Current Petitions

I would be much obliged if we could make a statement. I would be even more obliged if Simon Fraser could be allowed to supplement it briefly. We welcome the opportunity to meet the committee and to answer any questions that it might have. Some pretty harsh things have been said about us in the committee. We have been accused variously of dishonesty, incompetence and misrepresentation. Since the committee's meeting on 21 May, we have forwarded several documents in which we set out the facts of the matter and refute many of the allegations that have been made. It is good to have a face-to-face opportunity to set the record straight.The designation process of special areas of conservation and special protection areas, which you will be aware are underpinned in most cases by site of special scientific interest designation, is required to meet the United Kingdom's commitments under the European Community birds directive and habitats directive. SNH has consulted on 227 SACs and 139 SPAs in that process. We have consulted 15,000 owners and occupiers as well as local authorities and a wide range of local and national representative bodies. In the process—the convener has these figures—fewer than 1 per cent of the people whom we consulted lodged an objection.All European Union countries have had to deal with issues similar to those that the UK and Scotland have experienced in the designation process. Some of those issues have been considerably more serious than those that we have dealt with. I do not want to go into that just now, but I am happy to answer questions on it if you wish.We have also sent the committee the two European Court of Justice reports, which members asked for at a previous meeting. The reports make categorical statements that member states cannot take into account economic issues and, in the case of the Bristol docks judgment on SACs, economic, social and cultural matters, when determining boundaries. We accept fully that improvements to the existing statutory processes are necessary. The Executive also acknowledges that and we have provided the committee with our responses to the "Nature of Scotland: A policy statement" consultation. Members will see that in that response we have set out our support for extending the consultation process and for an appeal process that is completely independent of SNH. Within the constraints of the existing legislation we consult widely on all sites. We are required by law to consult with owners and occupiers and local authorities. We have extended that to include community councils as well as other local and national representative groups. We arrange public meetings and advertise our proposals in the press. I am not setting any great store by that and I am not singing our praises; I am simply stating the facts.We have never sought to mislead or misrepresent anyone's views. To do so would be the height of folly, given that all representations that we receive require to be forwarded to the Scottish Executive before ministers make their final decisions. We had toyed with the idea of sending the committee a large package of information that set out one such representation as an example, but we have not done so, because we thought that members had enough paper. Should any member of the committee wish to see it, we would be happy to provide you with even more paper.

We understand that people have fears about the effects of a new designation. In the past 12 months, we have commissioned an independent study of our working relationships with owners and occupiers of sites of special scientific interest. That study showed that 78 per cent of owners and occupiers said that they enjoyed a good working relationship with SNH.Over the past two years, our natural care scheme has helped us considerably. It enables us to show far more clearly how owners and occupiers will benefit financially from management agreements that are put in place to give support to designated sites. Without blowing our own trumpet too hard, I can say that the United Kingdom in general, and Scotland in particular, is regarded as a leader in that field.It is not our intention today to present the committee with a counsel of perfection. Like every other public body and every individual in Scotland, SNH makes mistakes. When we make mistakes we admit to them, we learn from them and we rectify them. That is why when we were persuaded that the release of information in the Arran moors case was inadequate, we did something about it. We killed the process stone dead, we reissued the data more widely and we gave everyone who was affected a full chance to respond. I suggest that that is not the hallmark of an organisation that is riding roughshod over communities.

