Achievement Bute
Item 1 on the agenda is Achievement Bute. Members will remember that some time ago we agreed that representatives of the group would come and give evidence to the committee about problems with access to ferries. They will also give evidence on a wider range of issues that affect them.
Dorothy McDonald will speak on behalf of Achievement Bute, after which the committee can ask questions. Members of the group should feel free to chip in if they have anything to say to the committee. Dorothy, could you start off?
Dorothy McDonald (Achievement Bute):
First, I would like to thank you for inviting us to speak to you. You will have received a summary of the main issues that are of concern to us as parents of disabled children on Bute. You will be glad to hear that I do not propose to go over those points in great detail, but I will highlight four areas that are of particular concern to us: inaccessible ferries; inequality in pre-school education; issues relating to access and inclusion at secondary school level; and the lack of respite care for children on Bute.
To give you a clearer idea about why those issues are so important to us, I will tell you about some of the situations that we and our children encounter every day of our lives on Bute. For those of you who do not know it, Bute is a small island—it is only 15 miles long—off the west coast, with a population of approximately 7,000. Achievement Bute is the name of our support group, and within it there are 17 families with disabled children. Before I came here, I found it helpful to have photographs of all of you, so I thought that you would find it helpful to see photographs of our children. I have asked Sarah Aitcheson, the clerking office manager, to pass them round. These are the children we are talking about.
Thank you, Dorothy.
The first issue that we would like to raise is that of ferries. If you live on the mainland, although some buses and trains may not be accessible for wheelchair users, there is usually the option of using a taxi or a private car. When you live on an island, there is no option other than to go by ferry. On Bute, we have four ferries, none of which are accessible for wheelchair users. My daughter Nina is six years old. When Nina and I go to the mainland, we usually get on the ferry by going up a ramp. That is the only accessible part of it. Depending on the tides, the ramp can be horizontal or it can be at an angle of almost 45 degrees. Pushing a child in a wheelchair down a steep ramp off a ferry in the middle of winter is extremely frightening.
Once you get on the ferry, the facilities are spread over three decks. The toilets and the ticket office are on the lower decks. The lounge area is on the middle deck. At low tide, you may have to go to the top deck to get off the ferry. The stairs are like ladders. I do not know whether you can imagine trying to carry a wheelchair up a steep ladder-like staircase, with a child, outside—because the staircases are open to the elements—in the winter, in the dark, in the rain, and on a ferry that is moving. It is difficult, to say the least; in fact, it is downright dangerous, because I do not think that any of the crew have been trained in how to move and handle people in wheelchairs. Certainly, the Health and Safety Executive would not be happy about people carrying wheelchairs up flights of stairs. It is frightening for the child, as well as for the parent, and having to be carried everywhere onboard a ferry can be humiliating.
Nina is six years old; she is not a baby. She is quite heavy, and she does not want to be carried. Heather Farquhar's son Nino is four years old, and he is getting to the stage at which he is too heavy to be carried. There are children in our group who are older and much heavier; the parents of some of them do not take them off the island, because it is so difficult to get them on to the ferries. Can you think what it would be like if every time you went shopping, or went to the hospital, or visited someone—any time you left your home town—you had to encounter those problems? That is the reality for parents with disabled children and for disabled people on Bute. We believe that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 should apply to ferries.
The second issue that we wish to raise is that of the lack of equality of opportunity for pre-school children. Thomas, Raemarie Lilley's son, is three years old, and has Down's syndrome. He has been at a local community nursery since he was a baby. He is settled there, and he and his parents are happy for him to be there. This summer, along with every other four-year-old child in Scotland, Thomas is entitled to a pre-school education place. The community nursery that he attends is a commissioned provider, and is able to provide places. However, Thomas is disabled and needs extra support, but the local authority will provide that support only at its own local authority nursery, which is 2 miles up the road. Thomas's parents would like him to receive that support, but they would rather that he did not leave the nursery that he is in, because he is used to it and to the children who are there. If he were not disabled, he would not have to be moved. Parents of all other four-year-olds on Bute have the choice of three commissioned pre-school providers. We want to know why Thomas's parents cannot have the same choice that every other parent of a four-year-old has. That is not equality of opportunity.
The third issue concerns access and inclusion at secondary school. I am pleased to say that most of—although not all—our children receive a good, inclusive education at the local primary school in Rothesay. We hope that they will be able to go on to the local high school and receive a good, inclusive secondary education. But—and it is a big but—Rothesay Academy is totally inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs. It has several buildings over several storeys, and is built into the side of a steep hill. Some children in our group are due to reach secondary school age in less than two years, and we do not see enough evidence that the local authority is properly planning ahead to make the buildings of Rothesay Academy accessible to them.
