Education Committee,

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Official Report 417KB pdf

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Child Protection Inquiry

We move on to our next item. We are tight for time today. We are taking further evidence on the child protection inquiry. I will not re-welcome the minister, but he has with him this time Euan Robson, the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People; Colin MacLean from the Scottish Executive Education Department's children and young people's group; Maureen Verrall, who is the head of the Education Department's children and families division; and Catherine Rainey, who is also from that division. We have heard much evidence on child protection, minister, so it might be helpful to dispense with an opening statement.

You will be relieved to know that I have not prepared an opening statement, but I do want to make a couple of points.

Of all the things that I must do in my job, I do not think that I have come across anything that is more important than sorting out the child protection issue. I have recently had to read about some pretty awful, deeply shocking things and I am strongly motivated to ensure that we make a difference in child protection practice. It is a serious issue for us all to encounter. I believe that we have put in place a comprehensive reform programme that will take us substantially down the road of sorting out child protection over the next period.

Members are aware of some of the detail and I will happily go over it, but suffice it to say that, with our partners, we are developing clear ways forward and trying to improve significantly standards and training, and the recruitment of social workers. We are also trying to ensure better engagement between the relevant agencies and trying to get chief constables and chief executives of health boards and local authorities to work better together and so on. Much has been done and there is still much to do, but I believe that we are fleshing out a comprehensive programme.

For the committee's guidance, how are you placed for time this afternoon? There was an indication that you were pressed.

My private secretary will look menacing if we are running out of time. From my point of view, I do not think that you should worry too much about time.

Okay. We are anxious to give as much time to the matter as is needed.

You are right to say that we have heard a lot of evidence about the developing programme, and there is broad satisfaction in the committee about the programme's direction. Nevertheless, there are a number of concerns about it, not least about its speed. Will you update us on where you are with the recruitment of social workers, which is central to the delivery of the programme?

I will ask Euan Robson to answer that, because he is dealing specifically with those issues.

We have established the fast-track scheme, which will bring 550 graduates into the profession in the next five years. The scheme enables graduates to qualify as social workers in 16 to 23 months—that is the length of their training, but that does not mean for a moment that the training is less intense. I spoke to some of them recently and they said that they had no holidays and were working at the weekend, so it is an intensive programme.

We also operate the care in Scotland campaign—some members might have heard the adverts on the radio—which highlights the importance and value of a career in social work. I do not have with me the most recent recruitment figures from the campaign, but it attracts interest in the profession and it has brought forward quite a number of people for training. We are also looking at other areas. The Scottish institute for excellence in social work education is working up a new honours degree course in social work, and we think that it will eventually bring some 500 social workers into the profession each year.

Is that a different 500?

Yes. In effect, we have never had more social workers. I heard Fiona Hyslop mention that in a recent debate, and it is absolutely true. The most recent figure that we have is from December 2003, when there were 4,118 social workers; we should get an update fairly soon. In 1997, there were 3,314 social workers, so we are much further ahead, although the number of vacancies remains stubbornly high at about 590 or 600. Recent figures showed some drop in the number of vacancies, but it will take a while to develop things and to establish the fast-track scheme. I think that some 90 graduates entered the work force in the first year and another 90 will do so soon, in addition to the standard recruitment. We must continue to work on that, but we have seen some important changes in the trends recently.

An area that is probably of interest to the committee is the number of vacancies that relate specifically to children and families. We are trying to tackle that with an incentive scheme that offers £9,000 over two years to newly qualified graduates who go into areas that have significant shortages. I will not go on at length, but we have also made specific investment in training—I can give details of that if the committee is interested.

We have spent a considerable amount of time on work force issues. I chair the national work force group, which is examining the whole range of the profession to see what else we can do and, in particular, how we can advance training and continuing professional development. It is fair to say that some of the issues have lain dormant for a number of years and in the past 12 months, in particular, we have had to pick up the pace and make sure that the profession is properly equipped for the challenges ahead.

Can I press you on the figures, to make sure that I have understood the position? Are you saying that an additional 90 graduates have come in, or that 90 have come in in each of the past two years?

On the fast-track scheme, yes.

Is that on top of the normal recruitment?

Yes.

How many leave the profession each year?

I do not have that figure to hand, but I can write to you with the precise details.

My point is, are we gaining overall?

Yes, we are.

Is the fast-track scheme gradually pushing us up, or are we being sapped at the other end?

As you tilt the pipe the water flows out one end and comes in the other. Yes, we are gaining. Inevitably we lose some from the profession through retirement. The figures that I gave you are for those entering the profession, without those leaving. The latest vacancy figures that I saw suggest that they have come down slightly, but I can send you the details of how many leave the profession each year.

Clearly, the position over time is going to improve as the trends improve, but there will continue to be a shortfall, and it will be apparent in the Glasgows of the world, where the problems are the greatest. There will be considerable risks if we do not have enough staff in place to do what is necessary. Can other things be done to increase the throughput of fast-trackers or to fill the gaps in the short term? The fear is that at best you push to get assessments done, but then you cannot do anything by way of early interventions and so on. We are feeding a system that is not having as much effect as it should on the result at the end of the day. Those are the short-term concerns.

