Seòmar agus comataidhean

That will be interesting, because, as we all know, in a national election, people will turn up at various polling stations wanting to vote, and on some occasions they might not be on the voters roll.

Interestingly, during the Rutherglen by-election, I canvassed at a door where the individual was on the voters roll but was convinced that he was not—unfortunately, he was a Scottish National Party voter, which was concerning. That goes back to my argument that we need to ensure that we engage with people so that they know that they have that right and can access it.

As you and I know, there is also an issue with regard to certain cohorts in certain parts of constituencies—in your constituency, my constituency and probably every constituency in Scotland. There are certain people who do not register or who have fallen off the register.

A two-pronged approach can be taken. It is up to us, as politicians, to engage with the public and ensure that they want to get involved in the democratic process, but there also needs to be a process that ensures that those people are registered.

Is there anything else that Iain Hockenhull wants to add at this point?

I hope that, over the years that we have worked together, Mr Kerr is aware that I tend to try to find a solution. Believe it or not, Mr Kerr and I do not pick a fight with each other all the time—we do sit down and discuss how we can find solutions to many of the challenges that we face.

It is down to us. I want to be able to sit here, in front of you, and say, “Here’s the issue—I think that I can address it this way. What do you think? I don’t believe that I have a monopoly on all good ideas, so what do you think and how can we deal with this?”

Probably in general. We had a very good working relationship with the previous commissioner. Special measures have been in place during all the time that I have been in post. That happened before I was minister, though. I should add for the record that we have had a 60 per cent increase in the level of requests that we are getting and that, since June, we have a response rate of 97 per cent.

On the relationship with the previous commissioner, he had a job to do and we were not doing as well as we should have been doing. We took that on board. We had got to the stage where there had to be a change of culture within the Scottish Government as an organisation to view dealing with FOI as part of the day job, not just something that we do in addition to our work.

As you will understand, it is not easy to get that kind of culture change in any organisation. However, we have managed to turn that around. I had a meeting with the new information commissioner a number of weeks ago, and he explained that he was quite impressed with how the Government has turned things around on FOI.

To be brutally honest with the committee, when I came in as minister, two and a half years ago, I was concerned about the issue because it was probably one of the weaker aspects of where we were at that fell into my portfolio. In the modern world, FOI is one of the most important things. Open government is part of my remit, and there is nothing more open than access to information through FOI.

On the whole, we have got to a place where we, as an organisation, are dealing with the issue a lot better, and I see us continuing down that route. As we move forward, I would like to get to a place where we consider proactive publication of some things so that, if someone submits an FOI request and something is available, I can say, “Look at page 35 of this document on the website and you will find your answer there—we published it in June last year,” or something like that. The concern with that is that I might be accused of data dumping, because there is too much. I am trying to find a balance, but that is the place where we would like to be.

I will bring in Jill McPherson, in case she wants to add anything.

It is more of a software problem with the case management system that we use. I know that there is on-going work to address that and to deal with it. I will bring in Jill McPherson to add more detail on that.

That becomes a wee bit more problematic, so I will probably have to get back to you on that question, too.

We had that conversation and, to his credit, the permanent secretary took that on board, led by example from a very senior level in Government, and encouraged everyone in every department to say that FOI is part of their role and that is how to move forward.

That is more an example of simply cutting through all the nonsense and getting things working. As you and I know, in order to get such cultural change in any organisation, people need to get away from the fluff around the edges and deal with the issue that is in front of them.

I am not blowing my own trumpet, but I think that the change happening was more a result of the direct approach that I took.

Possibly somewhere else, I would think.

This is the first time that we have done a reconsideration of a bill. I can honestly say that it has not been as satisfying for everyone as the process has progressed. We genuinely need to have the conversation that you have discussed afterwards, as there are things that we could probably consider.

It is a pleasure for me to be here, in front of the committee, to discuss everything to do with my remit and the committee’s remit. I hope that members of the committee are aware that, over the past couple of years, I have sought to have a good working relationship with the committee and with the convener in particular. It is important that that continues over the coming period.

I am sure that there is a whole sack of matters and that we will touch on many topics. That is why I have the equivalent of an MGM chorus line of officials with me. I look forward to discussing issues with the committee.