you may think of the nucleus of the cell which is the cells control center so to speak or you may have heard about the mitochondria which is often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell and there are others, Golgi apparatus, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, rough endoplasmic reticulum, etc. So we finally get to the cellular level of organization and earlier we learned that the cell is the fundamental unit of life. All living organisms are composed of cells and there are all sorts of different kinds of cells but if it's living it's made of cells. It's not until we get to this level of organization the cellular level that life actually exists. Organelles by themselves do not demonstrate the characteristics of life but when we bring all these together molecules made of atoms and macromolecules which are very large molecules that can be components of organelles and then different organelles working together we get the cellular level of organization. Now we have life, something that can demonstrate those characteristics of life that we talked about before. Now I sort of think about a box that I have in my shop and I have several fishing reels that I've taken apart and tried to put back together but I was missing a piece and I never could get them back together just exactly right and so even though I have all of these parts that could be used to make a fishing reel because they're not put together right or because one is missing the fishing reel doesn't work. So when we get to the cellular level we finally have life all the right parts in the right places.