We do not want our children, when they are entering adolescence and are vulnerable, and when they have already had a good, inclusive education in the local primary school, to have to be sent off the island to residential special schools—away from their families and friends—simply because the secondary school buildings are inaccessible. We fail to see why the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 does not apply to schools.
There is another issue regarding inclusion, and it has to do with children whose needs are more complex and profound. One of our families—Jan Reid's—has already had to go through the traumatic experience of sending their son to a residential special school on the mainland. Jan's son Dwayne is 11 years old. He was educated at Rothesay Primary School until the end of primary 5. Dwayne has Asperger's syndrome and Cogan's ocular motor apraxia, which is a rare condition. That means that Dwayne has quite severe behavioural problems.
It became evident to Dwayne's family that the local primary school was not coping with him and that he was not coping with the school, because the resources that were needed to enable him to remain there were not available. A residential placement in a school in Auchterarder was offered to him. The situation now is that every Monday, Jan drives 200 miles to take Dwayne to that residential school, and every Friday she drives 200 miles to bring him back home again. That is because the local authority cannot provide an escort to take Dwayne to school. Jan works part time and has three other children, one of whom has special needs.
Dwayne is now settled in his special school, but he is gradually losing contact with his local community. Jan and her husband would much prefer that Dwayne could have been educated locally, on the island. The irony of the whole situation is that it is costing the local authority a small fortune to send Dwayne away to that residential school; surely that money would be better spent on providing the necessary resources to enable Dwayne to remain in his local primary school on the island.
The parents of other younger children with profound and complex needs also do not want their children to be sent away. Is the Equal Opportunities Committee willing to help us, and parents like us, in our fight for fully supported, local, inclusive education for all children?
Our fourth and final point concerns respite care. Crawford, Robin Taylor's son, is eight years old. He has severe and profound disabilities and requires 24-hour care. That is highly stressful for the family and they need a break now and again, but there is no provision whatever for respite care for children on the Isle of Bute. Robin and his wife have managed, through their son's physiotherapist, to arrange a placement for Crawford at a special respite centre in Kilbarchan; again, that involves a 60-mile round trip every time he goes there. Crawford can stay at the centre for weekends roughly four times a year, and roughly twice a year he can stay for a week. His family have to take him there and bring him back each time. That is not ideal, and getting there is a major hassle, but they do it because if they did not get respite, they would crack up.
One of the problems that arise when the Taylors leave Crawford at the centre is that they know that if anything were to happen to him, or to them, in the middle of the night, they could not get to him. The ferries stop running at 7 pm and people cannot get off the island—even Robin, who works for Caledonian MacBrayne, could not swing that. On the one occasion when there was a family emergency and Robin approached our island social work department for help, it could not provide any. We need, on the island, good-quality respite care for children. Respite care has to be a good experience for the child as well as for the family who are receiving the respite. Current legislation recommends, but does not require, local authorities to provide such care; we think that the provision of such care should be a requirement and we hope that the committee agrees.
So far, we have lobbied locally on all the areas that I have discussed—ferries, pre-school facilities, access and inclusion at secondary school, and respite care. For example, we have met CalMac, written to our councillors and met council heads of department. To give the powers that be their due, I should add that in most cases they have tried to make some improvements, but they say that, because of the inevitable lack of resources, they cannot provide the things that our children really need. We have some sympathy with Argyll and Bute Council in that respect, because we believe that it does not receive enough money from central Government to cover the costs of servicing the huge number of islands within the council area. Argyll and Bute does not get the special islands needs allowance that is given to the other three island authorities—Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands and Western Isles. Ironically, if you live in Lewis, you have an accessible ferry and your council gets the special islands needs allowance; if you live in Bute, that does not apply. Is Bute not an island?
We believe that our children suffer double discrimination: first, because of their disabilities; and, secondly, because of our location. As parents, we are doing the best that we can for our children and we hope that you, as members of the Equal Opportunities Committee, will do the best that you can to ensure equality of opportunity for all disabled children in communities such as ours. If members would like to see our difficulties at first hand, they would be more than welcome to come doon the watter for a visit.
Thank you. When we first considered this issue, we discussed the possibility of visiting Bute so that we could judge the accessibility of the ferries.
