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I thank Nicola Sturgeon for lodging amendments 83 to 85. Improved children’s services planning is central to keeping the Promise, and I am therefore happy to support the amendments, as they will help to achieve a better balance of strong national oversight on national priorities while giving local areas the flexibility that they need to deliver the best outcomes for children and families. They should also mean that there is better information locally and nationally to support the development of future priorities and plans.

Ms Sturgeon mentioned consistency; that is an absolutely key issue for me, and I believe that the amendments can improve things in that respect. Of course, any change must also make things simpler and more effective and reduce process and administrative burden, not add to it. The proposed changes will give time to consult and to ensure that we get this right, as well as future proofing the intent to cover the national priorities at that time.

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I thank Sue Webber for lodging amendment 122, but I do not consider that it is needed. The existing statutory aims for children’s services plans are broad, and they are applicable to all children and young people, including those with specific types of needs, such as those who are care experienced. Those statutory aims already ensure that the wellbeing of all children is supported and promoted, that support is delivered as early as possible and that best use is made of available resources. Broad aims allow local areas to have the flexibility to respond to the needs of their specific population and allow such planning to be done in a holistic way. Given that every local authority has committed to keeping the Promise, in reality, some of the services that might help to enable children to continue to live safely in their families will already feature in how plans are developed and delivered.

Amendment 216, in the name of Miles Briggs, seeks to address the complexity of the landscape surrounding transitions and the particular challenges that families with children with life-shortening conditions often experience. That is exactly why we have included provision in the bill to strengthen the role of integration joint boards in children’s services planning. We want to ensure that the relevant adult health and local authority services are obligated to consider how to support young adults.

I share Mr Briggs’s ambition of strengthening the accountability of local authorities and health boards in respect of their children’s services plans and the need for more consistent data to improve national oversight, but that need would be better met through Nicola Sturgeon’s amendment 85 than by having a separate reporting duty. There is a need for more information about how transition is supported for disabled children, including children with life-shortening conditions, as they move into adulthood.

More generally, amendments 83 and 85 will allow the Scottish ministers to prescribe specific matters to be included in future children’s services plans and annual reports, which will mean that the needs of specific groups of children, such as those with life-shortening conditions, can be made visible and addressed in local areas.

Through his amendment 216, Miles Briggs has drawn attention to an important group of children, but I hope that he agrees that it is not necessary and that he will not move it. If he moves it, I encourage members to vote against it. Similarly, I hope that Sue Webber’s amendment 122 will not be moved. If it is moved, I encourage members to vote against it.

I support Nicola Sturgeon’s amendments 83, 84 and 85.

Two things need to be considered here. As I said, we need to make sure that the act delivers on what it is supposed to deliver, but there will also be a wider question for the Parliament as the years move on in relation to whether we are delivering on the Promise. There is an issue about the scope of Mr Whitfield’s amendment. Those two things need to be considered together but also separately, and perhaps we need to leave the route open to that. That will form part of my discussions with members on the appropriate way forward for stage 3.

I cannot put a timescale on that. Mr Whitfield highlights some of the challenges that exist around the issue. He said that the police station should become the last resort. I agree, but there are real differences and difficulties. We are talking about children being taken to a place of safety before appearing in court. Such places may be appropriate for holding a child before their appearance in court but not necessarily appropriate at the point of arrest, when the circumstances are very different and there could be real complexities. That automatically becomes a challenge. Other questions include how the decision would be reached on a place of safety and whether it should be a multi-agency decision or purely for Police Scotland to make—and, if it is a decision for Police Scotland, what rank the commanding officer making the decision would be.

I cannot put a timescale on this. We have had a debate about the complexities and, as I said, work is under way. I would like that work to continue, because we have to get to the point that Mr Whitfield talked about. However, as I said, getting there involves a number of issues.

I do not need to say much more, although I stress that I am supportive of the intention behind amendment 209.

I do not have that information to hand, but I am happy to continue discussions with Willie Rennie on the issue. Cross-party discussions have been set up in advance of stage 3, so I would be more than happy to provide a little more information on the issue at that time, if that would be helpful.

In light of my comments, I ask Mr Rennie not to press amendment 209, pending further explorations and discussions. As I have been clear, I am happy to consider and take away the issue ahead of stage 3, if that would be appropriate.

Permanently removing a child from their family is never an easy decision. Supporting families so that fewer children need to enter care is central to the Promise and to the intentions behind the bill, and remains a shared priority for us all.

