programme
Contents
Contents
Item / PageIntroduction – Strategic objectives / 1
Remit / 2
Budget / 3
Contribution to National Performance Framework / 5
Strategic objective 1 – an accessible complaints process with trusted outcomes / 6
Strategic objective 2 - public boards which are effective, and reflective of society / 8
Managing resources and measuring performance / 10
Performance measures / 11
Timetable and costs / 12
Appendix 1 - Statutory Powers and Responsibilities / 13
This document was updated on 18 October 2016 to reflect the dissolution of the Scottish Government’s Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme Board and the revision to three performance measures. These changes are highlighted in the document.
Laid before the Scottish Parliament by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland in pursuance of section 14(1) of the Scottish Parliamentary Commissions and Commissioners etc. Act 2010 as amended on 22 March 2016. Ref: CES/2016/01
Introduction
This plan is laid before the Scottish Parliament by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland as required by section 14 of the Scottish Parliamentary Commissions and Commissioners etc. Act 2010.
The Commissioner’s strategic objectives for the period April 2016 to March 2020 areto deliver:
- An accessible complaints process with trusted outcomes, and
- Public boards which are effective, and reflective of society.
This plan places these objectives within the institutional and financial context for the development of the Commissioner’s activities. The plan envisages changes to the complaints process which are designed to improve accessibility and responsiveness. Proposed strengthening of the case management system will help to sustain continuing high volumes of complaints and recently enacted extensions of the Commissioner’s remit. In relation to public appointments, the plan sets out proposals to build on the Scottish Government’s commitment to improve diversity amongst ministers’ appointees to public boards.
A draft of this plan was issued to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and to other interested bodies and individuals. The Commissioner is grateful to all those who have offered comments and advice during the preparation of the plan.
Bill Thomson
Commissioner for Ethical Standards
in Public Life in Scotland
22 March 2016
Remit
The office of Commissioner was created in July 2013 in succession to the Commission for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. It combines the roles of the former Public Standards Commissioner and Public Appointments Commissioner. The Commissioner’s remit is statutory and has been extended by two Acts passed by the Scottish Parliament in the early part of 2016. All relevant statutes are listed in Appendix 1.
The range of responsibilities includes:
- investigation of complaints about the conduct of MSPs, councillors and members of the boards of specified public bodies
- investigation of complaints about failure to comply with the rules relating to lobbying of MSPs and Scottish Government ministers
- where the Commissioner considers that there has been a breach of a relevant Code, reportingto the Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee in the case of MSPsand on lobbying issues, or in other cases to the Standards Commission for Scotland
- preparing, publishing and revising a Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies in Scotland and reporting to the Scottish Parliament instances of material non-compliance with the Code
- examining the methods and practices employed by the Scottish Ministers when making such appointments
- issuing guidance on the Code of Practice
- investigating complaints about failure to observe the Code of Practice
- publishing a strategy for ensuring that the appointments process encourages equal opportunities.
The Commissioner is operationally independent of the Scottish Parliament and of the Scottish Government. The Commissioner is supported by a small office staff, by Investigating Officers who are employed on a part time basis and by Public Appointments Advisers (PAAs) who are contracted to advise and report on individual appointment rounds.
Budget
The budget for the Commissioner’s office is agreed annually with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and voted on by the Scottish Parliament. Budget bids take account of the fact that almost all of the Commissioner’swork is demand led. During the period of the first strategic plan (2012 – 2016), the budget decreased by 3.7% in real terms (an increase of 1.6% in cash terms). The numbers of complaints received and appointment roundsallocated during the period was as follows:
Conduct complaints received / Conductcases
received* / Appointment
rounds
allocated
2012-13 / 212 / 134 / 45
2013-14 / 332 / 162 / 51
2014-15 / 712 / 130 / 42
2015-16
Apr-Feb / 263 / 143 / 45
* Where more than one complaint relate to the same issues, these are investigated together as a single case. For example, in 2014-15, 524 complaints relating to a single issue were investigated as one case.
This is not the full picture. It does not explain the range of enquiries, consultations, post-decision correspondence and requests for advice which are handled,nor the complexity of the matters investigated. However, it shows a continuing high volume of business - a pattern which is unlikely to change over the period of this plan.
The following table shows current expenditure projected over the period of this plan, assuming no change in real terms. The combined effect of budget and workload pressures is likely to be the absence of any resource for investment in upgrades to the website or to the case management system on which the office relies for complaint investigations. Both of these are addressed in this plan.
