Seòmar agus comataidhean

A combination of things are going on. We have skills challenges in this area generally. One issue that has arisen is the need to create opportunities for young people and other people to develop such skills. Just yesterday, Graeme Dey and I met the Historic Environment Scotland team, because, over the past few months, his officials and my officials have been working to address all the concerns that have been raised. Following the Withers review and the other work that Graeme Dey spoke about in his recent statement on developing skills and the skills landscape, we have been working to find ways in which we can tackle some of those challenges.

When it comes to apprenticeships for those areas, particularly stonemasonry, we are talking about a maximum of 30 apprentices a year, and there are 27 right now. We are working closely with Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and the Construction Industry Training Board to develop the framework. A bit of work is being done right now on the qualification framework and whether it reflects professionalism and the way in which we want to hold those skills in our training formats. With the Scottish Qualifications Authority, we have agreed to look at how we develop that professional framework. When the qualifications are of those standards, it makes the whole apprenticeship programme much more attractive for people who seek those skills. That piece of work is being undertaken right now and I had a meeting on that with Graeme Dey just yesterday.

I do not deny that there are challenges, including around how we deliver some of that work in a rural setting. You will know that Historic Environment Scotland is working with CITB and other bodies in Elgin and in Stirling at the Engine Shed, and we have been having a conversation about developing a centre of excellence. Nothing is agreed on that yet, but we are exploring all the ideas that will create the circumstances in which people will be encouraged to come into the roles and the framework for them to have qualifications when they come out on the other side. Over the next few weeks, we will continue those conversations with Mr Dey, his team and HES. I am meeting HES next week to follow up on all that. The issue is live right now. Nothing has been agreed yet, but lots of ideas have been coming in. If you have some of your own, please share them.

We recognise that there is a challenge there and that we must do something about it. I hope that the committee recognises the work that has been done over the past few months, which I have spoken about. The fact that I had a meeting on the subject just yesterday and will have a follow-up meeting with HES next week demonstrates how urgent I think the issue is and our desire to create the circumstances in which we can address it.

It is amazing how, when you come into a new portfolio, you start to see things that are relevant to issues in that portfolio. On a recent trip to Paris, I saw the work that is being done to restore Notre Dame and the apprenticeship programme that has been included in that project. An apprentice who starts their apprenticeship on that project will end it on that project. What a great thing it must be to have on your CV that you have been involved in restoring Notre Dame.

I asked our officials in the Paris office to look at that scheme to find out whether there is any learning that we can take from it on the way in which those apprentices have been engaged. I think that people would like to be able to put on their CV that they had experience of working on Edinburgh castle or the Wallace monument. We need to make that offer much more exciting for people who might not think about such careers when they embark on their further or higher education learning, or when they look for jobs and apprenticeships. By making that offer more exciting, we can encourage people to think about such a career, the opportunities that it provides and the prestige that it brings with it.

It is not simply a case of filling the gaps in a perfunctory way; we need to make the offer much more attractive to encourage people to come into the sector. We are all picking up on the need for us to work on that.

Again, that is a difficult, although very relevant, point. That is where some of the partnership work with those organisations is key. Some young people disappear off into their lives and do not want to be tracked or monitored. When we work closely with those organisations, we are able to do some monitoring and ensure that the young person is getting the opportunities that they want to access, but within a protective environment.

Out in the world of employment, there is great support available, but it is difficult to track. If a young person is being supported by their trade union, for instance, or by a trade union learning programme or another agency that provides support, it is really difficult to track their progress. Some of them do not want to come back to tell us, either. It is about the element of choice and getting the balance right between having the information and data that we need in order to do that monitoring and not overly intruding in somebody’s life as they move into the big world.

I can give you some of the information. We have said that it will be in this parliamentary term.

That is our PFG commitment. As you have heard this morning, a huge amount of progress is happening.

The pathfinder work will come to a conclusion in March, which is just a few short weeks away. We have the literature review across other nations being published very soon as well. As far as a timeline goes, those are the next steps, which are pretty imminent.

As far as a longer-term timeline goes, that is a bit more difficult to pin down, but we are happy to come back to committee when we have those next two steps past us, over the next few weeks, to talk to you more about the timeline.

Essentially, it is being driven by the children and young people and the stakeholders who will take forward that next piece of work. We do not want to create too tough a timeline such that they feel as though they cannot access the work on their terms. We want to ensure that we have the broadest range of young people, their parents and carers and organisations in there. For people who have communication difficulties and other challenges, we want to give them the time and space and, more important, the opportunity to have their voice heard.

I am sorry that I cannot give you definitive dates and times, but March is a key point for both those other pieces of work and those two next steps.

Many of the issues that Ruth Maguire raised in her question are ones that are recognisable to us. That is the reason why we have taken forward the work that we are doing on the national strategy.

The evidence that the committee has heard so far echoes the issues that we have. The committee will know that we have commissioned a literature review of United Kingdom and Scottish evidence, which we hope to publish soon. All the issues mentioned are common challenges that have emerged from that. Some of the key concerns relate to stress and uncertainty for young people—particularly when they leave friends, environments, teachers and carers that they know—and the difficulty of transferring into the adult world and to the services that are available at that point.

We are mindful of all those issues. We have recognised them and echo the concerns. The principles of good transitions and the principles into practice work is working specifically on all those areas to ensure that we make a difference when it comes to putting all that into practice as we move forward.

The principles into practice pathfinder work is finishing in March, which is a few short weeks away, and we should also be in a position to publish the analysis of the literature review that we have done in the coming weeks. You will see much more detail around this pretty soon.

I am just finding the most up-to-date information on that for you.

The fund has been used since December 2017, and around £10 million has been awarded to 5,300 grant recipients, so we can see the depth and spread of its reach. Single-year grants are up to £4,000 right now, and young people can apply for whatever activity or equipment they need to support and achieve the outcomes that are important to them.

That ties in to my previous response to Ross Greer about how individualised the plans need to be. In some cases, the opportunity for funding comes along with that. I have seen young people using the grants for driving lessons, music lessons and equipment that they need, for education courses or for other things that enrich people’s lives that may not otherwise be available to some young people.

We are already doing that. We have already recognised that issue and have taken forward a number of pieces of work including the literature review analysis, which will be published in the next few weeks. We have recognised some of the issues that have arisen from the bill and have picked them up. We have decided to do some work on what a good transition looks like, because some people have good transitions and we are using their experience to create a standard. We are working closely with ARC, which you heard from this morning, on the work that it is doing.

We understand that there are challenges and issues, but we also know that there is excellent practice out there and we want to know how to make that much more consistent. That is where we are.

We recognise all the challenges and are not shying away from them. The key part of working on them is working with organisations such as ARC and key stakeholders, because, if the process is not informed by lived experience, we might be back here soon.

Absolutely, and that is the toughest part of it. In my life before politics, I had the job of supporting young people from child services into adult services and, in particular, into employment, volunteering opportunities and work experience. It has always been a tough landscape to work in because it is governed by the Equality Act 2010, which is a separate piece of legislation.

However, there are a number of areas in which we support many organisations to create opportunities, especially around supported employment. Like any other young person, those young people do not necessarily set their mind to something and then follow that path. They might change their mind and decide that they want to do something different or be involved in something else, which is where organisations such as Remploy and others come into play, with the superb work that they do. Through developing the young workforce, we work very closely with some of the specialist organisations to create better outcomes.