Examination of Witnesses(Questions
20-39)
MR GRAEME MILLAR, MR MARTYN EVANS AND MS TRISHA MCAULEY
WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2002
20. Just to paraphrase a reference in the 1999 review
of the SCC, it said that there were sometimes significant
differences in the policy environment in Scotland and the Scottish
Council, compared with the UK, and the Scottish Council could
consider and adopt relevant policies for Scotland. Could you give us
a few examples of where the different policy contexts have led to
different solutions?
(Mr Evans) The one that
springs to mind, because it has been a matter of some debate, is the
idea of selling housing, private sales of houses; and our research
was showing that actually consumers in Scotland really quite like
the system, the selling of private houses, on the basis it was
quicker and more certain, they liked those aspects of it. But
aspects they did not like are the multiple surveys and the
uncertainty in terms of bidding. And so, within that context, there
was a debate north and south of the border on how to improve the
sale of houses, how to make the exchange. Professionals probably
take out less money from that process, and make it more efficient
for the consumer, where the individual consumer finds it very
difficult to influence the market. As always, I am not as clear on
what is happening in England, how that has diverged in England, but
I am quite clear what is happening in Scotland is that there we have
a quite different policy solution to a quite different situation, in
terms of how we buy and sell a house in Scotland. But the consumer
interest is the same, that is, we want the efficient use of our
money given to exchange professionals. And I think there are quite a
number of arguments and issues like that, where there is a different
policy context because of a different legal situation in Scotland
and if you look at the history of how things have developed.
Education being another one. So it has not been resolved yet, the
House Improvement Task Force in Scotland is still looking at this
issue and there has been a debate and there has been some apparent
resistance from the surveying profession about this change. And I
think off the table are some of the things which seem to have been
suggested six months ago in England, and the experiments in Bristol,
with the single surveys, and stuff like that. So I am quite
confident "what matters is what works" applies to Scotland and
England, and they are quite different policy contexts, in certain
circumstances, and that is recognised, and I do not think it is
controversial, actually.
(Mr Millar) Another
example of that is where we take the subject of agriculture, where
there are four agricultural strategies throughout Great Britain, but
there is a GB-wide negotiation within Europe under the CAP, and
suchlike. And what we do is, we try to bring together, under one
thought process, agriculture from the standpoint of the consumer for
the whole of Great Britain, by recognising, however, that there is a
completely separate agricultural strategy document that came out,
which I was part of, in Ross Finnie's group within Scotland, and, if
you like, the route map to get to some of the points that the
European Community would like us to get to. It will be different
within Scotland, because of the nature and the profile of not just
the farming aspects but the rural nature of Scotland, and the
distinct differences and distinctly different views. And we find
ourselves arguing, on the one hand, around the GB debate, when I am
down here in London. But, on the other hand, I am sitting with
ministers on this group, and, if not, I am also on the board of
Quality Meat Scotland, which is actually trying to put into place
some of those aspects. So at times we are having to work with, and
it is not uncomfortable, the differences in Scotland. Rather than
just because we want to paint it tartan and say it is different, it
is actually identifying where we have true differences and how they
impact upon consumers, and, for that matter, where there are
opportunities in Scotland for things that can be done. Maybe because
of the nature of the culture, or the size of the country, you might
make advances which are to the benefit of consumers far faster than
that of England and other parts of Great Britain. So that is
enjoying the dynamic of being an organisation which is funded
through the DTI. And we are involved in the national GB-wide debate,
as well as the Scottish debate, and we also share commonality with
our Celtic colleagues in Northern Ireland and Wales, where we can
bring together the different views on some of those areas and then
see how it applies within Scotland.
(Mr Evans)
Can I just add something very quickly to that. It is an example of
how we are doing something different in Scotland with our partners
in industry. The building industry has been following the idea of
Quality Mark, pioneered by the Department of Trade and Industry in
England, to try to deal with the issues of consumer confidence in
the building trade, and it is quite topical nowadays. The trade
associations in Scotland came to see us and said that, "We prefer to
go down a different route to this, and find a different way of
trying to reassure the consumer interest;" and we agreed to work
with them. In fact, Ms McAuley is working with that group to find a
different way, because that was what had industry support in
Scotland. And we proofed it against the consumer interest, and
thought, "Yes, this is different and equally effective,"
particularly if they were resisting the idea of the quality mark in
England. So horses for courses, and I would not like to say which is
going to be the better, but I do think that we have to work with
partners to find if they are willing to go in this direction. And
the Scottish building industry was willing and enthusiastic about
this, and it is different from how our sponsoring department, Trade
and Industry, wished to go. We are very happy to support them, after
having looked at the figures. We are now trying to see whether or
not we can get some funding. DTI is actually giving some form of
subsidy into the early years of the quality mark system in England,
but they are not willing to give that to what is happening in
Scotland, and we think a reasonable level playing-field there should
be pursued. We make no complaint about what they are doing, but, as
I say, we are pursuing that with them in a reasonably
straightforward way.
21. That is very interesting, I must say. It often
seems, from a legislative point of view at the moment, maybe it is
just in these early years, that there are too few channels for the
sharing of best practice (between the UK and Scottish legislatures
and administrations). There is a tendency for people to want to do
things differently, for its own sake, sometimes. But can I just
press you slightly on that agricultural point which I thought that
was an interesting point to make. The primary effect of devolution
and its separate agricultural policies across the UK is upon the
producer, and how CAP and others affect local producers in Scotland.