I am chairman of the north areas board of Scottish Natural Heritage. I live and work in Callanish in the Western Isles.It may be helpful if I say something about the background to the work that we are discussing. I am particularly concerned about some of the allegations that have been made about the report that we prepared for the Scottish Executive in connection with the Sound of Barra proposal. That report is not yet in the public domain, so I cannot understand why some have suggested that in the report we have misrepresented the position to the Executive. I imagine that in due course the Executive may put the report into the public domain. I have examined the report thoroughly and find that every representation—whether it was made in writing or verbally, at a public meeting—has been fully recorded and faithfully reported to the Executive.In its report, Scottish Natural Heritage recommends that, given the concern that exists about some of the seal count information, for the time being the Executive should not forward to Europe the proposal for the establishment of a special area of conservation in the Sound of Barra. In saying that, I am not breaching any great confidence.Let me provide members with some information about the way in which the north areas board conducts its business. Our role is to offer advice to SNH. The board includes members from across the Highlands and Islands. For administrative purposes, we divide the Highlands and Islands into five parts. The first area is the northern isles—Orkney and Shetland. The second is the Western Isles. The Highlands are divided into three sections. There are two board members from each area. There is a board member from South Uist and I am from Lewis. There are board members from Orkney, Shetland and Sutherland. The board includes a wide mix of people, many of whom are crofters.We meet five times a year, once in each area. On the evening before our meeting, we hold a public event to which everyone is invited. We start the meeting with a presentation of our work in the area. That is followed by a full discussion session. Anyone who wants to raise anything with any of the board members may do so. We deal with concerns there and then. There are huge turnouts at our public meetings. Last year, I was present at a meeting in Orkney. People came over from Hoy to Stromness for the night just so that they could attend. We have had our troubles in Hoy but, in the bar after the meeting, a farmer from the island said to me, "That was very brave of you, but it was very good. I wish that more public bodies did this sort of thing."A couple of months ago in Thurso, the people who several years back had led the opposition to the peatland designations in the flow country told us that they were now in total agreement with our position. They are very pleased that we are investing money in management in the area.Two weeks ago, we held a public meeting at Pol a'Charra, which is on the southern tip of South Uist. If you take the wrong turning out of the bar, you will find yourself up to your neck in the Sound of Barra. The Sound of Barra proposal is not just about Barra. Eriskay and South Uist are also affected. Forty or 50 people from all around the area attended the meeting in Pol a'Charra, but no one mentioned the issue of the Sound of Barra designation and the common seals.I hope that we are approaching the end of the designation process, the aim of which is to implement European directives. The process has been fraught, not just for communities, but for staff, who have had a very busy and difficult time. However, we have got through it. The most important issue is not designation but what happens afterwards. Under the European directive in question, we are required to secure the optimal management of special areas of conservation in future. As John Markland mentioned, through our natural care programme we are investing substantial amounts of money in the management of those areas. This year, we are investing £4.5 million, which will rise to more than £5 million of our budget next year. We are giving £132,000 a year to the crofters of north Lewis under the Lewis peatland management scheme.Nearly £250,000 was allocated to crofters through the Caithness and Sutherland peatland management scheme and £124,000 was allocated to the corncrake management scheme. That is all going into the hands of people in small communities, whom we are paying to help to look after the environment for the future. That is what is important. As I said, I hope that the designation process is pretty much at an end. The future management is what counts.Members might have formed the impression, perhaps from their postbags, that designations are what we are all about. They are not—they are only a small part of our work. We do a huge amount of work, whether in supporting ranger services, in environmental education—such as our work in the Beinn Eighe visitor centre, which Mr Munro was good enough to open in the summer, and the Knockan crag visitor centre, which we opened last summer—or in our national nature reserves. We do a great deal throughout the country—it is not all about designation. We can do that only by working together with folk. In my experience, that is what we do.

Ian Jardine probably has the longest corporate memory of the three witnesses and I will ask him to speak soon. Dr Ewing raises some valid points. We have given the committee figures from which a crude league table of European countries could be compiled. The United Kingdom is not at the top of that table. In one list, it is 11th and, in the other, it is 12th, in terms of the hectarage of sites that have been designated under European directives.

I am going more or less straight from this meeting to Brussels to chair a meeting tomorrow and the day after of a committee of the environment part of the Commission that is considering future funding and obtaining more European funding for the initiative. As Simon Fraser said, that could bring huge benefits to what we do. To be fair to the Commission, it is concerned about the issues and is anxious to do something about them. It would have been a jolly good idea to do something five years ago, rather than now, but it is easy for me to say that. Ian Jardine may have a more thoughtful answer than mine.

