Once again there has been some shuffling in membership of Parliamentary Committees, and some changes in roles within the political parties (although, as yet, no major Executive reshuffle). This Briefing, our first of the new session, updates information on all of these.

The frequency of party-determined Committee changes is a cause for concern, undermining the strength of the Committee system; there also appears to be continued bickering between Justice 1 and Justice 2 about which Committee is allocated which Bills (with parties threatening to move people from one to the other in order to have those they see as their bigger hitters on whichever Committee is dealing with a major Bill).

The Committees have all agreed their annual reports and published them on the website; the full Committees' Annual Report should be published soon.

The Parliamentary Bureau is effectively the Business Committee of the Parliament; it is chaired by the Presiding Officer, Sir David Steel (his deputies are Patricia Ferguson and George Reid), and comprises the parties’ business managers - Alex Johnstone (Conservative) Tom McCabe (Labour), Fiona Hyslop (SNP), and Euan Robson (LibDem).

The SPCB considers and makes decisions on a wide range of issues to do with the running of the Parliament including the financing of the Parliament and allocation of the budget, the staffing of the Parliament, accommodation and the use and security of Parliamentary facilities and the building of a permanent Parliament at Holyrood. Its members are Des McNulty, John Young, Sir David Steel, Robert Brown and Andrew Welsh

Scott Barrie, Margaret Jamieson, Paul Martin, Lloyd Quinan and Keith Raffan

Ian Jenkins, Frank McAveety, Irene McGugan, Brian Monteith, and Michael Russell.

Enterprise and Life Long Learning (Convener: Alex Neil, SNP; Deputy Convener: Annabel Goldie, Conservative; Clerk: Simon Watkins; 348 5214)

Bill Butler, Duncan Hamilton, Marilyn Livingstone, David Mundell, Tavish Scott, Kenny MacAskill, Kenneth Macintosh, Des McNulty, and Elaine Thomson