If the other representatives from Achievement Bute agree, we will move on to questions; they can chip in to answer.
Thank you very much for that timely presentation; we are considering the education bill in about an hour's time.
I will ask mainly about education, although I found what you said about ferries very interesting. I am a Westminster MP and I did not know that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 does not apply to ferries. The fact that I did not know is my fault, and I will certainly take up the matter, as it is an issue for Westminster.
Respite care is a Scottish Parliament issue. A recent announcement said that there would be more funds for respite care, but we will have to see to what extent that deals with the problem. The committee can follow that up.
We will be considering shortly the whole issue of inclusion in education. Clearly, a serious problem exists with secondary education that is not wheelchair accessible. Apart from that problem, is provision made for other people with special needs who go to the secondary school in Bute? Are the primary schools all wheelchair accessible, and is the necessary support also provided for children with special needs?
When my daughter started at Rothesay Primary School two years ago, all wheelchair access was external. Every time that children were taken from their classroom to the dining room, or to the gym, the library or the music room, they had to go outside and right round the building. We lobbied for internal access; at first, we were told that that was not technically possible, but we lobbied strenuously and it was found to be possible. In fact platform lifts are being installed, probably as we speak. That work is on-going.
Our biggest problem is that the council seems to respond to lobbying, but does not take a strategic approach. There are children in primary 6 who use wheelchairs and only now is internal access being sorted out. That is what worries us about the academy—unless we take action now to get the council to plan ahead, the children will start secondary school and be able to get into perhaps only one classroom or one part of the building. That would be unfair and we need to plan ahead.
Other children with special needs, not necessarily physical mobility needs, are catered for in the academy. A learning support team covers the island, but our biggest concern is that the authorities seem to be able to cope only if the child has mild learning difficulties; we are not convinced that they can cope if the child has profound difficulties, such as Dwayne Reid's. In such cases, they practically reach breaking point. Dwayne is the only child in our group with whom we have had experience of this so far. Most of the other children in the group are younger. We are looking ahead and hoping that something can be done so that the council will plan to include those children.
You mentioned nursery education. What kind of support would be available if the child went to the council nursery? Would it be one-to-one support, or would one person cover a few children?
The council has told us, "Never, ever, say one-to-one support." It cannot guarantee such support.
The support that is provided might be an auxiliary who works with a child in nursery for part of the time, or perhaps learning support teachers who go to the nursery for certain sessions during the week.
The council seems to be saying that it will provide support in the local authority nursery, but not in the community nursery, or the playgroup, which is another commissioned provider. The council says, "You can have inclusive nursery education, provided that you go to our nursery." That means that children with special needs are directed away from the other nurseries.
I want to ask about your relationship with the local authority. Are you saying that the problem is not that the council is tied by legislation, but a cultural attitude, in that the council does not provide what it could provide unless you force it to do so? If it is the council's attitude—rather than legislation or the fact that finances are not ring-fenced by legislation—that prevents the council from providing services, that is a much more difficult problem to overcome. It would also affect how the committee would deal with the council.
Many of the educational issues are to do with resources or lack of them. For example, the council says that there are 44 pre-school providers in Argyll and Bute and that it cannot provide special needs support in every one of them. We are saying that the council does not need to do that—it needs to provide special needs support with the child who needs it, wherever that child goes. The council does not seem keen to do that.
To be honest, we have not had a definite answer from the council. Raemarie Lilley's son is due to go to nursery in August and she still does not know whether the council will come up with any support if he stays at the community nursery where she would like him to stay. That leaves a problem for the community nursery, too—how can it write an equal opportunities policy or a special needs policy if the council will not support children who need the extra support? It is a voluntary nursery; it gets funding for pre-school places but it does not have enough funds to provide the extra support that is needed for children with special needs.
In our experience, parents have recently become much more aware of their rights as parents in terms of social services and the lack of respite care. Last week, we met the head of children's services for Argyll and Bute Council and said to him that families are entitled to assessments—for the disabled child, the carers, and siblings—under section 23, I think, of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The council said that, because we did not ask for such assessment, it had not provided it. We said, "Okay. We didn't ask for it because we didn't know we were entitled to it. We are asking for it now." The council has said that it cannot provide the assessment straight away because it does not have the resources.
The council is showing some willingness, but its position always seems to fall back to, "We would if we could, but we've no money."
This is not quite a matter of declaring an interest, but I taught in Rothesay Academy for three years in an earlier existence and trundled back and forward from Glasgow on the ferries. Even as an able-bodied person, I absolutely concur with what has been said on the difficulties of getting to the academy, in terms of accessibility and the ferries.
