Education and Culture Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Official Report 720KB pdf

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Taking Children into Care Inquiry

Good morning. I welcome everybody to the 20th meeting in 2013 of the Education and Culture Committee. I remind all present to ensure that all electronic devices are switched off at all times.

Our first item today is an evidence session with the Minister for Children and Young People as part of our inquiry into decision making on whether to take children into care. I welcome the minister, Aileen Campbell, who is accompanied by Scottish Government officials David Blair, who is head of looked-after children policy, and Phil Raines, who is head of child protection.

This is the final oral evidence-taking session of our inquiry, the final report on which we intend to publish after the summer recess. Today’s session is, therefore, an opportunity for members to question the minister on the key issues that have arisen throughout our inquiry, including those issues that were raised extensively and eloquently at the event that we held here in the Parliament last week.

Good morning, minister. I presume that you would like to make an opening statement.

Yes, I will make a brief opening statement.

The Scottish Government believes that every child has the right to expect the best start in life. In practice, that means working towards narrowing the difference, across a range of indicators, between the outcomes of looked-after children and those of children and young people in the wider population.

Over the past several years, there has been a shift in legislation, with reforms to hearings, child protection and how we inspect. More and more research shows the value of early intervention, early permanence and the effectiveness of key family interventions that can arrest neglect, overcome trauma and improve outcomes.

As a country, we are making tangible progress. Since 2007, the number of adoptions from care has doubled, the proportion of children becoming looked after under the age of five has increased by more than 25 per cent, and the number becoming looked after under the age of one has increased by 50 per cent. Care quality and attainment outcomes are increasing year on year. Those are not signs that the system is in crisis or in need of radical reform but indicators that we are, slowly but sustainably, getting it right for more of our young people.

We need to go further. We will better support families, including those in the early stages of difficulty, through measures in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. Through the kinship care order, we will promote kinship care as a positive alternative to becoming looked after so that we build on a child’s existing attachments.

Although family breakdown is a complex issue, the task ahead is to implement our key frameworks and to improve practice so that we can build on the consensus about what works. That will involve setting national aspirations for social work and all corporate parents—including new ones as a result of the bill. We need to be clearer about how we support children, families and communities.

Effective interventions should follow three key principles. First, they should be appropriate and based on evidence of what works. For example, parallel planning for every child would be transformative for children and for budgets. In addition, a prerequisite for improving family and child outcomes is that a long-term, trusting and honest relationship is formed with the care worker.

Secondly, interventions should be proportionate and do only what is required. We recognise that universal services and the third sector are better placed than social work to do much of the heavy lifting, for example, when supporting families with the early signs of breakdown. We need to invest fully in early preventative measures so that problems do not escalate. We also recognise that, in cases of neglect, resolution might warrant long-term, low-level parenting support rather than time-limited, focused intervention.

Thirdly, interventions need to be timely. That means taking responsibility for investing in families much earlier and ensuring that, for every child in care, timescales relevant to the child are set for determining permanence and are adhered to.

In summary, the challenge is to mobilise better our combined effort and resources, to put more of those efforts into families earlier and to make it easier for practitioners to deliver involved family support and the safe, stable, nurturing and permanent home—in whatever form—that is needed by every child.

I thank the committee for the work that it has done. I look forward to taking your questions.

Thank you very much, minister. Let me begin with a couple of questions. Will you explain the Government’s role in the decision-making process for removing children from the home? What is your role as minister and what is the Government’s role in the process?

I very much see our role as being a leadership role: setting out the guidance, providing the frameworks and ensuring that we provide the support to ensure both that local practitioners make decisions in a way that is fully informed and that those practitioners are fully empowered.

For example, through the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, which I know the committee will take evidence on later this morning, we want to ensure that getting it right for every child is put in statute to ensure that there is national consistency. We have taken a leadership role on that to ensure that the pace of change can be upped and to provide consistency through the bill. That is one example of where the Government is in a position to take a leadership role in ensuring that decisions can be taken in a way that is timely and best serves the interests of the children whom we are dealing with.

Given that it is your view that the Government sets out the legislative framework and direction of travel, do you believe that all those involved in the decision-making process have a shared vision of what success looks like and of how we get there?

As the committee will know from the evidence that it has taken over the course of weeks and months, a number of different players are involved so, yes, we absolutely must ensure that we coalesce around a shared agenda of what is in the best interests of the child. That is about ensuring that interventions are proportionate, timely and appropriate. We want to ensure that, throughout the country in a consistent way, practitioners can coalesce around the GIRFEC framework and the best interests of the child.

That is also why we have produced the common core of skills to ensure that all practitioners know about the different needs of the child and the wellbeing of the child. The aim is to ensure that all practitioners work together and speak the same language to ensure that we focus on delivering good positive outcomes for children, whose wellbeing should be at the heart of everything that we do.

I ask about that shared vision specifically because I asked the same question at the start of our event last week. Would it surprise you to find out that, when the around 70 professionals who attended were asked whether there is a shared vision and an idea of what success looks like and of how we will get there, the ratio of those who said no rather than yes was four to one?

From our perspective, through the bill we are making progress towards implementing a number of key policies and legislative requirements to ensure that we can improve the outcomes for children and young people, given that we know that there has been that inconsistency.

Lots of local authorities have made progress on implementing GIRFEC, for example. It has been around for a number of years, but the inconsistency has been persistent. That is why we need to increase the pace of change and to ensure that there is consistency so that we have that shared understanding of the needs of the child, and so that we can ensure that we get it right.

It is also important to ensure that we have the tools to empower practitioners—for example, the common core and other things through which we can ensure that there is a shared understanding of what a child needs and what the best interventions could be. There is a degree of progress there, but the legislation will help.

Thank you. We move on to questions from committee members, beginning with Joan McAlpine.

In your opening statement, minister, you talked about the rising number of young children who are looked after, but the term “looked after” includes a large number of children who are supervised at home by their birth parents. Our inquiry and the previous one have found difficulties in relation to those children’s outcomes. What guidance do you plan on children who are supervised at home? What is the purpose of supervision at home?

It is a good question, because the policy area of children who are looked after at home is one that has needed a bit more attention. We are pleased to have hosted two summits in the past few months to look specifically at children who are looked after at home. I was pleased that you were able to join us for the most recent one, where we were able to set out a number of the actions and outline a number of our thoughts about where we want to go with this issue. We want to take on board the views that practitioners and experts in the field gave us at the first summit to ensure that we can move the agenda forward.

