Welcome to another edition of Rational Alchemy. I'm joined today by Lyle Smith-Grabill of the United Way from just up the road from here. Lyle, welcome to the table. Thanks, Nigel. It's good to see you here. And this is the second time we're doing an interview about United Way. Yep. And I'm really excited because it's good. Why don't you give us a brief overview of yourself? Yeah. So Lyle Smith-Grabill is my name and I live up in Windsor. Work for United Way of Well County. Actually, my education background experience is in community economic development. And I've been working with R United Way for just under 10 years. Started there in 2012. First time I'd worked at the United Way, never donated to United Way before. Working at R United Way. I'm a donor now. But yeah, first time to work with United Way but really appreciative of our space and our United Way because we are interested in community development and helping the whole community. A lot of us down here didn't understand exactly what United Way did and how many fingers in the pies you've got. It's absolutely amazing the work you do. Yeah. Just to give you an idea of the types of problems that Lyle and all of his coworkers run into on a daily basis. Currently in Well County there are 304,000 people live in Well County. 12% of those people live below the poverty line. I'll let you do the numbers but if we just say 10%, that makes it 30,000 people. 51% of the county's children qualify for free or reduced lunches and just 39% of fourth grade students are proficient readers. Only 40%. That should have you scared. A couple of other little facts I'm going to mention here which are quite interesting. But according to the Colorado State Demographer, between 2015 and 2020, Well County will be seeing a 30% growth in 75 to 84 year old individuals and a 21% growth in the 85 to 90% year old group. I'm one of those old fossils and the older we get, the more strain we put on the community. And when you look at these sorts of numbers, in the future it's going to become a real issue. Well County, how does that compare to say Boulder County? It's a little smaller in population, but many of the challenges are the same, be it Boulder County or Larimer County or Weld County or the Denver metro area. Many of the challenges that we face in Well County are the same kinds of challenges that we face throughout Colorado. Things like the cost of housing or the availability of childcare or youth mental health or as you just mentioned, how to help older adults live resource and meaningful lives is our expectancy of living increases amongst the population. So many of these challenges are the same, but the dynamics of those challenges are going to be different in that like the cost of housing in Well County is less than Boulder County or a little bit less than Larimer County. So there are some differences in the specifics, but many of the challenges are quite similar. I can understand that. What would you say would be the biggest challenge you have at the moment? I think the biggest challenge would be the cost of housing. Because the cost of housing is so key to so many other ways that people live their lives, because if I live in housing that's right priced and I can afford it, then I have more time for my children or for my parents. Right. I have more time for recreation for my own physical and mental health. But if housing is really expensive, then I might have to have that second job or that second and a half job. And the stress that that can put on me in the ability to pay for housing is going to impact every other area of my life. Oh, especially if you're single, trying to raise a couple of kids, for instance, that would put one heck of a strain on the family life. So those other challenges I mentioned before, I think they're all applicable, but it's that price of housing right here in Colorado and even in many other states in the United States that is a fundamental challenge for many families. You know, World County is really sort of like on the plains, and I thought housing would have been affordable out there, but it's obviously not. Yeah, it just depends on the area. I happen to live in Windsor, and right now I just saw a report that said that houses in Windsor are more expensive on average than in Fort Collins. Holy natural. And a little bit less over in Greeley. So not as expensive in Greeley, but still, you know, what is affordable? If a house is $380,000 or $420,000 on average, is that affordable? It's not affordable for a person who's making minimum wage, certainly. That's correct. In fact, there was something right here, which I found interesting, two things. In World County, 43% of renters and 24% of mortgage payers spend more than 35% of their income on housing, and that of course makes them incredibly vulnerable if they ever get into a financial crunch. Right, right. And typically, unfortunately, in America, financial crunch is typically triggered by a medical emergency. Right, yeah. Medical emergency, job loss, a mental health challenge. I mean, there's an accident. So many opportunities for people to go over that cliff if they're living in housing that is eating so much of their income. Right. Losing a job is nothing we can really do about that. In fact, there are a number of things. Mental health is not something that we as individuals can do a lot about. But getting financially bankrupt because of medical bills, this is just plain wrong. There was another interesting thing here, and I think this will really hammer home what we've been talking about. Quoting exactly. An individual has to work 80 hours a week at minimum wage to afford a one-bedroomed apartment in Colorado. And I mean, let's be honest, when they brought in minimum wage, it was to stop things like that from happening. Recent survey, I think, was bank rate that did it, and it was something like 40% of people of households in the United States do not have any amount, or they don't have enough emergency savings to be able to pay for an unanticipated $400 expense. Right. And another 20% have no emergency savings at all. So when you talk about that stretch of the cost of housing and their family is paying 35% or more of their income on housing, not only is that happening, but also when you don't have any savings for an emergency. So I need a new set of tires. My tires blow out. I need the tires to get to work. Well, tires cost more than $400. And of course, you mentioned don't have credit, but for those that do still have credit, as soon as they put that $400 onto their credit card, the chances are next month they're in trouble. In crew interest, yeah, for sure. How about education? Because I know you guys do an awful lot of work in education, which I don't think people are aware of. Would you like to give us a brief overview about what you do and how you do it? Yeah, so we actually, in many United Ways, this is their lead programming or the lead thing that they support is working with youth, children, youth, all the way from prenatal to, let's say, 18 or 21 or even 25. And oftentimes it'll be called a cradle to career continuum. So we want to support, we don't support school districts that often, that we do support some programming that happens in school districts that might happen in the classroom or out of the classroom, so it happens during school time, but not all the time do United Ways support that kind of programming. More so, we'll support childcare providers, we'll support parents for that birth to school age period, just to help children to be in high quality childcare, to help parents be better parents, to help early childhood health, mental health and physical health. So that early period from zero to five and then also we support a lot of programming. Once a child or youth is in school, it's after school programming or out of school programming. So like a boys and girls club or a boy scouts or up in our area, a mentoring program called partners that serves Lariman Well counties. So we'll do this out of school programming that helps students that are behind in their schooling to catch up because they need that additional support. Right. I believe one of the biggest problems is actually reading. Right. Which really surprised me. Yep. Any idea why? I don't know. I mean, I hesitate to conjecture on the causes, but I certainly the solutions I think is a lot of what United Way supports and again in a lot of different areas Larimer County, Denver Metro throughout the United States, throughout the world really, is how do we help that first five years of life to be the best five years possible? Because so much of what happens for a child in later life is going to be based upon did they get the needed supports, the health care, the childcare that they need, the high quality childcare that they need, have families and parents that know how best to support their early reading and language skills. So what happens in those first five years is so important and that's why United Ways oftentimes put a lot of their resources into the programming that impacts children for those first five years so that they can be really kindergarten ready and the likelihood that they're going to read that milestone of end of third grade and beginning of fourth grade is going to be increased if they have the right inputs in their first five years of life. I remember I grew up in a small town in Kansas. Our housing cost, our cost of living was sufficient or low enough that my mother could stay home from work. My father worked full time, my mother stayed home. She didn't go back to work until we were in high school because she wanted to go back to work, not because she needed to go back to work for money. She wanted to and I remember many days when I pre-kindergarten or even during the summer when she would read to us like at lunch, like she would read to us at lunch or maybe it was after lunch, do a little reading, take a nap, that kind of thing and she was available for that and this is back to that cost of housing or just cost of living generally the more so that people can't afford to live the less likely they're going to be able to spend that kind of quality time with their children and then back to that idea of the reading level at the beginning of fourth grade because of these other things, these other contributors it just makes that kind of a measure the likelihood of success for that decrease because of these other strains. It's all connected. It's all connected. It really is. Swapping channels just a little bit but the amount of formula, baby formula that you gave away in a year the number of diapers that you gave away in a year and the most wonderful thing the number of vets that you found housing for and of course we all applaud you for working with the vets. Sure, sure. What United Way does is lead a regional effort it's called the Northern Colorado Continuum of Care and it has 40 plus member organizations in both Weld and Larimer counties and it's those 40 organizations that has succeeded in housing so many veterans we've had a little over 600 veterans assessed as experiencing homelessness since the beginning of 2016 when we started this coordinated regional effort and as of right now about 560 of those are housed so we're moving towards ending veteran homelessness maybe in 2022 it all depends on the number of veterans coming into the system the number of veterans that are getting rehoused so we'll see but many of these things and this is a United Way role it's a unique United Way role that is kind of like government but not really it's kind of like nonprofit but not really somewhere in between where we lead these community-wide collaboratives that have lots of partner organizations to achieve goals that are bigger than any one of us can achieve. I applaud you for the work and to get that number of organizations all talking together and all heading in the same direction so now how do people find the United Way and how more importantly how do they discover everything that you guys do? Our main office is located in Greeley we're a United Way