Official Report 274KB pdf
Item 2 is our family support services inquiry. I welcome Robert Brown, the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, and his officials—Rod Burns from the Education Department and Moira Wilson from the Justice Department. We have a number of questions for you. Mary Mulligan, who has been the committee's reporter on this issue, will begin.
First, I want to make two or three points on the Executive's response to my report on the provision of family support services in Scotland.
There was quite a lot in that question, so I will take a little while to respond. I welcome the report that Mary Mulligan produced, which is a solid and comprehensive piece of work. It has helped us in our consideration of the issues, as well. As you know, I have taken a personal interest in this subject for some while, although it has come into the remit of the education ministers only in the past few weeks as the funding arrangements have transferred. Like you, I have had the opportunity to engage with the organisations and I have visited one or two of the projects, which has been interesting. The starting point must be our common agreement that the whole area of family support services is important for a series of objectives that the Parliament, the committee and the Executive share against social breakdown, and so on.
Is that additional funding the additional £300,000 that Hugh Henry announced at stage 3 of the Family Law (Scotland) Bill?
No. The funding to which you refer was one-off change funding, on which Mary Mulligan touches in her report. It was designed to help national and local bodies to move forward towards amalgamation and joint working. They have taken advantage of that opportunity; as members know, Relate and Family Mediation Scotland are amalgamating, and there is a close working relationship between Scottish Family Care and Stepfamily Scotland. There has also been transformation of a number of services at local level, supported by the one-off funding. I am talking about more general, routine, on-going funding that will be the subject of GAE-isation—if there is such a word—over the next three years.
I suspect that some of them may require a more detailed response. Colleagues will ask about other funding issues, so I will steer away from that area at the moment.
I very much hope that they will, and it is very much our intention that they should. Local authorities provide a number of services as a result of statutory requirements. A number of other services—for example, youth work services—are provided in a much more discretionary way although they are not exactly voluntary. Often there are calls for services to be provided on a statutory basis. I do not think that one would ever rule out the possibility of considering that step if it was required.
Page 3 of the Executive's response to the reporter's report states:
I will ask Rod Burns to speak about that in a moment. I have had some engagement with the sector, but the matter has only recently come formally to the Education Department. It all depends on the elections, but I think that I or my successor would be keen to be involved in this work at ministerial level. It is important to keep up that level of involvement.
There are no formalised plans yet from the perspective of officials, and there is no formal business plan for how we are going to set things out. However, as the minister said, we intend to build on the excellent relationships that officials have developed at local and national levels. In addition to ministerial communication of what is important—the fact that family support services is a vital sector—we need to build on our good relationships with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and with the national and local bodies so that we are right in the middle of ensuring that services are rolled out and developed. Since the transfer of responsibility for family support services from the Justice Department to the Education Department, we have fairly quickly developed good relationships, with the national bodies in particular, and to a certain extent with the local services. We, as officials, intend to build on that personal and real relationship.
Would it be fair to say that your plans are embryonic, particularly in relation to local authorities and COSLA?
"Embryonic" is an interesting choice of word. So far, we have engaged unofficially with COSLA. We would not have been able to propose the three-stage move into grant-aided expenditure without the unofficial consent of COSLA officials. We have not, however, exchanged correspondence with those officials, nor have we had any kind of formal summit with them. The plans are not embryonic, but nor are they polished final plans.
We are heading towards the beginning of a three-year transition period: one year of continued funding and two years of ring-fenced GAE. The announcement of the unified voluntary sector funding arrangements in response to the current round of bids will be a good start point. Such things are often lubricated by an element of financial additionality. In this instance, that will be of considerable help in effectively engaging local authorities.
We are in the post-embryonic stage, and I realise that a number of issues are still to be resolved or even discussed.
There will be continued engagement with the local authorities, as there is across the board in a number of areas. I have no doubt that the Executive has a few levers it could pull, short of ring-fenced arrangements. I very much hope that it will not be necessary thereafter to ring fence funding, and I have no reason to think that it will. I take the matter very seriously—I do not want any situation to arise in which important local family support services disappear off the radar and cease to exist. As we move towards the end of the two-year period, we will know whether there are issues. Although I am not trying to say that we would want to continue any of those sorts of arrangements, we do not rule out anything if it is necessary for continued services. I have no reason to think that we have anything other than an effective and worthwhile partnership with the local authorities on family support services, for the very good reason that it is in their interests, for other policy objective reasons, to make proper use of the facilities and arrangements as part of their panoply of social service provision.
Family support services would not be the first services for which there had been ring-fenced funding and, when the ring-fenced funding ended, the service had diminished. There is a history of that happening in local authority funding as other pressures are felt. Do you foresee anything else happening?
