THIS week was the last First Minister's Questions (FMQs) before a key change to parliamentary business comes in.
Instead of the one 45-minute session we've been used to at midday on a Thursday, there will now instead by two sessions a week with one exclusively held for backbenchers.
It's one of a few ways new Presiding Officer Kenneth Gibson is looking to "shake up " the parliament to make it more impactful, collegiate and engaging.
The National got the chance to sit down with Gibson this week and chat about the ways he wants to run the parliament differently to better serve Scots.
FMQs
The biggest change people will notice will be the way Gibson has chosen to mix up the weekly questions John Swinney faces.
There are now set to be two 30-minute sessions a week: one on a Tuesday at 2pm for backbenchers and party leaders getting their opportunity to ask questions at 1.30pm on Thursdays.
Labour and Reform will usually take it turns each week to act as the opposition with three questions each, given they have the same number of MSPs.
But for "devilment", as he has branded it, Gibson said he might completely reverse the order of the session at random, with perhaps the LibDems kicking things off on a given week.
And instead of questions from backbenchers being all pre-scripted, these will now be taken from the floor.
"You want to ask an FMQ, you press your button," said Gibson.
"I’ve also encouraged members to write to the presiding officer and say 'I’ve got a really good question, can I ask it?'. So we’ll look at those questions but they’re not published. The government won’t see them, but we’ll see them.
"We’ll take ones completely randomly as well.
"It’s all about giving people an opportunity to represent the people that voted for them.
"I just think we need to be much more innovative and challenge ourselves to do things differently and more impactfully."
He said he would give at least week's notice if he planned to change the order, but added: "I think it’s important to shake things up a bit and look at things from different perspectives."
Government legislation 'must be paced better'
Usually in the last six months of parliament, we see a pile of bills which have not yet made it through the final stages of scrutiny struggling for time.
Gibson told The National this needs to stop, saying that backbenchers need more support to draft private members' bills and the government needs to pace its legislation better.
Many backbench MSPs have been frustrated by the lack of resource there to help them turn an idea into proposed legislation so it has a fair opportunity to potentially become law.
"We’ve got a department called the non executive bills unit and we need to strengthen that unit because when it comes to the third, fourth and fifth years of parliament in particular, members bills are like buses – we don’t get one for ages and then they all come at once," Gibson said.
"The difficulty then is members get frustrated because people will say to them ‘I’m really sorry we don’t have any capacity for the next two years’. I don’t think that’s really good enough.
"The government, though, needs to pace its own legislation better because every administration here since the beginning has had a hugely disproportionate amount of legislation in the last year and we need to change that."
Gibson said he also wants to see the end of amendments which have been definitively defeated at stage two of a bill coming back at the final stage three as he says this "undermines" the scrutiny process.
Committees
Gibson has been finance convener for the past five years and has become passionate about seeing changes to the way committees work.
He wants to see committee meetings being held beyond the parliament in different areas of the country and for members to "leave their party colours at the door".
"I’m keen to look at how we change culture on committees," he said.
"I want to make it more collegiate, less partisan, leave your party colours at the door and just focus on making scrutiny much more impactful and effective.
"We can look at changing the kind of witnesses you can bring, giving members more freedom to ask questions, having no prepared questions as I’ve always preferred. Members actually understanding their remit and asking questions based on that is much more effective than allowing clerks to put together a list of questions and selecting from that."
Asked if MSPs being partisan has been an issue, he said: "It clearly has been. One convener in particular who is no longer at the parliament said ‘I think conveners should be partisan’ but I disagree with that. I think everyone loses out then."
More time for interventions
Gibson has no issue with MSPs getting passionate and allowing a lively debate to run its course, but he said certain rules have got in the way of that over the years and have even made Holyrood appear "dull" at times.
He says he doesn't want to see MSPs losing time from their speeches because of interventions.
"Sometimes you might see a procession of speeches with members not desperately keen to take interventions and create a more lively debate and the reason for that is because there’s time constraints," he said.
"One of the things I’ve tried to do is to say that the time taken for interventions will not be taken from your speaking time.
"If I’ve gone to the trouble of writing a speech, I expect to be able to deliver a beginning, a middle and an end and if I want to engage effectively I might want to make and take interventions.
"It will encourage people to be bolder and more confident and it will encourage a higher quality of debate."
Hustings for presiding officer
For the first time this year, hustings were held ahead of the election of the presiding officer so MSPs had the opportunity to know who they could vote for and what ideas they had for the parliament.
Gibson intends to make sure this is part of the process going forward.
"I just think it’s must more democratic," he said.
"It’s much better if people can see the strength and weakness of the people going for the role because it is an important role and it does last five years."