of Well County footprint is like this not this area but the part of Longmont there's a tiny little bit of Longmont in Well County and what's called the Carbon Valley so Southwest and Windsor Severans Johnstown Millik and Fort Lepton the Pawnee Prairie Grasslands and the Pawnee Buttes and then the Greeley area that we resource but our main office is in Greeley just downtown Greeley there's also our website unitedway-weld.org and everything that we're talking about here is described to some extent on the website so it can find out about it there but certainly any of our staff is available to talk about our areas of impact and that's early childhood, youth household stability, homelessness, older adults and then what we call Connecting Weld which connects people to resources so any of us would be available to talk with people more about that and so our United Way if you look at many United Ways they're all going to be different we're all separate nonprofit organizations so if you compare us to Larimer County or to Pikes Peak United Way down in Colorado Springs we're all going to look a little bit different our United Way is unique in that in addition to resourcing other organizations like AmeriCorps members like you interviewed an AmeriCorps member on this show we also do a lot of direct service programming and we do that direct service programming in early childhood we work with childcare providers to help them increase their quality and during COVID just to stay in business we also work with parents to help them become better parents to get the resources they need like through the diaper bank we also do a lot of direct service programming so like that veterans work of coordination and also we have what's called a housing navigation center that's located in Greely and Evans to work with those experiencing homelessness and then we do a lot of other direct service programming such as 2-1-1 we are part of the 2-1-1 collaborative for Colorado so we help resource the statewide network that is 2-1-1 so that people when they don't have an emergency like a house burning down and they can't pay my rent they can call 2-1-1 and find out what resources are for that so we just do a lot of direct service programming and of course that's all described on the website absolutely and I would urge people just to look at the website because you're going to get sucked in about what these guys are able to do out there it's absolutely incredible the amount of good that this organization brings to the entire country part of our united way and many united ways too I think the challenge for the future is to have a solutions mindset united ways they started out if you didn't know the first united way was in Denver founded in 1887 and then they kind of they did that was it a priest a rabbi a woman who had recently moved to Denver from Cincinnati two priests a rabbi and the dean of the Episcopal Church oh that's right the dean of the Episcopal Church that's right so those five and it was a fundraising but it was a fundraising very focused on community what is the community need what's the immediate need and then over time united way became a fundraiser like no one else was able to fundraise for non-profits like united way could so united way fundraises and then gives the proceeds of that fundraising to the individual non-profits then we went through a period where united way focused on more on programs like individual programs making sure they're efficient they're serving the right people they're reaching the outcomes they were intended to reach and so that's what funding was based on and now united ways are moving back kind of to that original beginning where we listen to the community and we think about how do we solve this challenge of homelessness or that children not reading at grade level by the beginning of fourth grade and could we imagine a day you know as a united way as a community where every child is reading at grade level by the beginning of fourth grade because it can happen there could be reasons it doesn't happen and what are those reasons and can we imagine a different kind of future and then how do we as a community come together to see that it happens for every child that's what I would say to you and to others that are interested in community improvement in united ways is can we become those kinds of communities and you know to a certain extent we are but if we don't imagine it we won't become it and that's what I hope that our united way can do for our community and that other united ways and other governmental agencies and people like yourself let's just imagine that and then resource you know how we can get there and that's what I hope that our community thank you, goodbye


The next item of business is a statement by Hamza Yousaf on the conduct of reviews and inquiries. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Hamza Yousaf for 10 minutes, please, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As a Government and a society, we are all committed to ensuring the delivery of public services that treat all people with kindness, with dignity and compassion. That respect the rule of law in individual rights and that they act in the open and transparent way. When something goes wrong in the delivery of public services, then actions should be taken as close to the point of delivery as possible with the opportunity for errors to be acknowledged and actions to be taken and lessons learnt promptly. However, in a small number of instances, the issues raised whether, due to the scale of the harm caused or, indeed, wider lessons to be learned can only be addressed appropriately through the initiation of a statutory public inquiry or, indeed, a focused review. Such inquiries and reviews place significant demands on the individuals affected and the organisations involved and should not be considered or progressed without careful consideration and planning. As cabinet secretary for justice, I therefore warmly welcome the work of Professor Alison Britton of Glasgow Caledonian University, who was commissioned by the then cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing to conduct a review into the process of establishing, managing and supporting independent inquiries and reviews in Scotland. Both I and my fellow ministers wish to thank and pay tribute to Professor Britton and her team for their efforts and for giving their time to produce a thorough, detailed and informative piece of work. It is a report that will assist in informing the decisions in the future about when to consider a formal inquiry or review and how they are commissioned and, indeed, conducted. The report makes a number of valuable recommendations and, in particular, is helpful in emphasising the importance of thinking very carefully in the critical early days when a review is a possibility to ensure that the right questions are being asked. What type of review or inquiry? How is the chair to be chosen? Is the remit being drawn with sufficient precision? Professor Britton was, of course, invited to undertake this review as a result of concerns expressed about the process of the independent review of transvaginal mesh implants that reported in March 2017. While Professor Britton has rightly highlighted the missteps taken during that review, it is important to make three things clear. First, in no sense do I wish to minimise where the mesh review went wrong, it is only fair to point out that Professor Britton's conclusion was, and I quote, "...we were satisfied that no one involved in the mesh review was acting in bad faith. On contrary, public citizenship and sense of duty were the main factors in volunteering to be part of the mesh review." Secondly, it is important to remember that Professor Britton's review did not re-examine the evidence that was looked at by the mesh review nor reconsider its findings. Indeed, Professor Britton noted, and I quote again, "...we found no evidence to support the claim that evidence was deliberately concealed." The statistical evidence that was considered by the mesh review was published in an internationally recognised medical journal, The Lancet, in December 2016. As such, the chief medical officer accepted the mesh review's recommendations at the time of the publication of the final report. Thirdly, it is important to recognise that the majority of reviews and inquiries are conducted carefully, efficiently and in a manner that commands public confidence. I say this with two current public inquiries that are currently under way very much in mind, firstly the Scottish child abuse inquiry and the inquiry looking into Edinburgh trans project. I also wish to be abundantly clear that nothing within Professor Britton's report casts any doubt on the work of any other reviews or inquiries and a response to the report while not in any way delay or have an impact on the work of the statutory inquiries currently under way. Before commenting further on Professor Britton's review and mindful of the fact that it was prompted by what happened during the mesh review, I want to say that I am deeply sorry that the suffering of those women affected by mesh has been compounded by what went wrong with the process of the review. Members will be aware that, in September, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport announced the temporary pause to all trans-vaginal mesh procedures. That temporary halt will be lifted only when a restricted use protocol is developed and in place. It will be informed by new evidence-based guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and will ensure that, in future, trans-vaginal mesh will only be used in the most limited of circumstances, subject to rigorous protests. Both the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and I hope that this action, which goes beyond that taken elsewhere, gives reassurance that this Government treats this issue with the utmost importance and goes some way towards addressing the disappointment felt after the mesh review. I will not address all Professor Britton's recommendations today, but I will touch on some. We are considering them carefully—all of them carefully—and I can guarantee that the experience of the mesh review will be used to inform all such future inquiries and reviews. The Scottish Government has developed guidance that will be available to all policy teams that are undertaking considerations of calls for review or inquiry. The guidance covers the early consideration that referred to a few moments ago. It also addresses the practicalities that come after the initial decision to hold a review. Does it need panel members to assist the chair? Where will suitable premises for the review be found? How will it be staffed? What IT support is required? Questions around transparency, accountability and partiality. How will good governance be ensured for matters such as the recording of decisions and the preservation of records for historical records? The guidance is near finalisation. I am happy for it to be published on the Scottish Government's website in due course. It will also be publicised internally so that a more consistent approach is taken across Government to consideration of those issues. In addition, my officials who have drafted the guidance are available as a source of advice and support when there is a matter of public concern that is given rise for calls for a review or inquiry. I am clear, however, that while we wish to achieve consistency, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes it is obvious that nothing less than a full public inquiry is required to restore public confidence and, independently of Government, get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and how it can be avoided in the future. Public inquiries are not quick solutions. However, as I have said, they can place significant demands both on those who are affected and the organisations involved. Sometimes a well-focused review is reporting swiftly, albeit unhurried as a far preferable solution. Sometimes there are statutory bodies whose job is the independent scrutiny of a particular sector. For example, statutory inspectors play a vital role in identifying strengths and areas for improvement within certain key public services. That is the job that they are there to perform. Similarly, a fatal accident inquiry, conducted by a sheriff, is the right mechanism to establish the facts and learn lessons following an accident or sudden death. Decisions about whether to progress a fatal accident inquiry of course rests with Lord Advocate that other than those instances where such an inquiry is mandatory. The chair of an historic public inquiry identified the following elements of a successful inquiry. Interested parties would believe that a thorough inquiry into the issue that should cause public concern had been conducted with obvious fairness and that the final report was not overwritten or indeed under research. The interested parties would feel that they had been given an opportunity to present their views, that the inquiry reaches conclusions that are justified by the evidence and that the inquiry produces a report that people understand. I think that that summarises quite well the critical objectives of any review or indeed any inquiry. The review undertaken by Professor Bitten is of great assistance in ensuring that those objectives are achieved in every review and indeed every inquiry. I am determined that future inquiries and reviews learn the necessary lessons and ensure that those who have suffered harm and the country at large are confident that a fearless, independent and robust investigation has taken place. