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National Youth Volunteering Policy (PE1278)
Good afternoon. I welcome everyone to the Public Petitions Committee's 15th meeting in 2009. All mobile phones and electronic devices should be switched off as they interfere with the broadcasting system.
Hi. My name is Kimby. I am 18 and I am from Alyth. I am here today because I feel strongly that other young people all over Scotland should be given the same opportunity as I have had to volunteer full time as part of a nationally organised and supported scheme. Members will have read my story, so I do not intend to tell it again, but I will explain how doing my ProjectScotland placement at the Strathmore Centre for Youth Development—also known as SCYD—changed me.
Thank you, Kimby. I invite Susan Watt to add to that if she wishes.
Kimby is a superb example of a young person who has been through the ProjectScotland experience. I highlight what she said about not just her development but her having an impact on the community around her and on other young people in that community. That is really important. Before we came into the meeting, Kimby told me that she now has her mother and her younger brother volunteering. That illustrates the ProjectScotland effect: it grows arms and legs, and it gets people linked with their community, which is really important.
On behalf of the committee I thank you for your positive contribution, Kimby, which was demonstrative of the skills that you have developed. I hope that we will hear more from you in this question-and-answer session, especially on the benefits that the project can bring to young people in Scotland.
I am delighted to be here this afternoon to speak in support of the petition. It is good to see Kimby Tosh here again—I seem to be seeing an awful lot of Kimby these days. People might think that there is something going on, but I assure them that that is not the case.
None of Kimby's friends would think that, Murdo. Sorry. [Laughter.]
Thank you, convener.
This is not the first time that I have heard from Kimby Tosh, who is always an inspiration to everyone who listens to her. Her confidence is demonstrable, and it has come largely through her work in ProjectScotland, as I think Kimby would agree.
The important thing, which Kimby explained, is young people getting involved and doing something useful with their time and doing something useful for their community. There is a danger in the scheme becoming less than national, and just happening in the central belt. Communities all over Scotland need young people to become engaged, enthusiastic and involved. Young people need to aspire to do more and to do different things. The danger is that we have only little pockets of that, which do not impact on the rest of Scotland. Having several thousand Kimbys throughout Scotland is quite something to imagine, but that is what we could bring to Scotland.
Can you say a wee bit more about how volunteering has proven to be beneficial to communities? Can you give us facts and figures?
Yes. We have had more than 3,000 ProjectScotland volunteers throughout Scotland since we launched, who have contributed more than 2.2 million hours of volunteering to Scottish communities, which is a significant amount. That has all been done through third sector organisations, so the volunteers all work with not-for-profit partners for the good of communities, whether geographical, thematic or whatever. For example, they have worked with Forestry Commission Scotland, building paths in forests and opening up forest areas to local communities. Young men who have never been in a forest in their lives get enthusiastic about taking their parents, brothers and sisters to show them what they have done. Such things give the ProjectScotland effect to the much wider community.
What are the beneficial effects to the wider Scottish economy? The written evidence states that there is a £21.4 million benefit to the Scottish economy, but some people have questioned the worth of ProjectScotland and the national youth volunteering scheme because of the cost. For instance, your original business plan showed a target of 2,000 volunteers for 2008-09. If you had been able to achieve that volume, what would the unit cost have been? People such as the First Minister seem concerned about the costs.
The unit cost would have been about £2,000, with £1,820 of that going directly to the young person as a subsistence and travel allowance. The subsistence allowance element is crucial in enabling young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds to get involved in ProjectScotland, which is important. The organisation finds it difficult to raise funds for the subsistence element, which is a significant amount of money. Basically, more than 80 per cent of our costs go directly to the young people.
The unit cost of about £2,000 seems a good deal to me, but I suppose I am biased. That figure is now on the parliamentary record, so perhaps it will be a corrective to mistaken figures that have been bandied about in the chamber.
Yes. We have had a lot of dialogue with the Scottish Government on where ProjectScotland will fit into the new framework, with funding moving from central Government to local government and so on. We have been pushed towards Skills Development Scotland, which seems like a sensible place to go, but its funding, certainly for subsistence allowance and so on, is for employability schemes such as get ready for work. We see ProjectScotland as being a bit more than that, and all inclusive. We are for 16 to 25-year-olds, not just for one particular group of young people, which is important.
So you are saying that the Skills Development Scotland path is probably the wrong path.
I think that it has limited opportunities for us, because it focuses much more on 16 and 17-year-olds coming out of school. ProjectScotland is a great opportunity for such young people because it offers non-formal learning and fits with the curriculum for excellence and so on, but that is not all that is required; there must be more. We have older young people who do not fit those criteria.
