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Our next continued petition, PE1993, lodged by David Grimm and Lucy Challoner, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that social work students have access to adequate financial support during their studies by providing bursaries to all third-year and fourth-year undergraduate social work students on work placements, reforming the assessment criteria and adequately funding the bursaries for postgraduate social work students on work placements.

The committee last considered the petition on 22 March, when we agreed to write to the Minister for Higher Education and Further Education and Minister for Veterans, and to the Scottish Social Services Council.

The response from the Scottish Social Services Council notes that the budget for postgraduate social work bursaries has remained at £2.655 million since 2012-13 and that 321 bursaries are made available. It undertook a review of the bursary policies, procedures and processes in 2021-22 to ensure that funding was disbursed as equitably and efficiently as possible. A review of the models that support practice placements was due to conclude in the summer of this year.

The minister’s response states that work is on-going to explore the potential for changes to the support that is available for social work students in the context of workforce planning. It also mentions that the Scottish Social Services Council is working with universities and the social work education partnership to explore additional funding models across social work education.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action in light of the fact that the fund for bursaries has been frozen for more than a decade?

We have two new petitions to consider this morning. I explain for those who might be joining us for the first time that, in advance of our consideration of all new petitions and in order to assist that consideration, we invite the Scottish Government and the Parliament’s independent research body—the Scottish Parliament information centre—to give some comment on and information in respect of the petitions.

The first new petition, PE2039, lodged by Amy Lee, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to pay student nurses for their placement hours. The petitioner’s experience on placement has been challenging: she states that she has been used as a spare member of staff to cover absences during her previous three placements. She also shares that she took a £1,000 pay cut to study nursing.

The SPICe briefing explains that, over the three-year nursing programme, students are required to complete 2,300 hours of clinical practice and 2,300 hours of theory before they are eligible for registration. The briefing also notes that applications to study nursing have fallen from just under 8,000 in 2022 to 6,450 in 2023. That is rather a dramatic drop in a very short space of time.

The Scottish Government’s response to the petition states that it is not possible for student nurses to be employed as nursing staff before programme completion and entry to the nursing register. Regarding financial support, it states that eligible student nurses and midwives in Scotland receive the highest level of support across the United Kingdom.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Good morning, and welcome to the last meeting in 2023 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

First, I will make a general comment in respect of certain social media commentary that has been promoted since our meeting a fortnight ago. It is important to understand that all the members of the committee act impartially in support of advancing the aims of our petitioners. We do not necessarily do that with any personal commitment to a petition or because we support it or oppose it. Our responsibility is to seek to advance the aims of the petition, as requested by the petitioner.

However, when it becomes clear to us that we are unable to take the matters in a petition forward, we have, in fairness to other petitions that we can advance, no option at that point but to move to close the petition. In closing a petition, we are not expressing a view about its merits or giving the personal view of any member of the committee. It is simply that, at that stage, we are unable to take the aims of the petition any further forward.

Of course, it is open to any petitioner, after a period of time, to lodge a fresh petition. It may well be that, in the circumstances that exist at that point, the aims of a petition that could not previously have been advanced can be taken forward.

I wanted to explain that, because our situation is different from the positions of other committees. All the members here act in the best interests of advancing a petition, as long as we are able to do so. The matter harks back to one of the conclusions that arose from our inquiry into deliberative democracy, which was that a distinction is to be drawn between Parliament and the Government. This is not the Government; this is Parliament. We are not the ones who are develop national legislation; we are the ones who hold Government to account, insofar as we are able so to do.

That brings us to agenda item 1, which is consideration of whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Those items will be to discuss the evidence that we hear today and how we might want to take forward our inquiry into the A9. Are colleagues content to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I am conscious that Rona MacKay and Naomi Bremner might also wish to comment.

Naomi, would you like to comment on the themes that Fergus Ewing has developed?

