When Fred invited me to come up to San Francisco and to speak with you, I asked him, what might I talk about in your opinion that could be most useful to this group? Rather than simply select some topic that might be on my mind, I wanted to see if I could be most usefully relevant. And he gave me a request easy in some ways, very difficult in others. He said, well, he consulted with some colleagues to get some feedback, and he said, here's the word, be personal. I think that meant don't discuss ideas in the abstract, don't discuss the world, don't discuss strategies, say something about your personal evolution relative to liberation, hence the title liberation at personal scenario. Well, that was for me rather interesting and awesome, because any life that's progressing at all, the very nature of human development can be understood from the perspective of liberation. The whole process of growth is a process of opening doors to new possibilities. So that anybody who is engaged in the process of growing or trying to open up to the possibilities of life could give a talk called Liberation of Personal Scenario and it would fit. So I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little bit random and I hope not too scattered, as I share with you some memories and observations relative to liberation, libertarianism, personal evolution and the like. And I don't think that too many of you will be surprised if I tell you that the story began when I read The Found Head at the age of 14, when living in Toronto, and fell in love with the book and felt that it spoke to me in the most intimate way possible and proceeded to drive my family to distraction being uninterested in talking about anything else. But something very fateful happened in Toronto in the 14th year of my life, which was this. My mother became concerned that perhaps The Found Head was becoming an obsession. God forbid. And there was this friend of the family, a teacher, who my mother thought was an intellectual and might be invited to offer some kind of judgment on whatever influence her son had fallen under. So this lady came to visit us. She hadn't read The Found Head and I was glad to give her a synopsis. And then I invited her to read Howard Rourke's courtroom speech, preparatory to us having a real good discussion. My mother, perhaps I should mention, understood none of this. She was not a reader, but she just said something was up and what she wanted to know was, is it good or bad for her son? As mothers I want to ask, right? So when the visitor finished the courtroom speech, she said to me in the most pleasant, easy matter-of-fact way possible, well, this is very interesting. Of course it's not new. There is a name for this philosophy. And I said, really, what is it? And she said, it's called anarchism. I debate that should I tell this story or not, but I want to give aid and comfort to a viewpoint I do not share. I will take it, pin my hopes on the total picture emerging clearly. Anyway, I can't explain why, but I knew that this was untrue, meaning that this was something new and that she was wrong. I didn't know how to prove this. So what I did was the next day I skipped school and I went down to a branch of the Toronto Public Library and I walked up to one of the librarians and I said, would you please show me how to find a book on anarchism? I have to find out what anarchism is. And fate directed me or someone directed me to an interesting little book by the British philosopher Burton Russell called Proposed Roads to Freedom, a study of anarchism, socialism and syndicalism. And I read the book that day in the Toronto Public Library and I became confirmed in my understanding that that was not indeed what the Fountainhead was teaching. I didn't yet know what politically the Fountainhead was teaching, which is a funny story in itself, but I somehow knew it was not the chapter on anarchism in Burton Russell's book. But the reading was very fortuitous because it really turned me on to reading about political philosophy and because the first book happened to have been written by a philosopher it turned me on to reading more of Burton Russell. So when I was 14 I discovered philosophy and in the same year I discovered psychology and in the same year I failed second year high school because this is the very first time I have ever been applauded for failing high school. It's justified my whole trip to San Francisco. Well, what happened was that I was so mesmerized by the world that it opened up to me that how could my poor high school teachers be expected to compete? Trying to get me to learn French, you know, or geometry. So I became a master forger at the age of 14 because I had to have these notes from my mother explaining that I was sick. And the joke is that nobody ever found out what I did. I was absent from school an awful lot and I wasn't playing around. I mean, I wasn't lazy. I was down on the Toronto Public Library reading and reading and reading but I failed school. Unfortunately there was a special school where you could take four years of high school in one year. It was for people like returning from the war. This was 1943 and people coming out of the service and policemen who wanted to go back to school. And it's a special crash course.  And she said, if you failed second year, how can you do four years in one? And I said, trust me, I will do it. And I did. And in fact, I got the highest grades I ever got up to that time. But that was faithful for me because through these chain of events the whole world of philosophy and psychology opened to me. So that was the beginning of a kind of liberation because it meant, and this theme will become important in a few minutes, new choices, new possibilities for me. Now, jumping ahead five or six years, in my adolescence, most of the intellectually inclined people that I knew were socialist or communist in Toronto. And I was convinced that there was no excuse for the evil of any group forcing its ideas or beliefs on any other group. And that's clearly what was entailed in any species of socialism or syndicalism or communism. And from that point of view, anarchism seemed very logical because it seemed the only alternative that didn't entail coercion. What was completely absent from my education and what I never found anywhere, neither in discussions with relatives nor in my reading, was the concept of capitalism. Meaning it wasn't even an option. The whole idea of limited constitutional government or a Jeffersonian democracy or the idea of a government that would be more or less committed to the protection of individual rights wasn't raised and dismissed. It was as if no such system or anything like it had ever been known.  Politically, that became my obsession. I somehow knew and don't ask me why she was not an anarchist. So I wrote her a letter. And I tell her how much I admire their books and I said, could you please tell me what political system do you believe in? Certainly not capitalism, but what is it then? Because all I ever heard about capitalism was imperialism and colonialism. Can you imagine your only knowledge of capitalism coming from Marxists? Well, that was the condition of a lot of people in the 1940s of my age. Some of you, no doubt. So she didn't answer that letter, but she answered another letter a little bit later in which she said, if you're the gentleman who wrote me from Canada, I hope by now you have learned that I am an advocate of total, free, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism underscored an ink twice. Now, by now I had really absorbed the philosophy of the Fountainhead very well and I struggled with what this could mean because I really did not know what capitalism was and I had no clue as to how to find out. It's now 1949. The only people I knew to ask would be either giving me a Marxist perspective or a very cynical, pragmatic, non-ideological perspective that would not really illuminate what I wanted to know. I was so heartened by her writing me this little note that I took my courage in my hands and now I wrote her a long letter asking some questions and explaining some of her mistakes. Challenging her. That's a slight exaggeration for the purpose of humor but challenging her on certain issues. And my letter intrigued her because she felt the points I was making were valid. For example, I called her on some of the sentences in the original version of With a Living which she cut and removed in a later edition of With a Living. Stuff like that. But the letter impressed her and in February of 1950 while going to UCLA I get a letter from her long, wonderful, terrific, exciting letter beginning to introduce me to what is capitalism. And saying if I had more questions perhaps a personal meeting could be arranged and let me give her my phone number and perhaps she'll call me. And she told me, I cannot undertake to educate you from scratch. So you have to do something on your own. There's two books I want you to read before I talk to you again. There's three Hazlets, Economics and One Lesson and Isabel Patterson, The God of the Machine. And I can see some of you smiling and nodding. Well, coming out of my background it was incredibly exciting to read these books and get introduced to a way of thinking about social issues for which nothing that I had heard at home, nothing that I had read had remotely prepared me. But mostly what I got was like a rough sketch of a vision. I didn't feel complete or finished with the issue at all. But I was very turned on, very intellectually excited. So last week of February in 1950, one night I'm very tired and I go to bed early and at 9.30 at night the phone rings and I'm really feeling groggy. And I stumble over on the telephone and I say hello and this thick Russian accent says, is this Mr. So-and-so me? I says, yes. And she says, this is Ayn Rand speaking. And that's how we had some unfortunate experiences many, many years later that you may have heard a word or two about. But they are really irrelevant now because now I want to recreate a very happy period and one of my differences from Ayn is that I'm able to keep those two issues very separate and I'm not going to rewrite history and allow the unhappy things that happen later cause me to be negative about some of the great experiences that happen when I was younger. Anyway, we're talking, I go there a week later and I won't take the time to tell you the whole story of how we met and became friends and then everything else. But on that, I should have constructed that sentence in some other way. This evening is very exciting and we're talking all over the map about ethics and literature and everything but capitalism which is my official reason for being there. Finally it's getting close to midnight and I started asking her about capitalism. And I still don't quite have the vision of what is the system? What is it? Something was because the Haslip book which I think is outstanding it's still I think the greatest book to begin with of anything I've ever read and to reread several few years I didn't have what I needed philosophically yet and that's important to where I want to go tonight. So she said I'll give you the case for capitalism that isn't in those books. It's really contained in the fountain head although I'm writing a longer novel now of which one of my purposes is to provide a moral or an ethical defense of capitalism. But she says the principle is in the fountain head and you understand the fountain head and you'll get this. She said do you believe that the human being has the right to exist? As just by now one of the leading authorities in the fountain head of course I drew myself and I've said this right of course I do. She said do you understand that the right to exist means the right to exist for