Felly, rydw i'n fawr i'r clywbeth y cymdeithasol y 27 ymgyrch yn 2018. Rydw i ni'n wneud o'r ffordd, ond Llea MacArthur oedd y cymdeithasol yn ysgolodol. Felly, rydw i'n gweithio lle'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Mae ystod y gydag ymgyrch yn ystod o'r ffawr i'r ffordd 5 i 6 yn y cyfnodol. The committee's letter on its recent pre-budget scrutiny and to consider potential witnesses for its scrutiny of the vulnerable witnesses' criminal evidence, Scotland Bill. Are we all agreed? We are, thank you. Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on post-legislate of scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012. I refer members to paper 1, which is a note from the clerk, and paper 2, which is private paper. We will hear from two panels this morning, and I welcome our first panel, chief constable Ian Livingstone from Police Scotland and on behalf of the committee, I would like to congratulate him on his recent appointment. Susan Deacon, chair of the Scottish Police Authority, whom I welcome back to committee. I thank the witnesses for the written evidence, which is always so helpful to the committee. Daer obeill y blwyddyn nhw iwel sydd eu cyfnodau sydd yn dda, gan gwaith gyntafon nhw iel i'w hyfforddiant. Fyw ddod o'r ffordd. Rwy'n dweud, mae'n gweithio i எr ffordd gyda'r ffordd. Rydyn ni'n taer i chi ddegwydd y rhaid o'r ffordd ar gyflosol, nid yn gweithio, iddyn ni ddegwydd i'i ddegwydd i unrhyw ffwrdd yn gychwyn? Rydyn ni'n ddegwydd i'r ffordd. I think that the financial operating environment was undoubtedly a factor and it was explicitly so in the discussion and debate to move from the nine legacy operating arrangements to one. In my view, I think that there are also a number of other factors about current threats that we face, but just as important, the future threat. So the ability of policing in Scotland to make sure that the increasing threat from cyber crime that people are being defrodded online, people are being exploited online, the threat from serious and organised crime in all our communities, not simply in the central belt right across the whole of Scotland, the increased vulnerability and the need for policing to respond to individuals who are vulnerable meant that our structures were not optimum. I also think that one of the difficulties or challenges that we have had in articulating the value of the single service is undoubtedly true to say that we did not reform from a position of crisis. If you look internationally at significant pieces of police reform, it is often the case that it arises after a real crisis in confidence, so the Belgian period file scandal or other such instances. So policing in Scotland was working and was effective, but it was working and it was effective despite the structures. It was working and effective despite the disparity in capability and capacity that existed right across the country. I think that finance was one reason for the change if we wanted to maintain the service that we have, but I also think that making sure that policing was fit for purpose now and in the future was another strong reason to make the change. I think that the five years that we have had show that that is the case. Taking you on from there a wee bit, what do you think some of the implications would have been for operational policing had the reform not been made? I think that it would have been difficult under the financial arrangements to maintain the structure. I think that year on year we have taken about £200 million from the annual budget in real costs. That is in excess of the revenue cost of two or three of the legacy forces. If we had stayed existing as we did, which, as I said, was effective as far as it went, but there was enormous inefficiencies and enormous gaps in our effectiveness, so I do not think that, in my view—and it is my own perspective, undoubtedly—I do not think that Scotland would be as safe now and in the future as it is had we not gone through that process of reform. That is a short answer. If I could comment on that, too, I think that the Parliament did absolutely the right thing and at the right time in terms of reform and the police service. I am very struck by the more time that I have spent in this role and the more that I have worked on and with people in policing across the UK and more widely, how much stronger it has actually made us in terms of delivering a police service that is fit for the future. I am conscious that myself and Mr Finlay and one of the committee clerks attended, for example, a conference yesterday that Cyprus and Scotland and what WorkScotland organised that heard from speakers from a number of other countries that have gone through similar reforms or are identifying the need to go through similar reforms. In some cases, I think that the Netherlands has more than 20 forces being brought together into one national force. They have encountered many similar challenges of change to those that Scotland has encountered in taking that forward. Without question, there is a clear need to go in that direction. Even if you just look south of the border and some of the challenges are now playing out very openly in select committee inquiries in Westminster and so on around the challenges of having 43 regional forces and how you actually manage that to provide a police service that can meet the kind of challenges that exist in the world today, those are real issues. I have certainly been very clear about what I think are the really quite significant deficiencies in terms of the early work done or not done to build a police authority that works effectively. That is something that I have worked very hard on over the past 10 months to turn around. The legislative framework is right, and I think that the reforms are absolutely the right direction of travel to go down, and I think that the country is better for it. Are you able to elaborate on any examples where you think policing has been better? As a result of the reform? I think that the investigation of death goes to the heart of the legitimacy of policing when somebody dies under certain circumstances, often unexplained. When it is clear that it is a criminal death, I think that the legitimacy of policing is vital that that is then responded to fully, thoroughly and not only the family but the wider community are reassured that that will be investigated thoroughly. We have had over 320 murders committed since Police Scotland came into being, and with the exception of two current on-going inquiries involving seasonal organised crime, every single one of those murder investigations have been detected. Now, when I share that with colleagues internationally, they are really quite struck by the significance of it, and that is because we have now got a capability that wherever a death occurs in Scotland, we will respond to that thoroughly. The second point that I would make in regard to that specific example that you asked for is not just in terms of murder investigations, it is actually into unexplained deaths, and then the need to respond properly in the first few hours, 12 hours, 24 hours to actually, if need be, eliminate criminality. We have now got the capability that will go and will make sure that things are done properly, forensically, that there is rigor, that there is thoroughness done, so that families are not left asking questions for years and decades to come. If it is accidental and if it is a suicide, we are in a far better position to link into family, so one key area that I would say, and it is not just investigation of murder, it is actually the investigation and response to unexplained deaths. I think that it is night and day from where we were previously. I wonder if I could just add to that. When we talk about the benefits of a crude from having a national force group, we quite rightly, I think, often focus on, for example, murder and major investigations and that sharing a specialist capability across the country, and of course areas like cyber crime and counter-terrorism that require that real strength that you can get from having a national force. I think that sometimes we forget how much it matters to people in local communities that they get the same high standard of policing right across the country. I have read with great interest all the submissions to the committee and two that really registered with me were from Scottish Women's Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland, who have pointed to the real benefits now of there being the same high standards across the country in the areas that they are dealing with. I think that that is absolutely right. A woman who has experienced domestic violence in Inverness should be able to expect exactly the same high standard of support from the police service in Galashales or anywhere else in the country. I think that it is important not to lose sight of those benefits too. One more question, convener. That is all right. Thanks a lot. I started off my line of questioning by asking about the financial implications of reform. I am glad that the conversation went on more to the operational issues, but just to come back to the financial question, quickly obviously the budget yesterday raised the head again of the £175 million that the police in the fire services are owed, if you like, in Scotland. Are the police making any representation to the UK Government on that issue to have that money reclaimed? I have not done that directly myself. I have certainly made representations to the chair of the police authority and to civil servants at Scottish Government, saying that that would be of assistance, but I did not feel it was my position to speak directly to the UK Government, so I have spoken to my own, the chair of my own authority in that regard. As members are aware, one of the provisions of the statute is that the accountable officer function sits within the police authority that is all held by our interim chief officer and from next week our new chief executive that will be picking up that role. One of the things that we have worked really hard to do within the SPA is to develop and strengthen that accountable officer function, because that is where the accountability sits for the £1.1 billion budget of policing in Scotland. Part of that is about ensuring that the accountable officer is more active and assertive in the space that is about making representations, whether it is to Scottish Government or whether it is a slightly more complex landscape that is also in connection with inter-governmental issues. There has been quite a number of things recently at the Police Authority board, for example. I am thinking of issues to do with potential additional policing costs of Brexit, especially in the event of a no deal. I am thinking also about President Trump's visit and so on, where we have very actively sought further information from the chief constable about additional policing costs accruing from operations like that, for example, so that the accountable officer can be stronger in the work that he is taking forward in making those representations, including where necessary, either directly with the UK Government, where that is appropriate, or more often than not, via Scottish Government, in terms of their negotiations or representations on issues such as the one that you have mentioned. Good morning to the panel. Ian Livingstone, you started by saying that we did not reform from a position of crisis, but I think that both witnesses will recall the tension that previously existed between Police Scotland and the SPA during the early days of reform. What steps have been taken in the interim period to improve the situation in the last five years? If I could pick up on that first, I have thoughts and observations of the last five years. I am accountable for the last 10, going on 11 months. I would particularly direct Ms Galruth and other members to the additional submission that I put in last week that set out the range of measures that I have driven forward as chair to get the SPA into the kind of shape that it needs to be in, to be an effective and trusted public body. I hope that members have found that helpful. I am obviously very happy to take questions on that. In addition, the other thing that I have driven as chair is a big job of work to strengthen leadership and governance in Police Scotland. On both fronts, the SPA board, the leadership of Police Scotland and, increasingly, although it is still a work in progress, building the capacity of the SPA as an organisation, I think that when we are fundamentally in a different place from when I and Ian Livingston as then Deputy Chief Constable appeared before this committee back in January, we are still on a journey. I am not for a moment saying that everything is exactly where it should be, but I do honestly think that a lot of those early issues that were played out very publicly, around very public spots, frankly, between the SPA and the Chief Constable, including in front of the Justice Committee and others, I think that we have moved on dramatically from there. What we are really working on now is ensuring that the governance and scrutiny arrangements that we have within the Police Authority are absolutely fit for purpose to serve our dual role of being able to both support and challenge Police Scotland. That is about holding the Chief Constable to account, but it is also about fulfilling our statutory obligation to maintain and improve policing. In the latter, sometimes that is about working very closely with Police Scotland, for example, in taking forward the change programme. On other occasions, as I say, it is our job to hold the Chief Constable to account for the work that he is now doing leading the force. The fact that we now have two new Deputy Chief Constables and three new Assistant Chief Constables, which account for a large part of my summer in terms of designing and executing those recruitment processes means that we now have a really strong team at the top of Police Scotland and we are building that in the SPA as well. I think that it is through that strength that we can get into the place that we need to be that is mutually respectful and work to the benefits of policing in Scotland. I hope that that answers your question. I am conscious that I did not talk about the first 40 years in every attempt. In living time, would you like to add your thoughts? Thank you. I tried to look forward more than looking back, but looking back, as a Police Service and as an organisation, we were moving into a completely new system of governance that nobody had had experienced before. That was the same for the members of the Police Authority, the officials supporting the Police Authority, officials within the Scottish Government and senior officers when the Police Service, of which I was once, were used to the local boards. There was a familiarity and there was a level of trust and an understanding. Undoubtedly, as we moved towards this new structure under the primary legislation, there was not a shared understanding, there was not a shared purpose and all of that caused an enormous amount of tension. From a police perspective, we have undoubtedly recognised the value of scrutiny, the value of oversight and the absolute need for robust accountability. The reason for that is that that is where we get our trust and our legitimacy from. I am also very confident that the more people learn about policing and the more engagement people have with policing, the more reassured they are about the motives and the good faith and the public service that lies behind that. That includes engagement with