Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 03 Nov 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 3, 1999

Official Report 264KB pdf

---

Action Points

Rather than read out the action points from the previous meeting, I would like members to raise any issues that they might have.

At the previous meeting, we agreed that we should take five or 10 minutes after we hear all the evidence to think through how we should pursue matters. Because of the rush on the agenda last week, we did not quite manage to do that with the evidence from Scottish Homes. With such a substantial presentation and so much detailed questioning from members, we needed some time for reflection.

Given the pressure on our agenda this morning, I ask members who have specific points to make to raise them with John McAllion, the reporter on housing, who will collate the views of the committee.

With regard to that and to Martin's briefing paper on the remit of reporters, I am unaware what remit we have given John and the other reporters who have been appointed. Before we proceed, we need, as Martin pointed out, to define clearly the remit of each reporter and to agree the time of their appointment.

I support what Lloyd said. We must act more formally. Things are happening—we are finding out that people have been appointed reporters or have been made responsible for different areas—and the rules must be defined. We must know who appointed the reporters and when, and that must be ratified by the committee. I am sure that the committee will agree to the appointments, but we need to be organised and to know what is happening.

While I am speaking, I want to make one further point—to save my having to press my request button again. I am increasingly concerned about the committee's work load. I am on two committees, and have spoken to other members of this committee who share my concern. The problems of accommodation might be due partly to the fact that committees were originally intended to meet once a fortnight, rather than twice a week, as we have done on occasion. I am not averse to a big work load. However, I am concerned that I am coming to this committee without having had enough time to go through the considerable amount of documentation that arrived in my in-tray on Monday morning, as I spent most of yesterday in the Finance Committee and other meetings. That is unfair. I was up until 2 o'clock—I am pulling on everyone's heart-strings—going through this material, because I think that it is only fair to those who have taken the trouble to come to give oral evidence to us today.

We will not be disbanded at Christmas—we are not on probation, and the Parliament is not going to disappear suddenly. Quite frankly, there is a danger that if we take on too much and try to do too much too quickly, we will end up doing none of it well. That will not redound to the credit of this committee. It is important that our first report should be a substantial, solid piece of work, not something that is put together hastily.

I strongly endorse those views. So that we can proceed with today's business, I refer Lloyd Quinan to item 3 on our agenda, when we will discuss the role of the reporters. Perhaps we can revisit the issue of Scottish Homes then, because we need to ensure that it is dealt with. We will return to the point about work load under item 5.

I have a quick point to make about Scottish Homes. I do not think that it is just a question of assimilating the views of the committee. Scottish Homes undertook to do two specific pieces of work. One of those, which interests me greatly, relates to the additional cost of raising housing investment money through the private sector rather than in the traditional way, through the public sector. I do not know who is responsible for this—perhaps it is Martin—but they need to pursue Scottish Homes, to ensure that that work is done for us and that we receive it within a reasonable time.

I was assuming that that would happen. It is the clerk's job to pursue that.

Scottish Homes was on the phone this morning and will be sending the reports to me.

Were you told when?

No. Obviously, Scottish Homes had anticipated the questions that might be asked.

You should get back to Scottish Homes if it does not send the information speedily.

There should be a mechanism for keeping a note of such matters—perhaps at the end of the agenda—so that we do not lose track of them. As the committee develops, there will be quite a few outstanding bits and pieces, which will be easy to forget about.

Can we look to doing that, Martin? The action points from the previous meeting are quite helpful, but it would be useful if we could add a forward plan detailing things that we are expecting in the future, with some indication of when we expect them.

I will quickly run through the action points, to ensure that we have covered them. I hope that the letter from the Scottish Executive has been circulated. Karen Whitefield will look into the issue of police criminal records and the Abertay University report.

I have written letters.

I want to clarify something. I think that you will find that the report on charities is being produced by Dundee University, rather than Abertay.

Thank you. Could you sort that out, Karen?

Some information has been circulated on the mapping exercise.

The information was extremely useful, but it was not a mapping exercise. The mapping exercise that we requested was to cover all the social inclusion work that is being done. Much work is being done by Scottish Enterprise and other agencies, such as health boards, and none of that has been included. Spend figures were not included either.