Several things are happening. You mentioned Glasgow, which is in the very early stages of a new way of working. As I understand it, Glasgow City Council has recruited people to do paperwork, releasing key front-line staff to work in the field. That involves going some distance up the supervision-management chain. The changes were made just two or three months ago and we will carefully examine Glasgow's experience. I have received some enthusiastic messages and some less enthusiastic messages, but it is far too early to say. Equally, the City of Edinburgh Council is considering a different organisational structure, which may yield results.

There is a great deal of talent in the voluntary sector. We have developed initiatives to invest in training, so that people who are in the voluntary sector and who would like to be social workers can enhance their skills and move into social work. In effect, we would like cross-fertilisation between the voluntary part of the social care sector and the formal local authority social work structure, so that people can move in and out and up a career ladder, for want of a better phrase. For example, we have put £9 million into training over the next three years, which local authorities can draw on. We invested £2 million in a post-graduate course in leadership, because it is important to invest in leadership in the profession in the next few years. We have also invested £3 million over the next three years in voluntary sector training, with another £600,000 directed into child protection issues. The aim of that investment has been not only to upskill, but to enable movement between the two parts of what one might call the social care sector, so that professional practice benefits.

We might come back to some of that.

In "Protecting Children and Young People: The Charter", which was issued recently, the Scottish Executive pledges to

"Work with agencies and existing helplines to provide a 24-hour national child protection service: by 2005."

What does that mean? Is it a helpline, or does it involve some sort of information sharing along the lines of lists of people who should not be allowed to work with children? What exactly does that mean? There is some confusion about whether it refers simply to a helpline and whether that will be any different from helplines that are already available. Are you offering more substantial information sharing?

It is not the latter, but the former—it is a helpline. I will go into the matter in more detail. One issue that was highlighted in the original child protection review was the fragmentation of available helplines for people to contact. There was a desire to do something much more comprehensive and to offer a service that would provide all-Scotland coverage and increased hours of coverage. As members know, ChildLine has just been expanded. We also have ParentLine Scotland, individual social work department stand-by numbers, police help numbers and NHS 24. There is a range of ways in which people may seek to make contact in relation to child protection issues, but there is no single, clearly identifiable line that is available 24 hours a day. We want to provide a number that is clearly understood.

Many of the existing helplines are about counselling, support, information and advice. They are not necessarily about triggering action in relation to a particular child protection case. We want the new helpline to be about not only providing information, but triggering action. If a worried neighbour, grandparent or child phones the number, sitting behind it will be all the procedures for triggering action by the agencies involved. People will not have to phone the police to trigger police action or social work to trigger social work action. The aim is that action should be taken in a much more co-ordinated way.

As soon as we get into this territory, we must tackle a huge number of interagency protocols and technological issues in order to move forward. That is happening at the moment. A lot of work is being done to sort out the problems and to create a helpline with the sort of action trigger behind it that is important.

Thank you for clarifying how you see the helpline as being different.

A number of the organisations that gave us evidence believed that the lack of a national database needs to be addressed and that information about children at risk should be shared or accessible throughout the country. Do you agree that provision of what you call a 24-hour national child protection service should include a national database, which would make information accessible to anyone who was concerned?

You are right to say that having a single national helpline that triggers action implies that information is shared between agencies and that there are shared databases, which we hope will be achievable. I was trying to hint at that. Such an approach would allow us to trigger action in a co-ordinated, effective way and ensure that people are notified across the system. Substantial work is being done on progressing shared assessment and information sharing. The issue is enormously complex and we have much more work to do on it. However, you are logically correct in principle. Behind the helpline, all the support mechanisms must be in place to ensure that it works effectively. My officials may be able to give you more detail of the specifics of what is being done.

Some organisations that gave us evidence believed that there was a need for clear guidance on the Data Protection Act 1998, which is often used as an excuse for one agency's failure to inform others. In future guidance, will you specifically address the confusion that exists about what organisations are allowed to tell one another under the 1998 act?

Absolutely. This is one of the issues that we need to pin down. We have drafted substantial legal advice for all the agencies' legal advisers, who will advise policymakers and professionals in local authorities, the health service, the police service and so on. That advice is being finalised at the moment. We intend to make it clear in the back-up advice and guidance that we will issue that information must be shared in the interests of any child. The detailed legal advice will be sent out shortly after a more truncated version is issued as a letter to local authorities setting out that data sharing must occur when it is in the interests of protecting a child. People should not hide behind the Data Protection Act 1998. Extensive advice is being prepared as we speak. We hope that it will be issued very soon.

Recommendation 15 of "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright" said:

"In order to meet the shortcomings identified in this report, developing linked computer-based information systems should include a single integrated assessment, planning and review report framework for children in need … Arrangements should be made for appropriate access to information by agencies in other areas".

That was the information technology recommendation. When your officials came to speak to us about what action was being taken on the report, they said that they had set up an assessment working group, which was being led by Norma Baldwin. We asked Norma Baldwin to report to us on progress on information sharing. She told us that her report, which is due in November 2004, would identify the components of such systems and the resources that would be needed. It is proposed that that process will be followed by a programme of consultation and the production of an implementation plan.