It is not obvious to me, given the scope for import into and
movement of food around the UK, why your organisation which
represents consumer interest are so particularly interested in
agricultural produce.
(Mr Millar) As part of
drawing together the agricultural strategy document in Scotland, I
think, one of the roles that we play, or rather I play, by sitting
on that group, I am now on the board of Quality Meat Scotland, which
is funded through the industry, is really forcing people within
these organisations to address where the true differences are,
rather than, it be Scottish then it must be different, we want to do
something in a different way. And once we have teased out and are
satisfied that there are sufficient reasons for being different
within Scotland, then I think we found it, as an organisation, very
easy then to support those differences. But often I find myself as
the only independent individual in a producer environment who says,
"We're Scottish and therefore our industry must be different." What
has come out, as an example, some of the things that are coming out
within the situation within Scotland are that, for instance, the
articulation that Scotch beef is something that could be brought
into Scotland and grazed for up to 90 days and be called Scotch. Now
the movement that is being made at the moment is that within, now
that is confusing to the consumer. I suppose, in a sense, in a
different way, it is bit like saying you get an Australian full-back
for the Scotland rugby side, he happens to have a Scottish
grandmother, or something like that; we do accept that, if he is a
good player, we do not accept it, if he is not. But when it comes
to, one thing that we made big progress with in Quality Meat
Scotland, addressing something they have moved from quality
assurance to consumer assurance, i.e. they have taken a view in the
organisations within Scotland, it has not happened in England, like
the National Farmers' Union and others, it is all part of what I am
saying, it will be the consumer that will be the saviour of the
agricultural producer industry within Scotland. And, on the back of
that, they are going to align themselves with our views, that the
confusion around expressions such as Scotch and Scottish, especially
selected Scotch, is sufficient that we want to tidy that up. And we
have made application to the European Community to get to the point
where, within Scotland, if it is labelled, from about July of next
year, beef, if it is Scotch it will have been born, bred and
slaughtered. There will be no exception to that, there is a passport
for every beast as well. Now that is different within Scotland
compared with England and Wales. And, in a sense, it is not just
driven by the possibility that they might get a premium for their
product, but, in fact, that industry is saying to itself, "We are
misrepresenting our products, as they are at the moment, and we also
have to recognise that we've got to move, under the reform of the
CAP, from being purely product and produce orientated to addressing
the environmental aspects of the countryside in Scotland." Because
the public, the consumer, associates that warm, lovely feeling with
a farm, but, in fact, some intensive farming is very devastating to
the countryside. So, in Scotland, elements that are different are
starting to come out there that they feel they want to progress, and
it is not just challenging, it is actually very interesting, quite
exciting, to be involved in that, because now organisations that
would never have bothered at all about addressing the needs of
consumers and potential customers are now, we are alongside each
other, kind of partnering, as I say, working together to try to get
a better result.
(Mr Evans) I think there is a
very clear consumer interest where subsidies for production are
involved, because it depends on how their subsidies feed through in
terms of price, in terms of choice and quality of the material. And
the evidence that we have, and that has been very well researched by
the National Consumer Council and others, is that the CAP costs
consumers considerably, in terms of the quality of the product and
the price of the product; so we have an interest in working on the
reform. And we were grateful to the Scottish Executive when they did
invite us onto the Industry Group mid-term review of the CAP,
because we had written to them saying that "We saw that you had the
producer interest there, you had the environmental interest, but you
did not have the consumer interest represented." And they did then
ask us to attend. We have a clear interest in this area. We have
done the report, which we would be delighted to send you, about
amalgamating the four countries' views on reform of the CAP. I think
our frustration is a frustration held by all the players around that
table I met, that the Scottish voice is actually quite weak. We are
not talking about the consumer voice being quite weak, the voice of
Scotland is quite weak. I know events have rather overtaken us in
this area. But what interestingly we are then working on, with both
the producers and the environmentalists, is finding those products
which are beneficial and we want to maintain in Scotland, for
example, grass-fed beef was a clear one that we were talking about,
and how the reform could protect that industry, and those industries
similarly in other parts of Europe, without actually creating any
quality assurance issue or issue about price and subsidy. And that
is a very fruitful discussion, which I am very glad to be engaged in
with the farming community and with the environmentalists, because
the megaphone diplomacy that sometimes can go on, particularly in
environmental farming, is one that is very unhelpful for developing
sensible, pragmatic and relevant policies. So we do not wish to win,
we would like to win more, on occasion, just for the consumer, but
we like to be part of the debate, because we are often the one that
is not as able to meet at the table for the producer and the
regulator interest. But we do not say we should always have just the
consumer interest predominate. We are part of that discussion and
have a very valid role, I think, to play in the reform of the CAP,
and, from the Scottish perspective, try to give support to valid
things that producers in Scotland are trying to do, and
environmentalists. I think we are a good coalition when we work well
together.
(Mr Millar) Chairman, one thing I
found, coming to the organisation, to our views, there were certain
areas that, and your first briefing in any environment, you are
told, "We can't deal with farmers, the mutual antagonism
historically has been too difficult, we can't do anything there;
dealing with the Law Society is incredibly difficult, we can't do
that there." Two and a half years along the line, with a different
view and a different attitude, to me that is a challenge. The
organisation has to take that challenge on. We are now working
alongside those organisations, we have not sold our souls to them,
we are working to get alongside the Law Society, to tell them, "You
know that what you're doing, in terms of complaints against lawyers,
cannot stand up, because it's lawyers adjudicating other lawyers."
