The Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments (SPPA) Committee recently published findings of its inquiry into committee effectiveness, which focused on three key themes – committee structure, elected conveners, and evaluation. With the support of an appointed adviser, Dr Danielle Beswick (University of Birmingham), the Committee explored wider models and approaches to committee structures. The inquiry was supported by both internal and external evidence.
To support the inquiry, SPICe carried out internal research focused on the history of committees and how the current situation compares with previous years. This used internally collated Scottish Parliament data (taken from the SPICe statistical volumes and Official Report, with support from SPICe’s in-house statistician). A joint research paper produced by SPICe and Dr Beswick was published at the outset of the inquiry, and recently added to with additional research carried out for the Committee during evidence-taking.
This blog delves into that research and considers how Parliamentary data might be used in informing committee sizes and structures and understanding business patterns to address some of the challenges raised in evidence to the Committee. As the famous Aristotle saying goes “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”.
Whilst the data attempts to set out some of the patterns and trends in committee business and contextual factors that influence it, it must be emphasised that committees set their own work programmes, including how to approach scrutiny of referred work such as legislation. This means that the reasons for committees’ sitting hours or the work they cover are undoubtedly far more complex than can be captured within statistics.
What did statistics need to test?
One of the key themes to emerge in evidence to the SPPA inquiry is a sense that Scottish Parliament committees are busier than ever, and that there is more pressure on members.
But how to measure “busyness”?
The duration of committee meetings is one measure that can be explored; however this should be looked at with wider context in mind – some committees meet fortnightly instead of weekly (or have in the past), and some are constrained by their Thursday meeting slots, when committees aim to close their meetings in advance of Chamber business beginning at 11:40, earlier than on other sitting days.
Comparing data between parliamentary sessions is challenging because of data gaps, and because of changes to timetabling. An example of this would be the changes to sitting hours at the start of Session 4, when the Parliament moved from the three weekly sitting days (Tuesday-Thursday) consisting of 1.5 consecutive days of committee business followed by 1.5 days of Chamber business, to the current structure of having committees sit in the morning and the Chamber in the afternoon. The Parliament also switched from 4-year sessions to 5-year sessions at this point.
We explored busyness from multiple directions to understand what might create a picture of what drives busyness, and in which areas changes could be made to balance and ease the pressure on committees.
Remits and workload
Committee remits and structures have typically broadly mirrored the structure and remits of the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretaries. This has meant, at times, certain committees facing the challenge of managing a broad range of subject areas or a very heavy workload of legislative scrutiny. However, as the Committee’s report acknowledges, Committee remits and Cabinet Secretary remits do not always match exactly and this can also complicate the lines of accountability. The following infographic shows the reality of committee remits in comparison to Cabinet Secretary remits – rarely is there a single connection.
These complex lines of accountability mean that there have been times where a piece of committee work could be seen to fall within the remit of more than one committee, and where legislation could be referred to one of multiple potential committees. This creates the risk of duplicated work, or the committee most familiar with a policy area not being the one to lead on scrutiny of it. A recent example highlighted in evidence to the Committee’s work is the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. This bill was scrutinised by the Net-Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, but was also highly relevant to the remit of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee.
This complexity around policy areas also carries from one session to another, when subjects can move around. Case study work shows that, reassuringly, where remits have passed back and forth, legacy advice has generally been carried across to the new committee. This was evident when culture passed from the Session 2 Enterprise and Culture Committee to the Session 3 Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, when suggestions on scrutiny of Creative Scotland were taken forward. Work by the Session 4 Education and Culture Committee on BBC Scotland was continued by the Session 5 Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee when responsibilities moved.
Legislation and workload
During the SPPA inquiry, the amount of legislation and the burden and restrictions this can place on committees was a running theme. This was both in terms of squeezing out time for proactive and reactive work, and the impact on the working culture of committees, in the way in which legislation can result in members acting more closely along party lines.
Through all sessions, regardless of length, legislative activity always peaks in the final year, making it the busiest year of the session. However, in line with the remit discussion above, the way that this affects committees can vary significantly based on both the breadth of the committee remit and the Government’s legislative programme.