members of the committee. As members round the table, I hope that we would agree that there is a willingness to acknowledge where shortcomings have been, but there is also a willingness to shine a light on issues and problems and then collectively make sure that we are in a better position. I think that the relationships are entirely different, and from a police perspective we are much more open to accountability and much more welcoming of that. Susan Deacon, a note from your submission for today that the SPA would be concerned that uncertainty and disruption caused by opening up the act at this time would be destabilising and could create a risk. I also appreciate that you spoke to my previous question with regard to your role in providing challenge and support. Some might view that as a conflict of interest perhaps. Is the legislation still fit for purpose in terms of governance and accountability between the SPA and Police Scotland? Yes, thank you. Those are really important questions to address. If I could take the second point first, and it is that dual challenge and support function, it is often suggested that there is attention and a difficulty with having that dual function. I completely disagree with that. I think that it is a kin in many ways to the role of a Government minister who has to be both the biggest ambassador and advocate for the public services that they are responsible for and to be very challenging and hold those services to account. I think that it is a kin to many different forms of boards. Public, private and third sector, where again trustees or directors have to have that dual function of supporting the organisation while at the same time challenging their executives and so on. I honestly do not see any conflict in that at all. I think that what the SPA has lacked, and I think that genuinely what we have now really started to flesh out both in articulation but also in our governance frameworks and our practices, is frankly a bit of clarity and intellectual rigor around what those different functions are and how they perform differently. The SPA was never built properly as an organisation, there just was not that clarity of purpose. It has been a huge job of work and it would be very boring for me to talk through it all, but I can assure you that we have addressed that range of different levels to make sure that we are clear about performing both those roles. In terms of the legislation being fit for purpose, I think that it is crucially, yes, is the short answer. I think that you could take any act of any Parliament and you could always find areas, particularly through post-legislative scrutiny, where you might find areas to amend and change parts of it, but fundamentally I think that the structure is right. I think that it is critically important, not least given some of the challenges that both Police Scotland and the SPA have faced in the early years, that the organisations now get the chance to really stabilise and develop and deliver policing and a really formidable programme of change that needs to be taken forward. That is why the SPA has been really very clear in our submission to say that, although we absolutely welcome the post-legislative scrutiny process, I think that that is a hugely important learning process, we would urge caution about making any further changes to the act. It is something that we hear from policing all the time on the ground. I know that the chief constable hears this too, which is that the police service needs some clarity. We also, as an authority, need that clarity and stability of a structure that we can then make work well, and that is really what we are focused on now. I think that the intent and governance that was built into the act for various reasons has probably never properly operated in different ways. We have never had that period of stability where the respective roles of the chief constable and the police authority, Scottish Government ministers and the wider public were properly discharged. We have had people in interim roles and interim measures in place. To judge the act, I think that I would rather continue to run with the act as it is and make sure that the structures that we have are properly implemented and properly understood. I think that I would be in a better position to give a view then. However, I do not think that it has ever worked in terms of the intent behind it because of various issues and changes that have arisen. It was in the last week's evidence session that the Scottish Police Federation alluded to overt media interest in the reform process. I suppose that that media interest had been quite detrimental to the organisation's development, as it were. Do you recognise that in terms of your respective roles? Has it created barriers that might not have necessarily existed and negative media interests in perhaps my first question, which was with regard to the tension between the two organisations? What I would say, having again been part of legacy arrangements in Edinburgh as where I was and then moving into the national service, all of us collectively and as individuals underestimated the amount of media and to be blunt for that matter, political interest that there would be in the internal workings of Police Scotland. That, as a result, I think has caused a lot of disorientation for everybody involved in policing, but I would not necessarily define it as always being negative. I think that there is robust interest and, as I said earlier in one of my answers to your questions, we need to be in a position—and I am certainly in a position—that the greater visibility, the greater knowledge and the greater awareness of what is actually happening, not what people are speculating about or not what people through partiality and self-interest are leaking about, but what is actually happening in our communities and within the police service and the people that we serve. The more people find out about that, the better, because people can then see it for what it is, which is an excellent service. If I could add to that—I had submitted to the committee a paper, certainly, the improvements and actions that I have taken over the past 10 months, but I also called out some of the areas that I think we still need to make big improvements on. This is something that we discussed at the last SPA board meeting with myself and the chief constable. I have discussed this, too, and a huge area is communication. Media scrutiny, parliamentary scrutiny, public scrutiny—these are all good, healthy, necessary parts of any democratic process and are certainly the oversight of our police service and it is part of how we ensure that there is public trust and confidence in what the police service does. It is incumbent both in the police authority and on Police Scotland to get an awful lot better at how we communicate so that we can—I think that the SPA, in particular, has a big role to play in helping to facilitate and foster good informed public discourse around what is actually going on in policing now. In fact, you see some of that in some of the submissions to the committee. I think that even some of the submissions are referencing practices within Police Scotland or issues within Police Scotland to the SPA that were from two or three years ago that were the very visible things, very often not positive visible things. I think that it is absolutely incumbent on both organisations now individually and jointly to engage actively and effectively in that space so that there is informed coverage and discussion of what is going on in policing. I want to follow on from that, if I could ask you, Susan Deacon. Is there an issue with whose responsibility for the appointment of the SPA chair? Well, that is a matter for Parliament, quite genuinely, when I applied for this role and undertook the process as it was carried out and that I was required to engage in, which in that occasion also involved the former chair of the policing sub-committee sitting on the panel that interviewed me. It is entirely a matter for Parliament about how that appointment is done in the future. I have been looking at police governance and a lot of different systems. For what it is worth, I think that the arrangement that we have in place, I think that the concern that members have expressed, and understandably so, is whether ministerial appointments in this or any other role compromises the ability of the post-holder to perform the role effectively and independently of where we are required to do so. I, thus far, have not found that an issue, but I do know that in other systems where there are comparable organisations, there are things like confirmation hearings and things like that, but genuinely it is entirely a matter for the Parliament to consider in the future. I think that it is a matter of perception, if it is the approval of the Scottish ministers then there is a feeling that—well, there could be a feeling that it is not as independent that maybe could restrict office holder, I appreciate fully. You have not found that, but I think that it is a perception. Can I ask you perhaps about the interim appointments and the congments that have recently been made to SPA? Where did they come from? Yes, of course. I am very happy to explain that and perhaps take the opportunity to explain to members a little bit more about where the SPA as an organisation is at. I think that members may be surprised by this, but I think that this is important to share. When I took up post as chair, the Scottish Police Authority had 27 members of staff of an initial establishment that was set at, well, variously at different points, I think, 50 and 60. 27 members of staff. That compares to the Crofton commission and the housing regulator, and Oscar all have around 50. Cairngorms National Park has around 70. Scottish Futures Trust has around 80. 27 members of staff—that was not a Scottish Government decision. That was the decision by my predecessor and the then board to leave a number of posts vacant and not to build the organisation. Frankly, it is hardly surprising that the SPA was struggling to perform some of its duties effectively. By May of this year—this addresses the point that you raised, convener—we had taken that to 40. In order to do that quickly, the interim chief officer took a number of steps to, as you say, both second and bring in interim appointments. We have done that and are continuing to do that, as well as make permanent appointments. I will just touch on that in a second, but we have done that through, in some cases, bringing in people from the Scottish Government. We have also reached out into the back parts of the public sector, local authorities. We have an interim appointment as a deputy chief executive and chief operating officer just now on-scon from Highland Council. We had a member of staff from HMICS worked with us for about nine months, helping us to take forward governance improvements. We have also gone through a process of drawing up our advice structure for the organisation of where we think it needs to be in steady state. That would give us an organisation of around 68 people. We have made a number of permanent appointments or in the process of doing so. All those things take time, and they need to be managed very carefully. Members will have various experiences of that. If you simply draft lots of people into an organisation, you just create different problems. You have to manage them into the right roles and manage how the team develops. That is a big job of work that is still in progress. I hope that it is helpful to set in context some of the interim appointments. Members have raised questions about that before. Specifically, the secondments and the interim appointments, where did they come from? As I said, they are from a range of different places. Some are from the Scottish Government. I mentioned one example from HMICS, the local government that we have been working with. We also have somebody from Police Scotland who is seconded to us now to support some of the development work that we are doing around looking at improvements to the complaints process and so on. We have been very careful to make this a managed process of building capacity and capability. I really want to stress this. I see that as being the area that we really need to focus on even more in the period to come. With a new chief executive starting on Monday, I think that he is very well aware that that is something that we expect a new chief executive to really build on the work that the interim chief officer has done to get that organisation built effectively. I should say that, even once we have done that, I would strongly support from time to time that process of secondment and interim arrangements, not least because it cross-fertilises knowledge and experience across particularly different public sector organisations. I think that it enriches the individuals and enriches both organisations that are involved. I suppose that it is the perception thing, and you have already answered that in that you feel that the balance is right. I suppose that it brings me to the next question, in that it has been suggested that there should be a separate review that sets out clear governance structures covering the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Police Scotland and the SPA. We have heard quite clearly that you are working well together. There are improvements that have been made, but we are now on the third chief constable and the third SPA chair. I suppose that it is looking at, is it personalities, and if we just get the right personality, or have we fundamentally now changed the governance structure so that it is right, would a separate review then look at what has been put in place and help to give some reassurance that was, in fact, Gays? I think that one of the worst things that could be done at this point in time is to do yet another review of the SPA. I remember Mr Johnson asked me a similar question when I was here in January, and I said the same then. As a similar written submission to the committee, we are now working through the implementation of an improvement plan for the SPA. It is all set out publicly, all on the website, discussed in public at the board meeting and, as I said, submitted to the committee. That improvement review takes account of 14 separate reviews of the SPA just in the last financial year—14 separate reviews that go into, I forgot the exact figure, but it is well in excess of 100 separate recommendations. We are working through a process of addressing each of those things in turn. I am pleased that, for example, when her chief inspector appeared before you and the Auditor General, they both commented on the fact that there was tangible action taking place in this space. As I mentioned earlier, we have an entirely new governance framework that we have put in place, and that was approved by the board in June. We made further changes to it at last week's board meeting. We have changed the committee structure. I could go on—I am sure that you do not want me to—but the point is that it is not just mood music. It is really tangible changes. There was a second point—I am sorry, I have forgotten—I think that I have forgotten, too. I am pleased to tell you that there is something else. No doubt, we will come back to it. Can I just say the last point? In your submission, you strongly caution against any legislative change to the act at the time and believe that focus should be on delivering further improvement that you have done within the existing framework. Are the two mutually exclusive? Could we not be