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues that were raised in his statement, and I will allow around 20 minutes for that. Would members who wish to ask a question please press their request-to-speak buttons now? I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. The Britain report will be valuable, not least in ensuring that the right questions are asked at the outset and to ensure that the parameters are clear. It is good to hear that the recommendations will be considered carefully and that guidance has been delivered. However, I wish to focus on a particular point that the cabinet secretary made. He said rightly that sometimes it is obvious that nothing less than a full public inquiry is required to restore public confidence and independently of government get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and how it can be avoided in the future. He is unquestionably right, which is why I was surprised and, dare I say, troubled to receiver's response to the joint letter from Willie Rennie, Daniel Johnson and I in which we called for a public inquiry into the tragic death of Craig McClendon. The cabinet secretary stated that he is not persuaded that a full public inquiry is the way forward and goes on to say that an inquiry is first to determine the details of what happened and to make recommendations that can help prevent a similar incident. He is absolutely right and, surely, that is applicable to the McClendon case. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what would it take to persuade him that this is one of those cases where nothing less than a full public inquiry is required to restore public confidence? What weight he accords to genuine cross-party calls for an inquiry? Will he not reconsider his decision to ensure that all lessons are learned and that tragic events can never happen again? I thank Liam Kerr for the question and the tone in which he asked the question. There is nothing that I can do to take away from the grief that the McClendon family has faced. I have met them on a number of occasions and three occasions to listen to their concerns and to help to assemble the information from relevant agencies and to gain a better understanding of the circumstances of Craig's death while also ensuring that wider lessons are learned. I think that Liam Kerr would accept that any decision to move forward a public inquiry or not is a very, very difficult one and one that has to be taken with extremely careful consideration. I would say to the members that the Scottish Prison Service, Police Scotland and indeed the Scottish Government, we accepted all 37 recommendations made by two independent inspectorate reviews that have already examined the home detention curfew scheme, which included looking at the circumstances of James Wright's release in the subsequent breach of HTC. As he rightly says, I have now written to the family of Craig McClendon and providing them further information and direct answers to the 34 questions that he asked of the Scottish Government. To add an element of independence scrutiny, I have asked both inspectorates as part of reviewing how their recommendations are being implemented to consider that response and those responses and whether they raise any further issues or concerns that may be needed to address. In some respects, I would answer the question in a slightly different way than perhaps Liam Kerr would. Are we ensuring that lessons have been learned from what was a terrible tragedy? Two independent inspectorate reports with 37 recommendations, all of which will be accepted and will lead to a change in the HTC regime. Some of those changes indeed, Liam Kerr has personally called for over a period of time. In the six-month review that will take place, if the inspectorates come back to me and say that there is further change that needs to be made and that there are further questions that need to be answered, then, at that point, once the six-month review is taken place, I will then, of course, be willing to have a further conversation on what more can be done. I thank the minister for the statement and Professor Britton for her very good report. I have been involved in forcing the Government to undertake three major reviews of policy, two on policing and one on transvaginal mesh. The first resulted in the police investigating the police. The second will report next year. However, as the mesh review that has caused me most angst, it was characterised by systematic and repeated failures, all identified by Professor Britton in her report. It was supposed to last one year that it lasted three. The chair resigned three and other panel members resigned. It was riddled with conflicts of interest. The chairs were chosen without any consideration into what skills were required. The review acted under directions from Scottish Government officials rather than autonomously. Subgroups were established, excluding some members of the review. Agendas were directed by officials. The final report excluded important information that was included in the draft report. Those are just some of a catalogue of errors and problems. Professor Britton's report is very good and exposes very serious failures. It proposes 46 recommendations for change. Will the Government implement all of those recommendations? The Government has had its reports since June. It was published in October. How many of those recommendations does the minister accept today? Is there any intention of revisiting the mesh review? After months, I think that today's statement is pretty pathetic. We do not want Government-written guidance. What we want is the full recommendations—all of them—of Professor Britton's report implemented. Will he bring us back to Parliament, or are the guidance to be sneaked out at some point? It is clear that the cabinet secretary wants to shelve his recommendations, and he wants to shelve the report, but we will not let him do that. I do not think that that is the intention at all, but I think that it would be trellish not to pay credit to the work that Neil Findlay has done, particularly in the plight of the women who have suffered in relation to transvaginal mesh. It would be trellish not to recognise that and to put that on the record. However, I do think that he is incorrect, and let me try to explain the reasons why. I did say very clearly that we would be publishing the guidance on the Scottish Government's website. I can make sure that he gets a copy to that link when it is published in terms. He asked me directly, and his question will be accepting all the recommendations. I would say that the vast, vast majority of them are absolutely there. I would say that there are a couple at least that I have an issue with, and I would be happy to have a discussion with the member, or, indeed, of course, the Parliament. That will be very obvious in the guidelines. For example, there are recommendations in there about having a centralised unit within the Scottish Government that is there for directing inquiries. I think that my own view still, and the Government's view is that it is still better done within portfolio, so it is the health portfolio that still takes a lead. For example, the transvaginal mesh would be the justice portfolio that would take forward, justice-related inquiries, and so on and so forth. There are some recommendations that, from a logistical and governance point of view, make sense absolutely to accept the vast majority, the vast bulk of them, but there are a couple to a few that I am still giving some further consideration to. Once that guidance is published, and he will get a copy of the link to that guidance, if he has further questions today, as on did the Opposition do, I will be open to those discussions. In terms of the review, many of the central recommendations to me make a lot of sense around the impartiality of members, the way in which we can be more transparent and remit in terms of reference and so on and so forth. In terms of the transvaginal mesh review, again, that would be a question for the health secretary, but no, the Government, of course, does not have, is not going to rerun the mesh review. The reasons for that, I would say, are a few. One that the process was looked at by Professor Britton, there was no re-examination of the evidence and the findings are, as I understand it, in line with findings from England, from Australia, from the EU. However, of course, the health secretary has put an effective temporary ban on using mesh and transvaginal procedures until a restricted protocol is in place, and that is an important outcome that I think would be welcomed by those across the chamber. Can I say to all members that the two opening questions have taken much more time than would normally be acceptable, but I allowed that because of their very important and sensitive nature? Unless other members are quick with their questions, and the minister is fairly quick with his answers, I will not be able to get everyone in who wants. First of all, Alison Johnstone, followed by Willie Rennie. Thank you. The Britain review found that the mesh review was ill-conceived, thoughtlessly structured and poorly executed, and also raised concerns about the wellbeing of those taking part in the review, saying that some members left meetings crying and were traumatised by the publication of the final review. I appreciate that the cabinet secretary has said that he has determined that lessons are learned, but can the cabinet secretary advise what mechanisms will be put in place to prepare and to support people who can be taking part in what may be a very challenging process? I can say to Alison Johnstone that that will be part of the guidance and the guidelines there, but the point that she raises is hugely important. The reason why we have public inquiries in particular under the statute that we have, but we also review them, is that they are issues of huge importance to people. Often, they will be issues that will be controversial, but often they will be issues that will have huge emotional impacts on people as well. Further consideration of the wellbeing structures that we have put in place is absolutely part of the guidance and part of what we are thinking. I go back to the mesh review that Alison Johnstone specifically mentioned, to the point that I raised with Neil Findlay, not to labour the point at all, but in terms of the actual outcomes, I believe that the action that the health secretary has taken will