Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Ruth Maguire for her question. She will be aware that we responded to the committee by letter on the specific asks that it made in its inquiry on ELC and pay and conditions, and on the request that we perform a mapping exercise.

Currently, no national data is available on the movement of staff across the sector. We have therefore asked the Scottish Social Services Council, which is responsible for collecting the relevant information, to explore the possibility of providing such data. It is not collected across local authorities reliably enough to enable us to map the committee’s concerns about the movement of staff.

The committee should be aware that the Scottish Government pays the highest average funding rates in the United Kingdom: between 2017 and 2022, they increased by 57 per cent, which is higher than the figures for Wales and England by quite some way. To put that into context, when the expansion of early learning and childcare began in 2018, about 80 per cent of staff employed by the PVI sector were paid less than the living wage. In contrast, our health check in 2021 indicated that 88 per cent of providers intended to pay the real living wage from August that year. We have seen quite considerable differences there.

It is also relevant for the committee to be aware that Scottish Government funding accounts for about 33 to 45 per cent of the overall income of private childcare services. It is a mixed economy, and there are business decisions for the PVI sector to make about staffing.

We work closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and, through the finance working group, we have worked intensively with COSLA to ensure that the investment of almost £1 billion that we are making in ELC in the next year is distributed fairly and that PVI providers are paid a sustainable rate—that rate has gone up by an average of 6.1 per cent over the past year. I hope that that assures the committee that we are listening and responding to your concerns.

Before the expansion of 1,140 hours, one of the issues that the Scottish Government consulted on was different models of support for delivery of ELC. That consultation happened between October 2016 and January 2017, and it included the model that the convener has alluded to.

The independent consultation analysis report that was published in March 2017 highlighted that the funding follows the child model was identified most frequently as the preferred model for best supporting the provision of high-quality ELC that is accessible and affordable for all. We see evidence of that in the figures that are coming out on the number of children accessing ELC and on parent and carer satisfaction about the quality and flexibility of the service that they receive.

As I said earlier and as Eleanor said, it is a mixed economy. The principle of the funding following the child means that parents are able to decide where they wish their child to receive early learning and childcare. We believe that the funding that we provide to local authorities through the funding formula that we agreed with COSLA is enough to enable them to pay sustainable rates to PVI providers.

Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to give evidence to the committee on two draft Scottish statutory instruments: the Police Act 1997 (Offences in Schedules 8A and 8B) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2022 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Order 2022. I hope that the following will be of help to committee members.

The instruments make amendments to the offence lists in the legislation covering disclosure. Those lists contain the offences that must be included when disclosure checks are carried out on individuals. The SSIs are required in order to ensure that there is consistency between state disclosure and self-disclosure.

Most of the amendments made to the offences lists by the instruments are intended to bring them into line with the equivalent lists passed by the Scottish Parliament in the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020. The changes made by the instruments will remain in place until that act is fully commenced.

If an offence is not included in the lists, a conviction for that offence cannot be disclosed on any level of disclosure once it is spent according to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Higher-level disclosures are used for roles involving a high degree of sensitivity, or where there is an expectation of integrity, or for the purpose of public protection. The offence lists therefore serve an important safeguarding purpose by ensuring that information about serious and relevant spent convictions can continue to be disclosed once the convictions are spent.

The legislation contains two lists of offences: list A and list B. Offences in list B are for convictions that must be disclosed in accordance with the rules and include those such as fraud or theft. An individual can apply to have spent convictions from that list removed from their disclosure. To do that, the individual must apply to the sheriff court.

There are some offences that must be disclosed regardless of how long has passed since the conviction. Those are the offences in list A, which include serious offences such as rape and other sexual offences as well as certain terrorism and firearms offences. An individual can apply to have those offences removed only after a certain amount of time has passed and depending on their age at the time of conviction. That application must be made to the sheriff court.

When the offence lists were reviewed for the purposes of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, some offences were moved between list A and list B, some were removed entirely from list B and new statutory offences that had been created since the offence lists were established in 2015 were added to both lists. For example, the offence under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 of abusive behaviour towards a partner or ex-partner is specified in list A of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, but it is not specified in the offence lists in the legislation that is currently in force. That means that a spent conviction for such an offence cannot currently be disclosed on any form of higher-level disclosure. I have introduced the instruments in advance of the full commencement of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 to remedy that and to reduce any safeguarding risks that might arise in the interim period.

In addition to the changes made to align the existing legislation with the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, some further changes are being made to the offence lists to take us through the interim period. Those changes relate to amendments that could not be made during the bill process due to the onset of the pandemic; new offences created since the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 completed its passage through Parliament; and a general review of the offence lists. The factors that informed the creation of the offence lists and the review for the purposes of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 were revisited in order to classify offences as either serious, and therefore on list A, or less serious and on list B. Full details of the amendments are set out in the policy notes, which I believe members have.

Any corresponding amendments that are necessary to update the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 offence lists will be made as part of the implementation of those provisions in 2024.

My officials and I are happy to take questions on the draft regulations and order.

We know that there are some areas of extremely good practice. Iona Colvin referenced one in North Ayrshire. There are great examples of shared multidisciplinary culture with a shared goal of improving services for children and families. In looking at whether children’s services should be in the national care service, we are considering the opportunities that that would give us to scale that up, to have national standards and to drive good practice in areas where it perhaps is not as good as it is in other areas that we can cite.

The points that Ross Greer raised about education and early learning are important. Ensuring that those linkages remain strong and are built on is absolutely key and really important. Of course, all of the Government’s work with children and young people is underpinned by the GIRFEC approach of getting it right for every child and, by extension into the care service, of getting it right for everyone. Those principles would remain the same. The care and support for a child and their family should be individualised for their needs in a wraparound service. Including children’s services in the national care service would give us the opportunity to expand that across the country by having national standards.

I think that Mr Stewart has covered it all.

I have a point to make in relation to Mr Marra’s question about schedule 3 of the bill and the acts that are mentioned there. All of those acts cover social work-related local authority functions and duties—that is why they are included in schedule 3.

We will give on-going consideration to what is in and what is out on the basis of the evidence, the consultation and the research that has been commissioned. This is not set in stone; we will continue to consider these matters.

We are talking about a national care service that might or might not have children’s services in it. I am sure that Mr Marra is aware that we are in negotiation with COSLA on that issue, and have been for some time. We are very keen to get a resolution to that. There would be a financial cost within that.

I do not think that Mr Stewart could answer that question at the moment, simply because he does not have the figures in front of him, but we are not waiting—we are working on those issues.

No—I am happy for you to move on.