I doubt whether my answer will be more thoughtful, but I will say something. The question is an extremely good one and I am surprised that it has not been asked more often over the past 10 years.

In the European Parliament, an attempt was made to amend the directives. I do not fully understand the process, but I know that a certain number of MEPs must support such an amendment. The attempt did not succeed.From SNH's point of view, things can be difficult because the UK's position in the Council of Ministers has been very supportive of these two directives. The UK has not indicated any desire to seek to amend them. That may change in future, I do not know. The UK is not alone in finding the implementation of the directives difficult. They cause much concern at local level.

That is absolutely right. We have followed the letter of the law in this case, but it is extremely difficult for us to undertake a consultation process on what is a very narrow set of issues. Although we are clear about what we are consulting on, we should acknowledge that it is not easy for communities to appreciate that the issues of most concern to them—the socioeconomic and cultural issues—are issues that we cannot take into account. That is one reason why so much heat has been generated over these issues. It is easier to do things after the event but, after the event, one has often lost the support of those whose support is needed to make schemes work.

I want to add something that ties in with Dr Ewing's question. In the UK, the directives were applied through statutory instruments applying to Scotland, England and Wales. That was how the European system was bolted on to the UK system. Here, it was bolted on to the existing SSSI process. However, from the directives, we can see that member states can secure compliance through legislative measures or through contractual measures. We therefore sought permission from the Executive to proceed with some European sites not through the SSSI process but through management schemes. People find the SSSI process difficult to deal with—it is inflexible and it gets up people's noses. We tried the management scheme idea in the Lewis peatland scheme. We have had a sign-up rate of, I think, 90-odd per cent. It is a European site, but it is not underpinned by an SSSI mechanism.The SNH executive had to ensure that Europe was comfortable with that approach. We were allowed to implement the approach in two or three areas, such as the corncrake management scheme and the Lewis peatlands. I think that there have been one or two others more recently.We have been able to tweak the mechanism—not the directive, but the way in which it has been applied. That approach has proven successful. We would like more of that approach.

Ian Jardine may manage to find a table that explains that. I think that we have something that does so.

We calculate the total SSSI coverage in Scotland to be 12.8 per cent of Scotland. As Simon Fraser explained, some areas will be European sites but not SSSIs. Your figure of just over 13 per cent seems right to me.I do not have comparisons with England and Wales for SSSIs in front of me. However, I think that, after the previous meeting, we gave the committee comparisons with England and Wales for European sites. On the birds directive, Scotland has a higher proportion of designated sites than England or Wales. On the habitats directive, our proportion is higher than England, but smaller than Wales.

The figures that we have are those that the Commission produces. On the habitats directive, we are ranked eleventh out of 15 member states on percentage coverage. On the birds directive—I have got this the wrong way round. Perhaps John Markland has the figures.

I have managed to find them. In the birds directive table, we are twelfth out of 15, which suggests that we are not over-designating.

Yes, that suggests that we are not over-designating. We must take some care with those figures, because it can be quite difficult to see how some states are calculating areas of sea as a percentage of land. Although we have to be a little wary about some of the figures, they indicate that we are not out of line with other European states. The Commission thinks that we are in the lower half.

There are two sorts of mechanism. In one, the SSSI system cuts in. That is the system of requiring the owners and managers of the land to consult us if they wish to carry out certain activities. The system relies on the manager of the land approaching SNH to say, "I intend to change my management; will the change affect the site?" If we believe that it will, we can ask the manager not to make the change and offer compensation if they say that they nonetheless wish to go ahead.The other system relates to the fact that the European designations have an effect on planning legislation. If a planning application or an application for a discharge consent, for example, were to be lodged within the designated area, the relevant body—be it the local authority or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—would be required to go through the procedures of the directive before it could grant permission.