be welcomed across the chamber, and there are the findings in line with other mesh reviews that have been conducted across the world. However, Alison Johnstone raises the central point that she makes about the wellbeing of those taking part in reviews that is absolutely critical and one that is not lost in this Government at all. Willie Rennie, followed by Rona Mackay. It is necessary to understand what has gone wrong before lessons can truly be learned. That has not happened in the Craig McIsland case. That is why we do need that public inquiry. The minister refers to fatal accident inquiries in his statement. One of Professor Britton's recommendations is about the speed of inquiries. We have still not had the fatal accident inquiry into the M9 crash and the Clutha inquiry will not happen until next April. What influence will the Britton review have on the speed of fatal accident inquiries in future? Just on the two points raised by Willie Rennie, I disagree with him on the case and point around the Craig McIsland case. There were two independent inspect that it reviews. There were 37 recommendations and the Government has not only accepted all those recommendations alongside the Scottish Police Service and Police Scotland, but we have changed the HDC process and we will look to see how we can further perform the HDC process. I think that it would be wrong to suggest that lessons have not been learned. Where there are further questions, Opposition members and others can come to me directly with those questions or to SPS or Police Scotland. We will do our best to answer them. If they need independent scrutiny, there is a role perhaps from HMICS and HMIPS to play in that. On the second point, I would say to him that he knows very well that FAIs are, of course, under the remit of the Lord Advocate. It was not specifically the focus of Professor Britton's review, which is inquiries and reviews. We have, of course, as a Government, given money to the Crown to help to speed up fatal accident inquiries, but undoubtedly it has been raised by many members to me across the chamber and no doubt to Lord Advocate. Clearly, there is a further discussion to be had about how we can speed up the many FAIs that are still outstanding, while not directly a part of the review that continues to be conversations with myself and Lord Advocate on this matter. Rona Mackay, followed by Mairsbury. The executive summary of the investigative review states, and I quote, "...we were satisfied that no one involved in the mesh review was acting in bad faith. How do we ensure that the best of intentions when conducting reviews results in the right outcomes?" I hear Neil Findlay implementing the report. He is absolutely right. We will look to absolutely implement the vast majority of recommendations— Mr Findlay, it is someone else's question. I can hear him again about all of them. We have a genuine concern around a couple or, as I said, maybe even a few of the recommendations, but the vast bulk of the majority of them we will absolutely accept. If members wish to come back and ask the reasons why we have not accepted all of them, I am more than open to having that conversation on Rona Mackay's question specifically. The answer lies in the Britain report and in the guidance that we are developing. By following steps about ensuring that the right people are appointed, that they have the right support, by drawing up a remit carefully and appropriately, by identifying conflicts and managing them at an early stage, then we can ensure that reviews command the public confidence. I reiterate that that is what happens in the overall majority of cases, but clearly we want every single one of our inquiries and reviews to command public confidence. Miles Briggs, followed by Gil Paterson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is clear from what we have heard today that the devil is going to be in the detail of those recommendations. The Scottish Government, as we have heard, is currently working on guidance to be published, but it is important that we get that right so that the public can have confidence in the system. Can I ask two specific points with regard to impartiality and also a recommendation being put in place to identify potential conflicts of interest? What work is the Government doing to take that forward? Will he share that with parties before the recommendations are published? We have been considering the report since its publication. The answers will be in the guidelines. I have to say that, having looked at the report in great detail, both the points around impartiality and conflict of interest are well made in the report. We are giving serious consideration to them and they will leave us in a better place when it comes to the conduct of inquiries and reviews in the future. I am very clear that those points around impartiality and potential for conflict of interest, which are related to public confidence, are ones that will be explicit in the guidelines that we produce and, of course, if the member wishes to have further conversations, he can. However, I think that there are two important points raised by Professor Britton, reiterated by Miles Briggs, and certainly the Government views them as helping us to make a better, more robust, more transparent and more accountable process of inquiries and reviews going forward. I have to say that I am not seeing answers and questions being any shorter or snappier than usual. Gil Paterson, followed by Neil Bibby. As a Cabinet Secretary knows, reviews often involve personal tragedies. How can we ensure that reviews are always realistic in what they can achieve so that those who have experienced life-changing events have clarity about what the reviews can indeed achieve? That is a really important point. We do not want to raise unrealistic expectations in its incumbent upon all of us. I think that Professor Britton's report touches on this. It is incumbent upon politicians, media and others to temper those expectations, of course, because they often will be around controversial issues, issues that carry a huge emotional impact for individuals. We must be, of course, absolutely robust when it comes to the transparency, when it comes to the independence, when it comes to the fearless nature of inquiries and reviews. That does not mean that all stakeholders will like the answers on the back of inquiries or reviews. Self-evidently, review cannot heal a loss, but where there has been a tragedy, it is right that we seek to find out the truth in that matter. Reviews and inquiries are not there, of course, to allocate either criminal or civil blame or hope people to account. That is a point that does need to be made perhaps more clear from the outset. Neil Bibby, followed by Fulton Greger. The attempt by the justice secretary a week before Christmas to dismiss calls for a public inquiry into the failures that led to the murder of Craig Macleiland is as shameful as it is insensitive. Two reviews have indicated 37 failures, but they have not answered Craig's family's most important questions about why those failures were allowed to happen. Why were those failures allowed to happen, minister? Given that you have been unable to answer that and we do not know why, then, do you continue to know the calls of Craig's family and a majority of parties in this chamber for a full inquiry? Can I say how disappointing it is that Neil Bibby has chosen to politicise it and characterise the issue and the death in this particular way? I find that shameful more than anything. I find that really, really, not just shameful but incredibly upsetting. I have met the family on three occasions. The family then wrote to me with 34 questions. Mr Bibby, would you stop please, cabinet secretary? Mr Bibby, would you stop shouting from a sedentary position, please? Handle yourself. The family then wrote to me and to SPS and Police Scotland with 34 questions, and those responses to those questions have been given to the family. However, as an additional level of independence, I have asked the inspectors, both HMICS and HMIPS, to look over those responses. If, within the six-month review that they are doing, those answers raise further issues that must be looked at, the Government will be absolutely open to looking at what those further issues may or may not be. Those are difficult questions to answer. Of course, they are difficult. The decision that I have made bears no weight at all to the grief that the McLeodan family has suffered. I do not take that away. He can shout from a sedentary position all he wants, but he should recognise that those are not easy decisions to make. Excuse me, cabinet secretary.  I finish on the point that Professor Britton's report suggests that politicians and media should be careful not to fuel unreal expectations when it comes to inquiries and reviews. I would just say to Neil Bibby that the politicisation of the issue is completely wrongheaded. Fulton MacGregor. The investigative review describes that media involvement, among other things, can often create pressure or emotional stress for members' offer of view. Following on from the last question, what lessons can be learned about how to manage this inevitable feature of prominent reports in the future? I think that a key learning point is that there is consideration of whether the subject matter is likely to give rise to strong media interest. In most cases, when we do an inquiry or a review, there will be an intense amount of media and political scrutiny. If it is, then, as Professor Britton recommends, there should be support, advice and perhaps even media training, which she suggests being made available to the chair and that the panel members are required. However, I will also go back to Alison Johnston's point, which is important that the appropriate support and the wellbeing structures are there for those taking part. I can allow one more question. Gordon Lindhurst. The question of the length of inquiries has already been raised by Willie Rennie. If we think of the Edinburgh trams inquiry, the question that I would like to put to the minister is this. Will consideration be given to setting in advance of inquiries being conducted? The length of times those inquiries will take, how long they will be allowed and also the question of the budgets that will be spent on those inquiries. Can I just make an important point of clarification to Gordon Lindhurst? Willie Rennie was asking about fatal accident inquiries. It is really important that we do not conflate fatal accident inquiries on inquiries and reviews. On the Edinburgh trams inquiry as an example, I will not go into that specific, but it is really important that this inquiry looks to detail as much transparency and accountability around inquiries and reviews. If a Government minister was to limit the budget and the time of inquiry, the question would be, is it being done in a rushed manner? Is it being limited in terms of its scope? Is it the Government interfering in a way that is unnecessary? The trams inquiry would be an example of where there were literally millions of documents—6 million, if I remember correctly, but literally millions of documents. If I had limited, or if a previous minister or cabinet secretary had made that decision, had limited the amount of time or, indeed, the budget for the trams inquiry, then they might not have been able to examine and explore those 6 million documents in the detail that they have to be. I would be concerned. I understand that point and I understand where it comes from and from a good place. I think around trying to get to the answers and to the truth as quickly as we can, but I would have concerns about limitations because I think that that could be limiting and rushing, I should say, an inquiry or a review. That concludes the ministerial statement on the conduct of reviews and inquiries. I am sorry that Stuart Stevenson, Daniel Johnson and Tom Arthur were not able to be called, but perhaps all members could consider the time they take to ask questions and answers.