There are a number of action points, not the least of which is to ensure that, once the decision has been made for a child to be looked after at home, we provide proper support rather than that child being cut adrift. Another action point is to have a national mentoring scheme, which is something that we should welcome. That is being developed by Susan Elsley, who gave a presentation at the most recent summit. She said that to have a trusted, stable relationship with an adult can be crucial for a child who is looked after and is particularly useful for a child who is looked after at home. She made a compelling case, building on some evidence from approaches in other parts of the world, about why that would make a difference for children in Scotland.

We need to take that kind of evidence-based approach and build on what we know works—in particular, strong relationships with adults—to ensure that the group of children who are looked after at home are supported in order that their outcomes are better than they have been.

Some of the young people who came and gave evidence to us in a private session said that they felt that it had taken too long for them to be taken into care and they had been left being looked after at home for too long. A number of them were quite positive about being in small residential units as young teenagers, as they found that a more positive experience than being left at home. Would you care to comment on that? Are there plans for more of those units?

Funnily enough, in the past couple of weeks, I have spoken at two events that were organised by CELCIS, which is the centre for excellence for looked after children in Scotland. One event was for residential workers and one was for external managers.

The most recent event—the one for external managers—was about us publishing guidance for them to recognise their role in looking after children in residential settings. The messages that we gave at both events were about ensuring that, if care is the right and appropriate place for a child who needs to be looked after, it should be the first choice for the child and it should be a positive choice for them. Residential workers and residential care settings provide good, stable places for such children to go on and—we hope—have positive outcomes.

We have to listen to the child. The residential units work well for children if that provision is appropriate for them. Making sure that the residential workers are properly supported has also been a key approach by the Government to ensure that they are aware of the different ways in which they can deal with, help and be therapeutic advisers for children who are looked after in residential settings. It has to be a positive choice—and if it is the right choice for a child, it has to be the first choice.

10:15

If the choice is made to leave the children to be supervised at home, what should the outcome be for them?

It should be better than it has been. We must ensure that there is family support so that those children do not become lost in the system and that they are in an appropriate place. That is why we talked at the previous summit about how to strengthen support for children and find the best option for them.

The issue is particularly complicated because children have strong attachments to their home setting and family, and there could be trauma in a family’s life and a child’s upbringing. We need to provide support, and the approach that Susan Elsley is developing with a mentoring scheme can help to ensure that children have good, positive and happy lives.

In your opening statement, you mentioned the increasing role of universal services. What plans does the Government have to require all the people who interact with a child across those universal services to have adequate training, both in the importance of attachment and in child development milestones, so that they can identify when something is going wrong in a child’s life?

Attachment is a key issue, and we are learning more about child development and the attachments that are formed in the early years of a child’s life. That is why we must ensure that everything we do is done as early as it can be, so that the crucial early years of a child’s life are as nourishing and nurturing as they possibly can be and that they have firm foundations to build on, so that they can achieve in their adult lives.

We have the common core, making sure that people understand the developmental needs of a child. CELCIS has done work on attachment and there is a whole host of other areas of intervention, so practitioners know that cognisance must be taken of the value of child development and that interventions must be proportionate, timely and appropriate.

Lots of other work has been done, not least that furnished by the academic knowledge of people such as Bruce Perry, who spoke at a CELCIS conference about the physical brain development of children and young people, and Suzanne Zeedyk, an academic in Dundee who has been evangelising about the need for early intervention because of the brain development of young children. That helps us to focus our attention on ensuring that the interventions that we make are the most appropriate ones for the children in question, so that their lives can be as fulfilling as possible.

A number of young people who had been involved in the system advised us that they were left at home for too long and should have been removed earlier. We can look at that in two ways. We can look at it as a preventative action—moving in early, removing them from the family home and preventing further problems down the line—which could be good for some young people. For others, remaining at home with looked-after status can also be seen as preventative for the family.

The Government’s responses in today’s session do not seem to convey any urgency about dealing with the issue. Everyone is telling us that the stage of being looked after at home is a major opportunity for preventative, therapeutic and family work to be done, and we appear to be missing that great opportunity. Is it the Government’s view that there should be more urgency around providing support at that time?

As I said, we must ensure that the best interests of the individual child govern and direct how the intervention is managed. If looking after a child at home is the best option for that child, there must be support in place—

That is the problem.

Absolutely, and that is why we must ensure that we can take the action points from the summits and recognise the points that have been raised here in the committee, to drive forward improvements for that tranche of looked-after children. Becoming looked after should be an opportunity to turn a child’s life around, so that he or she can have a positive outcome in later life.

As I said to Joan McAlpine at the last summit that we held, we want to ensure that research is much more rigorous, that interventions are based on evidence and are properly supportive of the family, and that, given the recent legislative changes to the children’s hearings service, panel members know what a home supervision order is expected to provide to ensure that support is in place for the child. Likewise, social work services must be empowered to ensure that they can act at an appropriate juncture so that, if the child needs to be removed from a home setting, that is done as quickly as possible.

We hear that social workers who work with families have less time to do the one-to-one therapeutic work that they want to do and are trained to do and that there are fewer of them doing it. Do you agree that we need to take a step back and get social workers doing the jobs that they are trained to do?

Social workers do a phenomenal job—we often hear about things only when they go wrong.

A number of different players are involved in a child’s life. As I said in my opening remarks, the third sector plays an important role by being fleet of foot and helping a child or young person to cope. We need to respect social workers and ensure that, if a child has to be looked after, they feel empowered to make a decision as timeously as they can. It is important to ensure that social workers feel empowered and that there is no unnecessary delay in the system. We are working to declutter the landscape—the committee picked up on that issue—to ensure that the practitioners who are involved in a child’s life can do the job that they want to do and have been trained to do.

Given that a huge amount of evidence has been built up and there is a body of expert opinion, we should now know what is best in seeking to return a child to the family home. If that is the case, why are outcomes for the children in question so poor?

As I said to Joan McAlpine and Neil Findlay, the last two summits that we held provided an opportunity to shine a spotlight on children who are looked after at home. We have recognised that things have perhaps not always been in place in the way that we would hope or expect, which is why we need to ensure that, if a home supervision order is the right choice for a child, proper support is in place.

Through the work of the early years task force, we understand that interventions such as the triple P—the positive parenting programme—and the incredible years programme are about strengthening the assets of the family to ensure that they can cope a wee bit better and build on their strengths—a family will undoubtedly have strengths if a home supervision order is deemed to be the right approach for the child.

Parents can be empowered to ensure that they can create a much more nurturing home for the child, but we must work a bit harder on that because we recognise that the outcomes for young children who are looked after at home have not been as good as they have been for others.