It would be foolish to think that people always consult SNH, although I think that the vast majority of people consult us. Odd mistakes happen. I am not aware of many serious incidents in the past few years whereby it appears that somebody has deliberately damaged a site without consulting first. I can think of only two or three such incidents; they are relatively rare in Scotland.

Not in that way. We have a system to monitor SSSIs. On a six-year cycle, we check whether the reason that the site was notified still exists and the condition of the site. That picks up on whether something has happened.The majority of cases are relatively minor and often there are genuine mistakes. Somebody will forget to consult or will not realise that they had to consult, but that will not have made much difference. The minister is the only person who can intervene and issue a nature conservation order to stop an activity. SNH does not have that power.

I will deal with the first question and pass the other two questions to Ian Jardine, who may want to bring in Simon Fraser.Alasdair Morrison angled his question properly. The time for an amendment has now passed. We are reaching the end of the process and we should focus on the management of sites, getting money in, promoting the sites better than we can do currently and getting real interest behind what is going on.

On how we compare with the rest of Europe in respect of consultation, at the beginning of the process, the UK as a whole took a different position from most of Europe on a site-by-site consultation process. As far as I am aware, most European countries did not have such a process. Other European countries started with the scientific approach of coming up with lists of sites, which were then cleared with the Government before they let the Commission have a look at them.Not surprisingly, several countries found that such an approach gave them severe problems. Quite a number of member states have become more consultative since the two directives were introduced. Ireland in particular now takes a consultative approach that includes an appeals process and is similar in many ways to ours. I believe that other countries, such as Finland and France, have also become more consultative.It is interesting that other European countries look to the UK to learn something about consultation. That is not because we always get it right, but because we have learned some lessons and have tried certain things, some of which have worked and some of which have not. Compared with the rest of Europe, and given the fact that consultation is limited on the scientific basis that has been mentioned, we have a good record on consultation.A count of the seal population in the Sound of Barra took place in the same year as the consultation. The count indicated that the seal numbers had dropped. The speculation was that the drop was linked to the construction of the causeway, but the sea mammals research unit advised that it would expect the seals to come back. We advised the Executive that it would be wise to wait and see whether that turned out to be right rather than send the site to Europe.Obviously, the recurrence of the distemper virus is another unknown in the system. Science does not allow us to predict exactly what will happen to those seals and whether they will come back to the Sound of Barra. We need to wait a couple of years and see what happens.

We set our stall in our opening remarks. The first thing to say is to give the overall context. The fact that the number of objections is less than 1 per cent suggests that we do not have a massive problem across Scotland. We have acknowledged that there have been particular difficulties in some areas.If I may return to Simon Fraser's point about the Sound of Barra, our decision not to recommend that the site be designated must surely be an indication that we have been listening. We are not sure that the objectors knew that that was the case when they started their petition, but that is perhaps unlikely.It would be unfair to conclude from a relatively small number of cases—in which we accept that there are complex and difficult issues—that the whole organisation is branded in the way that I described in my opening remarks.

I hope that we have made clear the process that we have to go through, the basis upon which the exercise has to be conducted and the fact that—to put it succinctly—we believe that there is a better system, which will come along once the Scottish Executive can move on the proposals that it has published.We have also made it clear that we see a need for far more ability to put up front in the designation process the benefits that would come to landowners and occupiers. We are doing the job of Government to say that nature conservation is as important as other forms of land management, such as farming or crofting. However, we do not have the wherewithal to put the money up front that comes with those other activities. We are trying to rectify that situation and—

Perhaps Ian Jardine could deal with that question.

I return to what I said about the way in which the SSSI process works. The process includes the possibility of negotiating a management agreement in which the farmer agrees not to proceed in exchange for compensation so that his livelihood is not affected. That is what is happening in that case. I understand that the farmer has agreed to enter into a management agreement and that that agreement is being negotiated.