This event tonight at JFK Medical Center has really brought the community together at large. About 140 women came together to paint, but before that they got a nice lecture about how heart disease is their number one threat. A woman dies of heart disease every 80 seconds and women haven't known that. I think when you get women together in a room, stories open up, emotions open up and women start to get really real about what's keeping them from visiting the doctor. And in this relaxed social environment they could find out 80% of heart disease is preventable. And we created a private forum for them to tune into themselves and a lot of them brought their friends. A lot of women feel incredibly encouraged about what they heard tonight.


or for a schedule talk, to read about the conference, why the world was crowded, because there is the competition running, and you will receive some nice rewards, we will reach you then. I tried to find the feedback, sorry. I could not find the feedback from the website. Oh, it's the. The.com.cms slash feedback slash. Yeah, I'm looking on it, sorry. Welcome, everyone. So we are going to talk about Nautilus, the file manager, if this changes, no, it doesn't. So what is it? So Nautilus is the file manager used in the most prominent distros, like Ubuntu, Fedora, Fensus, and most importantly, in its enterprise parts. It was created by EASL. It was a company that was created in 1999. They have 15 developers, and they work on it for two years. Then in 2001, after two years, they released Nautilus, and they closed. So it was not a very successful company. But in two years with 15 developers, they could do a nice product. Some matter of curiosity, the NUS Foundation has to contribute to Nautilus at the start. So Nautilus is a 16-year-old C code. So as you can guess, it predates a lot of libraries that we currently use. And we'll see the issues about it. It also manages the desktop. That means when you have your background in the desktop, the icon you have above it is just another Nautilus window. So OK, we are going to talk about threads. How do we work with it? The libraries we use for them. Find management, which is the most important part. As well, how do we work with it? Operations. The network, because now it's very important to have network. How we access network. And how we do find files. So the search of Nautilus. Threads. So I guess everyone is used to the term thread. But they want to make sure you know what is a thread pool. Because it's important to know for knowing file manager on Nautilus. So a thread pool is a way to limit the number of threads that is running at the same time on the computer. Usually, new CPUs has a maximum of maybe eight threads. So you want to keep a balance between your application being fast, doing each operation, but not having the computer for the user. So I would say a nice formula for that is half of the threads of the CPU. It's nice. Like four threads for Nautilus, for example. Four threads for everything else that the computer wants to do. What kind of threads do we have? So there is P thread. It's used the raw thread from the kernel. It was created on 1995. It's nice. It doesn't have actually nothing bad about it. But it has some things that we actually don't care, like setting the stack size of the thread. Then Glib, which is a library, is really well known on the middle world of Linux. Makes some abstraction for threads and provides a better API for us. Introduced in 2006, GIO scheduler, which is a way to manage threads and operations, tasks. And it introduces a cancelable. It's a way to cancel the operation or the thread. So for example, you have a thread that is running something. You cancel the operation. Then in the operation, you can check whether the user canceled it. And then when it returns to the callback of the thread, you can check whether the operation finished successful or it was canceled. So you don't access any data that maybe was freed at some point. Then in 2011, Glib introduced Gtask. Gtask is similar to GIO scheduler, but it's a little better because it introduced the concept of task and ownership. So a task is a thread, an operation in a thread is owned by a task. In this way, we have a better memory management and we can do changed operations better. So remember, pthread 1995, GIO scheduler 2006, GITAS 2011. So I have a question for you because I want to know if you think in the same way I thought when I started with Nautilus. Good things Nautilus use, and you have three choices. It's multi-choice, so any combination is valid. So for the first choice, pthread, please, right hand, and like this. Wait, wait, wait, with one finger. For GIO scheduler, right hand, this finger. So you can do like this, like this. And Gtask, like this. Okay, let's vote. Okay, who is rocking like me? Those ones are right. Nautilus use the three of them. So we will see what's the problem with it because we don't have a nice way to manage a shared thread pool between them or the threads inside Nautilus. So you may guess what happens. So file management, a jelly file. As I said, jelly is really well known on the middle world of Linux. And a jelly file is used on abstraction later for the file descriptors on the kernel. It provides us, like, the path for the file. We can load contents. But the g-file is not the actual real file. It's just a path, okay? It's just an abstraction. It also provides to us abstraction for operations, like copy, mount. So you can g-file copy, use a file, move a file. It's really easy. You have to put the path, and that's it. So that's really convenient for our site for Nautilus. It also has attribute distractions. That means the information about the file, about the real file. So you do, like, g-file query info. You get the information about the file, what type of file. Maybe it's a picture. Maybe it's a text. The size of the file. The permissions, which is very important. And a lot of those operations are asynchronous. That means when you start an operation, your program still goes on, goes on, goes on. And when that operation is finished, then a callback is called, and then you can react about it. In this way, we don't block the application because of the hard disk. This is, of course, a need in a file manager because you access a lot of input-output operations. But glib is just an abstraction layer. So who is the one that actually implements the operations? So it's a library called gbfs in Linux. So it implements all the operations at the abstraction layer for the file. But what is actually useful about gbfs is that it has some tools, like, for example, the recent files. So you can imagine, you start Nautilus and you want to access your recent files. What should Nautilus do? It should go through the whole file system, took a look at the access time, and then order them. Well, it's impossible, but you can guess. You cannot do that. So gbfs is a daemon. It can track those files that were accessed previously. So for us, from the Nautilus side, it's really easy.  It's called recent slash slash. And you have your recent files there. Nothing else. It's really convenient for us. Then gbfs also provides a fuse, which is the virtual file system for Linux, and translates this path, like the recent, the trash. And also, it provides us with cloud providers, like Uncloud, Google Drive. I will talk about it after. You can also use it as a command line tool. So you can get any information, monitor files from the command line. So for me, it's much better than anything else, like LAS or whatever you want to use. Gbfs is a magnetizer to use on the command line. Okay, one important thing, the cache. So what is a cache? And why do we need it? So for a file manager, you... Well, the most important thing is in the hard disk, right? But accessing the hard disk, well, it's really expensive. So a cache is a way to have on RAM, on the fast memory access, everything that needs about those files. So for example, the first time you are going to access a directory, it's going to be slow. Yes, it's going to be slow because you cannot do anything about it. But what about the next time? So if you can have the information about the directory and it's children on RAM, then the next time you access it, it will be fast. So we really need a cache for a file manager. It's implemented as a global hash table. So you have a global hash table. If you try to access a file there, if the file is not there, then you go to the hard disk and put it in the hash table when you have everything ready. But what's the problem with cache? But as a concept, invalidation. So what happens is a file changes on the hard disk. So you need to synchronize the application because you are working with a file in the RAM that is no longer valid. The information is no longer valid. So you need a way to synchronize. What's the solution for it? So we need a set of solutions. First, a notification system. So you need a way to, in China, connect objects to files if they are interested in those files. So for example, when a file changes, then you notify those objects. This is a notification system. And we use glib signals. It's really convenient. You use gsignal connect to the change signal of the file. And whenever it changes, you notify the whole application. But science, this is 3D, and you have a lot of things going on, a lot of files requesting information and all of this. You need a queue. So you have the change queue. The change queue is for the cache. That means when Nautilus does some operation, then it put this operation, the result of this change in the change queue. And we also have priorities in the queue, because it's more important for us knowing, for example, the permissions of a file than knowing the type. Like, I don't know, it's text. Well, I care more about the permission if I can access it. So we have the high priority queue, the low priority queue, and then in this way, we can manage them on all the threads at the same time. This is for the cache. But what