It should be borne in mind that local authorities are locally elected bodies and that they have a mandate from their electorates. There is a difficult but interesting balance to be struck between their local mandate to determine provision of services and the mandate that central Government has. Within limits, the local authorities are entitled to make decisions about allocation of resources; however, if they do not produce the outcomes that the Executive has set as targets on this relatively high-level agenda, the Executive will take a close interest in that and will reserve its position on what it might be necessary to do if things do not work out in the proper way. I have no reason to think that that is going to be the position, and every reason to think that the local authorities are being, and will be, co-operative and keen to see the services supported.
I am interested in that answer in relation to what the Executive wrote to the local authorities in 2001, although I realise that writing is not everything. In its response to the reporter's report, Relate Scotland said that, on 2 February 2001, the minister had written to ask local government to fund counselling and mediation, but that that had had little effect in practice. Here we are, six years later, being told that there is a continuing dialogue; yet, one of the bodies that the Executive funds has said that previous approaches dating way back to 2001 have, to date, proven to be pretty ineffective. What has changed?
I think that you are talking about a different sort of process. I was not involved in the 2001 scenario, so I cannot speak from detailed knowledge of it. From what you say, I understand that the issue concerned the desire to deal with patchy provision of services and the responsibility on local authorities to support such services at that time.
I do not think that anybody here would disagree with that, although some of us may have issues about there being little or no provision of services in some areas. There is a difference between saying that it is up to local authorities to decide how to deliver services and saying that it is up to local authorities to decide whether they will bother delivering those services at all. Those are two separate issues.
That will come after a year of continued central funding.
Indeed. I presume that you expect that ring fencing to encourage growth of services, as opposed to simply maintaining what is currently in place.
Yes.
You do not want to micromanage the local services, but is it fair to say that the Executive's intention is to take a closer interest than it does in other services that are provided by local authorities in order to ensure effective delivery?
That is a fair summary. I would not disagree with that.
I will continue the same line of questioning. Are you confident that COSLA is as committed to the provision of family support services as the Executive is? You spoke about your determination and said that you feel strongly about the issue. Does COSLA feel as strongly as you do?
The answer is undoubtedly that it does feel as strongly. Officials have had detailed contact with COSLA. As we all know, COSLA is an intermediary body that represents the local government sector—it will provide assistance and collaboration but, ultimately, what counts is what happens on the ground in local authorities. We know from contact that we have had that officials who are sympathetic to what we want to do are involved in discussions on such matters at local level. We will try to put in place arrangements to beef up such contact as the plan develops, but I have no reason to think that the local authorities themselves—which I think are key—are not committed to our agenda.
I am not sure that I agree with the Executive's position—I remain to be convinced about whether it should be for local authorities to determine provision. I am listening carefully to what you say. It seems to me that if the Executive—which is, after all, responsible for family policy—feels strongly that a range of family support services should be provided, it would not let go of determination of those services unless it was fully confident that local authorities were as committed as you are to provision of those services.
I take your point. We are responsible for the family support strategy but, as in most areas of Government activity, a good part of service provision is determined, carried out and administered at local level, either by local authorities or as a result of their commissioning or otherwise engaging with voluntary or private sector organisations. That is very much the scenario with family support services. There is no reason why they should be different from other services, even though, historically, that has not been the case.
I hear what you say about the local bodies being an important dynamic, but I do not necessarily agree that they are best placed to decide on where the gaps are. I may be alone in having this view, but I still think that the legislature has a role to play in making basic decisions about what provision there should be.
I will put the issue into a bit more context. We have already said that we are at an embryonic stage in deciding how we move from where we are now to where we want to be. We are moving into a three-year period during which there will be various forms of contact. I do not want to prejudge what the outcome of that might be because we want that to emerge organically from discussions with local authorities, once we have understood their needs and those of the local and national groups.
If you are saying that the Executive will consider whether there should be baselines, I welcome that consideration.
I entirely accept what you say. We do not want to be static. Our appearance before the committee is not the end of the process.
I mentioned contact centres as one example—further detailed questions will be asked about them—but I do not necessarily agree with what has been said. The evidence that I have heard suggests that there should be standards for running contact centres. I would still prefer a baseline to exist if centrally held resources were released and local authorities were allowed to determine what they will provide.
I do not rule that out. We might want to consider such things as we move forward and as the Education Department gets to grips with the issues in the role that it has taken over. I do not want that to be taken as a commitment, but we will want to work through issues in the three-year process.