We have talked to some of the young people in recent weeks, and they said some interesting things. One point that they emphasised, but which none of the professionals and experts had come up with, was the importance of a loving relationship. The young people thought that that might be messy and so on, but they felt that a loving relationship was a very important thing that was missing from their lives. It is difficult for corporate parents to replace that, but how do you envisage the issue being tackled?

It is often most important to address the simple and obvious things. In the same way as children who do not need to be looked after have a strong, stable family behind them to help them to achieve all that they want to achieve, a strong, stable relationship is crucial in enabling young people who are looked after to go on and achieve.

I mentioned the national mentoring scheme that is being developed. Susan Elsley sits on the looked-after children strategic implementation group—LACSIG—and is developing the national mentoring scheme to try to ensure that children who are looked after at home have the opportunity to have such strong relationships.

Through the early years collaborative, we have taken forward something that is loosely related to the work that the committee is doing. It is about applying improvement signs to early years policy.

At the learning session at one meeting that we held at the start of the year, Paul Brannigan, the actor from “The Angels’ Share”, spoke about his experience. The stable relationship that he formed with his prison officer, who was able to watch what he was doing, direct him and guide him, allowed him to turn his life around. We hope that a child or young person would find such a stable relationship before they had to end up in prison, but that was a compelling story about how important it is to have someone with whom to form a loving relationship and how it allows children to turn their lives around.

Early intervention does not necessarily always equate with the early years. We must recognise that there are points at which we can turn a child’s life round. That is why their becoming looked after should be viewed as an opportunity for that to happen.

Another important point that the young people raised was the continuity of care. That is perhaps being addressed in the new Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, but they were anxious about the fact that there came a point when care simply vanished. One minute they are being supported, but then they hit a certain age and that is it—the support goes.

An interesting question that they asked was whether it would be possible for residential units to have open beds so that they could go back there for support as and when they needed it. How practical might that be?

Let us think about our own families—we often go back to our mum or dad beyond the age of 16 or 18, which is when a child can leave care. We want the support that is in place to be a bit more reflective of what it is like in the family, so we are increasing to 25 the age at which a young looked-after person who wants to seek additional help can access support from the local authority if it can provide it and it is not provided by someone else.

It is important to ensure that the young person can keep a degree of continuity with the care worker that they meet in a residential unit. We need to be mindful of what reflects family life and to do our best to replicate it as best we can.

As you recognise, it is difficult as it is a corporate parenting role that we have, but we must do what we can to ensure that young people feel supported and not cut adrift, as some young people described it in the committee’s evidence-taking session.

To go back to Colin Beattie’s earlier point about the importance of a loving relationship, I think that I am right in saying that, on a couple of occasions, you referred to the importance of creating a strong and stable relationship. That point is fairly made, but the young people who appeared before us in private session and at last week’s event consistently told us about the importance of loving and trusting relationships.

There is probably an important difference between loving and trusting relationships and strong and stable ones. I do not think that any of us would wish to underscore loving relationships in legislation, but there seems to be an important distinction between what you said and what younger people—albeit slightly older than the early intervention that we are talking about—are looking for. They want a loving and trusting relationship perhaps more than a strong and stable one, which sounds worthy but perhaps lacks some of the warmth that children need.

I totally agree that those young people will want to find a loving relationship as well. A sub-group of the early years task force has done some work about the importance of relationships, which is why the Government supports Relationships Scotland and Scottish Marriage Care. We recognise that all families, from time to time, may require a bit of help and assistance to ensure loving relationships, whether that is between a couple or within the family. Support can be given to them. The task force’s work recognises the need for that loving relationship.

Is there perhaps a distinction? The description “strong and stable” seems worthy, but it suggests that something is done to them and for their benefit, as opposed to the description “loving and trusting”, which suggests more of a two-way process in which their views are taken on board and they are kept informed about what is happening to them.

10:30

I guess that it might partly be a question of semantics, as I do not disagree with what you have said. The mentoring scheme is designed to ensure that a young person has a relationship of some sort with a trusted adult to ensure that they get the support that they deserve and need but have lacked in their lives. It will have to be recognised that there will still be strong attachments to the family and that the young person will experience a lot of conflict. Providing support will require a very special, dedicated person.

I think that we are talking about largely the same thing. We recognise that some children have lacked some of the key elements that constitute a strong, loving relationship, and we are trying to provide them with that through what we hope will be a good project—the national mentoring scheme.

The Scottish Government said in its response to the committee’s interim report:

“73% of young care leavers had a pathway plan in 2012.”

We have spoken to many people throughout our evidence taking over the year, but the only time that I have heard or seen the term “pathway plan” is in that Government response. Does it worry you that none of the professionals, the young people or the third sector organisations has mentioned it?

Did you ask them about that specifically? I am just trying to work out whether it was just not mentioned.

I would have thought that, when we were talking about young people leaving care or their progress through the care system, someone would have said, “Oh, yes, each young person has a pathway plan”, or each professional who works with those young people would have referred to it. However, no one mentioned the term, which I find quite startling.

But 73 per cent of young people had that plan, so there has clearly been a—

But they are not aware of it.

Clearly, it has been developed and is there for them, and its use is increasing. We need to ensure that that happens more regularly. The bill will helpfully legislate to put GIRFEC into statute, and ensuring—

Can you tell us what a pathway plan is?

It ensures that there is a clear pathway for the child leaving care and that the support is in place. However, if practitioners are saying that they are not aware of the pathway plan, we will take that on board and ensure that it is addressed.

Sorry, but I want to make sure that I am not misleading you. Practitioners have not told us that they are not aware of the plan; it is just that no one has mentioned it. Throughout the whole process, not one person has mentioned the term “pathway plan”. If they had, I am sure that someone on the committee would have asked them to tell us what is in it. I have no idea what is in it; perhaps you can tell us what is.

I think that there are perhaps two issues. It is useful if that is what the committee has found, because we all want to get it right for young people who are looked after and accommodated to ensure that they have a seamless transition to independence—we need to get better at that. That is a key challenge because they need support to go into adulthood, which we need to ensure is a positive experience for them. If that process has not been clear for the young person and they feel that they have not been included in it, and if the practitioners are not raising that as an issue with you, we can take that back and ensure that there is more clarity.

What would be in a pathway plan?

It would cover accommodation support and support with looking for destinations through training and education—that type of thing. Perhaps David Blair would like to comment.

Sure. The looked-after children guidance explains some of the key elements that should be in the plan. I do not have that guidance with me, but I can certainly send it to the committee. There is no prescribed format for the plan; it should just be a fairly straightforward record of the decisions taken about a looked-after child’s aftercare package and the support needed for that child.