Do you think that the authors of recommendation 15 envisaged that, after two years, we would have been able only to specify the resources that were needed, that we would not have completed the consultation and that there would be no timetable for implementing the recommendation? I am looking for a degree of ministerial urgency. Our anxiety was aggravated by the fact that the charter on the national standards that was published last month contained no mention of that important work, in spite of what recommendation 15 said. I hope that we will at least get a ministerial steer on when the consultation will be completed and on whether there is any sense of when we might be able to see through the recommendation—even if that is five years hence.

I will come back to you on the specific dates but, as you will be aware, dealing with big technological projects is always more time-consuming than one imagines that it might be. You asked for a ministerial steer. I am clear that the issue has got to be resolved. Recently, I had a discussion with senior local authority figures in social work. They made it clear that they wanted to be instructed on when to go ahead with such systems and how quickly to do that. I fully intend to provide such instruction. We need to sort out the IT aspect, because it is fundamental to enabling the whole system to work in the interests of children. I will come back to you on the specific dates, because I do not have them to hand.

I am grateful for that, because there has been unanimous testimony that the only body that can impose a national pattern is the Executive. We must wait for the report in November, but it would be useful to get a sense of whether there will be a quick consultation after that; even just an outline of the timescale would be helpful.

I am very clear that the matter has to be sorted out.

I want to ask about multidisciplinary inspections and the recommendations on them. We have heard from witnesses that there is a need for the framework to be implemented and established as quickly as possible. However, the letter from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education said that the aim was to pilot work by the end of the year, to begin inspections during 2005 and to complete the initial programme of inspections within three to four years of the start of the programme. By that time, a whole seven years will have passed since the initial recommendation was made in "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". How satisfied are you with the situation? Is there a process for speeding up implementation?

When I came to the job of Minister for Education and Young People and got sight of our progress on various matters, I was concerned that the original plan was that we would not start inspections until the end of the three-year period. I wanted that to be changed and we have done that—we have brought the programme forward by a year. We will pilot things at the back end of this year. We are well on the way to establishing all that. Graham Donaldson, who is the chief inspector of education, has been put in charge of doing that. He is pulling together with the other inspectorates and quality agencies within health, the police, social work and so on to ensure that we have a genuinely multi-agency approach.

The fact that we have now developed the framework for standards gives us part of the basis for inspection, because it sets out the behaviour and standards that are expected, which we did not have six months ago; we got that only recently. The components are in place to begin inspection. The inspectors are obviously anxious to get the process right. They want to ensure that they are rigorous about what they explore, what evidence they will have to look for in certain situations and how they will go about doing inspections. There is a lot of thinking and work to be done on that. We must have a credible inspection process. That is why all that work is being done. The pilots will be starting around the end of the year. Then some work will have to be done to refine all that before the whole system rolls out. We know from our inspection of local education authorities that the work involved will be substantial, and that each inspection will take a substantial period. There are 32 local authorities, so there are 32 basic units of inspection—although, geographically, health board and police activity happen at a higher organisational level. Inevitably, it will take some time to get through the entire inspection process.

In relation to the design of the system, the inspectors will be considering the extent to which they can anticipate where risks lie, how priorities will be identified and which bits of inspection will be done first. A whole range of things has to be sorted out, although the work is now well under way. I am confident that we will have made progress by the end of this year and that we will end up with a comprehensive system.

How will you monitor children's services and protection services in the meantime? What is the date by which you think the new programme will be in place? Your officials said that there was no volition to legislate in this area. Given your recent comments on the Borders case and on inspection in the area of social work in general, are you reviewing the situation with a view to introducing legislation on social work inspections, which would affect child protection and the recommendations that have already been made?

If we think that there is a need to legislate, then we will legislate. We are not going to let anything get in our way on this issue. We think that we can achieve our aims and do what we need to do by administrative means, but I will not rule out the possibility of legislation if that is what we ultimately conclude is necessary. The fact that we have got Graham Donaldson to do what he is doing, pulling together the inspectorates, creating the framework and starting the pilots, demonstrates what we can achieve without new statutory powers. However, if we think that new powers are necessary, we will undoubtedly take them.

What we have discovered recently about breakdowns in systems is deeply worrying. Therefore, we must have mechanisms for monitoring things as we move forward. We have sought a statement of assurance from local authority chief executives, chief constables and health board chief executives, individually and collectively, that they have reviewed all their current child protection systems and that they are satisfied that they are working adequately or, in the cases in which they are not working adequately, that they have clear action plans and timescales for getting them sorted out. Those statements of assurance are due in towards the end of the month. We will then have a much clearer picture about the state of the systems in place, and of what still requires to be done.

As a consequence of recent cases, council chief executives, social work directors, chief constables and health board chief executives are taking a much closer interest in all this. Perhaps that was the wrong way of putting it—they are taking a much keener interest in these issues than at any time in the past. They are focused on the need to bring about improvement. They are asking questions about how things are being done in their own organisations, and they are considering how they can improve quality improvement mechanisms.

One of the reasons for the child protection summit held earlier this year was to get every council chief executive and leader, every health board chief executive and every chief constable into the one room at the one time and to make it clear what the expectations were and what work they would have to undertake to check their systems. People are signed up to doing that.

The framework for standards and the children's charter give clear reference points for the kinds of questions that organisations must ask themselves to establish whether they have the right frameworks, procedures and protocols in place. That contributes to a new set of views about how to manage child protection. With all those measures, the whole system is tightening up and improving. We need to ensure that inspection constantly applies rigour to that, through double-checking, investigating situations in great depth and providing a commentary on where improvements have to be made.