Before we move on to money, it is clear that political accountability for driving forward the family support work lies with you, minister. The previous 20 minutes have made that clear. However, who will get fired in the public services if it is not delivered?
I do not think that is the direction I want to go in—
Let me stop you immediately, minister, and say that, if you cannot identify somebody in the public services who will be accountable for delivery, you will simply not deliver. I ask you again—who in the public services will be accountable, and would they be fired or moved if they did not deliver?
I repeat that I do not want to go in that direction. The lines of accountability are obvious. The minister is ultimately accountable and officials have the role of advising ministers. In so far as the matter moves forward to local authority level, chief executives and councillors have line responsibility, as is the case in delivery of any public service. If, in my ministerial role, I make a hash of the work, Parliament would no doubt say nasty things to me and the First Minister might desire to do something with me as a consequence. I readily accept that that is reasonable.
There is a distinction between the making of policy and its implementation. The making of policy is clearly your responsibility. I understand that, and you articulated what might happen if there was a failure of policy. However, I am interested in what would happen if there was a failure of implementation, which is the responsibility of the officials who have to manage the policy and deliver it on the ground. Are we absolutely clear about who is responsible for that?
Delivery of the service after the three-year period will be the local authorities' responsibility. That is the purpose of transferring the funding in their direction. In fact, I think I am right to say that, technically, it will be their responsibility after the first year, albeit that we will ring fence the money in that period.
Okay—so we have established that it will be the local authorities' responsibility. I am content with that, but if that is the case, why is not the Executive putting all the money into the local authorities' hands and allowing them to decide to what extent they want national bodies to represent them and co-ordinate the work? Under that approach, the local authorities would fund the national bodies. The current figures appear to show that substantial amounts of money are put directly into national bodies rather than into local services and the local authorities that actually have responsibility for delivery. Is the funding skewed in the wrong direction?
The arrangements are somewhat more complex than that, as they often are in such matters. The issue of national bodies and capacity building at the national level arises in other spheres, including the youth-work sector, which I mentioned in a slightly different context. It also arises in relation to a number of umbrella bodies in the voluntary sector. In those areas, we provide capacity at national level to do things that could not be done as readily at local level in all 32 local authorities.
I accept the need for national bodies. Of course, local scout, girl guide and Boys Brigade groups are not accountable to local authorities and are primarily funded and supported by the individual organisations on the ground.
I do not think that our positions are far apart. I am interested in the efficiency of Executive spend and it seems to me that efficiencies can be carried through across a series of areas in which there is a national body—efficiencies can be gained from providing funding in that way. National bodies can be funded through subventions from local groups, but such an approach quite often leads to a weak national body that cannot operate effectively. A reason for that is the need for organisations in the voluntary sector to have a degree of independence, so that they are at arms length from Government machinery of any kind. The establishment of national bodies that have a degree of corporate independence, albeit that they are subject to national funding, can achieve not just the most efficient approach to spending money, but the best way of setting standards and establishing common practice across the sector, which might not otherwise happen.
Stewart Stevenson talked about accountability. If, in future, an SNP—[Interruption.] I meant to say "MSP"—I should make that clear.
You were spot on.
If an MSP asked the Executive a question about, for example, their constituents' lack of access to contact centres, or long waiting times for couple conciliation services, would the Executive respond by saying that that was a matter for local authorities?
There might be an element of that. We should bear it in mind that local authorities have elected members, so there is democratic accountability. We sometimes overstate our importance as MSPs, given that there are other elected layers of government. However, it is clear that ministers retain the responsibility for strategy and issues throughout the country, so a minister would find it difficult to wriggle off the hook if major issues were emerging. The same interrelationship is relevant when a member asks about difficulties in a school in their part of the country, when things have not gone as well as they might have done. The issue is the immediate responsibility of the local authority, but ministers are often drawn into such matters because they have responsibility for national standards.
Are you saying that if an MSP asks the Executive about waiting times, they will receive an answer? Can we hold the Executive to account on such matters, given that Executive money is being spent, albeit that it is translated into GAE? I like to think that the Executive accepts that elected members of Parliament have a role, notwithstanding the role of elected members in local authorities, to hold it to account for money that is going to local authorities to be spent on services such as contact centres and reconciliation services.
Members of the Scottish Parliament absolutely have that role. I do not think that anybody could claim that the Executive is not held to account on education services, albeit that education services in detail are provided by local authorities. The arrangement will be fairly similar once the funding has gone in through GAE. I do not think that you can expect to hold ministers directly accountable for the specific things that happen under the aegis and control of local authorities, which by definition at that time—
I want to be clear.
With respect, I do not think that I am saying either. The principle is that if local authorities are running or commissioning the services—
I cannot hold you to account.