And now we have moved in that relationship to where we are basically
saying, "Recognise the writing on the wall; the world is changing."
And now they want to change with us and say, "How can we shape
legislation to make it work far better on behalf of people who
complain against solicitors?" And actually many solicitors do not
like the way the Law Society do that as well. So these are examples
of where I think the attitude towards the consumer environment is
changing. The consumer is much better off now maybe than had been
perceived. We are all consumers in this room. When we walk out of
here, we are consumers, we make choices, and I think it is applying
those basic principles in some arenas which maybe have been taboo;
but that is just a challenge to some of those.
Chairman
22. Can we just look at the review of governance, and
has the 2002 DTI/Chairman of SCC assessment of the performance of
the SCC Council members yet taken place? If it has, what was the
outcome?
(Mr Millar) The performance of the
SCC members, it is a convenient time for us to. What we do is, what
I do with the members is sit down with them, and I believe in
ongoing assessment, discussions with members, about how well they
are contributing, how well we feel they are contributing, with
discussion and debate. On an annual basis, we sit down and put pen
to paper, so that we can feed that information back to the Chairman
of the National Consumer Council, and it is fed back to the DTI. We
have just gone through a process of, we are about to change six
members of the SCC. It is just the nature of the public appointments
process, they have come to the end of their terms of office. I have
to say to you, we are having difficulties with that recruitment
process, and that is about getting bogged down with the DTI and
resources, and suchlike, and we are trying to find an alternative
through the Scotland Office, and I think there is a certain amount
of goodwill, but we will get through that. It is an opportunity also
for my colleagues, and we do take time out to express a view on how
well, if you like, the officer arm and how well I perform as an
organisation in here. I think it is fair to say that at a recent
meeting with Melanie Johnson, the Minister for Consumer Affairs,
that Martyn and I attended, it was a very good meeting. Subsequent
to it, I think that was me on trial and the organisation. I
received, just over a week ago I came back from holiday, a letter
asking me if I would continue on as Chairman from next April, for
the second term of three years, as an endorsement of how well she
thinks the Scottish Consumer Council has been addressing the needs
of consumers in Scotland. But not only that, contributing to the
debate of the NCC in London, which I think is critical, because my
job as a board director of the NCC is to make sure that the
national, high level, strategic objectives are, in fact, carried
out. So I think it was, I always say, quite good and always can do
better, in terms of the governance aspects, and we have addressed
governance within Scotland to see how this organisation fits
vis-a"-vis the National Consumer Council. But the Scottish
Council is much closer to the delivery element of things within the
consumer environment. The National Consumer Council is still going
through its transition of trying to work out whether it sees itself
as a think tank, or whether it sees itself as, which we are not,
well we do think, in the Scottish Consumer Council. We tend to move
towards the doing bit, working with people to get results, and the
NCC is still going through this, it is still in the early stages of
trying to work this out in terms of their governance. So it is very
important for me, and, let us say, the Welsh and the Northern
Ireland Chairmen, to be there as part of that debate. So I think
governance overall has been a good exercise for the National
Consumer Council, because when I joined it there were 25 members,
and after four meetings I was not sure why it was there or what it
was supposed to do; so they needed their governance to be addressed.
And I think now we have a big, broad advisory committee of, I will
not call them the great and the good but diverse people from all
over Great Britain, about 45 advising the NCC, I think we are
getting some commonsense into the debate and discussion. And I would
like to think, in a year's time, I would give you an even crisper
answer to the role of the NCC. But the SCC itself, I think, has
addressed the governance issues, and we know where we stand, and
there are no real tensions between ourselves and the rest of the
organisation.
(Ms McAuley) Our appointments
process is in line with the OCP Code of Practice. Recently, we have,
as Graeme said, some Council members' whose terms of office have
expired, but also, before any member is reappointed, a report on
performance is submitted to the DTI, and that was done recently,
before reappointments were made, individually for each member, so
that process is adhered to, and that has just been done.
23. Could we take a look then at the SCC and the
political process, and you have already touched on this quite
widely, but given the broad nature of its remit and the connections
with Europe, what relationship do you cultivate with Members of the
Scottish Parliament and Scottish Members of Parliament at
Westminster?
(Mr Millar) Martyn may supplement
my comments but basically we have a strategy which is around making
sure that all of the Members of the Scottish Parliament are
communicated with, with any comments that we make, any documents we
produce, any research that has been developed. We will send copies
of that to each individual MSP, hand off and signed by myself, to
make sure we maintain some form of personal link. In a more formal
sense, the Cross-Party Group of MSPs, members of which incidentally,
are down here next week, next Tuesday, at a meeting at five o'clock
in the evening to discuss with some other colleagues on debt, which
was what Mark was referring to earlier on, and other issues, in a
formal sense, that is where we address that. But we are constantly
available to, and we meet with, on an informal basis, Members of all
political parties. Martyn's emphasis is on the officers that support
the Scottish Executive, but I think it is fair to say, as we move
through the corridors of Victoria Quay, the Scottish Executive and
the Scottish Parliament building, we do not move far without
stopping to talk to MSPs, not in a lobbying sense, they know who we
are. Fortunately for them, my face appears occasionally on the
television, or they hear me at 6.15 in the morning, on Good Morning
Scotland, and they will have issues they want to debate and discuss
with me. So most of the emphasis is clearly within the Scottish
Parliament. Even before we came in here, I was talking with one of
the MPs down here, Michael Moore, of the Liberal Democrats, whom I
have known for a long period of time, and a few of the MPs down here
we have kept contact with. It is an area that I think I want to
build on even more, because I am conscious that it is all too easy
to be absorbed by the Scottish environment fully, but I have
recognised in previous lives, the advantage and the benefits of
being able to brief MPs at Westminster. I have to say, any document
we send to MSPs we send to Scottish MPs and to Scottish Members of
the House of Lords, and each of the members of the Cabinet. In a
sense, I know the difficulty of getting so much information sent
through to you. What we try to do is keep it very brief and we do
not now produce documents which keep your table off the margin. They
tend to be very small but to the point, and if you want to find out
more our website has everything on it.
