Official Report 320KB pdf
Welcome to the Public Petitions Committee. There are no apologies, as we are all here. I seek the agreement of the committee to rearrange the order of the agenda this morning. Mr James A Mackie, who is responsible for the first four petitions, is not here yet. Does the committee agree to move to the petition by Pauline Taylor, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to provide a bypass for Elgin?
Members indicated agreement.
A96 Improvements (Elgin Bypass) (PE558)
In support of PE558 we have Pauline Taylor and Larry Easton, who are the petitioners, and Margaret Ewing MSP, who is here to support the petition. I do not know who is making the opening three-minute statement. I see that it is Pauline Taylor. You have three minutes to address the committee, then I will open the meeting to questions.
First, I apologise for the smallness of our delegation. As the committee will know, we have had a bit of water up in Elgin, so an emergency meeting is going on.
Thank you. Before I ask members to comment, does Margaret Ewing want to say anything in support of the petition?
As a directly elected MSP, I support everything that Pauline Taylor has said. I have been very impressed by the work undertaken in the area on this matter. I have been aware of the problem since I was first selected and then elected to the area. My husband, mother-in-law and I are local residents, and we are all too well aware of the traffic problems in Elgin. I am sure that Winnie Ewing, as a committee member, might want to pick up on some of those issues.
In her opening remarks, Pauline Taylor did not mention the extra problem caused by the enormous new Tesco store. Is it your view that the floods are no longer rare, but regular, occurrences? Indeed, they are liable to get more regular, as we are told that global warming will threaten more rain. Currently, the water table is so high under the ground that the water cannot go anywhere, and four mighty rivers run through that part of the country. I want to ask Pauline Taylor about the Tesco store and the floods.
I will answer the last part of the question first. We have not got a bypass because 20 years ago we were given a stopgap measure, which was a relief road. The relief road bypasses the centre of the town, which is the High Street. It does not take into account East Road and West Road, which are the two approaches to the town. East Road has been badly flooded. People could not get through and that affected the whole network in the north of Scotland.
And Tesco?
Yes. I believe that the trunk road is likely to be closed over the next few weeks during the construction of Tesco. When Tesco is up and running, it will be accessed directly from the trunk road, which will lead to horrendous traffic problems.
In your opening statement, you said that there was not enough traffic to warrant a bypass through Elgin. You also said that most of the junctions are up to capacity. How much more traffic would be needed to get the throughput to get a bypass? How does that circle square?
The magic figure is through-traffic and we are almost certain that we do not have sufficient through-traffic. Most of the traffic comes into the town and stops there. Elgin is a medieval city. It was not built to cope with the present levels of traffic. The only solution to the capacity problems at junctions is to bypass the town and improve the other junctions. No improvements can be made without a bypass.
But what I am saying is that, given the state of the junctions, it would be almost impossible to get the throughput. If it got to the point where the junctions in the town were close to capacity, people would be more likely to take secondary routes around the town and avoid going through Elgin.
We know that people take what are called rat-runs around Elgin. They use side roads that are not built for heavy traffic.
Those are the roads that are all flooded.
Yes, they are all flooded at the moment.
My husband could not to get to an eye operation on Saturday. We were prisoners in Miltonduff.
If people use small roads that are not capable of taking that traffic, that will lead to dangers.
Yes. Some people living on those smaller roads cannot cross the road at peak times because of the traffic.
Good morning, folks. As someone who lives in the north, I am well aware of the problems at Elgin. I can well recall the campaign to introduce a bypass at Mosstodloch and Fochabers. We all know the length of time that that has taken.
I cannot answer that question. We hoped that the convener of the council would be with us, but I got a phone call this morning to say that he cannot come because of the floods. I know that consultants have examined the problem and have come up with some solutions, although not an adequate solution as yet.
From your own observations, have you an idea of how much traffic has increased on the east-west route over the past 10 to 20 years?
I travel to Buckie every morning and, without being able to place a figure on it, the increase in traffic has been incredible. My pal and I have noticed that the volume of traffic that comes in and out of Elgin every day has increased incredibly.
As a southerner, I am familiar with the problems of missing bypasses. Last week, this committee discussed the Maybole bypass—or, rather, the lack of one.
There are junctions where the traffic has to come to a halt to let a big lorry through because it cannot negotiate the roads, which are too narrow and have sharp junctions. That holds up traffic. We are concerned about the large loads of landfill that Highland Council is proposing to take to the coast through Elgin. We will have many more lorries every day. It does not bear thinking about.
Would you say that, while there has been a long debate about an Elgin bypass, the change in lorry sizes is a criterion that has been ignored when bypasses have been considered in more recent times?
Yes.
You mentioned East Road and West Road in the town. How wide are those roads and how close to those roads are the adjacent properties? Do vehicles park along the roads?
Some houses on those roads are accessed directly from the pavement; they do not even have a front garden. Others have small front gardens of perhaps 2m at the most. The roads are narrow and, if a car is parked on them, it brings the traffic to a halt. Most of the houses are old and do not have garages or run-ins for their cars. They are certainly being disadvantaged by the traffic.
The narrowest point of the trunk road that goes through Elgin—probably the part that Pauline is talking about—is the part of the road that gives access to Dr Gray's hospital and other private properties.
Thank you for making the effort to come here today under the present grievous flooding circumstances.
Yes. We guess that a lot of people do not stop in Elgin because the traffic is so horrendous that they cannot even get off the road. In that regard, we have had the support of most of the businesses around Elgin, Elgin business action, which represents a lot of local businesses, Moray Chamber of Commerce, the Road Hauliers Association, the Automobile Association and the local bus company. I have not heard of any groups that do not support our call for a bypass to be built soon.
Furthermore, I would draw your attention to the number of signatures on the petition from tourists, some of whom are from other countries, who gladly signed the petition because they recognise the problems.
Are there any proven effects on the buildings? As you said, it is a medieval town, but it also contains some fine 18th and 19th century property. Has a structural engineer or anyone ever examined the possibility of damage to buildings caused by the traffic?