No, that is not the principle. The local authorities are primarily accountable for the detail of the service provision. That follows in relation to almost anything else for which they have responsibility. By the same token, the Executive does not entirely lose its responsibility. If a significant issue is developing throughout the country, you are perfectly entitled to ask for—and I imagine that you would seek to get—an answer from ministers about whether a general problem has arisen. I do not think that the minister would resign because X local authority has a bit of a problem developing. It is not that kind of accountability, but the minister would take a close interest in the fact that problems were beginning to emerge. Because of the responsibility that we have for strategy, the interrelation with all the other issues that we have been talking about and that, as you say, funding ultimately comes from central sources, we would take a close interest in and would be accountable to Parliament for those matters, but not in the detailed way that we would be if we funded the services directly.
I will leave it. I do not see why the issue is becoming so difficult. If I asked you about the national health service, you would say that the Executive has waiting time targets.
The committee is pushing at boundaries. The comparison with education is not particularly helpful; although there will be, for example, variation in teacher numbers, that will be within statutory guidelines and baselines that must be met throughout the country. There are also inspections of schools. When we considered the Family Law (Scotland) Bill we wanted further provision to help families. That provision might well become as regulated as the work of the Education Department, but at the moment it is not. We are trying to push the issue. In the light of the United Nations Children's Fund report, this is important. I suppose that it is unusual for a justice committee to be pushing at this kind of boundary, but it is connected to our work on justice.
I accept that. I have tried to say that the Executive and I attach extraordinary importance to the matter. It is a very important policy, which we are keen to see delivered effectively.
We will move on to funding after I call Stewart Stevenson.
I will make my last point before ceding to colleagues on funding. I listened to what Robert Brown said about moneys for the next three years. Will that start to fill satisfactorily the gaps that Mrs Mulligan's report identified? What will happen after those three years?
Those are yes-yes questions. The funding will begin to fill the gaps. It is clear that 46 per cent extra in funding will help and will widen to every local authority the potential to have input into such services. Whether services will be delivered in every local authority area by a centre or in collaboration across local authority boundaries—I think that the centre in Glasgow supports services in one or two neighbouring local authority areas—is a matter for local determination on a practical basis. The funding will allow an expansion of services.
I welcome the thrust of what you say, but I may continue to pick at the detail. Does what you say imply that national standards might be established—Marlyn Glen referred to that—that would guide and perhaps constrain local authorities in the use of what will be part of their GAE allocation rather than specific funding? That would ensure that local authorities were subject to a duty and had funding.
If I am hearing one message, it is that the committee is interested in national standards or something that would deliver what national standards might do. I have said that we did not rule out such a measure, but I wanted it to emerge from the forward programme. The committee's input may provide greater impetus, which is probably useful. Such a measure would not go against the grain of anything that we have suggested or done and we would probably want to engage with the committee on it as the programme moves forward and as the embryonic stage to which Bruce McFee referred becomes a more developed understanding of what we require to do to make progress. I hope that that helps.
Obviously, funding is crucial to the delivery of family support services. I will press you a little more on the idea that local authorities are the best people to deliver services because they know local needs. Would anything in your proposals prevent a local authority from indulging in empire building and in developing through its staff and by recruiting people a service that is already out there and is delivered perfectly adequately in the voluntary sector? I suppose that we return to the question of where the checks and balances are.
Absolutely. Being an optimistic chap, I like to look at the situation more positively. We hope that, as the discussions with local authorities and voluntary sector organisations proceed, such issues will come out of the woodwork.
I have two other points. Scottish Marriage Care and Stepfamily Scotland have said that the current anomalies in the funding have not been accurately or properly addressed. They make the point, which is the same for any voluntary or independent organisation that has experience and provides a good service, that spending time on fundraising rather than delivering services is clearly not the best use of their money. Minister, I earnestly ask you to look at that situation.
That is an important question that brings in the rural dimension, which has been a wee bit absent from some of the discussion. The provision of services in rural areas presents particular and specific challenges. If I recollect correctly, Mary Mulligan mentioned some of those challenges in her report. Services in such areas sometimes must be delivered differently and with different availability. That again makes the point about the complexity of the relationship—it is not really a simple matter of saying that all the services are central or local. One issue is about how we can provide a service that is available more broadly, throughout several authorities.
I will follow up Margaret Mitchell's question. I do not want to pick you up on a comment, minister, and I am sure that you did not mean it the way it came out, but can we be clear that Scottish Marriage Care and Couple Counselling Scotland provide services for people of all denominations and none and that there is no discussion about that?
