ABSTRACT
A striking feature of the committees in the first four years of the Scottish Parliament has been the importance attached to investigative work, something which has been mirrored in the large number of inquiry reports they have produced. The evidence from the convenor interviews, moreover, suggested that committees were often at their most cohesive, certainly felt at their most effective, and believed they contrived the greatest degree of independence from Executive control when engaged in inquiry work. Inquiries in short have allowed the Scottish committees to perform an agenda-setting function and, unlike Westminster, the Executive is required to respond to inquiry reports. How important has the 'select committee' function been for Swedish committees? Have the committees traditionally enjoyed a strong investigative capacity or have their 'control powers' been limited and/or underdeveloped?