We are quite used to seeing road barriers round the corners of buildings that have been hit by lorries and bits of stone or chimney where the structure has been shaken by heavy lorries going past. That is quite common in Elgin.
I remind members that more than 8,000 people signed the petition, so it has a lot of support.
I live in one of the side roads that is used by heavy lorries as a short cut to avoid Elgin—the one-track road to Miltonduff. You have no idea how many lorries—whisky lorries and other lorries—use that road. It is almost certain that it will be barred, as a big protest is developing about the danger. Schoolchildren cross that road; in fact, the chief executive's child was knocked down on it not so long ago. If the road is barred, as it almost certainly will be soon, would not that affect the through-traffic statistics that you say are lacking for it and similar roads?
I am sure that that would affect the statistics, but I just wonder where the traffic would go, because there is no alternative. That is the problem.
Our notes mention the fact that the Deputy Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning, Lewis Macdonald, visited the area in August and met local campaigners. Were you among those local campaigners? What was the minister's response?
He was very encouraging without committing himself at all. He knows Elgin quite well; he once stood as a candidate there. I think he recognised the fact that we have a problem. At the time, there were road works in the town and East Road was closed, so he did not really see it at its worst. East Road had been closed off and the traffic was being diverted round side roads. When West Road was closed to divert the traffic, the only way for it to go was along a narrow country lane where there were no passing places, so that was how we got into town. I should mention that, at the moment, that road is flooded.
Pauline Taylor touched on the fact that the closure of the Longman landfill site in Inverness will have a major impact. From March next year, Highland Council will take its waste to the nearest landfill site available, which is in Aberdeenshire. Various estimates suggest that between 30 and 60 additional lorries per day could come through Elgin because, as Pauline says, there is no alternative route. As everyone knows, the lorries that are used to take away landfill waste are substantial, and there is an environmental hazard attached to their use.
Will those lorries be covered? We know that there is sometimes a horrendous mess from landfill trucks, even when they are covered. Do you know what category of dump they are going to and how high its toxicity level is?
All that information is in the process of being relayed to us by Highland Council. Larry Easton might have some information via the trades council, but I am not sure about that. We have been trying to find out that information, because it is significant. I think that the landfill site will be at Peterhead, so I have asked a colleague to look at the situation there. The reality is that, whatever truck is used, those additional loads will come through our beautiful city of Elgin. That will be an additional hazard and problem for everybody who uses Elgin, whether for tourism, for business or for living in. It will be a major problem and we must address it rapidly.
Those lorries will not come through Miltonduff.
I thank the witnesses for their evidence, which has been useful for the committee. You are free to listen to the discussion of the suggested action on the petition.
I was interested in the comment about the large lorries that exist nowadays. That issue has been ignored when bypasses have been considered, not only in Elgin, but throughout Scotland. We should draw the Executive's attention to the fact that, in recent years, the maximum weight of lorries has risen to 48 tonnes and ask whether the criteria for the provision of bypasses take account of that major change.
That is fair. We could also ask the Executive about the implications of the new landfill site and the resultant movement of lorries through Elgin.
I agree with those suggestions on what to do with the petition, which cover adequately what the petitioners seek to achieve.
Could we also ask Moray Council whether the study is examining the cost of upgrading the junctions to take the required amount of through traffic? At present, lorries have to stop and reverse to negotiate the junctions. If a bypass is not built, a lot of money will have to be spent on umpteen junctions in Elgin. We should compare the stop-gap funding that would be required to improve the junctions with the funding that would be required for the bypass. In real terms, that stop-gap funding might offset the cost of the bypass.
We will ask Moray Council for those details.
When we send the petition to Moray Council, we should include information on the landfill site and the new Tesco store and mention that the heavy lorries that use the side roads will almost certainly not be allowed to continue to do so because the roads are falling to bits after the flooding. Most of those roads are now impassable. We do not have proper statistics about through traffic because a lot of traffic uses the funny little side roads.
We should also ask Moray Council for its projection of traffic growth. We know that 30 to 60 additional lorries a day will go to the landfill site, which might well be a public health issue. We are waiting for the council to release its full study, but surely it could tell us its estimates for traffic growth in Elgin and the surrounding area.
I am sure that that will be part of the study, but we can ask Moray Council for that information. The most important matter is to get the study published so that the Executive can respond to it.
Domestic Abuse (Support) (PE560)
On the rejigged agenda, the next petition is from Claire Houghton on behalf of Scottish Women's Aid. The petition calls on the Parliament to take the necessary steps to provide and ensure adequate long-term funding for support workers who deal with children and young people who experience domestic abuse. Claire Houghton cannot be here this morning because of illness, but Margaret Donovan, Frances Tait, Mary Jones and Heather Coady are here in support of the petition.
Margaret Donovan will make an introductory statement, which might not last for three minutes, but Frances Tait will take over from her.
That is fine—there is no rush.
Good morning. I think that there should be more children's workers in Scotland, because I have heard that Women's Aid has to turn families away if there is not enough room in a refuge. Such families might well go back to situations in which there is domestic abuse. The advert on television about domestic abuse includes children. However, if children phone up for help they might not get it because there are only three outreach workers and six follow-on workers in Scotland. Children who have suffered from domestic abuse should have a follow-on worker. I have one and she really helps me. She gives me confidence and helps me with problems. She is somebody other than my mum, brother and sister to talk to.
Thank you very much. That was excellent—first class.
I have worked with children and young people in Women's Aid for more than 14 years. Developments in children's work have been slow. There are many opportunities to expand, as our children's and young people's services are still fragmented.
Thank you. We hear from many petitioners in the committee, but Margaret Donovan is as good a petitioner as we have seen.