I thank the Scottish Parliament information centre for what it has done, but ask it to complete the job and to do a proper mapping exercise, as we originally requested.

We will pursue SPICe on that.

I said at the previous meeting that we recognise that there are five action teams. I am pleased to see members of the action teams here today. We will consider only two of the groups' reports, one of which deals with local action to tackle poverty. As we are also considering a national strategy, we will be particularly interested in the report that deals with the evaluation framework.

I thank the clerk for getting a copy of the progress report to me last night. We have some full-colour published documents and one that is a progress report. I understand from the Scottish social inclusion network minutes that the progress report on the evaluation framework is still open. David Belfall invited network members to write with suggestions. The evaluation document is about how poverty and the Executive's progress on poverty can be measured. The committee must have full information on that.

I ask the convenor to clarify when the report will be published and given the same status as the other glossy documents.

I was at the launch of the action team reports on Monday, when I asked about the status of the report. I was told—only in passing, so this information will have to be followed up—that the report was intended to feed in directly to the work of the Executive in terms of announcements that will be made about measures and targets. It was never intended to be a report of the evaluation action team. I am not entirely satisfied with that answer, so I will write formally to David Belfall and ask for written clarification about the status of the work of the evaluation team. We want to know if and when a report will be published.

Can the date of the document's publication be clarified? An Executive spokesman said that it would be published in June. Clearly, it has not been published, so where did the confusion come from? When will the committee be given copies of the interim report?

I took copies away with me after the launch on Monday so that members could get them as soon as possible. I understand that the progress report was published in June. I hope that I will be able to clear up the situation with letters to the Executive and to David Belfall.

Are copies available?

Yes. I gave copies to Martin, the clerk, last night.

I will circulate a copy to every member of the committee.

I suggest that the next time we get people in from the social inclusion network, we invite the chair of the action group on evaluation.

I recommend that we return to our discussion about how we should deal with the action team reports at the end of the presentation. Alex, you should raise that point again then.

I always seem to be cast in the role of the one who rushes things forward and pushes things on.

We agreed our programme of work on housing matters. We will return to the issue of the timetable. We are beginning to move the drugs inquiry forward, and the programmes for that are starting to be established. SPICe will circulate them to members.

One of the action points from last week was the paper detailing recommendations for the hearing of evidence in the drugs inquiry. We need to go out and talk to people about the subject, rather than have people come to talk to us all the time. Those visits will have to be arranged in advance and are therefore a high priority.

Keith Raffan and I have been trying to meet. If other members of the committee want to join us, we can start pursuing that issue.

That is the point which I wanted to raise. Such visits are important. We need representation not only of the city areas, but of some of the industrially deprived rural areas in Fife and elsewhere. I am not making an advertisement, but the all-party committee on drugs misuse meets tonight at Simpson House on Queen Street—it is a rehab and through-care centre for offenders. I hope that members will come along, as the meeting is relevant to the drugs inquiry.

Money is available for us to travel. The committee must put commitments in the timetable, on where we want to go and when. On housing, there is a strong case for going to Glasgow. On drugs, we must travel and must remember the rural dimension. We must speak to John McAllion, to see whether we can schedule taking the tenants' evidence to the committee in Glasgow.

At the committee of conveners last night, I pre-empted this discussion slightly by putting in a bid for the committee to travel in relation to the drugs inquiry. I imagine that we will also travel in relation to housing. Our bids will be expected quite shortly.

I want to emphasise that point. Because so much has been said about not travelling, no committee is applying for funds from the travel budget. Apparently, a huge—or relatively large—pot of money is available. The sooner we get our bids in, the better.

We must work on that quickly. Keith and I will pursue the issue of travel for the drugs inquiry in the first instance. Fiona can speak to John McAllion about housing. We have arranged seminars.

Will they be held in Edinburgh?

They will take place in Edinburgh, somewhere in committee chambers, although I am not sure where.

Another action point from last week was that correspondence was referred to the appropriate reporters. I am sorry to rush folk. I just want to get on. We will talk about the role of the reporters later. Is there anything under this agenda item that cannot be left until the end of the meeting? I hope that the answer is no.

No.