Official Report 394KB pdf
Good afternoon. I open the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee's first meeting following the summer recess. I hope that all committee members had an enjoyable summer, even though the weather was not particularly co-operative at points.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for that. The committee has questions on a number of areas that it wants to pursue with you this afternoon.
The bodies do co-operate, and it has in recent years been shown well how that collaboration can improve assurance on quality of services, and how it can give a better sense of how services operate and how they might improve.
Can you give me a concrete example of the difference between the existing regulation and scrutiny and the regulation and scrutiny that we will have if Parliament agrees to enactment of the bill in its current form? I read some of the responses to the consultation: the Association of Directors of Social Work and Children 1st—they are but two examples—have some concerns. They state that although the current system might be a little complicated, it does deliver. They are not convinced that streamlining will necessarily lead to improvement in the quality of scrutiny—it might lead to a dilution of the service.
Some of the comments that were made in evidence question how we will know whether the service has improved—the convener alluded to that in her question. I suppose there are two aspects to the answer. First, the existing bodies, some of which have not held their responsibilities for very long, brought together a number of different services into the organisations in which they currently conduct their work, and they have shown considerable success in simplifying the approach and in providing better assurance and a clearer sense of how services need to be improved. That argument for simplifying the scrutiny arrangements follows through to the proposed amalgamation of a series of functions.
I realise that you tried very hard to answer my question, but I am just a simple politician and am struggling to grasp what the Government is attempting to do here. Could you give me one concrete example of what will be different in the new streamlined scrutiny body, and tell me how the services that it delivers will be different? I fail at the moment to understand why legislation is necessary.
I think I tried to explain how, by bringing together inspection of social work and of care services, for example, one creates the opportunity for the single body to scrutinise the range of interventions for individuals, from provision of care services to social work services and all the bits in between that go towards ensuring that someone who is in need of care is treated properly and effectively and is provided with the services that they need. In bringing those together in one body, you are simplifying the scrutiny of the range of services—
For whom are we simplifying it?
You are simplifying it for the providers and procurers of the services, and you are providing more assurance for the public.
How will the public be more assured? Will it be just by hearing you say that the service is streamlined? How will you demonstrate that?
I am not trying to say that streamlining will make the public more assured; rather, I am trying to explain that streamlining scrutiny of the care pathway will ensure that the services that are interconnected are provided to individuals effectively and appropriately and are of good quality.
As part of its consideration of the bill, did the Government consider whether improvements to scrutiny could be made without merging the organisations?
Yes. The proposals are a response to the Crerar review, which resulted in a series of recommendations to which the Government has responded. A number of those recommendations—many of which are about simplification, streamlining, co-ordination and collaboration—are already being implemented and have begun to yield some benefits in the work that bodies are doing, and have had an impact on the public and service providers.
I had an opportunity to meet Professor Crerar when he published his report. I grasp the desire in the public sector to streamline things and make them as simple as possible. Equally, however, Parliament has a duty to ensure that any changes will improve services and scrutiny. Maybe it is just me, but I am struggling to see how the changes are going to make any concrete difference to the system, let alone improve it. I appreciate that the co-operative arrangements at the moment might be complicated, but it strikes me that that complicated co-operation is working. I need to know why the change is viewed as being appropriate.
I will make one further attempt to shed some light on the matter. One basic principle of the Crerar review, and the response to the review, was that scrutiny should be made more proportionate for service providers.
You asked for a concrete example, convener. I am not sure that this is such an example, but it is an attempt at one. The new arrangements will pull together in one body the scrutiny of the strategic functions around the provision of a range of social work and social care services—services that rest at present with the local authorities in respect of their social work function—and the individual care pathway, as Shane Rankin said. The latter is the technical and jargonistic term that we use for an individual's use of a care service. The new scrutiny regime will enable us to get a clearer picture of the quality of the service that is provided to service users and the quality of, for example, the local authority commissioning arrangements that led to the service being put in place and made publicly available.
Unfortunately, you have not. I return to Mr Rankin's point: the new body will lead to a more proportionate level of scrutiny. Surely proportionate scrutiny could be delivered by the existing bodies? Why do we need a new agency to do that? Surely this not about having a new agency but about the existing remits and practice. If there was the will for the current inspection agencies to undertake their work in a more proportionate manner, they would do that. If that is the case, what is the driver for the new agency? What makes it different from the existing situation and what makes it better? That is what I am trying to get at.
I return to my earlier point: this is about trying to make things as simple as possible in many different ways. We are trying to streamline the process and ensure the simplest possible line of accountability for scrutiny of care and social work, which are interconnected.
I am going to let my colleague Liz Smith have a shot at getting me some clarification on this matter.
Can I get some clarification on the fundamental question whether the main driver of the bill is improvement of scrutiny or simplification of and reduction in scrutiny?
What I am trying to say is that there are a number of drivers in all this. Given that the Government's response to the Crerar review has been to simplify and improve scrutiny, we are trying, if you like, to improve scrutiny through simplification.
Some of those who have submitted evidence—I can think of three such submissions—made the very strong point that they are not yet satisfied that improvements in terms of simplification of the process will result in a qualitative improvement. Some have even suggested that the process could result more in amalgamation than in integration. What is your answer to such concerns?
As I said a little while ago, we are working through the process of ensuring that the proposed bodies will, when they are established, provide the best integration and simplification. Indeed, we are collaborating with the current bodies to find a way in which to do that. We are not suggesting that we have the perfect business model for these organisations, but we are pursuing them on the basis that we are convinced that simplification, amalgamation and integration provide a platform for improving scrutiny, which, after all, is essential.