happens with hard disk? Because we have a lot of files that want to access, sorry, Nautilus want to access a lot of files in the hard disk. So we have the work queue, and also have its priority. That means when a file requests some information to the real file in the hard disk, it puts in the work queue, and when the thread can, it will try to get it from the hard disk. So here, we have already a few threads going on. But well, this is how we implement the cache. And I think it's a nice way to do it. So now that you know how the cache works, what is a Nautilus file? Because we have to do something, right, in the Nautilus part. So Nautilus file is used as a G file, as we saw it before, and the cache for the information. Then we have an Nautilus directory, which is used as a G file as well, the information of the cache, and a set of Nautilus files. So why we make a different session between the file and the directory? Well, it's really convenient because for cache invalidation, when you invalidate a directory, you actually want to invalidate as well each other. But that doesn't happen with a normal file. Like if it's a text file, you invalidate the file itself, but not nothing below it, under it. Because there is nothing under it, right? So in this way, we have the different session. It's nicer in this way. And also for monitoring, so when you are in a directory and you are watching the file for changes on the file, you want to get notified about all the children. But for a normal file, you don't want that. So monitoring. So we need a way to watch the file on the hard disk, right, for any change. This is called monitoring, and we actually use glib as well. It's called g file monitor, and that's it. You put the path, and whenever it changes, it just notifies you. It uses the kernel iNotify, which was a tool introduced in 2000, I think. Yeah, 2000. But it has an issue. You can only have 1024 watches for the whole process. What is the issue with that in Autilus? So imagine that you have a directory, and you go to the command tool, to the terminal, for example, and you move a file from that directory to another one. So now in Autilus, we'll see that a file got removed there. And we'll say, OK, there is some file deleted here. But is delete or is move? So iNotify and glib needs to monitor also the destination to know whether a file got deleted and moved here, and then the operation is a move, or whether it uses a deletion. But since we only have 1024 watches, we cannot watch the whole file system. So we could do something smarter if we could watch the whole file system, for example, for this issue. For us, it's not this big issue, but for Tracker, which is a library we will talk about later, it's a really big issue. Operations. How we do operations? Well, as you can guess, glib provides us with that. And Autilus operation is actually a batch of glib operations, because it will be overkill to create a thread for every glib operation. And so for the user, it uses select a bunch of files and move them. So for the user, that's one operation. So we thread in the same way on Autilus. So what do we do? We use create a thread. We put the different glib operations there. And here comes the complex thing. We look for conflicts. What happens if the destination has some file that has the same name? So we have to record the user. What to do? Should we replace it? Should we skip it? But we are in another thread. So we have to actually record the user in the main thread, and this thread block it. This makes it complex, because you have to actually block all the operations until the user answers and makes this communication with the threads. Then once it's done, we put it in the change queue. And that's it. What's the challenge with the management of files in Autilus? For me, after this one and a half year working on it, memory management really is the worst thing on Autilus. Because the problem is if a file doesn't get freed, it means we leak that file, Autilus crash at any time later. But who is the owner of files? Well, there is like 300 references to the same file at the same point. And the plaging system, a plaging of Autilus, can have a reference to Autilus file. What happens? So imagine that you have a file in the cache, and then you change the directory. So that file no longer has to be in the cache, because you change the directory, you don't care about that directory anymore. So the cache system, what it does is like, OK, we mark this file as gone. This file is gone. But imagine that a plaging of Autilus has a reference to that file. So that file doesn't get freed. OK. So you try to access that file later, and then Autilus has an asset, like if this file is gone, you scratch, because you cannot do anything about that file. And that file is gone because it doesn't get freed before. So really, the memory management in a file manager for me is the worst part to deal with. OK, network. So network in a file manager? Well, yes.  But there is some network locations that are used as a bunch of files, for example, FTP servers, or some bar shares, the Windows network directory. So it's really useful if you can have them integrated on the file manager, right? They are integrated as amounts of EVFS. It's really nice to access in this way. But even more, what about cloud providers, like Google Drive and Cloud? Well, it would be really cool to have them on the file manager, right? We have them because they are used as a bunch of files, right? So what we do to mount this kind of network? So we create a new asynchronous operation to monadiretory that EVFS provides us with the path, an H path, like Google Drive slash slash. We ask for the password, is it needed? And then we don't load the file metadata, not the files itself. And then we provide it as a tray translated with this easy path like Google Drive slash slash. So from the file manager point of view, EVFS here help us a lot. But what happened with cloud providers, treating them used as a EVFS mount?  Well, yes and no.  So we don't have integration for it. And they are going to either way make its own private way to synchronize. So providing the backend like in EVFS, yeah, it's good because we have some integration but it's not the best solution. So what will be a solution for that? Well, we can use Deepass service. So Deepass is an IPC system. It means that it's a way to communicate between different processes. So we can make, for example, Dropbox, connect to the file manager in a basic API and then say which files are synchronizing. We are working on it. It's something to work on the future. But I think it will be a nice point versus Windows, iPhone or whatever, machine tools because they don't do it. Okay, let's move on. Search. What do we want when we perform a search? Well, one of the most important things I will say is when you put, for example, text because you are searching for it, you want the file that contains in its name this text, right? This is like the most important thing or the most basic thing. But what about the users that, for example, has a presentation file? I don't know, for university and they are working about a psychologist called, I don't know, Florian for say something. So the user wants to search for Florian and then provide this file. That means searching on the content inside that file. So we have to do that. Also, we want the search to be recursive. That means if you are in a location, search on every level below it, under it. Why? Well, searching on the same directory you are on is more or less easy. But what about if it's three levels deeper? It's really hard to search for a file in this way. So we need to provide this tool. But we want to give preference to a closed hierarchy. That means if a file is found in the current directory, we really want to give a better rank so it goes up in the solution, like in the final view. So we want a ranking system. And last but not least, we want a 3D, but not hanging the user computer. So, okay, what's needed for it? For the search or not? So first, for matching the name, it's really easy. Just check whether the name of the file contains the steps you are searching for. Then content matching. So how do we do search inside the content of the files? So this is very tracker. What it does is tracking parts of your file system. Of course, it cannot track the whole file system for the issue I said before with iNotify. So it only tracks like documents, downloads, pictures, these most used folders. So it also tracks the contents inside the files. And it puts everything in a database. So it's really fast to search. Used to make up points. Search on tracker is more or less one second for me. A normal search, like iterating over the editories, takes two minutes. So it's really a big difference, and it's really useful to have tracker here. Of course, if we didn't have tracker tracking the content of the files, what will happen is that we should go to every file, parse all the content and search for the word. Of course, that's completely impossible. We need a way to track it. So as I said, we want to conceive some rank for the hierarchy. That means, as I said before, a close to the hierarchy means higher rank. So what algorithms is for this? Well, there is an algorithm that is called breadth-first-search. It's really common. And what this does is that you are in a location, then you visit the first level of this location.  