looking at some changes to legislation that would actually make the improvements that you want to achieve? I think that it is very important for all of us—I say this repeatedly to my board colleagues as well—that we all remember what we are there for, and it is to make sure that the people of Scotland have a police service that is fit for purpose and fit for the future. I think that there has been a displacement of energy and attention from reasons that I understand, and all the internal workings, governance and scrutiny arrangements of the police service and the structure that we now have, rather than a focus on policing. I think that that has absolutely got to change. I think that one of the greatest challenges that we face in our police service in Scotland is the need for it to adapt and adapt quickly for the future, unless it is, for example, discussed very fully at the SPA board and with the committee in relation to ICT and the major programme of investment and change that needs to take place there. I want to be absolutely sure—again, I go back to the statutory responsibility of the authority that I chair to maintain and improve policing. I want to be absolutely sure that we are working very hard to make sure that that change is taken forward effectively in a way that is accountable, in a way that is communicated effectively to the public so that they know why and how policing is changing. That is why it is essential to have stability around what that statutory framework looks like so that we, all of us—including colleagues in the Parliament—can get on with the job of developing and delivering policing, which is obviously one of the most important public services. Forgive me for being, I suppose, quite passionate at that point, but genuinely I think that that is where the focus needs to be going forward. Just to make it clear, there is no independent review because you are confident that regardless of who is in the position—we have been personality classes in the past—the governance arrangements that you are putting in place are robust enough to deal with that situation. I believe passionately in the need always for continuous improvement, and that is a mantra that I have applied to this role. We will continue to keep learning and building and improving the governance, but we have much more robust arrangements in place now that members recognise being what they would expect of a public body. For the reasons that I said earlier, I think that having stability in the overall framework in which we work is really important going forward. When I say that there is no need for a review, it is because we need to act on the recommendations of the 14 that we are working to do at the moment. I think that you have just alluded to, Susan Deacon. There has been a lot of looking back, so bringing us to where we are now and the confidence that you have around the SPA's ability to challenge Police Scotland effectively when required. In your submission, I guess in summary, it has really been your 10 months of focus on building capacity of the organisation. Just to probe that a little bit more in practical effect, are you seeing, because of that building of capacity and the skills that you now have around the board table, far more probing and questioning and confidence of those members both in their Holding Police Scotland account but also in their questioning of the executive team? Are you visibly seeing that as a practical demonstration of that improvement? I am inclined to say, I feel that it is for others to judge to some extent in terms of what they see us do. In my opinion, yes. There has been change in that area. I agree that a lot of the focus over the past 10 months has been on building capacity, but that is not what you meant. It is not just in a quantitative sense, it is about the skills and the capabilities and the behaviours and the culture and all those other things. More than half of the board now has, including myself, come on in the course of the last year. The most recent new addition to the board joined two weeks ago with that. It was the last of the seven new members that we announced earlier in the year. We have been working through a really rapid programme of change, both in the governance framework and in the board development. I recommended to the board who agreed the appointment of a new vice-chair to the board, David Crichton. He has been focusing a lot of his time on board development. We are building exactly those kinds of behaviours. He talked about some of which are about questioning skills, some of which are about understanding the environment in which we as an authority work and in which policing operates. I think that the new members that we appointed were very job-ready in that respect. That was what we respect in that public appointments process. That was what we got. We got a lot of interest and a lot of really strong candidates coming forward. I was really heartened by that. Some of that is about what you see visibly in terms of how we question the chief constable at the SPA board in public forum, its webcast and so on. I do not know members if they watch any of our board proceedings. However, it takes place at a lot of other levels as well, both through our committees and through one-to-one discussions that I and the chief constable have. Increasingly, what we have been trying to build now that we have some stability in the leadership of both organisations is more collective engagement with the senior leadership teams of both organisations to really thrash out what are the key issues going forward. Yes, where necessary, we will push and challenge Police Scotland but do so in a way that I hope is constructive. In terms of the next phase of what you are describing there as an organisation that has obviously been through quite a difficult period, you have been in post for 10 months and have brought what appears to be a stabilisation, a building of capacity, including the skills. Looking ahead to the next period of time, you have a new chief executive coming in, you lay out in your submission some priority areas for improvement and development, which seem to be a bit more outward looking than perhaps some of the internal focus that has been. In terms of the top three priorities for the new chief executive that they are going to be tasked with, you have talked about communication but enhance local accountability external relationships. If you were back here in a year's time, what would be the kind of key things that you would want to be talking about having progressed, if maybe not achieved, but certainly progressed? Yes, a very fair challenge and I suspect you probably will have me back here in a year's time holding me to account in those things. I am very pleased that you picked up on the point about being more outward facing and that is absolutely the shift that I want us to make. Now, I said from day one that I wanted the SPA to be a much more outward facing organisation and that is something that this Parliament, HMICS and others had made a lot of critical comment on in the past. We have done that in terms of changing a lot of our board practices and the lights but there is a whole capability that the organisation does not have and it needs to have. It is something that this Parliament and members of this committee have called out on a number of occasions, not least with reference to, for example, the police and subcommittee. I have frequently heard it said in the chamber and elsewhere that the police and subcommittee has had to do some of what it has done because the SPA was not doing its job in that space and I think that is quite a legitimate comment. Building that capability where we can really at scale engage in and facilitate high levels of public communication, stakeholder engagement, we have started to do that through the main board meetings of focusing on major strategic challenges in policing. We looked at local policing last week, the previous board meeting that was about ICT and one before that was about people and the people in the organisation. That is quite different from where the board had its focus previously. It was not on those big strategic developments but absolutely. A year from now, I will put it on the record, I absolutely want to see the SPA being a body that is outward facing, that it is the lens through which the public and others can view policing in Scotland and that we are facilitating a good informed discussion about the future of policing. You mentioned local accountability and that is hugely important as well. We discussed that at the board meeting at some length last week. There has been enormous progress, I think, made in the delivery of local policing and in Police Scotland's involvement in community planning process and police plans and so on. I think that has come through in a number of the submissions that you have received and the evidence that you have heard. The thing where we still have not got a good shared practice and understanding of is the relationship between the SPA and local authorities and local scrutiny committees. However, one of the first things that I did when I came into this post was met with COSLA. We have had an officer working group working all year in fact jointly, SPA, COSLA, Police Scotland and Solace, the Society of Local Authorities, chief executives. Some of that work is now coming to fruition. In fact, COSLA's local scrutiny conveners meet next week and I will attend that meeting. As councillor Wittam, COSLA's community wellbeing spokesperson said when she appeared as part of this inquiry, that has been the vehicle through which we have been working together to get that work in effectively. It is still a work in progress. The only thing that I would add to that about local accountability, which I know is of interest to members, is that I have noticed in some of the submissions that there has been a couple of comments about the variation in local scrutiny arrangements, as if somehow that were a bad thing. That is actually built into the system that local authorities can and should decide on their own local scrutiny arrangements and I think that that is quite an important principle. That is part of the challenge for the SPA to make sure that we can engage effectively with what are really quite different models in each local authority. However, as I said, I think that that is right and proper that local authorities should identify their preferred way of looking at policing issues within their own structures and practices. You have actually moved on to our next line of questioning. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. If I can just carry on with that line there, and it is. You have made it loud and clear, Professor Dickens. You do not want any more reviews, you are not supportive of legislative change, but I do not sense that necessarily you are complacent, so to build on the comments that Shona Robison talked about there from your statement, and maybe it is too early to talk about the work that has been done with COSLA, but is there a potential to look at whether the model as it is for scrutiny is absolutely the finest or whether there is potential, some scope for the devolution of some of the work that is presently undertaken by the police authorities to the local scrutiny committees, however they are configured? I think that it is important for us to keep coming back to the principles of the legislation, that this Parliament took a very conscious decision to create a single police service and a single national oversight body for that police service, and there was good reason for that, and we have touched on some of that today. I recall when she gave evidence to the committee, she noted the point that, having moved from eight different police services and police boards, we have to be careful that we do things that create 32. That said, and Mr Finlay, I am anything but complacent, I do fundamentally think that we have to strengthen that relationship with local government, and actually I think that one of the keys to this is about communication. What we don't have just now and what we absolutely should have, and this needs some changes at police Scotland's end as well, although again to be fair it's work in progress, is we should have a clear plan ahead for the year where there should be clear visibility about what key decisions are going to be coming up at different times. There should be active communication with local authorities and other stakeholders about when those policy decisions and so on are coming up, advance notice of major changes in policing, which may be operational matters for the chief constable to decide, but which rightly require levels of visibility and scrutiny at both a national and local level, and we just don't have that in place just now. With the best will in the world, a local scrutiny committee and a local authority, for example, can't reach in to our work and seek to shape and influence it in anything like as effectively as they ought to be able to in my view, and similarly we're not reaching out sufficiently and seeking enough views and opinions in, so I suppose in somebody what I'm trying to say is again, I don't think that's about structures, I think that's about communication, culture, practice, openness. Scotland's not a big country in the sense that we're talking about 32 local authorities, not 300. We really ought to be much, much better at having that relationship and that flow of communication and that, as I said in the answer to Mr Robinson's question as well, that absolutely is an area that I would hope a year from now we would be in a different place. In all but two of these authorities that was joint boards, is that a factor? Of course, policing was something that wasn't seen as the responsibility of the entire local authority, it was seen as three or four folk from. Is that a factor? Of course, words like local accountability and scrutiny, we could go around the table and all have different interpretations of that, but that recognition that people do feel disenfranchised, albeit that the legislation would suggest that they've been given something. Yeah, I think the issue of perception is really important, you know, it's often said perception is reality and I tend to hold to that view, so if whether it's a local elected member or as I say another key stakeholder because you know there are many individuals and organisations that have very legitimate interests in what's going on in policing, if they feel that they don't have a state and they don't know what's happening, then we have to take that and face value and address it. As a matter of fact, there are far more elected members involved now in the scrutiny of policing across Scotland than was ever the case with the former police boards. Far more elected members, just quantitatively that is a case because of the different scrutiny arrangements that local authorities have now put in place. I read, for example, the Submission and Borders Council put into the committee, which I think sets out very fully and in really helpful detail about the particular model that they've developed, but that's very different from the other 31. But, as I say, it's incumbent on us, I think, to work with them. And I think there is a police inside and I should let the chief constable speak to that. There is an issue as well about Police Scotland getting much better at its local and public engagement. I know that it's built capacity in that area, but, again, it's clear, and I think that we both experienced this, that many of the perceptions that people have of policing and how it's delivered