The key point, however, in some of the evidence—if I have read it correctly—is that there is a difference between amalgamation and integration. What the public and the main stakeholders are looking for is the conviction that we will be able to deliver a better service that has a quality value that, in your view, the present system does not have. I am slightly concerned that a lot of evidence that the committee has received suggests that there is confusion about what should be amalgamated or integrated, so it would help the committee, which obviously has to recommend to Parliament how it scrutinises the issue, if you could tell us where this approach will lead with regard to the quality of delivery. The key question is whether functions will be fully integrated or whether there will simply be an amalgamation of two bodies that do different things.
We are clear about what amalgamation means—it means the amalgamation of functions that are set out in the bill. What we need to develop and work through with existing bodies and stakeholders is the exact way in which integration will flow from that amalgamation. We are not saying that we have the perfect answer and that it will work in such and such a way; what we are saying is that we do not want to lose or dilute in the process the very effective scrutiny that the existing organisations are carrying out. Instead, we want to develop from that point methodologies that allow integration around the care pathways, as they are described.
Children 1st was slightly concerned that the process might involve a reduction in consultation of key groups. Do you accept that criticism?
Do you mean the process of developing methodologies?
Yes.
I hope that that is not the case. I think that we have got to this point with the legislation as a result of the strong participation of and engagement with stakeholders and that is how we envisage taking the process forward. The knowledge and expertise, the alternative ideas and the best solutions lie with the stakeholders and the service providers.
Are you happy that the new body will continue to involve itself in such consultation to a full degree and that some people will not be missed out because of a simplification of the structures?
To a degree, the requirement for user focus that is contained in the bill is about emphasising that—it is about saying that that is what the scrutiny bodies need to do. Many of them do it extremely well already. It is a question of ensuring that they do it thoroughly and appropriately for the communities or providers that they scrutinise.
I have a final question, if that is permissible. Why do we need legislation to do that?
Because we need to change the joint inspection provisions and a number of the arrangements for the care commission. Those are the two examples that occur to me.
To put it at its simplest, we are legislating because we are creating a new body with a new set of functions, and that needs to be delivered through legislation.
A loosening up of some of the arrangements under which the care commission operates is critical to the creation of social care and social work improvement Scotland. The intention is not to challenge what the care commission does, but to allow the organisation to be more proportionate in the scrutiny of care services by recognising that there needs to be more flexibility with regard to how that is done and the frequency with which it is done.
HMIE and the Social Work Inspection Agency have voiced concerns about losing their agency status. Could the members of the panel say what they believe the pluses and minuses are of losing independence and becoming NDPBs?
Do you want us to describe what HMIE and SWIA think the pluses and minuses are?
No. I want to know what the Government's position is on the pluses and minuses of those bodies losing their agency status.
I suppose that it is not entirely a matter of the advantages and disadvantages of the loss of agency status. The agency status arrangement works perfectly well and, in the case of HMIE, it is clear that it is being sustained. The bringing together of SWIA and the care commission, and of their functions, responsibilities and staff, into one organisation is about recognising the difference in scale of the two organisations and the practical difficulties of taking the care commission into an agency as opposed to taking SWIA into an NDPB. The fact that that is probably one of the biggest drivers of the proposed change is in no way to say that there is anything at fault with the agency approach. The bill is not about diluting the status of social work inspection by bringing SWIA into an NDPB. In fact, the position is very much the reverse, as the Government's plans to make the chief social work inspector a Government post show. It is a question of ensuring that what we get from an agency that is close to Government and which provides direct policy advice to it is not lost by the arrangements that the bill puts in place.
Do you think that the new body will be able to provide policy advice in the way that SWIA currently does?
No. I was saying that the proposal whereby there will be a chief social work adviser within Government replicates one of the roles that SWIA's chief inspector has, which is a role that cannot entirely be delegated to the chief executive of the new NDPB.
There will be a post of chief social work adviser, but it will not be part of the new body. The chief adviser will not have the advantage of being a practitioner as well as an adviser.
But they will have an opportunity to work closely with the organisation, use the evidence that it has, sit on a board and so on.
Will the relationship between ministers and these bodies change? In particular, will there be more ministerial intervention? I believe that the bill will give ministers more powers of direction.
I do not think that the relationship will change. I cannot see why it would. My colleagues might want to comment on that.
Ministers have the power to issue directions to the care commission, and the bill simply replicates that power in respect of social care and social work improvement Scotland.
I believe that it is a modest extension of ministerial powers. However, added to the lack of an independent state for the agency, I worry about the relationship that will exist between ministers and the new bodies.
Could you clarify what you mean by
The bodies are losing their agency status—that is the key issue.
One of them is.
One of them is, yes. Further, there are other powers in the bill that could allow ministers to take decisions at a later stage—I suppose that that is a different argument, however. The point is that those bodies have expressed concerns about what the relationship will be. As advisers to the Government, have you weighed those concerns in the balance?
Very much so. I think that I have described some of the key drivers in that argument and some of the attempts to ensure that we do not lose the benefits that exist in that close relationship between SWIA and Government.
Did the Government have any particular concerns about the evidence that was submitted by SWIA in relation to staffing? SWIA expressed concern that many of its staff would prefer to remain in the Scottish Government's civil service, rather than transferring to the new agency, as that would give them more opportunities for career progression and movement. Has the Government considered that issue?
