The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1320 contributions
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
—what I am saying is—
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
Therefore, before the end of this year, we will see the publication of your response, in essence, to the report—
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
I am grateful for that explanation. As you suggest, it was a set of circumstances that perhaps could not have been anticipated. I appreciate that you have put in the resource request. Are you confident that, if the request is met, there will not be the same problem this year?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
Our second agenda item is evidence from the Electoral Commission. I welcome to the meeting Dame Susan Bruce, who is the electoral commissioner for Scotland; Shaun McNally, who is the chief executive of the Electoral Commission; Craig Westwood, who is the director of communications, policy and research of the Electoral Commission; and Andy O’Neill, who is the head of the Electoral Commission Scotland. I invite Dame Susan to make some opening remarks about the annual report and the position in which we now find ourselves.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is fine.
We were going to look at the support that is provided to political parties. As I said, the kick-off on 1 November caused a marvellous rush all around here, with regard to indications and so on. How is your interaction going with political parties at party level and with individual candidates? Last time, we discussed the work that you do after events to reach out to candidates on their experience. Who would like to comment on that? Craig, it is going to fall to you again.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
I appreciate that, and it is powerful that you are advocates for democracy education. That is a helpful role.
I will bring in Stephen Kerr.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
We are posing that the range of 650,000 to 1 million is quite broad when that is compared with the more obviously available figures—we know who is registered, for example—that we have. We have focused on the latter figure, but that is a big range. If we could get some explanation as to why that category is used or, indeed, whether steps could be taken to make the figure more accurate, that would be helpful.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
I know that Ivan McKee would like to come in, but can you just clarify that the inaccurate register entries are a subset of those that are not correctly registered, rather than in addition to that?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
Are you satisfied now?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Martin Whitfield
Subject to that.