It is a process of negotiation. He does not have to accept—he can agree a figure.

Yes, but things can change and the minister can classify more sites if we have given him the consultation reports. The figure for SPAs is correct. We are finishing the consultation for the SACs, but the number must be about nine.

May I be clear with the committee about one thing? SNH has always said to the Executive that we cannot tell it how many directives is enough; it has to tell us that.

There could be further directives. We also have to be clear that, under the current directives, the European Commission has not finally accepted the UK's list under the European habitats and species directive. That means that there could be further directives.

We are as satisfied as we possibly can be. Without raking over the issues that we have discussed before, we are dealing with the matter on the fairly narrow basis of the science at the point of designation. The bigger issue is the need to get more money into the management of the sites, which would enable people to see that society values what is happening to their land, just as it values agricultural land through the £500 million that goes into agriculture subsidies. I see no difference. Society wants to preserve such sites because they are as important as the sites from which society wants to get food.

They do not receive any independent support in making a scientific objection. They can ask us for information, but it is a bit like the planning system. The people who object to a planning application do not get public assistance in making their objection.

They can ask us to provide them with data and information. A big issue in the petition is the provision of data and information.

Yes, with the caveat that they would have to be data about a species, such as the hen harrier, that might be sensitive because it is subject to persecution. In such cases, we give the information to the person on whose land that species is found. We do not distribute that information to other people on the site or more generally; we give it only to the people on whose land a bird is nesting, so that they know what is there.

I now seem to be a world expert on this. Article 8 of the EC habitats directive has provision for co-financing, which, in European jargon, means a joint arrangement between member states and the Commission. Very little money has been forthcoming from the Commission. The main stream of funding has come under LIFE environment funding and has been allocated largely for demonstration and experimental initiatives. We are trying to get more mainstream money to underpin that.

In considering the sites, we try to obtain the best information that is available. That information may not be perfect, and decisions may have to be made about whether it is good enough. A lot of information on birds in Scotland is held by the RSPB.

It would be daft of us to ignore that information, as it is important. As John Markland said, we do not pretend always to get things right; we learn as we go along. The data issues surrounding some of the sites have been especially difficult, and it is a case of our ensuring that we get the best data that are available and that we are clear about how we judge whether that information is good enough. Some of the data come from the RSPB, as it holds a lot of data on birds. However, when we can get information from more than one source, it is important that we do so.

I would like to make an opening statement to clarify matters, but first the other members of the committee will introduce themselves and describe their scientific and other backgrounds.

I am professor of environmental science at the University of Stirling.

I am from the University of Glasgow. I am a seabird ecologist.

I am the secretary to the committee.

I am currently vice-chancellor of Lancaster University. Along with one other person, I am the only survivor of the original committee that reported to the Secretary of State for Scotland.We should be in response mode. Having read the Official Report of the committee's meeting of 26 February and listened to the previous discussion, I should like to make clear that we are responsible only for sites of special scientific interest. The discussion has been conflated to include SACs and European designations, but we have no remit in that area. We have no locus to comment on European designations. If I do not make that clear, we may go off on tangents.

I am sorry—my Scottish accent has turned into a Lancashire accent.

You are asking me to speculate about something that is beyond my power. Dr Ewing noted favourably the fact that we commented on the excellent document "People in Nature", which we supported and described as a constructive and sensible way forward. In commenting on that document, we went slightly beyond our terms of reference, which we should not have done. If the advisory committee has a successor, we may want its remit to extend beyond the tight science-only definition. Our collective expertise could be helpful in that regard.

Yes. It is inevitable that objectors will bring into the arena wider socio-economic and cultural issues. We listen and understand where individual landowners are coming from. However, in the end we must say that their evidence is contextual. We can adjudicate only on the basis of science.

It would be wrong for me to use the word "judge". We are an advisory committee to SNH, which may ignore our advice.

