Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is not what I am saying—

I am sorry, Ms Duncan-Glancy, but it is not the Government’s responsibility to figure out the costs of the bill. This is a member’s bill, and the responsibility lies with the member to bring the final costs of the bill, and the implications of that, to Parliament or the Government, to help to inform our decision on a financial resolution. Liz Smith has worked to address some of those costs, but here has been no engagement by Ms Smith with the trade unions, for example, to hear their concerns about the workforce implications and the costs that could be attached to them. There are still a number of unknowns.

As I say, a legitimate process is in place to help to ensure that Parliament does not walk into a scenario of unknown costs. We have the costs that are attached to the bill at the moment, but our estimation is that those will grow rapidly, based on a number of the issues that remain outstanding.

I will bring in Saskia Kearns to speak to some of the further work that has been done.

We have engaged with stakeholders, and we know that supporting children with additional support needs in relation to residential outdoor education is a highly complex issue. There are a number of children and young people out there with varying degrees of support needs. Some outdoor residential education centres are already well equipped to support those children, but that is not the case across the board. Initial analysis, and my engagement with the process, has shown us that some centres are not fully equipped to support children with a range of additional support needs. Again, this is variable, but we know that the costs attached to supporting children with additional support needs to attend residential trips can be up to £1,000 per child. More work needs done on that.

I know that Ms Smith introduced proposals and attached a £1.5 million figure to the cost of supporting children with additional support needs; however, I believe that that estimate was based solely on children in special schools and did not include those in mainstream schools. We know that there are a number of children in mainstream schools with additional support needs, so I believe that the cost would be higher than that.

There is also an issue about staff ratios to support children with additional support needs, because we know that, depending on a child’s or a young person’s needs, there might need to be more than one member of staff. Work has been done on that issue, but I do not think that the timeframe quite fits if we are to fully understand the implications around it.

This is a member’s bill. I have been clear about what the Government has done, and we have made efforts.

I will bring in Saskia in case I have missed anything.

Given the current financial context, I do not believe that I can sit here and tell you a figure that is affordable. Introducing any new duties to fund in the current financial context would force difficult choices about what to defund to accommodate new expenditure. That difficulty is compounded by the fact that, as I have already said, the total potential costs of the provisions are not clear, due to outstanding gaps in the available data. Even if I were to quote a figure, that figure would rise, because unknown costs would be attached to it. It is therefore very difficult to produce any figure that is affordable.

If the pilot approach was the approach that was decided on, it would ensure that control. I agree that it would cover only a certain number of children and young people, but it would allow the Government to gather the necessary data so that, if a national roll-out followed, no children and young people were missing out.

I would put that point back to Liz Smith. I believe that the bill as drafted does not fit in with that policy, because there absolutely would be children and young people who would miss out on those opportunities under the bill as drafted.

Obviously, I cannot speak for Liz Smith. I do not know whether that would be something that—

If a financial resolution is not produced, yes, that is the case.

I have continued to engage with Ms Smith. I have had, I think, three meetings with her since stage 1, there have been more than 10 letters of correspondence between us, and I have provided statistical information to her when she has asked for it. We have tried to work with Ms Smith as much as possible.

However, given the significance of the Government’s decision and the affordability issues that have been raised, I thought that it was appropriate to come up with another approach that could be taken, depending on the decision on the financial resolution.

A lot of the work on the pilot approach goes hand in hand with the work that is informing our approach to the member’s bill. We have looked at a number of issues in relation to the pilot approach, and I will perhaps bring in Saskia Kearns or Lewis Hedge to talk about that further. A number of issues are helping to inform our decision on the financial resolution. I do not see the two things in isolation. The work on the pilot approach is helpful in informing the Government’s final decision on the financial resolution.

That is a very important point. There might be teachers who are simply unable to attend week-long residentials—if they have young children and caring responsibilities, for example. The member raises a relevant point.