What standing does the plan have? A number of young people said that when they left their care setting, that was it. Some might have had something written down, but, for several young people to whom we spoke, that meant nothing. Nothing happened.

We have all identified the need to be better at the transition from care to independence and ensuring that support is there. As others have said, young people need help after they have been in care. We need to ensure greater continuity and that they can access the support that they need. That is why the bill seeks to increase to 25 the age until which a looked-after young person can seek assistance; that age is far more reflective of the family life of people who are not in a care setting—albeit that there are limitations.

In your opening statement and your evidence so far, you have mentioned family intervention a lot. I appreciate that, although a lot of work is being done, the situation is a moveable feast, as it were. We cannot really take a snapshot in time of where we are. One concern that came through in the evidence was about the decision-making process in which a child who has been removed from the home is returned home and whether adequate interventions have been made, if, for instance, the problems at home are to do with addiction.

Can you give the committee some reassurance about how family intervention will change the situation where a child is repeatedly being removed from home and returned without anything changing within the home context?

The point that you raise has been expressed not only in evidence to the committee, but in the two summits that we have held. In the coming months, we will carry out work to assess the support that children returning home require. That will be informed by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration’s research “Children on Supervision Requirements for Five or More Years”.

In relation to the bill, in the kinship care order we want to make provision for access to family counselling to ensure that there is far more emphasis on therapeutic interventions that can empower families and enable them to better equip themselves to look after the child, so that the experience for both the family and the child is far more positive. We need to recognise, too, that some kinship carers might not have looked after a child for a generation. There indeed need to be appropriate and timely interventions for those children who are looked after at home.

In terms of the family interventions that are taken before children become looked after, the work of family nurse partnerships with teenage parents to ensure that they are better equipped to look after their babies has been rolled out. Evidence has shown that those parents then space out their babies a wee bit more and are far better able to look after their next child because of the parenting skills with which they were equipped through that intensive support.

The early years task force advocates triple P and the incredible years programme as other forms of intervention in a group setting. The parenting strategy that we launched last year also articulates the importance of parenting and the fact that every parent, regardless of whether their child is looked after or not, may require a degree of support and help.

A number of things are going on to ensure that support is in place. We recognise that support at whatever level is often needed to make sure that every child is given a good start in life.

On the resources available, how much do we spend on protecting children?

In terms of child protection?

I mean under the whole budget heading of protecting children.

Do you mean within the national Government, across Scotland as a whole, or in local government?

Across Scotland.

I am not sure that the statistics are collected in that way. We need to establish what you mean by protecting children, because, clearly, one could argue that a lot of social work or children’s services more generally—all that sort of expenditure—exists to protect children.

Do we not know how much we spend?

I think that we will have to come back to you about that.

We have asked for that information twice already and have not been given the figures. There is clearly an issue, because if we are going to plan services and determine whether public money is being well spent or poorly spent, we need to know initially how much is being spent.

Oh, I see—I understand the question now. I think that we responded to you to say that, absolutely, we need a far greater understanding of what has been spent and how it has been spent to ensure that we can plan strategically. However, as Phil Raines says, the landscape is complicated, given the interactions of all the agencies, such as third sector organisations and the health sector, that come together to ensure that adequate protection for children is in place. We will look at that again and, if we can provide you with any more figures, we will do so, although I think that the original answer that we gave recognised the need to do a bit more work on that.

The whole budget is complex, but we can put a figure on it, so surely we can put a figure on protecting children. We have to know whether the money is being spent well or badly.

That is true, but it can be difficult to define that, because many services are set up to do a range of things, an important part of which is protecting children. There is an argument that almost all children’s services protect children in one way or another. Much of the education budget is there to protect children. The issue is complex, because part of the purpose of having the GIRFEC approach rooted across many agencies is to ensure that universal services have protecting children as part of their on-going functions and that that is hardwired into what they do as a whole. Therefore, it is difficult to extract the protecting children bit, because that is almost separating out something that they should do as part of their everyday business.

If Mr Findlay is advocating that we ring fence to give him the clarity that he wants, and if the committee wanted to recommend that, I would happily go back to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities with that.

You mentioned that—I did not. I simply asked about how much money we are spending on that element. Clearly, significant issues have been raised during the inquiry. Normally, that would lead to the Government making a response that required either more cash or less cash, but if we do not know the current figure or the starting point, how can we establish whether we need to invest or take money back?

We have been working to ensure that the resource that is being spent is spent much more strategically. Assistance has been given to local authorities on strategic commissioning to ensure that we properly and much more effectively prepare the services that are required for children to ensure that they are more alert to the needs of the child. The approach should not just be to say, “Oh, what’s out there? We’ll place a child in this care setting.” We need to ensure that the commissioning is a bit more streamlined. That is another way to ensure that we use the money that is in the system effectively to protect children.

There is also the complication that all the different services are coming together. The total that can possibly be spent on children’s services is about £2.5 billion. Although the early years task force’s £270 million change fund is small, it is about ensuring that the global total of resources that have been brought to the table can be put towards early and effective intervention. It is easy to talk about early intervention, but it is difficult to do it. We need a cultural change in services to ensure that we determine the best outcomes for children and young people.

In this area, what does the term “strategic commissioning” mean?

It is about the best place to put a child and about ensuring that the resources are spent in areas of need for a particular local authority. It is about ensuring that the best place is available for a child and that there is a planned and proportionate intervention that is not just about where is free but about placing a child, with permanence planning in the background, to ensure that there is a limit to the number of times a child is placed. It is about ensuring that the process is done in the best possible way for the child.

The issue of resources has come up in a number of ways during the inquiry. I accept that it is complicated and complex to extract an exact figure, but are the resources that are being allocated to the area being spent appropriately and efficiently?

10:45

The hallmark of the Government’s approach and indeed of what we are trying to do across the whole public sector is ensuring that we can shift resources to early intervention. However, as I said in response to Neil Findlay, that will require a cultural change. With the pressure on finances that everyone has recognised, we need to use the money in the system to the best of our ability, which will mean early intervention, preventative spending and getting the most from our finances to ensure that we have the best possible outcomes.

We are seeking to bring about that cultural shift through the early years change fund and the early years collaborative. Local authorities and their partners in the third sector, the health sector and other sectors are ensuring that their small-scale interventions produce the outcomes that they want and are then scaling them up. You need to spend your money where you can be sure both that it will support that change and secure the best outcomes and that you have reliable, robust, real-time data to act with confidence. That is why we are very much promoting an evidence-based approach and, indeed, why we are implementing family nurse partnerships, triple P and the incredible years programme. All of them have the evidence base to allow us to inform the direction of policy.

