Rheswm yn fawr i'r ddechrau. Ieg i'n gweithio eich cymryd yng nghymru i'r ddiwylliant ym Mhwylwyr i'r Cymru yn 2024. Wrth gael no cymrydau ym mhwylwyr ar bod y ddiweddol, mae'r ffordd i gyd yn y dyfodol i'r pethau yn yu'r prifyddiol. Mae'r ddiweddol yn credu ymlaen i'r ddigonol, ac mae'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol i'r ddigonol two panels on the Scottish Elections Representation and Reform Bill. Are we content to do that? Excellent, thank you. Our second agenda item is indeed to welcome the first panel here this morning with Ailsa Henderson, who is, I still think we can call you the new commissioner, and welcome to your first visit to us for Boundaries Scotland and Colin Wilson, who is the Electoral Boundaries Review Manager for Boundaries Scotland. Can I welcome you both to the meeting this morning? If it's all right with you, I'm just going to kick off with some questions. I'm content for both to answer questions if you both have contributions to make, or indeed only one person to answer if that's easier. So the first question that I have is with regard to the proposal in the bill to move the deadline with regard to local authority elections from 31 December 2028, moving it forward to 30 April 3031. 2031 might be an incredible weight. I was going to say I could imagine some content councillors with that. So I suppose the first question is do you want to explain why that's been proposed, but secondly the more important question is can you envisage any unintended consequences as a result because the new proposed date is but one day a year away from when the local authority elections would take place and there is some concern about that narrowness of time if there is any problems post the final decision going into six months from the election date. So Ailsa, can I come to you? Perfect, thank you. Shall I go first and then if you want if you think I've missed anything. Thank you very much for the question and thanks for the invitation to be here today. So in terms of the logic of that change, obviously the electoral cycle for local elections has moved from every four years to every five years and so the elections where to have been 2021, 25, 29 and our original date 2028 was to be one year before that 2029 election. Now that we're in five year terms the elections are 22, 27, 32 and so the 2031 date is one year before the 2032 election. So in that respect we're not really any closer to the election than we would have been otherwise. We're just adjusting to the fact that we're moving from four year terms to five year terms. I think there are two other benefits of moving from 2028 to 2031. One of them is it means we avoid having a live review during the 2027 local elections. I think that would be very confusing for people if we were asking them to vote in one set of wards while suggesting that those wards were possibly problematic and were about to change. And the other means that moving from 2028 to 31 means we don't have a review that is done on much older electorate data and then put into action for the 2032 election. It means that the review will be conducted on more recent information and therefore will be more fair. There are issues to be aware of though. One is that when we inherited the Hollywood reviews we did inform ministers and colleagues in the Scottish Government elections team that our intention was to move to a series of rolling reviews rather than reviewing all 32 local authorities at once. The island's reviews were to be our first set of rolling reviews and we trialled that in large part because we used that as an opportunity to really engage with community councils, so not just the statutory commitment to engage with councils first but to go below the level of the council and really engage with community councils. Now it was challenging, it was during a pandemic, a lot of that engagement took place online, but in our view the rolling reviews allow us a deeper amount of engagement with the public but also with organisations within council areas. The only hiccup about moving to 2031 is that we will be commencing a review in 2028 at exactly the time that the secretary is supposed to be commencing a Westminster review. That's not a problem with the dates as such, but if the approvals process remains uncertain we feel we can't really begin with rolling reviews and get started from the moment that we're done these Hollywood reviews in May of 2025. If we can get started sooner then this is absolutely not a problem in terms of managing workload. The other thing to note is that if we are undertaking a review that's due in 2031 and we're starting it in 2028 and we are simultaneously conducting a Westminster review on the other commission then that commission will be undertaking a review using old wards at a time when the other commission is trying to change the wards. So it's a similar issue, a less severe issue than the one of having a live review during the 2027 local elections, but it is something to be aware of. Is there anything that you wanted to? So if that was a risk register, it's amber rather than red, the problem that you've just identified. One that you are aware of and you feel is manageable? Yes, it's absolutely manageable in part. We know it's manageable because we've done it before. So we had that situation in the last Westminster review because we were undertaking the island's reviews at the same time. We knew that we were changing the ward structure in six of the local authorities and we were having to use the old wards as the building blocks. Now sometimes we were able to argue that we should use something that looked closer to the new wards because the logic for moving the ward was also a logic for moving the constituency boundary. I'm talking across two commissions here, but I certainly can't solve one of those commission problems for you, I'm afraid. But I suppose the election bill that we're looking at here would be an opportunity if there was a better system, but you're confident that you're aware of the challenges and actually the suggestion that's being made is probably the best that's available to you? Absolutely, I would think so. Thank you, that's helpful. It solves more problems than it creates, is one way to put it. I suppose my final question in relation to this part of it is, have you got sufficient time to be confident that you can hit the 30th of April deadline 31, working back from that for it to be complete by then? Absolutely, yes. We have a series of different timelines that we work to, but if we're thinking of from now until 2031 there's more than enough time to undertake a review of local authority areas. I'm grateful for that confidence. Stephen, I think you had a... Yeah, just a quick question. Interested to hear that you'd put forward what feels like a very pragmatic suggestion about the workload rolling, the rolling idea, but you said you suggested Scottish ministers, they clearly haven't embraced it. Do you know why that idea from your professional point of view wasn't accepted by Scottish ministers? Are you talking about the move to automaticity? No, the rolling, you suggested it. Oh no, they're happy with the rolling. They're happy with the rolling. Yeah, absolutely happy with the rolling. They've got no objections to that at all. It's just that after the island's review, because after the fifth review some of our proposals were rejected and then after the island's review some of our proposals were rejected, we then went to the Deputy First Minister at the time and said, look until the approvals process is clarified it doesn't really make sense to us to continue to generate proposals where we will be fulfilling our statutory duties and doing the job absolutely appropriately and they will get rejected for questionable reasons. And so therefore until that approval process has started we're not keen to get started early on reviews. So the proposals that you took to the Deputy First Minister rejected, that was the reason they were rejected, it was that they wanted further clarity on the approval process or were they rejected for other reasons? No, I think there's two things going on here. So what the in after the fifth reviews, the minister at the time rejected boundary proposals and then after the island's review two of the six local authority boundary reviews were rejected. The elections team and the minister was well aware that we were planning on moving to a system of rolling reviews, they were entirely on board with us moving to the system of rolling reviews. The hiccup in terms of moving to rolling reviews is that until the approvals process is sorted it doesn't make sense for us to throw new proposals into a flawed process. No, no, that makes no sense to me. Further to that, convener, the cycle, these 15-year cycles for all of the elections, that's also for all of the boundaries, can you just detail where they fall the 15 years? We just had a Westminster one and you just said there's going to be the beginning of another Westminster one in 28, did you say? Can you just describe that? So that would certainly be interesting to me because I can't get my head right. In terms of when they would align. Yeah, when would the work begin on the 15-year review of Westminster, you said 2028? They would both begin in 2028. So that's five years, so it's a 10-year process then? It's five years after the last, just describe the timescales? Sure, so we're in a, if we're moving to a, so there are multiples of electoral terms, so we're moving to a system where we would be reviewing it, we would be completed a review before the third such term for local authority elections, but they're on slightly different timescales. So how long does the review take? Yes, when do you begin before the actual deadline? Roughly about two years. So why is the Westminster one starting in 28 then? Because it reports in 2031, it'll be late 28. Right, is that a 15-year review as well? It's eight years to one, isn't it? Westminster at the moment is eight years, every eight years. Oh, eight? I mean it's confusing, it was every five years, it's currently every eight at the moment. So every eight years is a Westminster cycle of the review, and it's 15 for Scotland, local government and parliamentary, yes? Yes. That's the proposal. That's the proposal, right. I mean the Westminster one's slightly out of kilter because there were two abortive attempts at reviews, but now with the move to automaticity they should be on schedule. The 600 in all the rest of it, yes. Feeds into your dual roles from one commission with regard to Westminster that is separate and distinct from your responsibility for the Scottish local authorities and the Scottish parliament elections. The secretariat covers all three. Yes. We just cover local and holiday. Yes, and the difficulty is that what you have is overlapping timetables that have worked from different start dates for various reasons, and the one that the proposals in this bill seek to rectify is the one of the movement from four years to five years as a term of office in relation to local authorities, and on your massive calendar on the wall you have these lines on it over the years, and you have confidence that you can deliver the work for the proposed new timetable, i.e. going up to 31. Yes, absolutely. There we go. All right, can I pass to Ivan? Or do you want to? It was three electoral cycles. Yes. Yes. And it's going to stay three. That's very clear, isn't it? It always was three, but it was just four times three before. It's now five times three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next pair of things. Right. That's the clarity round. Go on then, Ivan. Let's see if we can get into more mudflotas with that. I'll do my best. These are questions. Maybe not. Good morning. So, yeah, my question is around about the process that you go through in order to decide what the boundaries should be. Now, you