Commission wants to give the Scottish Parliament an "MOT"
Input from third sector organisations is helping reform how Scotland’s parliament goes about its business.
Contributions from the third sector has helped an independent review of the Scottish Parliament set out more than 70 recommendations for improvements.
Set up in October 2016, the Commission for Parliamentary Reform was tasked with giving Holyrood "an MOT".
Its chairman John McCormick said the changes would equip Holyrood to meet future challenges "head on."
Recommendations include:
- Smaller, stronger committees with conveners elected by parliament
- Scrapping the requirement for questions to the first minister to be published in advance
- Expanding the legislative process to five stages for more time for scrutiny
- A stronger role for the presiding officer in ruling on conduct in the chamber
- Changing the way chamber business is decided on
- A legislative standards body to improve quality of legislation brought to parliament
- A committee engagement unit to support committees to be more innovative and take more risks
- Benchmarks for MSP recruitment from under-represented groups
John Downie, director of public affairs at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), said: “Scotland’s voluntary organisations put in a great deal of work to ensure the Parliament is well informed and has the evidence it needs to affect meaningful and positive change for Scotland’s communities.
“During the consultation process, SCVO and our members also raised the importance of ensuring MSPs didn’t just hear from the ‘usual suspects’ but, instead, broadened their horizons by meeting people with real life experience and from harder to reach communities.
“SCVO has long argued that meaningless legislation is not just a waste of time, but can also have unintended negative consequences. A greater focus on pre and post-legislative scrutiny is therefore something to be welcomed.
“We look forward to seeing how the presiding officer and parliament engages with the commission’s report and stand ready to play a full role in making Scotland’s Parliament work better for all of us.”
Presiding officer Ken Macintosh, who set up the commission to give Holyrood "an MOT", said its report was "a comprehensive and impressive piece of work" which "marks a coming of age for the Scottish Parliament".
He said: "It recognises the central role Holyrood has played in Scottish political life over the last 18 years and shows how we can build on that and continue to mature as an institution as we take on additional powers and grapple with major issues ahead such as Brexit.”