I am glad that you have raised the issue, but is it possible to quantify whether we are being successful in shifting resources to early intervention? Can we quantify the impact that the shift in resources has achieved?

As a result of the early years task force, a number of changes have been made to ensure that preventative spending is the watchword. However, we have also asked councils to give us returns on how they are coping, and those returns are now coming in. The task force has been in place for a year now, and it is important to know whether the partnership approach through the community planning partnerships has been effective in a local setting and to get information back about the approach to preventative spending and early intervention.

I accept that it is still early days, but when will we be able to see that data and know whether the shift has occurred?

We requested returns from the local authorities a few months ago, I think, and when we get them back and the task force has looked at them we might be able to share that information with you.

Going back to an issue that Clare Adamson raised earlier about the problems of achieving permanency in the multiplicity of moves, I note that one of the consistent themes that has emerged from young people who have given evidence to the inquiry is that, particularly as they get older, their voice is not heard clearly enough throughout these difficult changes and that the level and timeliness of information have not been good enough. When young people are first taken into care, they very often almost blame themselves, and not enough is done not only to reassure them in that respect but to give them warning of what is coming up, the reasons for it and so on. I suppose that this goes back to my earlier point about young people’s trusting relationship with a range of individuals in the process. How can children’s voices be better heard in the system, and how can young people, particularly as they get older, be included and involved in a process that at the end of the day is supposed to be about securing their best interests?

I absolutely agree that the young person’s voice must be heard. Indeed, part of the GIRFEC approach is to ensure that children are at the heart of the services that have been designed around them and are delivered to them, that they have a voice in that system, that the information that they get—an issue that I know has been raised with the committee—is honest and up front and that they are fully informed about what is happening to them. They have been through traumatic experiences—their relationships with their families have broken down and so on—and given what they have already been through in their young lives they must be treated with the respect that they deserve and must get trustworthy information.

Who Cares? Scotland, which we support, has done phenomenal work in ensuring that the country’s corporate parents understand their role and that in the training they get and the decisions they make they are always mindful of the young person. Indeed, its destigmatisation campaign is part of that work and seeks to make people understand that it is not the young person’s fault that they are in care, that their situation is absolutely nothing to do with them and that they now have the right to be cared for and nurtured by the corporate parent. Its advocacy work on behalf of young looked-after people around the country must be applauded and I am sure that its evidence has enriched the committee’s inquiry.

We also want to make the training of children’s hearings panels more robust, and now that the new children’s hearings system is going live, we have an opportunity to ensure national consistency in that approach. There are a number of ways in which we can ensure that children’s voices are heard. For a start, having good relationships with Who Cares? Scotland and other organisations will allow us at a national level to hear young people’s voices and to ensure that our policies reflect and are mindful of their views.

Finally, in embedding GIRFEC and taking much more cognisance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is very much about ensuring that children’s voices are heard, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill will help to ensure that the Government and indeed the wider public sector are mindful of their role in giving young people a voice in the processes that are going on around them.

The priority was more about reducing the number of moves and placements, and achieving permanency earlier. I suppose that another factor would be limiting the number of different social workers or other participants in the process whom the child has to deal with. However, are you saying that your expectation is that unless there are good and compelling reasons for it not to happen—when, for example, there might be a risk of the child absconding to avoid a move—information will be shared with the child in advance?

Yes. My expectation is that young people who are coming into care will be very much part—indeed, at the heart—of whatever arrangements are made and whatever support they receive. We must avoid causing a young person trauma as a result of that not happening. We must ensure that young people feel as informed as they can be and that they are provided with appropriate, truthful and honest information. After all, the last thing that a young person needs is to feel that another relationship with an adult has not been as trustworthy and as honest as it could have been; they need to feel that they are respected when they go into care or when they are looked after.

Although all the young people we spoke to gave us examples of where the system worked well, they then used them as a contrast to examples where it had not.

When you hear young looked-after people talking through Who Cares? Scotland, the debate project or the other groups that support them, you realise that they tell very different stories, depending on where they come from. Although young looked-after people need a degree of consistency, we must recognise that each and every one of them has individual circumstances and needs and that we therefore cannot take a blanket approach. Instead, we have to ensure that their voices are heard, that the information they get is provided in a trustworthy and honest way and that they do not feel as if they are in the dark or that they are going to experience more trauma in their young lives to compound the trauma that they have already had. We have to get things right for them—indeed, there is no point doing anything else.

Concern was also expressed about the overall number of people involved in the process, by which I mean not just the hearings process but the other associated forums. Is that likely to change, either through legislation or through the direction of travel of policy? The view certainly was that it had an effect on the confidence of some young people to speak out and articulate their views.

The named person provisions in the legislation should go some way towards streamlining that. I guess that the unfortunate reality is that lots of people will be involved, but that has to be done in a more sensitive way if it has been causing stress and trauma to the child. The named person provides a single point of contact, which can help a young person to navigate through the care process.

If appropriate, would that allow for fewer people to be involved, albeit that their input would still need to be captured in some way?

I would hope so. The named person role is designed to ensure that a single port of call is provided within universal services and that a more streamlined approach is taken to providing those services. I reiterate that a number of different people will be involved in the young person’s life, but their involvement needs to be managed sensitively so that that does not cause undue stress and trauma on top of everything else that they have experienced.

The extension to the age of 25 of the period in which—if appropriate—support can be provided is welcome. A point that has been made is that although we may leave the family home, we never leave the family. In that sense, we could ask whether the concept of leaving care should exist at all. I am not sure whether this is a practical option, but there was certainly a view—Barnardo’s Scotland has been particularly strong on this—that capturing what happens to individuals after they leave the care system is not done as systematically or comprehensively as it should be. Is capturing that information something that the Government is trying to improve, either through legislation or by other means?

Moving the age up to 25 is designed to be more reflective of what other people’s lives are like, ensuring that support is in place and recognising that the corporate parent’s role stretches to the age of 25. If people are able to help those young people, they should do so. There is a bit of work to be done in monitoring the data beyond the care setting; we are alert and alive to that and we want to ensure that it is carried out. The mentoring scheme will also provide help and assistance for young people leaving care; a solid relationship will have formed there.

Given what I have heard from residential workers at the past couple of conferences that I attended, I know that they are important in some young people’s lives and have helped to turn their lives around, and we want to provide that support beyond the care setting. We should recognise the fantastic work that residential workers do across Scotland in providing that support to young people.

