> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.peoplesfuture.scot/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 18. Anti-Corruption Watchdog 🟢 - URL: https://www.peoplesfuture.scot/18-anti-corruption-watchdog/ - Published: 2026-08-20T11:04:04.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T11:04:04.000Z - Description: Holyrood already publishes MSP expenses, runs a statutory lobbying register, and uses an independent Commissioner to investigate most Code of Conduct complaints. In 2024–25, members’ scheme spend was £27.45 million. - Author: The Peoples Future Scotland - Tags: The 28 Holyrood already publishes MSP expenses, runs a statutory lobbying register, and uses an independent Commissioner to investigate most Code of Conduct complaints. In 2024–25, members’ scheme spend was £27.45 million. By 11 June 2025 the lobbying register had 1,386 active organisations and 46,071 published returns. Final sanctions still sit with MSPs. The Scotland Act, not a missing Holyrood statute, sets the outer limit on who can remove a member. --- ## Current reality ### Legal and institutional position Section 81 of the Scotland Act 1998 requires the Parliament to provide for members’ allowances. The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body — the Presiding Officer and four MSPs — designs and administers the Members’ Expenses Scheme. Claims are published. The SPCB investigates improper claims, can require repayment, and can report to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. The Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016 requires registration of regulated lobbying: mainly oral communication, including video, with MSPs, ministers, special advisers or the Permanent Secretary about government or parliamentary functions. The Clerk keeps the public register. Written communications, many lower-level contacts, unpaid activity and several exemptions sit outside the definition. The Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland investigates most MSP conduct complaints and is, in statute, not subject to direction by MSPs, ministers or the SPCB in those investigations. Expenses, chamber conduct and some constituency matters are excluded and handled elsewhere. The Commissioner reports to the SPPA Committee. The committee, then the full Parliament, decides on breaches and sanctions. The Scotland Act sets out disqualification from membership. A custodial sentence of more than twelve months is the main automatic route. The Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill fell at Stage 3 on 24 February 2026 (30 yes, 66 no, 27 abstain). There is no Scottish IPSA. No single office has a core job covering expenses, lobbying, and conduct. ### The latest official numbers **Expenses (Parliament).** 2024–25: £27.45 million (£27,392,657 scheme plus £62,214 party leaders), up £2.09 million (7.6 per cent) on £25.36 million in 2023–24\. Staff costs £22.57 million (82.22 per cent). 2026–27 rates agreed by the SPCB: office-cost provision £22,800; staff-cost provision £169,000; Edinburgh accommodation £22,400; engagement £18,800. **Lobbying (Clerk’s annual report to 11 June 2025).** 1,642 organisations ever registered; 1,386 active; 17 voluntary; 239 inactive. 46,071 information returns published (36,278 substantive; 9,793 nil). 8,452 returns in the reporting year. 609 breaches for missing the six-month return deadline, 73 fewer than the previous year. A new register system was targeted for May 2026. **Conduct.** Commissioner MSP complaints received in 2024–25: 27 (93 the year before). Most fall at Stage 1 admissibility. Few reach the committee for full investigation. Rosemary Agnew’s review of the complaints and sanctions process, delivered in December 2025 and taken by the SPCB on 29 January 2026, found insufficient evidence to declare the sanctions process systematically unfair, and a balance of perception of unfairness: weak written protocols, confidentiality failures, and the risk of political motivation. **Sanctions already used.** The Parliament has excluded a member and withdrawn salary for a high-profile expenses and resources case. That showed the existing machinery can bite. It also showed the first investigation sat inside the SPCB. ### How it is experienced in daily life Claims are searchable. A late lobbying return can sit unpublished for months and still be a “return.” A member of the public must guess whether a complaint goes to the Commissioner, the SPCB or the Presiding Officer. MSPs recommend sanctions and vote on them. A recall petition does not exist. ### How it got here Devolution built an internal expenses model and, later, a lobbying Act more demanding than the UK consultant-lobbyist register. The conduct investigation was professionalised under an independent Commissioner. The chamber and the Scotland Act retained decision-making and removal powers. IPSA was a Westminster response to 2009\. Holyrood did not copy it. The 2026 recall bill was the attempt to add a voter route; it failed. ### What has already been tried, and what that showed Publication deters some claims and fuels others. The Lobbying Act created a record that did not exist before 2018; it does not map written influence. An independent investigator plus a political last stage can produce a 27-day exclusion and still leave the process looking like colleagues judging colleagues. Agnew asked for written protocols and a right to challenge findings and sanctions. That is process design, not a new constitution. A Member’s Bill cannot rewrite the Scotland Act’s membership rules if the Parliament will not pass