aren't actually a reflection of what's actually happening, but that's not their fault. That means that Police Scotland will have to work harder at communicating, too. I'm aware that that's been a very, very lengthy exchange and we've got a number of questions to get to. Can I be very brief, then, and just add another question, and that is, maybe you can help out here, chief constable, maybe you can start devolving responsibility, because, of course, to get people's interests to have something to have meaty to scrutinise, to hold the divisional commander to accountability, what opportunities are there for you to maximise the devolution of decision making and, more importantly, resources? Lots of issues in both the earlier exchange and in that one. A couple of observations, if I may, and I will try to be brief. I don't feel a lack of scrutiny as chief constable. I feel extremely highly and intrusively scrutinised and rightly so. I do think that the local authority scrutiny panels and the police authority are at the forefront of that scrutiny, but so is the justice committee, so are community councils, so is every citizen. I've just had the investigative power commissioners all over Police Scotland for a week. Twelve individuals judicially led looking at our ability to adhere to the law and proportionality around covert policing, a very, very important element and an area of interest to many. Audit Scotland has recently concluded its review and annual report. As an organisation, I think policing is highly and rightly scrutinised at many, many levels and many, many tiers. In terms of the local scrutiny panels, I do think—it's early days, but the feedback that I've had from local chief executive and local elected members is that there is a feeling now that there is much more openness and specification sitting at each local scrutiny panel about what's happening within each of the 32 local areas. A further point, if I may, is that I've tried to encourage you to talk about local commanders, but the local commander is a key but just one factor in the policing service being delivered in that area. I've said to my officers and staff and I've shared it with local elected members that what we look for and what I would seek to encourage is not greater scrutiny of local policing, but greater local scrutiny of policing. Every element that Police Scotland provides to a local community should be discussed as best we can at that local forum to make it quite clear that, while the local commander and the local area team are at the forefront of service delivery, they are supported by a network of mechanisms and the strength that Police Scotland brings to bear and the impact that those brigaded resources and capabilities can bring to that local area. On your second point about, in essence, increased delegation and autonomy, yes, I have publicly and personally stated that as my intent. I would like, as best I can and as we go forward, to devolve greater financial autonomy so that local commanders can find up with creative solutions with local partners. Again, I've already commenced at increasing some level of financial autonomy to local commanders to then deploy. I've already allowed local commanders to look at their specific shift patterns and specific deployment models because, as you know, as well as anyone else, even within a local division or a local command area, it's not necessarily consistency. There are different areas in different geographic areas, so my intent is to do that because I think that that will add value, but increasing that level of empowerment within the consistent corporate structure and framework that Police Scotland provides, that's what I'm seeking to do in the next number of years. If I could ask for brevity, we've got another two major areas to cover. We haven't quite finished this area, and hopefully we'll get through as much as possible. Daniel. I'd like to begin by asking a supplementary question before asking my main questions, and it relates directly to what has just been raised. If you look at local accountability, I think that it serves two functions. First of all, along the lines that John Finnie set out and indeed Ian Livingstone just explained about reflecting local needs and adapting policing practice that, but I think that the other one is about policing by consent. Local accountability is, in a sense, a proxy for policing by consent, but if you look at the central structure of the SPA, Susan Yuza, as the chair of the SPA, is appointed by minister, the SPA board is essentially then subsequently appointed, you are accountable to the minister, the minister is accountable to us at Parliament. The public are several steps removed. I'm encouraged by what you're saying about public engagement and public dialogue. I think that that's right. Do you think, though, that there is a need to look explicitly at policing by consent and where that sits within the governance function and how you can be sure that, essentially, policing practice, both nationally and at a local level, is what the public want and, indeed, therefore consent to? I'll be brief. I think that the whole concept of policing by consent runs like a thread through or should run like a thread through all that we do. I think that focus on communication and accountability, including with this Parliament, is a key part of that. That's why, as policing changes as significantly and rapidly as it is having to do, that communication function is not just desirable, it's utterly essential, because otherwise that's where the public fail-off and maybe they're losing something when, in fact, something else is being provided in its place in order to keep them safer. We've got a job of work to do in taking that forward, but policing by consent, absolutely, is at the heart of the whole ethos and delivery of policing in this country. I agree with your observation. I mean, I was talking about legitimacy and where we get our authority from. Again, I say it to my officers and staff, we don't get it from an act of Parliament, we'd formally do, we get it from our fellow citizens, that's where the office of constable, that's where it rests in terms of the traditions of Scottish policing, so our legitimacy is, that's why it's so important to have that level of accountability, so I agree with you. Without that consent, the bond between citizens and policing will not be as strong as I think they are, and I think that that's why, rightly, it's so important for all of us to get that right level and right structure and system of accountability. In terms of my main questions, I really want to ask about some of the fundamental aims of reform, particularly around consistency of policing across Scotland and effectiveness. In both of you have both cited examples, both in terms of detection rates for murders and also policies around rape and the comments from rape crisis and so on. However, no integration is instantaneous or effective from day one, and there have undoubtedly been shortcomings both in terms of effectiveness and inconsistency. I was just wondering what both of you would reflect, some of those may have been, and what the lessons learned from those are? I have a number of reflections. I think that my first observation would be that, perhaps inevitably, that would be for others to judge, but as a question of fact, in the early years of Police Scotland, and I was there, I contributed to it as did many others, we were very introspective, we were very focused on our own internal structures, our divisional models, our tasking arrangements, our systems, our processes and, with hindsight, we were not as engaged with our own staff, our own officers and support staff, nor with our own communities, nor with elected members of that community, including people who were on the Justice Committee at that time. We were quite introspective, we were not outward looking, there was a sense and perhaps a reality of imposition of change. We decided what was needed and we needed to implement it quickly. There were lots of reasons for that, we were bringing together a high-risk public service where our appetite for risk was very low, we had significant operational challenges, we were about to place the Commonwealth Games, and we were bringing together very diverse traditions, in some instances, of organisations, so we were not as outward looking as we should have been. We did not listen as well as we could have to our own people and to our public service. As a result of that, I think that there was a bit of distance created and there were some mistakes made in some of the implementation, and again, mistakes I was partied to. I think that we have learned, and the two examples that I would give that are a foundation for a lot of our work now are around armed policing, unarmed carry. Again, members around this table were extremely critical and very robustly so about the introduction of a national change to armed policing. It had been implemented in significant parts of the country about our armed response vehicles, carrying a sidearm openly and responding to jobs, but that was something new for other communities. I would not explain it well, I would not explain the rationale behind it or listen to what people's perceptions would be. We tried to impose that centrally. The way that we addressed that was using local trusted commanders, local trusted officers, to go and listen and to have a consistent national model, but to apply it in a specific way locally that people understood. My second example, because I am conscious of the time from the convener, is round about our changes to our control rooms and our operating models. We moved far, far too quickly. We did not have enough robust governance around it, and again, mistakes were made. I think that we learned very, very hard lessons from that, and we have made significant improvements about how we now implement change where we do engage our local commanders, our local officers and staff, and also that we put proper governance and structures and involve external partners when we are making significant changes, as we did with the control rooms. If we are looking at shortcomings, it is very hard to sit here this week without being mindful of the reports last week about home detention curfew. If you look at some of the facts, there are issues there, I think, in terms of interagency working, but if you look at the timeline in terms of the police first being made aware in February but not really confirming that address of the suspect until months later, the fact that there was a number of offenders recorded unlawfully at large, but that was not registered on the PNC. I think that the critical thing for me was the fact that you had 44 people at large, but then when actually there was acute focus on those issues, that that was able to be reduced to eight in very short order, which raises the question for me around fundamental competence about the police recording the right information and acting upon it, because that raises a fundamental question about the police's ability to identify and respond to information. Indeed, I think that in some ways the control centre issues are centred around the same things. I was just wondering what your reflections would be on that. Is that a hangover from integration? Is that a hangover from the multitude of information systems, or is it something more fundamental than that? I do not think that it is something fundamental. I think that there were errors made and there was poor communication. I think that the whole system of home detention curfewd had evolved almost on an ad hoc basis. It did not have a structure on a statutory basis for that. That is going to be rectified. There were different experiences in different parts of the country, and the information exchange was not as robust as it should have been. The status of a recall was not always clear to officers and staff. If anything, that is an example of the lack of consistency nationally. I accepted all the observations and recommendations that have been made by both inspectors and recognise that the police service needs to improve its response to that. The thing that strikes me is that, before I mentioned control rooms, on a more prosaic level, we also see issues around the lack of human rights assessment done on the implementation of cyber kiosks. We see letters going out in your predecessors' names, which call them to question the ability of them to be enforced. I guess that the question there is, to what degree are we still dealing with fundamental issues of the police service being on top of fundamental issues in terms of identifying issues and acting in an effective manner? Why does it take, for example, in particular with home detention curfewds for there to be a major incident and a major focus for those things to be identified and addressed? Is there a need to look at that and improve the police and, indeed, the SPA's ability to spot and respond to those fundamental issues in terms of fundamental issues? You were talking about investigating deaths, but this is about preventing them. I am just wondering what your reflections would be on that. There are a number of things that arise through transitional arrangements, when there is a change of chief constable or a change of structure. I know that the issue that you raised has been raised in the media about notices going out in a previous chief constable's name and authorities for that. That is one position that has been advanced. I do not think that that has been a determined position. There will be instances in which the police service does not get everything right. We cannot eliminate all risk. My duty is to make sure that we minimise as best we can. We are still bringing together a host of legacy structures and systems. A lot of our challenges are to try to rectify the inherited systems and structures that we have had. On information, intelligence and ICT, one could have said, well, we want to create a single service, but before we do that, one of the precursors to that is to create a single structure of ICT and then we will move. The chair alluded earlier to other jurisdictions where that approach has been taken. They tried to standardise and harmonise before creating a single structure. In this instance, we moved to a single structure first and then inherited the multitude of different systems and approaches that were there. Therefore, that has undoubtedly made the challenge harder. However, I recognise the challenges. I give you my commitment that I will be entirely open and transparent and recognise where we do not always get things right. However, by overwhelming margin, far more has been achieved by Police Scotland than has not been achieved. I can just ask Susan to reflect on those points. In particular, does the SPA have the ability to identify and address those sorts of shortcomings really before they end up somewhere like this? Well, this actually links to the previous question that you asked me, which was about areas, priority areas for improvement going forward. I think that we are an awful lot of the focus of the SPA needs to move into in the coming period. Again, as has been discussed openly at the SPA board, it is in how different parts of wider systems work together. The example that you gave involves different agencies working with each other. One of the things that we discussed at some length at the board last week was the fact that somewhere in the region of 80 per cent of calls to the police are not connected to crime but are to do with issues of mental health, vulnerable people, where the police service is increasingly addressing