Most of your evidence related to the aftermath of discovering that domestic abuse is taking place. Margaret Donovan mentioned a helpline—does that not exist in most parts of Scotland? The initial problem is enabling a child who has been abused to get in touch with someone. Does some of that contact come through teachers' referrals? How difficult is it for children to get in touch with someone? Where I live there is a good neighbourhood watch scheme, which falls within the jurisdiction of the chief constable. Is there a way of joining the services that already exist with neighbourhood watch schemes, which have telephone lines and volunteers?
As members may know, domestic abuse is a sensitive issue that needs to be tackled in its own right. We have a domestic abuse helpline for adults and some children and teenagers also use it. However, those who answer the calls are not experienced children's workers who can answer the callers' questions. Some children phone ChildLine, but often they do not get through. Some children want an answer there and then—they do not want to have to wait for an answer.
From the evidence that the witnesses have given, it appears that the big gaps exist before someone enters a refuge—there are children's workers at refuges, although not enough of them—and after they leave. Young people want to deal continuously with the same person. How can we provide that continuity, given that folk move to different refuges if they are tracked down? How can we build trust between a children's worker and a young person?
It is hard to provide such continuity. I work part time in a refuge for only 15 hours and it is hard to deal on a continuous basis with the children who are there. We are now trying to do follow-up work with children when they leave the refuge. I work with children for six or eight weeks after they have left the refuge. Unfortunately, because of the limited time that children's workers have to work with children, they cannot provide continuity of support. It would be wonderful to have two full-time children's workers in the refuge. Eight of our refuges do not have even one children's worker. It is hard to provide continuity of support when the basics are not in place.
What kind of training and skills does a children's worker need? How long does it take to train someone to be a children's worker?
Training varies throughout Scotland. Scottish Women's Aid training takes a number of weeks. The national office also provides continuing specialised training for children's workers. Some children's workers have a background in child care, but others do not. Training is provided to enable them to work with children. The associated child protection issues are also addressed.
So training is not the issue. Funding is needed to make posts permanent and to provide more of them.
Yes.
Thank you for your evidence, Margaret. How old are you?
I am 14.
You spoke about feeling more confident once you got to know your child support worker. How did you feel before your support worker came into your life?
I did not know what to do. I had no one to talk to. All my feelings just crammed up inside me, and sometimes they got the better of me. I do not know what I would do if I did not have a support worker.
You were very down.
Yes.
Were you still living in a violent situation at that time?
No.
You were away from that, but you were terribly down.
I would not say terribly.
But your child support worker was an adult in your life different from those whom you knew already.
Yes.
You did not feel that you could tell the adults whom you knew everything about things. Do you feel that you can tell your support worker everything?
Kind of, yes.
Had you ever tried to use a helpline, Margaret?
No.
You thought it might be too difficult to get in touch with someone.
Yes.
How often do you see your support worker?
Every week.
For how long?
Two hours.
But that two hours means a lot to you.
Yes.
She has become a friend, has she?
Yes.
Thanks very much.
I will pick up on Rhoda Grant's comments on continuity. You mentioned in the presentation that some people work as support workers for as little as 10 hours. Is that through choice, or because that is all that is on offer from the organisations that employ you?
The reason is funding restraints. The funding is not available for more hours. Some groups do not have funding for any more than 10 hours. Some groups may be fortunate, and be able to provide 30 or 35 hours, but quite a number of groups have a small number of hours. Some groups have no hours at all.
If, all of a sudden, the money became available, would there be enough support workers with expertise to fill the additional posts that you seek?
I am sure that there would be. Of course, we give training as people come to our organisation, and we have follow-on training. There would be people who were willing to do the work. Even people who only do 10 hours would love to increase the work that they do with children.
Finally, I seek clarification, because I am not sure if I have got the picture right. We are talking about children who have witnessed domestic abuse, rather than suffered abuse themselves. No doubt some will have witnessed and suffered domestic abuse but, in the main, they have witnessed domestic abuse within households.
Yes. Both situations may apply but, in the main, they have witnessed abuse. They may have been in the same room or in the room next door, but the children themselves may have been abused as well. Also, children who have never been in a refuge or never used our service sometimes need support. We have workers who go into schools and talk about domestic violence. In a class there may be several children who are living with abuse at home, and they may want someone to phone or to talk to, but we do not have the resources to cover that.
Good morning. I would like to ask about resource funding. I do not know who will answer the question. I see from the background papers provided by the committee clerk that separate amounts of money—£10 million and £4.5 million—have been made available to develop support services. That is what has happened at this end, but how has that translated into reality at your end? We see that money going out, but it would appear from what we are hearing this morning that it is not really hitting the ground and allowing you to run fast enough to keep up with demand.
Quite a lot of money has been made available. The problem for Scottish Women's Aid is that it has gone into refuge development so, although there are more refuge places, there is no guaranteed money for support work with children, or even for support work with women. The funding is focused on buildings rather than on wages costs.
Who in Scotland is co-ordinating support work with children and ensuring that best practice is translated between local authorities?
That is a difficult question to answer, because each of the 39 groups in Scotland is autonomous. I am one of the national children's rights officers, and the national office is working very hard to get some kind of co-ordination. It is difficult to co-ordinate a service that is patchily funded. There is no comprehensive, cohesive service at all, but that is what we are aiming for. It is difficult to have minimum standards where either no hours, or only five or 20 hours, are being spent doing children's work. The network is aware of those problems and is pushing all the time to increase funding, but it is difficult when it is not secure. What we need is secure funding. If funding runs out after a year or three years and funding for a whole new project must be applied for, that takes up a lot of energy and time. Does that answer your question?
I suppose that, to some extent, it does. The background papers for today's meeting contain information about standards. Do you feel that those standards, if implemented, would match your expectations of how things ought to go? The Scottish Executive has clearly tried to set standards, but the issue is how those are enforced in local authority areas.
That is a problem. It is difficult because a lot of the groups do have some council funding, but it is minimal. There does not seem to be any mechanism to say that councils have to provide funding for those groups, so provision is mixed across the country. That is part of what we are asking. If we can have secure funding and improve the service, that could change. At the moment, it is difficult because we cannot make local authorities fund that work.