I have a supplementary question on that point. At our meeting with professionals last week, some representatives of residential workers said that they felt that continuing a relationship with a child after that child had left care would put a mark of suspicion on them. They felt that they might even be disciplined for being Facebook friends with the child, for example. What guidelines are available to protect workers so that they can continue to maintain relationships with children?

It is about ensuring that children do not face a cliff edge when they leave care. There should be openness so that, if they need to come back and seek advice and guidance, the residential worker is there to help them. However, if residential workers fear that they may be disciplined for, or prevented from, doing something that is naturally instinctive, we should be mindful of that and should help them. There are a number of bits of guidance out there for residential care workers, who are now a registered workforce, so there are procedures and structures in place to help them.

11:00

Minister, you mentioned that the number of looked-after children is increasing. Given that the estimated number of children who suffer from neglect varies between research studies, do you have any plans to begin recording the numbers in the way that you do for children on child protection registers and children with additional support needs?

Neglect is a big issue and one that we need to tackle, and ensuring that we can properly deal with it is fundamental. Just last week, we launched training materials specifically on neglect that were developed and designed by Brigid Daniel. They are available on the WithScotland website, I think. That is one example of where we are trying to ensure that we can better deal with issues around neglect and empowering practitioners to be more alert to it as a form of early intervention.

Neglect is an important issue that needs to be tackled. Do you intend to compile data and statistics on the level of neglect? We have various statistics on the extent of the problem.

Perhaps I can answer that. The fact that there are different definitions of what is meant by neglect and which circumstances qualify is one reason why there are different statistics. However, we collect information on neglect through the child protection register. The statistics that came out in March, which I think are the most recent official statistics on child protection, capture the concerns that led to kids being put on the child protection register, and neglect is one of the concerns on which we collect information. We have been doing that for a number of years, and past statistical publications have provided a lot more clarity about the nature of the concerns.

Is that information about children on the child protection register who have been neglected?

Yes.

We understand that a number of children who are not on the child protection register are suffering neglect. I think that we need statistics on them in order to understand the problem.

We have outlined the work that we are doing to help to empower practitioners to be more alert to the issues of neglect. That is on WithScotland’s website.

Different agencies work on issues to do with children who suffer neglect. Do you have any plans to introduce powers to centralise control under the Scottish ministers and remove powers over children’s services from local authorities and health boards?

With regard to neglect?

I do not understand. Are you asking about taking responsibility away from local authorities?

Yes. Do you have any plans to remove control over children’s services from local authorities and health boards and centralise it?

For clarity, is there something specific that you have in mind?

Have you heard something that we have not? Do you mean taking control over social work, children’s services and health visitors—all those things—and having control over them in national Government? That is certainly not the Government’s plan.

So you will not introduce powers to centralise that sort of—

I may be speaking a bit wide of the mark here, but my understanding is that, under legislation that already exists, when local authorities fail in their duties and functions ministers have powers to take steps and act regardless of what those functions and powers are. We can certainly come back to you with clarification of that if the question is specifically about children’s services and the failure of local authorities and health boards to act on their functions with regard to children. Is that specifically what you are asking about?

Yes.

Okay.

We have heard particular concerns about children in the early years and decision making affecting very young children. What is the Government planning to do through the early years collaborative to tackle neglect among very young children? How can we improve decision making for very young children? Liam McArthur said that children need to be heard but, obviously, it is difficult for very young children to make their views known. What would your response be to that?

The stretch aims of the early years collaborative are about making sure that children have the best start in life and that we collect robust data about the interventions that practitioners have made to ensure that, once they are confident that those interventions deliver the results that they want, they can scale them up. That information will be shared and has been shared over the past two learning sessions.

All the community planning partnerships in Scotland have been working together to ensure that the interventions that they make deliver the results that they want. That does not always happen, but that also helps our knowledge because, if a particular intervention does not deliver the results that we want, that indicates that we should not continue with it.

That real-time data is being collected by community planning partnerships around the country now. At the second learning session, local community planning partnerships were able to share that learning among themselves to ensure that it could be applied in other local authorities. That application will not necessarily be a carbon copy; it will have to reflect the particular local authority’s needs, settings and geography.

Something that might be of interest to the committee is the work that Scottish Borders Council is doing on looked-after children and permanence planning, which concerns one of the stretch aims that it is trying to improve on. That is an example of one local authority seeking to improve the lot of looked-after children and using the improvement science advanced by the early years collaborative to enable it to do so.

Mental health is one of the major issues that affect very young children. In its strategy for mental health, the Scottish Government made a commitment to improve infant mental health. Does the Government have plans to invest in the skills of key staff who will deliver the stated improvement, such as health visitors, nurses and social workers?

The emphasis of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill is on ensuring that we do our very best for children and young people who require support. That means putting GIRFEC in statute, which requires an understanding of the different interventions that different workforces and skill sets can make. It is about recognising their important role in delivering for children and young people who require additional help through their lives. Health visitors are a fundamental part of ensuring that children and young people can go on to have happy and fulfilling lives. They are very much part of the workforce that we want to empower to seek the positive changes that we want to make.

Children’s hearings have come up a number of times. Colin Beattie wants to ask a question on them.

A couple of points came out on children’s hearings. The first was made by the young people to whom we spoke. I accept that the group of young people we talked to was rather narrow, but they consistently spoke about the fact that they often did not understand what was going on and that people were talking over their heads. Indeed, several of them said that they lied at children’s hearings to conform and not to rock the boat. It appears from that that there are some difficulties in getting through to the child and getting their views heard.

The second point, which was made by other people who gave evidence, related to the increasing presence of lawyers at hearings, mostly representing parents. Children’s hearings are perhaps not quite equipped to deal with legal arguments. If the lawyers are representing the parents’ rights, where does the child come into it?

The new children’s hearing system, which went live at the start of the week, provides the opportunity to ensure that there is far more consistency and that, where there is best practice that enables a child to feel that going through the panel has been a positive experience, that can be replicated. Training of panel members is now far more robust and empowering, to ensure that they do things as sensitively as possible, although we recognise that panel members are volunteers who do a phenomenal amount of good work to ensure the wellbeing of children in Scotland.