situations where, arguably, other public services ought to be, both in terms of the best use of the public pound, but critically to give people the right response and support. I think that one of the key draws of the SPA and one of the priorities for our new chief executive is to build strategic conversations with other partners and public service providers and other agencies and look at some of those interfaces. What the chief constable has spoken about is things that can be done in his hand, if you like, within Police Scotland with our oversight, but critically getting our police service working effectively in the future is also all about seeing where it sits in terms of that wider system. Good morning. I would like to focus briefly on the complaints handling process. Specifically, Professor Deacon, in the SPA's submission, the SPA indicates that there is a need to review the conduct regulations for senior officers. Before I explore that further, how would you do that, or how does the SPA see that being done to ensure confidentiality of both complainers and those complained against? Yes. When we made our submission to the committee, that predated, obviously, the announcement by the then Cabinet Secretary and the Lord Advocate to initiate an independent review of the whole police complaints and investigations process, and I very strongly welcomed that review. That is a really important vehicle now for looking at both the issues that you have mentioned and a host of other aspects of the way that system works, not least in relation to senior officers, which is the area that the SPA has very specific responsibilities. How that is done and how that translates into changes to regulations is a matter for that review to consider and ultimately for this Parliament to decide, but some of the general principles or some of the areas of improvement that need to be delivered is confidentiality, as you say, both around those who are complained against and those who make the complaints. There is an issue about anonymous complaints and how they are managed. This Parliament has worked through those questions at various times. There are definitely issues about the speed and the time that it takes to deal with things. I have some sympathy with some of the comments that Scopoza made in its submission in that regard. That is an important point to me. Some of the language here is problematic in terms of public awareness and understanding and public confidence and trust. Ultimately, this system should be about ensuring that there is public confidence and trust in policing. Historically, in policing, many things are dealt with as complaints and conduct issues, which, in other walks of life and other organisations, would be treated through different processes and different languages to be used and they would be seen as being grievance issues, for example. My hope is—and I have channeled those views into the independent review and the SPA and our Complaints and Conduct Committee have been doing likewise—that that more holistic look at the system can address the confidentiality issues but all those other issues as well. That has not been said. You also mentioned the Scottish Chief Police Officer Staff Association. The committee has heard from them about the reputational damage that can be caused to senior officers when the SPA and the park publish releases on their websites about inquiries. Will there still be occasions where the SPA provides updates on its website about referrals to park? If so, will that continue until the 2013 regs are changed? I would particularly note the additional written submission that the SPA submitted to the committee after its meeting to consider complaints issues where we gave you further information on the SPA practice. It is not the case that the SPA routinely publishes that information. The perk has a different practice. Very often what has happened is that the SPA is required to comment in response to statements that have been made and announcements that have been made on the perk website. When I came into office, and as members are aware, there are some very significant issues in this space and at that time, one of the things that I was really quite directive about within our organisation was that, whereas across our wider areas of work, we needed to open up and be much more transparent, that was an area where absolutely we should not be commenting. Those are individuals involved and I think that it is a really fundamental aspect of any process, looking at complaints, grievances or any employment situations, that the process is robust but is confidential in terms of the way that it is handled. I can only speak for the SPA practice but, of course, there are different organisations and agencies involved. That, indeed, is one of the things that makes it quite difficult for people to follow how the process works. I would like to ask the chief constable. In evidence, the committee heard that investigations are not progressed if officers leave the service and, of course, that can be terribly frustrating for both the complainer and perhaps for those who are complained about. Can I ask the chief constable whether the relevant conduct regulations should be amended such that they can also apply to officers who have retired and or resigned? I essentially think that that is a matter for the public through Parliament to determine, because there are many interests to balance there.  There are the interests of the individual officer who has complained against and, above all, there is a wider public interest. I think that my position would be that whatever should apply to all officers, if there was going to be a change, I do not think that there should be a distinction based on rank or position. Therefore, if one was going to make that change, it would put a police officer in quite a distinct position from other professions. You will be aware, Mr Kerr, that if the allegation is of criminal nature, resignation or retirel makes no difference to the investigation continues to a resolution and decisions are made, but whether there should be either a prohibition on somebody retiring or resigning or whether the inquiry should continue, I genuinely think that that is a broader question for the Parliament to consider. Perhaps, but do you take a view as chief constable on whether it should be permissible? As I understand it at the moment, if an officer resigns, that is a guillotine on any process. Do you take a view on whether that is appropriate or would bear review with a view to change? I have not taken a position on that, but I think that it is a legitimate question to ask. Again, with the forbearance of the committee, I would rather take time to fully consider that. I would say that there is probably a distinction that there may well be organisational and public interests needs for an inquiry to continue and to get outcomes from that inquiry. Crucially, there is learning if there has been a flaw in process or practice in any part of the system, specifically if it is related to policing in Police Scotland, that we could learn from that. That might be a distinction from any restriction on an individual officer from retiring or resigning, but it may be in the public interest to continue with inquiry so that the learning and feedback to complainers can be given without, at the same time, inhibiting an individual officer's human rights, if you like, to go and retire or resign in the interests of him or her and their families. It is a legitimate point and I do not have a position on that at the moment, but those are just some observations. I am grateful. Professor Dey, do you have any view on that? My focus has been on ensuring that we improve and strengthen our practices and act in accordance with the current regulations. Again, as I said earlier, I think that it is important that there be reflection on those regulations, not least in the light of experience, and that is why I am pleased that that review process is under way. I have gone over time. We can allow another five minutes. Thank you. Good morning. Just following on from that theme briefly, Professor Deykin, I wonder if you could explain how the 2013 regulations could be amended to enable the SPA to make initial inquiries prior to referring a complaint about a senior officer to the park? Again, I think that this is an area that, in terms of actual changes to the regulations, I think that they are best considered fully through the review. However, there are changes to practice that we have endeavoured to take forward within the SPA. I think that what your question alludes to is that under the current provisions and also supported by independent legal opinion that the SPA at various points in the past has received, there are limitations on what the SPA can do at that initial assessment stage, which therefore creates quite a low threshold for complaints then to be referred to the park. As our director of governance and students set out when she appeared at the committee, within the SPA we have been endeavouring to be as frankly just as effective and apply common sense as best we can within the powers that we have. We have also been working with other stakeholders on looking at that, too. I am deliberately not saying what changes I think need to be made in the regulations, because I think that it is for others that are more knowledgeable about the system as a whole to make those specific suggestions. As I say, my concern is about making sure that we improve our practices and make the system operate better and more effectively within the current regulations and input some of the views and experiences and the data that we have in the review. Just briefly, I apologise for the slightly technical nature of those questions, but could you also say how you think the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2006 could be amended to clarify when the SPA can treat an allegation as a misconduct allegation? Again, genuinely, as a matter for the review and for this Parliament, ultimately to think about what the statutory position should be. I think that the links to the point that I made earlier, which is that there are particular definitions in the regulations that are present around what constitutes misconduct and gross misconduct, but they are open to lots of interpretation. Many of us as lay people are non-placed people, if you like. We would look at some of the way that those regulations are constructed and say that, surely, there are other and better and different ways of dealing with issues, complaints and concerns. I do not know the answer. Again, I am glad that the question is being asked. What you are saying is that the SPA would take a common sense look at that side of it and to see if it is proportionate in that sense, but that is not relating to changing any legislation. I should stress, as I said, within the powers that we have, because many of these issues are matters for the PIRP to consider. Due to time constraints, there have been a number of questions that we have not been able to ask, but the clerks are going to follow those up with the witnesses to get some responses in writing. It only remains to me to thank you both very much for your opinion today—that has been a very worthwhile session. We will suspend briefly to allow for a change of witnesses and a five-minute comfort break. I welcome our second panel today on our scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Act Alasdair Hay, chief officer of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, and Girstie Darwin, chair of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board. I thank the witnesses for their written evidence, which we always find so helpful. I invite Girstie Darwin to make a brief opening statement. Thank you very much for inviting us here today to talk to you about the benefits of reform. To be clear from the outset, the Police and Fire Reform Act is one piece of legislation, but it created two entirely distinctly separate organisations. The remit of the Fire and Rescue Service is to save lives, protect property and render humanitarian assistance, and reform did not change that, but it did allow us to protect that role while delivering more effectively and we believe efficiently. Failure to reform would have meant a wholesale cuts agenda, and the benefits of reform have outweighed the challenges that we have experienced during that period of change. Reform has given the people of Scotland more equitable access to the vast combined resources of the UK's largest and the world's fourth largest fire and rescue service. We take the responsibility of that very seriously, indeed, and understand that the public turns to us at times of their greatest need and that we have responded to every emergency call that we believe with the right resource at the right time in the right place. We have been able to be there and do that despite repeated, significant challenges. For example, the fire at the School of Art, Cameron House and some of the severe weather incidents that we have seen across Scotland, for example, Sturmfranc up in Ballotyr. The legislation has also ensured that the people that we serve have a greater say in local service delivery through our local plan consultation, our community planning partnerships where we are very active participants, and robust scrutiny by our local elected representatives. The spending power that the legacy services have means that we have been able to really invest in improving firefighter and community safety, and that includes investing in equipment, facilities and training, and that has been across the geography of Scotland. Reforms also allowed us to achieve significant operational and financial efficiencies, and we have been able to take £55.3 million out of our annual cost base on a recurring basis. We think that that is a significant achievement and part of the ambitions of reform. That change has been able to be delivered in partnership with our staff and with our trade unions, and we recognise that that has impacted on many of the people who are delivering our services, but we have tried to deliver that sensitively and want to put on record our gratitude for their outstanding contribution to what we have been able to achieve over the past five years. Indeed, successive Audit Scotland and her Majesty Inspector reports have supported those achievements and the progress, and we believe that the fact shows that the Scottish Fine Rescue Service continues to improve outcomes. The legislation gave us the foundation on which we can move forward and transform the service and do more for the people that it serves, and I therefore believe that the creation of the Scottish Fine Rescue Service has been good for the people of Scotland. I was going to ask you if you thought that the initial case for reform was sound, financial implications and so on. You have answered that in your opening statement, and thank you for that. Can I ask you to hypothesise about what the implications might have been had it remained as the legacy forces and that the single force hadn't been created? I think that, inevitably, we would have moved into a cuts agenda rather than an integration and reform agenda and improving agenda. In fact, for that matter, we know that we inherited a very significant capital backlog, and you might want to ask us a little more about that. We also know that there are a number of brigades who are doing their absolute best to deliver in really quite constrained financial circumstances. We have seen no evidence to suggest that that situation would have changed, and we believe that the