can, for the record, explain that, and I assume that's all laid out in statute and guidance and so on. There's clearly an issue around about population drift and how you adjust for that in the limits within which you take account of that with regard to the numbers on the electoral roll. My question was more round about how do you or do you take into account other factors, for example community? However, you define that stability, because clearly the relationship between an elected member and their constituents in local groups and schools and whatever is built up over a period of time and that relationship is quite important in terms of so constantly changing that significantly is probably unhelpful for everyone. And then alignment between particularly local government boards, when one board is put across three or four constituencies, isn't optimal and vice versa. So just to get a sense of what the requirement is in terms of your rules and guidance and statute and how you approach making sure that those particular issues are taken due account of in the process. Yeah, thanks for that. So the rules are that we have to have regard to local government boundaries that we have to devise boundaries that are as close to the electoral quota as is practicable, that were allowed when we do so to deviate from that if we believe that special geographic circumstances are at play and that when we do all of that we have to have regard for any disruption that might be caused, but also the breaking of local ties, which is different from putting together two possibly different communities into a single constituency. The legislation specifies that we should have regard to the breaking of local ties. So the separation of communities is a bigger problem than merging together two dispara areas. So those are the rules. And so we start with the first one with the local authorities. And so the very first thing the secretariat does is devises groupings of local authorities and works out the local authority boundaries or local authority ward boundaries? Local authority, external administrative boundaries, so the external boundaries of local authorities. And we work out the theoretical entitlement to each local authority in terms of the theoretical entitlement to a constituency. And then we merge them together to try and manage the task and group together approximate areas because we know that when we devise constituency boundaries it has a knock-on effect on neighbouring areas. And we have an initial grouping that we then use to begin devising possible constituency boundaries. And when we do that we then look at how that relates. We devise what the electoral quota is and we use that to calculate the theoretical entitlement. When we devise the draft constituencies we make a note of possible deviation from parity. We are using the Venice commission's guide in terms of 10 per cent being best practice, 15 in exceptional circumstances so we have that in the back of our minds but we also deviate from that and take special geographic circumstances into account. So for example although there are certain protected constituencies in Scotland when you're looking at other island areas or you're looking at rural and remote parts of the mainland we also consider those to be satisfying special geographic circumstances in some way. And then because we look at other boundaries at the same time we look at ward boundaries, we look at community council boundaries, we sometimes look at school catchment boundaries, we use those to get a sense of what the communities are. And then we put those out to consultation and it's often when we get the responses to consultation the attention there is less on mathematical representation, the electoral quota aspect of things and it's more on organic representation. So people are telling us you've drawn something through the middle of a community that doesn't quite work and so then we use all that information to redraw them and then go back out. The other thing I would mention is that we're not behold into that initial grouping of constituencies and so in this process and in other processes we have changed the initial grouping of local authority areas when we think a better solution is possible with another grouping. So we shift as we go, basically. Thanks, so it's a multi-factorial problem when you're trying to balance all of that. Try it. As best you can. In terms of the, you indicated in the notes and I've not been here for all of that period but there's always been instances, a number of instances where parliament ministers have rejected your proposals. What is your, is it possible to identify the which of those factors have been most upset about in terms of the conclusions you've come to and why it's caused parliament to be members to be less than happy with it? Are there certain aspects that you've kind of, that they feel you've ignored is what I'm trying to say? Yes, I can absolutely talk you through what we understand to be the reasons. In terms of the fifth reviews, the clearest example is probably around the Dundee, the rejection of the proposals for Dundee and it was in part because residents in Brotiferry did not wish to be joined in awards with residents in the east end of Dundee. So that was an instance of merging two disparate communities rather than an issue of breaking local ties and so we thought that that wasn't something that under the statutory rules within which we work should be a reason for rejection but it was in the hands of the minister and that was rejected. I mean some of the others were rejected because they knew the island's legislation was coming and they said well there's no point in doing a review of the islands if you're going to just re-review them so press pause on that and I think that's in a different category. When it came to the island's reviews it was a completely different situation. In one hand it was no longer in the hands of the minister it was in the hands of the parliament and the committee that was tasked with reviewing it I think ignored the rules within which we work. They praised our efforts, they praised our process. Five of the six councils that had been asked to report to them praised the way we undertook that work. One was not happy with the way we did it but had told us from the very beginning they were not going to engage with us and they were going to engage in political lobbying because the rules allowed that. That council also did not respond during the statutory consultation period when we are to consult with councils. During the evaluation of our proposals there was never a list of criteria published by which they would evaluate our work. They questioned the importance of parity and I mean it's up for debate but it's also in the legislation and it's something we absolutely have to pay attention to. We feel they introduced a new criterion in terms of evaluating proposals. They seem to suggest that councils should have a veto over our proposals and that's nowhere in the legislation and not only is that not in the legislation international best practice precludes people who are going to be elected by boundaries having a veto over those boundaries. So we were very disappointed with how that process worked and it was on the back of that that we then wrote to the Deputy First Minister at the time and said, look if we're going to continue to do these we need the approvals process to be sorted because we can't keep fulfilling our duties and you say we've fulfilled our duties but you're chucking out the recommendations because you've invited people in who are arguing for the awards they represent and they don't want them changed and that just doesn't seem right. So two very brief question for me. The first one you may or both of you may or may not want to answer. The first one is round about the process at the moment is that you do the calculation for parity based on the electoral roll. Now clearly as elected members we don't just represent people who are on the electoral roll we represent everyone in the constituency. Is there any perspective on whether the use of population data or rather an electoral roll may be a way, a different way, a more effective way of calculating the numbers? Well my first answer is we work within the rules we're given and if that's the rules we're given we will absolutely work within those rules. If you're asking me whether there is a gap then yes there is a gap and it is not an evenly distributed gap. The gap between the number of names on the register and the number of souls in a location is not an even gap throughout Scotland. Now with our review of local government wards hat on when we undertook the fifth reviews we were well aware of that gap and that's why we changed the methodology for banding councils so we grouped certain councils together and we identified theoretical quotas for each of those and rather than using two measures of population distribution we used one of population distribution and one we used the SIMD indicator Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation which is not just a measure of poverty which is what some people think but it's a measure of access to services as well and the reason we used that is because we knew that there was a gap between the number of names on the register and the number of people in the wards so we have baked that in to the design of the wards in the way that we banded the councils but there's a limit to what we can do if we're working within the rules for this. That's very helpful, thanks for clarifying. Now the last question is clearly technologies moving on a pace and I'm assuming you use some tools for doing the number crunching but has there any thought been given as to and I'd like to say it but it's ultimately the use of AI to analyse all the different possible options and then try to do some optimisation at least to give you a bit of a head start because when you look at this it's effectively just a very very big complicated mathematical problem at one level taking into account all those other factors that you've mentioned. Yeah, it's a good question and we have an annual meeting of all the boundary commissions in the UK every year and this year we hosted it in early December and we talked about that and I think the challenge there is that when you have these rules they're framed in a way to maximise flexibility so the phrase is like as nearly as may be in the case of the local wards or as is practicable and so in order to ask a computer to do it you would really need to be telling the computer well this rule is worth 10% and this rule is worth 20% or you can have a margin of this much and I think we can't reduce it to quite that and also people living in different parts of Scotland want different things so in some cases you get communities on Mainlands, on islands who want a ward of their own I'm talking about the local reviews in this instance not the Holyrood ones but sometimes when you're talking to populations on an island they want a ward of their own because they believe that it would be better to be grouped with other islands because we've all got similar interests and you two talk to an electorate on another island and they want to be connected to the mainland because they want that connection because that's where they believe the patterns of employment and travel work and they want that connection there and so I think a computer would do a terrible job of taking those things into account and we're very much just responding to what the public say when they write in and say well if you can do better there and here's how you can do better but since Colin is the one that's actually doing the mapping I think he might have an answer do you have an answer about whether AI should do your job? No Just for clarity whether sorry it did just for clarity any questions whether AI could help you do your job Okay yes no sorry yes it's not replaced Yeah