Mr John Robertson
24. I was interested to hear about you sending things
to MPs. I have got to say, I do not remember getting anything from
you, and I do not remember you ever talking to me, and I just wonder
how many more of my colleagues you do not send things to and you do
not talk to. It would appear you talk to MSPs, but the Scottish MPs
do not seem to get the same kind of coverage?
(Mr
Evans) I do think that is a fair criticism. I will look to see
whether or not we have sent to you. The intention has always been to
send all MPs the output of our work, or Scottish MPs the output of
our work, as well as sending it to MSPs. So I will look at that. Our
intention has been, as Graeme has said, to send it to you. I do
think we struggle now, with the Scottish Parliament, in terms of the
resource that we have to give in this area, and I do think your
reminder to us, we should do better with MPs, is timely; because,
even with you not in the equation, we struggle with this issue of
pursuing the consumer interest with the Scottish Executive, which
has a very wide remit and a large work agenda, and the Scottish
Parliament itself, which has its own quite separate work agenda and
has had time commitments for us to give evidence to their groups and
to discuss with them. So to put as well the issues to MPs is a
further issue for us, and I apologise if we have not sent them to
you, we certainly do always intend to send them to you, and I will
look into that. But the policy dilemma for us is this. When the
Scottish Parliament was getting into its stride after a year or so,
we found its demands on us really quite beyond our capabilities of
delivering to it. We have to prioritise how we will engage with
them, because, as you will know, as Members of Parliament, a
significant amount of the kind of policy work that you do would be
with the Executive, we would deal with the Executive, and the wider
range of work that the Scottish Parliament might do does not quite
have the same immediacy. So that is a strategic issue for us, as
well as a tactical one. With a small organisation, which has got
three and a half policy managers, we are spread quite thin. But I do
really sincerely apologise, if we have not sent you the material.
Mr Eric Joyce
25. That response rather took us back to the question
I asked earlier about funding. After devolution, a whole host of
UK-wide organisations with Scottish branches have changed shape
somewhat, depending on the demands placed upon them by the devolved
administration. It may be that you may have comment on this, since
the funding that you get, on a temporary basis, or an annual basis,
from the Scottish Executive, is not guaranteed, let us say, two or
three years down the line. Do you think there is any scope there for
that funding mechanism to be revised at some
stage?
(Mr Evans) We have done a lot of work,
particularly on health, with the Scottish Executive, and a lot of
that has been project-by-project work, which is difficult for us to
plan for. It is actually quite a challenge for an organisation like
ours to find the appropriate resources at the right time. We have to
be very flexible in what we do. So we have put a proposal to them,
and which they have approved us putting to them, whereby we get an
amount of money over two or three years to do a range of unspecified
work. So we get a certainty in terms of our income, so we can plan
that resource and the workforce. I can plan the workforce issues,
and also probably get a better deal from our external contractors,
because if you ask people at the last minute to do something they do
tend to charge you for that privilege. So one aspect of this is to
go into this regime with the Scottish Executive, they give us an
amount of money over a period of time, where we can plan these
matters, rather than have case-by-case. I would just be myself as
Director, very wary of criticising what the Department of Trade and
Industry have done, in terms of our core funding. We would always
like more, we do bid annually for the money, and we have had, as I
was saying to your colleague, real increases in our income from the
Department of Trade and Industry, and they are genuinely supportive.
The great advantage we have to my mind as a Director, is being core
funded. I have worked for many organisations where you raise your
money as you go along, and that is a nightmare, because it is
everything I find difficult about our contract work, plus it is
related to your own salary and your core costs. So having core costs
makes us a very stable organisation, which can build and choose what
work to do or not, without that core cost. If your question is,
would we like more money from the Department of Trade and Industry,
we do tend to ask for slightly more money on occasions, and they do
have of course lots of other commitments, and we appreciate the
money they have given us, genuinely. We appreciate the increases
they have given us and like many organisations, particularly small
organisations, we find even a little bit more of that we are after
really is a challenge to deliver in a quality assured way, and not
just to put the work out. So there is our challenge. It is my
challenge as a Director to manage that process; the Chairman of the
Council, the management, their challenge is to make sure that there
is some sort of strategic coherence to what we are doing. We are not
just taking the money because it is money, we are not. We are taking
the money because it is consistent with our policy objectives which
we set each year.
(Mr Millar) But Chairman it
is undoubtedly the case that I would not miss the opportunity to say
that any more funding from the DTI environment would help us to do
more on behalf of consumers in Scotland. There is just no doubt
about that, because this organisation is regarded as one, I think,
by many people who come across it, as a very large organisation. It
is not, it is very small. It is not a large budget, we punch well
above our weight and occasionally get caught out. When you know you
are having to take decisions to pull things off a workplan, that you
know will have an impact, and you know somebody is coming over the
horizon, such as we have not planned for any work to do with the
water industry. The decision to bring the three water companies
together and then set up advisory panels, and suchlike, has involved
a huge amount of work for us; we have no resources, we somehow had
to move other things off the list, and that cannot be satisfactory.