We have been trying to work through a number of issues relating to legal services. There is a recognition of the interface between legal services and children’s services and on the need for legal services to understand exactly concepts such as those in GIRFEC. Fairly senior officials have therefore been working hard to ensure that appropriate links are in place to try to influence the way in which the legal service can cope in making the decisions that it will have to make without undue delay. We are also making sure that the balance is appropriate. Mr Beattie touched on the issue of children’s rights versus parents’ rights. If we are to be true to GIRFEC, children’s rights will be of paramount concern to people when they are making decisions. I believe that the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, which will enshrine GIRFEC in statute, will go some way to ensuring that that balance is always appropriate.

When we talked to the kids, they made the point that there does not seem to be a process whereby young people are talked to separately or have the opportunity to give their views away from parents and other people by whom they might be a little influenced.

I can respond to that almost in a personal capacity, because I have recently started as a children’s panel member. I have been struck by some really good practice. Often, the lead has come from the chair of the children’s panel, who has cleared the room in order to speak to a child on their own, to enable them to feel more comfortable. Obviously, only so much can be done to make a child feel comfortable in that kind of environment, but some chairs are acutely aware of the fact that the child often has an audience and that it is important for them to present their views to the panel without those people being there. A lot of it comes down to good practice. I hope that the implementation of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 will enable the kind of good practice that I have seen in panels to be spread more widely to enable children to have that experience more regularly.

Colin Beattie mentioned concerns about the input of legal representatives in the hearings process. We have also heard concerns that the issue extends beyond that process and that some problems relate more to the court process. There are legal representatives whose understanding of attachment theory, child development or whatever is perhaps not extensive, yet in the court setting they have as much if not more sway as some of the other experts who are called to give evidence or participate. Is that issue being addressed, possibly through the interaction that you said is taking place at senior official level?

Yes. There is much more interaction with the Scottish Court Service, the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Legal Aid Board. There has been a lot more dialogue with family sheriffs to ensure that they understand about permanence and all the other issues to which the member alluded. Good work has been going on for the past few months to ensure that there is much wider knowledge of all the elements that are important in making a decision about a child.

That brings us on to the balance of rights between children and parents, which we have started to touch on

One of the greatest complexities with which the committee is having to grapple is the balance between children’s rights and the rights of parents, in particular, and other stakeholders. What advice is the Government taking on that and, in particular, what legal advice is it taking?

Do you mean in relation to hearings?

No, I just mean in general. Obviously, if we are to expand the rights of children, we must be very sure that we are not undermining the rights of others, and particularly parents. I would be interested to know about the legal advice that the Government is seeking on that.

11:15

Everything that we do and all our policies are underpinned by GIRFEC—getting it right for every child—and making sure that the child is at the centre of decisions. Of course we recognise that parents also have a role in making decisions. The last time I was a member of the committee, we passed a series of Scottish statutory instruments that were about ensuring that parents have an appropriate role in, and are protected by, the hearings system.

As to particular legal advice, I can get back to you about that.

It has been pointed out to us a number of times that, if we are to extend the rights of children, there may be some development of Scots law in relation to European law. I am interested to know at what stage you are in taking advice on that.

We do not disclose whether we have had legal advice. However, relationships have been formed and are continuing in order to ensure that there is recognition in the legal world of areas such as permanence and GIRFEC. That will mean that, as we bring forward legislation, everyone who is involved in decision making around a child will be properly aware of the issues and children’s and parent’s rights will be given the appropriate balance.

I fully understand that you cannot give us the details of legal advice. However, I think that you can confirm whether the Scottish Government is looking at other legislation and specifically at the European convention on human rights to see how compatible they are with the development of children’s rights.

It is one of our key duties to ensure that the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill is compatible with the ECHR. You will have seen from the supporting documentation that we believe that it is.

May I press you a little bit further on whether there is discussion going on about Scots law being incorporated in other aspects? That is something that was put to us at various phases.

Other aspects—?

If we look at the proposals in the bill and the extension of the rights of the child, by definition that has possible implications for Scots law and how it relates to European law. What stage have you reached in taking advice on that?

I am not sure that we are in a position to say.

We can take advice and guidance on what we can disclose and, if appropriate, we can come back to you about that.

Good morning, minister.

Last week, I chaired a breakout group that, ironically, probably had more social workers than any other category of professional. The question concerned the role of optimism in social work and whether it creates a reluctance to move children from the family home. When the discussion started, the social workers answered that they felt there might have been a contradiction between the policy objectives of getting it right for every child and the need to deal at the same time with adults in recovery, whether that is from alcohol or drug addiction. Having had the discussion, we thought that there probably is an issue with trying to keep a family together and ensuring that a person gets on the road to recovery. What is your opinion about that? The social workers asked us to ask you that question. Do you think that a contradiction exists, or do you believe that it is possible to get a balance and to achieve both those objectives?

We have touched today on the need to make sure that appropriate family interventions are there and are made—whether they are needed long term or in a short burst of intervention—and that social workers are empowered to make those decisions at the right time, as long as the child’s wellbeing is always at the forefront of decision making. We need to ensure that if a child needs to be removed from its family, that is done at the appropriate time and as quickly as it can be, while also ensuring that if there is an opportunity to empower the family to cope better with the child, that is done.

That is why we are keen on the parallel planning that we talked about. You heard about the New Orleans approach, under which, if someone who is working with a family needs to remove a child, there is a process for that to be done quickly, so that there is not the drift and delay that have caused so much concern for all of us with an interest in the outcomes for looked-after children. Parallel planning, the work that the New Orleans project has been doing and the early years collaborative work in the Borders are all about ensuring that we can work with the family but, if we need to, we can step in and remove the child appropriately.

People in the breakout groups last week also wanted to ask whether anything could be done at a national level to improve practice on contact.

Many of the young people said to us that, if there were four siblings in a family, two of them might be in the same care home in the central belt and two might be in Perth because there was a difference in age. That caused difficulty with contact, which left particularly the older siblings with quite a mental scar, especially in one case that I can think of. We discussed that with some of the social work professionals. Their answer was that it was difficult for them to deal with the issue, because they dealt with the cases of whoever was in their area. Can we do anything nationally about that?

We are funding CELCIS to focus on that, spread good practice and, taking on board the issues that you mention, ensure that contact is done a bit more sympathetically, recognising the fact that children are spread around the country.

I will ask a couple of questions that have not been covered or have only been touched on.

A rather crude measure of success or failure that has been used in the past is the number of children who have been taken into care. In other words, if the number of children being taken into care is rising, that is considered to be a failure and, if it is falling, that is considered to be a success. Will you clarify the Government’s view on that attitude? I hope that you confirm that the issue is not the number of children who are being taken into care but the outcome for children, irrespective of whether they are taken into care or left at home.

I agree that it would be too crude to judge success on the numbers alone. The statistics that I outlined at the start talked about more younger children being taken into care, which shows that decisions are being taken at an earlier stage.

