The proceedings are
reported in the language in which they were spoken in the
committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
|
Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:45.
The meeting began at 09:45.
|
|
Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan
Buddiannau
Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
|
|
[1]
Jayne Bryant: Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the
standards committee.
|
|
Ymchwiliad i Lobïo: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 2
Inquiry into Lobbying: Evidence Session 2
|
|
[2]
Jayne Bryant: This morning we’re looking at our
inquiry into lobbying. Welcome to Billy McLaren and Alison White.
You’re very welcome here this morning. You’re here to
obviously give some evidence to us. I believe you’ve got an
opening statement to make to us. Also, we’ve got translation.
So, it’s on channel 1 if you need translation because the
meeting is bilingual.
|
|
[3]
Ms White: May I start?
|
|
[4]
Jayne Bryant: Yes, of course.
|
|
[5]
Ms White: Good morning, everybody. Bore da. Thank you very
much indeed for inviting me here today to give some evidence to
your inquiry. It follows the brief response that I made back in
January to your request for written evidence.
|
|
[6]
I’ve been appointed to be the registrar for consultant
lobbyists in accordance with the Transparency of Lobbying,
Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014.
I’m sorry, that’s rather a mouthful. As registrar, I
don’t take any view myself about the legislation or its
success in implementing the objectives that were set by Ministers,
but I’m very pleased to make comment on the facts and my
experience of establishing the register from a zero base and
interpreting the legislation, and also its continued operation and
stakeholder management.
|
|
[7]
As you all know, the registrar is an independent statutory office,
which was established to both keep and publish the register of
consultant lobbyists, in which those that lobby on behalf of a
third party in return for payment are required to disclose the
names of their clients and whether or not they subscribe to a valid
code of conduct. I have a duty to monitor compliance with the
requirement to register, and a power to undertake enforcement
action in the event of non-compliance. Under the Act, I’m
required to establish and manage the UK register of consultant
lobbyists, develop and publish detailed guidance for industry on
its duties under the Act, monitor and enforce the industry’s
compliance with the Act’s legal requirements, and publish an
annual statement of accounts. As registrar, I’m formally
accountable to Parliament, and that accountability is exercised
through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs
Committee. Its predecessor approved my appointment at a
pre-appointment scrutiny hearing. It’s very important to note
that my role is independent of both Ministers and the industry.
I’m not a civil servant.
|
|
[8]
So, in brief, the Act applies only to those VAT-registered
organisations or individuals that communicate directly with either
Ministers or permanent secretaries, and that’s about some
aspect of Government business, on behalf of a client and in return
for payment. Registration must take place ahead of any such
communications. It’s not retrospective.
|
|
[9]
The register’s been open since 26 March 2015. So, we’ve
just had our second birthday. At the moment, it’s got 124
registrants. At its peak, it was 134. That includes lawyers,
accountants and a think tank. It costs about £0.25 million a
year to operate the register and the office, and the estimated
income for the current year covers about half that amount, but not
all of the costs are considered by the Cabinet Office to be
attributable for the purpose of calculating the costs that should
be off-charged to registrants. Ministers have decided there
won’t be any further increase in the fees, which is currently
£1,000, until the end of the current spending review
period.
|
|
[10]
I hope that that gives you a helpful introduction to my work as
registrar and, of course, I’m delighted to answer any
questions that you may have.
|
|
[11]
Jayne Bryant: Thank you. Thank you very much. Billy, would
you like to give an opening statement?
|
|
[12]
Mr McLaren: Thank you. I’d like to start by thanking
the committee for inviting me along today and, likewise, bore da.
As the committee knows, the Scottish system is still embryonic and
not yet in operation. However, I’d like a few minutes just to
bring the committee up to date on our progress and our planning, if
I may.
|
|
[13]
On 15 March, we announced we’d entered into a contract with
Northgate Public Services—Northgate PS—to build the IT
system and the website, which will support the new lobbying
register in Scotland. We’re now in the development phase of
that contract. Following that, and just last Thursday, we were then
able to announce the details of our intended implementation
timetable. The stated aim now is for the lobbying register in
Scotland to go live in early 2018. Between now and that go-live
date, we intend to user test our IT over the summer to ensure a
working system is in place by autumn. In response to requests from
a wide range of our stakeholders, that finalised system and
parliamentary guidance will then be made available to users for a
trial period up until the end of 2017.
|
|
[14]
I just mentioned parliamentary guidance and that, of course, is one
of the other key areas of work at the moment. Since I started in
post, which was six months ago now, I’ve been meeting with
many stakeholders and interested parties to get their views in
relation to the practicalities of operating the register.
|
|
[15]
Building on this work, we also announced on Thursday that
we’re going to set up a dedicated working group, which will
help us to provide further practical information and assistance as
the Act moves towards full implementation early next year. That
working group will consist of up to 12 individuals from a varied
range of interests. These will include smaller and larger
organisations from the third sector, from PR or consultancy firms,
and from other businesses.