But, in a sense, it goes back to the question you had, Chairman,
around governance. I think, once the National Consumer Council
itself, I mean it would be easy to think of ourselves functioning
independently completely from the National Consumer Council and in
many ways we probably do, but the reality of that is until the NCC
has satisfied the DTI ministers that in fact it has got through the
governance transition and its role is clearer and crisper and its
objectives set, and its contribution it makes to the process of
helping consumers, then I do not think it is going to be easy to get
any more money out of the DTI. And we probably suffer a bit because
we have more tangible deliverables that you can list, as you see in
the document. NCC has more of what I call a think tank. We hate the
expression in Scotland, it implies that only some people think about
it and others do not; so it would be difficult for us at the moment.
I think the DTI do respect the fact that we feel they are getting
very good value for money from the work that we do in Scotland. They
have articulated that, albeit informally, and through the Minister.
Mr John Robertson
26. I noticed, in Appendix II of your memorandum you
have listed all your evidence to the Scottish Parliament, and
earlier on you said how much you were coming down and contributing
to the NCC itself, but I cannot, for the life of me, find anywhere
where it mentions any evidence that has been taken by any bodies
down here. Do you not come down here and do any evidence-giving, or
anything like that; and, if you do, could you maybe tell us what you
do?
(Mr Evans) In terms of the evidence that
the NCC gives, I would not be part of the evidence-giving. What I
would make sure is that the evidence that we were putting on a UK
issue was relevant and had any relevant Scottish issues in it, so
consumer credit, or the CAP, or those other issues which were there
before. I do not have a list myself of what evidence they gave. But
what I do remember, because we were working on a different issue, or
we were working on the same issue but from a completely Scottish
perspective, was the draft Communications Bill. We had an issue
about the representation of the Scottish consumer interest, which
our colleagues in the NCC, in the Board of the NCC, did not think
was consistent with their own view, and therefore we pursued it
separately ourselves. So, for the most part, we try to say the same
things with one voice through the NCC.
27. It strikes me, if the DTI are paying the bulk of
the money, that they might want to ask the NCC how they are doing,
and at some stage, somebody from the SCC would give the evidence to
a DTI committee, or a minister, or whatever; but according to this,
you do nothing down here?
(Mr Evans) We do not
give any direct evidence.
28. Is this the first time you have ever been asked
to give evidence at all?
(Mr Evans) In my
experience, yes.
(Mr Millar) In a sense, that
is why we welcome the opportunity to do that. There is no reason why
we should not be. It may be that historically, because I have not
been around that long, maybe the National Consumer Council has
considered it as their baby, with their hierarchy. Our input is
making sure that we now, as a member of the Board of the NCC, that
if they are expressing their view that relates in any way to
Scotland, and they were going in front of any of the parliamentary
committees, I would be there. In a sense, however, Mr Robertson, the
other thing is that we do sit down with the DTI and we have separate
discussions with the DTI, and we want that, separate from the
National Consumer Council. And we have had that, with Jonathan Rees,
the senior officer in the DTI there, in consumer affairs, and we
have had separate meetings, without any recourse whatsoever to the
National Consumer Council, with the Minister. And, in a sense, there
is still some way to go, I think, in people understanding the impact
of the devolutionary environment and some of our activities. We as
an organisation try to encourage some of our members from London
because we regard it as NCC London, to come to Scotland and sit in
with us and understand how we debate and discuss and take views
within Scotland. But believe me, I would never miss an opportunity.
I come from a world of negotiating for pharmacy for six years. I
used to crawl along those corridors here, taking every opportunity
to give evidence and discuss more down south.
29. If we had had that information, that would have
been quite useful, because maybe we could have asked some questions
around it. Finding out well into the evidence-taking that you have
been down talking to people in the NCC makes it difficult for us to
ask questions around those discussions.
(Mr
Millar) I think one of the difficulties is that the amount of
information we can give you can be immense, and it is in the nature
of the beast, I suppose, that that elicits the question.
30. Somebody once told me, you cannot get too much
information, but what you can get is too
little.
(Mr Millar) It was not intentionally
withheld because it is not something it would be in our interest to
do so, put it that way.
Mr Eric Joyce
31. The Scottish Human Rights Forum, you are
represented on it; what is that all about?
(Mr
Millar) Human Rights, is that Sarah?
(Mr
Evans) It is Sarah O'Neill. We have been there because we have
an interest in how this would impact upon the consumer perspective.
I have not actually seen any outputs from it. I will be delighted,
again, to write to you. I would not like to mislead you about
anything, so if I can write and say what it is and what we are doing
there. I am struggling to think. I am much more familiar with the
other forums that Sarah O'Neill, our legal officer, is part of, but
that one I am not, I am afraid.<fu5>
<fo5> See Ev 30.
32. Let me ask you something else, it may seem
tangential but it is not, and I would be interested in your view.
The European law is going to lead to change in UK law, as far as
religious discrimination is concerned, very soon. One of my
colleagues might tell me when it comes into effect, but essentially,
you will not be able to discriminate in religious terms, but only on
the side of employment and training. There will still be
discrimination if people choose to discriminate, in terms of service
delivery. So would you have a view on that?
