Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Official Report 393KB pdf

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Current Petitions

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Mental Health Services (PE1438)

Agenda item 2 is consideration of current petitions. The only current petition for consideration is PE1438, by Lynsey Pattie, on improving services for people with mental illness. Members will have a note from the clerk—it is paper PPC/S4/13/2/5—and various submissions. Although I welcome comments and recommendations from members, I suggest that we continue the petition, because quite a number of notifications from health boards and others are still outstanding and it would be useful to get that information.

That said, I seek comments from members.

I was interested in the response from the Scottish Association for Mental Health and Penumbra, both of which go into some detail on the issues that need to be addressed, particularly the implementation of the mental health strategy, timetabling and other such matters. I think that when we get all the evidence, it will be useful to pull it together and consider where we take this matter. Given that the Health and Sport Committee does not seem to be hugely focused on mental health at the moment, what alternatives are available to us in taking forward the issues that the petition exposes?

That is a good point. As members have made clear over the past year and a half, we are not just a referral agency to other committees. There are, of course, a number of reasons for that; for a start, some petitions straddle a number of committee remits and we as individuals might have a lot of expertise in some of the subjects that are raised. Our committee should have a wider role and should be able to make other sorts of reports—indeed, we are about to have a private discussion about the petition on child sexual exploitation—to use the chamber occasionally, to have special events on Fridays and to visit, say, mental health institutions. The committee can do more than simply refer petitions to other committees. In the meantime, however, it would be useful to get some of the information that we require before we make any final decisions.

I also note that on Thursday afternoon there will be a Scottish Government debate on mental health, so members with a particular interest might wish to raise some of the subjects in the petition. I certainly intend to do so when I speak.

We also have a two-hour chamber slot in May and, as members might recall, we agreed to decide nearer the time the subject of the debate. As we head towards May, a burning issue might well emerge that the committee feels to be most appropriate for that slot; indeed, we have a number of subjects on the agenda, including flooding and child sexual exploitation. Of course, committee members will have their own views on what the best subject will be.

Do we agree to continue the petition to ensure that we get the information that is outstanding?

Members indicated agreement.

As the committee agreed to go into private session for the final agenda item, I close the public part of the meeting.

11:19 Meeting continued in private until 11:39.