|
|
[16]
We’re also seeking to recruit from more specialist fields in
legal, journalism and transparency fields. Applications for these
roles are currently being advertised—forgive me for
advertising it here today—with the intention of holding our
first meeting later in May. The working group will also include a
standing representative from a team in the Standards in Public
Office Commission in Ireland who have been already introducing a
lobbying register. We hope to pick up on the key lessons that
they’ve learnt since their own introduction, which was back
in September 2015.
|
|
[17]
We continue to work with others, including Alison and her team, to
understand the requirements of other systems and benefit from the
experiences that they’ve had and, of course, I’d be
happy to help the committee in any way I can today, to say more
about our own experiences to date in Scotland.
|
|
[18]
Jayne Bryant: Brilliant. Thank you very much. Alison, you
mentioned there were 124 registrants on the UK register.
|
|
[19]
Ms White: That is correct.
|
|
[20]
Jayne Bryant: Billy, how many do you anticipate? I know
it’s quite a wide question. How many would you anticipate
being on the Scottish register?
|
|
[21]
Mr McLaren: The financial memorandum set out a margin of
between 255 and 2,550, I think, so—. We’ve got around
about 230 to 240 registered stakeholders for information just now,
so as an indicator I think we’d be looking at sort of high
hundreds.
|
|
[22]
Jayne Bryant: Right, okay. Brilliant, thank you. Perhaps
both of you could outline the challenges that you faced when
establishing the register, if any.
|
|
[23]
Ms White: May I start?
|
|
[24]
Jayne Bryant: Yes, of course.
|
|
[25]
Ms White: One of the challenges, I think, for me in coming
to this, right back at the beginning, was that this had been a very
contentious piece of legislation, and I’d say that the
stakeholder environment at the outset was hostile. I inherited
nothing other than an Act of Parliament and so, with a small team,
I had to first of all interpret the Act of Parliament in a way that
the industry was then able to work with. I also inherited a
deadline that I didn’t know about at the time, which was
quite a short deadline: I was appointed in August 2014, and I
subsequently discovered that the register had to be opened by the
end of March 2015, which didn’t give an enormous amount of
time. The main things that had to be done were establish some
guidance in order that potential registrants knew what they were
going to have to register, and to set up a website and an
electronic register in order that the registration details could be
collected. That had to be done within a very short, challenging
timescale, in a very hostile stakeholder environment. So, I would
say that those were the main challenges in setting up the
register.
|
|
[26]
Mr McLaren: Probably slightly different, we had an awful lot
of pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill as it was going through,
and there were an awful lot of conversations in Scotland and a lot
of evidence gathered on what sort of register we might undertake.
So, by the time I came to the post in October last year, the Act
was already in place, so we knew what we were working to. So, in
terms of that, our main challenge really, I suppose, is the
timetable that we set ourselves for this being set up, which is
that we said between 18 and 24 months after the Act received its
Royal Assent, which was back on 14 April 2016. So, we’re sort
of roughly in the middle of that timetable as we speak.
That’s probably been the main challenges in terms of moving
forward for us.
|
|
[27]
Jayne Bryant: Great. Llyr.
|
|
[28]
Llyr Gruffydd: Yes. Morning. You mentioned guidance a moment ago.
Issuing clear guidance is central to this, really, isn’t it,
and there’ll always be grey areas. So, short of asking you
how you do it, clearly you needed to act pretty quickly to get
everything in place, but that presumably necessitates, then,
revisiting the guidance regularly and maybe realising, as
circumstances develop and as
incidents occur, that, actually,
that base isn’t covered. So, could you just talk us through,
a little bit, the process of drafting the different guidance that
you have? I see that there was something on cross-party groups that
was published last week—
|
|
[29]
Ms White: Yes.
|
|
[30]
Llyr Gruffydd: —which always tend to be—
|
|
[31]
Ms White: I think you’ve put your finger on it exactly:
it’s an iterative process. One of the challenges for me has
always been that I wanted to try to make the register as
cost-effective as possible. So, the more that I’ve been able
to do with my very small team, ourselves, then, that is really what
keeps the cost down, because if you hand it over to lawyers and
consultants, then, potentially, the costs are going to escalate.
So, the approach that I’ve adopted, from the beginning, is
that I would write the guidance myself, which—as though I had
personally written the guidance. I’ve used the Government
legal service to provide me with legal advice to make sure that I
haven’t misdirected myself, but all the guidance that there
is has been written by me.
|
|
[32]
You’re absolutely correct that the
guidance that I wrote two years ago, which was the initial guidance
to enable people to sign up in the first place—I’m now
looking at it and thinking that it needs to be refreshed. And
it’s in exactly the way that you suggested, which is that
there have been experiences during the past couple of years that I
don’t think the legislation ever thought about, but,
actually, this legislation applies and brings in those
organisations that you might not ever have thought about ending up,
and they didn’t think about ending up on a register of
consultant lobbyists, like a think tank, for example.