creation of the national service has meant that we have been able to protect our front-line service delivery from potential cuts and that, in many cases, we have been able to improve those outcomes, particularly around being able to access a much wider and reliable range of specialist resources against Scotland. We think that we have both managed to save money and to protect front-line service delivery. I have no doubt at all that, if we hadn't created the national service with all the economies of scale and scope that it is able to bring to bear, we would have faced a very real cuts agenda. It is worth remembering that the conveners of the previous eight authorities recognised the need to face the financial challenges that local government was facing to reform the fire and rescue service. Clearly, what they hoped for at the time was that it would remain within the local government family, but they saw the need to reduce the number of services to bring about those economies of scale and scope. It is worth stating that there were 356 fast stations in Scotland prior to reform. There are still 356 fast stations in Scotland. At this point, we haven't changed our duty systems faced with a reduction in our cost base of £55.3 million, which we have been able to take out of predominantly our enabling services, which are vitally important as they are, if we had not reformed them. That, to my mind, would have come out of front-line service delivery, and that would have been unforgivable. Both opening statements and responses have been very positive. However, last week, the fire brigade union challenged the assertion that the creation of a single force had been an ambiguous good for Scotland. Unison Scotland stated that work-related stress among staff is high and moral is at rock bottom. Is that a picture of the witnesses' recognise? There is absolutely no doubt that change puts additional stress and challenge on our staff. We have worked incredibly hard to try to limit the challenges that our staff were facing and to deal with those sensitively. Inevitably, if you are, for example, moving from eight control centres down to three, there are going to be some difficulties. We absolutely believe that the benefits outweigh those challenges clearly. However, that does not mean that we have not had to think very carefully about our change processes to ensure that we are offering support to those who are perhaps most faced with difficulties. We have not had any compulsory redundancies. We have been able to retain very large numbers of our staff, and we have extremely low turnover in our staff, which we believe indicates a commitment to the service and an understanding that the service is equally committed to its employees. As we said in the opening statement, we owe a huge debt to gratitude to staff irrespective of whether they are in an operational role or in one of our enabling roles. Their commitment to the service and their perseverance to deliver the reform agenda today has been remarkable. I think that there is no doubt about it that people are feeling the pressure of it. We have absolutely tried to put the right change management policies into place and do that in a supportive way. We have tried hard to listen to our staff. We have tried hard to engage and listen to our trade unions, but we have not been able to duck some of the hard decisions that had to be made. We have had to do those things. I think that it is, after five years, impacting on staff. I think that we also have to set that into a wider context as well. Across the public sector and undoubtedly in the fire and rescue service, 10 years of austerity, people are feeling the pressure in their pay packets each month and have also seen significant changes to their pension schemes. When you bring all of these together, cumulatively, I have no doubt at all that people are feeling pressure within the fire and rescue service. In relation to the morale, when I go out and I do it all the time, at least once a week, I am out speaking to front-line staff. What they say to me is that morale is rock bottom boss, not here but in the organisation. There is an element of truth in that. Too many people are telling that. What we need to do is to understand the pressures that are on staff and to understand that wider context and do what we can as an organisation. My plea would be to the Scottish Government and this Parliament to recognise some of those challenges as well. I would like to follow up on that line of questioning for me. The FBU, we also heard that 500 front-line whole-time firefighters and 200 retained firefighters had been lost. My question is, do you accept those numbers? In any event, if we accept that there have been some losses in staff, what impact do you feel that has had on the delivery of fire and rescue services across the country? We accept that there have been a reduction in the number of firefighters and the exact numbers could be some debate on either side, but we absolutely accept that there is a reduction. Are either side just so that people can understand? We have accepted that there are around about 400 whole-time, somewhere in that region. Whole-time firefighter roles have been reduced, and that is at every level, including many at the most senior level, because that was part of our integration agenda. What we would argue very strongly is that this is not about headcount, it is not just about numbers, it is about what firefighters are doing when they are at their work. We know that the nature of risk has changed across Scotland and that, while every single fire death is an absolute catastrophe for those affected and for society more widely, actually the number of fire deaths and the number of fires have come down massively by more than 40 per cent in the past 10 years. At the same time, we have had firefighter numbers reduce. At times when fires have been in their highest numbers, we have also had the largest number of firefighters, so there is not a direct correlation in headcount, it is about what we are doing. That largely is about prioritising where firefighters are most effective, and that has to be in prevention. We need to get our firefighters working differently and doing more of that, because we know that that is what has worked and what has made the difference in Scotland for outcomes, because the outcomes are really important and how we use the resources that we have got to deliver better, rather than counting. In my second part of that question, it was about has there been any impact as a function of having fewer firefighters? Is it your position that there has been, let's say, 400 give or take, all-time firefighters reduced, but that has not had a negative impact on the delivery of fire services? We are clear that we are on a downward trajectory for fire deaths and fires. What is really important are being able to effectively prevent and being able to respond quickly and with the appropriate resource. We are doing that, despite the fact that our numbers of firefighters are down, because we are working more effectively. We understand that working harder can put stress on members of staff, but we do believe that we still have capacity to be able to do more, and that is about changing the way that we work and delivering at different times. I am sure that Alasdair will add more, but if we find— Can I ask about the—I am just conscious that we were a bit tight for time. You mentioned capacity there. Again, we heard from the FBU that there is almost a mantra from senior managers that the SFRS will always have the right resources in the right place at the right time, and they suggest that that might not be accurate. In my own context, there were reports, so I am based in Aberdeen, as you know, and around three or four weeks ago there were reports that fire engines had been off the run three hundred and forty times in ten months due to staff shortages. Within that context, how do you respond to the criticism that perhaps the right resources are not in the right place at the right time? We have responded to every single emergency call with an appropriate response, and I would go back again that this is not about inputs, it is not about technical measures around pumps on or off the run for whatever reason, and there are many reasons for that, which are not to do with staffing numbers, it is to do with repairs and other things. What is important is that we can get the right response quickly to an incident, and we can do that.  We have demonstrated that at the School of Art. We have demonstrated it in Ballater. We can draw from resources from everywhere. For example, if in Dundee we need to move a resource to Aberdeen or from Perth to Dundee, those are things that have always happened in the legacy services. Those are things that we would do now to make sure that appropriate cover is there based on the risk that is at the time. Those pumps do not belong to their geographical localities, they belong to the people of Scotland and they need to be moved as appropriate to reduce risk and to respond appropriately. We believe that we are doing that. We want to focus on outcomes and protecting the front-line service delivery, not on technical counting input aspects of it. That is what we are really focusing on. Just on the subject, I have absolutely appreciate what you say about head count, your comments on head count. I understood that the fire service is undergoing a recruitment campaign at the moment. Could you say a little bit more about that and how many firefighters? Are those front-line posts and how many you would expect to recruit? Absolutely. One of my great joys in the service is being able to be at graduation ceremonies, and I have been able to be at a number of them this year. I am looking forward to more. Alistair and I were in Port Levin only a few weeks ago welcoming the new recruits. Our anticipation is that it is almost 100 and 102 new recruits that we are welcoming into the service. Clearly, we need the right number of recruits in the right places. For lots of reasons, we did not increase our head count for some time, partly because we were not sure about what our future budget would be. We now have some clarity around that, we hope. We are making sure that we recruit into the areas that we believe we need to show up and that we can do that very specifically to make sure that the areas where we need additional resources can be better staffed. However, it is really important that we believe to focus not on absolute numbers. It is easy to get tied into that, but on what we are doing with those individuals and how we are supporting them to work differently. It would be helpful as a follow-up in writing about the geographical locations and the roles that would be helpful. To follow on to another area of questioning, no doubt aware, in the last evidence session, you would have heard quite a lot of discussion about the issues around the SPA. I think that there is obviously a perception that the SFRS and the board have not really experienced some of the same tensions that Police Scotland and the SPA in the early days of reform, anyway, had in regard to their respective roles. It would be interesting to hear why you think that that is, but there is no room for complacency here. Where would you see the need to perhaps build capacity? Are you looking at governance and capacity within the board in terms of the plans going forward? I think that it is really important to reiterate the point that I made earlier. This is one set of legislation, but it is two very different organisations and we also have different governance structures. From the very beginning, there were a different set of challenges. I do believe that our board has functioned effectively and that has been recognised by Audit Scotland, but I agree entirely that we cannot afford to be complacent and we would be looking to continue to improve our performance. In fact, between the Audit Scotland reports on our governance, they were able to say that we had moved from a position of beginning to perform well to performing strongly. Within the last six months, we have in fact recruited six new board members to our board. We were joined by three at the end of July and a further three joined us in Peterhead at our board meeting last Thursday. They were specifically recruited for the competencies and the skills that they had. That has significantly strengthened our ability to scrutinise, particularly around finance, where we were already strong. However, with the challenges going forward, we felt that we particularly had to focus on that area and also on digital technologies and our ability, given the complexity of digital change and IT change that we had on board capacity in that area. We have recruited specifically to show up and support our board and its governance, but we continue to review not only our composition through looking at skills audits, but also thinking about our governance structures and committee structures, so that every march we have some time together as a board and the senior leadership team to look at that and to make improvements as required to further strengthen the governance so that we are prepared for all the challenges that we are going to face. One of the criticisms that the FBU made was that there is insufficient knowledge or experience of operational matters on the board. I guess my question is, is that a valid criticism or otherwise? In terms of the skill mix on the board, is that something that you feel if you have not got the right balance of, are you intending to add to those skills in that area? We believe that we do have the right skills on the board and that we do not intend to add in that area. The board's role is recognised both for ourselves and for other bits of the public sector that what you need to be able to do is to direct strategy and to scrutinise effectively and to bring difference and challenge to the board. We have expert advice and input from our board, from our foremost senior officers, Alistair, our deputy and our two senior uniform senior leadership team. They have an excess of 120 years of far fighting experience, that is across four brigades, in fact it would be five if you counted Alistair's time in Essex, five brigades and two continents. We have very significant expert advice, making sure that we understand the implications of all the decisions that we make. If we need additional expert view, we have the inspector. He attends our board meetings, I meet with him regularly. If we feel that we want additional input in any particular area, I simply pick up the phone and I speak to him, so we are very well served with expert opinion. I think that the line of question that I was going down is mainly being answered, but I won't labour it too much. I wonder if the chief fire officer can give any examples where local services have been improved as a result of reform? I think that a very significant example is our ability to provide the proper training facilities in some very remote and rural parts of Scotland. There was a question earlier about the reduction in the number of firefighters and there was a mention of 200 retained firefighters, that's a fact. It's not because we don't want to recruit retained firefighters, we are actively encouraging members of the community to come along and join the service. We have listened to some of the challenges that they have faced. If you are in an island community, constantly being drawn to the mainland for your training was something that was putting people off when they had their lives, when they had their businesses or their full-time employment to