we are aware that there are technologies out there that we could use so yeah yeah we haven't explored them yet but I know the other commissions throughout the UK have so yeah Thank you Thank you Ivan The sort of penultimate area is to do with automaticity because I think that this vehicle this bill that we are looking at is clearly a vehicle where automaticity could be written into do you want to just give a brief explanation about why best practice frankly around the world suggests that automaticity with regard to boundary review is a desirable place to get to and then my second question is is this a missed opportunity to do it Yeah so I'll answer the second one first which is absolutely I think this is a a real missed opportunity I mean the reason international best practice focuses on automaticity is because it is concerned with fairness and the concern of with fairness surfaces in two ways it surfaces with a a concern from mathematical fairness and attention to parity and the avoidance of malapportionment so drawing deliberately unequal unequal wards but also allowing wards to become unequal over time so a concern about passive malapportionment as well and in a Scottish context the fact that boundary reviews have been rejected means that we are we are really facing passive malapportionment at the moment because in originally equal solutions at the time of the fourth reviews are no longer equal and it's the most striking in the case of Highland which has both the most among the top underrepresented and overrepresented wards in in Scotland so there's international best practice is concerned with fairness in terms of mathematical representation but it is also concerned with fairness in terms of independence and the fact that people who are elected by certain constituency boundaries or ward boundaries should not have a say in designing those boundaries and if you look at and certain systems don't require an attention to this because they're they're using national list PR and there aren't electoral boundaries or the electoral boundaries are are are connected to the constituent units of a federation and just the number of seats within them change but when you're looking at areas that have electoral systems like first pass the post and MMP then you can identify a certain number of different types of approval processes one of them is atomicity and so you can actually distinguish between those where the boundary commission retains a final say and those where those where the boundary commission doesn't retain a final say in terms of atomicity you've got atomicity you've also got a return form where the boundary reviews are the recommendations are sent back after some questioning to the commission and then the commission can have a final say after that or you have sometimes a culture of presumed acceptance where the boundary commission formally doesn't have a final say but everyone agrees not to touch the recommendations of an independent commission and that's the case in Ireland where sometimes you have the recommendations are then sent on to an augmented commission as in the case of Australia but I think what why atomicity is seen is so important is in part because it protects the perceived legitimacy of the electoral process so the boundary Scotland along with the electoral commission and the EMB are organisations that are concerned with making sure that elections run in a free and fair way and that we preserve a sense of democratic legitimacy and I think the concerns are when you start questioning the or reject not questioning questioning we welcome but when you start rejecting the recommendations of a body that is undertaken at statutory responsibilities then I think you get into unfortunate unfortunate situation the other thing though is not just the actual interference and the damage that does in terms of electoral legitimacy but the perception of interference is also profoundly damaging in terms of the reputation of Scottish democracy and another reason for having atomicity is that it also protects politicians themselves from being victim to partisan lobbying from all sides as well so there's a number of reasons why international best practice is moving in that direction and it's not just international best practice it's obviously the rule now in terms of House of Commons boundary reviews the explanatory notes for that legislation do a really good job of explaining why they believe that's a step in the right direction the new legislation out in the Welsh Senate same thing moving to a system of atomicity in their explanatory notes outline the reasoning behind that move but also the House of Lords when it reviewed the House of Commons legislation they published their own report on why they think atomicity is the way to go so for us it's it's not just a good idea because other people say it's a good idea it's a good idea for the same reasons that they believe it's a it's a good idea and I think it's particularly critical given our past experiences in Scotland and automaticity wouldn't change the process that the boundary commission go through to amend boundaries there would still be the engagement at local level there would still be the feedback loops it's actually the automaticity it just comes to the final proposals about whether or not they can be blocked as you said earlier in your evidence perhaps by people who have other reasons to do it rather than the process that was there but there would still be a level of protection even in a situation where automaticity existed if and of course this wouldn't happen but if the boundary commission themselves strayed from the statutory requirements there would still be a process to hold the commission to account for errors that they made it wouldn't it wouldn't make you the all-powerful unquestionable decision makers with regard to this yes no I mean in every system in the systems where the boundary commissions retain a final say but also in the systems where they don't there is an attention to process and in fact in those situations where boundary recommendations are rejected more routinely it is only on procedural grounds we're really out at the margins of rejecting things on substantive not procedural grounds so yes there's always an attention to that there's also in automatic systems there's an ability for the commission to correct errors for example if they've caught late in the day that they've drawn the line in the wrong place there's an allowance for that as well so you're absolutely right it need not change the process that's not to say that there could not be improvements in the process and I think particularly if you look at the Welsh legislation the explanatory notes are clear that moving to automaticity means they have to be absolutely certain that the commission is independent so they've strengthened the rules about who can sit on the commission to make sure it's recognised that they are truly independent and you don't have vested interests present on the commission sometimes there's also statutory recognition of the independence of the commission there's kind of conventional recognition of that in Scotland but it's not written down in the legislation and I think there's also room for lengthening the consultation periods we're quite short in Scotland at four weeks Westminster reviews are you know you've got a primary, a secondary and then another review the local authorities were eight eight weeks and then 12 so four four's quite short so there could there could be opportunities for enhanced engagement as well that's very helpful thank you I am conscious of time what I was going to say if there is anything that in our foolishness we have not asked you that you would like to point to with regard to this bill I am more than happy for you to correspond with the committee on that to give you a chance to look and I hope you won't mind if we have additional questions that we simply take by writing to you about that for further evidence but Colin and the fear of AI don't worry and Elsa can I thank you both for your attendance this morning and I will suspend this meeting while we change over panels thank you very much thank you thank you I now resume our meeting and our second panel today to take of evidence on the bill at stage one we have Dame Susan Bruce the electoral commissioner for Scotland Andy O'Neill who's head of electoral commission electoral commission Scotland and Louise Edwards director of regulation and digital transformation the electoral commission at Scotland can I welcome you all to the meeting this morning and I think Dame Susan you'd like the opportunity just to make a few opening words can I pass over to you thank you very much thank you yeah we welcome the opportunity to give evidence today and the bill in question builds on proposals set out on 2023 consultation on electoral reform and will deliver some positive changes that have previously been discussed including providing legal status for the electoral management board for Scotland reducing some aspect of regulatory divergence between reserved and devolved elections and hence giving clarity particularly to electors disqualifying those who have been found guilty of harassing those involved in the electoral process and I know that's something that's of keen interest to the committee for us an important thing increasing the commission's accountability to the Scottish Parliament and the requirement for us to publish a separate five-year plan which I think is really important we're very keen that the you know we should account to this Parliament for things specific to Scotland the bill if enacted will add to the already complex array of legislation in place for elections and we will continue to seek to work with the Scottish Government to take forward a programme of work to consolidate the legislation and we will work to bring forward guidance to assist those involved in the electoral process along with in line with the recommendations from the UK's law commissions which you'll be familiar with The implementation of changes will need to be carefully planned to make sure that we've got sufficient time and those in the electoral community have got sufficient time to implement them to avoid the risk of increased complexity at the time of pull and we would simply encourage that any legislation should be in place sufficiently early and there is a well-established path of us bleeding for six months ahead of any electoral event to allow administrators to get their plans in place so by way of introduction thank you once again for having us here and I think I'll cut it at that I know you're tight for time absolutely I suppose my first question is in relation to that sort of tried and tested quote of six months I mean there are substantial amendments and changes proposed within this election bill are you confident that that six-month period is still sufficient time for an understanding to go out to both those who stand those who support stand actually those people who are going to exercise their democratic rights and vote to understand these changes yeah I think we would say that six months would be the minimum and anything longer than that would be extremely helpful I say this from I was the returning officer in 2007 that halted to hit the counter hands up that was me and we were you know dealing with a lot of new new you know processes and all the rest of it then so I think we would really say that six months would be the hard minimum and anything longer than that would be a great advantage to administrators in their planning that's very helpful and I'm immediately going to delve into one of those areas which is with regard to the notional expenditure which appears to have a substantial amount of support but really I was going to ask you about if it is taken forward you know how much work is going to be required by yourselves to ensure that you know I'll say candidates first