Are you saying that the service standards are probably adequate, but that the problem lies with the money that is coming from the Executive and with implementation at the grass roots? Is it just a matter of everything not coming together as it should?
Applications to the domestic abuse service development fund require matched funding, so a bid has to go to the Scottish Executive, with councils and other groups doing the work. That is not always easy.
Could you explain matched funding?
It means that the local council or the local domestic abuse forum can apply to the Scottish Executive for funding from that fund, but the local authority must say that it will match the funding that it gets from the Scottish Executive. The Executive is quite flexible about matched funding—it can be funding in kind—but it is still difficult for groups to get access to money. If the domestic abuse forum does not apply for the money, it does not happen.
Are there examples of what you would call best practice in Scotland that you would like to highlight?
Yes. North Ayrshire is a good example, as there are a number of children's workers there. It is one of the lucky areas where there is a quite a cohesive service. As Frances Tait and Margaret Donovan have said, that service is still limited, but it is one of our better examples. Follow-on work is being done there and there is also work in refuges and a small amount of outreach and prevention work in schools. There are areas where there is good practice and there are councils that are committed to funding those posts, but that is not the case across the board.
You are working at national level to oversee all of that. Who are the link people in the Scottish Executive responsible for monitoring that activity?
Our biggest link is with the Scottish Executive crime prevention unit, which gives us most of the funding for our national office. The unit also runs the domestic abuse development fund.
You spoke about the matrix of people who ought to be involved in the issue. You have helped us to highlight the need for a team approach by services and departments. The Scottish Executive needs to take a more proactive interest in the subject to ensure that the development of services reaches the parts that we want it to reach. Thank you for helping us to get to that point.
We have two small final points from Phil Gallie and Dorothy-Grace Elder.
You mentioned 39 different groups. Are all of them related to various local authorities?
Yes. I should have said that there are 39 affiliated groups. There are also a number of unaffiliated groups in Scotland—I think that the number is five. Each local authority area has one or more group.
Why is the subject not the responsibility of local authority social work departments? Children are all important and social work departments have a duty to look after their interests. Why do those departments not pick up their responsibilities?
That is a hard question.
You are not the one to answer that question—local authority social work departments should do so.
We work with social work departments and, depending on the area, we work closely with them.
Would that be an ideal?
If social work departments picked up the work?
If they picked up the responsibility and provided the service.
The service that we provide has been built up over many years. We have expertise and I think that we are best placed to provide the service. What we need are the resources to provide it well.
The area is specialist, Phil. Social work is overloaded with everything else.
Yes, I think that that is still the case. Our statistics will be published in a couple of week's time. I am focusing on children, but our statistics show that thousands of the children that go with their mothers to get a refuge place are still turned away. That means that they either have to go to departments that deal with the homeless or to a different area. We do not fulfil the need that is out there.
A couple of years ago, 9,000 women and children were turned away from your refuges in Scotland. Is the level the same today?
Yes, although I would have to check the figure, as there are some changes to the statistics. Housing shortages mean that women and their children are staying in refuges for longer periods of time. That can have the effect of the statistics looking as if they are coming down, but it simply means that people are not getting rehoused for a year or so.
Some extra money was made available, but I seem to recall that the actual number of additional beds or rooms that were available was very small.
With the domestic abuse service development fund, there will be an increase, but the concern is that there will not be an increase in the money being made available to do the work.
The children are traumatised not only by the fact that they have had to move around so many times with their mothers to escape violence, but by seeing whether they can even get a place in a refuge. Are children still being sent from Glasgow to Aberdeen or to the Borders for instance?
I shall let the local group members answer that.
Have you any experience of that?
We have four women's refuges in our area and we often have to turn women and children away. We then have to use the network to find space for them and quite often that space is as far away as Inverness or Glasgow.
Do any of them get nothing at all and just go out into the night or back to the abuser?
When people contact Women's Aid we do our very best to accommodate them where they want refuge space. If we cannot do that, we phone the network of Women's Aid groups and find them a space. Failing that, we would get in touch with the local authority provider of accommodation for the homeless.
Do you agree with your colleague that the figure of around 9,000 women and children being turned away from refuges every year in Scotland is probably going to be near the mark again when the new statistics come out?
Yes.
That is absolutely shocking.
We have had to accommodate larger families for anything up to a year, because of the lack of housing stock. There are not enough houses that are big enough to accommodate a woman with, for example, six children, so those families stay in refuges longer, which means that the space is not available for families who phone up to ask for it.
So children such as Margaret are living in limbo with the anchor of one support worker.
In your petition, you also talk about national minimum standards of service. You gave us figures this morning, such as that there are only three outreach workers for the whole of Scotland and six follow-up workers, when it is estimated that 100,000 children suffer from domestic abuse. Are no figures, standards or criteria available? What are the correct figures and how many workers should there be?
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities recommended a number of refuge spaces for each area of the country. However, there are no national standards for children's support work.
There are no national standards?
No.
And no one has ever drawn them together?
No.
That is shocking.
When the Parliament was inaugurated in 1999 we ran a campaign in which we asked MSPs to listen to what the children had to say about their circumstances. There was consensus and broad-based support. This year we ran a "Listen Louder" campaign. We have moved on a number of years, but there has not been a significant change in the situation. There has been a little increase in the number of workers in the whole of Scotland. We urge the Scottish Parliament to put its money where its mouth is.
And our mouths are big enough.
We should compliment the young lady who has come before the committee this morning. It takes quite a bit of courage to come and make a presentation such as the one that you gave this morning and you did it very well, so we are very proud of you. Given the excellence of your presentation and your support team, I am sure that the committee will give your petition every bit of support that it possibly can.
John Farquhar Munro speaks for us all in those comments. Very well done, Margaret, and everyone else. That was a very good presentation. You are free to listen to the committee's discussion about the suggested action on the petition.