2016/17 / 2017/18 / 2018/19 / 2019/20Staff Costs / 557,100 / 566,700 / 574,900 / 584,000
Staff Related Costs / 16,800 / 17,100 / 17,400 / 17,700
Property Costs / 68,100 / 69,300 / 70,600 / 71,900
Professional Fees / 106,500 / 108,500 / 110,500 / 112,500
Running Costs / 51,000 / 52,300 / 53,600 / 55,000
799,500 / 813,900 / 827,000 / 841,100
Capital Expenditure / 12,500 / 12,700 / 13,000 / 13,300
TOTALS / 812,000 / 826,600 / 840,000 / 854,400
Contribution to National Performance Framework
The Commissioner’s activities are relevant to the prevention, performance, people and partnership elements of the Scottish Government’s reform agenda for public services.
The existence of an independent body responsible for investigating and reporting on alleged breaches of the various codes of conduct contributes to prevention and to performance, and to the maintenance of public confidence in the ethical standards observed by many institutions which are responsible for the development and implementation of public policy and for the delivery of public services.
The Commissioner’s public appointments work, and in particular the role of the PAAs and the Commissioner’s engagement with theScottish Governmentofficials tasked with enhancing board appointments and governance, contributes to the people, performance and partnership elements of the reform agenda, and to the wider national equalities outcome by promoting equality of opportunity and outcomes in the public appointments process.
There is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates that boards with a more diverse composition tend to perform better. The combined annual budget of the bodies to whose boards appointments are monitored by the Commissioner is approximately £14 billion. Therefore, attracting a diverse range of applicants to serve on the boards of public bodies is important in both social and in economic terms. This is building on the work of thefirstCommissioner for Public Appointments in ScotlandwhoseDiversity Delivers strategy was published in in 2008. The Scottish Government’s commitment to gender balance (50:50 by 2020) has highlighted the need to achieve greater board diversity and given encouragement to those who are striving to do so.
Strategic objective 1- an accessible complaints process with trusted outcomes
Accessibility - A
Accessibility is an important characteristic of any effective complaints process.
Complaints about councillors and members of public bodies are made under the 2000 Act, which requires that “so far as possible” investigations will only be undertaken in response to allegations which are made in writing and signed by the complainant. The 2002 Act, which governs complaints about the conduct of MSPs, requires that a complaint is made in writing and that it is made by an individual natural person, is signed by that person and states that person’s name and address.“Writing” is defined broadly in the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. However, the requirement as to signature, if interpreted literally, ispotentially restrictive.Nevertheless, the Commissioner proposes to develop the website to allow complaints to be submitted electronically, using an online form.
The Commissioner currently invites those who wish to complain to complete a form which includes details of the part or parts of the relevant Code which are alleged to have been breached. However, the Codes can be complex, and it is not reasonable to expect all potential complainants to be familiar with their provisions. Since there is no statutory requirement for the relevant provision to be specified,the Commissioner proposes not to insist on it. However,it will still be open to complainants to specify the provisions which they consider may have been breachedand there will,in all cases and before an investigation takes place, be a process to ensure that there is clarity as to which provisions are alleged to have been breached.
This development will involve staff time and technical support in making adjustments to the systems and processes currently in use in the Commissioner’s office.
Case Management - B
Case management is carried out by staff based in the Commissioner’s office and relies on a database developed in-house some 10 years previously. It was not designed to manage the current volume of cases. There is a risk of the system failing. Moreover, it cannot readily provide all of the management informationrequired to monitor the progress of complaints and to enable assessment of potential efficiency adjustments. A review of the database was undertaken in the course of 2015–16, with a viewto preparinga business case for its improvement or replacement in the first or second year of the plan.
The SPCB approved a bid for additional funding for the preparatory work and it is anticipated that a further bid will be submitted in order to permit tendering for a new system to proceed.
User Experience - C
There is currently no structured approach to assessing levels of satisfaction with the process of complaint investigations other than by way of the office’s complaints procedure. The Commissioner proposes to explore options for recording levels of satisfaction, linked to the preparation and publication of service standards. The first year’s results will establish a baseline against which future comparisons can be made.
Remit - D
Preparations will be made for the anticipated extension of the Commissioner’s remit, resulting from amendments to the rules for registration of the interests of MSPs and from the introduction of a lobbying register. These will include adjustments to the database and an element of training and familiarisation for Investigating Officers.
Resource Allocation
All the indications are that the demands on the office will continue to be high, and may increase as a result of the extensions to the Commissioner’s remit. As budgets will reduce in real terms over the period of this plan, it will not be possible to sustain current levels of service delivery without improved efficiency of operation and prioritisation of resource allocation. The Commissioner therefore proposes to take soundings on factors which may influence decisions on the prioritisation of complaints. This will be published on the website, and subject to review in the light of experience.
Strategic objective 2– public boards which are effective, and reflective of society
The Commissioner considers that a number of recent developments have created a strategic opportunity to make significant progress towards this aim, and plans to target public appointments activity in ways designed to maximise that opportunity.