The Government continues to consider it, and discussions are taking place between the Government's human resources director, my team, the SWIA staff management and trade unions about the possibility that, if staff who have transferred to the new social work improvement body decide, within a specified period of time, that they do not wish to stay with the organisation, they can be reappointed to positions in the Government. That flexibility will ensure that the transition is not as unsettling as it might otherwise be. We want to find ways of lessening the challenge for people and providing them with a way to go back into the Government if they would prefer to do that. We are discussing a number of ways of ensuring that staff see the opportunities that are offered by the new organisation and that it does not become unduly difficult for SWIA to carry out its functions in the period leading up to the start-up date of the new organisation.
I expect that some of my colleagues will follow up on the issue of the transition later.
There is a perception that some of the joint inspections that have been undertaken by HMIE have been helpful and have pinpointed ways in which services—fundamentally, child protection services—can be improved. Of course, members of this committee are trying to find ways in which services can be improved. The bill extends the provision for joint inspections. Can you give us some hard examples of what that extension will mean for service users and of the improvements to the service that there might be?
It is important that the extension of the powers on joint inspection effectively recognises the increasing complexity of the issues that many people who use services face, and the reality that those issues can rarely be met by only one agency or service provider. By extending the joint inspection powers to include adult services, we will be better able to get a clear holistic picture of the range and quality of services that individuals use to meet their range of needs. An example might be someone with mental health problems who also has difficulties to do with their use of substances and who as a result engages in offending behaviour and therefore comes to the attention of a social work department, the police and psychiatric services. The extension of the joint inspection power to include adult services will make it possible to examine the quality of the range of services that that one individual in my hypothetical case uses. That person has a range of problems, including mental health and alcohol difficulties. They might be a parent, so there might be concerns about their parenting capacity. The extension of the power will enable all those issues to be examined and will allow the range of services that the individual receives to be examined.
I seek an assurance that there will be no diminution of the powers that are currently available in relation to joint inspections. I am thinking about issues such as powers of entry and powers to require sharing of information.
I do not believe that there will be any reduction, but my lawyer might want to comment.
The intention is to maintain the current suite of powers in relation to joint inspections. The detail of that is currently under discussion, but the expectation is that the detail will be in regulations and a statutory code of practice to which anybody carrying out joint inspections will have to have regard.
I will pick up some points from earlier questions. Is it fair to say that the joint inspection provisions that were put in place a few years ago stopped some of the duplication that was going on? A social work department might be inspected by one body, while its older adults unit is inspected by the care commission. Will the new agency put a complete end to that type of duplication?
That is an interesting question. Until now, the joint inspection powers have related to children's services. Joint inspection is a way of ensuring that all the agencies that have an interest in children's services are engaged and involved in the scrutiny arrangements. That ensures that, when services are provided from a number of directions, they are all scrutinised. The bill will extend the provisions beyond children's services and child protection. In that sense, it will definitely create a different framework within which services can be inspected. Joint inspection also supports the duty of co-operation and reinforces the outcome-based approach of the concordat and the national performance framework. Therefore, it is one of a number of ways of ensuring that scrutiny looks at what happens to the individual rather than just the service—it is about looking at the outcome. Therefore, the powers should help to avoid duplication and ensure that services are examined in the holistic way that we keep describing.
Anybody with a background in social services will know that we should take a person-centred approach, which means that we should start from the person and work out, rather than start from the services and work in. I welcome that holistic approach.
The extension of the powers around joint inspection will enable the new scrutiny body to examine the interface between existing services and to deal with transitions in a better way than has been the case so far. We know that many of the problems that have arisen in the past, and which have led to tragedies in the lives of people using services, have occurred at points of transition.
I am sure that Val Cox agrees that to improve services it is necessary to have a highly motivated and qualified workforce. The Scottish Social Services Council has raised concerns about whether the new agency will be able to enforce the code of practice on employers, and whether it will be able to enforce and monitor continuous professional development and minimum qualification development programmes for staff who are working in care services. Will that make a difference? Will those concerns be addressed?
I believe that the SSSC's concerns are being addressed. Officials are certainly considering amendments to the existing regulations on conduct.
We are seeking to amend section 53 of the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 to make it obligatory for social service workers and their employers to comply with the SSSC code of practice. That has been discussed with the SSSC.
That is a very welcome advance—I know from my background in training social care staff that it would have been welcome a few years ago, but it is good that it is happening now.
There are two answers. First, we are not aware that the legislation that provides for joint inspection of children's services has raised any particular problems about information sharing to date. The other aspect is that the arrangements for sharing information will of course be governed by a code of practice, which will be very much open for consultation and development with stakeholders and interested parties. Those are the two protections.
Obviously, any issues in this area will raise concerns about compliance with article 8 of the European convention on human rights. The public bodies will need to comply with the requirements of human rights legislation, so whatever they do must be appropriate and in accordance with the law. We are not changing the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998, as it is a reserved piece of legislation, so the bodies will have to ensure that they comply with it.
I have a final question on that point. The BMA has suggested that anonymising information is a way forward and the Scottish Information Commissioner has raised his own concerns. Can you reassure us that those concerns will be taken on board and that the Information Commissioner and the BMA will be listened to?
It is fair to say that their comments will be considered. I do not know whether, ultimately, their views will hold sway, because other issues must also be taken into account. There are sufficient safeguards in place for joint inspection, not least that anyone who is dealing with information must treat it as confidential and use it only for specific purposes. There are ways of safeguarding information that might not amount to anonymising it. All those issues are being considered.
In the submissions to the committee, there seem to be two issues to do with transitions, which the convener touched on earlier in relation to SWIA. One is continuity and retaining expertise in the system. I still have concerns about the SWIA option, because the discussion earlier was about what options people might have to move back into the Government. If expertise goes with those people, how will expertise and knowledge be retained in the system? The other concern, which was raised by HMIE, is whether the transitional provisions will be robust enough, particularly in relation to work on child protection. What thought has been given to those two issues and what actions might be planned to deal with those concerns?