out of respect but potentially agents and campaigners are clear on this because again this is an area that's going to be a change the playing field quite considerably Louise I'm Louise You are right it will change the playing field and we know from for example the 2021 Scottish Parliament that quite a lot of money is bound up in notional spending around half of the reported spending by either constituency candidates or regional independent candidates was notional spending more than £1.5 million that said the concept of notional spending and what it does for transparency is well understood and the importance of it given the figures I've just quoted is well understood as well and we would be able to use the basis of the guidance which we have for the UK based elections in order to try and help candidates and agents and parties as well to understand these provisions as well what I would say was it would be quite important I think to give everybody as much clarity not just in terms of what the law says but in terms of a real kind of understanding of the practice of it and the examples behind it and to that end we would welcome being able to do coda practice in order to try and support people now we mentioned timing before obviously that would add timing on as well to make sure that we consulted properly that we had the right examples and what we ended up with was actually useful for people so that's an area where we would look to actually do quite a lot of consultation quite a lot of getting the right coda practice in place and I think that would really help to embed the new rules do you have any views at the minute Louise about the length of time it would take to achieve a useful coda practice so we do have a coda practice that we produced a little while ago that for various reasons wasn't taken forward so what we'd looked to do is update that to cover the notional spending provision so it would be narrowed down to that particular area that we'd be looking at plus possibly some updating of examples to deal with trends in campaigning which obviously have changed between now and 2020 so it would I think take some months to do it properly and to make sure that we were consulting with all the right people so in that respect the six months would give us not a lot of time we would probably be looking at at least 10 to 12 months to do a really really good job on it and that's before actually the explanation of the roll out of the coda practice to those that it would affect that's very helpful the other area or the secondary area was going to look at is the reduction from 10,000 pounds to 700 pounds in relation to overseas campaigns involved now the the purpose or one of the purposes that's been highlighted about this is obviously to send an incredibly strong message as to interference and you know we've only seen this week great concerns about interference in elections from data breaches that have happened but before we get into that little bit is this ever going to be enforceable is the well that is a very good question there are a couple of things which make this challenging one is simply that 700 pounds is quite a small amount of money and for any regulator or law enforcement body it's going to be quite hard to track an amount of money that is that small but the the main area that would need to be really carefully thought about is how it would be enforced on overseas campaigners because you know as a as a UK based regulator we would not be able to go beyond the borders of the UK and obviously police Scotland would be in quite a similar position as well so there are things we can do about sort of calling out examples of it or seeking to engage with governments or electoral commissions outside the UK but in terms of strict enforcement it is very very challenging that said it is a big piece of symbolism and it does send a signal and broadly speaking people who are within the regime of political finance in the UK want to comply the problem here is that the actors who are outside that regime the ones who may not want to comply are the ones that it's going to be almost impossible to enforce against Can I just press you on the symbolism point and I'm more than happy if you can tend to say this is out with your remit is it the purpose of primary legislation to send that? That is outside our remit what I would say is that the equivalent provisions in the elections act 2022 are not a ban on overseas campaigning it is a severe restriction but it is not a ban so with that just needs to be considered in the sort of symbolic and the elements of it Anything you want to add Dame Susan? No Particularly on the symbolism is it the purpose of primary legislation to send symbolic statements with regard to the security and safety of elections and democracy? I think it is but we've also got to be in a position to implement something meaningfully as a result of the legislation to give reassurance about the integrity of the process Thank you Not the final question but my final question at the moment is do you have any concerns about the ministers being able to add to the list of third party campaigners without consulting the commission? Would you benefit from being part of that discussion beforehand? The provisions that you're putting forward do have an additional safeguard over those at the UK level which is that the minister would need to consult us before taking a group and a campaign entity off and that's important I think for us it comes down to how do you make sure that the decision is taken on the basis of clear evidence and clear facts? I'm not going to sit here and say the minister wouldn't be able to do that but there is a perception point and we are the registrar for political parties we are the registrar for campaigners as well being able to advise on those areas is well within our competence and may well help to avoid that perception And is there a risk slightly silly question there's always a risk if there is a difference between devolved and reserved elections in the process itself but do you think there is too great a risk and there being a difference on this point or is it a manageable point if a consultation existed? It's manageable but it's the risk of confusion and inadvertent non-compliance as a result and campaigners the third party campaigners rather than political parties that the number of people wanting to get involved in elections wanting to influence people's votes wanting to make their point is increasing we've seen that in Scottish parliamentary elections we've seen it on a UK level as well and I think that's really good I think actually voters hearing a wide range of voices with lots of different kind of diversity within it is hugely important and what we need to do is make sure that there's no inadvertent chilling effect by making the law too complicated for them so I think that is from our point of view manageable but it would be very interesting to talk to some of the campaign groups particularly those who operate across parts of the UK to make sure that they would be able to really operate within that That's helpful Thank you I'm now going to pass over to I'm not sure who I'm passing over to you, thank you Stephen It is me Yeah What's your understanding of the reasons that we have to have a slightly different approach to this list of third party campaigners in Scotland compared with England and Wales or indeed the UK Well ultimately it's a choice for parliament whether they want to have different provisions in place or not so our role would simply be that whatever you decide to do we will work to implement that and it is a it's a classic example of where there is divergence there's generally good reading for it and we will seek to manage that but where we can help campaigners to not have any unnecessary barriers to their work I think that's really positive I just wondered if you could see any reason that I'm struggling to see as to why there should be divergence It's not immediately apparent Not immediately apparent In relation to the code of practice I suppose a similar set of questions because again we seem to be doing something different than the UK as a whole and England and Wales What's the apparent advantage of changing that? Well you'd need to look at whether there were any sort of Scotland specific reasons or Scotland specific examples that could be in a code of practice that would help to make sure that we were supporting campaigners in Scotland to do things that they want to do here so there's some rationale making sure that we're considering it from a specific Scottish perspective but it does come down again to making sure that we're seeking to be as consistent as possible We did a lot of work with the code of practice for third party campaigners that applies at reserved elections to make sure that we were engaging specifically with a wide range of campaigners and giving them not just the clarity on the law that they needed but the examples that they needed as well Were this to be introduced in Scotland we'd want to do that on a Scottish level to make sure that we were picking up any kind of differences and giving campaigners the best tools to be able to campaign? From an electoral commission point of view from where you see the whole picture are there specific issues in Scotland that would require us to do something differently than other parts of the United Kingdom? At this point we haven't looked at how third parties operate in Scotland so I wouldn't be able to answer it I'm afraid Okay does anyone else in the final of the view on that question? I think there is room in the arrangements for devolved nations to have such flexibility as they deem appropriate and I think as Louise said as we as we look more deeply into issues around third party campaign as we might see something more but really it's choice for the devolved legislatures to decide how they want to diverge and I'm very much in favour of doing things differently in different parts of the United Kingdom providing there's a substantial reason that allows us to understand why that would be necessary and it's that I suppose I was trying to get at and in relation to the code of conduct itself putting that together how will that be done I mean again setting aside the differences in the process what will that consist of and how would that be enforced given the discussion you had earlier with the convener in relation to how difficult this whole area of enforcement is a lot will depend on exactly how it is set out in legislation but I can talk you through at a high level what we've done at a UK level and it will be similar to that right so when we produced the code of practice or the code of conduct at a UK level we first of all went away and came up with a draft based on the legislation and our interpretation of it and then we went out to a wide range of campaigners because the thing about third party campaigners is they come from so many wide perspectives some are very political in their entire purpose for some they just want to campaign in election and support their beneficiaries if they're a charity in doing so and then you have sort of trade unions and others who are campaigning as well so we went out and ran consultation meetings across the UK so in the Scottish scenario we wouldn't just be doing them here for example we'd be trying to go out and understand what campaigners who work on perhaps a regional basis for what Scotland might be doing that then led to two things it led to a revised draft and it also led to an incredibly useful bank of examples that we spent a lot of time working up actually to try and make sure we were being as helpful as possible with the examples that we used that went out for formal consultation now the proposals here are slightly different from in the UK where we had to consult with the speakers committee here the proposal is that we would consult with the Parliament as a whole