Item 3 on the agenda is public petitions. I am in the committee's hands, but it might be useful for us to discuss how we deal with public petitions at an away day, or half day, at some point during the recess. We had decided that we would deal with petitions quarterly, but we may want to revisit that decision in the light of other matters and the committee's burden of work.
What paper are we talking about?
We are talking about paper HC/S2/04/18/5, which is a detailed narrative on several petitions and is a public document. In respect of six of the petitions, we are waiting for commissions, the Executive or whoever to report. Are members content to leave it to me and the clerks to write reminders and to chase matters up?
Among the options that are open to us is that we pursue further inquiries. However, rather than go through all the petitions, make decisions on them and end up having maybe four days or four half days of inquiry on each, can we park them, group them together, look at them again and assess how much time we want to allocate to them and so establish our priorities? We could then decide whether we want to have an inquiry or to take evidence. The last time we dealt with petitions, we went through them all and—nice people that we are—agreed to pursue all the issues. That meant more work for the clerks or implied work for the committee. I suggest that we give all the petitions an equal chance in respect of our taking further evidence on them.
I have read all the petitions, which raise serious issues, and I hope that the committee can pick up and develop some of them. At our away day, we will perhaps need to discuss how we deal with our inquiry work load and the burdens that the Executive puts on us, which we must deal with at the same time as we try to do justice to petitioners. I do not want to pre-empt discussions, but we should perhaps establish sub-groups to deal with certain petitions and report back to the committee.
The point is that we cannot deal with all the petitions in the time that we have been allotted.
That is right.
In that case, how should we deal with them? It may be that, after we look through them, we will find that three of them deserve further investigation or inquiry—perhaps a half-day evidence-taking session or whatever. We need to devise a system under which we can park some of the petitions so that we can take a harder look at the remaining ones and decide on our priorities, including deciding on which petitions we want to take further evidence.
That was my point about the away day. Consideration of the petitions cannot be done in any real depth in committee. We could today take a view on which petitions we feel merit further consideration. We could then defer the item until our away day, when we could discuss the petitions and how we will deal with them.
I want to return to the convener's point about reporters. I think that I suggested once before that we should set up—on a cross-party basis—a standing sub-committee to vet petitions, so to speak. I am thinking of a sub-committee of two or possibly three members who could consider the petitions that come to us to decide whether they are worthy of the committee's consideration. It would then be up to the committee to decide whether a petition went further. Some petitions are repetitive. We are hearing evidence that some are being reworded and resubmitted—people have the time and spirit to get on and do that.
I agree fully. Every member is aware that we have not worked out how to manage the issue and that we need to be able to prioritise petitions. However, we have petitions before us today and the petitioners know that their petitions are due to be considered. I am in the committee's hands—we have 20 minutes in which to discuss petitions. We need to decide whether to pluck out certain petitions and deal with them today. We also need to decide whether to defer others so that, at our away day, we can consider how to prioritise and deal with the batch of petitions that require further investigation.
We should do that. We should go through the petitions today and decide which to examine in more detail at the away day. I suggest that we leave it at that.
The petitions are on the agenda; it is important that we go through them today.
I agree. It would be inappropriate for us not to do so.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (PE452)<br />Psychiatric Services (PE538)
Autism (Treatment) (PE577)
Petitions PE452, PE538 and PE577 concern autistic spectrum disorder. Members have paper HC/S2/04/18/6 in front of them. I invite comments on the petitions.
The paper says that the Executive does not support proposals to set up an autism-specific facility and that its preference is for a managed clinical network that would provide better multi-agency care and support. The petitions make reference not only to services but to research. That is the issue on which we focused the last time we discussed the petitions briefly.
You focused on research, but I have concerns about the way in which adults who have ASD are managed in the system. That management seems to be very ad hoc and in some ways casual, in that patients are referred to mental health services without consideration being given to the nature of their particular disorders.
The two gentlemen who went to see Mike Rumbles yesterday are probably the gentlemen who have visited some of us in Parliament during the past few months. My impression is that the door is partially open to possible benefit from research. It might be useful to consider that.
We can accept the clerk's recommendation and we can ask the two fine gentlemen who found their way to Mike Rumbles and David Davidson to make further representations to the committee.
Do you mean oral representation?
No. The paper from the clerks suggests that we await a response from the petitioner to the Executive's funding announcement. Have we received a response?
We have a response from one of the petitioners, but we await comments from the petitioner who lodged PE452 and PE538. We could accept option 1 in the clerk's paper, which is to await
We have to decide whether to take the petitions to the away day.
No. I propose that we take the petitions to the away day to discuss how we will deal with them. It would obviously be inappropriate to do everything in private, but we could discuss the ramifications for the committee's time, rather than the value of the petitions, at the away day—
That would be a starting point, but we would have to—
After the away day, we could bring back all the petitions that we had discussed and we could deal with them in an open forum, at which members would be free to make comments. I am just trying to manage our time.
The petitioner has a responsibility to contact us, does he not?
Yes, absolutely. I am sure that he is paying attention to what we are saying.
Aphasia (PE475)
Petition PE475 was lodged on behalf of Speakability. I refer members to paper HC/S2/04/18/7. I am having problems with this petition, too: I am having problems with all the petitions that we are considering.
I heard the petitioners give evidence at the Public Petitions Committee about services for people who suffer strokes and for other people who have aphasia. We should add the petition to the group of petitions that we will consider for prioritisation when we establish our time commitments.