2013 Code: Merit and Most Able
A revised Code of Practice was published in 2013, following consultation with the Scottish Ministers, the Scottish Parliament and the boards of regulated public bodies. In order to comply with the Code, the appointment process must be open and fair, based on merit, and offer equality of opportunity. Guidance on merit and diversity was issued by the Commissioner in August 2014. In the light of this guidance,there is greater clarity about the scope for Scottish Ministers to define merit when an open competition to find new board members is planned.
Scottish Government Public Boards Governance and Diversity Improvement
In December 2013, the Scottish Government established a Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme designed to implement a co-ordinated plan of actions to address cultural and procedural barriers to achieving greaterdiversity in leadership roles in Scotland. There were three strands to the Programme, one of which related specifically to public boards. The Government’s commitment to achieving gender parity on the boards of public bodies, as well as private and third sector organisations, was launched publicly in June 2015 as the Partnership for Change voluntary commitment to work towards gender balance by 2020.Although the Programme Board was dissolved in the summer of 2016, the programme of work that it started on enhancing board appointments and governance is still being implemented by officials.
The Commissioner welcomes the high level political commitment to gender equality on public boards. The Commissioner and PAAs have been working with officials in the Scottish Government to develop and co-ordinate actions that were identified as key elements of the Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme, and will continue to do soin partnership with the officials to whom that work has been devolved. The cost of this work is expected to be managed within existing budgets. There is evidence to suggest that these developments are having an impact on culture and practice, resulting in the attraction of more diverse fields of well qualified applicants for board positions. 2015 was the first year on record in which more women than men were appointed to the boards of regulated public bodies in Scotland.
Partnership approach - E
Under the auspices of the Programmeand the officials who subsequently took responsibility for maintaining progress, an agreed strategic approach to forward planning for appointments activity has been jointly implemented by the Commissioner and the Scottish Government. PAAs and Scottish Government public appointments staff are working in partnership on appointment rounds with a focus on shared outcomes. Coupled withearlier engagement, thisallows for better planning, which creates space for innovation in the approaches to attraction and assessment of candidates. Although this may place increasing demands in the short term on the budget for PAAs, it should lead to more focused appointment activity and better outcomes.
Review of 2013 Code – F
In addition to supporting improvements to the appointment process, the Commissioner allocates some of his resources to measuring levels of satisfaction of those involved, such as applicants and selection panel members. The results are discussed with the Scottish Government, are published annually and help to inform improvements to the process.
The Commissioner proposes to conduct a full review of the effectiveness of the 2013 Code during the period of this plan.
Managing resources and measuring performance
Budget limits
The Commissioner seeks to manage expenditure within the budget limits agreed annually with the SPCB. Some recent changes in practice have helped to keep costs down, such as the move to keeping all records electronically, a drive to use electronic communications wherever possible, and the introduction of a records management policy to coincide with the office move in 2014. However, these have been outweighed by the complexity of some complaints, coupled with the extension of the FOI regime to all of the Commissioner’s activities,and an increasing volume of post–decision correspondence.In recent years, calls have been made on contingency funding to cover the costs of complaint investigations.
Key resource
Peopleare the key resource in the Commissioner’s office -both those who work in it and those who are contracted as PAAs. The Commissioner seeks to find ways of maintaining and where possible improving job satisfaction and performance. These include employment policies, such as performance management, which are regularly reviewed, and opportunities for personal development. Most of the training, includinginduction for newly appointed Investigating Officers and PAAs, is provided in house.
Communication
The Commissioner also places great importance on maintaining good channels of communication with the SPCB, committees of the Parliament, Ministers and officials of the Scottish Government, and where possible with those bodies which fall within his remit.
The Commissioner therefore welcomes opportunities to generate additional value by working in partnership with others, as exemplified by the engagement with the Government’s Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme and those officials who continue to implement a proportion of its recommendations and specificallythe closer working relationship between Advisers and the Government’s Public Appointments Team.
Website - G
The Commissioner’s website is an important vehicle for communicating with those who engage with and have an interest in the work of the office. The current website was created by amalgamating and re-styling the material on the websites of former office holders.There is a riskthat it may soon become dated and inhibit accessibility. The budget for the first year of the plan therefore includes an element of fundingto review the website with a view to seeking funding to improve itsaccessibility, clarity, consistency and ease of use.
Performance measures
A number of performance measures are set out in annual business plans. Performance is reported in annual reports. These measures are:
Investigation ofconduct complaints
Complaints against Councillors and members of public bodies
- Numbers of complaints and cases received
- Categories and originators of complaints
- Numbers of complaints and cases completed
- Outcome of complaints and cases
- Decisions following a public hearing held by the Standards Commission for Scotland
- Performance against targets for initial assessment and for completion of investigations
Complaints against MSPs
- Numbers and categories of complaints
- Numbers proceeding and time taken for admissibility and investigation stages
Public appointments