With your permission, convener, we might state that we are very disturbed by some of the evidence that we have heard today. It does not look as if there is a profound difference in the situation from three years ago, although we welcome the small amount of funds that has been given. We have been presented with the most terribly disturbing situation.
It would be fair to say that we recognise that there have been improvements in terms of the support for additional refuge places in Scotland, but as yet there has been no funding.
There has been support for a small number of additional refuge places, but the general scene has not changed in three and a half years.
We are trying to encourage the Executive to do something, so we should try to be nice. We should acknowledge that the Executive has allocated funds for additional refuge places, but say that we are disturbed to see that, as yet, there has been no progress in allocating funds for support workers for children who are in those refuge places.
Can we mention the terrible statistic of 9,000 women and children that Dorothy told us about?
There is no reason why we cannot do that.
It is expected that that statistic will be roughly the same when the new report comes out. Those figures are two years old.
We will certainly draw that to the Executive's attention.
Can we highlight the outreach workers? If work is going on in schools to support children who are living with domestic abuse, and such children are being identified, we need to get the support in there. There should be outreach workers providing support before and after children go into refuges. The refuge places might attract support workers, but more work needs to be done with people before they go into refuges.
We will draw the Executive's attention to the very low level of outreach workers and follow-up workers who are available to work with such children, and the absolute absence of any national standards in that respect. It is important that the Executive addresses those issues and identifies sources of revenue funding to tackle the problem.
Further Education (Funding) (PE561)
The next petition is PE561 from Miss Mary Beck on the subject of a review of the Scottish Further Education Funding Council's revenue funding formula. Mary Beck is here along with Zandra Elliot, who is vice chair of Hawick community council. Euan Robson and Christine Grahame are here in support of the petition.
Convener, ladies and gentlemen, the petitioners wish to register their concerns about the threatened removal of full-time education courses from Hawick by Borders College. The Scottish Further Education Funding Council's rural and remoteness element assists Borders College annually, but the total sum available for remoteness across Scotland is between £3 million and £4 million. That is welcome, although it is not substantial.
I ask members to note that, since the petition was submitted, the number of signatures in support of it has risen from 7,654 to 8,104.
I congratulate the petitioners, who often collected signatures in the pouring rain. The figure to which the convener alluded demonstrates the strength of feeling that exists on this matter.
I speak in support of the petition. I have lodged a motion on the crisis at the Hawick campus of Borders College. In that motion, I refer to two documents that are mentioned in members' papers: Audit Scotland's report, "Overview of further education colleges in Scotland 2000/2001", and the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee's report on the crisis in colleges.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the petition, because the area that I represent is also very remote. We have tried to tackle that remoteness through remote learning centres, but funding has been a problem because unit costs are so high. Mary Beck has explained how the postcode-lottery style of funding to tackle social exclusion can actually create exclusion in rural areas, where postcode areas can be enormous and can include communities that are quite wealthy as well as remote deprived communities. Have the petitioners looked at the mechanism that is used to tackle deprivation? Are there other funding mechanisms that would be better for further education?
I have not really looked at that. Unemployment has risen because of the knitwear industry going downhill. Having been brought up when there were knitwear factories in the town, people are now getting re-educated in the further education college to do a different job.
So, to try to retain the Hawick campus, you will be considering funding sources that provide additional training money for areas of high unemployment or areas that have had a downturn in an industry.
Yes.
The college's letter to Euan Robson justifies the centralisation of facilities in Galashiels. Do the two MSPs who have an interest in the petition—Euan Robson and Christine Grahame—want to retain, if not improve, the Hawick campus? What are the MSPs' views on that matter?
We are supposed to be asking the petitioners questions.
I know. I will come to the petitioners, but I want to know the MSPs' views.
Could each of the MSPs comment briefly?
Borders College is recommending a centralised Galashiels site, which is to be revamped at a cost of about £12 million or £15 million—I cannot remember the exact figure. However, as Mary Beck mentioned, at the other end of Galashiels is Heriot-Watt University's Netherdale campus, which is over-accommodated, and there is Borders College's Hawick campus. Options need to be drawn up and there should be proper public consultation. However, I want a continuing presence in Hawick for full-time further education courses, even if that means Borders College having twin campuses. The funding of rural colleges is the relevant issue—the funding council ought to cope with any extra costs.
That was as brief as a politician can be.
Of course we want to keep both the Hawick and Galashiels campuses going, but the heart of the matter is how rural colleges are funded. Statistics that I obtained from a meeting at Borders College show that the unit resource—which is the college's funding per student—has lost about 40 per cent of its value. Therefore, although its student numbers are up, Borders College is making less money. Whether we like it or not, further education colleges are now businesses. They are funded through the Scottish Further Education Funding Council but must also bring in revenue.
You support Borders College having two campuses.
Of course, but funding is the basis of the college's problems.
I was interested in what the petitioners said about a high proportion of the college students being re-educated for another job. Is that a significant matter in the Borders, given that many people there have lost their jobs? Are a great number of students re-educating themselves for other jobs?
Yes. A great number of students are married with a family or are in their 30s. They do not come straight from school. Many students were trained in their teenage years and then worked in the mills, but those kinds of jobs no longer exist. Businesses will not come to Hawick if we do not have a trained work force. Hawick has the largest school in the Borders. If there is no full-time college in Hawick, that will create problems for our school leavers as well as for older students who want to retrain.
What is the distance between Hawick and Galashiels?
Eighteen miles.
What public transport provision is there?
The provision is not very good. A bus runs between Hawick and Galashiels every hour. People who miss the bus have to wait for an hour.
You mentioned the pick-up in evening classes at Hawick.
Yes.
What is the provision for night-time buses?
That is not any better. There are fewer buses as the evening goes on. Between 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock, only three buses run to Denholm, which is 5 miles from Hawick.
The Parliament talks about social inclusion, but closing the buildings in Hawick would be education exclusion.
Yes.
That says it all.
One of the points that I picked up from the interesting letter from the principal of Borders College was that the development plan, which Scottish Borders Council approved, states that Galashiels will be the main centre for development in the years ahead. What is your comment on that?