And when everything is done there, then you go to the next level. But you don't go like this. You go level by level. So in this way, you found the files that are close to the hierarchy earlier. We also, of course, need a way to make the ranking. So we make a rank based on the word proximity between the text and the filename. And then for the full text search that tracker provides for the content of the files, tracker provides user rank as well, which is easy. We do some kind of zoom between them, and then we put in the final result. And as a nice thing, the search is implemented as an utility directory. So in this way, we can reload it. We can show the files. We can invalidate the cache. We can do everything. So it's strange, but it works well for us. Like, created a virtual directory that is nothing to use results of search. So OK. We have everything for making a search. Let's do it. We have three engines. The model engine. This is the engine which search on the cache, on the current cache. As you know, the cache is very fast. So we want to use an engine for it. We have a simple gene, which is the one that goes recursively on the whole file system below you, under you. And then you have tracker. OK. We create a thread for everyone. We prepare to catch the hits for every file that is found. We connect to the signals, everything. We start the engines. And of course, normally it was, but let's do a little evil example. Let's search for the character A. What happens if we say, well, A is the sorted one, and A is the character most used in every language, in European language. So Natilo is going to be crazy. So let's go. What happened? Well, I don't know if you knew this scene from the Simpsons, but this is what happened with the threads. It doesn't go. It cannot work. So the computer hangs. You see that the computer is hanging, not the application, the computer. Well, I'm there for the application, but you first see the computer that is completely stuck. Why? So we have threads for the search engines. We have a thread for some learning. Some learning is the preview of the files. We have the threads for the work queue, the one assessing the disk. We have threads for the change queue, the one that is for the file cache. Imagine that you are doing some operations, like moving files. You have more threads, but they are not limited by a search thread pool. So what happened? We have more search than the CPU can handle, so we don't limit them. So we hang the computer. This is a real problem, Natilus. I will say it's one of the biggest problems under the hood. But, yeah, I know. Don't leave me with a bad taste in this talk. So we are working on it, and we are already working on it a few. So what's already there? Now the search has stopped when the user says, and engines are reused. Because before, when you perform a search, engines are searching, and then when you stop, Natilus, what he was doing is just forgetting how to search and creating a new one. That means if you have 10 threads, you have 10 threads more now, 20. You're not going to work. So he was making it slow, even with normal search, like, I don't know, hello, which doesn't make Natilus slow. And now the engines are reused. So that means you don't go over creating and allocating the search engines again, stopping the threads. No, you only change the query. Also, we improve the catch invalidation. Because as he said, the search is implemented as Natilus directory. So what can happen is if you are searching for a file, and that file changed, then you invalidate the directory, and then the search goes again and goes again. And Natilus was doing a lot of invalidations because you have to make sure that your information is valid. But, well, you can make the performance a little better. So we improve the catch invalidation for that. And we are working on porting to gtask now, which is the first step to be able to share the same thread pool and limit the threads, which is really important for us. What's the time? Yeah? Oh, cool. So after this talk, what I want you to keep in mind, what we learned about how to implement a file manager, what the challenge is, use my experience working on it. So, yeah, use threads. They are really good. You need them. But use a thread pool, please. Use the same thread pool because it doesn't make any sense to use threads if you are not going to limit them. It doesn't make sense. Of course, you have to use a cache. If your application is accessing a lot of input output, if you don't use a cache, you aren't going to go anywhere. You need to use a cache. And well, for Natilus, I understand because it's system just all. So the libraries are, it predicts a lot of libraries. But please, use already well-tested libraries. For example, glib. And try to use it with coherence. Because most of the problems with Natilus is use the custom code that is using. It's really hard to maintain this kind of code. And last but not least, in my humble opinion, Thin2ice, if C, is the language you need. Because I think we are in a time that we shouldn't allow the tools we are using to rely the memory management on us because it's one of the most pitfalls in applications. And it's really hard to, I mean, it's half of my time it's just fixing these things. So Thin2ice about it. Okay, we are finishing. So if you want these slides, they are in my jihab account. If you want to use them, read them. If you want to know more about Natilus, go to the Wikipedia account. And if you want to talk with me, discuss with me whatever, go to IRC at gimp.org on Natilus channel. My mail is Cisoriano at nom.org. And I really like to play ping-pong as a matter level. Don't go professional. So if you want to play ping-pong during the conference, just catch me. If you are a hater, we can go to the office. There is some table we can play there. And now if you have any questions, please ask me. And thank you for your attention. Sorry, I'm not listening well. I'm not listening well. Can you up your voice? Yes. Yes. Yeah, OK. So the question is, if type of head is going back. Well, I think it's a different pattern. When you are doing type of head, it's only searching for the star of the file name. You have to know a lot of things. Only for the current directory. It's really a small use case. I mean, probably it's very important, but it's really a small. So what I would like to do is use to improve a lot the search for the current directory. So you can have almost in the same time the results you will have with type of head, but better because it will search any part of the file name. It will search the content of the file. So I think that's the way forward. Yes, it was instant because it was doing nothing more than use on the widgets that was already there. Yeah, yeah. So I think the path forward is used to improve what we can with the current directory. I think we can do it. I think we can improve it much more. I answer your question. Yes. OK. Cool. More questions? Asos and you. Let's get a question. You have a scarf. More questions? Yes, tell me. Yes, GBFS. Command line. Use GBFS. Mount the network or whatever you want. And GBFS has a lot of debugging. So you can actually look the process. Ah, home directory. OK. Still, the answer is GBFS. So GBFS is for everything, for every file. So use GBFS info, GBFS ls, everything like that. You can surf for it. You can debug a lot of it with it. Yeah, so GBFS is the answer. It's really convenient. Yeah. More questions? So the question is, if we are going to support more kind of implications, no idea. Sorry. It's not in my roadmap because I actually don't have any about it. Wait a moment. I have to give more scarf. More questions? Sharing code in tracker. Yeah, but for me, tracker is another beast. And tracker, use what we use, like glib, GBFS, if I remember correctly now. So I think what we can share is already shared. I don't know the code of tracker, so I don't know more. But no, it's really a different beast. Tracker is a database. Nothing is not. Tracker uses a database of metadata.  That contact is in some place, so you can access the map where he is. That's not natural. So it's really a different beast. So what can we share about the use of files? Tracker is much more than just files. It's already shared. So nothing else there. More questions? Now without the scarf. I don't know if you want to make more questions. More questions? That's kind of tracker, right? But yes, but you need to track the change as well. And you cannot track the whole file system. It's a problem from the kernel. You don't know. You don't know. That's the problem. So you search, and you have to be sure the files has the current information. Maybe that file is already gone. Maybe the file was deleted. So you have to take that database. How do you do it? You have to monitor every file. But we have the issue of inotify. It's the problem with tracker. So really the solution will be to have more support for something different to inotify in tracker. Then we can use tracker. Use as a matter of getting files from there. But the problem is inotify. It's still inotify. So we cannot do anything about it yet. And not only the problem with being fast or not, sometimes it's more Nautilus itself with the threads and everything than actually going through the directories. More questions? Another question? Can you repeat? We don't. We don't. Yeah, we don't. So what happens is that Nautilus use cache and watch the directory he's looking at. That's it. We cannot watch the whole file system. So there is no solution for it. More questions? No? OK, so thank you for your attention. I have an answer. I don't have an answer. Because I don't. It's really hard. It's really hard. The right language for the job. Yeah. I'm a bit delighted with my suggestion. Because I remember what inkscape. You know this inkscape. Yeah.  And I wonder if you can do the same. Like Terak G5. I guess. But for me it's already complex, the code of the project to use at another layer of complexity. What I would like is the programming tool. Like the programming language I'm using, just write me this super. Like I don't have to do anything about it. It could be garbage collector, but then we have performance issues. So there is, for example, this new language Rust that is using mix of it. So we can have something like this. But it's really a hard problem. It's really a hard problem. This has spent half of time for a minute. Yeah, yeah. That's true. That's true. But it would be too much work to add new thing, I think. But yeah, thank you for the idea. Oh, yes. You should try it. Say something. Test.