I want to ask about what communities can get out of volunteering. We talk quite a lot about the ageing population of Scotland. The image of volunteering is that it often involves older people. Obviously, they do hugely important work. You mentioned work in forestry. Are there examples of similar areas in which young volunteers work?
Absolutely. We have worked with more than 300 not-for-profit partners in all areas of community work. Although Kimby Tosh's placement was with youth work, which obviously was more youth focused, we have had many teams of young people working on environmental projects with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which is another organisation that has really embraced ProjectScotland volunteers. The good thing about that is that they can mix with volunteers from different age groups and very different backgrounds. We have also worked with the scouts and had young people doing outward bound activities with school groups. We are simply trying to develop opportunities that young people will want to engage with. For example, in the multimedia and arts sector, we have placements with Glasgow Film Theatre, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and other such organisations.
I have two questions, one of which follows the parliamentary convention of asking you to agree with what I am saying. I hope that you will.
The average travel and subsistence cost for a six-month placement is £1,820. In its short life, ProjectScotland has restructured three times to reduce its overheads. I also point out that there is an economy of scale, which means that the more young people we place, the lower the unit cost. If, as I said in response to Bill Butler, we placed 2,000 young people, the complete overhead cost would be in the region of £250 to £300. We have pared things back as far as we can.
Your average, fairly cheap business consultant would charge between £200 and £300 a day, but you are giving these young people six months' training for less than that. Do you agree that that is a complete bargain?
I agree that it is a bargain, but we can do it only because many third sector organisations work with us and, for example, absorb the costs of line managing the young people.
It is a no-brainer of a bargain.
Yes, although I might be biased.
So am I.
Turning to some of the practicalities, I know that Kimby Tosh approached a youth organisation for help with her placement. How do you find your volunteers?
When we first launched ProjectScotland, part of our remit was to change the culture of volunteering and get young people involved. As a result, we did a lot of marketing, created a youth brand, built a very funky website on which we advertised opportunities, and carried out a lot of activity with young people, schools, colleges, youth clubs and so on. In the very early days, we also had some television advertising to raise awareness of our organisation. As Kimby Tosh will probably agree, at the moment it is very much word of mouth; after all, 97 per cent of our young people say that they would recommend us to their friends. It does not get much better than that.
So you have a queue of young people waiting to take up opportunities.
Absolutely. Indeed, several people in the organisation that Kimby Tosh is involved with are already saying that they cannot wait to be ProjectScotland volunteers.
The petition refers to developing and implementing a national youth volunteering policy, and we have talked a lot about ProjectScotland in particular. I think that I know the answer to this question, but do you think that only ProjectScotland can develop and implement such a policy?
You asked whether ProjectScotland is the only solution. It probably is not the only way of delivering a national youth volunteering scheme, but it is here and it is doing it. A significant investment has been made in building the awareness and the brand to enable that. We have partnerships and we have developed placements that young people enjoy. We have a drop-out rate of less than 15 per cent, which is pretty good for young people's schemes. ProjectScotland exists. If the switch were flicked, we could rise to the challenge and place significantly more young people throughout Scotland.
I ask Kimby Tosh to add to that and tell us what it would mean if we did not have ProjectScotland.
In our community, half the work would not get done. Most of the ProjectScotland volunteers who have begun placements with us have started new projects for the community. Some are like mine—the alcohol peer support group—and there is a self-harm peer support group, but the volunteers do many different things. Without them, young people would not have that support in their community.
Good afternoon, girls. I am sure that members think that you have done a wonderful job in presenting the petition and I am sure that it will get a lot of support—at least, I am willing to support it. The problem seems to be the lack of finance. No matter what other problems you face, the financial one is the biggest. Our papers state that, for 2009-10, the support from the Scottish Government is reduced to nil. Is that a fact?
Yes.
So where will the money come from to keep your project afloat?
We are fundraising like crazy, but the challenge is that subsistence allowances are not very appealing for traditional trusts and foundations. We have spoken with some community planning partnerships and got small numbers of opportunities, but those are mostly central belt-based. We are doing work in the east end of Glasgow. However, it is hard work for a very small team to go round the 32 community planning partnerships—in fact, it is not only 32 bodies; it is 32 times whatever. We acknowledge that a lot of funding has gone through the local authority route, but it is difficult to tap into that. Our challenge for this year and next is to ensure that we have some sustainable income to enable us to continue.