We are in the process of regenerating Hawick. I mentioned that issue to the Hawick partnership, but it was knocked on the head. A motion of no confidence was passed and the council stated that it does not agree with the central campus proposal. The letter misrepresented the issue.
I was not overly impressed by the principal's letter. One of the factors that he pointed to as a rationale for bringing together the campuses made it sound as if the college is a marriage agency. He argued that many female students are in the Hawick base and the many male students are in Galashiels. I am interested in your comment on that.
The proposed move would be a nail in the coffin for Hawick. Although I am trying not to focus on economic issues, the proposal would not be good economically. The 670 full-time students do not all eat in the canteen at the college in Hawick. When we did a survey at the doors of the college in the pouring rain, the students were carrying bags from the high street shops. The move would have an economic effect on the town. People are worried about more than educational matters; shopkeepers are worried about the knock-on effect of the move.
Another point in the principal's letter is that information and communication technology will become a big issue in the Hawick area. Perhaps the people of Hawick will want that to be considered.
I have spoken to many people who go to afternoon classes on information technology, many of which are for people who have not been brought up with IT. Those people are retired, have time on their hands or want to re-educate and they have told me that they will not travel to Galashiels because the course is a leisure interest. Such classes make the building in Hawick busy. I have raised that issue with Dr Murray and informed him that he will lose students if the proposal goes ahead. Even if a brand-new college is built, people will not be willing or able to travel to fill the classes. That is a worry.
Are there any further points that you would like to draw to our attention?
I would like to say something on behalf of Hawick community council. We heard the rumblings about the matter in spring. In June, we decided to write to the management of Borders College, inviting them to attend one of our monthly community council meetings. We eventually nailed them down to September, when they came along to an ordinary meeting. The agenda listed who was going to speak and the townspeople of Hawick came out in abundance. They were really behind the issue, because enough is enough. We have had enough taken away from us. The heart is being torn out of our town. Once upon a time, Hawick was queen of all the Borders. I like to remind Gala about that.
You had better watch out, because you may provoke a petition from Galashiels.
We have nothing against Gala getting a brand-new college, but we want to keep the Henderson building. There is nothing wrong with it. It is well supported, and at least it keeps the young people in our town. If we lose any more young people to the city, what will happen to the rural areas? That is another aspect that really worries me.
That is a good point.
I have a point on the historical aspect. The first college was bequeathed to the people of Hawick and was built near the secondary school in 1928. By the late 1960s, it was full to capacity and offered knitwear, textiles, secretarial and woodwork courses. When Hawick High School needed more ground to build on, the district council of the time gave it the building. Sir James Henderson, the son of the original founder, was asked for consent to build a new technical college. The new building was built in 1969 in Commercial Road and was opened by Sir James Henderson in 1971. In 1993, the education authority gave that building to Borders College at no cost. In my view, that building still belongs to the people of Hawick. It cannot be taken away from us. If Borders College wants to pull out, let it pull out and we will find another college that will work hand in hand with us. I am saying: do not take away our further education, and leave us our building.
Power to the people. Well done. Thank you for your evidence and for raising an important issue. You are free to listen to the discussion on the suggested action on the petition.
Can reference be made to the fact that several colleges, certainly in the central belt and west of Scotland, seem to have extended their range of operations? For example, James Watt College in Greenock has set up a brand-new building in Kilwinning, which is in direct competition with further education provision in Kilmarnock and Ayr. We seem to be going against provision in a rural area, where, given the communication links, it is all the more important to have college sites available.
As well as asking about the disparity in the allocation of social inclusion funding to urban and rural areas, are you suggesting that we ask the Executive to comment on the fact that college education seems to be expanding in urban areas and retracting in rural areas?
Yes.
If there are no further points to be made to the Executive or the funding council, we will consider the role of Borders College. The college appears to be intent on pursuing centralisation at Galashiels, partly because it claims that it cannot afford both to repair the existing buildings, which are deteriorating, and to pay the on-going operating costs. The college also considers that a move will allow a more modern and cost-effective approach to the delivery of further education in the Borders.
We should point out that the people of Hawick feel that the college building is theirs, and that, if Borders College will not continue to use it, the building should be returned to the community.
We will ask the college to comment on the view that the building belongs to the community and not to the college. We will ask whether the college acknowledges that the building will have to be returned to the people of Hawick if the college does not intend to use it. We will also ask the college whether it has seriously considered the twin-campus approach that was suggested this morning.
Can the Official Report of this meeting be sent to Borders College? The petitioners' case was very well put and concerns have been expressed across the committee. It may well be worth while for the college to read the comments.
That will delay the letter being sent, but we will certainly flag up the Official Report to Borders College. We should also send the Official Report to the Executive and the funding council, to draw their attention to the comments that have been made at this meeting and to ask them to take the views that have been expressed into consideration.
Phil Gallie mentioned transport. We are always asking health authorities to undertake a transport study when they are revising their plans. Can we ask Borders College what transportation study it has carried out in devising its plans and what consultation processes it has undertaken with the public about transport facilities? Euan Robson's constituency stretches for more than 100 miles, from Eyemouth down to Newcastleton. That is a massive area and a transport study would be essential before anyone arrived at any conclusions.
We will ask the college what consultation and transport studies have been carried out on the travel implications of proposals to concentrate the facilities on one site.
Is it possible to add to Rhoda Grant's point about public ownership? Can we request the college to advise us of the terms of Mr Henderson's original benefaction? Sometimes such benefactions include a proviso that the site or building must always be used for educational purposes.
We can ask for clarification of that issue. This letter is beginning to turn into "War and Peace".
Psychiatric Services (PE538)
We will revert to the original order of the agenda and deal with the petitions from James A Mackie, who has now arrived.
Thank you for allowing me to come in late. The traffic this morning was hellish so you might get a petition about transport into Edinburgh before long.
No doubt.