We need to be more sophisticated in how we interpret the figures. There is a LACSIG workstream on how we collect the data, what we do with it and whether the data that we collect tells us the right things. I agree that saying that the numbers going up or down equates to failure or success is too crude and that we must look beyond that. We also have to ensure that we have a better, more rounded picture of a looked-after child’s wellbeing and not base success on educational attainment alone. That broader approach allows us properly to gauge whether the looked-after intervention that that child has had has been successful.

As you will be aware, a couple of months ago, we met young people who had been through the care system. All of them, with the exception of those who had been taken into care as babies or very young children, said that it took far too long for them to be taken into care—many years in most cases. They also said that they had been removed from the parental home because of their behaviour. In other words, their behaviour had descended into vandalism, criminality or violence to such an extent that they went through the hearings system and were removed from their homes because of it rather than because they were subject to abuse and neglect by their parents. Attached to that was the fact that, when they were removed, younger siblings were left in the parental home.

Those young people had been through the system. Has the system changed, in your view, such that it is no longer the case that children are left for many years in the situation that those young people described? Secondly, is it the case that children are being removed from the home because of the abuse and neglect that they suffer, rather than because of the bad behaviour that they eventually display because of that abuse and neglect?

I do not have the figures to hand but, during the 40 years since the children’s hearings system began, the proportion of children involved and the reasons for them going through the system have completely changed. There are now far more children coming through because of—

The young people to whom we were talking were only in their early 20s. Their experience is relatively recent.

I am talking about the longer-term change in the children’s hearings system. At the start, people might have been going through the hearings system because of the behaviours that they had exhibited, but now the proportions have been turned on their head and far more are coming through because of issues to do with child protection, neglect and all the different things that we have touched on today. I can get detailed figures to you if that is helpful.

Going back to the points that were raised earlier, we must ensure that there is honesty and clarity in the approach that is taken and in the messages that are given to children and young people, so that they understand that it is not their fault that they are going into care or need to become looked after. Who Cares? Scotland has started work to destigmatise some of the perceptions about young looked-after people, so that people understand that it is not their fault that they are in care and that, because they are in care, wider society has a responsibility to support them. I have outlined some of the work that we are doing on permanence with the courts and the legal system to ensure that decisions are made more speedily, and the parallel planning work that is being done to put processes in place when working with families so that, if a child needs to be looked after, that can be done more quickly.

Those are the types of interventions that we want to see happening around the country, and the stretch aim of the Borders early years collaborative is about achieving early permanence in a quicker timeframe. That work is also important in informing the committee’s understanding of how seriously local authorities take the issue. We are trying to get decisions made more quickly, and that is the emphasis of the bill and of all the work that we are doing on looked-after children.

In your opinion, have we got the balance right between treating each case individually and the practical reality of the situation, which is that if one child in a household is being neglected, the likelihood is that the siblings are also being neglected? How do we deal with decisions about whether to remove an individual from the parental home and look at the wider circumstances of a family group in which there are two, three or more siblings, and take a decision based on the group rather than on the individual?

You raise an interesting and valid point. Common sense would tell you that there is a need to intervene for that family and to ensure that siblings are not left in any danger or under any threat, and there is also the question of keeping the family unit together. Attachment to the family is important and children need to maintain sibling bonds, and if that is not being reflected in decision making, we will take on board that point and enhance the situation so that sibling contact is more likely to happen in future. Common sense tells us that, if a child has been taken away because of neglect, and there are other family members left in the home, there is a need to intervene in the whole family, to ensure that we can get it right not just for the one child but for the siblings as well.

I agree. Most of us would agree about common sense, but is there a strain between common sense on the one hand and the rules under which professionals work in dealing with each case as an individual?

Social workers, or whoever is involved with the family, will be aware of the whole family situation. Taking a holistic approach to dealing with one child requires us to get it right not just for the one child but for all of them, because there will be a duty to ensure that every child in the family is supported. If people are describing a strain, we will ensure that that is looked at and dealt with by empowering the workforce to make decisions in the best interests of a child and of any other child in that family setting. We all agree that if one child is suffering, support must also be given to any remaining siblings.

11:30

The Government’s response to the committee’s interim report made a number of points, of which I shall briefly mention three. It says:

“we are refreshing the national child protection guidance ... We are also reviewing our approach to Looked After Children and child protection more generally, over the long term”

and

“We are also working on a mapping process for the interaction between these complex child support processes and the court system.”

Do you have a timescale for that work to be completed? Obviously, it would be helpful for our report to reflect the work that the Government is doing.

The guidance is due at the end of the year. The mapping process is on-going, on the bill timescale. What was the other thing?

You said that you were

“refreshing the national child protection guidance”

and

“reviewing our approach to Looked After Children and child protection more generally, over the long term”.

That is part and parcel of the bill and the other timescales that we have got, not least because there are other strands of work that are being conducted by LACSIG. It is all being done within the timescale of the bill, but the guidance will be issued at the end of the year.

That is helpful. Anything that you or your officials could share with us in advance of the publication of our report on the matter would be helpful.

I thank Phil Raines, David Blair and Aileen Campbell, the Minister for Children and Young People, for coming along this morning. That is the end of our oral evidence sessions on our inquiry. We will try to complete our report over the summer and publish it after the summer recess. I thank everybody who has taken part in what has been a fairly long inquiry and an interesting piece of work on an extremely important subject, as I am sure we can all agree. I thank everyone who has been involved, not just those who have been here today.

11:32 Meeting suspended.

11:35 On resuming—

As part of our inquiry, we recently held an informal meeting with children and young people who are going through the care system. That was done in conjunction with Who Cares? Scotland and included input from the Kibble Education and Care Centre. It is important that we get the main points of that meeting into the public domain. The clerks have prepared a note of the meeting, which has been agreed by Who Cares? Scotland. Once it is agreed by members, it will be published on our web pages with other evidence that we have received. Do members have any comments on the draft paper?

The paper is a helpful summary. As I said before the meeting, we are particularly grateful for the input from the young people from Kibble and we should write to them separately expressing our gratitude.

Those letters are already in preparation.

Convener, you mentioned when we were in private session that you want additions to be made to the paper. What are they?

One thing that I think has been missed out is reference to the fact—which was mentioned in our evidence session with the minister a moment ago—that most of the young people, if not all of them, feel that they should have been taken into care sooner. That should be reflected in the paper.

As there are no other comments, are members happy to publish the paper, with a change to reflect that point?

Members indicated agreement.