(Mr
Evans) We certainly would, because one of the tests of the
consumer interest is that fairness is applied and that consumers are
not unreasonably or unfairly discriminated against on a matter which
is not a matter about their consumption of the goods. So, of course,
you can charge people differently or charge a higher price for
something. But we would have a view about fairness in those
circumstances. Yes, we certainly would. Just as we would have a
view, and we have done work before I joined in the past about
discrimination by estate agents in selling properties to black and
ethnic minority groups, so we certainly would have an interest. I
think the challenge will be to find the evidence base for that
discrimination, but that is a quite separate issue about what the
evidence is, from the principle. We have a clear view that fairness
is a reasonable consumer test, and discrimination, in those
circumstances, purely on the basis of a person's religion, if that
is the example you are giving, would be unreasonable.
33. The state discriminates in terms of its services,
through its public policy?
(Mr Evans) I think
discrimination is quite right, we are saying one has to be
discriminatory unless you have a universal service. You discriminate
whether it is going to be for children, it is going to be for older
people, or whatever, but the unfair discrimination in the delivery
of service on a matter which is not about their characteristics as a
consumer, about something else, would be something that we would
object to. If they are discriminating on the basis that we are only
going to allow women to go to buy certain products, or whatever, we
would say, "No, we can't see the point of that," we would say that
was unreasonable to do that. There is an issue of citizenship here,
which we steer very clear of, and then an area of consumption, which
we are right into. We are on the cusp of this one, but indeed, we
would be robust in our defence of our right to say, "That is
discriminating against that person, that service delivery, on the
basis not of their characteristics as a consumer but about something
else." That is not in the consumer interest to do that.
34. I will just take you straight to the nub; that
was a nice distinction, actually, discrimination. The issue of
religious discrimination across the UK is interpreted in a different
way in Scotland. In Scotland it is seen in terms of Catholic and
Protestant, frankly; across the UK it is seen much more as a
precursor to forms of racial discrimination. And the difficulty in
Scotland at the moment, and you may not have a view on this but it
does seem to me it is a service and so you may have a view as a
consumer interest body, but the difficulty with religious
discrimination, or as it applies to Scotland, is that essentially
Catholic schools are a trickiness. It may be possible to apply it to
service and have exemptions for schools, but clearly, that is an
institutionalist form of distinction according to what religion it
was. Now that is a service that is provided but that is a
sticking-point when it comes to extending laws on religious
discrimination across the spectrum, as you can with racial
discrimination, for example?
(Mr Evans) I
think I would have to think about that. My view would be in terms of
discrimination, as is the debate in England, that if you have
denominational schools you cannot restrict those to certain
denominations without being discriminatory. So it is not their
existence, it is who is allowed in and who is allowed out which may
be the matter of discrimination. But as you well know, the issue of
denominational schools in Scotland is a fraught enough area anyway.
So before we said very much about that we would have to think very
deeply about what the issues were, where the consumer interests lie,
and would probably say this is a matter for our political
representatives to debate it, as a citizenship issue, but I would
not guarantee that. But I would not take the ball you passed me very
happily.
(Mr Millar) The other thing to take
note of is we are spending more and more time now working with equal
opportunities organisations and racial discrimination organisations
now in Scotland, and taking up the mantle there, because it is
something that we recognise that we had not been able to do much
with. Martyn has taken a very close interest in that because there
are major differences all over Scotland, and it is not racial, it is
just within communities, not purely on religion but also in
language, the Gaelic versus Scots, and all of those
things.
(Mr Evans) Can I just make one further
point because it is related to something Mr Robertson was saying
earlier. That many of our laws are emanating, as that one is, from
Europe, and the question again in terms of our focus and our ability
to deliver is that, being a lobbying organisation, or looking for
policy change in Europe, is actually very difficult for a Scottish
organisation, as it is for our Welsh colleagues and our Irish
colleagues. The structure of Europe is actually quite a, not
complicated but it is actually changing in terms of who holds the
power, and so we meet once a year with all the consumer associations
in Europe and try to discuss these and find ways forward. And each
of us who are from the nations within unitary states, or who are
from small countries, share the same kind of problem of access and
our interests being properly represented. And understanding how to
influence change before it goes too far down a line, because as you
will know, your greatest influences on change are before policies
have been clearly articulated by Government. It is before that stage
you have the greatest influence. And so our challenge I think is to
recognise the amount of law coming from Europe, and the duty to
trade fairly is something we were down yesterday to speak to the
Consumer Affairs Minister with and her Department and the Office of
Fair Trading. And there is a big debate, which is very difficult
again for a small organisation. We are not just special pleading
here for our Welsh colleagues, our Irish colleagues, our colleagues
in Ireland, to actually engage in, because of the nature of
institutions and our limited resources. We try to find a mechanism
through that, through our European association of consumer
organisations, called BEUC<fu6>, but again it is very
difficult to work up a consumer consensus in Europe as it is
difficult to work up any consensus, and it is another area which is
taking time and energy from our small number of staff.
<fo6> Bureau European des Unions de
Consommateurs.
Ann McKechin
35. Can I just follow on from that. The DTI currently
have a consultation out about the general remit on trade and
services, at the World Trade Organisation, which also includes, for
example, higher education. Now clearly, the policy and
administration of higher education is distinct in Scotland than it
is from the rest of the United Kingdom. Following on from what you
said, is it the intention of the Consumer Council to take part in
that consultation and give it their views, and is there any other
aspect of your current programme which you think may be usefully
brought to the attention of this Committee?