PE2043, which has been lodged by Philipa Jackson, is on changing the way in which gender theory is presented in schools. As you will recall, we considered a similar—though not exactly the same—petition just a moment ago. The petition has been lodged to urge the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to redefine the relationship, sexual health and parenthood—or RSHP—lessons pertaining to transgender and not present the information as fact.

The SPICe briefing note that has been prepared states that Scotland does not have a statutory curriculum, as we know. It also notes that the Scottish Government was consulting on draft statutory guidance on the delivery of relationship, sexual health and parenthood education to replace the guidance currently in place.

The Scottish Government’s response states that it has accepted the recommendations made by the LGBTI inclusive education working group. Of the teaching resources available for RSHP, one resource contains a lesson on being transgender and is intended for primary 5 to primary 7. The resource asks young people to think about what transgender means and aims to challenge the stereotypes and prejudices that can lead to transphobic bullying. The response also notes that the content of the RSHP resource was informed by more than 1,000 primary and secondary teachers and was piloted in 38 schools.

The petitioner’s written submission expresses the view that children are being taught an ideology that she is deeply concerned about, as she finds the current teaching to be age inappropriate and extremely graphic. She believes that some of the people involved in creating the RSHP resource are very biased, and she states that adults should not be coercing children to think that they can be the opposite sex.

Those are the comments that we have received from SPICe and the petitioner. Do members wish to suggest any options for action that we might take forward?

Given the Scottish Government’s very clear guidance—and noting Mr Ewing’s comments, which I expect might be more widely shared—are colleagues content to close the petition, even though it is a new one, given the direction that we have received?

Members indicated agreement.

Our penultimate petition this morning is PE2048, on reviewing the FAST—face, arms, speech, time—stroke awareness campaign. The petition, which was lodged by James Anthony Bundy, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase awareness of the symptoms of stroke by reviewing its promotion of the FAST stroke campaign and ensuring that awareness campaigns include all the symptoms of a potential stroke.

I should say that Mr Bundy is known to members of the Scottish Conservative Party as someone who has worked in our corridor and whose father died because of a stroke. I gather that his mother is with us in the room as we consider the petition.

We are also joined by our MSP colleagues Alexander Stewart and Jackie Baillie for consideration of the petition. Mr Stewart is back for his first visit to us since he withdrew his patronage of our committee, and Jackie Baillie is, of course, a very familiar and regular attendee and campaigner on behalf of constituents who have petitions before us. I should also note that we have received a written submission from Sandesh Gulhane MSP in support of the petition.

James Anthony Bundy lodged the petition after losing his father to a stroke that went undiagnosed, as his symptoms did not fall within the parameters of the FAST assessment. The family are now raising awareness of all the symptoms of stroke, which can also include an inability to stand, cold sweats, vision problems, nausea and vomiting.

The SPICe briefing that we have received refers to a 2021 systematic review of evidence that noted that the less commonly used BE FAST—balance, eyes, face, arms, speech, time—test identified more ischaemic strokes than the FAST test and that that test may play an important role in the diagnosis of strokes.

In responding to the petition, the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health noted that the Scottish Government published its refreshed stroke improvement plan in June and that, in priority 2 of that plan, the Scottish Government has committed to establishing the current degree of public understanding of the symptoms of stroke and whether certain at-risk groups require different messaging.

We have also received a submission from the petitioner, which provides further detail of his family’s experience and the difference that the use of the BE FAST test might have made. In doing so, he calls for an immediate and urgent review of the existing stroke awareness campaign to help to ensure that every individual who has experienced a stroke receives the timely care that they deserve.

The petition is an important one. Before we as a committee consider it further, would our two parliamentary colleagues wish to comment on it?

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2023 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

For the benefit of colleagues, item 1 is to agree to take agenda items 4 and 5, which is consideration of revised guidance and written submissions, in private. Are members happy to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

It would be better to talk in general terms about the policy, because I am worried that we will prejudice in some way the wider consideration of these issues.