On your first point, I was simply referring to the origin of some of the organisations. For what it is worth, I believe that those traditional connections give strength to voluntary organisations in many cases. My comment was in no sense negative. I have a lot of time for the work of Scottish Marriage Care, Relate and other such bodies.
I congratulate Mary Mulligan on her excellent report, in which she points out that despite the fact that there are contact centres right across Scotland, 11 local authority areas still do not have any. Who is responsible for filling the current gaps in provision and ensuring that contact centres are available everywhere?
As I was a family lawyer for some of my legal career, I have an instinct for these issues and, indeed, know about some of the matters on which the committee took evidence in its consideration of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. Although things have moved on a lot since I practised family law, one thing that has remained constant is the tortuous nature of the relationships that give rise to some of these contact matters. Issues such as facilitation, keeping the father—more often than not—in closer and better contact with the family and awareness of, for example, violence within families form an important background against which to address the problem.
Not on the development of contact centres, which we see as firmly engaged with the family support services, but I can say more about the research and the family contact facilities, if you would like.
That would be helpful.
You might want to come to that later.
My next question is about court services. In all sorts of cases, courts are increasingly reliant on the information they get from contact centres, mediation services and so on, but the Scottish Court Service and the Justice Department do not provide any funding to help with the delivery of those services. Do you think that it is perhaps time the Justice Department and the Scottish Court Service started to provide funding for those services? You can talk about research at the same time.
I cannot speak on behalf of the Scottish Court Service, as I do not work for it: I work for the Justice Department.
I agree with that. It does not matter so much what the funding source is; we have a Scottish block, which is allocated administratively into different departments. The real issue is whether the funding is spent appropriately to meet requirements. This is a developing agenda. The pilot projects in Edinburgh and Glasgow that provide family contact facilitators should tell us quite a lot about what is required to service the busy courts in those cities. You may be aware that the project that will be physically stationed in Edinburgh will have the capacity, all being well, to take on cases from elsewhere in the sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders. It will be able to find out about the demand in country towns and in the city, which will also inform the direction in which we go. That is not strictly about contact centres, but it is the same agenda.
The report says that we are concerned about the wide disparity between funding for contact centres in England and Wales and funding for contact centres in Scotland. Do you want to comment on that?
We are responsible for dispensing funds in Scotland. This is a developing agenda. To some extent, there have been different patterns of requirement in England. I do not know the detail of what support is available in England. We are seeking to have in place arrangements that will work in liaison with the courts, which is why the two pilot projects have been set up in that environment. However, that is not the end of the development of the process. You have touched on the fact that there are 11 areas where there are not the facilities that there ought to be. We want to build capacity to provide those facilities. That is the direction of travel.
I am interested in the research as well, but the research is really about child contact enforcement, which is coming to it from a particular perspective. That is definitely necessary, but there are other perspectives that are important. It is good that family support services have transferred from the Justice Department to the Education Department. Nevertheless, I wonder whether money should still be provided from the Justice Department, given that courts rely on those services so much.
I take the point, but the money has moved with the current support for the services, so to speak, although the new developments are coming from the unified voluntary sector fund more generally. If I may, I will make the parallel again. I am not exactly sure how social work services are funded at the local level, but in effect they come to the courts from the local authorities. The source of the funding is not really the important issue; surely what is important is the delivery of the service, the timescales and all that sort of thing.
Basically, I would be interested in the outcome rather than where the funding comes from, too.
Supervised contact is important. It melds into supported contact. In the context of the slightly longer-term environment, you might agree that supervised contact is not a very satisfactory end product. It may meet a need in the shorter term, but ideally one would want things to move forward into something that is a bit more organic. Supervised contact is not the most brilliant thing for the children.
But let us go back to basics: we are talking about facilitating contact with children, when it safe to do so.
Yes, absolutely.
And the safety of children is paramount.
Yes, absolutely. The courts have to have control of that. We all know many examples—mine relate to my professional practice—that illustrate the big, big issues around all of that. We have to get it right.
I would not like us to go away with the idea that Scottish Women's Aid works only in Glasgow. It has cases all over the country.
No, I am not saying that. All I am saying is that we have to recognise the differences in the way in which we wish—and need—to provide these things, to reflect the dimension and geography of Scotland. In a sense, given the smaller number of cases in rural and smaller courts, the way in which it can be done somewhere such as Stornoway is a different proposition in some respects from the way in which it is done in a large city court with large number of sheriffs and where a large number of clients come before the court. We have to be able to reflect that in the way that this goes forward.
My question is on that point. I seek clarification on the work that the Executive has done to provide some form of costing for the provision of contact centres across Scotland. In other words, if the facility were made available nationwide where it is required, what would it cost?
