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As a committee convener, I get that committees have a lot of workload challenges—as a member of the Economy and Fair Work Committee, which I chair, you know that full well—and we have difficulties every time we discuss our work plans. I happen to believe that need to do more at the committee level of what we might call routine scrutiny than we currently do. Often, there is a desire to do inquiries into lots of things, but are we getting routine scrutiny correct?

As I mentioned earlier, there are a host of bodies beyond the commissioners. Even in my committee, we look at Consumer Scotland, enterprise agencies, the Scottish National Investment Bank and all sorts of other organisations. A piece of work should be done that considers the full extent to which committees are effectively scrutinising all those different bodies. When it comes to how committees are structured, that should be a higher priority.

For the stage 1 process, my proposed bill is to go to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee for scrutiny. In the case of commissioners, I believe that a scrutiny process should happen annually. The committee in question would scrutinise the commissioner’s work, whether their annual report has delivered particular outcomes and how effective the outcomes are. Those—if you like—service committees would have a role to play over and above that of the SPCB. That would take the weight off it, which is why it should happen. It would not be done too regularly, but nothing is wrong with the relevant commissioner lodging an annual report. All committees should be regularly scrutinising commissioners over and above the SPCB’s work.

No, it would not necessarily do that.

To gain the support of older people, the commissioner needs to be a specialist older persons organisation, it has to involve older people in all aspects of its work, and its priorities must be informed by older people. There is a strong case for a stand-alone older persons commissioner. Currently, the Human Rights Commission does not carry out that particular role. There is a strong case for commissioners in all these areas to work together under an umbrella of shared services and shared research facilities. However, to reform the Human Rights Commission effectively, we would still have to create distinct commissioners within that structure for older people, disabled people and children. We might come to do that eventually, but at the moment, there is a strong case for a stand-alone commissioner for older people. That role cannot be carried out simply by tweaking the Human Rights Commission.

Yes, absolutely, I consulted the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. You will not be surprised to know that part of those discussions was whether we could change the role of the Scottish Human Rights Commission to incorporate a lot of the proposed work.

My engagement with those commissions highlighted that, in my view, there is still a gaping hole when it comes to older people, but it also demonstrated the importance of putting in place proper processes so that work is not duplicated. In my consultation document and proposals, I have set out that it is important that we do not duplicate work, that the Scottish Human Rights Commission and others carry out distinct work and that an older people’s commissioner would carry out different work. We should not have duplication.

I also looked closely at the effectiveness of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland—I think that that office is very effective—and at the work of the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales and the Commissioner for Older People Northern Ireland. There was an extensive look at a number of organisations, including specific consultations with the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, before I made my final proposal.

It is important to put the issue in context. At the moment, there are seven SPCB supported commissioners with a budget of around £15 million—the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman accounts for half of that—so I do not think that we are being flooded by commissioners. We have 191 so-called quangos with a budget of £6.6 billion, which is maybe more of an issue than commissioners.

That was an important consideration, so I went through those criteria. My starting point was that we needed somebody with an independent voice to stand up for older people, but I was conscious of the criteria. I went through each of the six principles in quite a lot of detail—they are set out in the consultation document and, I think, in the public papers for this meeting. I needed to satisfy not only the Parliament but myself that my proposal met those principles. I believed that, if it did not, there was no point in taking the proposal forward, because the principles are sound.

I will not go through all six principles, but I will give you one example. On the clarity of the remit, my proposed commissioner would have a very clear remit, set out in the proposed bill, to promote and safeguard the rights and interests of older people. That purpose remains very distinct from that of any other office-holder’s post. I am very clear that there is a need for the role, and it very much meets the criteria, which were an important part of my consideration.

I will be brief. I explored the issue in discussions with the Scottish Human Rights Commission. I also discussed it with ministers in the context of the proposed human rights bill, because I assumed that that would be happening some time soon. Obviously, it is not happening, so those discussions did not go very far.

However, in those discussions with the Scottish Human Rights Commission, it said openly that any change in its structure—it is understandable that its starting point would be its structure—would involve having rapporteurs on disability and older people. I think that the approach should be stronger than that but, even in those discussions, there was a recognition of the need to have something distinctive for each group.

We currently have a children’s commissioner, and I see no reason why we cannot look at how to incorporate that in a wider structure. However, at the moment, there is a strong case for a stand-alone older people’s commissioner. It may be part of a wider structure in the future, but even the Scottish Human Rights Commission thinks that there is a need for that distinctiveness.

Public engagement is important for commissioners. Young people engage with the children’s commissioner, and older people in Northern Ireland and Wales engage with their respective older people’s commissioners. It is maybe not as easy for the public if we say, “If you have a concern or issue over older people, you need to engage with the Scottish Human Rights Commission.” People in Wales and Northern Ireland know what an older people’s commissioner does, which is important.

It would be an advocacy commission, but it would also put forward proposals on policy changes.

The extent of the reactive work would depend, for example, on whether a parliamentary committee—

I echo the points that have been made. During my discussions on the proposal for an older people’s commissioner, it has been put to me that the Scottish Human Rights Commission already does the work that such a commissioner would do, but that is not the case. It is absolutely clear that there is a gaping hole when it comes to standing up for the human rights of older people, and I believe that a commissioner for older people would fill that gap. We can see evidence for that in the work that the children’s commissioner has carried out for children and young people.

It has also been suggested to me that we should go back to having a minister for older people, but it is important to stress that the positions of commissioner and minister are very different. Ultimately, MSPs and ministers make policy decisions. At the end of the day, the buck stops with our democratically elected politicians.

However, in my view, there is still an important role for a person who is independent of Government to play in providing advice, putting forward proposals and carrying out scrutiny to a level that, with the best will in the world, individual MSPs do not have the capacity for. Because of their independence, the role of a commissioner is very different from that of ministers and MSPs. In addition, an older people’s commissioner would fill a gap that is not being filled at the moment by other bodies in Scotland.