You ask a number of questions. On the robustness of the transition arrangements, particularly in relation to child protection, HMIE is leading on child protection and a three-year cycle has just kicked off and, obviously, it is planned that the third year of the cycle will be led by social care and social work improvement Scotland. One cause for reassurance is that, at present, leading joint inspections involves leading a team from a number of professional disciplines that contribute to the inspection and those disciplines will still need to participate in the third year. It is the leadership that will transfer across, but the methodology need not change in any significant way.
I will ask a couple of questions about order-making powers. Section 10 enables ministers to bring forward regulations
We are not directly involved in those provisions in the bill. Although they raise some issues for bodies that are affected by parts 4 and 5, we are not directly involved in those provisions so I am afraid that we are unable to comment. We are happy to take the questions and to provide answers in writing subsequently, but I cannot answer that question at this point.
Convener, I realise that such a question could be answered by ministers, but I had thought that the bill team would have been able to answer all our questions on the bill today.
As long as the questions do not stray into areas of policy, the bill team should be able to answer them. I am not quite sure whether Mr Rankin is suggesting that the issue relates to a policy decision that has been taken by Government ministers.
No, it is a question of logistics. As you rightly say, the bill team would be able to answer the question, but the bill team is currently in front of the Finance Committee to answer questions on the bill. We would need to field the bill team to answer that question. I am afraid that the issue is a matter of practicalities.
We would need to ask for a transfer from the Finance Committee to get our questions answered. Have you just come off the subs bench for our committee meeting because the first team is at the Finance Committee? I am being facetious, but I hope that you will be able to answer my second question.
Can I be clear about what the question relates to?
Again, the question relates to order-making powers. Should we not be asking questions about that part of the bill at this stage?
We cannot answer those questions for you. If I were to try, I might lead you into the wrong place.
Although this is not Mr Rankin's fault, there is a serious issue about proper and due scrutiny. The committee has a responsibility to take that role seriously, as I think all members of the committee do. We are working to a timetable that has been determined and agreed by the Government. Perhaps it might be helpful if Mr Rankin and his team reported back to the bill team leader the committee's dissatisfaction that you are unable to answer some of our questions that we have a legitimate right to pursue. I am grateful to you for your honesty in not attempting to answer questions for which you do not have the detailed knowledge to be able to answer. Equally, this is the committee's only chance to put questions to the bill team on the order-making powers in the bill. It is quite unhelpful that we are unable to pursue those issues today.
I understand that. I can offer to take your questions and to provide full answers in writing if that is helpful. I will report your dissatisfaction to the bill team.
That would be helpful. Perhaps, when the Official Report of today's meeting is published, the bill team can reflect on Mr Gibson's questions and provide a written response.
Convener, it is a bit odd that we cannot ask questions on an issue that requires scrutiny. The order-making powers in the bill are a key point that has been raised by the organisations from which we will take evidence later today. I am sure that they will also be concerned that we have been unable to get any answers on the issue this afternoon.
I have a question on the financial memorandum. I understand that the Government anticipates that, over a four-year period, the cost of the changes will be £5.56 million and the expected savings will amount to £6.2 million. That is a net saving of £640,000. That does not seem much of a saving, given the scale of the change. Is it really worth it?
That question was asked in a slightly different way earlier by Elizabeth Smith, who asked about the driver for change. The driver for change is improving the quality of scrutiny and public services; it is not saving money, although the intention is that it will cost less to provide the required scrutiny.
In that case, does the Government agree with Unison? Unison is not convinced that there will be any savings as a result of the measures. Is it possible that we will go through all the changes and find that the new system costs us the same amount of money or even more?
We have put in the financial memorandum our sense of what the costs will be. It is estimated that the system will cost less.
But not very much less.
The care commission will no doubt comment on such issues later. It has been very helpful to the Government, as other bodies have been, in putting together the financial memorandum, and has provided us with a great deal of information and experience, which it has gained from establishing its own organisation. That has helped to guide the figures and the approach that we have taken.
I would like to clarify some figures. I refer to the £5.56 million cost of the changes. Are those one-off changes or will there be subsequent on-going costs? Will there be £6.2 million of savings over a specific period? Are they savings over three or four years?
Over three years, I think.
Does that mean that there will be on-going savings year on year?
There should be.
If there is a saving of £6.2 million over three years, we are looking at year-on-year savings of around £2 million, although there might be a net saving of only £640,000 over the first three to four years. Do you hope to save around £2 million year on year?
Yes. The savings need to go on. There are one-off transition costs and some on-going costs, but everything is essentially captured within the three-year period in the financial memorandum.
You are looking for on-going savings of around £2 million a year after that period.
I think that that is the number.
I want to pick up on the issue of consultation. Usually, people from bill teams or organisations who come before us have been able to look at formal consultation exercises that have been undertaken, and to see what has happened as a result of that consultation and what kind of input there has been. Obviously, the consultation has been slightly different in this case. How have you consulted on the bill?
Much of the consultation concerned the Crerar review, which established the principle that having fewer bodies would improve scrutiny and make it more proportionate. There was a great deal of consultation on all of that.
That concludes the committee's questions to you today. I thank you for attending. We look forward to receiving further written evidence on the points that Mr Gibson pursued.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We return to our continued consideration of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill.