one's own sake? I said with as much poise as I could command Mr. Rand of course. If he doesn't have the right to exist for his own sake then basically he's existing by permission. She said the political implementation of that concept is capitalism. And I said oh and it was like a tremendous light going on because everything else that happened reading von Mises, reading von Bauer all the studying I did later was a footnote to that moment. It was an electrifying experience because it's not that easy for most of us to date a particular moment in our life when a massive issue becomes illuminated for us. Usually it's a slower, subtler process extended over time. But since my primary interest was philosophical, ethical rather than narrowly political or economic, that moral perspective was supremely important and what I needed in order to be able to fit capitalism into the moral vision that had so inspired me in the fountain head. In other words I saw the obvious linkage. It's obvious after it's made obvious between capitalism on the one hand and individualism and enlightened self-interest on the other hand. It was that integration that suddenly made the advocacy of a free market and of a social system organized around the inviolability of individual rights as a natural consequence of a way of looking at man, at humankind at what is the good of what is life all about so that for me capitalism, the advocacy of capitalism from the beginning was charged with moral energy. It felt like a crusading issue. It felt like a fighting issue in the most intoxicating and exciting sense because it wasn't I don't want to demean practicality. I don't want to demean human comfort. But it was not simply a system that worked better than the alternative systems. It wasn't only a system that produced goods and services more effectively that allowed a more efficient flow of human energy. That was all true. But what was important for me was that it was the one system fit for human consumption. You see. Now at that time, libertarianism didn't exist as a word in the sense that it exists now. And shooting ahead a number of years we would talk about the fact that capitalism was an unfortunate word for two reasons perhaps. One, because Marx had used it as an abusive term to describe a market economy. And two, because it was purely an economic term as it was used. And there was no word to name in a single expression the concept of a society organized on the principle of the inviolability of individual rights in which the exclusive function of government would be the protection of rights with the obvious corollary of a separation of state and economics. So when the word libertarianism first began to be talked about I liked it and I didn't for an odd reason. I liked it because I would have taken any word the vacuum the need for a word to name that concept was really important. And I didn't on almost literary ground this was before any of the differences between her and certain libertarians that arose later such as libertarianism encompassing those who didn't believe in any form of government however limited those issues arose only later her first objection strangely enough was to me puzzlingly literary she found the word awkward and at that time there was nothing really to debate about because there was no libertarian movement there was no libertarian party and I just welcomed the word because I knew a word is desperately needed and by the way I have to say this because the libertarian party does include both those who believe in limited government and those who don't accept the validity under any circumstances of an institution of government that when I speak of libertarianism I understand by it a social political economic system based on individual rights in which the sole and exclusive function of government is the protection of those rights is a legitimate function in my view okay so what is important for me was that in the years that followed and of course this was true for a good many of you I would guess the advocacy of capitalism or what we later called libertarianism was part and parcel for me of objectivism it was part and parcel of a comprehensive philosophical system of which it was a part it didn't exist in a vacuum and we had a lot of arguments with supporters of capitalism even people we liked and admired Ludwig von Mises would be the most extreme example certainly someone that we both admired enormously or Mr. Haslip being another and some of what we argued about is relevant to certain trends in libertarianism today we said look in the 19th century we passed through a period where among intellectuals in the western world capitalism had demonstrated its supremacy socialism was perceived to be refuted disqualified and passe you go back to the mid 19th century the practical argument for capitalism has already been demonstrated more and yet the world has turned away more and more in the 20th century back to war totalitarianism while it's exceedingly important to know the practical defense of capitalism it's not adequate you need underneath that a moral defense you need a philosophical defense you have to deal with why we were unable to keep it the first time around and if you don't address that issue any temporary victories will always be delicate will always be fragile now in my estimation that's relevant for libertarians to think about today because following the ran brandon break following the explosion nbi a lot of people went their separate ways and there was a lot of backlash against objectivism against iron rand a lot of it thoroughly understandable and some of it unfortunately mistaken there was a lot in my estimation of throwing out the baby with the bathwater by that I mean there were elements in what we had been saying was continuing to say following our break that would have antagonized anybody she was personally autocratic in the extreme she was doctrinaire in a way that didn't support the free exchange of ideas she was ferociously obsessed with personal loyalty in other words she was very much like most people are who are pioneers of new intellectual movements and as they get a little bit older they become more and more obsessed with protecting the true body of faith there's nothing as I later learned unique about her faults in the world of my own profession of psychology for example you look at the last years of a man like Wilhelm Reich or you look at Sigmund Freud with his rings that he gave to his seven disciples who were to be the guardians of the true faith I realized that a lot of experiences that for me I regarded as boy experiences were really like an archetype of what tends to happen in intellectual movements when a person has had to maintain a solitary position against terrific opposition for decades you do get bitter you do get suspicious you get very very cranky and the fact that you may be a genius doesn't necessarily improve the quality of your disposition or your way of dealing with your friends so what I mean that's all true and it's important if you're a friend but it's not important in the wider sense to the intellectual movement that interests us right? What concerned me in the later years was the idea of libertarians who really thought that they could fly with one precept non initiation of physical force as if the only thing you needed to go into battle with in addition to your practical economic arguments was the idea that no individual or no group may initiate the use of physical force against others now no one rates the importance of that concept higher than I but you can't change the world with that concept of intellectual vacuum you can't divorce it from the concept of individual rights because without the concept of individual rights you will not be able to answer somebody who says why can't you force people if the welfare of the world or society or the common good requires it what makes the individual so bloody sacred what's so sacrosanct individual's voluntary choice when the welfare of humanity is an issue so the logic of the interrelatedness of ideas obligates us to be philosophical thinkers whether we are inclined to be or not to some extent at least we don't have to become masters of epistemology or metaphysics or metathics but we have to have some grasp of the philosophical foundations necessary to defend freedom to defend our view of individual rights or we are going to be a very very limited effectiveness and the fact that right now we are moving through a period of history where there seems to be what will I call it a pro-capitalism swing a pro-freedom swing a disillusionment and suspiciousness about government swing I don't think any of you need to be convinced by me that swings of that kind can change very very easily I don't see any radical change of anybody's philosophical beliefs or convictions about anything in the last two or three decades I think there's a growing disenchantment with what socialist governments have achieved around the world and there's certainly a growing disenchantment with our past democratic or republican administrations so there is a kind of public mood which is more pro-free enterprise but I am not aware that it represents any kind of fundamental rethinking or re-challenging of the ideas behind the new deal of the welfare state and if someone has evidence to think that something radical has altered in people's thinking I would welcome hearing about it because I think that the great battle of fighting for individualism enlightened irrational self-interest and the absolute inviolability of individual rights is as major, essential and formidable as it ever was it's just that the climate is a little bit more receptive right now and I know that there's one issue that some libertarians have felt queasy about or uncomfortable with and that's anything that sounds like taking on altruism and taking on that holy sacred cow I am personally convinced that we have to be willing to deal with that issue because it's inseparably tied to all the other issues that presumably we share convictions about if you really believe that a human life is an end in itself and not a means to the ends of others if you really are convinced that you are an end in yourself and so is the person sitting beside you you can't simultaneously believe that the person only has a right to exist if he serves others and if you really believe consistently with a full understanding of what it means that you are an end in yourself then you are at odds with a very long tradition you are definitely not in the mainstream and I think we have to have the common sense matter of fact honesty to appreciate the fact that we are trying to advance an idea that is very daring very radical, very revolutionary and very imperfectly understood I think that the idea that a human being has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is truly as radical an idea in 1987 as it was when it was first expressed in public and not significantly better understood a person has a right to the pursuit of happiness now I think making a very large jump that is why there is so much nonsense about this television show coming up called America I have no idea whether this TV movie is going to be any good or not I suspect it isn't but I think I think that the attacks on it in advance happening is scandalous disgraceful and very very relevant and to bring this issue in a focus I want to ask you one question picture that the year is 19 late 1939 or early 1940 and imagine that somebody makes a movie and wants to show what America would look like occupied by the Nazis most of America was isolationist of that time most of America didn't want to get involved in Europe at that time I don't think of the people who are screaming their heads off today over this film would be screaming their