What you highlighted about the ferries is interesting. I have used CalMac ferries for many years and I admit that the problems faced by someone in a wheelchair had not occurred to me. Perhaps if we all had more mainstreaming, inclusive education in our lives as youngsters, we would be more conscious of such things. I am interested in what would happen if the issues about the ferries were raised and an obligation to provide accessibility was placed on the companies.
I wonder whether some of your points about inclusive education apply regardless of whether one lives on an island. For example, the situation whereby youngsters are directed towards certain schools and certain provision because they have special needs probably arises across Scotland. Have you made contact with other groups that are fighting for the same inclusive education? This is not really a matter of geography; it is a matter of meeting the needs of the child wherever they are, as opposed to supplying specialist provision. There are good examples in some parts of the country of how such provision is mainstreamed.
Do you have evidence of other island authorities that have taken a more progressive or inclusive approach than Argyll and Bute has? Are there good examples of complex provision being made for individual youngsters in small communities, or are your problems typical of anyone who lives in an island or rural community and who has a disabled youngster?
I can speak only from personal experience. I know someone in Shetland whose daughter has autism. She is very happy with the provision there. I, too, am very happy with the fact that my daughter goes to Rothesay Primary School. Although there are problems with the building and it is a battle to get accessibility sorted out, the attitude of the staff is brilliant. I have nothing but praise for Rothesay Primary School as far as inclusion goes. However, looking ahead and wondering if that will continue, I worry.
I can see the benefits of inclusive education, not only for my daughter but for children who are not disabled. They have a much better understanding of disability because they are with disabled children all the time. I would push for inclusive education where possible. If—it is a big if—there is support, all children can attend their local school and receive an inclusive education.
Are you aware of youngsters on the island, or their families, who have chosen not to fight for a local place because they think their needs are better met by some specialist provision?
Jan Reid (Achievement Bute):
I am the only one in that position. My son is away at a special school. We did not want that, but we knew that we had no choice. The decision was pushed upon us. We were told, "We haven't got the resources here and we cannot supply people with the care and teaching qualifications that your child needs. Your child needs to go elsewhere." For his sake, I went along with that. Rothesay Primary School was becoming very stressful for him and for us as parents. It was horrendous going there. He is autistic, he has Asperger syndrome, and he has Cogan's ocular motor apraxia. His problems with eye and hand co-ordination make writing very difficult for him; he has to use a word processor. The teachers wanted to help, but they could not fully understand what his condition entailed. It was not that his behaviour was deliberately bad—he did things because he could not help it, and because things were getting too much for him.
We therefore decided—with a push—that we had to find a special school for him and that he had to go away. He is only 11. He has been part of our family for 11 years. Sending him so far away was a big step for a mother to take. If something happens at night or during the week, I cannot get to him. Last week he was not well. I could not go on Wednesday night; I had to go first thing on Thursday morning to pick him up. The people there said that they would care for him and keep him there, but we did not want that; we wanted him home. He needs to be home with his family when he is not well.
Rothesay could not provide the care my son needs; but—as Dorothy said—if all that money is being spent to send Dwayne away from school, there must surely be some resources or specialist teachers that can be brought to Rothesay Primary School. There are other children at the school who—although their behaviour may not be as bad as Dwayne's—also have Asperger syndrome and the kind of behavioural problems that go with it. Surely a group of five or six could be taught together. That would be more inclusive than having to send Dwayne away.
Thank you for your presentation—it was very enlightening. Some of what you said was also said by the Equity Group.
We are members of the Equity Group.
The fundamental point is that there is a lack of resources. When the representatives of the Equity Group talked about diverting resources, they made much the same point as you are making—that money is not being spent in the right way and that a lot is being tied up by sending children away to residential schools. Adults with disabilities have a personal assistance package. Perhaps we should have something similar for children, so that staff can be with them to provide educational services or to provide respite in the home. Because each child is different, the packages would have to be tailored individually.
Equity has done some research into the resources that it felt could be diverted. I do not know whether you have seen it.
Yes.
It was interesting. The group felt that not as many additional resources would need to be put in as people might at first think, because resources that are being used inappropriately—the only resources currently available—could be diverted.
The committee will probably return to the debate about the mainstreaming element of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill. At the moment, because of accessibility issues, parents are denied the choice of where to send their child. It may that every child cannot access the local school, but I suspect that, with the right assistance, most could.