it. --- ## What needs to happen ### The improvement in measurable terms - Expenses investigation at arm’s length from the SPCB, with power to look at patterns, not only complaints. - Lobbying returns on time, and a statutory definition that covers the communications the 2016 Act omitted if Parliament wants a fuller map. - One public map of who investigates what. - Commissioner (or successor) findings that trigger a timed parliamentary process, not an optional conversation. - Published sanctions criteria of the kind Agnew described. ### Sequence Write the Agnew protocols first. Decide whether to expand the Commissioner or create a new office. Consult on appointment, funding and overlap with Audit Scotland and Police Scotland. Legislate. Transfer live cases without a gap. Treat the Scotland Act amendment and recall as a separate, slower track. ### Workforce, capital and standards Investigators, lawyers, a secure case system, and a budget that cannot be trimmed because a case is inconvenient. Natural justice and Article 6 apply. Public hearings need rules, not theatre. ### What would count as success in twelve months - Agnew recommendations accepted or rejected in writing by SPCB and SPPA - A policy paper on expenses investigation leaving the SPCB - Lobbying late-return breaches falling from 609, and the new register live - No claim that a new office can itself expel an MSP --- ## What can be done under current powers ### Who holds the lever The Scottish Parliament: standing orders, the expenses scheme, the Lobbying Act, the Commissioner’s statute. The SPCB: administration and funding of office-holders. The UK Parliament: Scotland Act membership rules. ### The statute, budget or direction Scotland Act s.81 and membership provisions; Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016; Ethical Standards legislation; Code of Conduct; SPCB budget. ### What is already possible and unused Transfer expenses investigation to the Commissioner or a new office. Mandate public hearings in defined classes of cases. Require the SPPA Committee to consider findings within a set time. Make some sanctions follow automatically from a finding, still voted on or noted by Parliament. Widen regulated lobbying. Publish a single complaints portal. Multi-year funding for the investigator. ### What would still be true if management improved tomorrow MSPs would still vote on the hardest sanctions. A sentence of twelve months or less would still not automatically vacate a seat. Written lobbying would still be invisible unless the Act is amended. A poorly appointed “independent” office would still be a political fact. --- ## Where the limits are ### Law and reserved powers Holyrood can police its own members’ money and influence to a high standard. It cannot give a non-parliamentary body an unfettered power to expel that overrides the Scotland Act. Recall and extra disqualification grounds that rewrite membership need either a Holyrood bill that passes or UK legislation. ### Money A serious office is a recurring SPCB line. Under-funding is the quiet way to keep self-regulation. ### Workforce and capital Casework peaks. Confidentiality has already failed often enough for Agnew to record it. ### Time, geography, UK-wide systems Criminal matters remain with Police Scotland and the Crown. IPSA is a comparison, not a template to copy without design. ### Political difficulty, kept separate from legal impossibility The chamber voted down recall in February 2026\. That was a choice. Expanding investigation is a smaller, still contested, choice. --- ## What is not yet known Whether the May 2026 lobbying system launched. 2025–26 expense totals. How many of Agnew’s recommendations the SPPA Committee will adopt. Whether a new integrity bill will be introduced in Session 7. --- ## Honest summary **Achievable now.** Move expenses investigation out of the SPCB. Tighten lobbying deadlines and, if desired, the definition. Write sanctions protocols. Time-limit how long findings can sit. Fund the investigator properly. **Only partly achievable.** A complete public map of influence while written lobbying stays unregistered. Identical public confidence while the last vote remains a parliamentary vote. **Would require reserved change.** An independent body with power to remove a member contrary to the Scotland Act. A Westminster-style recall that Holyrood has already declined, unless a later Parliament legislates or the Act is amended. **Colour mark: green.** The investigation, register, hearings and recommendation machinery can be built under existing competence. Green is not a claim that Holyrood can copy IPSA’s statutory isolation and add expulsion. The February 2026 vote showed the removal question is political as well as constitutional. **What this item does not settle.** It does not treat every late return as corruption. It does not treat staff costs as a scandal. It does not design the appointments panel. It does not decide whether to expand the Commissioner or create a new body. The test is whether someone outside the body that pays the expenses investigates them, whether lobbying returns appear on time, and whether a finding of breach has a published, timed consequence that does not depend on the mood of the week. --- ## Connection Public finances pay the scheme and the investigator. Item 11 is the wider reserved framework of which the Scotland Act is part. The Independence Debate is relevant only to rewriting membership and disqualification. It is not required to move an expenses file from the SPCB to an independent office. --- **People’s Future Scotland**