(Mr
Evans) We would only take part in that through our specialist
within the National Consumer Council. Jill Johnstone is our world
trade specialist, who is one person, and you can imagine again the
issues and complexities that she has to deal with. She is also part
of the transatlantic consumer dialogue, which is a dialogue between
consumer associations, organisations, here and in America, which is
important to that debate to try to find common ground of the
consumer interest in the World Trade Organisation talks. I cannot
say I am at all familiar with the details of that, although I know
that it was being related to us in the mid-term review of the Common
Agriculture Policy as an important lever for change in European
Union subsidies in agriculture. The issue you raise about services
and competition within services is a very critical one, both in
terms of the consumer interest and, much more broadly, in terms of
our social interest, our citizenship issue, and we will have to try
to find a way through that, and I have absolutely no idea at the
moment what that will be. But I do not have staff who are competent
in that area. They are all within London, of the National Consumer
Council; and they would send us their drafts and see if there are
particular issues. But the principles will not make any difference,
in my view, between the regimes north and south of the border, for
example, in education, because the principles are competitive
tendering, as I understand it, issues like opening up markets in
these services, and I would have thought our interests are the same
north and south of the border about protecting children's interest
and parental interest in education.
36. Would you not consider the different needs also
about higher education in Scotland, as there is in England and
Wales, and that people may wish to keep a certain unique quality
within Scotland? You have been talking about the consumers, and the
fisheries industry, but it strikes me there is a very similar
argument about the preservation of higher education within Scotland,
rather than it going out to a situation where it could be taken over
by outside interests?
(Mr Evans) I think that
is part of what I have heard too, just because I have a kind of an
interest in those consumer issues, I picked that up. I am in no way
an expert. But, as I understand how it has been told to me, through
just informal chats with my colleagues, it is that some of these
concerns about taking over and the competitive aspects of this, we
had to have a very hard view from the consumer interest, because, of
course, competition is in the consumer's interest. And that is not
to say we would like our education system at all taken over, but we
have to know what we are defending in terms of the willingness of
our politicians to set the agenda, on the basis of who elects them
are citizens, and what kind of competitive environment we want for
services. And I think that is probably what the debate is going to
be, from the consumer interest, in the World Trade Organisation
discussion. But I am reluctant to go very much further because it is
a hugely complex and technical area, and I have read some third- and
fourth-hand accounts, and I have not been party to any of the
debate. And I always worry that it is misrepresented as it comes
through at that kind of third and fourth hand, and the truth may be
something completely different from how I understand the situation
of competition in public and private services, which was what, I
think, was behind your question.
Chairman
37. The SCC aims to influence policy and
decision-making and to inform and raise awareness among consumers.
What are the principal means by which these objectives are
accomplished?
(Mr Millar) Various. I suppose
we access any possible form of communication that we can, in terms
of wanting to give messages. So we work closely with, I have good
working relationships with the written press, the radio and/or
others. We talk on a one-to-one basis with individuals about
communicating our messages. We work through other consumer
organisations that we communicate with, and we have groups such as
Energy Watch and/or others. And, in fact, I chair a group of the
chairmen and chief officers of all these organisations, so we have a
kind of umbrella organisation and some form of good practice sharing
around things like complaint handling, etc., but also we have a
united front on some of those aspects that we feel are affecting all
consumers in Scotland. We constantly send, although I am
disappointed to hear that our database does not seem to be as
comprehensive as I thought it was, we send out information on an
ongoing basis to many different people who we consider to be
decision-makers and takers, whether in local authorities,
parliamentary, north and south of the border. And I am just annoyed
and frustrated you have not seen anything, if it is not there, our
database has got a problem, because I spend my life topping and
tailing on these letters, I believe you deserve that courtesy. So,
in a sense, we will send out hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces
of information to many different people who we feel need to know,
and backed up by, usually, a more public platform, using a press
officer that works on a nominal time basis for us to make sure we
get access both to all the main newspapers and radio and television
stations. And I suppose you get to a stage now, they know who you
are when you walk through the door, you can go through a process of
telling you what to do, "There's your blank booth, get on with it,
Mr Millar; what's the message for today?" And the other mechanism,
all my colleagues constantly, including the Board of the SCC, they
act as advocates for the work that we are doing, or have been doing,
and will be doing; and we encourage many different people to work
with us well beyond the Board of the Scottish Consumer Council and
the officers. We involve people from many different sectors, on our
working groups and/or others, so that our net is much broader and
bigger, so it is just a network of information and traditional ways
of communicating them. One of the difficulties is, as an
organisation, we will always have a consumer-based organisation, and
it is something I address and I remind my Council and I remind my
officers, as well, that often we put forward submissions by way of
consultation, we do research, trying to facilitate change. Very
rarely will the consumer organisation and the work that is done ever
be given credit for that change. More often than not, it will be
taken by the chief executive of a large company, or of an energy
company, it might be the ministers involved and Civil Service and
otherwise. Basically, our responsibility is to be in on the debate,
on the route map for the change that we are trying to get to; as I
say to my people, "Be satisfied we've got to our end point." At the
end of the day, no-one is necessary when you come down and say, "If
it hadn't been for the input by the Scottish Consumer Council . . ."
So, in a motivating sense, you have got to constantly remind people
that what we do is valued but they may never get a direct credit,
because others, quite rightly, are in a different position to take
it and give it.
(Mr Evans) I think the core of
our influence is the evidence base, and so, if we undertake the
research for what the consumer interest is, and identify that in all
its complexity, and then move to the position of trying to suggest
policy solutions and debate those, that is where our strength lies.