|
|
[33]
And, yes, I have been doing some work
quite recently. I’ve been consulting on what constitutes a
relevant code of conduct and I’ve just issued a response to
that consultation. I’ve also issued some recent specialist
guidance for the providers of support services for all-party
parliamentary groups. Because those work in a variety of disparate
ways, and sometimes, where they get their finances from can be
quite complicated, trying to interpret the guidance in the light of
those disparate arrangements is a real challenge and I’ve had
to seek some legal advice from counsel in order to enable me to
interpret the legislation in the context of those complex
arrangements. In the year ahead, it’s my intention to refresh
my registration guidance, so that the pieces of specialist advice
that I’ve provided and the bits and pieces of interpretation
that I’ve done can all be brought together so it’s all
in one place, in a refreshed piece of guidance, which I’ll be
doing this summer.
|
|
[34]
Llyr Gruffydd: And you’re in the process of
writing.
|
|
[35]
Mr McLaren: Yes, very much so. And you’re right to mention
grey areas. Probably a better phrase might be a wee bit of
confusion around how the Act could be implemented, and it’s
always been clear to me that the guidance is going to be key to
making this operate effectively. So, yes, we are in the process of
doing it. I’ve had, I suppose, the opportunity, when we had a
bit of a run-in for the procurement process for the IT system, to
use my time well to go and speak to stakeholders. So, in the last
six months, I’ve really been talking to stakeholders of all
different opinions across the board. That’s been really
useful in terms of having conversations about the practicalities of
the Act. They’re able to bring to me scenarios that they have
for their organisations, whether they be large or small
organisations, and it’s allowed us to, sort of, soak that up,
if you like. So, I’m feeling that, now I’m starting to
begin to write the guidance, I’ve got a much better
understanding of how it actually feels out there for people
who’ll be users of the register itself, whether submitting
information returns, actual members of the public or interested
parties who will be interested in reading what’s on the
register.
|
|
[36]
Llyr Gruffydd: Thank you for that, but the guidance and the
procedures that we’re talking about will only be effective if
those who are subject to them know or realise that, actually, these
are things that they’re answerable for. So, could I just ask,
in terms of raising awareness—do you actively seek out people
who would, in your view, come under the legislation, or is it very
much sitting back and saying, ‘Well, the onus is on other
people to do the legwork’?
|
|
[37]
Ms White: Absolutely not. I’m a very proactive registrar.
So, the reason that we have the number of lawyers, accountants,
think tanks and now the providers of support services for all-party
parliamentary groups on the register that we do is because of the
work that I have done. There’s a whole range of ways in which
that’s been done. First of all, I believe that it’s
very important that I make myself available, and so at the moment,
for example, in the past week and again later on this week, I
actually go out to organisations and talk to their teams in order
that they can understand what the requirements are, and quite
often, that’s a bit of a revelation for them.
|
|
10:00
|
|
[38]
I have an annual stakeholder conference. This year, part of that
was a working session for compliance officers, so that they had an
opportunity to understand more fully and to engage with the—.
Lots of people think if they ask a question of detail, that
it’s an idiot question, that it’s not a good question
to ask. But, actually, the only bad question is the one that they
don’t ask, and I’d much rather that they came to me
with a question of detail, perhaps a precise communication, and
then I could provide a ruling on that. Over time, I’ve built,
I believe, a degree of trust and confidence, so that now
organisations feel that they can come to me, ask about things and
engage, and they’re not going to be rebuffed.
|
|
[39]
So, I think that being very open, welcoming, but also making it
clear that my first priority is the education of the sector, so
that they know what it is that’s expected—. Also, if
they feel that my first response is going to be a proportionate
response and I’m not going to start wielding an axe over
penalty notices and all the rest of it—that, really, for me,
is very much a last resort. I will use it and, indeed, have done
so, but I believe that it has to be a proportionate response and a
focus on communication and education, and that’s what
I’ve been doing.
|
|
[40]
Mr McLaren: Absolutely. I fully endorse Alison’s
strategy—it’s something we do ourselves in our team. We
obviously don’t have the register in place yet; that
hasn’t stopped us engaging, and engaging widely. I’ve
never said ‘no’ to a meeting or an event since
I’ve started and I don’t intend to for as long as I
can. We started primarily focusing on some of the membership groups
so we could allow that information to trickle out a little bit more
to the members. It’s an effective way to get our
communication across, so that’s where we’re starting.
We’ve also written to a few people as well who we thought it
may be worth having a chat with at an earlier stage to prepare them
for what’s coming ahead. That will never stop. I see that as
being a core part of the job, as Alison mentioned. It’s
something that we just do continuously, and that will be before and
after commencement of the Act.
|
|
[41]
Llyr Gruffydd: Good. Thanks.
|
|
[42]
Jayne Bryant: David.
|
|
[43]
David J. Rowlands: It’s rather following on from my
colleague’s questions, but our investigations so far have
centred on the definition of lobbyists, and I think, to a certain
extent, you’ve answered some of my queries, but how much do
you think the various organisations understand the requirements of
the different registers? Obviously, even between—when we
listened to you, you’ve both had different actual
interpretations of lobbyists. How do you feel that they are happy
with regard to knowing what’s required of them for the
registers and to clarify the information lobbyists are required to
provide on the different registers? Could you give a comment on
that?
|
|
[44]
Ms White: Do you want to go first, Billy?