It is helpful to consider the issue from the point of view of members of the public. I will put myself in the position of the grandparent of a child who is living with drug misusing parents. As that grandparent, I would want to know that there was good scrutiny of the multi-agency system, and whether health, education, social work and the police were working well together. I would want that to be checked. I would also want to know that social work services were being delivered and checked. If the child went to a childminder or a family centre, I would want to know that the quality of those services was checked and that good services were being delivered to the parents.
Thank you—at least I have an example at last.
I will give another example, but from the service provider's point of view. At present, the care commission assesses the quality of a service pretty much in isolation from anything else that happened before the service was provided, whereas a person who uses the service has had their needs assessed, a commissioning and procurement process for the service might have been undergone and a care management process goes on for the individual, with a care plan being put together. At present, separate bodies examine those things. From our point of view, it would be a real change to have one body, which I hope would use the same set of measures and standards, to hold all parts of the system to account for what Mr Rankin earlier called the care pathway. There is the potential for that to happen but, in our submission, we raise questions about whether the bill will achieve that or whether it will be achieved through the business model that the new body employs.
That leads me on rather nicely to my next question Do we need legislation to make the various people work collaboratively within one organisation, or can that collaborative working be achieved without legislation? Is the driver for change the right one? Is legislation necessary? I do not mean whether it is necessary in order to create a new body or to abolish other ones, but whether the establishment of a new body is right and the only way in which to deliver co-operation and collaborative work in a way that is much clearer and easier for people to understand.
As someone who has been responsible for leading multi-agency inspections of adult services—which are the parallel to joint inspections of children's services but without the underpinning legislation to enable and facilitate them—I can certainly say that the lack of legislation has led to many practical difficulties. Different approaches are taken and different legislation governs access to health records and other types of records. There are different ways of following up action plans and different approaches to checking what is done. I say that as someone whose organisation has led multi-agency inspections of services for older people, people with learning disabilities and people with addictions, as well as inspections of criminal justice social work services. With so many bodies, it is difficult to rationalise the process when there is no underpinning legislation to compel people to do so. The parallel in the inspection of children's services is pursued more easily because of legislation: with adult services, everything must be done by co-operation, which does not always achieve what is required.
To return to my example of the grandparent of a child with drug-misusing parents, it would be helpful for the grandparents to know that there was one body that was responsible for overseeing the whole system. A reduction of the number of bodies will make sense to some members of the public.
In an answer to me, Mr Rankin said that the new body would lead to a more proportionate level of scrutiny. Are you confident that that will be the case? Are you equally confident that we will get the balance right and that services will be scrutinised properly? Can we say confidently that what could or should be inspected will be inspected?
The Social Work Inspection Agency always intended, after completing its first round of performance inspections of councils, to be more proportionate, to reduce the amount of inspections and to target its work at organisations that were most in need. That was the plan, regardless of whether the PSR bill existed. That might well be true of other organisations.
As the question implied, organisational structures alone do not automatically deliver the kind of improvement that we are seeking. If the tests are about ensuring proportionality, coherence and better outcomes for the people who are in receipt of services, I have to say that we are moving to a better position on all those criteria. However, there are undoubted rubbing points and areas where organisational difficulties have made outcomes more difficult to achieve. The process could be facilitated by tidying up the structure, although whether or not we achieve change will be determined by the behaviours that lie behind it.
Organisations work in slightly different ways; for example, some focus on outcomes, some focus on standards and others are still working on outputs. As a result, they are starting from different positions. If the proposals are to have any benefit, it should be the recognition that, as we deliver services in an integrated way in communities and people's homes, it makes sense to integrate the scrutiny of such services. Indeed, that has been a benefit of child protection inspections.
How might the bill be amended to include health boards? How would you envisage any such proposal?
I am no expert on drafting bills, but I feel—given how reports carried out in communities not only provide elected members, councils and the public with the assurance that they seek, but help with improvement—that much of this should actually be about collaboration rather than about requiring people to co-operate. If the bill is to strengthen scrutiny in any way, it must ensure that everyone is held to account. I think that the Crerar review envisaged a more rounded body to take that work forward. In that respect, I am talking about key professionals who support and protect vulnerable children and adults in our communities.
How will SWIA's role change, particularly given that it will lose its agency status?
When the question was raised with the previous witnesses, the committee was right to highlight that the relationship between ministers and agencies is different from that between ministers and NDPBs. As chief inspector, I am also, at the moment, chief professional adviser to the Government on social work issues. I feel that a key issue is access to evidence.
From my experience of being the chief executive of an NDPB, I can say that it is possible to use evidence from scrutiny to inform policy departments, officials and ministers directly. It is not impossible to have a good and informing relationship, even though the NDPB is an independent body. However, we support the creation of a chief social work adviser on the same level as the chief nursing officer and the chief medical officer.
Will your organisations' relationships with ministers alter as a result of this merger?
If you are referring to the relationship that we have in terms of policy advice, I expect that the relationship probably will change. I meet ministers regularly to update them on our findings and to give them my views and advice on key social work issues. I think that that relationship would not be the same for the chief officer of an NDPB.
I support that view. One of the features that has emerged since the inception of SWIA has been the maturity of the relationship with our senior politicians in Scotland. Some difficult and tough conversations have been had about issues that we sometimes cannot control in social work in Scotland. It will be important to retain access to ministers if we are to maintain the current level of confidence in that relationship.
The background to this issue concerns not only the bill's merger of the two organisations that we are discussing, but also the fact that the bill will create ministerial powers to amend or possibly even abolish a lot of other public bodies. We did not quite get into that before the summer recess.
