Speeches by Smith.

“I was going to ask both of you about your respective guides. While we are on the Purple Guide, Annie, can you just tell us a little bit about that and what you have said in it?”

“Who should ultimately be the lead on that responsibility for Zone Ex? Who should be the person we look to? Is it the police or is it somebody else?”

“Yes, and we will have the same resource issues with different local councils, I guess, as well. I suppose people might want to come to a council and want to put on a big event, and those people might have varying experience and quality. How do we hold them responsible and give them the tools that they need to be able t…”

“Sorry, Chair. I realise I started to trail into your questions.”

“Who sits on the advisory group?”

“Just on that, if you do not mind, Chair, you are sounding a slight note of caution there. We have heard that Scotland is the leader in this field and that lots of people are saying that we need a UK strategy as well. You are talking about respecting the devolved nations, which is understandable. How do you think it cou…”

“How could it cause problems for the Scottish strategy?”

“Continuing to talk about collaboration, what is your role in liaising with the Scottish Government and bringing the various inevitably siloed bits of Scottish Government together when you are dealing with event organisers?”

“How do you work with local authorities? Say Glasgow and Edinburgh wanted to go for the same event. What is your role in managing that?”

“You do not have a role in deciding anything, by the sound of it. You are very supportive and it is clearly working well, but you are not an overseeing body that says, “You’ll do that. You’ll do that”.”

“Presumably you have regular catchups with the local authorities. Do you sit down and plan a strategy for each city?”

“Do you have a long-term plan for individual authorities; do you have a long-term plan for Scotland? How do you work on a strategic approach?”

“This is a similar question to what I asked before. If you had a UK event strategy, what value could add to those individual cities? Because it seems that you are doing all the strategic support and co-ordination that they need. What would be the benefit of the UK strategy?”

“You mentioned the Commonwealth Games. In that process, did the Commonwealth Games organisers come to you or did they go to Glasgow?”

“You mentioned the rally event. So that we understand how you fit into that, what was the process for bidding for and then organising that event?”

“Ken, you have a very clear remit. Annie, you said that you are sometimes in the room at these events as an organiser. Can you give us an idea of the scope of the events that come under SAGs, aside from football and sports matches?”

“We have to talk a little bit about consistency in how they operate now, which you have both mentioned. First, with the culture, Ken, you said that this is an open forum where people are encouraged to come along and contribute. Is that culture consistent across the country? Is that the general practice where everybody i…”

“You are nodding, Annie. Local government cost pressures must have an impact. How are they impacting the consistency of approach and the effectiveness of SAGs? Is it about frequency of meeting or other things? You are shaking your head, Annie. What are the other impacts on those cost pressures? Anne Marie Chebib: A lot …”

“The people and the amount of time and commitment that they are able to give to it is one issue. What other issues are there with inconsistency across the country?”

“Annie, anything to add on the problems that that inconsistency causes?”