The evidence comes exclusively from SNH. It is included in the documentation that we receive. We take on trust that that is the best possible evidence available. However, Professor Furness is an independent expert on the issue.The committee is balanced in terms of our expertise and when we identify the particular concern, which is usually quite easy, we appoint an independent consultant to join our committee as a supplementary member on a particular issue. It is our job to interrogate the data to the best of our ability.

We examine carefully the data that SNH provides to justify designations. We also examine published literature and other sources of information to see how the data that SNH provides compares with that from other sources. There are many circumstances in which estimates of the total population size of a species in the UK vary from year to year and according to different authorities. We have to weigh up whether, in our view, SNH has used the most recent and most reliable data.

The fact is that the number of hen harriers in Russia is not known, so there is a lot of speculation about how many there are. There are certainly a lot of them, but the state of the species globally might be quite different from its state in the UK. Our remit is to consider the numbers in the UK and to designate sites that apply within the UK rather than worldwide; I hold personal views on whether that is appropriate. If a species is widely distributed elsewhere, the criteria perhaps ought to be different from those that cover a species that occurs only in the UK. However, the rules are the rules and that is how we have to conduct our analysis.

That is probably a question for SNH, rather than for us. We simply advise SNH on what we think is the appropriateness of its science. One could make a case for the rules being considered in a different way.

We scrutinise the SNH evidence in relation to the wider context of evidence from other sources that might be available. Usually SNH uses all the evidence that is available and tries to be comprehensive.

I am sure that my committee would stand by every word of that and to expand on that paragraph would be superfluous.Many of the guidelines are now quite old and, given our terms of reference, we are, in a sense, operating within an evolving situation that has not evolved legally. Therefore, one has a sense of frustration because there are other ways that might be considered. It is not for us to determine policy or make suggestions, but perhaps the guiding rules should be considered. The terms of reference, scientific criteria and operations such as potentially damaging operations would flow from that. That is why the committee spent a whole day writing a sensible response to "People in Nature". We were pleased that Scotland was doing something right. I am sad that that document has disappeared into some kind of legal or parliamentary hiatus. That document took into account concerns that had evolved over 10 or 15 years of our responses.

That is perfectly fair. Many objectors do not have access to the national guidelines from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. SNH has been approached to make that information more widely available. If people are objecting on scientific grounds, they need to know what the rules are. As well as reviewing the guidelines nationally, there must be a greater effort to publicise them so that people know what the game is.

We have always taken our role to be informative when first meeting objectors. We have not just corresponded with them, but have always met with them—in the field, ideally. In our written submission we have probably been legally slightly wrong. However, as an intellectual exercise, we have tended to ask what we would think if we were objectors. We believe that that is the correct methodology. I think that SNH would be the first to admit that an objector—for example, a crofter—does not have access to the depth of expertise that is available to SNH and to my committee. Incidentally, I think that that issue is picked up in the committee's papers. Our role tends be that of providing independent scientific scrutiny. The other side of the coin is that providing more information to objectors could mean unending costs and many consultants could make a lot of money. However, I think that our approach to the problem is a reasonable intellectual one.

It should be, but one has to be careful that one does not stray outwith the boundaries of one's expertise. One is always tempted to do that. It is comforting for me as chairman of the committee—and, I am sure, for committee members—that we know our limits. We know how far we should and could go. However, if those limits are to be amended, one must be equally clear about any new boundaries. If we were to stray into economic, social or cultural areas, the composition of the committee would have to change, because we do not have expertise on such matters—nor should we claim to have. I agree with your suggestion and perhaps a wide-ranging body should look into the matter. I am perhaps speaking too much. One of my colleagues might like to comment.