Additional challenges
As well as challenges around how busy committees are, issues about individual MSPs workload and the impact of membership changes on culture were areas raised in which statistics could potentially add to an understanding of lived experience of committee membership.
Pressure on members was often referenced during the inquiry in the context of members sitting on multiple committees, which can be particularly challenging when working on a committee with a broad or complex remit, or a high volume of legislation.
There were also suggestions during the inquiry that churn in committee membership impacts on committee effectiveness, because it can lead to changes in committee dynamics and loss of expertise and momentum.
Many of the areas explored are often linked back to two factors outwith the gift of both the Parliament and its Committees – the party structure in Parliament following an election, and decisions made at a government level on cabinet size, ministerial remits, and legislative programme. Accordingly, the Committee’s final evidence session was with political parties and the former Minister for Parliamentary Business.
Context – committee changes over time
Throughout the life of the Parliament, there have been mandatory committees specified in Standing Orders which have remained relatively consistent with six committees each session. These include the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee and Public Audit Committee.
Subject committees, by comparison, are formed to look at issues or topics, and typically mirror Cabinet Secretary remits. There have consistently been committees focused on health, education, local government, rural issues, economy and justice. Additional committees focused on priority issues such as COVID-19, social security and climate change have varied by session. Some subjects, such as culture, skills and transport, have moved between different committees over time. There have also been short life committees and sub-committees formed to examine bills or specific areas. Excluding short-life committees, the number of committees at any one time has ranged between 14-17, with 15-16 committees being the most common number.
Whilst the number of committees has not changed much from session to session, the size of committees has changed more dramatically. This has created a variation in the number of committee ‘seats’ across the life of the Scottish Parliament. This detail provides a useful backdrop to the perceptions of pressure and committees’ ability to respond to work referred by the Government.
At the most, in Session 1, there were 138 Committee seats at the start of the session, with committees having between 7-11 members. At the least, there were 96 committee seats at the end of Session 3, with almost all committees having 8 members. The number of committee seats grew again to a second peak of 132 at the start of Session 5 when most committees had 7-11 members.
There are currently 109 committee seats across subject and mandatory committees, the lowest number since Session 3. There is more variance in committee sizes compared to most previous sessions, with four 5 member committees and two 10 member committees at either end of the spectrum. The average number of seats on committees has reduced in line with this – in Session 6 this fell to an average of 7 members per committee, having been a consistent average of 8 members in all previous sessions.
The use of ad-hoc, bill and sub-committees has reduced dramatically. There were 5-11 of these per session in Sessions 1-5, but only one in Session 6 (the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee. The COVID-19 Committee, despite not lasting all session, was a subject committee). Overall, this would suggest a reduced committee burden on members, but the evidence in the Committee’s report suggests that members are experiencing the opposite.
What impacts on committee busyness?
Government and party sizes
The size and number of committees and size of parties within the Parliament will impact on the number of Committee places to be filled and the number of members available to sit on committee roles.
Within the parties in Government or coalition, members with ministerial roles become unavailable to sit on committees as this would put them in a position of being expected to scrutinise the administration of which they are a part. This means that the size of the Government, a decision made at a governmental level, will impact the number of members of these parties in the committee pool. This, combined with changes at a ministerial level, can impact on committee member and convener churn.
Unlike Government ministers, Members in leadership and spokesperson roles in other parties are still able to sit on committees, but do not typically do so. There are exceptions in some smaller parties – historically this has been the case with Green Party members, excepting during its time in coalition during Session 6. The Presiding Officer and Deputies do not sit on committees.
Committee membership vs Government size over time
Both majority and government sizes have varied over time. The size of governing parties and coalitions, after Presiding Officer elections, has ranged from 47 to 72 members. Government sizes have ranged from 16 to 29 ministers, with larger cabinets appearing towards the end of Session 4.