I offered comment on the scope of the powers in part 2 of the bill, particularly those in section 10. Earlier, someone asked whether ministers having such powers would limit parliamentary scrutiny: I say that it would. That is one of the key issues with regard to the changing relationship between Government ministers and bodies. I answered the question in respect of my position as commissioner and am mindful of the fact that the office that I hold was set up directly by the Parliament's Education, Culture and Sport Committee, rather than by the Government. Recently, we went through a protracted in-depth review that was conducted by the Review of SPCB Supported Bodies Committee. That review resulted in a bill, which will go through Parliament in parallel with the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill. I have concerns about whether there will be sufficient time for scrutiny of the order-making powers.
Thanks for pre-empting my question. Mr Gibson has some more questions.
Do not steal my thunder, Tam. I was going to ask you that question more or less directly because your submission expressed considerable concern about the issue. I asked the bill team the question effectively on your behalf, given that the committee is an appropriate public forum in which to do that.
Safeguards are built into the arrangements in respect of proportionality, any necessary protections being deemed to be affected by the making of the order, consultation that would have to be carried out, and the parliamentary process. However, it is not 90 days; it is 90 minutes.
Sorry. We could debate a proposal in committee for 90 minutes.
We are already just past 90 minutes in today's discussion. That gives you some idea of the limited parliamentary scrutiny of what could be the exercise of very sweeping powers under section 10.
I will comment on the same point. I am extemporising slightly because I did not think that we would get into this territory, but when the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 went through the Parliament, we had all kinds of arguments about who would be consulted about what and when as different developments took place. It occurred to us when we read this part of the bill that, although parliamentary scrutiny is certainly an issue, as far as I am aware there is no provision for consultation with anybody about anything before proposals come forward. From our point of view, we are always keen that when there is any change to the regulation of services there should be consultation with service providers, groups of service users and so on. That is also missing from the bill, which is a slightly different dimension.
There is a requirement for consultation, but there is a lack of specificity about what that would constitute. My understanding is that the recent process of the Review of SPCB Supported Bodies Committee would constitute sufficient consultation with respect to the use of these powers, and that there would be no need for a parliamentary bill; in the case of SPCB-supported bodies, a bill is about to go through in parallel with the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill. There are serious concerns about that.
Are the witnesses of the view, collectively or individually, that there should therefore be greater clarification of exactly what form any consultation should take?
Regardless of the consultation, because of the concerns that I have with regard to my own office I would press for the removal of offices such as my own from schedule 3 on two grounds: first, the lack of scrutiny in comparison with the process that established my office and endorsed its independence; and, secondly, the strong desire among parliamentarians for my office to be seen to be independent. The powers would seriously compromise that independence.
I am keen to hear from one or two others on the issue, convener.
I was involved in the stakeholder reference group. We are at the stage of looking at implementation, the timescale for which—from the change management point of view for the organisations that are directly affected—becomes a driver. The ADSW has made the point about the need for more consultation and the lost opportunity in that respect in terms of the process. There needs to be a fix between the two. Uncertainty is a big distraction. As others said about the scrutiny process, business continuity is required. We need to assure both politicians and the public about the good quality of the services that are being delivered in Scotland every day of the year.
I did not notice Ruth Stark indicating earlier that she had something to say. Before we move on to questions on the extension of joint inspections, I will bring you in. I do not want you to think that we had forgotten about you.
The point that I was trying to make earlier for BASW was about the difference that having one body in place of several would make. Practitioners on the ground think that current inspections are complex, repetitive and time consuming. No one in any social services department wants a bad review; everyone works towards getting a good report. Evidence from my members shows that, during review periods—this is a significant point—contact with service users drops from 12 per cent to 6 or 7 per cent. That is a significant loss to people out there in the community. The bill should bring together functions so that more emphasis can be placed on service improvement and not on working towards an inspection in a way that reduces the delivery of day-to-day services.
My focus is on what we will gain. I represent the workforce regulator. I was pleased to hear the committee's questions on the codes of practice. Through the proposal for only one regulator, the bill gives us the opportunity to gain a better interface between the workforce regulator and the service regulator. The SSSC has a good relationship with the care commission and SWIA. Gillian Russell spoke of moves to introduce a requirement that employers and workers comply with the codes, but that is already in the regulation of care legislation. We want to go further than that.
The code of practice for employers needs to be scrutinised and enforced. Ultimately, if we want a confident, competent workforce, employers have to be made to fulfil their side of the bargain by supporting front-line staff.
I want to pick up the issue of the extension of joint inspections. Your views on that are implicit in quite a lot of what you have already said this afternoon, but I would be interested to hear anything more specific that anybody wants to say about it.
I reinforce the point that I made earlier. We deliver services to people on an integrated basis in their own homes and their local communities. It makes sense that we take a more rounded view of the types of service that we deliver and the parts that we all play in that. In particular, good communication between different disciplines and different agencies and provider organisations is required and has been beneficial.
Thinking back to the questioning from the previous committee when the current legislation was going through, the legitimate concerns that existed at that time were well addressed in the codes of practice. I am clear that the most powerful aspect of inspections is the way in which child protection inspections can work, with a common, rather than individual, view of all the information that is available. An inspection team can bring the information together and share it within the team. That approach allows us to work from the child outwards rather than from the service inwards, because we can look at the totality of the information that is held on any individual child.
Good afternoon. I say to Tam Baillie that I think we are into extra time now, because we have gone past the 90 minutes.
I want more assurance about that. At present, in relation to the regulation of care, employers are compelled to take account of our codes, and we have the ability to compel registered workers to take account of them. If they do not do so, we will take action. However, there is no duty on the new body to enforce the codes. Enforcement is needed. It is not required for the majority of employers who take their responsibilities seriously, but the current position is that, if I go to the care commission or SWIA and say that an employer is ignoring the code, is not supervising their staff properly and is not training them properly, those bodies do not have the right or ability to do anything about that.