|
|
[45]
Mr McLaren: Yes, certainly. Our definition of a lobbyist is
very wide-ranging. It includes not just consultant lobbyists but
in-house lobbyists and a whole range of people who would act on
their behalf. However, the actual lobbying itself has to be face to
face with a listed number of people, which in our case are
MSPs—Members of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish Ministers,
the Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Government and special
advisers who work for the Scottish Government. So, it has to be
face to face or by video-conference. That’s the, sort of,
remit, if you like. We call that, or the Act calls that
‘regulated lobbying’. So, I think, key to getting
stakeholders to understand this is to keep emphasising what
regulated lobbying actually means—that, primarily, it’s
orally and face to face, as I say. I think sometimes people get a
little bit confused about how wide-ranging the Act is, but
it’s good to go back and focus on what that actually
means.
|
|
[46]
In terms of styles of lobbying, if you like, it could be a whole
different type of style of lobbying. There are people there
who’ll be working for charities, the voluntary sector, and
there’ll be people there who will be working for consultant
lobbyists or PR firms, so I think it’s very wide-ranging in
definition in terms of the style of lobbying that could take place.
I know people might say ‘influence’ or
‘inform’ or—I think there’s a whole range
of different definitions that could be applied for that wide range
of lobbyists that the regulated lobbying covers.
|
|
[47]
Ms White: So, in the case of the UK Government legislation,
it’s quite a narrow definition and it references consultant
lobbying as being something that is carried on in the course of
business and in return for payment if a person makes communications
on behalf of another person and they’re registered under the
VAT Act, and none of the exceptions that are laid out apply, and
the communications are only with Ministers and/or Permanent
Secretaries. So, that’s a completely different definition
from the one that Billy was describing.
|
|
[48]
One of the challenges, I think, for the industry—and this is
something that I have been discussing with them—is that when
there are differential requirements—and, potentially, at the
moment, there are the UK Government requirements, there are the
Scottish Government requirements, there are the Irish Government
requirements, and there are the EU requirements, and, potentially
now also, the Welsh Government requirements. So, the challenge for
organisations is to understand all of those requirements, each of
which is overseen by a different registrar, and be able to collect
the information for those in addition to the information
they’re required to collect for voluntary registration. Many
of them also belong to a representative body that, as far as
they’re concerned, is a professional institution, and
they’re expected to subscribe to its code of conduct as
well.
|
|
[49]
So, the critical issue for them—and they’ve
communicated this to me—is that, first of all, they have to
understand those requirements. Nobody looks across all of them.
They’re each individually administered. They have to collect
different information for each, as well as potentially pay a fee.
The difficulty for them is more about the cost of compliance.
I’ve tried to do everything that I can, for example by
inviting Billy to come to my stakeholder conference and talk about
the sorts of things that he’s talking about today, and
he’s just invited me to go and address his stakeholder group,
which he referenced earlier. So, we try to work together as best we
can, but, of course, we’re implementing different legislative
requirements.
|
|
[50]
David J. Rowlands: Just following on from that a little bit,
despite your best endeavours to make sure that these people know
exactly how or if they need to comply, or whatever, what sort of
leeway is given to organisations that might mistakenly give
incorrect information to the register, and what leeway would be
given to organisations that do not register but are unaware that
they’re required to do so? It is a complex area, isn’t
it?
|
|
[51]
Ms White: I couldn’t agree more. To help with that,
I’ve issued some guidance on my approach to compliance that,
clearly, you’ve had the opportunity to reference. The
important thing for me—I said earlier that I wanted to, from
the beginning, adopt a proportionate response. I didn’t want
to constantly be wielding a big stick, although, clearly,
I’ve got those powers if I need to use them. So, the approach
that I tend to take, particularly for those organisations that are
already on the register—and one of the problems that
I’ve got currently is what I call
‘over-declaration’, and that’s organisations that
tell me that they’re declaring clients in the interest of
transparency or because they’re erring on the side of
caution. Now, the Act doesn’t require them to do either.
There’s nothing in the Act about transparency or erring on
the side of caution, but they’re trying to do the right thing
too hard, if you like. So, what I do is to work with them in order
to be able to help them to arrive at the correct conclusion about
what their client declaration should look like. Generally speaking,
as long as the approach is a positive approach from them, then I
would treat those as administrative errors.
|
|
[52]
But there have been situations where organisations have conducted
lobbying without being registered. Clearly, that’s a serious
issue because the law says that you must be registered before you
conduct such direct communications. The approach that I’ve
taken—and there are five organisations where I’ve
decided that, even though they conducted pre-registration lobbying,
it was in the public interest, and a proportionate response, for a
variety of reasons, was that I would not issue a penalty notice in
those circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that if such
reasons didn’t exist, I wouldn’t do so. Indeed, for one
organisation that had done exactly that, a penalty notice was
issued, and that was because the organisation wasn’t frank
and didn’t know what it was that was going on in its own
organisation. So, the directors didn’t have sufficient
compliance processes in place to ensure that they knew what their
staff were doing. So, that’s the sort of instance where a
penalty notice might be appropriate, but they are rare.