There has been a marked growth in the number of non-Cabinet Ministers over time. In the coalition governments of Sessions 1 and 2 there were always more Cabinet members than non-Cabinet Ministers. This changed as time went on, but it was at the start of Session 6 with a return to a coalition Government that the number of Ministers increased to almost double the size of the Cabinet (it since reduced when the SNP/Green Party coalition dissolved). The further devolution of powers to Scotland in 2012 and 2016, along with changes to social and political priorities (for example, a greater global focus on tackling climate change), will have led to the creation of broader and new portfolio areas and may partially explain the increase in ministerial posts.
Proportionate to party size, a larger government means that the proportion of “largest party members” in ministerial posts, and therefore unavailable for committee roles, has grown over time, ranging from 26% in Session 2 (for Labour, with coalition partners Liberal Democrats having 35% of its members in government) to 46% (SNP in Session 5). At present, despite the recent reduction in cabinet size, this still stands at 38%*.
An initial comparison of cabinet size against committee seats illustrates the challenges this might bring. At the start of Session 1, when the number of committee seats was at a peak, the cabinet represented 29% of members of the governing parties, leaving 51 backbenchers. With committee seats based roughly on proportionate party size, these 51 members would have had to fill around 77 committee seats, so 1.5 seats each. At the start of Session 6, with a larger cabinet, despite there being fewer committee seats, each backbencher of the governing party would have needed to fill approximately 1.6 committee seats.
In addition to the Government increasing in size, there have been more cabinet reshuffles in recent years. This has meant that the committee pool has not been static – members going in and out of ministerial posts appears to have contributed to churn in committee membership, and has meant less consistency in the ministers appearing before committees. Reshuffles are of course not limited to Scottish Government roles – opposition parties will also make changes to their shadow cabinets and spokesperson lineups which result in changes to committee memberships.
Circumstances such as MSPs taking a leave of absence, standing down, or leaving/changing parties can also contribute to churn on committees. This has been higher in Session 6 than in previous sessions – across the current three largest parties combined (SNP, Conservative and Labour), there are currently eight fewer members at present than there were at the start of the session because of members leaving, changing or being suspended from parties, or a seat being lost through a by-election. In previous sessions changes like this only resulted in two or three fewer members in these three parties combined.
There has never been an MSP move from one of the three largest parties to another within this group, rather, moves have been to smaller parties (e.g. Jamie Greene from the Scottish Conservatives to Liberal Democrats in 2025) or to parties not previously represented in that session (Ash Regan to Alba in 2023, and Michelle Ballantyne (in 2021) and Graham Simpson (in 2025) to Reform UK). Looking at changes to parties overall, Session 3 was the only session where all five parties represented in the Scottish Parliament ended the session with the same number of members as they started with.
Membership churn on committees
The turnover rate for committee members in Session 6 (as of 2 October 2025), shows that for every committee seat this session, there have been 2.6 members. By comparison, Session 5 had 2.5 members per seat and Session 4 had 2.8 members per seat by the close of session.
At the point of publication, 30 committee members who were appointed at the start of Session 6 have remained on the same committee (28%). In Session 5, this was 27 (21%), and in Session 4 this was 19 (16%). Only one committee in Session 6 has had had no member stay in place throughout the session. This is an improvement on recent sessions – three committees in Session 5, and five in Session 4, had no consistent member throughout. There has also been more consistency in conveners, with more staying in place throughout the session (8), and fewer convener changes overall than in Session 5 (18) and the same number as Session 4 (12).
This story of consistency has, however, played out slightly differently in Conveners Group in Session 6. Across all sessions, most committees have had one or two conveners across the session, but over time there has been an increase in the number of committees which have had multiple changes, i.e., three or four conveners in a session. This is one way in which churn on Conveners Group has increased, but there is also another pattern emerging.
In the past, conveners may have moved between committees. This would mean that the membership of Conveners Group didn’t change, only who represented each committee. In Session 6 there have been more conveners moving on to ministerial roles, and more conveners being appointed from outwith the existing ‘pool’ of conveners, creating more churn on Conveners Group as a result. Based on the equivalent point in the session, there has been an average of 1.9 conveners per committee in Session 6, compared to 1.8 in Session 4 and 1.5 in Session 5.