heads off then because Russia and communism have always enjoyed a special privileged position with regard to American intellectuals they have never been looked at by the same set of the Nazism was looked at they may in the abstract say that both are inhuman totalitarian systems in the abstract but communism is so inexorably linked to the concept of the public good the common good service to mankind all the precepts of altruism that it has never been held by most American intellectuals accountable or answerable for its atrocities in the way that other fascist totalitarianism have been and I don't think we can ever understand the special rules the special exemptions made for Russia if we don't understand the supreme importance ethically of the whole issue of individualism versus self-sacrifice or egoism versus altruism or however you want to conceptualize that issue but I'll assume we all understand what I'm talking about so what I want to suggest to you if we're interested in liberation is that we can separate from other features of a philosophy we may not fully share we may want to separate from the personality of Ayn Rand from the behavior of any of her exponents but there are certain core ideas which I don't know how we can separate from and still be meaningfully libertarian and I would love to see at future conferences dialogue on this issue on what it is what is it that we are saying when we're saying we're libertarian now as Dr. Hasbur said in his talk earlier today there's lots of areas of legitimate disagreement among libertarians who agree in principle an agreement on principle on the broad precepts of libertarianism leaves lots of room for disagreement about matters of law foreign policy and the like but I think there are some issues which we cannot defend the concept of freedom or libertarianism or free market a pragmatic defense has been tried it didn't work the first time around I'm absolutely convinced it won't work the second time around I was wondering what could I say that might be useful because progressive in the last several years coming back to the personal I've moved into a different kind of libertarianism and now I'm speaking slightly ironically I've moved into the territory of personal liberation when I left Objectivism or the institution of the final Brandon Institute and went back into the practice of psychotherapy because psychotherapy has a lot to do with libertarianism interestingly enough and that's what I thought would be worth clarifying and that's for me the same passion that led me to wanting to fight for capitalism is very much present in my approach to psychology and psychotherapy because what is libertarianism concerned with libertarianism is concerned with the external blocks to individual self-realization psychotherapy is concerned with the removal of the internal blocks both are concerned with that great issue freedom to choose and I've long been fascinated by the parallelism between those who are concerned to remove external obstacles coercive obstacles with those who are interested in optimizing the possibility psychologically a free choice because what I find very interesting is to think about the fact that wherever you look in human experience there is a common meaning to the concept of progress or evolution whether you think politically technologically evolutionarily or psychologically if you are talking in evolutionary terms for example and you say one species is more highly evolved than another do you know what that comes down to in any given situation more options are possible to the more evolved species than to the less evolved species the more evolved the species the more things its representatives can do in any situation the more possibilities exist for it the options available to an amoeba are exceedingly limited those to a earthworm far greater those to a chimpanzee almost a measurably greater and those to a human greater again if you think about technology what does evolution or progress mean it means more choices giving people more choices take one of the greatest technological inventions in the history of the human race one of the most benevolent, benign kindly loving, warm and compassionate the invention of effective birth control now what was so great about this bit of technological achievement look what it did in terms of human choice look how it affected the possibility to choose your lifestyle and your life if you own a car you have some more choices and if you don't own a car in most parts of the world not all but in most now in psychology if a person is anxious or depressed or inhibited or repressed or blocked or always got headaches or he's got certain self-doubts which render him less effectual by far than he could be and we're able to assist him through working with him or her, what are we doing we're not taking away the ability to have to be limited but we're given choices where choices didn't exist in any practical sense before so for example a person is so depressed he doesn't go out of bed in the morning doesn't want to go to work, doesn't want to do anything to get rid of the depression you don't take away the ability to stay in bed that day but you give a choice, now you could get out and have a good time so you give a choice now what is the fight for political freedom all about it's giving people more options, more choices that's one of the many reasons why I so much admire Dr. Freeman's film series free to choose because that is the issue free to choose but why is free to choose so important why is it for me the very same issue whether I'm arguing with somebody about capitalism or thinking about how to help somebody with emotional repression it's the same issue it's how much you care about individual life it's how it's always an issue of what you think about man or woman as an individual what you think about an individual's right to his or her own life whether or not that issue has moral and emotional charge for you now if it doesn't and I believe that for most of us it does I don't think you folks are really here because you are your heart is really in practical politics I cannot believe that my guess is that to varying extents you have very strong feelings about these issues and you kind of enjoy being part of a crusade that feels worthwhile to you and worth fighting for is that a correct assumption on my part so I think that we are crusaders and I think it's one of the most exciting and satisfying things in the world to be providing we know what we're doing I don't mean hysterical crusaders or inappropriate off the wall messianic crusaders as I've heard one or two libertarians or objectivists have been known to be I'm not talking about that but I am talking about people who have a strong moral passion who have convictions about the good for human beings and are willing to put their energies on the line so what I wanted to share with you is aside from a small bit of autobiography not much I'll be sharing more later but not for a while is inviting you to think about the philosophical underpinnings of your passion think about if it isn't an arbitrary proposition hanging in a vacuum no initiation of force what view of human beings what view of life view of reality do we need to support libertarianism and don't we want to be identified not just with the final product namely the advocacy of liberty but with the whole moral vision aren't we in a certain sense moral visionaries even when we're discussing the most practical pragmatic issues and don't we maybe sometimes need to remind ourselves of that to reach inside ourselves and remember the internal considerations that brought us here I'm convinced the more conscious they are the more effective we can be I've nowhere said everything that I want to say but time is running short and I'll be very frustrated if I can't have a little bit of exchange in terms of questions and get some activity going back and forth so I'm going to interrupt myself just so we can talk back and forth a little bit ok thank you for your attention I really was hoping that I'd have to deal with some questions because I like feedback I like the sense of who I'm talking to what are your thoughts or reactions to what I'm saying you want to give me an argument, give me an argument you want to ask a further question fire away, yes see that things that we aren't doing that we aren't outsiders and that libertarian ideas really are you know a shallow objective move what kind of evidence is required of that I screwed you totally ok let me try to explain in more depth I think a great deal is going our way or rather I think libertarians are doing a great deal that is fantastic in terms not just of the party but of the think tanks the magazines the spreading of the ideas but now I'm not talking about what self conscious libertarians are doing because I think they're doing a great deal that is tremendously valuable and important so that's not my focus my focus here is a different one I am saying that what I'm seeing is a lot of practical disenchantment with quote big government but I don't see anybody rethinking whether he or she personally wants handouts I don't see any rethinking I mean why is it so hard for politicians to do serious budget cutting I don't think it's just I think that one of the reasons is is because everybody wants the cut somewhere else you know very few people say no we shouldn't cut the budget that's not the problem I'm saying now as I say there could be signs that you see because you probably followed this more closely than I do and then maybe somebody write me a letter tell me what I should be reading what I'm not seeing I mean I would love to be wrong on this point I mean I think it's encouraging I think it's exciting I think it's a fantastic moment in history to be a libertarian and I also think that if we don't take appropriate advantage of it the winds of change can sweep it away yes it will come as no surprise that I very much share Rand's perspective and to remind you of an extremely condensed version of how I would approach this without the concept of individual life you can't even derive at the idea of importance or unimportance in the human realm that the whole concept of the good or the bad or of value genetically bears a certain logical relationship to the value of life which it presupposes and that you can't even make sense of those concepts you can't even make them fully intelligible without first getting into the question of why do human beings need such concepts as morally important or unimportant good or bad desirable or undesirable and for further details of course I would refer you to Rand's own writings and if you want to know how I explain it read the chapter called egoism and honoring the self for what I think is probably the clearest summary in one place of my answer to that question but it is the great question it is the great question and I don't think anybody thinks that's enough to say well because I say so it isn't that we drag those philosophical arguments into every encounter all the time when we're talking we're not putting everything out that's in our mind behind but we have to know we have to know because sooner or later we will be held accountable for our ability or inability to answer those questions yeah for me one of the more serious trends that I see right now that I'm very disturbed about it's a religious right and I'm wondering what your comments are I understand that you're not terribly enthusiastic about it well I am only I am only enthusiastic about it in one respect it's a magnificent opportunity for us to separate ourselves from a group with whom we are sometimes identified so that we can be smeared I'm hope I'm not over optimistic I am unable to persuade myself that this represents a serious threat to anybody it's