Things are happening as we speak. Euan Robson has mentioned improvements to training input and things that have been happening to do with registration, child protection and training at the Scottish Social Services Council. A range of things are now happening that are strengthening provision and therefore limiting the opportunity for things to go wrong in future, but we still have a long way to go.

Some of the evidence that we heard this morning indicated that people at the top of the hierarchy do not always involve themselves as much as they should. That is just a comment. I presume that you cannot—

There is a point to consider there. Part of our analysis of what has been wrong with child protection committees, which are right at the centre of what we are considering, is that people at the top have not been taking sufficient interest or have been devolving responsibility too far down the organisation. We have had a series of discussions with chief executives of organisations about how to get a much higher level of interest in child protection committees. If the chief executive of the organisation is not at the table with the chief constable and the chief executive of the health board, whoever is there must be a senior person with complete delegated authority to deal with the issues that arise. The chief executives are pretty well signed up to that. We are going to flesh all that out into a protocol—which is probably not the right way to describe it—and consult on it over the summer so that we tighten things up as we move through into the autumn. If we do not get the individuals at the top of the organisations signed up to that, the changes that we want down the line simply will not occur.

My observation was simply that the evidence that we are getting shows that that is not always happening at the moment, but where it is happening, it works well.

I want to ask about Disclosure Scotland. We heard evidence from a number of sources that it was taking up to 12 weeks to get the necessary information through. Disclosure Scotland submitted evidence to the effect that, although there were long timescales, it has now reduced them to about 16 days. We heard this morning that that was certainly not everyone's experience and that recently the timescales have been much longer than 16 days, with the attendant risk that the best person for the job might not be employed, because the long timescales mean that the person concerned will not be able to remain unemployed for long enough in order to get the job. Could the ministers kindly consider the evidence that we have taken and possibly consider issuing guidance on the matter? It is important that the correct information on the suitability of applicants comes through as quickly as is practicable.

I will certainly consider the evidence that has been led today and ensure that what we understand to be the case is in fact the case. I am happy to give you that undertaking. I understand that in the recent past the number of staff at Disclosure Scotland has doubled to try to address some of those issues. I am told that response times are now down to two to three weeks, which is the point that you are questioning. I am happy to consider that. We will continue to monitor the situation and ensure that we have the capacity in the organisation for it to gear up to take care of the changes that are coming in. Getting the information through is important and we must ensure that we get it right. Inevitably, it takes time to get started and to settle down, but we are in a much better position now than a short while ago. I will be happy to review the situation in the light of the comments that you have received.

I want to pursue that. I was astonished to discover from Disclosure Scotland's letter that no fewer than 120 additional staff had been employed there to produce what we are hearing from various sources is not working. There is a clear contrast between the 16 days mentioned in the letter of 11 May and the evidence that we heard from witnesses this morning. We heard from YouthLink Scotland at a private meeting that we held last night that the delay of eight weeks that we had heard about has increased to 12 weeks. There is clearly a discrepancy there. Are we creating something of a monster, with huge staff numbers, which is costing us a lot of money but is not working? My final point is that there is also an issue around double disclosures: information on individuals has to be disclosed several times over for different organisations. Is it worth considering in detail whether some of that can be cut out without losing anything significant?

I will look into the issue that you raise in your first point. My advice is clear that information is now being turned around in two to three weeks. It is entirely conceivable that, while that is the timescale that Disclosure Scotland is achieving for applications that are made now, some applications may still be working their way through the system.

That is not what we have been told—we have been told that people have been informed that there will be delays with applications that have been lodged recently.

I am grateful for that information. I will check out the matter and ensure that what I have been advised is the case. We will consider what action may be necessary.

Euan Robson has looked into double disclosures and we are prepared to give more thought to how we can avoid them. Nowadays, people are employed in different settings, particularly those who are in child care. We need to tease out the issues with Disclosure Scotland. We are aware of the issue and we are happy to consider it.

I trust that we are not creating a monster. There is a dilemma: for obvious reasons, we need to process applications quickly and get people into the work force, but we also need to ensure that they are the right people. We must have the necessary resources to do that. In an organisation of any type, that kind of growth in staff numbers inevitably takes time to bed down. We will have to work through the settling-down process and continue to make improvements. We are clear that we need applications to be processed quickly for reasons that we all understand.

My daughter has had to go through Disclosure Scotland three times in the past few years.

There have been a number of examples of that happening and I have had discussions with officials about the matter. We need to be clear that people's time is not being wasted. Repeated filling in of forms brings the process into disrepute. We are due to hear fairly shortly what has happened—I will happily send the information to the committee in one form or another, if members wish. It is sometimes difficult to be clear about where requirements have come from. If simplification is necessary, I am sure that it is not beyond the wit of either Disclosure Scotland or the Scottish Executive to streamline the process.

The issue is not just about timescales; it is also about the administrative work that is involved for voluntary groups.

There is a helpful paper from the Scottish Parent Teacher Council that highlights not only the fact that the system is in danger of becoming a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise, but that it does not address the risk element. The fundamental reasons for setting up Disclosure Scotland are perhaps being lost. The system is not fulfilling the task that it was designed to carry out. People who do not need to be checked are having unnecessary checks, which slows down the process of checking the people who do need to be checked. Some checks do not even properly assess risk because they do not decide whether a person is fit to work with children, but simply look at criminal convictions. Given what I have heard in my constituency, the paper sums up well the range of problems that face Disclosure Scotland.