Yes.
Yes.
In my previous life, I was a home care manager. We were lucky in our area in that we managed to secure resources for a specific project for children with special needs. The project provided escorts, respite in the home and people who were trained to work with children with disabilities. It was a Rolls-Royce model, which very few areas had. It was a lifeline for parents and there were savings because families who would not otherwise have been kept together were kept together. When considering projects such as that, you have to invest so that you can save in the long run.
A difficulty I always encountered was that people's expectations were raised by their assessment, but local authorities were never obliged to provide the services the assessment said were required. There is a problem, because provision is service-led: people are offered only what happens to exist. In a community such as yours, where there is a lack of services, that will be a problem. I know that this is a resource issue, but there should be a legal obligation to provide the services that a child is assessed as requiring.
You have provided the committee with a lot of information that we will certainly look at.
Our group has existed for only two years. When we got together, one of the first things we did was set up a play scheme for some of our children, to give the parents a bit of respite during the school holidays. After raising money locally, we now have a paid play co-ordinator; we provide an element of respite by providing play scheme activities; we have a counselling service and a drop-in centre; and we provide training. The school has been very good at sending staff to training that we have provided. We also provide training for parents and other kinds of events for families and children.
We are not sitting back and complaining about everything; we are doing quite a lot to help the children ourselves. However, we do not want to take over the statutory duty of the local authority and other bodies. If we do that, they will sit back and do nothing.
Thank you for coming in and presenting your case to us. I would like to ask about the ferries. You said that your ferries are not accessible for wheelchairs but the Lewis ferries are. Why are none of the ferries on your route accessible for wheelchairs?
Robin Taylor (Achievement Bute):
The ferries that run to Lewis are brand new boats. The ferries on the Rothesay-Wemyss Bay run are 20 years old.
Are they due for replacement?
Well, it is all very political. There are financial issues involving the Gourock-Dunoon service and Dunoon pier, but yes, the ferries should be due for renewal.
We will invite Caledonian MacBrayne to the committee. Robin Taylor is here today as a parent. If he does not mind answering some questions on the ferries, that is fine; but he should not feel obliged to answer on behalf of Caledonian MacBrayne.
No, I do not mind—that is quite all right.
I was not asking particularly about Caledonian MacBrayne; I was asking whether there is a reason for the difference between the services.
It is basically age. All the newer vessels have facilities such as lifts.
I think that it would probably be in order for this committee to suggest that when the ferries are replaced, they are replaced with vessels that have full disabled access.
Any new vessel would automatically have that.
Thank you, Dorothy, for your very strong presentation. The ferries on your route are quite small, and it may take a while for the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to be changed. I have used Caledonian MacBrayne ferries all my life in different parts of the Highlands and Islands, and the company is approachable. Can you tell us some of the specific things that would need to be done to the ferries on your route?
We had a meeting with Caledonian MacBrayne at the beginning of January, when we gave it our wish list. Obviously, it was not technical—we simply said things such as, "I want to be able to push my daughter's wheelchair around the ferry." In fact, I would rather she could go on the ferry herself with her powered wheelchair. She uses a powered wheelchair at home, which gives her a lot more independence, but there is absolutely no chance of her getting that wheelchair on the ferry. I would like to have a ferry with door thresholds that are not several inches high. I would like to have a ferry that does not have steep staircases or, it if does, a ferry that has a lift as well.
Do you mean the sort of lift that goes up the stairs?
No—a proper lift. Caledonian MacBrayne has looked at the possibility of putting in stair lifts, but they are so steep that, I think, stair lift companies do not consider them suitable. As interim measures, we have asked Caledonian MacBrayne about, for example, moving and handling training for its staff, but even that would be difficult. I do not imagine that any health and safety inspector would allow people to lift a grown adult—or even a child—in a wheelchair up a flight of 15 stairs that is like a ladder. That is what I do all the time with my daughter.
In our submission to this committee, we mentioned the Deloitte Touche report that the Transport and the Environment Committee has received. That report, if implemented, would have an impact. If a decision were made on the Gourock-Dunoon route, it might allow Caledonian MacBrayne to reallocate one of its existing accessible ferries to our route. There are accessible ferries around; it is just that we do not have them.
I travel a lot on some of the bigger ferries to the western isles and they seem to be much better equipped whereas many of the medium or small ferries seem quite old. If you had some points that you wanted to be raised, I would be very happy to take them up.