|
|
[53]
Mr McLaren: Of course, we don’t have the advantage of
having anything yet, but we have a couple of things in place that
might help that when we do move forward. When information returns
are submitted, they don’t go directly on to the
register—they will come through me and my team and
we’ll be able to look at the information returns. I think by
that method, we’ll be able to build up a degree of
consistency in approach, I hope, and mainly we’ll be able to
help people as they start to do these things for the first time. I
mentioned the trial familiarisation period that we’d have
this year as well; again, that’s to give people a bit of
space to have a practice, if you like, and to help their
understanding of what they have to submit. Again, it’s to try
and build upon some of the experiences Alison and the Irish and
others have had on over-reporting and unnecessary bureaucracy in
returns. So, we’re working to try and make sure we can sort
some of that out before it goes live on the register.
|
|
[54]
Jayne Bryant: Paul.
|
|
[55]
Paul Davies: Obviously the whole purpose of establishing these
registers is to provide transparency and to ensure that the public
is aware of who is lobbying. Can I just ask you, what role, Alison,
do you see in raising awareness amongst the public about the
information on these registers? Do you have a role in that? And
perhaps, Billy, you can tell us whether you envisage having a role
in making sure the public is aware of these registers.
|
|
[56]
Ms White: I think the answer to that must be ‘yes’.
I try to be as open and transparent as possible, so, for example,
one of the things that we have made investment in is having our own
independent website and I, to a limited extent, indulge in some
social media communications associated with the sort of work that I
and my team are doing. So, I’ve tried very hard within the
limited resources that we have to be able to spread the word.
I’m aware of the fact that students and researchers are
interested in the work that we do, and I have given time to the
work of those individuals to enable them to be able to understand
more fully the sort of work that I do. Additionally, I work very
positively with the media, so I’ve spoken to a number of
journalists. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m not able to
make comment personally about the legislation, but I always make
myself available to answer any questions in order to enable the
media to be able to communicate on my behalf about the sorts of
issues that, clearly, the public are asking questions
about.
|
|
[57]
So, I think being very open and
responsive—I don’t have a press office, there’s
just me, and a lot of members of the media have my personal contact
details and they just pick up the phone and ring me. I also
regularly meet with transparency organisations. Clearly, their view
about the legislation is—well, they have disparate views
about the legislation—sometimes negative—however, they
recognise the fact that in terms of what it is that I’m
trying to do, which is to implement the legislation in the best way
that it can be implemented, they respect that and we’re able
to have positive conversations. So, I think that having positive
conversations with a whole range of stakeholders is a very
important part of my work.
|
|
[58]
Mr McLaren: It’s certainly our intention. I think
it’s very clear from the passage of the Bill that the
intention is to see who lobbied who, when, where and on what. The
public is part of that. I think we’d need to build up a
sufficient content on the register to make it engaging and
interesting for the public, but it’s certainly part of our
marketing strategy that we will be putting in place this year as we
roll out towards commencement and beyond that, and we put some
resources behind that marketing strategy. I mean, again, our system
is free to use and it should be easy to use, and the simplicity of
it is the principle that we’re trying to bring forward so
that the general public would be interested in seeing what’s
put onto the register.
|
|
[59]
Paul Davies: Because it’s been suggested to us by previous
witnesses that contextual information should actually be published
and provided with the registers to help, obviously, the public
understand and interpret the data. Do you do that already, Alison?
Is there contextual information published?
|
|
10:15
|
|
[60]
Ms White: To a certain extent, yes. Funnily enough, one of the
things I’ve been looking at recently, and it’s in the
context of the work that I’ve been doing in consulting
on what constitutes a relevant code of conduct, and I’ve been
looking at the words that appear on the face of the register in
that regard, and I’m not particularly happy with them at the
moment—. So, one of the things that I want to do, precisely
for that reason, is to change that wording a little bit in order
that it can be more explanatory to a user of the register. I think
that kind of thing needs to be constantly kept under review. I
think positive input really is welcomed and that’s where
it’s come from—the need to change it has come out of
the consultation I conducted.
|
|
[61]
Mr McLaren: I’d welcome discussions on that. The
primary focus will be to get the register up and running and to get
some content on it. Clearly, as you’re aware, there’s a
review by parliamentary committee two years after we start
operation, so if we commence the Act early next year, we’ll
be looking at a review starting in early 2020, and I’m sure
the committee would want to look at how that information’s
being used. We certainly aim to be able to export information from
the system so that it’s there for people to use in a CSV file
format. Some form of assessment will be done of what’s going
onto the register, and I’ll be interested to hear views on
that, and as we move away from the implementation phase, to see
where we could go with that suggestion.
|
|
[62]
Paul Davies: Now, you mentioned some of the compliance
mechanisms available to you. Do you believe that the compliance
mechanisms available to you at the moment are sufficient for you to
do your job?
|
|
[63]
Ms White: The challenge for me is that the compliance
mechanisms are what are set out in the legislation, and it’s
my responsibility to work with them. I haven’t—
|
|
[64]
Paul Davies: Would you be able to change them?