I am happy to consider all those issues, but I am anxious not to leave members with the impression that every check has been invalid in some way because I do not believe that that has been the case. I am sure that there are ways in which we can adjust, fine tune, refine and streamline, but nonetheless the fundamental point is about ensuring that the right people get through and the wrong people do not. I am sure that that happens for the most part in the cases with which Disclosure Scotland deals. If we can refine the system, I am more than happy to consider that, but let us not leave people with the impression that lots of people have sneaked through the system. I do not believe that that is the case.

That is not the suggestion at all. In fact, the opposite is the case—people are getting the impression that nobody can get through the system.

I want to broach the thorny subject of resources. COSLA has told us that many councils spend more than their grant-aided expenditure allocation on children's services. Unison has suggested that the issue of resources was not addressed sufficiently in driving forward the recommendations of "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". We heard this morning from practitioners in the voluntary agencies who think that some councils have not struck the right balance between adult services and children and family services. They report difficulties in getting agencies to pool resources. There does not seem to be much progress on joint commissioning of children's services. Can you give us an update on progress on general issues about resources?

The points that you raise are not all resource questions. For example, joint commissioning is not just about resources; it is about the willingness of organisations.

A lot of work is going on and there is much closer contact between agencies, partly because we have worked to bring leaders together to ensure that key agencies work together more effectively. However, more work needs to be done to move things forward. That is one of the reasons why we established the changing children's services fund, which is substantial. As I recall, some £70 million is in the fund in the current year. Over a number of years that order of cash will go into the system to help to bring about some of the changes that are needed in relation to commissioning services and to strengthening services for children and young people throughout the system.

Undoubtedly more remains to be done. We must firmly keep in mind the purpose of our three-year reform programme, which is to drive forward change in a situation that we regard as unsatisfactory. We must make progress on that agenda and members must not assume that we are in any way complacent; indeed, quite the opposite, which is why we have put in place the change programme.

Undoubtedly, local authorities spend more of their GAE allocation on children's services, but that means that they spend less on other services. I think that local authorities have made the right decision and I commend them for the priority that they have given to children's services. Adam Ingram will be aware from his past Finance Committee work and his wider experience that GAE is not a spending target, but simply one component in our calculation of the overall grant to local authorities. It is for local authorities to decide how to spend that and I think that they are making the right decisions. In turn, in recent years we have been floating up GAE and resources into local authorities to a significant extent. As Euan Robson indicated, we will have more social workers than we have ever had and we are training more people—we are making money available for all that.

If there are questions about inadequate resources for the child protection programme, I want to address them, because we need to sort out the system and get it right. However, it is striking that when we have examined cases in which the system fell down, we have found that that did not happen because resources were inadequate, but because people who were attached to cases made the wrong judgments, or did not check up on information before they made a judgment, or did not sufficiently share information with other agencies and so on. It would be wrong to think that more resources are the only answer to improving child protection, because the fundamental point is that we get the systems—the attitudes, the information sharing, the interagency work, the risk assessments and so on—right. Resources are needed and we try to back up the system wherever we can. I do not think that the change programme will be impeded by a lack of resources for inspection and other such matters; we will put in the cash to ensure that it is not.

May I pick you up on what you said about the changing children's services fund—the change programme? Witnesses from the Association of Directors of Social Work told the committee that they were concerned that such initiatives might have a negative impact on core services. They argued that because they must recruit staff for such initiatives, front-line staff can be drawn away from child protection and they said that the initiatives do not necessarily target the most vulnerable children. That frustrates the best use of social work services. Will you respond to that criticism?

It is novel—although it is becoming less novel—to be criticised for spending too much money and launching too many initiatives, although I would rather be criticised for that than for not spending enough. I will look into the point more seriously, but the last thing that I want to do is to make funds available that divert attention away from what is at the top of our agenda. I would want a bit more evidence that that is what is happening, because, apart from anything else, it is others who bid for resources from the changing children's services fund for what they want to do. If they were bidding for things that are not in line with our priorities, I would be a bit surprised and would want to examine that. However, in the spirit in which you raised the matter, I will take it away and ask those who made the points to provide further evidence about what precisely they are getting at.

It is a feature of Government that, when we provide ring-fenced funds for a specific purpose, we sometimes create too hard a boundary between the application of those funds and other funds. I am happy to consider how funds are allocated and whether there are ways in which we can allow local authorities to make more sense of them at the local level. We are considering that in relation to our national priorities action fund in the education budget. The fund is fragmented, and we are trying to remove the barriers between funding streams to make the joining up of funding more effective at a local level. If we can modify anything in regard to our changing children's services fund, I am more than happy to consider that.

The Association of Directors of Social Work suggested that some of the most experienced staff are applying for the new jobs and getting out of the front line and the stresses and strains that they face there.

I am not sure that that is an argument for cutting off the supply of money.

No, but it is an argument for considering how you apply the policy. The ADSW also argued that, with the focus being on antisocial behaviour and youth crime, there may also be a danger that some resources might be drawn away from early intervention, which it considers to be the key to reducing antisocial behaviour in the long run. Will you comment on that criticism as well, minister?

