Official Report 205KB pdf
We have dealt with some of this already. I had a word with Martin Verity prior to this meeting, because we need to project our work forward. That does not mean to say that our programme will be written on tablets of stone—obviously, events will overtake us. However, I would like some sense of the direction that we want to take over the next six months. The decisions that we have made will probably provide us with work until Christmas.
What about forward planning on the anti-poverty strategy? At our previous meeting we agreed that that would be one of our priorities, along with stock transfers. I am reluctant to allow it to slide off our agenda. We set up a working group on the issue to report back to the committee, and we need to decide when it will meet. The issue needs to be given priority in our forward plan.
Absolutely.
Absolutely. Just to move the anti-poverty issue along a wee bit, it would be helpful if at our next meeting in a fortnight's time we could have a similar paper to the ones we had on drugs and housing, mapping out our anti-poverty work programme from the small group that was set up. That would be extremely helpful. At this stage we should agree formally that, as of 29 September, we will establish a pattern of weekly meetings, with the meeting in the last week in October being on a Monday or a Friday outside Edinburgh.
Have we agreed that from 29 September we will meet weekly on Wednesday mornings, with the last meeting of the month being outwith Edinburgh, or more flexible? That would be helpful, as a number of issues will come up under the anti-poverty strategy. We have to look at the work of the action teams for the social inclusion network and receive independent evidence about what they are doing. The social inclusion partnership strategy needs to be raised, as there are huge issues to do with that. There are the two aspects of the anti-poverty strategy: we need to scrutinise what is currently under way and to think about our own proposals, which might involve taking a fresh look at research and evidence. The wee group will meet and produce a paper on that for the next meeting.
It would be useful to circulate the copy of the report from the Scottish poverty information unit, showing that, according to The Scotsman, millions of Scots face life below the poverty line.
A number of reports are being issued. Given our connections, I am sure that we all pick up reports; it would be useful if we were to circulate that material to each other.
As an MSP, that report was circulated to me, so I assume that everybody has it.
I think that we will all be receiving it.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—