|
|
[65]
Ms White: It’s not something on which I’m able
to comment, I’m afraid. May I just say, though, that in terms
of my ability to be able to do my work, I haven’t identified
that I haven’t been able to do my work because of a lack of
compliance mechanisms? If I have been required to issue a penalty
notice, for example, actually, the industry sees that as the
ultimate ignominy. I don’t set out to name and shame
organisations, but the fact that a penalty notice has been issued
is something that organisations—it’s not the amount of
money, it’s the fact that there’s been a penalty notice
associated with their company. That, for them, is an extremely
serious issue, particularly those organisations that subscribe to a
professional code of conduct. They see it as being awful, dreadful,
not something that they really want to be associated with their
organisation, and I think that’s why you get the
over-declaration, erring on the side of caution, because
organisations do take this very seriously.
|
|
[66]
Mr McLaren: Again, I’m picking up from the sector that
nobody really wants to be named and shamed in any way. I think that
especially as it’s now an Act, there’s a general
feeling out there that I’m getting from stakeholders that
they want to be compliant and they want to work with us to make
sure they are complying. So, the sanctions seem appropriate.
|
|
[67]
Jayne Bryant: Llyr.
|
|
[68]
Llyr Gruffydd: I just wanted to pick up on your reference to
the website. Clearly, yours isn’t quite there yet. How much
is it used? What evidence is there that the register is regularly
searched and that people are actually using it as an effective tool
in their day-to-day work?
|
|
[69]
Ms White: I’m not in a position, Mr Gruffydd, to be
able to answer your question precisely, because one of the things
that we have an intention to do this year is to be able to use the
mechanisms that make measurements of those hits on the website,
using the technical terminology, that are taking place. One of the
things, though, that we’ve recently done, and this is based
on user feedback, is to try to make our website a bit fresher, a
bit more user-friendly. Previously, it was a bit too stiff, if I
can describe it thus. So, I have to say that we’re not quite
where I would like us to be in terms of the use of the sorts of
measurement mechanisms that, nowadays, organisations use to be able
to discover the usage. I hope that, during the course of the year
ahead, that’s something that I’ll be able to focus a
little bit more on.
|
|
[70]
Llyr Gruffydd: Okay. So, can I ask—both pieces of legislation
are asymmetrical, I suppose, in terms of the responsibility being
on the lobbyist, to register, to provide the content for the
register and to declare what’s happening. Are there examples
of Ministers, Permanent Secretaries or others coming to you and
saying, ‘Actually, I think we’ve just met somebody who
should have been registered’?
|
|
[71]
Ms White: I have had no such examples. Having said that, what
I’ve found is that when I have gone to them—
|
|
[72]
Llyr Gruffydd: Them being?
|
|
[73]
Ms White: To Ministers’ offices. They are extremely
helpful in terms of providing me with the information that I ask
for. For the UK Government, Ministers are required to publish their
diaries on a quarterly basis, and I make use of that information to
check from the opposite end the veracity of the information
that’s been declared to me.
|
|
[74]
Llyr Gruffydd: Because I’m just wondering whether you have any
evidence of Ministers and others actively checking before they meet
with lobbyists whether they’re registered.
|
|
[75]
Ms White: I have no such evidence, but I haven’t asked
for it.
|
|
[76]
Llyr Gruffydd: Okay, so it could well be that it’s a
retrospective process if you’re the one wading through
diaries to check.
|
|
[77]
Ms White: Yes. I’m afraid I do wade through.
|
|
[78]
Llyr Gruffydd: That’s reassuring.
|
|
[79]
Ms White: And actually, it’s proved to be a very useful
exercise, because that has helped me to identify more than one
organisation in the past year that should have been registered and
wasn’t, for exactly the reason that Mr Davies identified
earlier.
|
|
[80]
Mr McLaren: I was going to add that, again, there’s nothing
yet to see—
|
|
[81]
Llyr Gruffydd: No, sure.
|
|
[82]
Mr McLaren: —but there’s certainly a full intention.
We’re slightly different in this respect in that that the
Parliament has the duty to implement the register. So, there is an
emphasis on the Parliament not to create any reputational damage as
a result of that and, of course, Ministers are MSPs. So, I think
there’s a willingness on both the part of the Government and
Members to help with this process.
|
|
[83]
Llyr Gruffydd: But I presume also that you would encourage all those
who are having meeting with lobbyists to be regularly checking
whether they’re registered.
|
|
[84]
Ms White: Yes, and funnily enough, on Friday of this week
I’m conducting a piece of training for one of the private
offices, and that’s one of the things that I’ll be
emphasising. The critical issue for me to communicate to private
offices is that it is not my role to embarrass Ministers; the
critical issue for me is making sure that the register is just
reflective of what the legislation requires. And so, there is no
embarrassment intended in terms of checking information whatsoever.
It’s just about making sure that I’m doing my job
properly.
|
|
[85]
Llyr Gruffydd: Okay.
|
|
[86]
Ms White: Thank you.
|
|
[87]
Jayne Bryant: David.
|
|
[88]
David J. Rowlands:
I suppose the whole ethos of lobbyists is
to gain, perhaps at certain times, significant advantages for their
clients. So, how do you work out the proportionality of the fines
if they step outside the rules?
|
|
[89]
Ms White: Well, you’ve put your finger on the key word,
which is proportionality. What I tend to look at—. And there
have only been four penalty notices. One of those was for
unregistered lobbying, and that was for £2,000. There were
three issued last year for very late payments of the annual fee.