I agree with Helen Eadie.
I am concerned that the Executive has no plans to record aphasia specifically. I would have thought that such records would provide important data.
One of the options for consideration from the clerk is the recommendation that we take up the petition as an inquiry.
Another one.
We could consider doing that. We must be consistent.
We will consider the petition at the away day.
The clerk recommends that we have an inquiry.
We make the decisions.
There is no point in the clerks working on a matter for weeks and months and making recommendations to us about it if we are just going to throw it away.
I was not suggesting—
I am trying to assist us in our difficult task.
The petition raises issues about simple data recording and I am not content with the Executive's response on the matter.
Digital Hearing Aids (PE502)
The next petition is PE502, which was submitted on behalf of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People Scotland. Previously, we took a decision in good faith but, on looking back on the correspondence, it appears that the Executive's answer complied with the requests that were made. What are members' views on that and on the recommendations that have been made?
I am not sure that any further action is required, as the petitioner's requests seem to have been replied to.
Are members content to close petition PE502?
Mental Welfare (Complaints Procedure) (PE537)
Petition PE537 is on the performance of the Mental Welfare Commission and the health ombudsman in handling complaints. Paper HC/S2/04/18/9 makes an interesting recommendation about the Scottish public services ombudsman. It suggests that the committee could
There is a national ombudsman organisation—perhaps we could write to it for its views on the petition. I went through a pile of papers at the weekend and was interested to learn that such an organisation existed. It has a track record and knows what procedures should be in place. It would be good to ask it for its views on the petition and to have a briefing after the recess.
Are you talking about the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman?
No. I am talking about the national organisation in London, which comprises representatives of the legal profession from throughout the United Kingdom.
As public services are a devolved matter in Scotland, I would first like to hear what the Scottish public services ombudsperson has to say.
I am not saying that we should consider the national organisation's views in isolation, but that we should consider them with other views because it will have set out criteria.
Professor Alice Brown's position is now much more stable in that the various offices have now come together under her office. However, in responses to me on a number of issues, she has flagged up that some procedures that were in place in the past have been reviewed. I do not think that many of us know what the changes are.
Subject to members' diaries, can we arrange an informal briefing with the Scottish public services ombudsman? That would be useful for us as MSPs in any event, let alone for us as members of the committee.
There should be a briefing as per the recommendation, and not just on the petition.
The paper suggests that we could, if we proceed in that way, take no further action on the matter and close the petition. Do members agree to that approach?
I would still be happier if we wrote to the organisation that I mentioned. I can supply its address and details. It will have set out criteria relating to what we should expect. To write to it would do no harm.
Can we invite the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman to the committee first? That would be courteous. We could invite somebody else after that, if members wanted to do so.
I was not asking for a representative of the organisation that I mentioned to come. I simply wanted written information.
I have no difficulty with that proposal, but I would like to have a briefing. Are members content to close the petition on that basis?
Eating Disorders (Treatment) (PE609)
The next petition is PE609, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to ask the Scottish Executive to address, develop and fund specialised treatment of eating disorders in Scotland. I have concerns about this petition, too.
Mrs Smith is a constituent of mine. She came to see me on Saturday, as she cannot be at the meeting, and asked me to say that although she appreciates that we must prioritise, she thinks that the issue is a life-and-death issue, whereas some petitions do not involve life-and-death issues. I said that I would make her comments known to committee members at today's meeting. Mrs Smith is also a constituent of David Davidson, of course.
I thought that the letter from the consultant psychiatrist, Dr Harry Millar, was very telling.
Members know my interest in the matter. If a consultant is prepared to go on record with such information, we are almost obliged to hear evidence from him.
I do not know what members think, but I think that the response is detailed and considered—I hope that I am not being patronising in saying that—and that the issue is one of those issues that we glide over a little. Are members content to continue our consideration of the petition and to come back to it?
Hospital Closures (Public Consultation) (PE643)<br />Health Service Configuration (Consultation) (PE707)
Petitions PE643 and PE707 are dealt with in paper HC/S2/04/18/11. Petition PE643 is about public consultation on proposals to close hospitals that have obtained public funding through fundraising. Petition PE707, which is from Professor Young, is about the use of guidelines and the selection of expert advice on hospital closures or "shrinkages", if we may call them that.
When first we considered the petitions, we agreed to take evidence from the Minister for Health and Community Care as part of the evidence that he was going to give on the national framework for service change. The suggestion in the paper is fair enough because consultation on the matter is on-going within the NHS. I do not think that there would be any problem with our writing to the minister to request more information on opportunities for the public to participate in such consultation. I know that the minister is still deliberating on consultant-led maternity services in Glasgow, so any pre-emption of his decision would be wrong.
Although Dorothy-Grace Elder's petition—petition PE643—is specific to a certain group of hospitals, I do not know of any hospital that has not had public funding in another way. The petition is really about consultation in general. I wonder whether that will be part of what we do in our inquiry.
Are members content with the second recommendation and with the suggestion that we absorb our consideration of the petition into our inquiry? That we would mean that we would close our consideration of the petition.
We could make it clear that we recognise the difference between consultation when a service is being closed down and on-going consultation of patients that is mentioned in the National Health Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2004.
I want to clarify that we will write to the petitioners to make it clear to them that their evidence will be used as part of the inquiry.
Absolutely.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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