Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 08 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 8, 1999

Official Report 223KB pdf

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Voluntary Sector

We now move on to the voluntary sector report, which we have a paper on.

I wrote this paper, and I am keen to get committee members' views on it.

It is some time since I was appointed the committee's reporter on the voluntary sector. Requests to meet me to discuss issues have come in fast and furious. I have been reluctant to respond to any of them until I had clarification from other members on my role and what they expect me to do.

I decided that the best way to take this matter forward was to write a paper, which Martin Verity has circulated to all committee members. I am happy to take on board any suggestions or, if everyone agrees, to work on the basis that I am responsible for liaising with the voluntary sector and for being the first point of contact. I will work in a similar way to John when he reported on housing policy.

I apologise to Karen for not coming back to her sooner. This is all fine, but we were looking to home in on the voluntary sector issues that might be priorities for the committee. We should find out what the issues are before finding out how to deal with them. A number of matters, such as charity law, need to be taken on board. It is a matter of trying to fit into our agenda a couple of issues that we want to take further. Issues might arise from Karen's discussions with groups or from what we have discussed already.

I am happy to come back with a programme of work, but before I start down that road I want to be clear about my role and what I could and could not do.

One of our early briefings, which was from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, flagged up a number of recommended areas that the committee should look at, from Scottish Criminal Record Office checks to charity law. I am happy to come back in the new year with an outline and proposals for work for the committee.

It was an excellent paper, but we will have to prioritise. The steer that I got from your paper was in the direction of charity law. Undoubtedly, that inhibits a number of organisations. During your deliberations, Karen, did you speak to anyone from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee? I ask because there is an Executive committee to review charity law. If it is felt that our committee should have input, I suggest that we have a briefing session on charity law in order that we can comment on it intelligently.

I have not spoken to anyone from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee—I have not taken this work forward because I have no formal agreement from this committee. However, I am happy to speak to members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

As many people will know, the Executive has commissioned a report from the University of Abertay Dundee, and the professor who is working on it gave a presentation at the recent SCVO conference. I understand that the report will be with the Executive soon, and that the Minister for Communities has overall responsibility for it. The committee should be the lead committee in that matter, but that does not mean that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee would not have some input.

Could you pursue that matter quickly and come back to us on that report?

Yes.

In the early days, John McAllion kept us up to date when we were looking at other issues. It would be useful if you gave us a regular briefing on the programme of work. It might be useful if you spoke to Robert Brown and others to get detailed input between committee meetings.

We will now move on to discuss our timetable of future business. Are we agreed that the official report is not required for this part of the meeting?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in public until 12:33.