very interesting I think it was Time Magazine gave an interesting report even among people who label themselves religious fundamentalists who are part of the so-called moral majority when it came down to do you personally favor legislation to enforce your particular viewpoint somewhat to the surprise of the time pollsters a clear majority were against it even though they had strong personal feelings about it in other words there are still some very interesting what should I call it American impulse that says let us not allow religion and politics to spend too much time in bed together that concern still appears to be there I hope I'm reading the situation accurately yes the favorite thing I love to do is to say if you didn't have this problem now I know you've got it but if you didn't have it what do you imagine you could be doing this week you understand you're a person to make a list I know you cannot do that because you've got this driven problem and after we have a list I'll say now look I know we haven't solved the problem yet but even with the problem is there anything you could do this week that could improve the situation and you know nobody has ever said to me in my career absolutely nothing so in other words what I'm really saying is part of the task is to alert people to the fact that choices exist that their self-concept prevents them from seeing they're saying well I'm scared so I can't do this so part of what you want to do is device means to help them to become aware that even at the present time there are options and choices you see and so that is process number one process number two is to first get them to assure me in my office that they absolutely can't do something like sentence completion then get them to do something that they swore to me they couldn't do because when they see that they've just done something that they told me they absolutely couldn't do we now have a better context in which to discuss what's possible okay well to do this would be a trap for me I so much love talking on this subject I could be answering you for the next 10 minutes yes part of the reason for people's thoughts on these matters I'm sure they're a number may lie in the fact that the collective has endured for century upon century whereas individual human lives have been snuffed out by our biology in a matter of a few tens of thousands of days do you think that perhaps the prospect of greatly extending hopefully individual human lives might increase the tendency of people to value individual human life no I'll tell you why no, of course not I'll tell you why, relax I'm going to tell you why, it's very simple point one individuals don't last a long time and collectives don't last a long time hold it individuals arise and new collectives arise the collective that existed 100 years ago didn't last a long time with a handful of exceptions it's dead this is now a different one same way with individuals if I say the individuals existed for thousands of years that's a metaphor it's an abstraction individuals come into existence and go out of existence groups consist of individuals who come into existence and go out of existence now unless you're talking about forms of life that have lived a long time which is not too exciting an argument, if you're talking about human collectives then I think that you will if you don't solve anything else the problems will become worse and I'll tell you why because unless you are simultaneously developing interplanetary travel the problem will then be what are we going to do people have to get out of the way to make room for the next generation so I think we'll have some new very exciting problems see I don't when we have a life extension I think this I've at least failed to persuade you of my core point you think technology is going to do it it didn't do it in the 19th century and it won't do it in the 23rd you know why not because because so long as there is human envy so long as somebody is sore because you're better looking or have a higher IQ or earn more money and technology is not going to eradicate that except if it killed us all so long as there is human envy so long as there are differences in human energy and human ambition and human talent you are always going to have to deal with the socialist mentality whatever its name may be always you will always have to defend the individual and saying well what do you care you know we'll freeze you and next time around you'll be rich and good looking I don't think I don't think that'll fly Eric with respect one more question I really have to disappear Tom which I do how do you respond the desire the very quick desire to be able to incorporate these values and go that's why nothing will work without the concept of individual rights that's why it's the pillar without which the whole structure collapses and that's why I know there are libertarians who don't regard rights as an essential part of the argument and I think they are misguided at best because everything you're saying is true there's a great problem there and you have to be able to say people want to practice private altruism fine you do not use physical violence to compel some people to act out other people's altruistic impulses you see you know I was once invited let me to end with this thought I was once invited to address menace of people in Los Angeles and they asked me to speak on something very strange sounding called libertarianism menace by the way is an organization in case you don't know it of people who have an IQ they're in the top two percentile you'd never know it in political discussions and any of it after they wind up of the question period at a moment like this ladies and gentlemen somehow we've gotten talking about utopias or visions of the future so I said whenever people talk about utopias I have only one question I'd like to ask and I'll leave that question with all of you I said to them because everything else is important no doubt but it's also a footnote I said whatever utopia you're dreaming up for the future I just want to know one thing about it is it going to be a utopia in which some people have the political right to impose their theories of the good on other people if it isn't we could have an interesting conversation but if it is that's where the issue is joined I said you want to know my politics condensed to one sentence the issue which the line has to be drawn when there's no time for long conversations is to think out is it morally right in your estimation that some people can impose their vision of the good by political force on others that is the ultimate question about utopias thank you very much ladies and gentlemen I'm really very very touched by the reception you gave me I'm really very very touched I've kind of been moving off in other worlds the last few years and I didn't know how tonight would go and if I gave you something of value thank you


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We have apologies from Stuart Stevenson, who has another parliamentary commitment. The first item on our agenda is going to be the Police Scotland's draft budget, 2019-2020. It's our main evidence item today with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Hamza Yousif, on the proposed policing budget for 2019-20. I refer members to paper 1, which is a note by the clerk, and paper 2, which is a private paper. I welcome Hamza Yousif, Cabinet Secretary for Justice, and Gillian Russell, director of safe communities, and Hilary Pearce, interim deputy director, police division Scottish Government. I thank the cabinet secretary and, indeed, all others for their written submission, which is, as ever, very helpful to the subcommittee. Cabinet Secretary, I understand you wish to make some brief opening remarks. Last month, the finance secretary published a draft budget that seeks to strengthen Scotland's economy, deliver long-term investment and to transform public services. I believe that, within the budget, there are a number of significant gains for policing in Scotland, not least the Scottish Government's budget for policing in 2019-20, rising to over £1.2 billion. We're providing an additional £42.3 million for the Scottish Police Authority budget, an increase of 3.7 per cent for 2019-20, compared with the 18-19 position. That means that the police revenue budget will increase by an additional £30.3 million, and the capital budget will increase by £12 million. That's a 52 per cent increase, which I hope will fund further improvements to ICT infrastructure. We'll support Police Scotland's efforts to introduce mobile working to police officers. Our hard-working officers continue to be the public face of policing in Scotland and have contributed to a 42 per cent fall on recorded crime since 2006-07. We are investing in both our officers and staff, including an additional £11.2 million to be invested in the workforce in 2019-20. That builds on the announcement of a 6.5 per cent deal on officers' pay, which is putting significant cash into officers' pockets, giving them and their families certainty. We have more officers than at any time during the previous administration, 17,147. That's still 913 more than the figure that we inherited in 2007. Furthermore, the chief constable has decided this week to bring forward a campaign for the recruitment of 120 officers in this financial year to ensure that capacity and resilience is in place to prepare against a range of contingencies associated with Brexit. We have also ensured that policing will fully benefit from being able to reclaim VAT of around £25 million a year previously paid to the UK Government. To date, 15 letters have been sent to the UK Government on Police and Fire VAT. We will continue to press the UK Government over the £125 million already paid to HMRC for police fat. However, convener, we must constantly bear in mind that, despite the UK Government's promises, the budget will be set against the backdrop of continued austerity and the shadow of the UK Government's, frankly, chaotic approach to Brexit. Brexit continues to hang over our economy, our public services and risks, frankly, making us all poorer in the future. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you for that opening statement, cabinet secretary. We have a considerable number of questions, and Brexit will feature in them. Can I start by asking you, excuse me, the rationale for the decisions taken in terms of the overall budget proposed for policing in Scotland and the Scottish Government's policing priorities, please? I suppose not to continue to re-emphasise my opening statement, but I suspect that they'll come back to some common themes that will help to answer that question. Protecting Police Scotland's revenue budget in real terms during this Parliament clearly demonstrates how much of a priority policing is. That will deliver, as I said, £100 million boost by 2021. In terms of the specific budget, it's worth looking at the fact that we're continuing to invest in reforms, so we know that there's still work to be done in relation to reform of the single service. Reclaiming VAT of £25 million being put into the core budget of Police Scotland helps to bolster that budgetary position, which is so important at a time of real uncertainty. I think that the capital uplift is quite important, and that 52 per cent increase in the capital uplift. My hope would be, although it will be for SPA and Police Scotland to determine, that most of that uplift will be used for mobile working. Again, making sure that a police service moves with the times in terms of technology will also be one of our policing priorities. Of course, the overarching priority is to continue to maintain the safety of our communities. We have a good record of that, as I've said, in the 11 years that we have been in government. We've seen crime continue to fall. Of course, a slight increase last year, but we wanted the overall trend to be one of recorded crime falling. Yes, bolstering the foundations, as we have them, continuing absolutely with reform investment in technology, are just some of those priorities. In their submission to, as the Scottish Police Federation says in pure cash terms, the revenue funding proposed for 2019-20 still represents a reduction on that available prior to the establishment of the Police Service of Scotland. Is that correct? Think about it. We've made no bones about the fact. We're proud of the fact that there has been efficiency savings. That was part of some of the rationale around the single police service. We know also that almost £200 million has been taken out of the cost base in relation to Police Scotland. We'll add that to the almost £900 million of efficiency savings. Police Scotland is well on track to meet those £1.1 billion savings. In fact, it will make those according to its own submission to the committee earlier than anticipated. I hope to make just shy of £2 billion worth of savings come 2025-26. When it comes to the savings that have been made, they have been absolutely vital at a time. All of us could recognise of extreme financial restraint, the time of austerity from the UK Government affecting our budgets. It was absolutely essential that those savings were found. Now, notwithstanding all of that, there will be revenue protection for the rest of this parliamentary term. In your opening statement, you mentioned the budget implications relating to Brexit. You talked about the 120 officers that Police Scotland is recruiting. Has there been an agreement reached with the UK Government as to what extra funding we can have? Is it going to be enough? In short, no, there hasn't been an agreement. From a Scottish Government's perspective, we have always been across a range of government departments, very clear that we would not expect the Scottish taxpayer to pay a penny for an additional detrimental impact of any Brexit deal, be it a deal or a no deal, because this is not a situation of our making, not a situation that we support, and therefore any detrimental impact. The budgetary terms should be covered by the UK Government. As members will be aware, some consequentials are coming our way. It would be fair to say that we are still in negotiations with the UK Government. It is not clear that the funding allocated to the Scottish Government will allow us to cover the full implications of the EU exit. The issue of police funding for no deal consequent management is still one of a number of issues that the Scottish Government is actively pursuing. With the UK Government now, I have to commend the chief constable and the SPA for taking prudent steps in relation to the recruitment of 120 police officers. On the VAT question that you mentioned, I have to move on that initial point. On the possible need for a number of extra policemen in the event of a no deal or a Brexit coming into force, I wonder if the Government has looked at the contingency given the concerns from the SPA about recruitment, the ability to train within a necessary time frame of perhaps recruiting retired officers to cover that period of time to bring them in. The expertise to be used in whichever way is deemed appropriate to make sure that they have that resource that can be used fairly quickly to make sure that there are no gaps in the service. I do not know if she is looking at the convener while she was saying that question or not. That would ultimately be a decision for the chief constable and the SPA to derive at. My understanding is that they effectively have quite a full pipeline of those who want to enter into Police Scotland, which is great for the reputation of Police Scotland. Essentially, they turn on and turn off the tap or slow down or speed up the flow of recruitment as and when they would like. My understanding is that they are in a good position to bring forward recruitment of those 120 officers. Police Scotland's ability to do that as the second largest force in the United Kingdom means that no doubt other forces across England and Wales and Northern Ireland will look towards Police Scotland for potential mutual aid requests. I do not know the honest answer about whether they are looking at retired officers. I have not seen that across my desk and I do not think that that is the case, but I would have to get further clarification for the member. My understanding is that they are in a good place when it comes to their ability to recruit relatively quickly. I was referring to the SPA's letter to MSPs on 11 December, where they said that it is not just 120. We may be looking at many more officers who need it very quickly, but there will not be time to recruit and train. Therefore, that might be a viable suggestion. As I said, it would be for SPA and Police Scotland to make that call. I have a further supplementary question for him. I have a further supplementary question to the issues around the Brexit bill. Is my colleague Margaret Mitchell based around recruitment? Has there been any analysis done, cabinet secretary, on any possible impact the Brexit will have on recruitment in terms of migration, EU citizen status and that type of thing? Yes. Police Scotland is working and has been doing a troll of staff and officers to determine how many EU citizens they have as part of Police Scotland. It is the Scottish Government's intention that for anybody working in our public services, the Scottish Government picks up the fee that we think is a dreadful thing for any EU citizen to have to pay in terms of their settled status. That is being done. I do not have the numbers of how many EU citizens are both officers and staff, but there is no doubt at all from earlier work that I have seen around Brexit planning that EU citizens make a great contribution to our police service, both in staff terms and also in officer terms as well. In terms of recruitment, I cannot tell you again that it would be for Police Scotland to be able to update you on that, but certainly from the passing out parade that I was at and lucky to be at in December, there was certainly from just a cursory glance quite a bit of diversity on show, and that is of strength to the Police Scotland as opposed to anything else. You mentioned in your opening statement too about the VAT and the fact that you have been pressing UK Government M4 sort of back pay on that. Do you have a figure about what that would amount to if we were successful in reclaiming that? 125 million would be the number. Having been persuaded of the logic of the argument and making a change in VAT having to be paid, it seems to me only fair that if you accept the logic of the argument that it was unfair to charge VAT and therefore they will stop doing that, it seems only logical that you think that they would then give us back or Police Scotland back what was paid. I do not need to tell the committee here or the subcommittee what a difference a 125 million could potentially make to IECD transformation or to the police service as a whole. Can we then take it that the 125 million that you feel is due the Scottish Government in back pay as it were of VAT, that further investment in IECD is contingent on that 125 million being reallocated? No, it would be helpful to make a big big difference. I do not have 125 million just at the back of the sofa and having that 125 million to be able to spend on priorities like IECD and other priorities in policing would be remarkably helpful. In terms of the DDICT case, which I know that the committee has examined very thoroughly, I have had a number of meetings with Police Scotland and the ASP on that. They clearly have an outline business case which we will continue to robustly test. The 52 per cent increase and the 12 million per cent increase in capital funding is that most of that will be spent on mobile working. That will mean that 10,000 front-line officers will be given mobile devices on the front line. You have not suggested to Police Scotland that their bids, whether it is for DDICT funding or any other bid that they have made, are contingent on that 125 million? No, I have made it clear that it is contingent on funding and resource, and having that 125 million from the UK Government would go a great way in helping towards that. You have also said that, because the principle has been accepted by the UK Government, the logic would suggest that that back payment of 125 million pounds should now be made. Having accepted the principle that Orkney and Shetland's exclusion from road equivalent tariff was unfair, can we expect a back pay of eight years' worth of road equivalent tariff to be paid to the islands? No, I do not think that the same logic. We were always going to phase RET, for example, over the Western Isles, and we were always committed to looking at RET for Orkney. Orkney and Shetland Isles benefited for things such as air discount schemes and so on. I did the Western Isles. Yes, but it benefited from a number of various schemes, so I think that the logic is different. I am surprised at the member, because it seems to me that he is almost arguing against the 125 million. No, I am just comparing the logic. I am comparing the logic. I appreciate it was a liberal demographic that you have applied in this instance. Within the Treasury, at the time that withheld some of that money back, I would expect him, as I would expect most members, to come on board to get that 125 million for the police service. I am really surprised that he is against that. I am absolutely happy with that, Cabinet Secretary, but by the same token, I would expect the Scottish Government to then exercise the same logic and principle in the way that it allocates its own funding on the powers that it has a responsibility for. That is the point that I am making. To leave that one there, I didn't envisage ferries that would feature too much today. I have less confidence. That is maybe the legacy of your previous remit, Cabinet Secretary. I know that Margaret wants to win with a point on that. Just a short question, Cabinet Secretary. When the 25 million from the Retrieval Act was allocated in March 2018, that was specifically to ensure that policing would fully benefit from it. In your opening statement, you mentioned that it has gone to the core budget. Can you be more specific about how policing has specifically benefited from that 25 million? The member may know that the change in VAT policy, which took place to effect from March 2018, allowed the SPA to reclaim VAT, so that was broken down 22 million revenue VAT funding provided by the SG as part of the form budget. That was then added to the SPA's core revenue budget in 2018-19, with a corresponding 3 million added to the core capital budget. If I take that revenue budget, that 22 million has been utilised in a number of ways. 10 million was for the additional cost of officer pay awards, 5.6 million for the compensation related to SPRM, 2.1 million for SPA forensics outsourcing of some of the backlog work that existed, 5.4 million was a transfer of a portion of change posts to the core budget, where they became permanent posts as well. That total was 23.1 million, so it was excess of the VAT budget, meaning that SPA Police Scotland had to absorb around about 1.1 million within its existing budget. Given that the SPA overspent by 38 million in 2017-18, what is the cabinet secretary's view of what the spending deficit will be in 2018, based on that budget? I say to the member that no deal breaks at planning, and breaks at planning generally has been a complete game changer. The deficit reduction plans that the SPA had, having to