Thanks for that.
It would be much better to bring together investigation of the young person's file with looking at the care assessment and care management arrangements, the service that has been commissioned, the quality of service provision, and links with the young person's family and with health, education and perhaps higher education or an employer. The new agency would make the system more understandable and coherent for the family of that young person.
In lots of cases, it is the parents or identified carer who develop the care plan when the young person does not have the capacity to understand why things are being done in that way. It is my impression that a single-agency approach would be more helpful to families in that situation.
From the care commission's point of view, only a medically qualified person can access medical records and therefore interpret them. They use the same professional principles that apply to the medical practitioners who help the person.
Children and adults cannot necessarily be put in the same category, given that we are talking about adults who, in some instances, intermittently have capacity—for example, people with dementia or mental health problems can be very capable. We must be sensitive to individual rights.
I return to transitions. If we are to make the progress that we hope to make in relation to the getting it right for every child agenda, there should be an integrated assessment framework for every child. I would like to think—and I am certain that the ADSW agrees—that we are working to remove practice issues such as barriers to moving on from being a child to adult life and moving towards working in a different way. Uncertainty is an issue for families, as is funding for long-term support arrangements. Integrated assessments are the way forward for every child as they move into adulthood. That is the way in which to give them the support that they require.
You will remember as well as I do the case in the Borders and the concerns that were expressed in the inquiry. Central to the issue was the fact that, because the person involved was an adult, information on risk was not shared properly.
Shane Rankin made a point earlier about child protection inspections, which follow a different process to that which applies in care commission inspections. I want to reinforce that point. In the former, a single inspector can look across and make connections between files from various sources, including medical files. Instead of sharing the information by way of reporting what is in a file, one person looks across the board at a child's records. There is no automatic read across to the process for adults, however. Prior to the passage of the Joint Inspection of Children's Services and Inspection of Social Work Services (Scotland) Act 2006, concerns were raised with our inspectors. Since then, as Shane Rankin said, no issues have been raised with us during the 32 inspections. That is a reflection of the way in which the code of practice was written and how inspectors have observed it.
I have one further question on the need for motivated and qualified staff. For many years, the cry from social work service staff has been, "Oh no, not another change." Change can demotivate people. How do you, as providers, supporters and employers, use change as a positive experience and not one that leads people to say that?
That largely depends on how the business process is taken forward once everything is set up. Providers have expressed concerns, including on whether they will have to make another application to register their service. There is a lot of support among staff in the voluntary sector for the grading system that the care commission is operating. We want that to continue.
In reality, things are going on. Last week, a meeting was held in my area as part of the new approach to SWIA inspection. Every year, we have to deal with 70 care commission inspections, including in the area of child protection, which was looked at a year ago. From talking to colleagues across Scotland, I know that a sense of proportionality and a reduction in the burden of regulation are required, particularly given the data that we have to report to Government in other ways.
We welcome these moves; we advocated that they should be in the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 when it originally came through; we said that there should be only one body. We are excited by the fact that there will not be repetitive inspections and that people will be able to get down to the work that they want to do. The other outcome that we seek is a cultural change so that there will be no corporate move to work towards inspection and we will be able to work towards improving services on the front line. We hope that the bill will achieve that.
I am conscious that Mr Baillie has to leave by 4 o'clock. You explained that you have another appointment. Do you want to say anything before you go?
Yes, I have one other comment. This is not a self-imposed consultation guillotine—I really do have another appointment and I apologise, but I thank you for giving me leave to go at 4.
Yes, Mr Baillie. Thank you for your attendance at the committee. We will continue in your absence.
There will also be a lot of change for the staff of the existing organisations. An interesting point is that we currently register care commission officers, and a requirement of their registration is that they have both a relevant practice qualification and a qualification in regulation and inspection. Tam Baillie made a point about good inspection and the involvement of service users. Inspection is a very skilled activity so we urge that there be clarity about what the inspection and regulation requirements will be for the new body and that consideration be given to how we support the staff who are being merged and will have shared activities.
To answer the question about the impact on staff, the vast majority of staff in the care commission think that the proposals make sense and they are keen to get going in making our work more integrated with the work of SWIA and HMIE to deliver multi-agency child protection. Indeed, without pre-empting any decisions about the bill, staff are out shadowing people doing the other work. I think that the aim of the proposals makes sense, but we will all have to undertake quite a significant programme of organisational development to achieve that aim, so that there is added value and a truly integrated system rather than a group of bodies put together under the same logo or management. We must work quite hard on that.
I want to follow up on Tam Baillie's point. We believe that we have involved service users and carers in our inspections in a non-tokenistic way, but that has a cost attached to it. We have not only trained people and supported their involvement—we have developed courses for carers, in particular, with the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies—but have paid people who have been involved, to give them proper recognition of the value of their contribution. We have not assumed that they can be involved in their spare time. If the bill and the new body are serious about involving service users and about having a user focus in general, it must be recognised that that does not come cheap.
That leads us nicely on to the financial memorandum. It states that the bill will result in net savings, but they are not predicted to be particularly significant. Do you have any concerns that the drive to make savings might come at the expense of the quality of the service that the new inspection authority will have responsibility for?
