Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, minister and officials. I have to say that I am disappointed, although I do not think that that will come as a surprise to anyone, including the minister. The minister said last night that the process exists elsewhere. However, if I may say so, there is a mischaracterisation of the process. The process is there, in my understanding, not for the Government to block the will of Parliament, which has already decided that the bill should progress to stage 2. Rather, it is there for the Government to set out its understanding of what the cost of the legislation would be, so that Parliament can make decisions on amendments to manage the cost in one way or another and, ultimately, make a decision at stage 3. Not providing that information right now is a dereliction of responsibility and a complete disregard of the will of Parliament.

I have one final question and a comment. If I am honest, it is not necessarily the case that the Parliament has not already been asked, in this parliamentary session, to support a bill with unknown costs.

A commitment was made to the committee that consideration would be given to any costs associated with ensuring that pupils with ASN could enjoy the rights that the Parliament has intended them to enjoy as a result of the bill. Since then, what analysis has the Government done on that issue?

On the timeframe, will you complete that work within the next fortnight?

It is pretty clear that people are not content with the Government’s position on this matter just now.

A number of the issues that we have raised are exactly the sorts of issues that members would like to pursue in amendments at stage 2, and then ultimately ask whether they have been addressed when we look at the bill again at stage 3. However, given the Government’s position in abstaining at stage 1 and failing so far, with just two weeks—days—left, to produce a financial memorandum to resolve these issues, it is likely that if one is produced, it is going to be without some information that the Government should have collected and, if it is not produced, the parliamentary process will have been frustrated.

Moreover, with some of the stuff that we have just discussed about pupils with ASN, those inequalities are happening right now in the current status quo. That suggests to me that the Government should get its skates on, get the financial resolution published and allow Parliament to resolve some of these matters through stages 2 and 3, so that pupils with ASN can fully access their rights to outdoor education.

Good morning. I thank the witnesses for the evidence that they submitted in advance of the meeting and the questions that they have answered so far. I will ask about the parts of the bill that are specifically on aftercare, but, before I do so, I will pick up on a couple of issues that have been touched on.

Fraser McKinlay, you highlighted one of the issues that I heard about when I spoke to young people with care experience and others who support them in the sector, which is about access to housing and access to education. The education outcomes have just been published, and they are not where they need to be. What are the main issues that care-experienced young people face today, and will the bill address any of them?

Do you think that there are potentially opportunities to amend the current bill to do some of that?

Thank you. I appreciate that. I had not considered that in any great detail, so it is helpful for the committee’s consideration.

Do the panel members have any views on capacity? We have heard about the need not to pile additional bureaucracy on an already stretched workforce. I suppose that the same is true of the hearings system. What changes might be needed in capacity in the system to enable this to be done properly?

I brought—or tried to bring—a bill to Parliament on transitions, as they are a key aspect of people’s lives, and one of the things that I found, not just through my own personal experience but through the evidence that I gathered, was that people tend to have to be project managers in their own lives. Very often, they are the only people who know what the system is doing. Do you think that there is a role for somebody to help people with that? If so, who would that be?

I will move on to the decisions that were taken once the information started to become apparent. There has been some disagreement about who had what information when, including from the witnesses on yesterday’s panel. You have already said today that some information was not available to you, or you were not aware of it at the time.

My understanding is that, once you became aware of it, the executive group initially advocated a programme of voluntary severance, and that that was rejected and resisted. Can you explain? Do you recall that? What was your reason for resisting voluntary severance at the time?

Who made that decision?