Chamber and committees

My final question is the perennial one that is asked every time the Government tries to get broad public engagement. How, through the review exercise that is about to take place, are you going to engage with those people—that overwhelming majority of the general public who have no idea what the NPF is and who do not necessarily have an immediate and obvious relationship with the delivery of NPF outcomes—who are otherwise disengaged from the process and who do not work at the relevant level in a public agency or third sector organisation?

It was a very specific figure to ask for, so there are no worries if you do not have it immediately to hand. If you could follow up in writing on that—

It was about your ability to conduct further research in this area. Do you need to go through the DWP or do you already have access to all the information that you need?

A moment ago, you acknowledged in response to John Mason that it is not essential for every member of the public to have a comprehensive understanding of what the NPF is, but it is important that those who are involved in relevant organisations, such as public bodies, understand what we are headed towards.

I am trying to understand the difference between those who are responsible for on-the-ground delivery and those who are responsible for strategic planning. How important is it for a heart surgeon to understand NPF outcomes versus the senior management team of a hospital or health board? How important is it for a classroom teacher to know what NPF outcomes they are working towards versus the senior management team of a school or a council education department? At what level do you expect people to recognise tangible and specific NPF outcomes and their relationship to those outcomes?

I come back to the Sheffield Hallam University study around hidden unemployment—I think that is how they phrased it—that the convener mentioned, and specifically the million people who are on incapacity benefits. I preface this by saying that the report’s authors made it very clear that there is no suggestion that large numbers of people are on incapacity benefits who should not be. It is not about fraud; people who are on incapacity benefits have legitimate incapacities and that is why they are on them.

The basic thrust of the report is that a large number of people are on incapacity benefits because they do not feel that they are able to get employment, or they are searching for employment, but while they are doing so, those benefits are the most appropriate social security for them. The subset in Scotland is about 100,000 people. Do you have any data on how many of those people in Scotland would like to be in employment?

I understand that the proposed bill would provide us with a significant opportunity to make improvements in this area. I do not object to the regulations; it is better for us to agree to them than not to do so. However, I am still not clear on one point. Given that you have included a number of additional safeguards and conditions, why would this one not have worked? Before you published the regulations, had the children’s commissioner raised with you the proposal for there to have been at least an adequacy rating in the previous six months?

I echo the convener’s thanks for the minister’s letter, which was useful in preparation for the meeting. Once regulations are laid, they cannot be amended—Parliament can make a judgment on them or they can be withdrawn. That presents us with questions of process before we get into the substance.

The commissioner’s office has presented us with proposed alternatives. If the Government adopted them, they would require the withdrawal of the existing regulations and the laying of new regulations. That begs a question about process. Did the commissioner’s office have specific knowledge of the regulations that you intended to bring forward? Obviously, you had engaged with the office on the broad principles, but, before those regulations were laid and published, had the commissioner’s office been given a draft of the regulations or a summary of the specific policy intentions? If that was the case, did the commissioner’s office come back to you at that point with something equivalent to the list of alternatives that it provided to us?

I am trying to understand how we have ended up in a place where alternatives are coming forward from the commissioner’s office but regulations have already been published, so we cannot amend them in order to accept those alternatives, even if we were minded to.

Thank you. That is extremely helpful.

That is really helpful. I will move on to some specific points of substance.

Part of the regulations give Scottish ministers the power to pursue the placing authority if it has breached various conditions. A reasonable question from the children’s commissioner was how ministers would become aware that there was an issue in the first place, and specifically how the young person might be able to notify ministers that there was a problem that would justify the Government’s pursual of the placing authority. Can you respond to that? How would someone be in a situation to actually make use of that power?

I have one final question. Your letter is useful in explaining why some of the specific proposals that the commissioner’s office has offered as alternatives either would not be appropriate or are not possible. There is one proposal that you said would not be appropriate, but I am not clear why—the proposal that one of the conditions be that the facilities that a young person might be placed into must have been rated at least “adequate” by the Care Inspectorate in the past six months. That sounds entirely reasonable to me, but the Government has taken a different position on it. Can you explain exactly why the Government thinks that that is either not appropriate or not possible?