That is important. Do the participants in the scheme—the individuals who come forward and are happy to do some volunteering—do so openly and without any restrictions on carrying out the functions that are set for them, or does their participation detract from their looking for permanent employment elsewhere?
Kimby Tosh might answer that also, but our experience is that young people come to us because they actively want to do so. It is volunteering. Kimby might go into the reasons why young people want to volunteer. They make a proactive decision to go out and do something with their life and they see ProjectScotland giving them the opportunity to do that. That is why the subsistence allowance is important. Young people might be coming off jobseekers allowance to give themselves the opportunity for more development.
You mentioned local authorities. Will you expand on that and say how you persuade them to give funding?
It is very difficult at the moment. Our experience has been that local authorities have gone with the existing programmes in their areas for the more choices, more chances group. We have been saying that we can be a solution. ProjectScotland can contribute to several national outcomes and a number of local outcomes, but so can many other things, so we are selling our wares in a very busy marketplace. In addition, local authorities have not previously had to pay for volunteering, and youth activity budgets are no longer ring fenced, so we have a very difficult sell. It is a slow process.
Do you feel that you are being heard a bit more effectively in the dialogue that is taking place behind the scenes, as it were? Is there the opportunity to persuade ministers to revisit the recommendation?
We have an on-going dialogue with John Swinney. We also have cross-party support, and we get together every now and again to discuss developments. That has very much pushed us towards the Skills Development Scotland route, which is not really going anywhere. We have been speaking to Skills Development Scotland for two years now, but budgets are restricted. Skills Development Scotland's focus is more on employability than on the more generic skills development that ProjectScotland offers. I do not think that that is the solution for all young people in Scotland.
In your experience, what impact has this period of uncertainty and change of direction had on the young people?
We cannot offer the same volume or choice of opportunities that we did in the past, because we just cannot support the same volumes of young people on placement. Last year, we placed only 403 young people in opportunities, whereas we placed more than 1,100 young people in the previous year. The impact has been significant. As Kimby Tosh said earlier, people are queuing up to take the next placements with SCYD.
Do members have any other questions?
Unless the Government agrees to revisit the need for a national paid youth volunteering scheme, how long can ProjectScotland survive?
Placing a similar number of young people as we placed last year, ProjectScotland could survive probably for a year and a half or two years at most. It would depend on how much fundraising income we could generate.
So the issue is crucial.
Yes.
I read that ProjectScotland had hoped to get corporate sponsorship. I note from figures that have been provided to us that approximately £1 million was raised from corporate giving, but it was hoped that almost 50 per cent of funding in future years would come from corporate sponsorship. What has been the problem? Are corporate bodies less keen to give to voluntary work with young people, or do companies just feel that they cannot afford to give because of the general economic situation?
There are perhaps two elements to that issue. When ProjectScotland was launched, we set ourselves very tough corporate fundraising targets, which—hindsight is a great thing—I am not sure were entirely realistic at that time and are certainly not realistic now. Initially, we had some significant corporate support from Scottish Power and Bank of Scotland, but both those companies are in a different situation these days. To a certain extent, the money is just not available. We still have corporate support, but it tends to come from smaller organisations that might support the cost of one or two volunteers within their community. That has worked quite well.
That has triggered a couple more questions, which I want to give members the opportunity to ask.
Susan Watt said that a number of corporate employers are struggling, that things are a wee bit different now and that finances are not what they were. Kimby Tosh said in her written statement that local authorities have budgetary constraints. The Scottish Government will face £500 million of cuts in the next year, so there is financial difficulty. Susan said something else that concerned me, which was that she thinks that the organisation has 18 months to go, unless this committee gets what it is asking for. Will that happen regardless of what funds are raised?
No.
If you are able to raise the funds, through whatever means, you can continue. Is it just that you would like guaranteed funding?
Yes. We can raise funds for our overhead costs and so on. The real challenge for ProjectScotland is the allowance for young people, for which it is very difficult to raise funds. That is our concern. If the organisation is to be sustainable, funding needs to come from somewhere. Corporate employers are telling us that they do not think that they should be funding that and that the Government should be doing so.
I am glad that you clarified that. I can see the sense in having future employers fund it, because you are equipping young people to be able to go into employment and giving them broader skills than they would get otherwise. I am glad to hear that it is not a certainty that without this funding you will definitely close in 18 months' time. It is just a matter of convincing funders to fund that type of project.