absolutely fine don't have a problem with that but it will add 40 days to the process and then we take that away come back with a final version and then lay that before the Parliament for approval so it's a sort of fairly steady consultation process but for us the real key difference was getting to really understand how people campaigned on the ground and build that into the examples bank can you give us some of the examples you said you there were some clear examples you're testing my memory here well it's just that the range of third parties that I want to say in terms of a campaign is vast so how on earth how is that manageable a lot of it actually was trying to work with other bodies or other regulators or umbrella bodies so for charities for example we did a lot of work with the charity commission for england and wales and obviously we'd be looking to work with oscar here and we did sort of joint editorials and so forth and joint blogs in order to try and really understand what they were doing for others it was a question of having specific consultation meetings to try and get examples so with the charity for example they're trying to balance charity at electoral law charities can absolutely campaign in elections but they've got to be careful about all the legal framework so we did a lot of examples about how to judge whether something is actually being put out to encourage people to vote a certain way as opposed to being put out to further a cause but not having a call for action to vote there were also some specific areas of legislation which we know that third parties find a little challenging such as working out whether something is joint spending between one or more campaigners so we gave examples of I mean the best example of joint campaigning is when you actually have a clear agreement in place in order to do it but also things like if you're simply just endorsing another person's campaign it's not joint campaigning if you've got joint plans to spend even if you haven't written them down it is joint and all those sorts of examples to try and work it through Is that the defining thing that you are actively campaigning either to tell people to tell people to vote for somebody as opposed to campaigning to save people as it happens in Scotland don't vote for this person There's different tests that you need to work through one is genuinely about the purpose of the campaigning is the purpose a call to action to vote one way or not vote another way for a party or a group of candidates that's a very clear test for it there are also other tests around whether or not you're actually putting your material out to the public or whether you're putting it out to your membership which would be different so there's different tests that you need to work through to see whether it is actually regulated spending and it is complicated a lot of electoral law is complicated so we're trying to work it through in terms of the different tests that you have to look at I don't know which one it is but it's the Secretary of State that is responsible for their register or adding names to the register Are politicians in public office the best people to be making these judgments based on what you're saying so what the Secretary of State can do is add categories of campaigners to the register Oh categories but in Scotland it's the actual campaign groups it's the categories for us we are the we are the registrar for campaigners for third party campaigners so that what we'd look at is whether or not the notification that was given to us by a campaigner met the legal test it's not an application it's not a sort of putting in an application process they simply notify us that they're intending spending over the threshold and then we check that notification to make sure they are actually eligible to be on the register and then we put them on the register so it's it's not sort of a choice that is very very helpful and I appreciate your answers it's been very very helpful on digital imprints again quite a difficult area for enforcement isn't it I mean are we simply putting something to primary legislation that will ultimately be very very difficult to enforce please Scotland have expressed their concerns about any enforcement regime associated with this law given the nature of social media and so forth how do you see it so for us you have to think about where are you likely to need to enforce so if you start from the point of view that and we saw this in Scotland in 2021 the majority of people who want to campaign want to comply and actually even before there was a digital imprints regime a lot of parties a lot of campaigners put them on anyway but having that sort of consistent you actually have to do this and therefore we can talk to social media companies about this and we can tell you how to do it has been really really helpful and for us we do think that's going to add an awful lot of transparency because it provides that kind of base level of knowledge about who the advert or who the piece of campaign material is from I think that's going to be an os ddol yeah so within the UK obviously you know enforced as normal not not too challenging from that perspective there's two things that will cause challenges for us one is again the overseas angle we live in a very globalised society you don't have to exist in the UK in order to put an ad on Facebook that said organisations like Facebook have brought in verification procedures to try and get around that and make sure it's clear that people are actually UK based before they put political ads up but it is difficult if an organisation is outside of the UK we're back to what I said before might be calling it out talking to the Electoral Commission over there the other thing that is a challenge around enforcement is volume yeah we don't quite know what that's going to be like yet but we're going to have to see you know the next elections that it's enforced it's likely to be a UK parliamentary general election we're going to have to see what sort of volume we get through one thing I would say though on this and I believe I'm echoing Police Scotland here is there is a provision that we produce guidance to support enforcement it's fine happy with that but we're really not happy with the idea that we write that guidance for the police as well right which is what they've asked for yeah I support them that we should not as a civil regulator be writing guidance for Police Scotland we made the same point at a UK level it went through and we've had to work very closely with the National Police Chiefs Council to address that but we're a civil regulator we should not be telling the police how to do their job who then should be helping the police with that I think that's a discussion to ask the police but all I know is that for us as a civil regulator it's not our role to do it right that's a very definite answer and very clear I actually think I've probably covered that's not very well thank you Steve you've covered it pretty well I was going to say that we just covered it after the press conference Ivan if I come to you then yeah thanks very much conveyor I'm good morning panel it's roundabout the area of postponement of elections and provisions for that in emergency situations and we've obviously had the the Covid experience which brought that into sharp focus so it was to get your perspective on the need and the desirability of a provision to postpone elections when that should happen and what issues that that may raise for voters, campaigners or others thanks very much it's a really interesting question and we already know that if there's an event locally in RO has already the capacity to delay or postpone an element of the process so if there's a huge snow storm or something in a local area and we also had the benefit of the coronavirus act which helped us all to prepare for the kind of the impact arising from matters relating to coronavirus which of course at the outset we didn't know what to anticipate I think it is important to have measures in place to allow for the postponement of elections but I think there would need to be clarity about the scale of the issue it would need to in our view to be something fairly substantial something that where public safety perhaps was at the absolute heart of the consideration and I think a postponement for a short period of time I think would be very difficult for administrators, for campaigners for candidates for electors and our recommendation was that if there was something that was so serious that an entire election had to be postponed it would be nationwide as in and probably a minimum postponement time of four weeks would be necessary in order to if you like hold the process and then rearrange just the sheer logistics of rearranging an election are enormous even for simple things such as venues count staff all of the things that you would expect and also to give time for clarity to be given to the electorate and candidates and agents about what the rearranged matters were so we we do believe that having some kind of backstop provision in legislation is is really helpful I think it would be difficult to give an exclusive list of the circumstances in which this would occur but you can imagine it would be something of grave importance on a nationwide basis that would put public safety at risk at the heart of a process and those would be the kind of things that we think might trigger the cause for a postponement of an election and we understand you know that where such postponements take place there would be you know necessary consultation around that but probably a postponement would be for a longer time rather than a very much shorter time thanks very much that's helpful in terms of who should make that call if you like and should there be as you've sort of articulated there some form of words that specifies what the situation that would need to pertain i public safety or whatever it happens to be what's your kind of thoughts on that and then also that the comment you made about a longer postponement is actually more helpful than a or more effective than a shorter one clearly there's other issues in there and we heard some evidence showing about for example what happens to postal votes what happens to the the elect register what happens to the timescale there's a whole range of things that actually get worse with a longer postponement so just your reflection on that yeah if it was a shorter postponement you would probably look to freeze the register at that point in time if it was a longer postponement for whatever reason then you would probably have to reopen the register so that people you know anybody who was eligible to vote would be entitled and able to vote at the time in terms of of the decision you know who would take the decision it we would hope that the Government of the time of Parliament of the time would consult with the EMB with the Electoral Commission to talk about the impact of this the practical arrangement surrounding it and you know and come to you know a sensible landing on that so when I say a shorter time we think anything less than four weeks would would be chaotic actually at the point of delivery and anything longer than that would give administrators and electors et cetera more time to you know to get their house in order and and rebook venues and so on and so forth so it is you know it's kind of quite hypothetical at this stage and I think things would crystallise you know if an event were to happen and you would imagine it would be something fairly seismic whether it would be you know a nationwide you know another pandemic or a or a war or something of that nature so I don't know Andy if you want to add anything yeah just to add to what Sue's talking about I mean the interesting experience the recent experience of course was kind of autumn 2020 when we all got together to think through the implications