do, so being able to invest significant facilities locally so that firefighters can train against the risks that they are likely to face and in those risks it's inherently dangerous, so we need to invest in training. That's something that anti-seeding services weren't able to do and we have done, and it's a very tangible example of the benefits of the national service. I couldn't agree more. Allister and I were out in Bimbicula and Stornoway in the Western Isles two or three weeks ago. We were able to see the new Stornoway far station and I was able to visit to the new training facility there. We were up in Kirkwall, in fact, Mr MacArthur was there with us, opening the new training facility that is up in Kirkwall. We have significantly invested particularly in remote and rural communities because we know that they cannot draw on outside resources in the same way that mainland can, so we've made sure that local areas where they are more remote, we've put in some of our new technologies, our rapid response units, lighter fleeter vehicles equipped with brand new technology that can make the survivability of a fire much more likely, much more quickly, so we believe that we have been able to do that by investing our resources. I think that if we're thinking about local delivery, we absolutely see ourselves as a national service delivered locally and the way that we're able to prioritise is by building strong relationships with local communities. One of the things that I think was an absolute genius move of the legislation was the decision to have local senior officers who are enshrined in legislation and who have built very strong relationships with the local authorities and with other key partners. That local plan structure that sits underneath that means that we've been able to very specifically tailor and adapt what local service delivery models and interventions might look like and we've been able to tailor that so that we know from the feedback that we're getting from meeting with leaders and chief executives of councils that they think that we are contributing to their local outcome improvement plans and to better local outcomes at community level. The only way that we know as a national service we can do that is by really good strong frequent engagement and that's what we're prioritising doing. We've met with every single, either myself and Alster or Pat before me, every single chair and chief executive of every council in Scotland. We've met with four chief and chief executives and chair leaders in the last two months. We've been able to get really good feedback, for example in Peterhead last week. We were able to hear directly from a number of the local councillors who wanted to put on record the fact that they believed that the local services were actually more attuned under the national service than they had been previously, specifically because of their ability to directly influence and scrutinise local plans. Instead of six, for example, councillors being on a fire board, all 70 of the councillors were able to directly influence the use of resources. For us, that's what's key. It's about what influence do they have about how resources are shared to deliver better local outcomes. I'll stick on that theme about local services. I can't remember how long, but it was an earlier part of the year. There was a visit to Cochbridge fire station. I accompanied the then minister, Annabelle Rune, and it was a fairly positive visit, but one of the things that you've raised at yourself earlier that was discussed was about perhaps some of the operational stuff that pumps have been taken off in Cochbridge and moved to Baleshill or vice versa. I know that that's happening up and down the country. I suppose what I wanted to ask about is rather than you've explained the operational aspect and that you can respond as a national service, but I suppose what I'm asking is how are the firefighters that are carrying that out kept in their look with that and that their concerns when they're raised are heard and there's not that disconnect. Do you want to say a little bit about our local structures? I suppose that I should start at a slightly higher level than the local structures, where what we have is an employee partnership forum in the organisation that is currently chaired by the Fire Brigades Union. We rotate it between a board member or one of the representative bodies, so that they represent very directly the voice of front-line firefighters or the support unions, they represent very directly the voice of staff that are actually making it happen with the new organisation. So making sure that we have these very formal structures in place so that voice is actually heard, it's captured and where appropriate is acted upon, I think that is key to us. Supporting that is a very strong partnership agreement that we have with the trade unions. Again, that's the strength and the voice of front-line workers. On top of that, what we are currently doing at this moment in time, we've actually just concluded it, we've done a staff survey, so we've asked a number of very specific questions and that's given people an opportunity to contribute directly to the development of the service going forward, so again, their voice will be heard there. Beyond that, what we've also got, as we've been talking about transformation in the public consultation, your service, your voice, that works in a number of ways, it works for the public because it is their service at the end of the day, but if you work in it, it's very much your service, so we've actively encouraged staff to get involved in defining the future of the fine and rescue service alongside other key stakeholders. There are a number of very formal but structured ways to enable staff to have voice. It's key, I believe, to the success in the future. We've also got a whole series of visits. There are 356 stations in Scotland, and I have been to almost all of them over the last five years. I heard earlier that it said that Scotland is quite a small country. No, it's not. It's been a real privilege to get out and about and around Scotland. As the chief officer, I very much make it part of my mission to get out and listen to what staff are saying. I go to them, I'm not asking them to come to me. It's one of the key things that I have to do, and I have to be honest when I do that. Many of my directors feel very uncomfortable afterwards because I'll put to them the very challenges that, rightly, firefighters and other staff are putting to me, so voice is key. I was going to ask that point when you go out. I was actually encouraging to hear you go round the fire stations and do you feel that the staff are open with you and feel that they can talk to you about any concerns they have as well as the positives that they feel what's going on? I believe so. I've been in the fire service more or less all of my adult life, coming out 36 years now, started as a firefighter. I hope that I haven't lost the ability to communicate with people who are doing the job that I joined the fire service to do. I hope that I am approachable and that they feel that they can raise anything that they wish, and certainly from the range of things that are raised, I believe that they do. Would you be able to make the results of the staff survey that is available to the committee? Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, convener. Good afternoon. I first start by suggesting that scrutiny by 70 as opposed to 6 does not necessarily lead to better scrutiny. It is a committee that has just gone from 11 to 9. I think that we are conscious that it is about the quality of the scrutiny rather than the quantity of those carrying out. I would also put on record confirmation of what you have already said about the investment in the training facilities in Orkney and the ability that allows for retained fire crew to get the training that they need in a way that does not disrupt the other commitments that they have. One of the pieces of evidence that we heard last week from the FBU and from the retained fire service union representative was around the deployment of the rapid response vehicles, which, as you will recall from my conversations, seem to me to at least open up an opportunity for stations to remain on the run more of the time. I think that I was struck by some of what I assume are health and safety concerns that may be being raised by union representatives. I was wondering whether you could address that, but in the context of how you would see the equipment helping in terms of delivery of crucial retained stations in Orkney and other rural parts of the country? For me, as the chief, there has been almost an immersion in cold water when we created the national service to be asked to deliver all those benefits to adjust to a new scrutiny regime and to deliver significant savings to the public purse. It is a huge task, a huge task, but what keeps me awake at night is two things. It is about making sure that firefighters can remain as safe as they possibly can in an inherently dangerous environment and making sure that what we do helps the public when they call upon us at the time of their greatest need. That is the two things that genuinely keep me awake despite all the challenges of trying to bring about reform and maintain services. We look at things seriously every day of the week and bring in about new technologies such as the rapid response units with the high-pressure injection systems—the trade name is Co-Cut for the version that we have. A number of members of this committee attended a demonstration recently. I know that you attended one at Port Leithan. We built on that and held one at Cambus Lang. We took the temperature of a fire using the Co-Cut from 540 degrees down to about 80 degrees in 30 seconds. We attacked that same fire using a traditional technique. After two and a half minutes, we took the temperature down to about 300 degrees. However, one of the key things is that, as well as the speed of knocking the fire down, that improved weight of attack that we can bring to bear is that we did not have to commit a firefighter into the hazard zone until we brought that temperature down to 80 degrees. That is helping to keep firefighters safer, particularly at the moment that we adopted that in rural communities. We think that it helps to keep them safer. That rapid knockdown, undoubtedly, is beneficial for anybody that is unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped within a fire. We can do it with less people, ultimately with three. I think that that is where the challenge comes in terms of reducing the number of firefighters. We understand that challenge, but what the whole system is built on is ensuring that we can provide a safe system of work. We have looked around the world, not just here within the United Kingdom, where technologies like that have been deployed. We have looked particularly across the Scandinavia, where it was initially in development, and many other places to make sure that we provide our firefighters with a safe system of work. I am famed for that roll-out. Some of the initial vehicles have already been delivered, but what is the timeframe? The initial batch that we brought into the service will all be rolled out by the end of this financial year, so that is roughly 35 new vehicles in rural Scotland. I would like to go back to the issue that was touched on. I am positive about identifying local senior officers to liaise, and I have noted that you have collected a few times the phrase building strong relationships that were mentioned. One of the very specific policy intentions was to strengthen the connection between the farm rescue service communities and elected representatives. To what extent is the single service? It is very easy. I do not mean to sound glib to say that there are 32 local authorities, but everyone is involved. To what extent is it measurable that more local elected representatives are involved than previously? I do not think that there can possibly be any doubt of that, given that I noted that you mentioned earlier. Obviously, the range of scrutiny arrangements to scrutinise fire and police differ across local authorities, but from the experience that we have had and we have been out to visit them all and ask them about their scrutiny arrangements and to sit in in many scrutiny committees, there are a significantly larger number of local elected members involved. I also gave the example from Peterhead where there are 70 involved and not just sitting round one table at a big scrutiny committee, they were reflecting on the fact that, even down at ward level, they were getting the opportunity to see the performance data and to scrutinise that and to have conversations around the community planning table. From the multiple examples, I have been to Borders, to Freeson and Galloway, to Highlands, and this has only recently been to Highlands. We have been out to talk to the Western Isles in all those examples. I do believe that those ones are representative. A larger number of elected members are more involved and they are reporting back to us that they believe that they are doing more effective scrutiny and they are more involved in that shared decision making, particularly at the community planning forum. Can you give examples of good practice in relation to community involvement in the setting of local fire and rescue plans? That would be a real manifestation of that policy being delivered. One of the key strengths in the legislation is that it recognises that, in terms of scrutiny, one-size-does-not-fit-all. It creates a connectivity to other pieces of legislation around community planning. We would be able to demonstrate to you—we will send a number of examples in a written form—how that ability to flex so that one-size-does-not-fit-all we meet our statutory responsibilities, but we recognise that, as part of community planning and the creation of local outcome improvement plans, we can make a different and different ways in parts of the country. The example would be the variety of different ways in which we assist in the delivery of good outcomes at a local level. Sometimes those are unexpected, so one of the things that I heard quite a lot about at the Borders Council was the very significant role of the fire service in intervening and helping women to feel safer where they had experienced domestic abuse. That had not been an area that I particularly expected to hear a lot about. However, if you think about community safety and women's feelings of safety within their own home when they have experienced violence, sitting round the table, police, the third sector, fire service and local authorities all sitting together to develop safety plans and working at those kinds of contexts. I had not imagined that that was an area that we would be likely to be so involved with, and there are a multiplicity of examples that we hear about when we go out and around. That is very interesting. Would that come out as part of fire prevention visits or I am trying to understand the manifestation of the fire and rescue service input to that? It could be as part of home fire safety visits or safety visits, but that was part of their MAPA, so it was the relationships particularly around community safety and domestic violence, so it was those planning groups that we were sitting round. I think that that is one of the areas that we often get reflections on, is that whatever the councils are talking about, fire will say, well, how can we take apart on that? It is entirely to do with the commitment and enthusiasm of our local