“Cardiology services”
Agenda item 2 is consideration of the Scottish Government’s formal response to the committee’s report on the section 23 report “Cardiology services”. We have to decide how to take the matter forward. I open up the discussion to members.
Under “Health Practitioner and Patient Relationships” on page 5 of the response, I am not sure that the Government has answered the question adequately. Our report talked about the fact that deprived areas have fewer general practitioners than wealthier areas have. The Government has told us about various initiatives, but it has not addressed that particular issue.
That is a good point. When I read the response, I wrote down the words “Slightly flippant and dismissive”, although that may be an exaggeration. The response talks a lot about what the Government is already doing. For example, paragraph 39 states:
I think that it is quite good that the Government has laid out what projects are on-going.
Without wanting to jump ahead to agenda item 6, which we have agreed to take in private, I say that it may be worth reminding ourselves that Audit Scotland has said that its next report will be on health inequalities, and we expect that it will be published within the next week. Like Ms White, I think that we should take the opportunity to return to some of those issues, including the deep-end GPs and the concentration of areas of deprivation in and around Glasgow. There may be an opportunity to return to that almost immediately—at our next meeting.
It is important to note some of the positive messages that are in the response. The covering letter from Derek Feeley reminds us about the reduction in chronic heart disease among the most deprived communities. I do not recall seeing that statistic during our journey through the study, so that message is encouraging.
It is right to say that the response to recommendation 50, rather than that to recommendation 48, gets more to the heart of the issue that we discussed on our day in Glasgow with GPs from deep-end practices. As Mr Coffey was, I was struck by the ALISS initiative, which seems to deal with some of what the GPs talked about. I note that that initiative is being rolled out not directly by the Scottish Government but by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland. At the risk of jumping ahead, I say that when we look at Audit Scotland’s health inequalities report, it might be worth investigating that initiative and perhaps asking the Health and Social Care Alliance to provide detailed evidence. As Mr Coffey does, I think that the initiative goes to the heart of what the GPs were saying.
I agree.
I agree with Willie Coffey that paragraph 17 drills down to answer the questions. My concern was that the ALISS programme had not been rolled out across Scotland, but I see that actions have been taken to roll it out.
On how we take matters forward, one option would be to add those on-going concerns to our consideration of the Scottish Government progress reports, such as the keep well programme’s evaluation that Ms Scanlon referred to, where the interim report is due out early next year and the final report is due the following year. We could add that to the committee’s list of topics on which we keep a watching brief.
Do we also agree to add the report on the keep well programme to the list of progress reports that we receive?
“Commonwealth Games 2014—Progress report 2: Planning for the delivery of the XXth Games”
Agenda item 3 is the section 23 report “Commonwealth Games 2014—Progress report 2: Planning for the delivery of the XXth Games”, on which a paper has been circulated to committee members. I open up the discussion for members’ comments and suggestions on whether we want simply to note the report or to pursue any points that it raises.
Having recently visited the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome and Glasgow Commonwealth games headquarters, I have to say that it certainly looks as if everything is going ahead nicely. From the report and from what I have seen myself, I think that we should just note the report.
Were you on a bike there, Mr Dornan?
I do not want to say in public, and I certainly would not like to see any photos of that. The velodrome is very impressive and can be used in an incredible number of ways, including a lot of community use. On the day I visited, an international badminton championship was going on, so the velodrome will be well used.
It is perhaps worth drawing the committee’s attention to paragraph 9, which details the revised proposals for providing security in the light of the experience of the London Olympic games. I am pleased to see that the review is taking place. As part of those security considerations, I hope that account will be taken of how the public enter Hampden park. Whenever there is a new security presence, it can take considerably longer for the public to be admitted to the stadium. I had some experience of that recently at a Scottish league cup semi-final—
That may have been mentioned on the record before.
It now takes far longer for the public to get into the stadium than was perhaps anticipated. I hope that the games organisers are cognisant of that and ensure that the public are told to arrive a good bit earlier. These days, you cannot turn up at the stadium with five minutes to go and expect to be in on time for the beginning of the event. With that in mind, I am quite pleased to see some of the preparations that are under way.
I notice that the new commercial partners that are listed in paragraph 3 include Atos, which has secured the contract for providing the timing and analysis and so on, which I think it also provided at the Olympic games. Earlier this week, there was a protest at the Glasgow Commonwealth games headquarters because of another part of that company’s involvement in the Department for Work and Pensions assessments. I wonder whether there is any merit in our writing to ask what consideration has been given to the potential additional security concerns, given the likelihood of continued demonstrations. Those who were involved in this week’s demonstration certainly expressed an intention to disrupt the games because of Atos’s involvement. Is there any merit in writing to ask what risk assessment has been made around that?