As you will be aware from reading my petitions, during my period of employment as a researcher for Nick Johnston MSP, I got involved in the case of a family who were having problems with psychiatric services. My work in that area has developed and I now regularly receive lengthy and distressful phone calls from parents of adult autistics.
Thank you, Mr Mackie. It is a brave man who accuses members of the committee of having personality disorders.
I only suggested it as a possibility.
You said nothing about my belief in socialism and what that says about me.
I have learned not to fight the convener.
On that point, I say to Mr Mackie that I have visited Helen Eadie's constituency over the years. When I socialise there, I am told many worse things than that I have a personality disorder.
Psychiatric services have been left to their own devices—they are the cinderella of the health service. They are controlled by the psychiatrists, who are unaccountable to anyone else.
Ministers have responsibilities. The executive of the health service in Scotland has responsibilities. If they feel that psychiatrists are creating a closed shop that does not benefit clients and others, why should they not be able to determine whether there should be change and whether definitions should be provided, if, as you suggest, there is a gap?
There seems to be a fear of psychiatrists and psychiatric medication. If families challenge the system and make complaints, a number of things happen. Nine times out of 10, the family are pushed away, and their complaints are ignored or investigated by the health board or hospital authority that is responsible for their relative. In cases in which the patient is over 16, the family can be barred from visiting their relative. I was barred from visiting a patient by a psychiatrist, who would not tell me the grounds for barring me. I found out later that it was because an article had appeared in the local newspaper saying that the patient was in hospital and wanted to go home to stay with his parents for the summer. As I said earlier, psychiatry is a cinderella service. It is hidden and pushed away—no one wants to look at it.
I congratulate you on developing this interest and for putting a lot of work into it from the time when you worked for Nick Johnston. I know how it happens—you develop an interest and then more and more cases of the same type come to you.
I am a member of the cross-party group on autistic spectrum disorder and I have been invited to go along to the cross-party group on mental health. Over the past 18 months, the issues have been raised through the cross-party group on autistic spectrum disorder.
Thank you. You have answered the question. I did not know that you were so involved with one of the groups.
The petitioner mentioned that the legislation in the pipeline recognises only three categories, which are mental illness, personality disorder and learning disability. Should autism be recognised as a separate category?
Very much so. It is not a mental illness nor should learning disability come under mental health legislation. People who are born with, or who have, autism and learning disabilities regularly end up in psychiatric services, because psychiatric services are good at treating symptoms, but they refuse to examine the cause. If they understood the cause and the underlying problems, the individual would not have a psychiatric problem and would not need the heavy drugs that they receive.
Am I right in saying that it is only in recent times that the category of autistic people has been understood?
In the early 1940s, two doctors—Dr Kanner and Dr Asperger—identified two separate groups under the heading of autism. It was not until the early 1980s, when a Dr Lorna Wing in England translated the papers of Kanner and Asperger into English, that the problem became more understood. In recent years, there has been an explosion in the number of children who have been identified as having autism. Those children will become adults over the next 10 to 15 years.
That seems to be the end of questions, for the moment. You will stay with us, because you have three further petitions, which we will deal with in a moment. You can listen to our discussion of what we should do in relation to PE538.
I would like to clarify which grades of secure settings we are talking about, because the issue goes all the way to Carstairs.
I imagine that all secure settings will be included in the study, not just one grade. We can ask for clarification of that point. We will pass a copy of PE538 to the clerk to the Health and Community Care Committee for information.
Psychiatric Drugs (Side Effects) (PE547)<br />Ritalin (Effects on Children) (PE548)
Clozapine (Safety Issues) (PE549)
We will deal with petitions PE547, PE548 and PE549 together. They are similar; they all concern the implications of using medication as a means of treating various disorders. The routine is the same, Mr Mackie—you may introduce the petitions.
One of my petitions calls for an investigation into the side effects of psychiatric drugs and an assessment of alternative treatments.
They do indeed. Thank you very much.
Before I answer the committee's questions, I would like to make one more point about the side effects of these drugs. I have brought along examples of the art that was done by a 16 or 17-year-old lad, just to show members the standard of the work that he did then. He was once told that his work would appear in the Tate gallery in London. However, in the past three and a half to four years, he has been prescribed nine different neuroleptics, along with combinations of antidepressants, serotonin reuptake inhibitors and drugs for epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. I also have examples of the daily work that he churns out now, which shows the result of psychiatric services for people with autism. In Scotland, a junior psychiatrist can overrule the diagnosis of professors of psychiatry who are world renowned for their work in autism.
Okay. That was an effective demonstration.
Can we learn anything from other European Union countries? Does a country whose population not only takes fish oil but eats all kinds of fish all the time have fewer cases of autism? What about the Japanese? They eat a lot of fish.
I think that the Japanese have other problems. The sudden increase in cases of autism seems to be a western European and American phenomenon. Many different reasons are being advanced for that and all of them are right. However, whatever the causes of autism, ADD or schizophrenia, the drug route is not the problem. Drugs are used to treat the symptoms but they make the situation far worse. They do not improve the patients; in fact, every patient I have seen gets worse over a period of time. It is well documented that the life expectancy of those patients is shortened. The problem is the cost of the psychiatric system's brutality to the individual and their family and the cost of treatment to the national health service, because the money that is wasted on those treatments could be spent elsewhere.
I have attended meetings with the families involved. Do they resist the prescription of drugs now that they have come together and realised that there are problems with the diagnosis?
Yes. The families have been fighting against the drugs for a long time. However, they have been totally ignored. In fact, not only the parents have been ignored. Under existing legislation, once an individual reaches 18, he is an adult and the parents have absolutely no input into his treatment. For example, in one case, the family was well aware that their son was different; however, it was not until he was into his 20s that he was privately diagnosed as autistic. The parents took the precaution of ensuring that they were given the power of attorney to look after their son and that they had to be consulted about his medication. However, they have been totally ignored.
I am interested in the background papers that we have received and in your comments about alternative therapies, including homeopathy. To your knowledge and in your experience, how has homeopathy been able to assist people?
