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I have a few questions, but I will try to be as quick as possible. Good morning, cabinet secretary and the officials.

The bill does not address the recommendation in the Angiolini review around holding gross misconduct hearings in public. We have heard mixed views on that in taking evidence, with some police organisations being completely opposed to the proposal and stating good reasons why that should not happen, while other organisations, such as HMICS, think that such hearings should be held in public, and they cite examples where that is the case for other professions.

What is your view on that? You have said that you will not bring about such a measure through the bill, but that you might introduce other legislation. Is that still the Government’s view? Has there been any change on that?

I turn to the other area that I want to ask about. The bill confers a duty on the SPA to establish and maintain police advisory and barred lists. Why did the Scottish Government choose the SPA, not Police Scotland, to establish and maintain those lists? Is it the intention to publish the barred list? Both Police Scotland and the SPA told us that they would rather that the list was maintained by Police Scotland.

I think that that would be good.

Yes—thank you.

Finally, I know that the cabinet secretary and her officials will be aware from having watched our evidence sessions that, last week, I raised the case of a constituent who came to my surgery to detail their experience of the complaints system. For clarity, they consider the case to be closed. I sent them a link to the video of last week’s session and they reviewed the evidence. I want to highlight that they feel assured that things are moving forward and that changes have been made since the time that they went through the complaints process. I express the gratitude that they have passed on to me to all committee members, the Government and the clerks that the issue is being looked at, because it had a significant impact on my constituent’s life and wellbeing.

I want to go through some of the thoughts that they shared with me in correspondence. There is probably no need for the cabinet secretary to respond to all the points that I will raise, because members have already covered some of them. My constituent made further comments on the PSD. They said that they had to sign a heads of complaint document and were told that, if they did not do that, no further action could be taken. My constituent felt as though they were being put in a position with that, because they were also told that, by signing the heads of complaint, if anything criminal was suggested about the complainer’s behaviour, criminal action could be taken against them. They feel that something needs to be looked at in that part of the process. They also said that they do not feel that the PIRC is particularly independent. The sergeant who dealt with their case constantly referenced knowing senior officers who were involved in the case.

I know that many of those points have been covered. However, I want to get a response on my constituent’s final point in their email to me. They said that, in their experience, no front-line resolution was offered, no apology was given and there was a complete blanket response from the PSD. When cases have come to an end, can anything be done to reflect the experience of complainers, whatever the outcome? I said at the outset last week and today that I will not go into the rights and wrongs of the case, because my constituent does not want me to do that; they want me to raise their case in a general sense. There must be a better way to bring things to a close that reflects the experiences that people have had, whether they are complainers or officers, or whether the complainers are officers.

Yes—I will just get it up on my screen and I will be able to tell you exactly what I was told.

Good morning. I want to raise the case of a constituent who came to me this week. I will not go into any detail, obviously, and I do not know the rights and wrongs of the issue, but I will speak to the process as they experienced it, which might touch on some of the issues that have been raised today, and perhaps some others.

The main issue that my constituent said that they experienced when making a complaint through the process was the length of time that the whole process took. There was also a feeling that they were intimidated by police while the process was on-going, whether that was intended or not; my constituent accepts that it might not have been, but there was a feeling that my constituent was up against the whole of a local police station, that the PIRC did not have teeth to any great extent, and that their concerns around the complaint were minimised and not taken as seriously as they merited. In fact, the process had an impact on my constituent’s health, particularly their emotional health. The complaint was made some time ago, and my constituent has been triggered by the evidence that this committee has been taking.

I realise that my question is quite general and that we cannot comment on the actual facts of the situation or the rights and wrongs of it—and it is important to say that my constituent accepts that the matter is now closed and is trying to move on—but what I have said about their feelings and experiences reflects what we have heard from witnesses. These are general concerns that we have heard from other people who have experienced the process. What do you think that the bill will do to help people with those experiences, particularly on the emotional health aspect? That is probably quite a big thing, particularly if something has taken a long time to come to any sort of resolution.

Good afternoon. I think that each of you was in the room when I asked my question at the end of the previous witness session. I broadly raised the case of a constituent, which I will not go over again, but I want to ask you about the emotional impact of complaints processes on officers and members of the public. That links to evidence that we have heard about the possible weaponisation of the complaints system by PSD, and tactics of intimidation that are used against complainers. We have heard of that from people who have given us evidence. Included in that is the length of time that the processes take. Is PSD best placed to do the job, or can it be done in another way? Have improvements been made and can further improvements be made? What can be done to support people’s emotional wellbeing as they go through the system?

Good morning, Lady Elish, and thanks for joining us. In an answer to Rona Mackay a couple of questions ago, you indicated that the system in Scotland is actually pretty good, and that it has got better over the years since you were a prosecutor. That is great to hear, but I was a wee bit surprised by that. I have a general question. I am wondering in what areas you think the bill will make a difference. Is the bill big enough in its scope? Is it doing enough, or is it, to coin a phrase, tinkering round the edges? Is tackling the cultural issues that you have identified as a problem one of the things that the bill is trying to do? I apologise, as that is quite a general question.

That is very helpful.

I have one other question—and you have already talked about this in response to Pauline McNeill. You made a recommendation on body-worn cameras, and we have heard about the issue from others, too. There seems to be a general consensus that they would be a good thing. When you were speaking to police officers and doing your research, did you get any sense of how much churn the use of body-worn cameras could prevent within the complaints system? I am not looking for figures, but did you get any sense of how transformational or otherwise they could be?

That is what I was going to ask you about. Do you think that you need those teeth or that extra clout—whatever way you want to put it?