The Executive has made it clear that we need to tackle firmly certain aspects of antisocial behaviour. That is why the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill is going through the Parliament. There is a financial memorandum attached to that bill and we are producing extra resources to cover the additional costs of implementing the bill. Part of our collective thinking is about how we address more resources to the front end and to early intervention to try to reduce the number of people who work their way through to committing antisocial behaviour, but that does not mean that we should not also address that behaviour. The resources that are being made available for that do not detract at all from our child protection work.

There was a suggestion that the voluntary sector groups had to move the money about because their programmes had to fit the priorities for the youth justice moneys at the expense of core programmes that might be more successful. It is the usual voluntary sector problem with different pots of money.

A lot of the discussion has been on procedures and processes and on ensuring that risk is minimised and that, if risk is identified, it is dealt with. I will move the discussion on to prevention, minister. We heard powerful evidence from the Aberlour Child Care Trust about parenting projects, for example. How can you, as the minister with responsibility for children and young people, ensure that that responsibility reaches into different policy areas—for example, policy on parents who misuse drugs and alcohol—and that different funding streams converge strategically?

We are clear about that. Just last night and the night before, Euan Robson and I were in meetings with representatives of the children's hearings system that were about that system but in which we raised issues about parenting, partly in relation to child protection. It has been interesting to find out from the meetings that from a child's point of view there is a need to address the behaviour of parents. That could relate to a pile of things, such as drugs offending, alcohol or poor parenting by not setting parameters for the children.

There is nothing in our minds that prevents us, as young people—[Laughter.] I meant to say young people's ministers. It was worth a try. The evidence belies it, I know.

There is nothing preventing our thinking about those things, because it is the impact of the parents' behaviour on the children that is important, rather than simply focusing on the child alone. There is a Cabinet sub-committee that looks at children's services. Without giving away too many Government secrets, I can tell the committee that one of the things that has been discussed recently is the role of parents from the child's perspective and whether the Executive needs a more coherent view of the role of parents in our society, just as we have about other dimensions of our life, so that we can support children more effectively. There are no blockages and no impediments in Government when it comes to thinking about those things.

It seems that there is beginning to be an evidence base about the importance of parenting and the development of parenting skills, and new community schools and initiatives such as sure start offer opportunities to develop those skills. Is there enough of an evidence base to start rolling out those programmes more widely across Scotland and to embed them more in mainstream provision?

A lot of thinking is going on about that, because it is increasingly clear that the impacts on parents are profound in relation to the situations that children find themselves in. That comes up in a range of dimensions, including school settings. Last night, at a public meeting, we were talking about that and a teacher mentioned the need to intervene early, at the nursery school stage, when parenting skills are often being observed consistently at the earliest point at which the state is regularly in touch with a young person. Rather than talking about parenting orders in relation to potential children's hearings, the teachers were talking about how many more voluntary schemes could be made available in the community before people got to that stage.

Those things are all being considered, and we are thinking about how we can roll out opportunities for people to opt into such schemes or advise them that it might be helpful to attach themselves to schemes to improve their parenting skills. There is a lot of evidence that such initiatives can be very successful. We are acutely conscious of that and want to make progress in that policy area.

I think that the implication of the child-centred approach was that, if you looked at things from the child's point of view, it was not a matter simply of sorting out a parent's drug problem, but of following through with parenting skills and other things that are linked to that. It was not just a matter of abandoning support once the drug problem had been temporarily resolved, because all the other problems remained in the child's background. We heard powerful evidence this morning about that, which I recommend that you read.

One of the great things about the voluntary sector in Scotland, and particularly about children's charities such as the Aberlour Child Care Trust—Barnardo's is another good example—is that they do not worry at all about institutional or organisational boundaries. They do the right thing by the people. They have enormous capacity, not just in relation to child protection issues but increasingly in relation to school behaviour issues, to provide packages of support for a family's entire existence. Very often, such a package is focused on the child's interests initially, but it can reach much wider than that. People who work in voluntary organisations have the great advantage of not being worried about being social workers, policemen or—

We must ensure that that expertise drives the public sector agendas as well. That is the point.

We can benefit hugely from those insights.

We have touched on statements of assurance, and you mentioned getting them by the end of May. Are any of them in already?

I would need to ask my officials. I think that some statements are beginning to come in.

We have had several.

People have until the end of the month to submit them.

What action is open to you if you have any concerns about the progress that is being made?

Once I have had the chance to assess responses and once officials have advised me on what they are seeing, if I think that there are any inadequacies I have the capacity to speak to the organisations involved and encourage them to focus their minds a bit more clearly on what needs to be done. In some aspects of what we do, inspection processes are currently in existence, so we can ask to look at things if we are seriously worried. However, the evidence that I have got from speaking to chief officials in health boards, local authorities and police forces shows that they are taking the matter very seriously. I expect them to do a thorough job. The exercise will not show immediately that everything in the garden is rosy; what we need to be assured about is that people have plans of action to sort things out.