The weakness in the consumer movement is, often, it is based on
anecdotes and personal experience, which is put forward as though
that is the reality. That can often be very detrimental,
particularly to low-income consumers, who are not having their
experience put forward, or in other ways who are disadvantaged. And
in our own country, of course, many rural and remote residents have
that problem, that their interests are not those which are
anecdotally convenient to put forward. So I think it is our evidence
and our research, the quality of that, which is the key driver for
change. We identify what that is, and we are very willing to say no
change is required, if the evidence does not have that. And we are
also, I think, very willing to say the answer is not clear, there is
a consensus in policy terms that needs to be built, and willing to
build a policy consensus rather than banging a rather distant drum
about what the perfect world, for the perfect consumption, might be.
So I think that evidence base, willing to negotiate, seek a policy
consensus, is very important for us.
Mr John Robertson
38. The SCC has carried out a wide range of work in
public services. In terms of the SCC's work on complaints handling,
could you expand on the point in your memorandum that said,
"Translating policy into practice at service delivery level is
problematic and providing training for frontline staff in this area
is a particular issue"?<fu7>
<fo7> See Ev 4.
(Mr Evans) This comes from our conversations
within health, mainly, whereby the managers within the health
departments say, we have absorbed this management question, that we
must be a responsive organisation that can react to individual
patients' complaints, and we have put in place procedures for this,
but what they have found very difficult is actually to get the
quality of training from external or internal training providers to
actually make that culture change within their own organisations.
And so what we then took from that, when we heard these
conversations, from a variety of sources, was, who is providing this
training to front-line staff? It is no longer a question of
persuading the management in public services that complaint handling
is important. This is about delivering good quality complaint
handling by front-line staff; who is delivering that, how well is it
being delivered, what is it costing? So this is a process which we
are saying, there are may be market failure here, the market failure
may be there are not the people available, with the skills
available, to do this, or maybe it is done in-house, with the same,
we can call it, market failure there. So that is what we are
interested in. Whether that is the case or not we have still to
find, but that is what we are pursuing at the moment. And it is
important for us, because that comes back again to the service
managers, who have said, we wish the culture change to take place.
This is the impediment to it and we can help, possibly contribute to
finding that out.
(Mr Millar) I think that is actually being
able to identify the tools that they need to allow them to discharge
that responsibility. They know that they have to do it, and I think
they are looking for us to do an awful lot, of course. It may be in
different sectors, and health was only one example, but it is a very
acute example. Local government is another one, about where people
do not have an awful lot of choice in the services they have. How
can they come away with that kind of acknowledged satisfaction that
their complaint is being handled well enough? Otherwise all that
happens, in my experience in the electricity industry, is you forget
the reason you complained, you then complain about the process.
39. Is this part of the work then you have been doing
with the Public Services Ombudsman, have you had the connection with
him, have you related the problems that you have got, particularly
with health, which is very important obviously? And also, because I
know it is the people that are missing from your evidence, is
actually the Health Minister and his Department, you have not given
any evidence to them, and yet you are telling me that health is the
one thing that you see as being a big problem?
(Mr
Evans) We do, and I think we work particularly closely with the
Executive on that matter, and what the Health Committee of the
Scottish Parliament is looking at is not always the same as the work
that we are working on, so I think there is a clear reason for that,
why we are not doing that. In terms of the Public Services
Ombudsman, we are due to meet with the Ombudsman, Alice Brown,
shortly. We worked very closely with Ian Smith, who was the Local
Government Ombudsman, and who is now the Convener of the Water
Customer Panels, to look at these issues. As you know, the Public
Services Ombudsman is a recent appointment, and has not worked out
all the processes which they are going to undertake. But one of the
criticisms we have made about public authorities, in the past, is,
whilst they have received complaints, they have not always
redesigned their services to take account of the regular complaint;
so they deal with complaints on an individual level, but
managerially have not reorganised. And we have said that to the
Ombudsman, and we said that when we gave evidence about the Public
Services Ombudsman, they should have an independent role, not just
in trying to resolve complaints for an individual customer but also
say to that service provider, "You appear to have had five, 10, 20
complaints about the same subject; we would like to see what
proposals you're making to redesign your service so these complaints
are not repeated." I do not think it is rocket science, but I do
think complaint handling can just be parked as one part of an
organisation, which has nothing to do with service development, and
we think it is a virtual circle. You complain, you improve, you get
to the service feedback through complaints. The thing, as you will
well know, in public service is, people cannot exit, so you do not
have the same clear signals that your market has been reduced, you
have to have much more subtle signals and change on those signals
too.
(Mr Millar) With regard to the aspect
around health, Mr Robertson, in a different life, in another part of
my life, I am the Chairman of the Common Services Agency of the
National Health Service in Scotland, so I work and meet with all
three Ministers, usually on a monthly basis, with other chairmen,
and we discuss informally lots of issues in relation both to health
and also to consumer affairs. So I think that relationship, at my
level, is extremely informal, but we are, basically, at the end of a
telephone in that relationship, because I am fully accountable to
the Minister, in terms of health. But we do so much work within
health anyway that the work of the SCC is often commented on, the
documents we have come out with in health. So I think we have been
able to work that fortuitously, just because of the circumstances,
me, as an individual, having been a non-executive director in the
Health Service and a health professional myself, being able to work
with ministers, previous ministers, and with Malcolm Chisholm and
others. And I think that relationship has worked quite well overall,
and will continue to, because we have a lot of work committed for
the way forward in the interests of consumers, the role of Health
Councils, and things like that. There is quite a demanding agenda
for the next year or two in the Scottish Parliament around health on
these things.
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