Kimby Tosh might have something to say. A charity that has to raise money for project costs, overhead costs and subsistence is really going to struggle in this economic climate. Our cost base appears to be so much higher than schemes such as get ready for work, in which young people could get involved.
My question follows on from Anne McLaughlin's comments. You are delivering young people who, after six months, have more empathy, are more adaptable, are better at expressing themselves and have more self-confidence and more than half a dozen other critical skills that make them far more employable in the present situation. Your corporate sponsors acknowledge that—that is why you get funding from them—but Skills Development Scotland does not.
We do not really fit with any of its specific objectives at the moment.
I hope that colleagues around the table want to support whole-heartedly the petition in Kimby Tosh's name for a national youth volunteering scheme. I know that these are straitened times and that the Government has pressure on it, but we have to realise that, even in the coming financial year, there will be £600 million extra in real terms—a 1.3 per cent real-terms increase. It is a question of priorities. I sincerely believe that the Government made a mistake in cutting direct funding to ProjectScotland in 2009-10, but the need for a national, structured, paid youth volunteering scheme is still absolutely there. In reply to a question from one of my colleagues, Susan Watt said that ProjectScotland would be able to take up that challenge. I agree that that would make sense. Why reinvent the wheel? It is not just about the cost but about the value to the country, communities and individuals such as Kimby Tosh.
The bottom line is that it is just as important for a Government to invest in social capital as it is for it to support the banks. In fact, I would say that it is rather more important.
As well as writing to the Government and the organisations that Bill Butler mentioned, I suggest that we write to a couple of the beneficiary organisations that Susan Watt mentioned—such as the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Scout Association—to find out what benefits they have received from the scheme and what impact there would be on their services if the scheme was not there. We should give those organisations an opportunity to tell us about the benefits and the impact.
I am conscious that Jack McConnell has joined us. We are at the tail-end of our discussion, but does he want to add anything? I know that he has asked questions about the matter.
I hope that my comments will help the committee in its deliberations. I deliberately stayed out of the earlier discussion as my views on the importance of ProjectScotland and the national youth volunteering scheme are well known, but in the light of the discussion, I would be grateful if you would let me add two points, convener.
Thank you. I am conscious of the time that remains for other items on the agenda. We have had a series of questions and observations and have heard some recommendations and ideas from committee members for taking the petition forward. In addition, one or two other members have spoken to the petition. We will pull all of that together and, at the next stage, we will seek answers to questions and return to the petition at a meeting in the relatively near future. We will keep the petition open and take it to the next stage, having, I hope, explored those issues.
NHS Translation and Interpretation Services (PE1288)
The next petition is PE1288. However, because of the problems with travel in the north-east of Scotland, the petitioners have, unfortunately, not been able to find their way to Parliament today to speak to the petition. We will, therefore, hold the petition back to a future meeting due to the unforeseen circumstances. We hope that the weather conditions will calm down. Nigel Don may wish to comment on the petition.
It is unfortunate that the petitioners are unable to be here. When I received the papers on the petition last week, I was able to raise the issue with NHS Grampian, with which we had a meeting last week—I say "we" because Nanette Milne was also there, along with other representatives from the north-east. I am grateful to Nigel Firth, the equality and diversity manager of NHS Grampian, for giving me a briefing that the clerk and the petitioners now have, which can be added to the committee papers before the petition is considered. I hope that we have managed to move things on. To an extent, I am apologising to the committee for being rather peremptory in addressing the matter when I had the opportunity to do so, before it had even got to the committee.
Thanks for that information.
Dairy Farmers (Human Rights) (PE1263)
PE1263, by Evelyn Mundell, on behalf of Ben Mundell, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to accept that individual dairy farmers have human rights and that those have been breached by the operating rules of the ring-fencing mechanism that is attached to the management of milk quotas, which should have been carried out in accordance with objective criteria and in such a way as to ensure equal treatment between farmers and avoid market and competition distortion.
I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words. I know that the committee has a big agenda today, so I will try not to take too long.
My colleague Jamie McGrigor has indicated to me that he is very supportive of the petition. His comments are along the same lines as those made by Peter Peacock.
We have a short note from Jamie McGrigor indicating his position. He requests that the committee consider
We should do as Peter Peacock suggested and write to all the different bodies to ask for their take on the matter. We should also write to Government ministers. I know that Peter Peacock said that the Mundells have done that, but it is a complex matter and the committee should seek clarification from the Government.
Peter Peacock raises a number of points, and I do not sense that committee members demur from his comments. I suggest that we pull those comments together as the basis of the inquiries that we wish to make, including any possible referral to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The matter could be viewed as a commercial transaction that has had major implications for people's property and ownership rights, so it might be worth asking the EHRC for its comments.