When they meet us most objectors believe that we are a body of appeal. It is a little disconcerting for them to discover that we are simply an advisory body that gives advice to SNH, which SNH considers before making up its mind. People are looking for the opportunity to appeal against decisions.If one considers the outcome of the reports that we give to SNH, it is clear that, by and large, SNH accepts the points that we have made. Those points tend to relate not to whether the site should be designated—almost invariably SNH's science is correct—but to the details of boundaries and whether the line should be on one side of a field or the other. Often such issues are socioeconomic—they are about whether someone can have a lambing park or keep X amount of cattle. That takes us back to the question of balancing duties. There is a potential role for the committee to deal with such issues, although currently we are not the appropriate people to deal with them.

I want to add a comment regarding potentially damaging operations. When a landowner receives advance notification of a proposed designation, along with the details of the site there is also information about what may not be done on the land. Many landowners are seriously concerned about those potentially damaging operations. When they meet us, their objective is often to discuss those operations. However, strictly speaking that is not within our remit. I find it quite logical for our committee, if it is out discussing the details of the site with landowners, to discuss what would be sensible management to retain the intrinsic scientific interest of the site. As Professor Ritchie has suggested, it would be quite useful to bolt on to the revised committee a management dimension in relation to PDOs.

Quango seems a funny term. The committee was established under section 12 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991. There is not an equivalent body in England. As our literature says, the committee's role under the act is"to advise Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) on unresolved scientific objections to SSSIs notified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981."

No. Our expenses are covered and we get an attendance allowance for every full day that we spend on committee business. I would not consider that to be pay. The administrative secretary is contracted to work for the committee following a competitive bidding process.

Certainly not. We give up a lot of our own time.

This issue extends far beyond the remit of the committee, but if you are seeking comments from people and you are asking me about it as an individual, we could have a conceptual argument. One of the conceptual arguments is that no two people give the same definition of environmental matters. The definition ranges from everything from urban situations right through to the most obscure, esoteric science. If I went round everyone in this room, I doubt that they would contextualise or define "environment" in the same way. The word has become virtually meaningless.

One way of looking at the situation is that the point of integration ought to be either the Scottish Executive or its senior officers. You are the overarching body and it should be your responsibility.

No, you are not.I am going off the track now. I run a big and complex university. That only works because I delegate to sections of the university, but at the end of the day, the university decision falls on me as the chief executive. I am the integrator, or that role is fulfilled by the senate or the council. The issue is the structure. It is not for the small body called the ACSSSI to advise on policy on a subject that is high on national agendas everywhere in the world. However, there is always room for horizontal as well as vertical connections. That is a totally different debate from the discussion that we are having now.

It is correct to say that sometimes there is confusion out there about the way forward. Landowners have frequently raised with us how they can raise issues to do with designation. That is where the ACSSSI has a clear role. My view, and the view of the ACSSSI, is that that role could be extended to cover the work—

We pride ourselves on our independence. We would be nothing if we were not independent.

Strictly, the advice is not given to objectors. The advice is in the public domain. In a sense, it is about natural justice. Nothing that we say or do is anything other than public, and therefore we copy everything to the objectors, but we do not specifically give advice to them. The intellectual methodology that we use to approach a problem is to imagine that we are the objectors. That is not the same thing as giving advice to objectors.

No, we do not. It would not strictly be correct—

I do not know the answer to that. I do not know what my colleagues think. We are straying from the issue.

There are two issues. You use the word "advice", which I accept, but you could move a little and say that, during its 11 years, the ACSSSI has established such a reputation for integrity that the objectors trust the committee. That is not the same as providing advice, but we have reached this position. SNH trusts us and, on the whole, objectors trust that we deal with integrity and honesty, and with the best scientific expertise that is available to us.

Absolutely. We have been insistent that there are no secret exchanges. What we say and write is in the public domain.

SNH was very careful in what it said and it said that it is an imperfect world and that it could do better. There are occasions when I think that the speed and the way in which SNH has communicated with communities and objectors is on the margins and perhaps occasionally more than on the margins. We think that we have detected upset people who would not have been upset if somebody had done something a bit more sensible a bit more quickly. I stress that that is the case in a minority of situations.

