Official Report 97KB pdf
Proposed Scottish Disability Community Development Council (PE1017)
Agenda item 3 is petition PE1017, by William Wilson, who calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to establish a Scottish disability community development council. Paper EO.S2.07.01.02 highlights the fact that, when the petitioner submitted his petition, he was unaware of the extensive work that the Equal Opportunities Committee had done on its recently completed inquiry. Many of the issues that he raises in the petition are covered in our report.
The petitioner raises important issues, but, as you say, they are addressed in our report, which is the result of more than two years' work by the committee. I agree with the recommendations, but I would be interested to know the petitioner's thoughts on our report. We should direct him to our report, but it would be interesting to get some feedback from him and find out whether he thinks that there is anything that has not been addressed.
Do you suggest that we write to the petitioner?
If we refer the petitioner to the committee's report and the Official Report, we should ask for his thoughts on our work, as he does not seem to have known about it.
As the member of the Public Petitions Committee who recommended that the petition be forwarded to this committee, I think that it might be my fault, as it were, that we are considering the petition. Certainly, the petitioner was pleased that we had published a report on the issue and he attended the debate in the chamber on 20 December, as we suggested he should do. I agree that we should send him a copy of our report "Removing Barriers and Creating Opportunities".
I understand that the Public Petitions Committee has already agreed to refer the petition to the cross-party group on disability, so we can assume that that has been done. However, Sandra White's point about the need for support is well made.
I just want to emphasise that people who are in employment do not get the support that they should get. That should be highlighted. I thank the petitioner for lodging the petition. Our report has addressed many of the issues, but the petition should also be passed to the cross-party group on disability.
From the evidence that we took, it was certainly clear that there is a real need for increased support to help disabled people to get into work.
I agree with much of what has been said, but I want to point out that, as a matter of courtesy, we should not assume that our disability inquiry dealt with the issues that the petitioner has raised. We need some feedback from the petitioner on whether he thinks that his concerns have been addressed. Before we formally close the petition, we should give the petitioner an opportunity to respond.
That makes sense. We also need to receive formal feedback from the Executive in the form of recommendations.
We should accept recommendations a and b in paragraph 8 of the clerk's paper but, at this point, we should not accept recommendation c. As Carolyn Leckie said, it is reasonable for us to think that our report tackles many of the petitioner's concerns but we should not assume that all his concerns have been dealt with. We should refer him to our report and to the debate that we had in the chamber—given the time remaining, we should probably do that with some urgency—but we should reserve our position on recommendation c until we hear back from the petitioner.
We will write to, or otherwise contact, the petitioner to ask for his feedback. Is that agreed?
We move into private session to discuss an approach paper.
Meeting continued in private until 11:22.
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