My question follows on from Rhona Brankin's questions about tackling risk and blame. I am not sure how we are progressing on recommendations 6 and 12 of "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". We heard evidence that we need not just to assess risk, but to manage risk and minimise it. It was put to us forcefully by witnesses that we could not—and should not—remove children who are potentially at risk from their families. It was also put to us that it is those who are working most closely with families to support them who tend to get the blame when things go wrong. Despite the fact that they are not necessarily responsible for the abuse, they are the ones who get the blame because of the culture in which they operate.

Are you talking about social workers?

Yes; social workers and case workers. The families tend to be responsible for the abuse, but the social workers who are trying to support them get the blame when something goes wrong. What steps are being taken to improve training and to help social workers to manage and minimise risk?

Recommendation 6 concerns the child fatality reviews. Can you bring us up to date on progress in that area? It has been pointed out that we need to focus on learning constructive lessons rather than on apportioning blame. The deputy convener made a point about Disclosure Scotland, which was set up to minimise risk—that is its raison d'être—but perhaps there is a need to look at some of the concerns and to take a more sophisticated approach to minimising risk rather than an approach that could be bureaucratic.

Some of the issues that you raise are matters of professional judgment; they concern how someone assesses a risk and decides whether to intervene. In a sense, the social worker's key skill lies in making a comprehensive assessment of a family's circumstances, making judgments about the risk and then deciding whether they need to intervene or—if they do not—what other measures, checks and balances they might put in place. That is fundamental to the social worker's task and is, therefore, fundamental to how we train social workers and what we do to enhance their skills for continuing professional development, and so on.

One of the benefits of the job that I do is that I am able to compare and contrast social work with education and the support systems that we put in place for teachers with those that exist for social workers. Frankly, social workers do not have the support apparatus around them that teachers have. That is partly because of the profession's age: it has not been in existence for anything like the same length of time as the teaching profession. However, some of the recent innovations that we have made in teaching—for example, some of the things that we are doing on continuing professional development—can be read across to social work. We are considering whether a parallel concept to the chartered teacher concept could be applied in social work.

The convener spoke about the need to keep people at the front line. I suspect that we have a system within social work that is similar to that which existed in education in the past, whereby people are promoted and key skills are taken out of the front line just when they are needed to make difficult judgments. Understandably, people accept such promotions for economic reasons. Perhaps we need to rethink that. We want to consider that point within a wider look at social work.

I was in Australia and New Zealand recently and looked into child protection issues there. I knew that, in both countries, there had been significant incidents that were similar to those that we have had in this country. I was fascinated to discover what the authorities in Australia and New Zealand are doing. In New Zealand, I found a particular view about how risk assessment is managed, and I brought back some paperwork about that and about how better frameworks can be created around social workers, who have almost absolute discretion at present. Are there things that we need to do to help to minimise the risks to them from the judgments that they make by creating clearer risk assessment parameters around them? We do not have an answer to that question at this stage. A huge amount of work needs to be done around that.

As I said in Parliament recently—I know that others subscribe to this view—we tend to hear about social workers only when one of their judgments goes wrong. Given the number of interventions that take place—some will be happening right now, as we speak—and given that we never hear anything about most of them because they go perfectly well, I can understand completely why social workers feel beleaguered. We need to do more to support them in the job that they do. We are doing a lot on risk assessment, but we need to do more. However, others will have the professional skill and insights on those issues that I do not possess.

I will need to come back to you on the specifics of the child fatality review. However, having been in Australia and New Zealand, I know that in both those countries notification of every child death is given automatically to the children's commissioner, who can conduct a child death inquiry where appropriate. Having heard about that experience, I do not necessarily suggest that we should do the same in Scotland but, given that we tend to go into inquiry after inquiry after every child fatality and demand inspections and so on, perhaps we should start thinking more deeply about how to deal with the issue more coherently. I will come back to you on the specifics of the follow-up to the recommendations, but I want to do some further thinking following on from the insights that I gained as a result of my recent trip.

We were keen to receive the minister's input today, so I thank him for his useful contribution. That constitutes the final evidence-taking session of our child protection inquiry.

Before we come to the final agenda item, let me mention that we may be able to escape having a meeting next week. Rather than having a second session to consider our draft report on the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Bill, we may be able to wrap up that work in one meeting. On that basis, are members agreed that we can avoid next week's meeting?

Members indicated agreement.

The final agenda item, which we should complete fairly quickly, is consideration of the child protection inquiry's emerging themes. The clerks need a bit of guidance on what issues members thought were important. We will not have a debate today, although we can have one later. Perhaps James Douglas-Hamilton will kick off.

We need to address, first, whether guidance should be issued to Disclosure Scotland; secondly, whether there is a sufficient number of social workers with the necessary training; thirdly, whether there should be guidance on information sharing and data protection; fourthly, the need for good risk assessment and the criteria for obtaining it; fifthly, the importance of multidisciplinary inspections; sixthly, the significance of early intervention; seventhly, whether a comprehensive approach should be adopted for dealing with children whose background circumstances include domestic abuse and drug misuse—

Linked to that is the risk assessment on domestic abuse that goes to the children's reporter.

I think that YouthLink Scotland mentioned that.

Eighthly, as stated in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, the interests of the child should always be paramount.

That point is in accordance with the evidence that we heard this morning.

We should stick to making specific comments on the progress against each recommendation in "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". Our job is to hold the Executive to account on whether it is implementing the report fully and speedily. That should be at the core of our report, but some general themes could link into that. The child-centred approach is an issue to which people returned again and again; perhaps we could make a useful contribution on that.