of the coronavirus lockdowns and such leading to the Scottish general election coronavirus act in 2021 2021 I suppose the principle for all that discussion was could electors and administrators could electors vote safely could administrators administer the process safely could campaigners get their message across and in the end we got with certain circumstances where they could and there were special things put in place but I think the process is quite important before you make decisions as to go or not go and the one thing we were we are very keen in these provisions because we do accept that you do need backstop provisions to have postponement post stuff happens sometimes as we've seen is whatever the whoever the decision maker is the president of sir or the convener of the mb or whatever either have to consult the various people and we think the people named in the bill are the right people to be consulted and you may choose to consult other people depending on what's happening but you have to make your decisions and the reasons for your decisions known we think you must publish that for clarity and transparency and also not just when you're postponing but when you decide not to postpone because if you do go through that process of thinking about it I think it's we think it's beholden on the decision they take to see why they've just said no one up postponing it I think it's a really interesting what do you do in the set of circumstances me I was watching colleagues last week and they were talking about do you freeze the register do you not freeze the register do you reprint postal votes all of this stuff really sits the decision to postpone or not postpone sits in a context which none of us are aware of because obviously we can't tell the future but I think one of the interesting things is and one things we're very keen to do is to get together with the MBDSA Scottish Government afterwards and come go through lightly scenarios which we could leave a document kind of on the shelf for future people hopefully not people like me having to do it again because one of the things I felt I felt really interesting in the autumn of 2022 when Green Day brought everyone together including leaders of the political groups and the party which I thought was really helpful because you built consensus you were really starting from scratch whereas if you had something where the kind of parameter as if the kind of discussion were already set you can add a starter agenda I suppose that would I think help the situation Do you think on that that's useful there is a requirement to specify I don't know if it's in legislation in the bill or guidance to it or whatever it happens to be what the rules are around about this or do you think it's sufficient just to have a a kind of helpful guide manual line on the shelf that people may or may not refer to I suppose I'm just thinking through that scenario where you could get into difficult decisions that need to be made that may end up being having a political slant on them round about what happens for postal votes that are already cast what happens with if somebody spent most of their money and somebody spent hardly any cos they were going to spend at the second half did they reset the counter on that or what happens so do you think there's a need to kind of nail that stuff down more clearly at this stage so you don't spend a lot of time having a big bun fight about it if that's a scenario transpiles It's difficult to nail anything down when you don't know the context in which you're working but one of the interesting things I think is colleagues last week were talking about the administrative impact of postponement or whatever but of course there are campaigners out there and it depends is has the long period the short period whatever how far it's gone through have people spent all the money and then you've you know you've got six months of a postponement all those things you have to have began to think about I think that is I don't know if the Louise wants to add anything but I think it's difficult to kind of tie the future down when you don't know what the future is I think it's almost a sort of principles based one and actually one of the principles that you might want to enshrine is that thing around being sensitive to any kind of political angle on the decisions that you take maybe there's a sort of there's an approach where you set down those principles and the areas to be considered but the detail needs to be worked out in the context but it is you know I sit here as director of regulation to say it is really important to think about the campaign context as well and the ability of voters to hear those messages and take a choice when they go into the polling station okay so just finally um on the well I suppose I'm reflection on that yeah I mean but unfortunately legislation is often about trying to guess what's going to happen in legislation for that that's the kind of the business we're in just finally on this in terms of the impact on campaigners of likely a possible postponement scenarios is there any any thoughts on how that may impact I think you need to to think about how it would impact on the spending limits in particular particularly on the lower limits that are in place for candidates and how you do that to try and I think it would depend on the length of the the postponement to be honest but there's also something about how would you put people sort of back into the situation they would have been if the postponement hadn't happened or are you simply taking a decision that the postponement has happened and therefore you'll just stop the spending limit and it is what it is from there that's a principal decision that I think Parliament would need to take the latter is easier the former is a challenge I'm not quite sure how it would work in practice but one thing I would say as has been sort of mentioned before is whenever you're at the point of taking a decision like that I think seeking to get appropriate advice and input from the impact on campaigners from campaigners themselves will be really really important okay okay thank you thank you Annie can I come to you yes of course good morning and thank you very much for coming in I would like to just go on electoral pilots if you don't mind and I'm just wondering do you think that the consultation and reporting mechanism are requirements are okay of for the electoral pilots in the legislation eh yeah well we welcome the proposals to extend who can suggest pilots and such like and we think that's a good idea I think one thing we would say is and I think this may well be an omission for the consultees on any proposal for a pilot we're not there and we should be because we've well we've existed now for over 20 years we've got a lot of experience in dealing with pilots in England and we had four pilots in the early notice in Scotland they were all postal and we held the then Scottish Executive to develop the 2002 legislation but I think it's important that we consult on pilots because we would look at it from the point of view of will the pilot deliver anything which is we think meaningfully beneficial to voters administrators or campaigners and also we would comment on whether or not the design of the pilot was likely to be evaluatable and actually therefore you could derive some benefits out of it Thanks very much for that and also is it clear in legislation that an electoral pilot could include a pilot on electoral registration or should that be made unambiguous within legislation? We would suggest the latter we would Yeah perfect and just one last question from me if you don't mind convener I know you've done research on the sort of funding aspects and the grant aspects of it and it was just how can any funding available for democratic engagement be best used they're better used if That's an interesting question and I mean we welcome the suggestion from the fund in fact we are looking at establishing a fund as well I think it can be I think what the process you've got to go through is look at the research of which we hold quite a lot have a discussion with us we can advise government because we are government advisors after all and then come up with proposals which might add benefit again to my earlier points and I think it's well given Scottish Government are developing a grant and grant funding and we're developing a grant funding we'd also want to make sure that we aren't duplicating and standing on other people's does and such like as well Yeah Not perfect, thank you very much can be done, thank you very much James Susan, I just want to go back to something that you touched on in your opening comments with which is really the relationship that you have with the Parliament and the reporting that is being proposed and I think you have quite clearly shown what the benefits of that reporting model is are there any challenges and if it sort of assists the area I'm poking at is obviously you sit as an independent commissioner and that's right but the final decision with regard to the plans would sit with you rather than with Parliament do you see any challenges about a conflict of interest let's say or a conflict of desire between the Parliament and firstly your independence but also your role as commissioner in that change that's being proposed Yeah, I think I mean firstly I would really want to emphasise that we welcome the opportunity to have a wider opportunity to account as Parliament I think it's really important for us as a commission that you know we cover the whole of the UK but we want to be seen to be responsive to the devolved nations and in our case particularly in Scotland and you know I think I don't think there's a conflict of interest between us producing our five-year plan making our recommendations we know that in debates such as this you will hold us to account for our thinking you will want to explore why we've brought forward what we've brought forward and I think you know prior to the production of any plan we respective of our respective roles we actually have a healthy dialogue with officials here so that we you know if we think there are areas where there might be matters of concern for you or for us we have an opportunity to discuss and tear these apart tease them out but we will still come with our best advice best guidance best opinion to the Parliament by officials is that Scottish Government officials or parliamentary officials Scottish Government officials nonsense just for the record yeah okay sorry no no no no that's fine um so um and we think you know it's important for us to be able to bring this separate five-year plan to this assembly so that this I don't use the word assembly in historic terms incidentally so that we can demonstrate our understanding of the of the needs of Scotland you know the the interpretation of things for Scotland the flexibility that Scotland wants for itself and how we respond as a regulator to that clearly within the context of us having a wider remit as well so personally I think it's a healthy thing I think it's a positive thing I think it's really important that we're seen to be open and transparent and held to account by by this Parliament because just to add the provisions in the bill are slightly different to the funding in five-year plan consultation processes in the speaker's committee and with the plowards committee and you know the one thing about devolution is that's perfectly fine by us I mean you essentially the proposals are we give the five-year plan to the corporate body and the corporate body gives us some comments back if it chooses to and they may well ask you and we we hope they do and if they don't like it they'll tell us it tell us but the difference being of course that we don't have to take well they can't change the five-year plan as they can in Wales and in the UK Parliament and that's perfectly fine by us