Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Official Report 412KB pdf

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New Petition

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Additional Support for Learning (Funding) (PE1507)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you all to this meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. As always, I ask everyone to switch off electronic devices as they interfere with our sound system.

I have received apologies from David Torrance.

Agenda item 1 is consideration of a new petition. PE1507, by Alex Orr and Sophie Pilgrim, on behalf of the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition and Kindred, is on funding for additional support for learning in Scotland. The committee decided not to invite the petitioners to attend to speak to the petition. Members have a note by the clerk, the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing and the petition.

Members will be aware that the petition requests that we urge the Scottish Government to write to all 32 local authorities in Scotland to remind them of their obligations under the getting it right for every child approach, which will become statutory under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill in 2016. In a sense, the petition is straightforward, in that it asks us to write to the Scottish Government to ensure that it contacts all the local authorities, and the objective is fairly straightforward for the committee to achieve. However, as always, I ask committee members whether they have any comments and whether they agree that we should write to the Scottish Government in the terms that the petition requests.

That would be entirely appropriate. We considered the matter in advance, and I have looked at the petitioners’ request, which seems entirely reasonable. The logical first step would be our undertaking to write to the Scottish Government to seek its views on the request.

Do members agree to Jackson Carlaw’s proposal?

I agree, but one of my concerns is that there does not seem to be a lot of substantive information about the number of authorities and children involved and the estimates or lack of estimates. I know that it is sometimes difficult for petitioners to bring forward substantive information, but I wish that we had more information. I presume that we will get that from the Government.

The petition indicates that the petitioners wrote to all 32 local authorities but received responses from only 13, and only seven gave substantive assurances that they were tackling the issues that the petitioners raised.

We can write to the Scottish Government and ask for its views on the petition, but I would be keen for us to write to either the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or a range of local authorities to find out its or their views on the petition ahead of the Scottish Government writing, if it agrees to write. If local authorities are not delivering the additional support for learning that the petitioners have identified, I would be keen to find out what the issues are. Rather than write to the Scottish Government, waiting for it to respond and following that up by writing to local authorities, we could short-circuit the process slightly and ask some local authorities to respond first.

I suggest that we ask some of the larger local authorities, such as Glasgow City Council and possibly North Lanarkshire Council, and perhaps one or two smaller ones, such as East Dunbartonshire Council and Midlothian Council, for their views. I am not sure whether they are among the local authorities that responded to the petitioners, but it would be useful to get further information on the issues that the petitioners have raised.

That is an add-on to Jackson Carlaw’s suggestion. Do you agree with that?

I am content with it, although the petition asks the Scottish Government to undertake that exercise. I wonder whether John Wilson is, in effect, inviting us to undertake the exercise that the petitioners are asking us to write to the Government to ask it to undertake. Might that not lead to some duplication? It is not that we are being asked to write to the Scottish Government to request its views; we are being asked to write to the Scottish Government to ask it to write to all local authorities, reminding them of their responsibilities.

If the committee feels that we should just write to the Scottish Government, as the petitioners have requested, I am quite content with that. I was just trying to short-circuit some of the to-ing and fro-ing and reduce the time that the committee might have to spend on the petition. We may find that the Scottish Government will be content to write to the local authorities, but we might not find out what the underlying problems are. We might decide to close the petition once the Scottish Government has written to and received responses from the local authorities.

I suppose that we can always put the aspects of your request into the request to the Scottish Government.

That will give the Government the opportunity to clarify whether there is any overlap with the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill.

Are members happy with that course of action?

Members indicated agreement.

As members are aware, we were to take oral evidence on a petition on group B streptococcus this morning. Unfortunately, the petitioner is unable to attend due to family commitments, but they have confirmed that they are able to attend on 18 March. I mention that so that committee members can put a note in their diaries about that deferment of today’s evidence.