However, as Mr Whitfield has laid out, for too many children, especially very young ones, it can still take too long to reach decisions that give them stability in their care and family arrangements, and drift and delay can occur in permanence planning. I thank Mr Whitfield for lodging the amendments in this group to enable us to discuss this important issue. However, any move to accelerate processes has to be grounded in what is best for children and young people, and shaped by the lived experience of the families who are affected by permanence decisions.

As I have communicated to Mr Whitfield, fixed deadlines risk pushing decisions to fit an arbitrary timetable, rather than responding to an individual child or young person’s needs, especially where work to support a return home is still under way. Setting statutory timescales may not deliver the improvement that we all want to see. Stakeholders such as The Promise Scotland and Social Work Scotland have been very clear in their concerns that legislating for a regulation-making power at this stage, without fuller consultation, evidence and system-wide understanding, would be premature. Permanence must also be driven by the views of a child or a young person, and setting such timescales risks forcing a system that is not child centred.

Although amendment 167 would require ministers to consult before making regulations, it would still bind ministers to introducing a statutory scheme before that wider work has taken place. A clearer understanding of where delays arise, informed by children, families and the workforce, and of the implications for practice and capacity, is needed before legislating in this area.

In addition, to promote consistent and effective practice in permanence, and to help to tackle drift and delay, the Scottish Government commissioned the Association for Fostering, Kinship & Adoption Scotland to develop three national good practice guides on permanence and kinship care, foster care and adoption. Those will be published next month and it will be important to allow time for those guides to bed in and to understand their impact.

It is also important that we monitor the impact of the changes that the bill will introduce, in order to ensure that they address Mr Whitfield’s concerns about permanence. However, from my discussion with Mr Whitfield yesterday, I am aware that the work that is underway on the bill’s provisions will not necessarily be enough. I believe that the bill will have an impact, but I understand that Mr Whitfield would like to see us go a little bit further.

For the reasons that I have laid out, which reflect the strong position of stakeholders, I am not able to support amendment 167. However, I advise the committee that it would be this Government’s intention urgently to consult and gather evidence early in the next Parliament to build that understanding and to consider the potential role of statutory timescales in addressing drift and delay.

Finally on amendment 167, I am conscious that the committee has received correspondence from CELCIS. Officials have had constructive discussions to understand its views, and that engagement has informed the Government’s position. Following those discussions, CELCIS accepted our position and welcomed the commitment to consultation and evidence gathering in the next parliamentary session.

I cannot support Martin Whitfield’s amendment  222, which is contingent on amendment 167.

Martin Whitfield’s amendment 196 risks significant confusion around roles and responsibilities. Put simply, the principal reporter makes decisions on the need for compulsion and does not have an active role in relation to permanence. To extend their functions into that area would be a significant and inappropriate change to the role of the reporter and to the permanence process. It would blur the lines of the role of the reporter in the decision-making process for a child or young person.

The amendment might speak to a wider misapprehension of the role of decision makers in the children’s hearings system in relation to permanence. Many referrals to the reporter, and the decision-making tests themselves, do not engage at all with the issue of permanence. Those could include grounds such as school attendance and alcohol and substance misuse. Permanence is mentioned once across the 17 grounds of referral in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, and even then, only with respect to a need for special measures on an existing order.

Children’s hearings apply a minimum intervention principle and consider the welfare of the child throughout their childhood when deciding whether to make an order and which measures to apply. They do not themselves deliver permanence, although they will often contribute. Therefore, in my view, amendment 196 does not have the right area of focus. A proper examination of the issue and an effective full-spectrum improvement programme to address permanence would have to go much wider. Courts, local authorities, other agencies and third-sector partners would all have a role to play in that.

The amendment would also create a significant administrative burden without improving the experiences of children and families. It would take vital resources away from the relational work that the Promise has told us is so important.

For those reasons, I hope that Martin Whitfield will understand why I cannot support his amendments. As we take forward the consultation and evidence-gathering work that I referred to earlier, I would welcome working with him and other members to arrive at suitable mechanisms. If the amendments are pressed, I encourage members not to support them.

A later group of amendments covers a review of the bill as a whole, and I will set out my stance when we get there. However, there are options for considering permanence in relation to the wider review and we would want to have a stronger evidence base to go on. Hopefully, we will put something a little more firmly in place, which is what Mr Whitfield would like to see, as I understand it.