as well if we choose not to take on their comments we have to give a justification as to why and I we think that's right and proper and transparent so we're essentially we're quite content with the proposals as proposed that's helpful I certainly think there's a long discussion that we could have between the relationship of corporate body and Parliament but we'll we'll leave that for another another venue Stephen did you want to come in to ask for a response from you on the consultation 60% of the respondents in the consultation of the bill were opposed to the Scottish Parliament having increased oversight of the electoral commission due to concerns about the commission's independence in a few sentences how will you continue to demonstrate your robustness as an independent body given the fact that the public that responded to the bill's consultation were concerned that too much Parliament would equate to political interference I think it's really important to distinguish between our accountability through this mechanism to say for example the SPS and I know there's been a lot of concern expressed more broadly than Scotland about whether the SPS would affect the independence of the electoral commission but actually you know we will continue to be independent of thought we will be sensitive to you know what is happening in the context of Scotland so that when we design our five-year plan we are tuning into the issues that we know we will face as a regulator and that the electoral community at large is facing within Scotland I think it is important within that we do say we are a regulator we are independent we will maintain that independent voice but we still expect to come and have discussions such as this to be asked questions to be you know to be questions on the reasons for our position on anything and I think we can continue to demonstrate our independence whilst respecting the role of Parliament to hold us to account in that way Thank you Stephen I was going to go on to the element with regard to the electoral management board because again obviously the proposed legislation is looking at a change in that structure and I was just going to ask really what work are you involved in with the Scottish Government and the EMB about this and what is your focus in respect to the change of proposals for the EMB? Yeah, I think just to start off with I might be part off to Andy in a moment but first of all I think we welcome the measures that would enable the EMB to have a legal persona you will know the history of it and it started off as a very voluntary body arising actually from the Society of Local Authority Chief Execs working group on elections which then turned into the electoral management board all on a voluntary basis and then it was recognised in statute in 2011 and at the moment it's a voluntary arrangement those that sit on the EMB representing if you like the wide range of interests in the electoral world the ROs, ROs etc etc but they do it as sort of an adjunct to their jobs with by having a legal persona the EMB would then be able to do for example enter into contracts so for example e-counting let's just use that one you know is it appropriate for the those being independent of government and parliament to be responsible for a procurement of things like e-counting processes and machinery and all the rest of it so I think it's good to have this legal persona I think there probably needs to be further discussion about the voluntary nature how it's funded you know is it really is put together by an active co-operation at the moment but it does play a really crucial part in the role and delivery of elections by all of the parties working together cooperatively the convener does have the power of direction which is helpful but the crucial thing is that the EMB should continue to again similarly to the electoral commission be seen as independent of parliament and government I suppose picking up on that very point I mean once the legal entity once the correct legal entity is identified do you see a risk given that the funding in essence will come from the Scottish Government that there may be a perception of political interference which in the structures of view as commissioner and independent commissioner and as we've heard today does not exist there is a strength to your independence do you see a risk of the change with regard to EMB putting at risk their independence which at the minute probably rest as much with the fact they are all voluntary it's all done in addition and the very diverse nature of the people that form the EMB is almost a strength in that independence yeah I think that is a question that could be asked you know if there is a if there's a pay master somewhere then the people who received that funding would be accountable to the pay master and I think it's important in the development of the arrangement around the legal persona of the EMB and the accountability arrangements that sit around that there needs to be a really overt acknowledgement and and not only an acknowledgement but an implementation of behaviours and measures that ensure the EMB remains independent and therefore can give its best advice and action to ensure the you know continued integrity of the electoral process I don't know Andy do you want to add anything I mean Sue's quite correct me it's about how the EMB accounts or to whom the EMB accounts and where does it get its money from and how does it get its money we are in discussions with the Scottish Government and the electoral management board on both of those points I think it's interesting the EMB has similarities to us I think there is an argument which says it could account to the Parliament or the corporate body like the various office bearers which are funded as we are funded there are other models as well and they are being looked at but I think you are right it's about sometimes the perception of losing its independence which we have to god against it would certainly be helpful if you keep us updated at the right moment some price Jackie can I come to you good morning panel and thank you again for coming along if you don't mind I'd like to ask a couple of questions regarding the disqualification orders I'd like to hear your views and whether you think that today would be enough to deter unacceptable behaviour moving forward and do you think there's any other steps that you think should be should be taken to try and ensure that there's a safe environment for everyone during the political debate and I don't just mean politicians when I say that a first step that we support but they are a first step basically I mean I think anything that does encourage proper debate and safety of candidates, electoral officers everyone involved in the electoral process is hugely important and to add on this additional disqualification offence will definitely cause some people to maybe think twice before they enter into abuse and intimidation others it won't because they have no intention of standing for election at any point anyway that's not in their game plan so it won't make a difference I think the thing for us is the research that we've done over recent elections in Scotland and at the UK level and particularly in Northern Ireland around the abuse and intimidation of candidates has been eye-openingly horrific certainly in Scotland after the 2022 local elections we found that something like 44% of candidates had experienced some kind of abuse and intimidation 44% is a minority but it's a pretty big minority and what's also apparent is that it impacts more on people who identify as female because as far as our research can show they have a bigger sense of fear and a bigger problem with the abuse and intimidation that they experience and we think that has two main implications one is that they will not put themselves forward to be candidates in the first place they will self-censor themselves from that and that will be a very silent problem because you won't see that in any stats but the other thing is that they will feel that they have to change their behaviour in order to deal with these threats and intimidation and it absolutely should not be the case that the people changing their behaviour are the potential victims so to bring it back to the disqualification orders I think it is vital that we do take this first step but I think actually there's a broader piece of work that needs to be done in combination not only with the Scottish Parliament but with Police Scotland's Crown Office regulators such as us and the political parties themselves to try and understand the drivers behind what everyone involved in the electoral process is experiencing and to try and address those, the drivers behind it I just flag in that context there are a lot of different organisations looking at this we saw recently a report come out from the Joe Cox civility commission which made some really important recommendations to a whole range of bodies around the abuse and intimidation of candidates and I really welcomed that report the commission has endorsed that report and the recommendations there are really really important if I'm reading it right it looks as if the bill is as drafted it looks as if that someone could still stand to be a candidate for the election in the Scottish Parliament even if they've got a disqualification order although they wouldn't be able to take up that seat if I'm reading that right so do you have a view on that and what would the electoral consequence of that be that someone is returned but is unable to take up the seat there's a choice obviously for this Parliament if somebody has been convicted of harassing or abusing people who are involved in the electoral process if you're going to disqualify them you're sending a very clear signal and indeed stopping them being part in certain aspects of this democratic process actually it's a choice for this Parliament to decide exactly how far they go in stopping people getting involved in the democratic process if they have been convicted of these offences now I don't think that we can sort of tell you how far to go with that other than to say that it's really important that something happens that has a real impact and that is actually why I say these are provisions because they will have an impact but a lot more needs to be done so if it's not strengthened what's in the bill and someone is then elected to stand in that seat because they've been allowed to put their names forward but then it says that they can't take it up because there's a disqualification order what's the consequences for that well likely that you might have to rerun the election but it seems an odd position that would allow somebody who can't take up a seat to then even be able to stand as a candidate in the first place and I would be worried about the impact on the people standing in that seat against somebody who has been convicted of abusing or harassing people involved in the democratic process I think that may well lead to changes of behaviour quite reasonably that would have an impact on that election okay thank you I'm a final question if you don't mind convener it's regarding MSPs or councillors who are appearing on the sex offenders register what's your views on the disqualification rules regarding that and also and I'm not sure if this is in your remit but what happens if someone is elected and they're halfway through a term and then they're put on a sex offenders register then should the consequences be the same so it is ultimately as I said before a matter for parliament to decide who can stand as candidates how far somebody on the register can get through that process before you take a decision that they shouldn't be doing that but I would note that both the Welsh and the UK parliaments have legislated in this area quite recently at a local authority level and that I think is quite important to send a signal that