Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am here as the convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, and I am struggling not to give my party’s view—but thank you for your question. I will leave it there.

It is, clearly, public money—we need to be mindful of that. We are in a very challenging environment. When the public see spiralling costs and the Parliament carries on spending like that, they think that we are a little bit disconnected from reality. We need much more accountability. As I said, the SPCB has the governance procedures around that, and the Auditor General for Scotland has a role in inspecting the annual accounts, but we need a reality check in many of these offices about the tight financial envelope that we are all working within. That is my steer on that.

Martin Whitfield has alluded many times to the commissioners’ independence, and I think it would be difficult for us to pick some of the budget areas and the activities that the scrutiny body carries out and make judgments about the value those bring from the spend. You are looking quizzical, but I am trying to form my—

Indeed.

We already do. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner said that the fact that there are areas of overlap prevents them from carrying out investigations and inquiries, albeit that that is peripheral and around the edges. I cannot remember the specific detail. The fact that there is already overlap with the public bodies that are responsible for exercising specific functions prevents the Children and Young People’s Commissioner from carrying out investigations. Therefore, in my view, if we were to add more complexity, more commissioners and more areas of overlap, that would raise a big red flag.

Whatever it was, however that budget scrutiny was to lie and wherever the responsibility for it lands, Mr Greer, we have to make sure that it can be delivered, that it is done well and the time is given for us to do it. That is all I will say on that one.

You may be aware that the current Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has newly come into post. We had her in front of us recently.

We have been quite thoughtful about how best to carry out the scrutiny role, given that she is new in the position. We also have to recognise that each commissioner is quite different. As convener, I was never given the opportunity to scrutinise the previous commissioner. I have only ever had Nicola Killean in front of the committee.

We heard evidence from her and her team about their strategic plan and that set the tone of what we will look for from her in the next year or so. We looked at what her priorities will be and we were glad to know that they are around poverty, education, mental health, climate change and discrimination. Nothing is unfamiliar or a surprise. Those priorities are all in the work plan that the commissioner is keen to focus on.

We were interested when she spoke at length about her accountability tracker, which, in the landscape that she works in, is designed to hold the Government and other bodies to account for how they are progressing their plans in relation to the promises that they have made to children and young people. We are keen to see how that develops and whether it gives us some oversight as a tool to track progress.

I do not know how long I have. I could talk for a while, Mr Gibson.

The only one that springs to mind right now is additional support for learning, but I am afraid I cannot talk an awful lot about that until tomorrow.

I suppose that the issue goes back to the role of the Children and Young Person’s Commissioner, which is specifically about hearing the voices of all young people without making the assumptions that adults might make. The current commissioner is looking at finding ways to proactively engage with some of the groups that you mentioned to make sure that their voices are heard.

Having a commissioner as massive and unwieldy—that might not be the right word—as that, with a remit as broad as that, would not allow for advocacy for young people, who often feel unheard at the best of times, without their perspective being diluted by all those other things. That is the key thing that sets them apart.

I have one small point to make, convener. We are concerned that bringing more commissioners into the mix could create further confusion and could make things even more ineffective for young people by making it harder for them to figure out who to go to who could act as their champion. Such confusion in the landscape comes with costs and creates more barriers to justice. That is my final word.

In digging in and getting a bit more detail about the children’s commissioner, the challenge is the work plan that we all have to work towards, specifically the education committee. Our heavy legislative agenda prevents us being proactive about going into more detail with the commissioner about some of the work that they do. If you want us to have that increased level of scrutiny, perhaps the capacity of the existing system needs to be reviewed. That does not necessarily mean that there needs to be another committee; perhaps the Parliament’s whole work plan needs to be reviewed.

This comment might be more from me than from me as a convener. A leaner legislative programme would allow committees to do more in-depth work and have more of a proactive agenda.