My only concern would be that, in doing so, we might simply highlight the issue more. We all have opinions on the work that Atos is doing for the DWP, but it was also a partner or sponsor of the Olympic games. I am not sure whether there would be any benefit from putting the issue back in the limelight. To be fair, some of the demonstrators at the headquarters last week have been involved in other demonstrations and, I am sure, will be involved in other things in the future.
I think that that is true. I am in the hands of the committee; I do not have a strong view on the matter.
Atos is a global information technology company and is under contract to the Department for Work and Pensions. It is fulfilling the contract as anyone else would. I am with James Dornan on the matter. If Atos were not doing the work, another company would be. I acknowledge and agree with what James Dornan said. If the security is right, it has to take account of whatever demonstrations there are on the day, and I have confidence that that will be done.
I am happy to leave the matter there. Do members agree to note the progress report?
“Learning the lessons of public body mergers”
Item 4 is the section 23 report entitled “Learning the lessons of public body mergers”. We have a response from the Scottish Government’s accountable officer, Paul Gray, which responds to questions that we asked. I open up the discussion to members for comments.
The questions were Tavish Scott’s, but he is not to here to say whether he is satisfied. The response seemed to me to be fairly comprehensive, and I hope that it satisfies Mr Scott.
Are members content to note Paul Gray’s response?
“Scotland’s colleges—Current finances, future challenges”
Item 5 is a section 23 report entitled “Scotland’s colleges—Current finances, future challenges”. We asked for further information from the Scottish Government, particularly on the case for the regionalisation strategy. Members have the response.
I would like to make a brief comment on an issue that I have raised not only in the committee, but in conversation. I am pleased that it is now in print—it is in the second paragraph of annex A of paper 4, which is on Audit Scotland’s report. The issue has not been mentioned much. Annex A says that Audit Scotland’s report
The Audit Scotland report says that some colleges have huge reserves and some are seriously struggling. I would not like to give the impression that every college has huge reserves; a few have, and one in particular has the largest percentage of the reserves.
We would have to make it clear that we are asking about whether that 24 per cent cut still stands given the other monies that have been put into colleges.
That is what is confusing, which is why I want clarity.
If the Education and Culture Committee is doing work on regionalisation, I agree with Mary Scanlon’s point. I do not see why we should be doubling up on work at this stage.
As I understand it, the Education and Culture Committee’s position is that it intends to hold an evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning on regionalisation. However, the substantial work that it will be doing is on the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill, which is the statutory framework for that change.
I agree with much of what the convener has said. If we were to stray into the educational benefits—or otherwise—of college mergers, we would be straying into the Education and Culture Committee’s remit. We have completed a body of work on learning the lessons of public body mergers, so it would be worthwhile to have the colleges in, given that the Auditor General has pointed out that she is unclear about the costs and benefits of the regionalisation process. It would be worth our while to follow the costs and the public pound and to do a bit of research into that process.
I support that. Page 10 on paper 4 says:
I wonder whether it is premature for us to do anything further at this point. We are aware that the Auditor General will produce a follow-up report on college mergers early next year. By doing something now, would we not be just anticipating that? Should we wait for the report?
I was going to say that there would be merit in the work, given that we had agreed not to stray into areas that the Education and Culture Committee’s inquiry is covering. However, I also see merit in Colin Beattie’s point: would we be straying into territory that we will come to soon anyway?
We need to choose the most appropriate point for us to have a further look at the outturn figures. That is probably where our focus should be and, at that point, we could have colleges in to tell us about that. At the moment we are dealing with projected figures, so it is probably a wee bit early to do that work.
I suggest that we link the education work with the follow-up work on the police. There will be a point next year when we will return to public sector mergers in general. We have already agreed that we will take evidence from the police and the Scottish Police Authority on how the merger of the police forces has worked out. I suggest that we look at some of the college mergers at that point, too. They will be further down the road and there may be a clearer picture of the course and the benefits. Is that a compromise that would resolve the question about timing? Do members agree to that approach?
Before we move into private session, I have noticed that I should have asked the committee to consider items 6 and 7 in private. For the record, do members agree to hold in private item 6 on the work programme and item 7 on the Scotland Act 2012 correspondence?