now bring forward recruitment of officers, because no deficit reduction plans were predicated on, certainly from SPA's point of view, on reduction of officer numbers. That was predicated on being able to demonstrate enhanced operational capability, but none the less any reduction in police officer numbers, my understanding for the next financial year, for the first six months, for the first half of that financial year will be halted. Potentially it has the impact of having an impact on the deficit reduction plan, so until we know what kind of Brexit we are looking at, what kind of deal we are looking at, clearly that is going to have an impact on every single one of our public services, Police Scotland is not immune to that. Forgive me, cabinet secretary, but even leaving Brexit to one side, and I can completely accept it as a very large elephant in the room, but if we work from the basis that the SPA requested a revenue increase of 50.2 million, but only received 30 million, and if we start from the starting position that they asked for a capital increase of 90 million and only got 12, what is it that they are not going to be able to do as a basis of that budget settlement? Because you must have had those conversations and they must have asked for that money for a reason. You would have to ask Police Scotland what they can do within their settlement and what they couldn't do now that it is slightly different. I should go back to the revenue of 50 million, the reform that you meant 50 million, and I should say that the reform budget will stay the same as it did last year, or this financial year, but remember VAT and the reclaiming of VAT now goes into the core budget, previously that was paid via the reform budget. The additional asks, be it of capital or be it of revenue, my understanding is that that is not necessarily from where they devise their budget deficit reduction plans. What they can no longer do if they do not have what they had initially requested, there is something that you would have to ask the Police Authority and Police Scotland, but I go back and I maintain that if you strip all of this back, you are looking at a police budget that 2021 has 100 million pounds additional being spent on revenue protection. This or the next financial year coming will have a 52 per cent uplift in its capital and the funding includes, for example, a pay officer award that has been described the best in the last two decades, so we are providing a policing budget that absolutely reflects our policing priorities. Let me come to that pay award in a moment, but I have to say that I am very slightly surprised that the Government setting a budget and isn't discussing with the SPA what it will and will not be able to do with that budget. I would have thought that that was a fairly basic conversation to have, but if we look at that pay award, the revenue increase that Police Scotland is looking at is 2.8 per cent in cash terms, which is an equivalent of 0.7 per cent in real terms if you take out inflation. The pay award is 6 per cent. If you look at the cost base of the police, only 13 per cent is non-pay, so if they are spending 87 per cent of their budget on their people and you are only increasing their budget by 0.7 per cent, but you have committed to a pay increase of 6 per cent, surely that has a consequence on the numbers of people that they are able to employ? No, I am not a perfrena. First of all, the pay award is 6.5 per cent over 31 months. That was done, of course, in concert with Police Scotland, with SPA, with the Scottish Police Federation. It was described by the Scottish Police Federation as the biggest uplift in police officers' pay for 20 years. When it comes to the first part of his question, of course we speak to Police Scotland and SPA on a regular basis in the run-up to the budget. There is no doubt that they will have big asks, the DDICT perhaps, and therefore the capital budget being one of them. We have allocated every single penny of our budget, and within that we have a revenue protection, a capital uplift, a great pay award, hopefully not just for officers, but we will get the staff pay over the line as well. In the tight financial constraints that we have suffered, which is a £2 billion reduction in our revenue budget since 2011, I think that that is a good and positive budget. I am sorry that the cabinet secretary was not engaging with the numbers there, because I think that they were fairly clear, but he mentioned the Police Federation, and I think that they have been relatively clear on the budget settlement. They think that the funding essentially only makes alliances for 16,834 officers, and their commentary on the levels of funding was, and I quote, that it is really disingenuous of government to argue that the police service itself is arguing for a need to reduce police numbers, when in reality it is starving it of funds to be able to maintain them. I was just wondering what the cabinet secretary's thoughts were on those remarks. I work well with the Scottish Police Federation. I looked at their submission in great detail. Of course we have 913 more officers than we inherited in 2007, more than any previous administration. We know that Police Scotland is going to operate at a deficit in this financial year, and of course in 1920 we as a Government have to balance corporate pressures on a yearly basis. We want to see a more efficient police service, but we also understand and we agree with Police Scotland and the SPA that, in light of everything that is going on, particularly Brexit-related now, is not the time to make those reductions in the immediate short term. They are accepting that. They will do the job in balancing the budget, but where there is a deficit, we will have to work with the SPA and Police Scotland to try to manage that across the Government as we have done over a number of years, and we will continue to have to do so if that is the case. Does the cabinet secretary recognise the pressure that officers are being put under? Again, referring to the police federation submission, it was saying that, if you look at inspector level, that the number of hours worked by inspectors in Police Scotland is 30 per cent over the number of inspectors that there actually are. There is a 30 per cent essentially implied overtime that they are required to work because of the workload. Do you not think that that reflects the serious challenges that the police are under? Surely that means that any reductions from current levels would place further strains on those very same officers? Can I say a few things? One is that I absolutely recognise how hard our officers work. I deal with them day in and day out in the job and the role that I do, and I always put on recognition. That is why we think that the 6.5 per cent pay officer, the one pay offer that has been described as the best in 20 years in terms of an uplift of pay, putting cash into the pockets of officers is one that we made it. Of course, it did come with significant financial implications which we will rise to that, but the reason we have done that is because we recognise the pressure that officers of all ranks, frankly, are under and they have done an exceptional job in keeping us safe. The reduction in crime that we have seen so yes, we recognise that. I will continue to have a positive relationship with the Scottish Police Federation where we can do more, we absolutely will. It would be worth me saying to Daniel Johnson that neither his party nor as far as I am aware the majority of parties around this table committed to a magic number when it came to police officers in their last holiday manifesto. I think that it is absolutely right that the chief constable retains the flexibility that he needs in order to have a balanced workforce. Before we move on tomorrow, can I ask one of the difficulties that I certainly struggle with and you mentioned the figure, I think that it is short of £2 billion, I think that it is 1.9 or something as mentioned in the cumulative savings over the period. In this coming financial year is there an expectation that Police Scotland and the SP will contribute to that to the continuing fund of savings? I think that they will continue to accumulate efficiency savings, yes. Will that have any impact on operational policing? Again, it would be operational policing, I always leave to the chief constable but for me, chief constable makes those operational decisions on a day-by-day basis, depending on the context in front of Brexit being one that is at the absolute forefront of his mind. Of the 120 officers, clearly he is demonstrating his ability to be able to have that flexibility, but clearly the decisions that we make, revenue protection, uplift and capital, have an operational effect but I would hope that it would be a positive operational impact. Touching on the Scottish Police Federation submission to us where they talk about slack for the unexpected, is there slack for the unexpected settlement? I suppose that it goes back to my answer to Daniel Johnson that we know from SPA's own deficit reduction plan, a three-year implementation plan that they expect to operate a deficit in the coming financial year and therefore as a Government we will have to, as we have done in previous years, take that on as a corporate pressure of slack, I suppose, in that regard. OK, thank you, Margaret. I think I have some questions on that. Yes, on the SPA, whether the proposed budget for the SPA will cover the extra staff that is being proposed for this, which is going from well, I think it's already increased from 27 to 40 and the SPA chair is requesting an increase to a staggering 68. That's more than 100% of an increase in staff to SPA from the 27 number. Can the cabinet secretary quantify how much that is, how much that will affect the budget and if these are full-time positions? That would be for the SPA chair to answer that. It would be for the SPA to manage that element of the budget. SPA corporate, SPA forensics, SPA police budget would be for my understanding, I think that the SPA corporate side of it accounts for 0.4% of the entire budget, so it's a miniscule part. As the cabinet secretary, I haven't looked to micromanage that in any way or any sense. It would really be for the SPA chair if she feels that there's no evidence that she would have to manage that against the budget that's been given. Forgive me, cabinet secretary, I thought that there was a pretty basic question that more than 100% increased from 27, now up to 68 and there's no kind of dialogue on that at a time when our front-line police forces, we know, are facing huge challenges and have been not really to detail with a lot of evidence where these challenges are. I don't think that it's an unreasonable question that the Government should question the SPA as to the rationale behind this, if these are full-time posts, the need for this huge increase in staffing numbers in SPA. There are discussions on that but you either have to accept that the SPA has a role in managing the budget and your role in scrutinising that and the Government's role, of course, in my continued meetings with the SPA chair and indeed with the SPA board, which I will be having shortly. Of course, we all have a role in that but to absolutely micromanage 0.4% of the budget I have to be able to give the SPA chair the flex and the autonomy to get on with the job that she has been tasked to do. To 27 members of staff, my understanding is having spoken to officials around this subject. It was absolutely on the lower level of what was envisaged when SPA was set up. There were a number of vacancies at the time when they had 27 members of staff. It was always the case that the number was going to be higher, closer to the 50 to 60 