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We only have to look at news reports from yesterday to see the impact that it can have on young women. Day and daily, this is difficult for young women, so we have to get this right as we move forward and we are committed to doing that.

I will not stray into talking about education and early years, although it is tempting, because I know that the committee will hear from Shona Robison and Clare Haughey next week.

The investment that we have made in perinatal and infant mental health support can also make a big difference. I know that the committee has been discussing that subject and that you will report on it very soon. The four-year investment makes a substantial contribution to improving and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of women and infants, which can have a huge long-term impact. We await your report and recommendations with anticipation.

We are still analysing the responses to the consultation, and we know that we have more work to do to consult with stakeholders about our proposals before final decisions are taken by the Cabinet.

In all of the work that we do on the national care service, and whether services are in or out of it, we have to take a joined-up approach. We know all too well from stakeholders that transition periods can sometimes be some of the most difficult times for people, and that there does not seem to be the link that should be there when people move from one service to another. Legislation on that has changed recently, but there is a question about when is the right time for change and whether that change is the right thing to do. More joined-up approaches are required.

I can give an example—it is the starkest one that I have—of where we sometimes do not get it right and can confuse people and do too much rather than have a systematic right approach for folks. The other week, one of my officials was talking to a young person, who has a lot of things going on in their life and is involved with 15 different agencies. The question that that young person asked was, “Who do I listen to in all of this?” Often, what that person was being told was contradictory, according to them. I think that we can all agree that that is not the right approach for a young person, so we have to ensure that, in the future, we do not have those kinds of examples and that everything that we do is person centred.

The message that I get from a lot of young folk is, “I want somebody I can trust to deal with me.” There is absolutely no reason why the good practice of having a lead person, which is happening in many places, cannot be followed across the board.

Whether children’s services are in or out of the national care service—the initial responses to the consultation show that the majority are in favour of them being in it—we have to make sure that the linkages are right and that we take a person-centred approach, as opposed to the current situation in which, in some cases, we have a bit of a postcode lottery. No matter what, we want a national quality standard so that folks know the service that they can expect.

Beyond that, again no matter what, we have to listen to the voices of lived experience. The places where services are working well are the ones where young folk are at the heart of helping to shape services and where there is the maximum amount of communication, collaboration and co-operation. No matter what, that is what we need to see across the board.

We will write to the committee about that, too.

Holistic whole-family support and the whole family wellbeing fund are absolutely vital in getting this right as we move forward. You will hear from our other colleagues that, in terms of the work that needs to be done, along with the multidisciplinary and multi-agency approach that is being taken, we are taking a cross-cutting approach in Government in order to get this absolutely right for families across the country.

We have real ambition on this issue. The work is largely being led by other ministerial colleagues, but we are all involved in the overview of the matter in the group that is chaired by the Deputy First Minister. This is an important issue. This is one of the main policy planks that will help us to move beyond just getting it right for every child to getting it right for everyone.

Again, that involves work that we are doing at the moment. A huge amount of my time since I got this role last May has involved talking to stakeholders—I talked earlier about the young man with those 15 interventions. Sometimes, we have situations where families have a huge amount of interventions but there is not that holistic approach. The national care service and new standards can make a real difference there. However, we also need to change the culture around how we support families, because we know that where there are too many interventions, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the trust factor is not there and you do not get the positive results that we want.

As well as the multidisciplinary approach and the multi-agency approach, we need to ensure that, in order to get this right, we have folk in play that families can trust. That will make a real difference. That is why I and other colleagues are quite excited about the way that we can approach this issue in order to improve and modernise the situation for families across the country.

I will be very brief, convener. Local authorities also have the ability to use the children and young people’s mental health services money for sporting activities that support children’s wellbeing. Ms Mochan will be well aware, I am sure, of the various projects that are going on in East Ayrshire, but one of the investments that East Ayrshire Council has made is in its vibrant communities project, which includes multidisciplinary community sport support, including sports coaches, for example. There is flexibility in that resource.

Of course, although we have invested £50 million over this year and next year, our ambition, as part of the Bute house agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Greens, is to double that investment over the course of this parliamentary session. Flexibility exists for local authorities to use that money for mental wellbeing, because we know that sport has a vital role to play in that.

No, I think that we have to ensure that community-based services are as good as they can be in order to stop folk reaching acute services. That is the ambition here. As we move forward, we want to invest more in that preventative approach. That is why we have invested in school counsellors, that is why we are investing in primary care and that is why we are investing in community resources.

I would agree that we have a lot of work to do to reduce CAMHS waiting times and waiting lists. We get fixated about the statistics, but all of this is about people and their families, and I recognise that this is a particularly stressful time for folk who are waiting. I want to ensure that we have a service whereby we reduce those times and those lists.

There are lessons that have been learned pre-pandemic that have led to the modernisation of services in certain places, and we need to ensure that that happens everywhere. That is why we have put the standard in place to make sure that everybody follows that way. I will give Ms Webber an example—I may have given it before, so my apologies if I have. If we look at CAMHS waiting times and lists, we see that Grampian has done fairly well even during the pandemic. A decade ago it was not in a good place, but it has modernised the service. It is much more community focused, with much more emphasis on helping folk in communities, and that has made a real difference. We need to export that best practice and those models across the country. That will reduce lists and reduce waiting times.

Somebody mentioned data earlier. In some regards I get frustrated when we are comparing apples with oranges. We have to get the data right in all of this to ensure that we have all the knowledge at our fingertips to show what investment we will require in the future.

Finally, to show how seriously we take all this, I note that we have invested £40 million of the £120 million mental health recovery and renewal fund in CAMHS. That is how important we feel it is. This is a priority.

We fully intend to keep the Promise and we intend to ensure that we deal with the difficulties that were highlighted in the independent report on adult social care. In order for us to be able to do that, we need to shift the financial alignment and the balance of investment that we make in this area so that we are not spending constantly on crisis intervention, which is often the case, but can spend on prevention. That will free up even more resource to do that and, of course, by doing it that way, we also lessen the human cost of not getting this right.

We carried out a CRWIA screening in February 2021. The Government has adopted a consistent approach to rights and equality that has been used across all the protected categories when assessing deliverables in the mental health transition and recovery plan. Our mental health, equalities and human rights forum is central to that.

Crucially, we continue to involve children and young people in all aspects of our focused actions on mental health and wellbeing. As Ms Todd and I have reiterated again and again today, lived experience should be at the heart of all that we do.

For example, the involvement of members of the Scottish Youth Parliament enriches the work of the Scottish Government and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities children and young people’s mental health joint delivery board. We have attached to that two participation officers who focus on children’s and young people’s engagement.