That perhaps goes back to the answer to the previous question: it will vary across Scotland. It will take account of some of the existing facilities and the nature of the demand if the service were fully in place.
Yes, precisely—so what would it cost to roll the service out across Scotland?
I cannot immediately give an answer. Perhaps we can come back on that.
I think that we do not have any particular information to hand, minister.
Indeed, indeed. I understand the point entirely. The problem is that much of this floats round in airy-fairy land: the local authority is responsible for delivery, but it may not deliver. I understand that the Executive has rejected the possibility of separate funding for contact centres. It said:
We must go back a stage. Local authorities get a substantial amount of GAE support, which has gone up since the Scottish Parliament was established, for their activities. That is additional to council tax. A large amount of money goes to local authorities generically, to enable them to provide services across the board. I am teaching granny to suck eggs, but the starting point is that it is up to local authorities to provide the services that they see as appropriate in their areas from the GAE, as adjusted over time and with whatever additions are made. We have accepted that there is a need to expand provision in the family support sector. The considerable announcements that we have made and will make shortly about the unified voluntary sector fund are related to that issue.
Will you restate what additional moneys will be available in each of the next three years?
In 2007-08 total funding in the sector will increase from £1.3 million to £1.8 million. I think that the funding will remain static thereafter, with an inflation-related increase.
The funding will be split between national and local bodies. The national bodies will stay within the unified funding arrangement, but funding for local bodies will be included in GAE.
So funding will go up by £500,000 a year.
Yes. Next year there will be a baseline addition of approximately £500,000 a year across the board.
Do you believe that an extra £500,000 a year will address the issues that have been discussed today?
The short answer is that in many sectors it probably will not. There is a fixed Scottish block allocation that goes up over time, following spending reviews. Adjustments are made between priorities across the Executive.
So it is not true to say that local authorities could provide contact facilities if they so desired. There would be a funding problem even if a local authority wished to provide such facilities.
That is not what I am saying. Local authorities, like the Executive, have a fixed fund, allowing for changes over time. Within our respective funds, they and we have to make priority choices about how the money is spent. If family support services are important—as we believe they are—local authorities can make additional provision for them. We want to discuss some of the possible lines of development in the area.
I would like you to confine your remarks to family support services. Would £500,000 across Scotland address the issue?
I have already answered the question. I have nothing to add.
So local authorities will continue to have to choose between the vision of one service and that of another. I understand your desire to be optimistic and to look forward, but I want to understand what can realistically be provided for £500,000 a year.
I accept the point that you make, but the wider context must be considered. Within their domains, the Scottish Executive and local authorities have the ability to make funding choices. The issue that we are debating is only one element of those choices. You should not view that funding in isolation, although I accept that the end effect will be additional resource going to local authorities, above GAE funding of the amounts that will emerge from the settlement. That money is only a contribution. It is no different from what happens in any other sector when we advance over time by making improvements to the funding arrangements—if we can—and honing the priority choices that we make, as opportunity offers.
I accept all that. It would be useful to have some figures to indicate what you think half a million pounds, split in the way you described, will buy on the ground. I presume that in making the calculations you had some idea of the costs involved.
The money is for individual bids. You will see what they get for that in the announcements about the unified voluntary sector fund allocations that we will make shortly. That will be a relatively clear exercise.
We were involved in the matter way before you, in the sense that we looked at it in the context of the Family Law (Scotland) Bill and all the issues that were brought to the table. The committee pushed hard on those issues with Hugh Henry, who was the minister at that time, because we saw an opportunity to influence the policy. In fairness to the Executive, it conceded a number of important points. One was about additional funding; the second was about research—we might want to hear more about that; and the third was about family contact officers, about which we will speak.
If there was any suggestion in what I said that rural areas should not get the same facilities as urban areas, I would like to make it clear that that is not what I was trying to say. Nevertheless, I was brought up 10 miles from Huntly, which is 40 miles from Aberdeen. There are geographical implications in that sort of situation for the availability of facilities, expertise and supervisory people. The centres must be convenient for the people who require them. We need to look at the particular requirements of rural areas in the context of what we do here as well as more generally. It might be that slightly different solutions have to be found, to make facilities available.
I want to ask about relationship preparation services, which you have already touched on. I am curious about how the issue comes under your department, but never mind.
I challenge the view that an effective reaction requires central intervention; I do not think that it does—for the reasons we have gone on about at length today. However, I also do not think that we can just leave things to the organisations. We want to utilise the expertise of the organisations. We have to do that, because they have experience of what works and they know their priorities. Scottish Marriage Care has received some project funding to support the REACT enterprise, but most of the funding came from extraneous sources and from fundraising—I stand to be corrected, but I think that I am right in saying that. We encourage the bringing in of funding from other sources as well.