Impact of remits on committee sitting hours
One of the only meaningful comparisons for exploring sitting hours is to look at the committees which have retained effectively the same remit, under broadly comparable structures, from one session to the next. Example comparisons show that:
- Between Sessions 2 and 3, the Rural and European committees saw the least change in cumulative sitting hours. The Justice committee had a fall in sitting time, of 22%. The sitting hours of the Equal Opportunities Committee rose by 63%.
- Between Sessions 4 and 5, the sitting hours of the Equalities and Local Government committees remained the least changed with only a 6% increase in both. The sitting hours of all the other committees with unchanged remits fell, most notably Justice by 25%, Health by 30% and Finance by 41%.
This makes it clear that remit isn’t likely to be the sole driver of how busy a committee will be. The change in Government in Session 3, and from majority to minority government in Session 5, will undoubtedly have had a significant impact on portfolio priorities, so these fluctuations are natural and could potentially be anticipated based on manifestos and programmes for government.
Impact of legislation on sitting hours
The quantity and length of bills, length of time taken for bills to pass, and change in length of bills between introduction and passing can be explored at a top level to understand changes in the legislative burden on committees over time.
Overall, the number of bills has increased over time between Session 1 and Session 5, excepting a dip in Session 3. Session 6 has seen fewer bills introduced than the past two sessions (including at the equivalent point in session). However, the length of time taken to scrutinise bills has extended, with an increase in bills taking over a year in the parliamentary scrutiny phase. There are still twenty-six bills in progress which are not represented in our analysis. Not including bills which have been subject to legal challenge, six current bills have been in progress for over a year.
We also explored the length of bills (in pages) at introduction and passing. There has been a trend towards more dramatic differences in length, implying that more changes are being made to draft legislation. Interestingly, in Session 6 there have been no private or committee bills, which have featured in every previous session.
Over time, the justice committees have faced the highest legislative burden over time. Committees covering local government, rural affairs and health typically also have high numbers of bills to scrutinise. The data shows that economy and finance committees, and less often education committees usually find their legislative burden lighter at the start of the Parliamentary session, then ramping up further into the session.
As noted, the final year of the session is when legislative activity is at its peak. Interestingly, the addition of a fifth year to the Parliamentary session in Session 4 did not appear to ease this pressure:
- Overall, for the 11 Committees whose remits remained similar between Session 3 and Session 4, the ‘final year’ workload increases averaged 102%, compared to 59% the previous session.
- Looking at Session 5, the Year 5 increases were less notable, averaging just 28% but with some variance.
- Education saw sitting hours increase by 189% between years 4 and 5 of Session 4. It did not have the highest number of bills, or sitting hours, but the timing of the bills it scrutinised meant the “change in pace” from one year to the next was the highest.
The stories we couldn’t tell
Exploring the impact of primary legislation on the workload of committees is challenging as it is not possible to collate statistics on how long committees spent examining bills during meetings, as distinct from other inquiry work. At present the data available, and the systems for recording Parliamentary data, record time spent in public session, and in private, but do not give a breakdown by item or type of business.
We can see how many times a type of business appeared on an agenda, but this doesn’t tell us why, or for how long. Committees might choose to hold two panels on scrutiny of a bill on the same day, which would appear as one item, or on two days, which would mean two counts in the statistics even if the total time spent on the two panels was identical. It is also important to note that time spent on bills is influenced by committees’ own decisions on their scrutiny approach, so exploring sitting times and volume of referred business only tells a partial story about why committees might be busy.
Looking at numbers of bills, the length of time taken for a bill to pass or page length, has given us trends, but it tells an incomplete story. Short bills can be incredibly technical and impact on other legislation, requiring detailed scrutiny, or may be framework legislation which prompt a broad Stage 1 investigation. Long bills may contain lengthy annexes such as reference lists but be uncomplicated in nature, requiring less scrutiny time. How then to understand whether the drafting approach to legislation has an impact? Looking at numbers of amendments at Stage 2, including party breakdown, is one potential approach, but this data isn’t collated. Further categorising bill type and applying this to sitting times data would also be useful, but as noted the data to do this is not currently collated.