Diet is the main issue and has been considered by the Scottish Association for Mental Health. Together with a commercial company, SAMH has examined the benefits of omega-3 fish oils for schizophrenics. It is well documented that all autistics have a leaky gut. They have major allergy problems with gluten and most of them are intolerant of lactose—dairy products. Because of those intolerances and allergies, the gut produces toxins that enter the blood, affect the brain and create psychosis-type symptoms. Straightforward liver conditions can create symptoms that resemble psychosis.
You said that you were not at all happy with the role of the Mental Welfare Commission. There are proposals to take the handling of individual complaints away from the Mental Welfare Commission and give it to the new public sector ombudsman service. Would you welcome that?
Yes, given the way in which the Mental Welfare Commission is stacked up. The cross-party group on autistic spectrum disorder raised the problem that people who represent autistic groups were not given the opportunity to give oral evidence to the lead committee on the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill. I have still to come across a service user who has a good word to say about the way in which the Mental Welfare Commission operates.
One of your petitions refers to some research work that is being done at Carstairs. Would you like us to write and ask for details?
The parents of adult autistics understand—it is occasionally referred to in psychiatric services—that a Dr Young at Carstairs is researching autism and the treatment of autism. We know that autistic adults have been sent to Carstairs under his care. As you will probably be aware, autistic adults have communication problems, irrespective of which end of the intelligence scale they are at, and they do not understand everything. We do not know under what powers that work is being done.
Would you like us to write and ask this Dr Young?
It would be extremely useful to find out what the treatment is, under what powers it is being administered and whether the patients are willing.
We should be asking how many autistic patients Carstairs has, for example. Some members of the Health and Community Care Committee recently visited Carstairs.
Because the treatment is carried out at Carstairs, the parents just do not have access. Once the patient is over 18, nobody can interfere on the patient's behalf. As the law stands—I cannot see it changing—if a psychiatrist says that a patient who is sectioned does not understand what is happening or does not have the ability to give permission, that individual has absolutely no legal rights. He could, in theory, apply for the section to be reviewed or appeal it, but if a psychiatrist says that he cannot understand what is going on, he cannot instruct a lawyer, so nobody can represent him. That is the big fear about those whom we believe are autistic and subject to research at Carstairs. Who is responsible for their well-being and what input do their families have?
The reference to Carstairs was in support of PE538, which we dealt with previously. We are already approaching the Executive to ask for details of those with autistic spectrum disorder in secure units, so we can also ask about the research that is being carried out at Carstairs.
As you will realise, I have a lot of the data here. I made similar representations yesterday at Westminster, so my head is still buzzing.
Are there any further questions?
I have such a burning anger at the lack of human rights of some of the adults whom we are hearing about. They just have to submit to all the drugs, when there seems to be genuine doubt as to whether those drugs are harmful or curative. It would be tempting to invite some of those psychiatrists to come before us so that we can ask them those questions, but it would be difficult to decide which psychiatrists we should invite.
We are not yet at the discussion stage. I asked whether members had further questions for the petitioner.
I am sorry. I thought that we had reached the discussion stage.
In a newspaper article in April this year, the UK's chief pharmacist was quoted as saying that 94 per cent of patients on neuroleptics receive no benefit from them.
Thank you for your presentation, which was comprehensive.
The suggestion that we should write to the MCA is welcome. I have listened and it strikes me that there is a human rights issue if there is genuine doubt about the curative or harmful effects of drugs that are more or less forcibly administered to adults who have no rights, even in cases in which the court has attempted to employ a protector such as a tutor dative. The situation is alarming, but perhaps it is too early to get worried at this point.
To be fair, the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill, which is being dealt with by the Health and Community Care Committee, is concerned with compulsion and how the law can be amended to protect people's rights. The Health and Community Care Committee is examining the issues that you raise and is taking evidence from a wide range of groups, including lawyers. Indeed, sheriffs gave evidence at a recent meeting of the committee.
I am interested to hear that 94 per cent of patients who are treated do not respond to the treatment. If that is the case, we must ask about the cost of the treatment. If the money could be used in a different way—to give homeopathic treatment or whatever—that would be helpful.
We could ask the Executive about the cost of psychiatric drugs to the national health service every year and whether it has carried out research into the effectiveness of the use of psychiatric drugs.
The drugs that we are talking about have been cleared for use in the UK.
So was Thalidomide.
Exactly. My point is that I would not want to give the bodies that cleared the drugs a get-out clause that would allow them to say that the drugs went through a safety process. Mr Mackie is concerned about the way in which the drugs are used. The situation for Clozapine might be different, because, as we were told, it has been banned in Finland.
We have said that we will ask the Executive, the Medicines Control Agency and the Committee on Safety of Medicines in detail about the use of the drugs in the NHS and the reasons why they are used.
That is fine.
If the Health and Community Care Committee is considering the issue of compulsion, could we write to it to say that we have expressed concern about the facts that we have heard today?
Yes. We will pass the petitions to the Health and Community Care Committee and draw the attention of its members to the fact that we are pursuing the matter with the Executive.
We did not agree to invite the doctors, did we?
No. We are getting a response from the Executive before we agree anything. In any case, it might be for the Health and Community Care Committee to consider the matter rather than us.
Members indicated agreement.
Title Deeds (PE566)
The last of the new petitions before the committee today is PE566 from Mr James Duff, calling on the Parliament to take the necessary steps to set up an independent body to ensure that any title deeds of land or property acquired by anyone through the Scottish judicial system process without the owner's permission be safeguarded within that system.
Agreed.
It might be agreed, but we should make some comment of sympathy for Mr Duff. My reading of everything from Mr Duff suggests that, if we go back far enough, he has been the victim of injustice. Once again, I do not see that there is anything that the Public Petitions Committee can do about it and, on that basis, I agree to the recommendations, but I think that Mr Duff got a heck of a raw deal.
I second that.
Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
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Current Petitions