We are getting towards the end of our questions and we should finish by covering anything that has not yet been covered. I would like to spend a few minutes exploring the Executive's commitment to family contact facilitators. Two pilots are running, in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I welcome that.
It is important to remember that the court represents the pathological end of the process, if you like, where families have run into problems. There is a kickback effect if people think that they are not going to get contact, which can affect their actions. Nevertheless, there are many other situations in which contact is worked out reasonably well, whether with the assistance of mediators or otherwise.
Okay. The sheriffs and sheriffs principal of the family courts in Glasgow and Edinburgh have agreed to run the pilots in their courts. We spent some time working with them on the terms of reference and the role of the two family court facilitators.
When will the facilitator role kick in? Will that happen when the sheriff has made a decision about contact that is not going to be honoured by the resident parent?
The role will kick in at different times, at the sheriff's discretion. We have agreed that the facilitators will work only with cases that are about to go to court or are in court. If the sheriff thinks that the work of a facilitator would be beneficial to the family, he or she can bring them in at any stage of the process.
Are you talking about cases that are going to court because there is an argument about contact?
Yes. The case will be either in court or about to return to court.
I see. We are talking about cases that are going to court because the parties cannot agree on contact arrangements.
By "in court", I think that Moira Wilson means cases involved in a live court process.
I am pleased that Glasgow is participating in the project, but how easy will it be to evaluate its success? Because in Glasgow such work is dealt with almost exclusively through the family court initiative, Glasgow sheriffs tell us that they are able to interact with parents who do not comply with contact arrangements, so the system works quite well. However, in other sheriff courts there is not the time for such close relationships to be established with parents. Is Glasgow the best choice for a pilot?
The sheriffs in Glasgow see the potential for added value in the approach that we are piloting. The decision to take part in the pilot was very much at the discretion of the sheriff court. Edinburgh sheriff court also sees the value of this approach, and in that context the slightly rural dimension to the facilitator's work will give us the benefit of an additional perspective.
It is important to know to what extent the close involvement of the sheriff and the force of the court are important features when a couple disengages from the process. We want to know whether that force can operate at arm's length through the family contact facilitator. We expect a number of issues to emerge from discussions about the pilots.
Such matters will be considered when the project is evaluated.
That will not happen for at least two years. I have come across cases in which sheriff courts that are not taking part in the pilots have not tried hard to enforce decisions. Those courts will continue to operate in that way during the next two or three years. We hope that the pilots will go well. Will you produce interim reports or inform other courts about how the project is going? Such an approach would demonstrate that the issue is being taken seriously.
The evaluation will be on-going, so early lessons might emerge. However, it will probably take a reasonably long time to come to a clear view about whether the approach adds value and offers a way forward. That is not to say that other relevant pilots cannot be considered for other courts, although I can make no commitment in that regard, because I am not sure what ideas might emerge. However, I am sure that we can consider what might be done elsewhere.
Many people write to me about court enforcement, because I am interested in the matter. I take it that the Executive is happy for members to feed in cases about which they are concerned, given that you are considering the issue.
I am not sure what we could do about individual cases. We are talking about a court-based project, which will have nothing to do directly with the Executive when it has been set up. We might be more interested in the lessons that emerge from the cases that you hear about. You might form a general view on the challenges that are faced, which might be useful to us.
As the convener said, Sylvia Jackson, who lodged amendments to the Family Law (Scotland) Bill to do with contact orders, had hoped to attend the meeting. It is unfortunate that she could not be here. Like the convener, she became involved when individual cases in which there were delays in establishing contact were brought to her attention. I think that she shares my disappointment that it has taken so long for us to reach even this stage.
On the first point, you will realise that that element does not come under my departmental portfolio.
I appreciate that.
I will report back to the justice ministers on our conversation. It is important to do that, and we will do a formal feed-in to their discussions on the whole subject.
There is a practical reason for having a host organisation. The facilitators will be employees neither of the Scottish Executive nor of the court. They will have to be employees of some organisation that will look after their pay and rations, training, networking and so on. It is difficult to say precisely who will apply, but we hope that a number of people who operate in the sector already will be attracted to the project as a way in. As I have said, there will be an on-going evaluation of the pilots.
I appreciate that you do not wish to put anybody off coming forward, so you might be a bit reluctant to specify people. The suggestion has been made by one sheriff that the facilitators should come from within the Scottish Court Service. I see an opportunity for conflict over how the facilitators will fit into the scene. That is why I am keen to press you on who you think might be responsible for overseeing the facilitators.