firefighters and their managers in saying that we think that we can help with that. The widening of the role that we are hoping very much that we will be able to get signed off will allow that to be even more effectively rolled out, we believe, so that we are intervening in far more areas. As one of my FBU colleagues said, the wider roles and the less traditional activities, we should be doing them not just because we have some capacity, but because we are the right people to be able to do them, because the skills and the training that our firefighters already have can be applied usefully in so many different contexts. I understand that and there are many skills. Are you alert to issues that might be called demarcation issues and treading in each other's toes with that? It is accepted that firefighters have medical skills, so the Scottish Ambulance Service or to other people. Any unintended consequences are you alert to that? We want to be a really good partner, so being a good partner means that you need a frequent communication channel. At the very highest level, at the reform collaboration group ourselves, the police and the ambulance service meet regularly to think about integration of services, to think about co-location, to work more closely at the local level on the ground, we know that we work effectively together. Part of our transformation consultation, specifically asked for partners' views on the widening of the role and the intentions of where we wanted to go as an organisation, and we have some very constructive feedback. In fact, we have almost unanimous support around widening the role and working more closely together and co-responding where possible. Clearly, there are some terms and conditions issues that we still need to resolve and we will be absolutely delighted when we hopefully finally get those resolved both because we can deliver more but also because we can pay our firefighters more to deliver those services. Of course, resolution is perhaps more likely if the individuals are involved around the table. Are the trade unions and staff associations involved in those discussions? It is not something that is subsequently presented as? They are absolutely involved. In fact, we may have heard Chris Maglone, I believe, who is here today, too, talking about widening the role and agreeing that in Scotland we think that that is the right thing to do. Sitting at the National Joint Council for the UK, there is broad agreement that widening into further roles and new work streams is absolutely the thing to do. It is the right thing to do for communities and for firefighters. The only thing that is holding back is getting the money settled, and we are optimistic that, in due course, we can do that. That will allow us to deliver even more within the current confines of the legislation. That might seem pedantic. That would entirely square us with the legislation that we are scrutinising. It would facilitate that. There are no inhibitors that would mean that we could not broaden those roles. Absolutely not. The legislation is facilitating, and we could do all that work within the current legislation. I would like to begin by following directly on. You quoted Chris Maglone in your previous response. He also said that there was not sufficient time for training. That was reflected in the comments from his colleague, who was representing retained firefighters. Are they wrong? I think off with that, and Alistair may want to add in as Chris iterated. Our firefighters have 300 hours of training per year. While I think that we would all argue that we want more time for training, that is an enviable amount of time for people to be able to receive training. The RDS issue, the retain duty service issue, is slightly different than one, so if we park that slightly. Much of the wider role that we want to—I welcome back to it, I am not putting it to the side—many of the additional roles that we want to expand into are firefighters already have those skills. At a road traffic incident, we are already doing medical interventions. We respond as we need to, and many of those skills currently exist. We believe that training time is enough. Clearly, if we are going to be expanding into new roles, we want to be able to make sure that it is as appropriate as possible, and we are currently doing a training review so that we can make sure that we are training specifically what is needed and not, for example, repeating training unnecessarily. If it is retained duty service training, we have larger issues with retained duty service other than just training issues. That is a challenge that has been a difficulty, as our retained colleague said, for probably more than 20 years and is a problem across the UK and across the rest of Europe. For that reason, we have specifically referred our concerns about the long-term sustainability of the retained duty service to the National Joint Council, because that is a UK-wide body. There are national terms and conditions around that that actually make that quite difficult to resolve locally. I am slightly confused. Last week, we heard that the training time that they receive is necessary for their current scope of roles and that they would need additional training time for the additional scope. Are you saying that there is a surplus in training time? Therefore, it can be accommodated or that there is no additional training required? Otherwise, I am just not quite sure how your comments square with what we heard last week from the representatives. There are issues of judgment, aren't there? As a panel, you would need to make a judgment about whether 300 hours, several days of training each month, was enough for the roles that we undertake. What we are not saying is that we are going to keep doing the same training and add other things on. Much of the training that we are doing is highly relevant, but equally, we are doing a training review so that we can make sure that the training that we deliver best suits the new roles going forward. As Alistair has said, the health and safety and the appropriateness of the training of our five factors is absolutely key and we need to get that right. What training are you proposing to cut in order to make time for the additional roles? It is not about cutting. You are saying that you will have to reduce the amount of training. It is about doing it differently so that you can give some practical examples. You can create time for the new roles. That is implication of what you said. It is about doing things differently. Again, it is not about adding things on or taking things away. It is about more effective and more efficient in the training that we are doing, making it more tailored and ensuring that what we are delivering in training is exactly what our five factors need. That is why we are doing the review. If I can come in there, can I just restate up to 300 hours of training a year for a whole-time firefighter? That shows that the real priority that we place on training is part of creating a safe system and working to ensure that our firefighters are safe at the inherently dangerous environments that we ask them to operate in. That is what a whole-time firefighter does. Again, many of the expanded role tasks that we are going to ask people to do, we are already training people to do that. The focus is often on emergency medical responses, specifically out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. All firefighters are trained to perform that already. Much of it, as Kirsty said, is extremely relevant already. However, things that I trained on as a firefighter 30-odd years ago are not the things that firefighters train on now, because the risks, the technology, the tasks that we are asking people to perform change. As we expand and change our role, what we would do is look at the syllabus and make sure that we still give them a massive amount of training, because it is extremely important, but we would focus on the skill areas that they require to do the jobs that we are asking them to do today. I see it as part of a natural evolution in the same way that what I trained on 30-odd years ago is different. I touch on the retained, and I can see that you are desperate to come back in there. However, if you allow me, I will just touch on the retained. Our retained firefighters do between two to three hours a week, and we ask them to take on many, many of the tasks and the jobs that we ask a whole-time firefighter to do. We have what is called national occupational standards in the fire service, so we have 46 different modules, and you get an SVQ level 3 that tells you that you are safe to operate within the community, so vocational qualification. A retained firefighter gets that for covering 19 modules over three years, a whole-time firefighter 46. I think that what that demonstrates to you is that there is a flex in there, and it is about training firefighters within those national occupational standards to do the tasks that we expect them to turn out and do on a daily basis for their communities. Just by way of clarification, I am not trying to be tricky, but you have 300 hours, and either those additional roles require new training, which you are not currently delivering, or they do not. Therefore, that either needs to be incorporated within the 300 hours. That was all that I was trying to establish. There seems to be a little bit of a difference of opinion between the people representing firefighters and themselves on that point. That might not be bottoming out now, but it would certainly be useful to understand in the fullness of time as those plans mature. I think that the Fire Brigades Union and ourselves are frantically arguing to agree. We do not and will never compromise firefighter safety by not giving them sufficient training for the tasks that we ask them to take on. Inequally, we do not want to compromise public safety, because if they are not properly trained to carry out a task, how are they going to keep the public safe, so there will need to be, as we have pointed out, a fundamental review of those 300 hours and how we use them to best effect? Can I just briefly ask you my main question? I have been slightly diverted. I mean, one of the fundamental aims and stated aims of integration was about bringing the ability to deploy specialist resource more consistently throughout Scotland. Could you maybe just give some examples of the type of specialist provision and also how do you ensure that that is actually consistently available? Because there is clearly a tension between specialisation and availability, especially when you are looking at the fire service and indeed a country, the geographic size of Scotland. A very obvious example is in relation to water rescue. Clearly, this is Scotland. There is water everywhere. Increasing the number of water rescue assets is an important thing for helping communities. Water is a great asset for us in terms of our lifestyles, particularly around leisure. It is a magnet for people, is not it? One of the things that we have done is that we have increased from 14 to 20 the number of specialist water rescue assets, a far better distribution around the country. One of the other issues is that we are an intelligence-led organisation far more than we were previously. Yes, there is that challenge. How can you have the right resources in the right place at the right time? You cannot have everything everywhere all of the time. If I give you an example from Storm Frank, we work very closely with other agencies, SEPA and the Met Office. We are aware of when and where a storm is likely to impact to most on communities. We can forward deploy the specialist assets from other parts of the country so that when the worst actually happens, we are already set up within that locality to deal with the incident. Having more resources is part of it, but deploying them in a different way, in an intelligence-led way, and having the logistical support behind that to make sure that it is effective. Is there a specialist generalist tension? Is that something that you keep a watch on? Or is there a clear view of core skills that every firefighter has to have? At the moment, there are core skills that every firefighter has to have, but if they are doing things that are beyond the role, they attract additional payments for that. Within those 300 hours, 220 are roughly our core and 80 are for specialisms. That is the way that we divide it at this moment in time, but there is a real discussion and debate about how many skills can an individual have. My personal view is that there is a limit to that, but what we need to look at is the team. Does the team collectively have the skills to be able to deal with all the huge variety of incidents that we are likely to get deployed to as a fire and rescue service, so that team-typing is a concept that we have a limited amount of in the service, but I would see us increasing that going forward. I thank the witnesses very much. That concludes our questions. I think that that has been a very good session with very detailed answers to our questions. We are going to move straight on to agenda item 3, which is consideration of a proposal by the Scottish Government to consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the act in relation to the following UK statutory instrument proposal, the criminal justice arrangements for compensation revocation EU exit regulation 2019, and this is under the European withdrawal act 2018. I refer members to paper 3, which is a note by the clerk, and I invite any views, questions or comments from members. Do members have any views? No. That being the case, is the committee content to recommend that the Scottish Parliament gives its consent to the UK Parliament to pass this statutory instrument? Yes. Our members agreed that if the clerks and I produce and publish a short factual report, we will have that out eventually. Agenda item 4 is feedback from the justice sub-committee on policing on its meeting of 25 October. Following the verbal report, there will be an opportunity for comments or questions. I refer members to paper 4, which is a note by the clerk, and I invite John Finnie to provide that feedback. At that meeting on 25 October, we agreed our draft report on the pre-budget scrutiny, and we also considered our work programme and agreed that at some future date, particularly given today's scrutiny, we would invite the chief constable and the chair of the police authority to give evidence. We also requested a written update from Police Scotland on the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service review of the justice services that they can provide to migrant communities, and, leading on from that, it is our intention to take evidence at a future meeting on Police Scotland's role in the immigration process. We also agreed to write to Police Scotland, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the UK Information Office, on Police Scotland's proposed roll-out of the use of digital device triash systems, often referred to as cyber kiosks, and there are a number of issues around that. Importantly, we agreed to continue to monitor the implementation of Police Scotland's digital data in ICT strategy and policing 2026 and the significant sums of money that are concerned with that proposal. Do members have any questions or comments? No, that being the case, that concludes the public park of today's meeting. Our next meeting will be on 6 November, when we will continue with our post-legislative scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012. We now move into private session.