We should also ask why dairy farmers are not allowed to use their own assets to diversify their businesses either within or outwith agriculture.
We will keep the petition open to explore those issues, and we will discuss it again at an appropriate meeting. I am sure that the MSPs who have expressed an interest in the matter will continue to give it their attention when it comes back to the committee. I thank Peter Peacock for his time.
Geodiversity Duty (PE1277)
PE1277, by Mike Browne, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government, through Scottish planning policies and planning advice notes, to establish a geodiversity duty that integrates all necessary local and national structures for the efficient collection, analysis and sharing of geodiversity data to inform better decision-making processes.
I welcome to the public gallery Mike Browne, who is from the group regionally important geological and geomorphological sites in Scotland, and Seonaid Leishman and Margaret Greene, who are from the RIGS group in Strathclyde. Margaret Greene has given us a letter, an important paragraph of which states:
That is a reasonable suggestion.
I agree with Anne McLaughlin. The British Geological Survey, which is based in Edinburgh at King's Buildings, has a huge amount of useful data and expertise that are probably not used to the full in Scotland. In general, we need a greater awareness of the geology of the country. Educational establishments, and schools in particular, should give the subject a little more attention than they give it at present, as it is very important.
I see that there are no further comments. Members seem to support the petition; we will identify the areas that require attention and the organisations that we intend to write to.
Members indicated agreement.
NHS 24 (Free Calls from Mobile Phones) (PE1285)
PE1285, by Caroline Mockford, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to make arrangements for all calls from mobile phones to NHS 24 to be free of charge to users. Do members have any comments?
The petition makes some valid points, particularly about the more disadvantaged people who use NHS 24. We should take the matter forward, perhaps by writing to the mobile phone companies and the Scottish Government to find out whether some arrangement can be made so that such calls are free of charge.
I support the petition as a parent who has just paid the phone bill for his daughter, who spent some time in communication with NHS 24 in Scotland regarding the possibility of having swine flu. I noted from the bill that the call was charged at a higher-than-usual rate.
I was interested in the consideration that is being given to a three-digit non-emergency health number. That seems a really good idea—better than more expensive option. I do not think that most people are aware of all the details of the split in the cost between the caller and the NHS for land-line calls, rather than mobile phone calls. That seems strange to me. The rules do not seem to have been thought out; they seem simply to have grown.
There are some good suggestions there. We need to keep ahead of the impact of developing technology. Let us get answers to those questions, and we will bring the petition back to the committee in due course.
Tobacco Products (Display) (PE1286)
PE1286, from Kate Salmon, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to amend the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill by removing the proposals relating to the ban on the display of tobacco in shops. I invite comments. We know that the issue is covered in what is a major bill that is being considered in the Parliament.
It is generally accepted that it is not the job of the Public Petitions Committee to interfere in a bill while it is passing through the proper processes in Parliament via another committee. This committee might offer an appropriate route before a bill is introduced, but not while it is going through the process. It would be proper, as well as wise, for us to suspend further consideration of the petition until the bill has run its course through the parliamentary processes. If there is any further action to take following that detailed scrutiny, we could consider that.
No one will disagree with that. The very issues that are contained in the petition will be discussed further at stages 2 and 3 of the bill anyway. Let us suspend consideration until the completion of full scrutiny by the relevant parliamentary committee and the Parliament itself.
Disclosure Scotland (PE1289)
This is the last new petition today. PE1289, from Dr David McNally, calls on the Parliament to urge the Government to clarify the legislation governing Disclosure Scotland processes to ensure that teachers who work for more than one local authority do not have to apply for a disclosure certificate in relation to each authority.
I get correspondence about Disclosure Scotland quite often, with people complaining about having to do multiple applications for what seems to be the same thing. We should write to the Scottish Government to ask what it is doing to close the loophole that exists. I understand that the introduction of the protection of vulnerable groups scheme will have an effect. We need to ask what effect the scheme will have on the issues that the petition raises.
The committee is agreed on that. We will raise those questions and then bring the petition back to the committee.
Sorry, convener, but I would like to add something about the process of applying for a disclosure certificate. It would be useful to get some information from the Scottish Government about turnaround times for the application process. I have heard about people who have been appointed subject to satisfactory disclosure certification, only for them to find that they have lost their job, because the certificate has come back with something that their potential employer has identified as problematic in relation to their employment.
We will follow those points through.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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