I am not closed off to that. I am not saying whether that would be the right or the wrong approach. However, I have spoken with a number of organisations about the register and I know that there are competing views in that regard. The issue could perhaps be considered further in our engagement.

I recognise that the issue of single-member hearings has been a focus for members of the committee, and I welcome the scrutiny of what is undoubtedly a significant change for children’s hearings.

The proposal to introduce single-member hearings comes directly from Sheriff Mackie. I welcome his progressive and positive consideration, both in his original recommendations and in his view of these provisions. I reiterate the words of Sheriff Mackie in his evidence at stage 1:

“We should not be scared about entrusting single members with certain decisions.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 10 September 2025; c 54.]

I accept the committee’s view that additional detail is required. That is why, in my response to its stage 1 report, I made a commitment that we would address the matters to be considered by a single-member hearing in secondary legislation and made available to all parties in the rules of procedure made under section 177 of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011. Those rules will be further updated in the light of the bill.

However, I recognise that those changes may create some anxiety with regard to how they may be implemented. To that end, I am pleased to have lodged amendments 27 and 30, which introduce a significant safeguard to the operation of the system.

The remunerated, legally competent chairing member envisioned by the bill will play a central role in managing a hearing in the redesigned system. It is that senior tribunal member who will be trained and qualified, and therefore best placed to decide whether, in any case that could otherwise have been considered by a single panel member, that child’s specific case should be considered by a hearing of three panel members.

I would have to write to the committee with the specific detail on what right or recourse they would have to reverse the decision. Of course, the child will have a number of different people supporting them—for example, advocates—and looking out for that child’s best interests.

If there is an instance in which it is felt that the best decision was not made for the child, that can be followed up. However, as I have made clear, the single member will not be able to take a multitude of decisions that are available for disposal at a children’s hearing; there are a limited number of instances in which a single-member panel would be used.

I make it clear that if a case looks as though it will be extremely complex, with the possibility of a wrong decision being made, I would have confidence in the single chairing member to refer that case to a three-member panel, before which a hearing would then ultimately have to take place.

I do not think that a single chairing member would want to proceed with something that could give rise to a degree of inconsistency—that is probably not the right word, but we would not want to put that pressure on a single chairing member if a case looks very complex. As I said, in such a case, a three-member panel would be required. The chairing member would take that forward, and a hearing with a three-member panel would have to go ahead.

There are options to appeal against the decision of a hearing. If decisions have been made that do not fit with the best interests of the child, in the view of others who are supporting that child, there are routes to be taken.

Sorry—I have some information in my notes that I have just discussed in response to the interventions. As I said, where the chairing member takes the view that a three-member panel is required, the national convener of Children’s Hearings Scotland would have to select a three-member panel hearing. The chairing member will be able to request that a full hearing is convened to consider any matter that is central to the child’s circumstances.

As a consequence of amendment 27, amendment 26 makes a change to the mechanism that is open to the national convener in selecting panel members. Amendments 22 to 24 are further consequential to amendments 26 and 27. My amendments 29 and 32 correct minor typographical errors.

Amendment 30 enables the chairing member of a grounds hearing consisting of a single panel member to discharge a case if they are satisfied that a compulsory supervision order is not needed. That provides an important additional safeguard to avoid unnecessary hearings where the chairing member considers that the tests for a CSO are not met. Amendments 31 and 33 are consequential on amendment 30.

I note the intention of Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 25. I recognise that there is considerable interest in the chairing member role, as it is a significant development for the children’s hearings system. The provisions in the bill enhance the role, and recognise the complexity that chairing members deal with daily.

Section 177 of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 already gives Scottish ministers powers to make rules about the procedures relating to children’s hearings. Those powers will be used to review the functions of the chairing member to reflect the provisions in the legislation. Given that the existing legislation already addresses the matters in Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 25, I hope that he will agree not to move his amendment.

I also appreciate the intent behind Roz McCall’s amendment 105 regarding safeguarder appointments, but that is exactly the sort of decision that we would consider appropriate for a single-member hearing. The appointment of a safeguarder can be an important part of the hearing process and is made where the hearing is seeking additional information that may, for whatever reason, not be available to it at the time that it is considering that child’s case. Barring a single chairing member from taking those types of decisions would remove flexibility and the potential for expedited decision making. We are not seeking to ensure that—