I echo that. We should say that the minister with responsibility for children and young people must lead in that area. As we heard in evidence, the interests of the child rather than just the interests of parents should drive policy across different departments and initiatives.

Perhaps we could focus on family centres and how widespread they are becoming; that relates to what we heard this morning. I agree with all the points that members have made. We must not forget about drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence, among all the other matters, because they are a key aspect. Today's witnesses talked about parenting and about pilot schemes in North and South Ayrshire. We could ask how those schemes will be rolled out.

Like Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, I wrote important points on a piece of paper. I do not think that my notes are terribly different. I have picked up several themes on which we could focus: information sharing; funding; risk assessment; general assessment; basic child protection training; pathways into social work; representation of the voluntary sector on, and the engagement of senior members of staff in, child protection committees; Disclosure Scotland; whether research in the UK about what is effective is insufficient; putting the young person and the child at the centre; how children's views are sought; and continuity of support for families. We have taken evidence on many matters, but we should structure our report around the recommendations in "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". I will give the clerks my piece of paper.

There is not much to add to the comments that have been made. We could comment on virtually every recommendation. Substantial or very good progress has been made on some recommendations.

Disclosure Scotland came up again and again. I am conscious that we did not ask Disclosure Scotland to appear before us.

We wrote to the organisation and received a response.

We received a letter, but it related to only one point. We must be careful what we say about Disclosure Scotland. It would be unfair to the organisation to repeat all the criticisms and all the worries. Perhaps we will need to flag that up for further action.

We will say that the minister should look into Disclosure Scotland, as that is where ultimate responsibility lies. Duplication, timescales and the truth of what the problem is should be considered. That will be the approach.

I am conscious that we have heard a lot from one side of the story, but that we have not given the organisation a chance to respond.

I accept that.

Otherwise, I echo the point about the fact that there are 17 recommendations.

I hope that the clerks can sensibly fit around the recommendations many of the observations that have been made. We have had a paper on emerging themes before.

The gap is greatest in relation to the information-sharing recommendation. We could have one or two quotations from the evidence that we have heard about why information sharing is necessary and why only the Executive can pursue it, and from the paper that we received from Norma Baldwin about her timetable, to identify what might be needed. We should look for a specific ministerial commitment on the number of years that it will take to implement that recommendation. The truth is that to make that happen, a different skill set from that which is available will be required in the Executive. We should flesh out recommendation 15 only, because that is the recommendation on which the gap between the intention and achievement so far is greatest.

My comments follow from what various members, including me, have said. The accent has been on processes and procedures, but we should say something about preventive work and the evidence that we have received on that. Perhaps we could flag up this morning's interesting evidence about automatic referrals.

I echo some of what has been said. The evidence this morning was important and interesting, as it showed that the child-centred approach results in a different approach in practice to following through not just drug issues, but the accompanying mishmash of matters.

A timescale gap exists. Many good things are happening, but what happens in the meantime to fill gaps and to ensure that we are as protective as we can be? That relates to the use of staff, more early intervention and other matters. There is an underlying issue of how much we put into the assessment system, and into doing something about it; at the end of the day, that is what this is about.

Elaine Murray talked about research. Long-term research is important; it was noticeable that there were many matters on which only US evidence was available. We need to include something on that. Children 1st raised the issue of the national child protection helpline; we should consider how that fits into what the minister said today. There are various views on that. There is an issue about inexperienced staff, and whether the training is right yet. Money has been going into training, so there is movement there. A specific point that I picked up was the limited availability of police medical examiners; that raises an issue if criminal proceedings or similar such investigations have to take place. That arose from one of the papers that we received—I think that it was from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.

The Association of Head Teachers in Scotland made a point about the need for a succinct, readily accessible chronology of events on all files, as happens on general practitioner reports, so that a file can be linked across. Glasgow City Council made an interesting point about its procedure for a significant case review sub-group. If lots of cases are coming through, there is a need to prioritise; the issue is how we identify the cases that present a risk and in which there are things that we must prevent from happening.

Finally, there is an issue that I do not think was mentioned in the evidence. A letter that we received from the Fostering Network described the need for 650 more fosterers. Without the resources, we are getting into inappropriate placements and so on. There are a number of issues there.

Another issue that you touched on but which the committee has not really discussed much, unless I have missed it, is how information on vulnerable children is shared and where that fits into the record-keeping system in schools for example, where co-ordinated support plans are opened. At the moment, when children are looked after, a care plan is drawn up. How does that fit in with existing systems in schools? How is such information flagged up to the person in the school who needs to know it? There is also the issue about need to know.

It has been said that there will be specific child protection training for all social workers, but I feel that there needs to be child protection training for teachers as well. There is also the issue of how the voluntary sector engages with all this. We heard evidence this morning about how the voluntary sector could be involved in delivering training, and about the difficulties that the voluntary sector has had in releasing people to become involved in that.

That was a strong point about the potential.

In a sense, it is about using the capacity that exists in the voluntary sector.

That was all useful and, as a wash-up, it was quite quick. We will not have a meeting next week, but we will have one on 9 June. The draft of the report will come to us on 16 June. I thank everyone for their attendance at a long but useful session.

Meeting closed at 16:13.