There would need to be a new building for the Rothesay-Wemyss Bay service, because the boats that have those facilities are too big to berth at Wemyss Bay because of the draught limit.
Yes, I know.
You have already answered some of the questions I was going to ask about the ferries, but I would like to pick up on one point. You spoke about the problems caused by rising tides. I assume that tides also affect how cars can get on and off, but there is obviously some system that allows that. Does that involve an adaptation to the jetty? Could something similar not be done to allow access for wheelchairs? Rather than an adaptation to the ferry, could there be an adaptation to the jetty?
There is a car ramp, which we have not been allowed to use for wheelchairs. Recently, we have spoken to skippers and others and there is to be a new policy—of allowing people in wheelchairs to be loaded through that ramp before or after the cars. That should prevent having to go up a steep gangway.
I am on the CalMac customer care committee. We have recently initiated a small committee on disability issues, so we are looking into and trying to respond to all the suggestions we can.
I am involved with a transport group in Glasgow that brings together users and providers of transport for young and elderly people going to day centres and schools. What provision do you have for that and is it satisfactory?
There is an adapted minibus with a wheelchair ramp at the back, which takes children to the local primary school. We think that next year, when Nino goes to school, there will be too many children for it, so there will have to be another minibus. I think the council is going to provide that. A problem at present is that my daughter's powered wheelchair has to be left at school because the bus does not have the right tracking or securing mechanisms to take it. Again, I think the council will deal with that, but we seem to have a constant fight on all these things.
Parents feel that the most important issue is that every time their child needs something they have to push and fight all the way. Eventually, we get it—just as we are eventually getting platform lifts in the primary school, although there will be only two whereas four are needed because there are four small flights of stairs. There is money for only two platform lifts, so the next battle will be for the other two. That is why we have brought to the committee the idea of a much more strategic approach and more planning. I think that the only way local authorities will do that is if they are forced to, from the top down.
More generally, local authorities should put in place structures to consult and work with users of services, so as to be able to plan ahead.
Yes, exactly.
From my experience, working with the Glasgow group, it is not that the local authority is hostile to providing the service so much as unaware of the issues. We could perhaps usefully encourage local authorities to set up structures to work with and consult those who need to use the services as a matter of course.
To be positive, we met the head of local authority children's services last week. As Shona said, there is a reluctance to make assessments because the services cannot be provided. We said at that meeting that if the needs are unknown, how can there be planning to provide services. We have arranged to meet someone from social services regularly, so it is not all doom and gloom—positive things are happening.
That should be an automatic arrangement for parents with specific needs, so those needs can be planned for, rather than paying attention to you because you are an unusually active group. Perhaps we should recommend that good practice in this area would be to have a system in place to consult parents at various stages.
Good morning and thank you again for your presentation, which highlighted the difficulties many people in remote communities have and the need for parents to bring problems to the attention of the local authority. Surely the local authorities should be conscious of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and be willing to make provision. Surely it is wrong that parents have to make a case for facilities. This committee should make a strong recommendation on that.
Like my colleagues, I have used ferries and I was in the past very involved with the Caledonian MacBrayne empire, so I know that there has been an extensive fleet replacement programme and that many vessels now meet the standards required by disabled people. You suggested in your submission that it would be a fairly simple matter for Caledonian MacBrayne to put one of its other vessels on the route to provide better facilities. I wonder whether that would be possible, as I do not think there is a surplus of vessels that would allow it to change one round. That might detract from provision on another route.
That would not be feasible because the vessels with better facilities are all too big. There is a draught limit at Wemyss Bay that makes it impossible for those boats to berth there.
Someone said that the ferry currently on the route is about 20 years old. Surely it is due for renewal.
All the boats are over 20 years old now.
Is there a programme for renewal? As a representative on the customer care group, Mr Taylor will be arguing for facilities to be provided.
I am indeed.
As I said earlier, Mr Taylor is here as a parent rather than as a representative of Caledonian MacBrayne.
He is sporting a CalMac tie.
We will have an opportunity, when Caledonian MacBrayne gives evidence, to ask it questions about its plans.
There are no other questions, so I thank you all for coming. I know that you had to get a ferry at 6.30 this morning, so you will be glad to get away. As Malcolm Chisholm said, we will look at the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill later this morning. We will bear in mind what you have said. We will also ensure that the points about respite and the special island needs allowance are raised elsewhere in the Parliament, as appropriate.
If committee members would like to come and visit, we will be happy to show you around the inaccessible areas of Bute.
We may take you up on that. Thank you.