In terms of assessing their performance?
I am referring to their employment and to who will oversee them.
The host organisation, once we have one, will be asked to recruit the two facilitators, in partnership with the Executive and with the sheriffs involved, and there will be a clear specification for the kind of person who will be required for the role. We are asking the sheriffs to play an active role in the recruitment process, if they so desire, as individual relationships will be key to the success of the project. As we see it, the host organisation will have those functions, but not on its own.
That is a bit more helpful. I am keen to ensure that there is no antagonism between those who are responsible for the individual facilitators—whoever they may be—and the people who will be working with them. If the facilitators are not part of the Scottish Court Service or do not come from that field, there is always a risk that they might not be brought into the process as quickly as they could be. It would be helpful if the people who are to work with the facilitators were to be involved, even at an early stage.
There is also a certain perception about whether the facilitators are to form part of the official machinery or whether they will have more of a stand-back role. That is important for their relationship with their clients. That explains, I assume, why things have been done in this way.
The question is important, given the impression that we were given from the very beginning. The title has changed from "court enforcer"—which was perhaps not the best—to something more appropriate, but we were certainly given the impression that the role would come within the court system. It is about trying to enforce court judgments—that is where we started off.
The role is that of facilitation, but with the sanction of the court lurking closely behind it. That is an important aspect. Equally, however, the facilitator must be capable of moving things forward from a position where, for whatever reason, people are not obeying the court order to one where they understand the implications and importance of the order and have some understanding of what is best for the children.
Can you say who the candidates might be?
We do not know which organisations will apply. There will be a specification. Do we have a specification document at this point?
Not a final version. However, it is about to go out to tender.
I have a question on a slightly different subject. I want to tie up a loose end—I do not like loose ends, particularly when they are financial. When I asked whether the plan is an embryonic engagement plan that is being built up, Rod Burns said that you had formed some basic views and that one of the things that was not embryonic was that you had been able informally to run past COSLA the question of ring fencing resources in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Did you run that past the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform as well?
I think that the answer is yes, but I ask my officials to confirm that in case I am wrong.
The finance ministers made an objection. We will have to have the battle on the matter. The general principle of moving away from ring fencing and giving discretion to people at the local level is important, but in the circumstances that we are discussing, there is potential for a disastrous disappearance of resources into GAE—exactly as the local services said. We had to sit up and pay attention to that scenario when responsibility for the matter came from the Justice Department to the Education Department.
That is precisely the point. The fact that that has been missed is fundamental. We were told that one means of encouraging local authorities to ensure that the money is properly spent on family support services in 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be the fact that it is ring fenced, but three weeks ago—you did not report this to us, minister—the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, Tom McCabe, specifically came out against any form of ring fencing. He said:
I do not want to try to square circles indefinitely. In relation to this announcement, the position that I have given to you is correct. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and the Executive, in general, have a view against ring fencing, which I share. We accept entirely the arguments against long-term ring fencing. However, there are good reasons, relating to the long-term interests of family support services, why the funding should be ring fenced for the transitional period to which we have referred. That is the Executive's position on the matter.
So, Mr McCabe needs to update his advice to the committee and say that he accepts that, between 2008 and 2010—
You can press me on it if you like, but I think that his comments were made in the context of the long-term arrangements for these matters. I accept his point entirely in that context, but we are talking about short-term ring fencing for the second and third years of the transitional period until we reach our ultimate and desired objective.
It would be helpful if your colleague, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, could make that clear. It is important and relevant to what you have said today.
I am making that clear to the committee today on behalf of the Executive—I am giving you the Executive's position.
I appreciate the lengthy discussion that we have had this morning, during which a number of questions have been answered. However, you will see from the committee's enthusiasm on the issue that questions remain to be answered, especially in relation to the financial settlement. We have concerns that services should not be affected by the changeover from central funding to local authority funding and that sufficient funding should be available within the overall pot to ensure that services are improved. All the organisations involved tell us that they cannot meet existing demand, so any reduction in services would be a real disaster.
The phrase that you used about any reduction in services being a disaster was an unfortunate phrase, given the fact that we are providing almost 50 per cent additional funding for the arrangements that are about to be announced. That is not how family support services are being talked about at the moment. We are expanding support for those services and recognise, to a significant extent, a lot of the issues that have been raised. I very much hope that we, or the next Executive in the new session of Parliament, will continue to do so.
On the committee's behalf, I thank the minister for a full and frank exchange. I also thank his officials. It is almost guaranteed that the issue will be in our legacy paper.
You will be back.
Someone will.