actually candidates are being involved in the process it's hard I don't want to say I sort of fit and proper test because that has a different meaning but it sends a signal about what we expect of those who get involved in our democratic processes well I know as a councillor you have got to you have to go through a PVG at the beginning of your term and that's why I was asking because then you've got your PVG but then if you are then put on the sex offender's register after that there doesn't seem to be any way I mean it's going to come down to how parliament wants to frame the legislation but MSPs are office holders and that means that much as we see in all the parliaments of the UK there have to be different ways to get around the fact that somebody is an office holder to step down from that role and I think that's a difficult thing to overcome in this scenario which is why to my mind prevention is the best way forward here really trying to understand the sort of earlier steps in the process and how they can be made as robust as possible because ultimately as an office holder there's nobody who can sack you if you like barring the electorate I suppose just on that point again is there a value in the same test applying to elected positions in Scotland irrespective of whether it's a local authority or here in the Scottish Parliament is there an advantage to the same rules applying to all or do you see reasons for a difference simply because of where the institution perhaps sits in the hierarchy I'm not sure I know enough to comment on it other than to say that consistency is key it's certainly been an element of much of the evidence that we've heard today that consistency and transparency and understanding certainly lends to the credit of democracy at the widest level that's helpful do you have any views with regard to the proposal to allow foreign nationals with limited leave to remain to stand for elections specifically and I suppose I raised that because of our earlier discussion about the overseas expenditure reduction it's a similar answer again and that ultimately because who's eligible to stand for candidates is so important it is something that Parliament will need to decide I think what we would say though and this comes down to the timing point again to make sure that everyone can familiarise themselves with the law if it changes particularly parties and campaigners parties are going to be the ones going out to find candidates so they're going to really need to have time to understand any of the changes that come in our role wouldn't necessarily be to get stuck into candidates election it's very much for the parties but we would be able to support with raising awareness of candidacy rights both directly through parties and also through partners that we work with that might be able to get into particular communities like just right Scotland Scottish Refugee Council for example and we would have a role there to support the law change if it happened sooner rather than later I read between the lines from all of the the sort of that marvellous mop up moment because obviously there's huge amounts that potentially this bill covers and indeed the bill specifically covers that we haven't had a chance to step in so is there anything that exists in the bill before I go to other little bits for your quick fire thoughts round that you would like to make mention of? No No Let me do it a quick fire then but with the proviso that actually if you would like time to consider these more than happy for you to write to us on it it's just areas that are of concern the first is with regard to overseas voters in respect of Scottish elections thoughts on that with regard to registration identification period because there is a difference at the minute with UK voter ID because it's ever popular to talk about voter ID dual mandate recall it's going to get good this and possibly one that I would like to hear your thoughts on just because of events this week which is really with regard to the security of elections with the data protection breaches that have existed the potential of AI but also possibly the assertion that there seems to be a view that the data breach with regard to the electoral records is not going to be a problem it's not going to be where the confidence to make that statement comes from so one first just very quickly okay with the data breach itself obviously we were the victim of a cyber attack but we are sorry that it happened absolutely no no it's not that it's not a problem it's that actually we have an electoral system here that is primarily sort of paper based and that's also what we're talking there were reference copies of the registers so what we can say with confidence is that it will not have impacted anybody's ability to vote it won't have affected their registration it won't have affected anything in that regard because they were copies so that's the main thing that we've been saying and we are confident on that because of the way the system works can I pose something on that and again if you want time to consider that I'm more than happy to do that my understanding is that the information about how someone not the person to apply for a postal vote which if they took the opportunity to do something else which is to redirect post it is possible although I'm not sure why anyone would go to the lengths of doing this that a postal vote would be issued redirected to another address and actually only when the individual walked into the polling station to exercise their vote they would be informed that they had a postal vote that had been used I'd have to check on the exact provisions but the data that was on the reference copies is things like name, address, email and it's not far different from the sort of information that you can find in the public domain anyway however do let me check exactly the provisions on that and then write to you afterwards that would be very helpful because I have quite a deep concern that just because it exists on the public record in one place in a physical form that makes it less concerning than someone who holds a massive this data in a different place so any of the other areas that you'd like to comment on Andy? Can I just cover security? Just in terms of the security of elections I just wanted to make the point particularly important I think to say that actually there are very high levels of confidence in elections and how they run in the UK I also need to remember that of the thousands of people who go out and campaign or stand as candidates the overwhelming majority of them are doing it because they want to help their society so security is a very strong issue and I'm aware for example that the National Cyber Security Centre is doing a lot of work in advance of the UK Parliamentary General Election to work with parties, to work with candidates in order to try and give them advice on cyber security on their personal devices and on party systems as well and I think that's really really really important to touch very briefly on AI AI, this election will not run without AI, AI is so ingrained in all the systems that we use every election is dependent to some extent on AI but if we're talking about the ability of generative AI to create dismiss information which has been a topic of consideration for some years in UK politics I think we have to remember that voters are really well used to looking at things with a critical eye they're really well used to looking at material and saying actually am I gonna let this influence my vote or not and I think that's a really important safeguard in the system it may not be the only safeguard in the system but in the situation we're in at the moment where there is no legislation around the use of AI in campaigning and of course we have no legal framework that covers the content of campaigning as well we're really looking at voters and saying here's what we can do to support you to be looking at these things with a critical eye not cynical but critical I think that is the focus that we need to have Do we know authoritatively that voters can apply that critical assessment what's put in front of them I don't know whether there's been any research on it but we do a lot of work on democratic education to try and encourage people at a young age in order to have that sense of critical analysis and it's not new it really isn't it's probably going all the way back to Athens that people have had to have a critical eye so I think we can take some comfort and confidence from that which is not to be confused with complacency That's helpful, thank you Andy, did you want to try and answer very quickly some of the points you raised with regards to recall we would say it's a matter for the Parliament to decide whether or not it wants to do recall we of course have recently reported a number of recall processes we've taken place our reports are on the website we're happy to share them with you we have made a number of suggestions for the current sets of rules to make them more workable than our view I think in the context of the Scottish Parliament you would have to consider the question of list MSPs because it's different from constituency and the current thing is about constituency-based Parliament but we'd obviously happy to be sharing our expertise if you wanted it in terms of the dual mandate broken record here again it's down to yourselves but if you wanted to do something with dual mandate of course we could advise but also we would provide guidance again it's about a question of timing to make sure that candidates and agents and parties are aware of all of this so you need to do that voter ID my understanding is we're all getting voter ID for devolved elections but you never know we obviously spend a lot of time working for it to make people aware of the need for voter ID at Yogi Parliamentary General Elections in Scotland and also any petition which may come along which we've had one also the type of ID which is crucial which is important because a lot of people are not aware of the fact that they already have the ID they just don't know which ID it is so we spend a lot of time doing that and also the ability to apply for a free voter authority certificate which if you're voting in the elections on May 2nd in England and Wales the deadline is coming in fact it may be today it's not today sorry five days before the event and finally overseas electors don't have them for devolved elections so it would be it would be a whole set of different circumstances if we did so you have confidence that when the decisions in principle are made by those who should make them you could facilitate the provision of where it lands and we are happy to help you happy to assist a critical friend oh Stephen go on you have one minute why would you give me a minute the degree of complexity now in electoral law have we missed a trick with this Bill could we have done something far more fundamental to simplify the code for elections I think it comes back to our my introductory comment about you know where is unnecessary divergence you know think about the reasons for that but really it's up to us to help with guidance and implementation of whatever is decided but it is undoubtedly a complex world and it brings us back to that point about giving electoral administrators and candidates and agents and electors sufficient time to understand what the changes are get the measures in place effectively to ensure that the integrity of the election is intact please anything else nothing else, absolutely if there is anything that comes once you have had the opportunity to consider what's been said and asked today please please feel free to write to us and I hope you don't mind if to reciprocate if we have questions later that we correspond with you but Dame Susan, Louise, Andy can I thank you for your attendance today and I will now move this meeting into private