marks. That wouldn't be out with the outrageously beyond the limits of what we would expect. Of course, we will continue dialogue with the SPA around the need for those posts and making sure that there is, of course, because we all know that there is intense, rightly scrutiny on the SPA budget. Equally, I think that all of us would recognise even the harshest critics of Police Scotland. The immense job that I think the chair of the SPA has done working extremely hard and has got the SPA in a good place in relation to its governance and accountability. I hope that there is an understanding of that for 0.4 per cent of the budget that relates specifically to SPA staff. Yes, we will question, yes, we will have dialogue, but I will not look to micromanage that and we will need to give the SPA chair the autonomy that she needs. I wonder then if you could just answer the question that I started with Cabinet Secretary, given that there is 46 million increased 17, 18, 42 million seems to be the increased proposed now from 17, 18 and then 42 million now. That is 88 million over the since 2017. Does the current and that is the original question whether a proposed budget for the ex-SPA proposed, does that cover the extra staff that this body is asking for? Yes, in the sense that there would be for the SPA to manage the budget but it would be for the chair to manage that budget if she wishes to increase her staff, she would have to do it whether it's for SPA corporate, whether it's for SPA forensics, whether it's a police budget it would be for her and of course Police Scotland to manage that. Can I finally ask you, you mentioned role in accountability, transparency, crucially important. Do you think that it was wise given the role of the SPA as it currently stands which is not only to oversee, suggest improvements but to scrutinise and sometimes have to criticise the police force that they chose to make a joint submission on the budget from Police Scotland and the SPA. Isn't that rather blurring the lines? I didn't think so, I mean I can see my officials picking, but what I've been quite refreshing and maybe this is counterintuitive about the submission or the joint submission was that they were really challenging Government and of course you have put some of those challenges towards me, any suggestion here that SPA or Police Scotland simply roll over to do what Government demands is clearly not the case if you look at the submission in terms of the requests and their asks and I think that's a positive idea that Hillary wanted to comment on that point. Excuse me, it's perhaps worth adding that the Accountable Officer for the SPA that is the chief executive Hugh Grover is responsible statutorily for the entirety of the policing budget so therefore strictly the submission should fall for the response to the draft budget should come from the Accountable Officer for the whole of it. Is nobody else answering? Liam? If I could touch on the issues in relation to fleet management in the estate for the avoidance it out this is not the police's ferry fleet we're talking about here although we may come on to that you'll be aware of concerns that were raised with the subcommittee previously expressed in our report in fact that Police Scotland's current capital grant of £23 million will not be sufficient to maintain its existing capital asset base and that it has an overspend of around £6 million per year on fleet management you've rightly pointed to the uplifting capital of around £12 million but as I understand it that's year marked for ICT and therefore it would appear that that £6 million overspend that Police Scotland identify is likely to continue for the foreseeable future is that a sustainable position for Police Scotland to find themselves in? I'm always open to dialogue with Police Scotland and the SPA around their capital asker I think that for the size of organisation they often point to the size of the capital allocation and the argument for them to advance hence the 52 per cent increase I would make the point that if we hadn't increased by 52 per cent we hadn't given that additional £12 million then of the £23 million capital that would have been awarded they would have had to have no doubt to move forward with that mobilisation or mobility programme as well as their capital, fleet renewal and estate renewal and so on the increase of 52 per cent in the capital uplift excuse me, I think is significant it shouldn't be dismissed I know that the member is not dismissing it but it shouldn't be dismissed but in terms of the wider question around the capital asker I have committed to the SPHR in our last conversation to sit down with Herndon her team to look at this question in more detail of the next spending review of course money is tight all round and I won't rehearse the reasons for that but the argument around this I think is one that I'm certainly open minded to listening to I appreciate that willingness to continue the dialogue I think the point that's been made to us in relation to the capital uplift is that it falls short even on what is needed specifically for ICT but as the police for generation have pointed out the continuation of that requirement to overspend is going to see the fleet and buildings further decline over the forthcoming 12 months and that doesn't seem to be as I say a sustainable position for the police to be in on an on-going basis I will meet with the SPF as I do on a regular basis but I will ensure that the issue around capital is raised and discussed at our next meeting we did discuss it when I went to meet with the various regional committees and there were some questions around capital and some of the conditions of the estate and the fleet and I did promise to continue that dialogue going but I operate within a certain financial envelope he knows that the Government is self-restricted in terms of its finances again because of a variety of factors I'm pleased that we've got to a 52% increase I mean that was believe it or not, it was hard fought but I recognise the argument I have some sympathy with the argument around the size of the organisation versus the size of the capital allocation so all I can do at this stage is continue to engage with both SPF SPA Police Scotland on these matters and continue to update this Parliament on those discussions welcome that, I mean it's worth again putting on record what SPF have said in relation to the specific issues were they saying that they cannot emphasise enough how limiting this is for the police service so I think the urgency of getting some certainty over a longer period rather than an annual basis is absolutely imperative but I suspect we've had that on that matter thank you if the committee and the cabinet secretary forgive me for raising a constituency issue, I have to say a relevant constituency issue you'll be aware that Gatclash Crane Campus is in my area and the parking around it has been quite a local concern it's made it to the national news and to the chamber and I know the cabinet secretary will be aware that money is tight but given the concern that this has been raised around us and the impact it's having directly on the Gatclash community I wonder if he would commit to speaking to his officials based at the site or the heads of service to look at if there's any further solutions that can be found I don't know if the member was in the chamber or not but I answered a general question on this earlier in the afternoon there is in my understanding today which Scottish Government official is taking part around this I think there is a piece of land adjacent to Gatclash which is potentially a new site for Monclans' review going on about the consultation of that so we won't know but I suppose on both scenarios whether it does become the site for the new Monclans or not I've asked my officials to prepare options to potentially be used so if it was in the site of the new Monclans could there be a shared transport strategy which could assist the parking issue at Gatclash if it's not then as the owners of that land can we look at that or even part of that land being used to assist with that parking issue so I'm happy to take that away officials are to come back to me with options I'm happy to keep the relevant members on that I just missed the question in the chamber today but I was aware that it'd been asked to thank everyone for that response I'm not awfully sure how impacts on that are subject here but you've got that in there and I'm glad to hear you say transport strategy because hopefully that could be a number of bus stops rather than a whole lot of car parking spaces The reason then, I think, full to the question was pretty fair You're going to be you're going to be I was going to ICT Yeah, it's not ICT Okay, a couple of questions if I may please cabinet secretary on the ICT strategy and the impact of phasing it will have an expected efficiency savings and reducing the deficit Yes I mean the ICT presentation that I've received from Police Scotland there's no doubt that all of us here recognise the need to invest in ICT mobility and mobile working is certainly a part of that I think many of us really have a lot of sympathy for officers who are still having to use notepad pen, not having access or having to use their own mobile devices for a whole host of reasons that can't be right and isn't right which will invest in that On the wider question I think there is absolute truth in the argument that investing in ICT significant investment in ICT will help to realise further efficiencies I've got no doubt in that argument at all it is worth saying that without that level of investment Police Scotland have managed to or almost got to the figure of 900 million pounds of efficiency savings and in their own submission they expect to get to that 1.1 figure earlier and probably to the 1.9 billion figure if I remember it was 25, 26 per year 2025, 26 Although not contingent on that investment I think the argument for investment not just for future reasons is as important as that is but to keep our community safe to fight against some of the major technological challenges that we face in relation to cyber crime and so on and so forth I think that investment in ICT is certainly something we're open minded to now we have an outline business case I think that Kenneth Hogg came here to give you evidence in October he talked about the fact that each component will have to have a full business case and forward we really need to test some of those figures and the committee certainly with your experience collectively you don't need me to remind you about the issues around I6 which again we don't want to repeat I wonder if you can stress are you aware that the committee looked in some detail at the issue of what's become known as cyber chaos and there was a considerable expenditure just short of a threshold that would have triggered it to go to the police authority that equipment which was trialled without any assessments being made following a couple of sessions at this committee it's the case that it's not being the rollout of that hasn't proceeded because Police Scotland don't have a legal basis have you done anything to ensure that there will be no repetition of that approach because it's we do hear about strategies we do hear about plans that's completely black to front and we don't know if you have a legal basis prior to deploying it a couple of things to say I understand that in November there was legal concerns raised by a number of stakeholders I had to say stakeholders I have an immense amount of respect and time for therefore Police Scotland are doing the right thing in terms of halting any further investment and reexamining the legal basis they certainly believe they have the legal basis to cyber