That is why I talked about the need for extremely careful planning. A lot more time needs to be devoted to looking at terms and conditions and ensuring that we avoid any equal pay claims. Without presuming that what the bill proposes will definitely be agreed, I believe that a lot of work needs to be done with HR and finance experts. That is why the current bodies—including NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, which is to become healthcare improvement Scotland—must work together closely and share information to ensure that any reduction in activity takes place where there is less risk. That has been the basis of the change in the frequency of our inspections: our ability to provide evidence that there is less risk. We need to carry on that work and link it with the work that is being co-ordinated by Audit Scotland so that we have a shared risk assessment process to determine where more scrutiny is needed and where less can be tolerated. I presume that that would lead to some savings in the overall cost of the scrutiny regime.
In response to Mr Gibson, Mr Rankin suggested that the Government anticipated that, after the initial implementation period, £2 million-worth of savings would be made annually. If that is the case—and bearing in mind that a number of you said that, having done your first round of inspections, you plan to adopt a more targeted approach anyway—are you confident that the Government's target of making £2 million-worth of savings is realistic and can be delivered without jeopardising the quality of the service that we need to ensure that our care and child protection services are properly scrutinised?
More careful work needs to be done to link a reduction in activity to lower-risk services. I could not give you a guarantee that that work is ready at the moment, but I understand the external climate. It is worth looking at where, collectively, we can make efficiency savings.
Yes. We believe that SWIA, which has a very small budget, would be able to deliver the current saving of 5.5 per cent and still maintain the quality of our work. If further savings were sought, some of the extremely important high-quality work on development and the engagement of users and carers could begin to suffer.
I want to raise a related issue. The driver is savings and efficiencies. At present, service providers pay fees to the care commission, and it is proposed in the financial memorandum that that system will continue.
Such an approach would mean that at least £11 million would have to be found from somewhere in central Government. Some 39 to 40 per cent of our income comes from fees.
My point is that the money comes from central Government in the first place, through the settlement. By the time that the money has finished its journey through local authorities and providers and come back to the regulator, it has probably lost quite a lot of value.
I am sure that we will want to raise the issue with the minister.
If we embed improvement and are sure of the quality of services in organisations, the task of preparing for inspections should take care of itself. Best practice should result in a good inspection. I think that we all agree that we are not trying to get out of having inspection reports.
Do the witnesses want to comment on the consultation on the bill and say whether you have been able to put your case to Government?
I represent one of the bodies on which the bill will have a major impact. Along with the other scrutiny bodies, we have had a lot of opportunity to talk to Government and its officials about the matter. It is important now to convey what is intended to members of the public, providers and organisations such as ADSW. The engagement of stakeholders is important.
As I said, ADSW thinks that we have moved quickly from Crerar to implementation of the bill. Perhaps more time could have been spent on considering the wider implications. The role of some key players in the delivery of services to the public may have been missed.
Someone said that the various organisations operate differently in relation to standards and outcomes. Does anyone want to expand on that point?
It may be a reflection of the different reasons for the setting up of the different bodies. The care commission was set up by the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 on the back of the issuing of national care standards. We use the national care standards and have to take them into account. The Social Work Inspection Agency was set up for a different purpose.
I have highlighted before the difference in enforcement powers between what the new body will be able to do in relation to services and what it will be able to do in relation to anything else—commissioning, care management, assessment and so on.
Do other members of the panel agree with that?
SWIA does not currently deal with complaints. It is not that we deal with them differently; it is not part of our legal responsibilities to deal with them at all. Each council has its own statutory complaints procedure that works in parallel. Crerar was absolutely right to say that it is extremely difficult for the public, when they have a problem, to know how their complaint goes through the system. It is a complicated and bureaucratic process, and I would support anything that simplified it.
It is important to recognise that members of the public trust an independent body to investigate a complaint when they fear reprisals from a service provider. That is something that the public hold dear, and that is what is being carried forward for care services in the bill.
I echo that point not just from the public's point of view but from the perspective of members of front-line staff. When they see their colleagues providing a poor service, they find it difficult to report that. The issue is the culture of how inspection takes place and how accessible the complaints procedure is, not just to the public but to people who work in the industry.
To state the obvious, we also deal with complaints from the public about staff who work in the services. If the bill could achieve a good complaints procedure, that would be wonderful. The procedure needs to be streamlined and people must know whom to make complaints to. It is important not just that it is worked out in relation to the new body but that the interface with the workforce regulator is understood, not only for efficiency and effectiveness but for the service user. The service user must understand whether they have to complain to one body about the worker, another body about the care service and not to anybody about the infrastructure. The workforce regulator aspect must be dealt with as well.
Mr Macintosh has a brief final question.
Having identified the problem with the commissioning of services in local authorities recently, Community Care Providers Scotland has suggested that local authorities should have
I do not think that local authority services would have any difficulty with that. Any scrutiny and transparency of processes is important. I will not stray into discussions that are taking place in other parliamentary committees, but I do not think that there would be any concern about that. We all have the same intention in how services are commissioned and procured in Scotland.
The proposal in our written submission was about how to deal with the issue at the micro level. Local authorities would be asked to have regard to the grading that a particular service received when it made decisions about it. Something similar could also be done at the macro level, joining those things together. For example, the duty could be tied in with national performance frameworks and single outcome agreements, and local authorities could have a responsibility to increase the proportion of services in their areas that had gradings of a certain level and above. That would take the link between scrutiny and commissioning to the strategic level as well as the level of specific services. There are a number of different ways in which that could be done; it all depends on how the new body sets up its business model when it starts. None of that is a given in the bill.
I thank our witnesses for their attendance at the committee today. I will suspend the meeting to allow them to leave and to allow members a brief comfort break. We still have a substantial item on our agenda to consider today. The committee will reconvene at 25 past 4.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—