Pass. I see that Bob Furness does not wish to comment either.

It depends. If you look at our cases, which we have done our homework on, many different cases have been considered throughout Scotland. In the overwhelming majority, people have respected what we have done and they have agreed with it—if agreement is the correct word—

One has to consider the totality of the situation. Many of the issues have surfaced only in the specific cases of the hen harriers. That has epitomised some of the underlying concerns, which were perhaps present in other cases, but were not articulated with the same force and strength of feeling. The hen harrier work was a step function in the way that the committee had to work and the amount of work that we had to put in. We were speaking with lawyers and estate agents. That was new. There was no reason why that should not happen, but it was a step function in how we had to behave. For that reason, we have asked for a special meeting with SNH and the Scottish Executive.

It will take place on 29 October.

Before I get chucked out because I have done my 10 years—that is not a nice expression to use; my term of office is over—we thought that we should sit down informally and ask what lessons we have learned from the cases involving the hen harriers and, to a lesser extent, the seals in Islay about three years ago.

Yes, and the geese.We thought that we should try to take something constructive out of those experiences, so we asked for that meeting. We did not request the meeting in order to be critical; it was to say that those were learning experiences and that we should get something out of them that is of value.

You are quoting from our response to the consultation paper "People and Nature", which was an invitation for us to voice our opinion outwith our terms of reference. We were envisaging that the legislation would change and that the terms of reference would change too.We suggested—no more than that—that if the terms of reference did change, the science core might be maintained, because good science can never be removed from any of the designations, but the need could be recognised for input on issues such as land use, which Bob Furness mentioned, or practice—asking whether we will drain an area—which Donald Davidson mentioned. As an expanded committee, we would have a permanent member with such expertise or hire someone independent, ad hoc, to give us advice on a problem. That would be better and more efficient than establishing a huge quango with an expert on everything. That is in the context of making progress on "People and Nature".

We have a small budget.

Since we are moving on—and if you follow the lines that have been suggested—one issue that you might want to consider in relation to the committee is that an important role is available not for a quango, as such, but for an independent body that builds checks and balances into the system. I am sorry—I am certainly going too far

We express an opinion that is based on examination of the original sources, if we can. I will change the subject slightly. If something arrived on hydrology and drainage, Donald Davidson would go out in the field and look at the drainage and hydrology in person, because that is his expertise.Verification is a difficult problem when working to a short time scale. When dealing with volumes of scientific data, we must feel that they are the best data. We cannot check every figure. We cannot say, "Did that man or woman count 1,000 or 500 seals?" If that person says that they counted 1,000 seals, we must accept that, as must SNH.If we believe that the person or body that provided the information has scientific integrity, we are in the position of someone who reviews an academic article for a journal. We cannot verify the original data. We do not have that power. We have said on occasion that we would like a little more independent verification. In an ideal world, statistics would come from two agencies, rather than one. On occasion, we have questioned the integrity and verification of data. We refer to that in our submission.Of late, we have been more rigorous on statistical interpretation when we have considered spread on the mean and said to SNH, "You have taken the best statistic. What would happen if you took the worst statistic?" Some of our recent reports have examined the probity of the statistics.

The approach that we have taken is to accept the scientific integrity of the data that are presented to us but, wherever possible, to use published data of peer-reviewed quality. Very often, the choice of sites is based on data that are extracted from unpublished reports or from sources that make matters much more difficult to assess. We have sometimes expressed reservations about the quality of the data, but we can certainly evaluate data on different levels depending on whether they are published or unpublished, whether they come from one individual or from many, and whether they can be checked independently. However, we are usually working to a tight time scale. We may be assessing populations of breeding birds, for example, but our report may have to be produced in November. In such a situation, it would not be possible to go into the field and assess the bird populations ourselves, because we would not be able to meet the time scale that we have to work to.

I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I have to head back south fairly quickly. Thank you for hearing our evidence.