So, those organisations were conducting unregistered lobbying
whilst they hadn’t paid their fee, and those were each were
£300. So, I’ve tried to make them proportionate,
consistent with the time and effort that has to be spent by me and
my office in order to be able to establish what went wrong and what
happened.
|
|
[90]
David J. Rowlands:
And do you actually make that decision on
the value of the fine?
|
|
[91]
Ms White: Yes, it’s entirely my decision. Clearly, I
always take proper legal advice, but, nevertheless, it’s
within the jurisdiction of the registrar to make that
decision.
|
|
[92]
David J. Rowlands:
Thank you.
|
|
[93]
Jayne Bryant: Thank you very much. Just lastly, perhaps, Alison,
you could explain a little bit more about your work with the
all-party parliamentary groups? You alluded to it a little bit in
your—
|
|
[94]
Ms White: Of course. Yes, I’d be delighted to that. The
support services that are provided—it doesn’t really
make any difference what kind of organisation it is. And generally
speaking, the same rules apply to the providers of support services
for all-party parliamentary groups as to any other organisation.
However, the particular complexity arises in a situation where
those organisations have many members. So, you might think of an
all-party parliamentary group as just having parliamentary members,
but there are a small number of groups—and some of those are
very long-established—that may have hundreds and hundreds of
members, all of whom pay an annual subscription. And the difficulty
in those situations is in working out whether or not those are
clients as far as the legislation is concerned.
|
|
[95]
One of the things that I particularly had
to look at was whether or not such organisations might be
able to call on particular exemptions in the Act. So, those
organisations would conduct communications on behalf of a
particular class or body of people, the revenues of that
organisation would be wholly or mainly raised from that body of
people, and the communications were incidental to the normal work
of that organisation. All of those criteria have to be in place.
So, if one of them isn’t, then the organisation would be
exempt. I’m sorry—if one of them isn’t, the
organisation would have to be registered. The exemption can’t
be called upon unless all of those criteria are jointly in
place.
|
|
[96]
The difficulty then is in applying the requirements of the
legislation to the complex arrangements of the all-party
parliamentary groups. Arising from that, groups that didn’t
anticipate that they would have to be registered will in fact have
to not only register but also backdate their registration. Having
now issued the guidance, I’m working with those organisations
currently to make sure that that happens.
|
|
[97]
Jayne Bryant: But you say that’s quite a lot of
organisations that you are—
|
|
[98]
Ms White: No, it’s a very small number.
|
|
[99]
Jayne Bryant: A very small number. Okay.
|
|
[100] Ms White:
Yes, because there have been quite a few organisations where those
criteria applied, but what I’ve had to do is to make
individual determinations to establish whether or not the three
criteria on which an exemption could be called upon apply to the
individual circumstances of different organisations, and I’ve
had to look at, since the register opened, the total number of
communications that those organisations have conducted with
Ministers or permanent secretaries, as well as the situation that
the organisation is in apropos the membership of that organisation.
Some of those organisations provide services for many all-party
parliamentary groups, some of them only provide services for one,
and the situation can be different, depending on which of those
applies.
|
|
[101] Jayne
Bryant: Okay. Just from me, lastly, the UK register is
supported by 1.9 full-time equivalents, I believe, and
Scotland’s due for one, I think. How do you feel about that?
Do you think that’s enough, or do you—? Is it
adequate?
|
|
[102] Ms White:
The way that it works is that, in order to be able to implement the
requirements of the legislation, I go to Ministers and make a case
for the resources that are needed, both people and technical and
communications resources, in order to be able to implement the
legislation. So, every year, I agree a budget with Ministers, which
is then published in my business plan. That has been what’s
been happening over the past few years and that works well. In the
event that there was some argument between me and Ministers about
the level of resources that were to be made available then,
potentially, if I thought that I needed resources that Ministers
weren’t prepared to provide, I would consider that to be a
compromise to my independence. But that situation has never been in
place. I’ve always been able to have positive discussions
with Ministers about the level of resources that were needed and
we’ve been able to agree a business plan without particular
difficulty.
|
|
[103] Jayne
Bryant: Thank you. Billy, do you anticipate—?
|
|
[104] Mr
McLaren: We are parliamentary staff, essentially. So, two new
posts, you’re right to say that—myself and my
colleague, James Drummond. We call upon staff, as you would do in
the Assembly, from different specialisms—so we have our
lawyers, we have our marketing, we have our press office, we have
our events staff. There’s a whole range of different people
who can help us in terms of resources. If I feel that we’re
getting to the stage where the amount of returns that are coming in
are getting larger than we expect, I’m sure we’d be
able to call upon extra resources to do so.
|
|
[105] Jayne
Bryant: Llyr.
|
|
[106]
Llyr Gruffydd: I’m interested in the grey area, still. If
I’m a lobbyist, if I work for an organisation that is
registered, and I’m actively, through my work, pursuing a
certain policy issue with the Government, let’s say, but I
meet with an elected representative as a constituent, is there not
a risk there that I may abuse my status as a
constituent?