resilience in relation to the cyber kiosk plan but it is prudent and correct for them to reexamine that and re-explore that now I would expect that and Police would only do this when it comes to seizing phones or other electronic devices that there would be a legal basis for doing so I certainly see the logic and I think most of the committee would we are most of us if not all of us on social media to some extent I don't doubt that most of us that are on social media have probably been targets and victims of a variety of abuse and trolling on that social media and therefore that is just one element of being able to tackle that kind of behaviour particularly abuse be it racial or homophobic or anything else it wasn't so much the merits of the equipment it was more the process that had been followed or rather hadn't been followed in relation to that and really probably seeking an assurance from you that with the figures that are in front of us, considerable expenditure on respect of ICT that approach that failed approach has been noted and won't be replicated My understanding is that the investment has been halted as I've said and the legal basis for that is being reexamined in order to give assurance and confidence but I think that the merits of the principle are just important to emphasise that this is the reason why what is being done is being done but I accept the convener's point around process Okay, thank you I understand Liam you'd wish to supplementary in this on cyber skills no? Just talking about the technology aspect Cabinet Secretary in the SPA submission it says that technology has lagged and continued to lag a long way behind England and Wales and specifically they refer to the financial plan for 1920 contains assumed productivity gains but it's clear that these purported gains are made in splendid isolation to the reality of the actual capacity and burgeoning demand that's a pretty daunting and worrying statement Can you comment on that? That's from the SPF submission That's from the SPF I reiterate and repeat what I said I work well with the SPF and I have a good relationship with them I would suggest though on their submission that there is a touch of hyperbole describing the settlement as a potential catastrophic funding settlement when we're protecting revenue uplifting capital by 52% in their own words providing a pay offer that is the best in 20 years to officers I understand the job that they on the job that they have to do I can see why they push Government hard on technology I go back to my answer to Liam McArthur that I accept the wider principle that we absolutely have to invest in ICT I think Police Scotland is not where they want to be clearly when it comes to the technology that is why the 52% uplift is certainly a statement of our intent but clearly as I continue to talk to SPA and Police Scotland about the DDICT the business case that they have as we continue to interrogate that I hope that we make progress over the coming years that is going to be absolutely important We both attend the awards ceremony for the Police Federation and they do put themselves day in day out in incredibly challenging and sometimes very dangerous situations and I think the least we can do Cabinet Secretary is ensure that they have the tools to do the job so I would just make a plea to you again that you look at that budget because that's intrinsic to ensuring that we have the tools I don't disagree with anything she says there I know that only feel well the risks and the dangers that police officers put themselves in having attended not just that award but the National Memorial Service as well as the Scottish Memorial Service and I think the member will have attended similar such events and they do bring to bear the risks that officers put themselves in in ICT and of course and that's why the 6.5% pay-off for over 31 months is also important, is a recognition of that bravery and you know as I say is in stark contrast to other Governments on this island that I haven't I think rewarded that bravery Also in the SPA's mission they make a very good point I think about the vulnerabilities created from the police service from maybe central funding and that some form of resolution was required for example the directly funded local authority police officers we know in Edinburgh for example then they're not going to they're not going to fund I think it was 25 might be 40 police officers Are there other local authorities in the same situation that they can't afford with the local government settlement? I mean I'll go back to the point that was made in the chamber in fact FMQs of course about a real terms increase in terms of local government budgets but I don't disagree with the point that of course over the years of the preceding years it has been a very challenging circumstance for local authorities I was quite heartened by the new chief constability when he first took post a number of months ago saying that he wanted to see the further devolution of decision making to local levels and to local communities I thought that was very encouraging I know that Police Scotland enjoy a very strong relationship at a local level with councils through the local scrutiny arrangements and community planning arrangements but ultimately I suppose that the decisions about funding of local community officers by local governments are indeed a matter for each local authority Is the cabinet secretary aware of any other local authorities in addition to Edinburgh who are now saying that we can no longer provide the finance for these officers? I mean I know previous local authorities that I work with Glasgow MSP, Glasgow City Council have also raised issues about the possibility to fund local officers but I haven't had anything come into me as far as I'm aware from a particular local authority to have to go check over my documentations and correspondence but I don't think I've had anything specifically from a particular local authority saying that they're not able to fund anything in my role in the last six months but I could go back and have a look and come back to the committee Would you be able to share that information I wonder if there's a broader issue around that and maybe when finances were better in some authorities we've seen it's a good idea to fund officers but if that funding's withdrawn it subsequently leaves someone else picking up the tab can you also give us some clarity around the arrangements that have been put in place regarding contract service level agreement or the like please I know from some particular examples where Police Scotland have seen the absolute merit in particular additional officers in a particular locality then they have at times absorbed that cost and that is certainly my understanding but notwithstanding that I think the point that you make convener around this issue is one that absolutely I will reflect on and I will try to get you more information around where we have had any correspondence from a local authority particular issues around policing and the local government settlement Thank you, cabinet secretary, Liam Thanks very much, cabinet secretary you've already acknowledged on a number of occasions the extremely difficult position that Police Scotland finds themselves in in relation to their capital budget Police Scotland made clear that each component of that would be subject to its own detail business case which suggests that the picture over those nine years wouldn't be necessarily a smooth pathway in any sense but I think the uplift that we've seen of 12 million does appear to be some way short of the sorts of trajectory that we've seen we need to be on to hit that target around about 300 million over the nine years so the concern would be in Kenneth Hogg's view that the do nothing approach would still cost Police Scotland around £100 million to maintain increasingly redundant and less effective systems so if you had any assurance that the funding that you've made available Is Police Scotland going to be in the situation effectively where it's throwing good money after bad maintaining increasingly redundant and inefficient systems? I mean I think it's a really good question and I know I'm the one answering the questions but I suppose my question back in some respects would be that I don't think any member would expect the Government to fund a component part without a full and final and robustly tested business case that would be a hope reasonable as an assumption for us to make especially in the light of, for example, I6 of ICT projects but notwithstanding again that all of what the member says is absolutely right the funding profile wouldn't be linear I don't think we would have to we are in the process of really robustly testing that DDICT case that has come forward in its entirety now excuse me because of the financial settlement for 1920 it may be that SPA have to re-profile that spend whether it's over nine years to perhaps a longer period or even a shorter period just depends on the funding settlements that we are able to provide in the next few years but the immediate step has to be and is to really robustly interrogate and to test that outlaying business case that seems entirely reasonable certainly in relation to the detail business case I suppose the logical follow on from that is that making that kind of business case profiling the expenditure in whatever way is required is enormously more difficult indeed almost impossible without some certainty beyond a 12 month period and therefore I think the SPA Police Scotland and the SPF all at various stages have made a plea for a degree of longer term certainty around expenditure Yes, I think a very fair point and the member will be not unaware of the fact that my colleague Derek Mackay, finance secretary has been pushing the UK Government for a multi-year financial settlements which would be helpful for us in turn to be able to do the same here in Scotland but in lieu of that and absence of that it becomes very difficult for us to be able to commit particularly during these really uncertain times around the impact it brings it may or may not have Although it is an area I mean we've touched on this in other aspects of the justice portfolio and I know ministers Jean Freeman for example in the health portfolio has made commitments of the year cycles of funding so it may not be possible to suggest it but is this an area where there isn't a pretty compelling need for that certainty irrespective of the position at the UK level? So he's not, of course he's not incorrect at the other parts of Government they are able to make funding commitments multi-year I suppose whatever I say to the member cognisant of the discussion and very aware of the discussion we've just had the capital ask if it is even close to what is being asked for around the DDICT project then we're not talking about small numbers, we're talking about a really significant uplift in what the current capital expenditure and profile is of Police Scotland so if the question is would I be able to commit that multi-year I'm not convinced at the moment if his question is should the Government be open minded to that and if it has the ability to do that without a shadow without if we're able to do that then clearly we would like to do that but we're not talking about small numbers by any stretch we're talking about fairly significant numbers which would in turn be a significant uplift in the capital expenditure Okay Cabinet Secretary thank you very much indeed for your evidence you've talked about some uncertainty and people would understand that but you're indeed policing implications of that uncertainty because we'd be keen to understand that so can I thank you and your officials for your attendance and conclude the meeting thank you