Further research, such as mapping bills assigned to committees against sitting times for those committees, or carrying out a qualitative exploration into the sitting hours of one committee over time, could offer insights. Projects like this call for a level of time and resource which is beyond what could be done for the Committee Effectiveness inquiry, and what is typically within the scope of research support for committees, but could be insightful as academic endeavours.
In evidence to the Committee, Professor Diana Stirbu (London Metropolitan University) explained:
Data about the work of the Parliament and the work of the committees should be available for institutions such as higher education institutions and researchers, so that proper evaluations and research can be conducted. Once data and insights from the Parliament are available, many people, such as us on this panel, will be very interested in analysing that data and communicating it much more broadly than this particular forum.
When it comes to data collection, SPICe collates a large volume of Parliamentary data in the annual Statistics Volume. The analysis based on this data that has formed part of this inquiry work has illustrated how this data can be used, and where additional data and analysis may be useful in future.
Conclusions
A light-touch exploration of patterns in committee sitting hours indicates that there are some factors which could help to inform thinking on committee structures, size and sitting days, especially for the subject committees which dominate sitting hours.
We can see, for instance, that Health, Criminal Justice and Rural have consistently had high numbers of sitting hours compared to other committees.
The pressure in Year 5 of a session will undoubtedly vary based on the legislative programme, and most committees will be impacted, but Education has – to date – been the subject committee most susceptible to big increases in sitting hours towards the end of sessions. The mandatory committees that may have more consistent workloads through the session and make up a smaller proportion of overall sitting hours, are also more likely to see their sitting hours increase in the final year of the session (particularly Equalities, Petitions and Finance).
However, there will always be elements of unpredictability, and structural changes may be limited in addressing issues like membership churn. And ultimately, the priorities of the Government will also influence which committees are busiest.
Can the stats tell us the ideal committee structures?
Regardless of the size of committees, the size of cabinets, or party decisions on who will sit on committees, it would be hard to guarantee that no Member would sit on more than one Committee. For instance, during the past historic lows in committee seat numbers and cabinet size in Session 3, the number of members sitting on two committees was similar to current figures. This was due to a broader spread of seats across parties.
Essentially, it would be impossible to make structural changes that guaranteed no member would sit on two committees, and ultimately, this is for parties to decide. The SPPA Committee found that there is an argument for committee structures being set only once the make-up of a new Parliament is known. This is particularly pertinent when considering how recommendations arising from the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit on gender balance targets might be applied without placing additional burdens on female MSPs from specific parties. Taking these challenges into account, the Committee opted in its report to address challenges as far as possible without losing flexibility, by recommending that committees should ordinarily have 7 members, but could be up to 10 members.
The makeup of the Government, its maturity and whether it is a majority or minority government clearly impacts committees on various levels. A change of Government may lead to busier committees at the start of session as they become familiar with new policy priorities, as was the case in Session 3. A majority government may be more likely to lead to an intense final year push, as was the case in Session 4. And a coalition or returning government may hit the ground running, introducing more bills in its first year, as was the case in Session 2 and Session 6.
And the stats?
They can tell us some of the story. As time goes on, we can test assumptions – there hasn’t been more churn on committees this session than in the past, but this session is on track to have the most sitting hours, for instance. Likewise, there have not been more bills introduced, but the time taken to scrutinise them has increased. The length and complexity of bills, the ‘open ended’ nature of framework bills, and uncertainties around introduction timings may have added pressure on committees in ways that are harder to capture in quantitative statistics.
What this exploration of parliamentary statistics and the Committee’s inquiry have told us is that there is much that is of interest in the statistics. However, the Committee’s report also highlights that the working culture and the wide-ranging role of committees impacts on their effectiveness. With these broader influences on committee workload it’s unlikely that statistical data can ever tell a full story about the reality of how busy committees are, why, and how to reliably tackle this with structural changes.
Ailsa Burn-Murdoch, Senior Researcher, SPICe
*Correction: upon initial publication this blog stated, based on a miscalculation, that, at the time of publication, cabinet secretaries and ministers represented 43% of SNP MSPs. This figure has been corrected to 38%.