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Scottish government should produce post-legislative reports on acts says SPPA committee

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Scottish government should produce post-legislative reports on acts says SPPA committee

The Scottish government should be required to publish a post-legislative report on each act of Parliament three to five years after implementation, a parliamentary committee has said.

And Holyrood committees should normally have a maximum of seven members to ensure focused and effective scrutiny of government according to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments (SPPA) committee. In its report published today, the committee said it was not, however, persuaded by arguments for the introduction of elected conveners.

SPPA committee convener, Stewart Stevenson MSP, said: “The aim of any change must be to make committees more effective at scrutinising legislation and government policy, and holding the government of the day to account.

“We believe there are already many examples of committees working with great effectiveness - challenging the government, questioning Ministers, airing public concerns.

“Our recommendations, and a greater emphasis on post-legislative scrutiny, will see committees working at this level of effectiveness, more of the time.”

In addition to key principles which should underpin any future change, the committee made the following recommendations:

  • We recommend that next session’s committees should normally have a maximum of seven members (the effect of which is that Members serve on only one committee).

  • If the next Parliament aimed for around 14 committees, with no more than seven members each, the number of committee places to be filled would be similar to the number of members available to serve on committees. Each additional committee, or each committee of more than seven, will increase the number of members who have to sit on two committees.

  • On avoiding “churn” of members - We recommend that in proposing changes to committee membership, the Bureau should attempt to minimise turnover of members.

  • On committee remits and the Justice Committee - We do not think that there is a case for significant changes to the way in which the remits of subject committees are decided.

    • The committee said it hopes that this report will lead to discussion across the Parliament and broad agreement on the steps needed to increase committees’ effectiveness next session.

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