|
|
[107]
Ms White: I was there ahead of you, regrettably.
|
|
[108]
Llyr Gruffydd: Okay, good.
|
|
[109]
Ms White: This is covered in my guidance. So, if a consultant
lobbyist meets with a constituency MP who happens to be a
Minister—even if they’re a Minister in an unrelated
area, they are still a Minister, and so, the determination
I’ve made is that they would be required to declare that
meeting.
|
|
10:30
|
|
[110] Llyr
Gruffydd: Okay. And what’s your take?
|
|
[111] Mr
McLaren: It’s the same. It being a Minister, it’s
not exempt. They’ve exempted themselves from that,
essentially. But it is an area that—in terms of constituency
and local exemptions, there’s an exemption in the Act around
that. It will take a little bit of explaining in the guidance, I
think—what is a local issue, and at what point would that
local issue become something bigger than a local issue. We’ve
been talking to stakeholders about that and how we might define
that.
|
|
[112]
Llyr Gruffydd: Could I just ask as well about whether you’ve
had any feedback from the lobbying sector as to the additional
bureaucracy or the processes in place? I suppose it’s law;
they have little choice but to join you on this journey, but,
surely, being in dialogue with them, you will have picked up if
there are any issues that they may have about the level of
additional work that’s burdened on them.
|
|
[113]
Ms White: Yes. I would say that the feedback that I’ve
had is less about the requirements for registration, as far as my
register is concerned; it’s more about there are now multiple
registers, and others envisaged, as well as the voluntary
registers. The cost of compliance associated with multiple
registers in multiple jurisdictions is what organisations have
reported to me they are most concerned about. It’s not so
much the cost of paying for the register; it’s more about the
cost of compliance over multiple different
jurisdictions.
|
|
[114] Llyr Gruffydd: Good point. Thank you.
|
|
[115]
Jayne Bryant: David.
|
|
[116]
David J. Rowlands:
Alison, you mentioned that you’ve
had to give further guidance to certain organisations with regard
to the fact of whether they should be registered, et cetera. Are
you at liberty to give us some idea of what those organisations
are, or who those organisations are?
|
|
[117]
Ms White: Yes. In the earlier part of my work, I did a lot of
work with lawyers, so I interacted with their representative and
regulatory bodies. I did a lot of interviews with the legal media,
and I visited the magic circle lawyers. I had meetings with the
next tier down. I made lots of presentations to partners, and, as a
result of that, we’ve got a number of lawyers now that are on
the register. That’s because they occasionally conduct direct
communications in a way that is defined by the legislation.
It’s not because they consider themselves to be lobbyists. In
fact, it’s fairly ignominious, as far as they’re
concerned, they tell me.
|
|
[118]
The same applies to accountants around
the same kind of time period, and the next group that I then moved
on to look at was think tanks. A lot of this came from—and I
was reading some of the feedback from the evidence that you’d
called for from different organisations—. And one of the
things that they referenced constantly to me is the need for a
level playing field, so that everybody who ought to be registered
should be registered. It doesn’t make any difference whether
or not they’re a public affairs organisation, whether
they’re a lawyer, whether they’re a think tank. The
view of those organisations is that, if the legislation requires
it, then everybody should be subject to it, and, of course,
that’s my job—that’s what I do. So, what I want
to make sure is that I am as thorough and assiduous as I can
possibly be in making sure that those organisations that should be
registering, whatever kind of organisation they are, are on the
register. That’s why I’ve been doing this work in the
way that I have—to try to make sure that that’s the
case.
|
|
[119]
David J. Rowlands:
So, is it confided to professional
organisations?
|
|
[120]
Ms White: I’m sorry.
|
|
[121]
David J. Rowlands:
Is it confined to professional
organisations?
|
|
[122]
Ms White: Well, it’s tended to be sectors. So, I’ve
looked at the legal sector; I’ve looked at the accountancy
sector. One of the things in the year ahead that I will do is some
cross-referencing between registers—so, those organisations
who are on another register but aren’t on mine. So, that kind
of exercise, I find, is very helpful in establishing whether or not
organisations should be registered. Lots of organisations—the
lawyers, for example—advertise the provision of public
affairs services, but one of the things that I found, and I
described this at my stakeholder conference as over-egging the
pudding—. So, quite often, the marketeers on a website will
perhaps rather over-egg in terms of the services that are being
provided, and, when one enquires into it in more depth, one finds
that it may be slightly less than what was suggested, or perhaps
it’s being done in another country or another
jurisdiction.
|
|
[123]
David J. Rowlands:
Thank you.
|
|
[124]
Jayne Bryant: Any more questions? No. Thank you very much for
coming in today to give us evidence. You will receive a transcript
of today’s proceedings that you can check to see that
everything is accurate. Thank you for giving evidence to us
today.
|
|
[125]
Ms White: It’s been a tremendous pleasure. Thank you very
much indeed.
|
|
10:35
|
|
|
Cynnig o dan Reol
Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o’r
Cyfarfod
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public
from the Meeting
|
|