Welcome to Nation Beat. I am Janelle Norville bringing you this brief on the pulse of our nation and highlights around the heart of St. Lucia. A wide cross-section of the St. Lucia Society weighs in on the Geo-Formal Resource Development Project. St. Lucia receives assistance from the Government of Cuba in strengthening early warning systems and the Government of St. Lucia has commissioned a feasibility study for a proposed development project at Mount Pleasant. A multi-sector consultation on the Geo-Formal Resource Development Project within the context of St. Lucia's National Energy Transition Strategy concluded Wednesday. The forum is in keeping with Government's efforts at reducing St. Lucia's dependence on fossil fuel. The Government remains committed to exploring geoformal options which will provide stability in the energy sector and ultimately reduce the cost of energy to consumers. As a signatory to the Paris Agreement and on its path to decarbonizing operations, St. Lucia is pursuing fossil fuel independence. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor hosted a consultation workshop under the Geo-Formal Resource Development Program bringing members of civil society together. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor Iva Danielle indicated that several assessments have been undertaken in the Government's pursuits. In our recent pursuit of geoformal, there have been lighter studies that have—lighter studies, we've had geophysics and geoscientific studies. Dating back to 2016, there's been a pre-feasibility study undertaken in 2017, and a pre-feasibility study recommended that there should be some slim wells in three areas in the south, mainly Bell Plain, Fonsejac and Mondaysia, Saltibas. And following this, we've conducted an environmental and social impact assessment, and this assessment has given us the roadmap to help us mitigate the various risks that we would encounter as a country in our pursuit of this resource. Environmental and social safeguards are key components of the project, as the Government is keen on ensuring that the pursuit of geoformal energy has no adverse effects on the way of life for the people in souffle and environs. The Government of St. Lucia has also stipulated that investments are to be made to develop local capacity by training St. Lucia's in priority areas to help manage and run the project successfully. Chief Energy, Science and Technology Officer Terence Glard explained the steps going forward. So the goals would be to provide support to the Government in making an informed decision on moving forward with the project. So that phase involved really surface exploration work, which we will see what was done. So all the major upstream activities were taking place, or are taking place. Here's the funding support that was received. The various partners, the Global Environment Facility, SIDS DOC of the World Bank, the Clinton Climate Initiative, the Government of New Zealand, UNDP also provided some support as well. The World Bank and other global partners have made available US$22.5 million in concessional and grant funding for St. Lucia to embark on the next phase of the project. The National Emergency Management Organization, NIMO, with support from the Government of Cuba, facilitated a training workshop on early warning systems. Anisia Antoine has the details. In an effort to create more sustainable early warning systems, the National Emergency Management Organization, NIMO, partnered with the Cuban Embassy to conduct a 10-day capacity building workshop. This initiative is part of the disaster management strategy of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, SIDIMO, to increase the knowledge and output rate at the community level. Velde Joseph is the Director of NIMO. Because we believe that in building resilience, it's not all about consultations and meetings, but there are practical things that you can actually do to reduce vulnerabilities, to reduce risk, and to reduce the impact of the hazard. We were able to identify a number of initiatives that we would like to address as a matter of priority. One of them was the issue of the multi-hazard risk assessment. And we engaged our Cuban counterparts because we recognized that they have developed a very expert methodology in addressing hazard vulnerability and risk assessment. The team of 18 Cuban experts worked with a group of local professionals to implement the methodology taught at the workshop in the community of Dennery. Students of the Sao Paulo community college were specially invited to the closing session. This is a work that I would have mentioned before. It's not just for disaster management officers, but it's for every single person, from the youngest child who can understand to the oldest person who's able. And whether or not they're able, they still can perform a role. I'm not sure what the areas of training are at Sao Paulo, but I'm sure that some of you will become some of our teachers in various areas. And you will also be part of the public sector. And please note that the public sector, private sector, you all have a role to play. Every single person has a role to play. SIDIMA, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC, and United Nations Development Program, UNDP, are currently working together to support the national systems in seven Caribbean countries, namely St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and in a minor component, Haiti. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. The Government of the Republic of China, Taiwan, through the Taiwanese technical mission, has provided financial assistance to St. Lucia farmers as the recovery efforts post-Tropical Storm Kirk continue. On Monday, the 26th of November, a total of 108 farmers from the Babono, Forestier, Crownlands, Deglo, and Roso area received checks to help them defray the rehabilitation costs for farms and plantations which were destroyed following the passage of Tropical Storm Kirk. Minister for Agriculture, Honourable Ezekiel Joseph addressed the farmers at the presentation ceremony which was held in Deglo. The Government of Taiwan gave a check of $1.4 million to assist farmers, not banana farmers, farmers, because today we have banana farmers, but I want to say we are assisting farmers who experience damage after the storm. What we have agreed based on the program we put to the Cabinet, farmers that are cutting back and replanting, we'll be getting two sets of fertilizer, two applications of fertilizer. We'll be getting oil to spray for Black Seagull Toca, and we'll be getting chemicals on the Maticide and $400 per acre that got damaged. You'll understand that? So if you had five acres and we're saying about 80% damage, you would not get $400 for five acres. You'll get $400 for the 80% of the plots that were damaged because we're giving support based on damage. Some farmers were deprived of compensation from insurance due to a clause which stated that registered wind speed from a storm or hurricane must register a minimum of 65 miles per hour. Unfortunately, for some farmers, registered wind speed from Tropical Storm Cook was 60 miles per hour. Meanwhile, Taiwan's technical mission representative Mario Sheng assured farmers that the Taiwanese government is committed to boost productivity in the agriculture sector. From the Communications Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Physical Planning, Natural Resources and Cooperatives, Miguel Morricet reporting. The government of St. Lucia has commissioned a feasibility study for a proposed development project at Mount Pleasant. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney says government is in the process of completing the purchase of 17 acres of land at Mount Pleasant as part of plans for the redevelopment of casualties. The proposal is for the construction of residential and commercial units in order to decongest the city centre. With the idea of redeveloping parts of the CDC area, the main boulevard where the Prince Street, the Parliament building and the courthouse are, as well as the Cass Street's basement. To complement that study, we have engaged Ballas Needham. Ballas Needham are the Dutch company that did the redevelopment of the Point Serif and Birth. And they are actually doing a feasibility for us as to Port Cass Street and the Container Port and looking at the cul-de-sac options. So rather than just talk about it, we're actually putting together a feasibility in terms of how we can potentially make that happen. A draft report is to be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers January 2019 with a concluding report due in February. The government has already been in dialogues with several potential partners on the Cass Street's port, both from a cruise ship perspective as well as from a container perspective. And we've got those agreements pending, holding until we get this final plan to be able to move forward. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Shasne as he addressed members of the Chamber of Commerce earlier this month. This is nation beat we're back in a moment. The OECS Commission organizes meetings, prepares budgets, conducts research, undertakes projects, negotiates for and represents the OECS member states. It is organized along several components. There are the commissioners from each member state who along with the Director General form the commission that oversees the work programmes. There are also technical divisions with specialised units between them as well as diplomatic missions in Brussels and Geneva. All these complement each other to make the OECS Commission the engine of regional integration in the eastern Caribbean. The OECS has a proud past and together we are working towards a brighter future for all our citizens. For more information visit www.oecs.org Welcome back. The skill level and capacity of St Lucia bartenders continue to be enhanced. A preliminary round of the Chairman's Reserve International Mai Tai Challenge has taken place here. Eleven bartenders from local hotels have qualified for the International Showdown in March 2019. The event is seen as a complementary element, the development of the St Lucia food and rum first of all. They came prepared to battle for a spot to represent St Lucia at the Chairman's Reserve International Mai Tai Challenge in a few months time. From the judge's vantage point it was clear these bartenders from hotels around the island had taken their game to another level. Presentation skills have improved as well and as well I think they are getting the grasp of what the Mai Tai cocktail is as well as being able to present that to the audience. This is year two of the Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai Challenge and so the judges were looking for improved competence in mixology. They were not disappointed. This year definitely the participants were able to express themselves more and to be able to explain their cocktails, explain why they are using certain ingredients and to basically bring the audience on that journey of making that cocktail with them. The judging panel was also impressed by the creative use of local ingredients. And they were very happy about that because that was actually a comment they made last year when we had the first Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai competition where they wanted a lot more local ingredients being incorporated in the actual cocktail. We did bring that to them, the participants that is and they were able to take that in and bring it this year. After a few hours of competition, eleven bartenders qualified for the Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai Challenge in March 2019. They each earned their place to participate in the international competition by creating a specialized Chairman's Reserve Mai Tai cocktail. Third place, Ron Jamal Joseph of the Body Holiday. Second place, Aldrich John Baptiste of Coco Palm Resorts with Craig Andes of Sanders emerging the overall winner of the qualifying round. The eleven chosen from this qualifier will be paired with an international bartender for the Mai Tai showdown in March. The winner will be flown to Europe or North America with an opportunity to bartend at an international rum festival. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reporting. .