Item 4 concerns the evidence that we have taken so far in our child protection inquiry and whether we want to invite any more witnesses to appear before the committee. Members have a summary of the evidence that we have heard. Rhona Brankin suggested that it would be useful to take stock halfway through the process to see where we were going.
I think that we have gathered a fair amount of evidence, as demonstrated by the size of the summary document. The question is what we want to pursue with the minister. We have heard a lot of interesting views. For example, I think that the trade unions had an interesting slant on recruitment issues and a number of other areas. At this point, we should decide on the focus of our inquiry, what we want to pursue with ministers and what recommendations we want to make thereafter. I do not know whether it is necessary to take further oral evidence.
There are two areas on which we should do some follow-up work, but we could take that evidence in writing. One is the information-sharing area and the other is Professor Baldwin's work on the multi-agency inspections. There are specific recommendations on those areas in "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright", but both areas have been dropped from the child protection charter.
I am not sure that we have taken enough evidence on early intervention, given the emphasis on that issue. I would like to hear more about projects such as sure start and how they are working. I am also concerned about some of the short-term funded projects. Our witnesses seemed to emphasise that some of the short-term funding projects have difficulties precisely because the funding is short term. I would like to explore that a bit further, if possible.
I agree. I felt that, in taking evidence, we concentrated on the procedures—which is what we intended to do, to a degree—but did not really get a handle on what one did with key risks, how the system worked through and all of that. I wonder whether we need something further in that area.
The Scottish Social Services Council claims that there are sometimes duplications in requests for information on the same person by different organisations. It has suggested that the regulations should be amended so that Disclosure Scotland could be allowed to share information on occasions. I wonder whether that could be followed up with Disclosure Scotland and a minister.
On the point that Rosemary Byrne and the convener have made about early-years intervention, I thought that the committee had decided at the start of last year that we wanted to conduct a full-blown investigation into that subject. Following a query into something else, I discovered that the Executive is going to produce its own early-years framework document by June—before the recess. I am not against our having one session on sure start, but I would prefer us to conduct a major, committee-led inquiry into how we get the first five years of all children's lives right. I thought that that was in our work programme. We could perhaps investigate the Executive's new document to see whether we are comfortable with it for next year.
That is a dilemma. We have talked before about what might be described as general early-years learning. However, Rosemary Byrne's point is about the targeted measures to prevent kids from going off the tracks at an early stage, whether that is effective and what works or does not work. The other issue that is lurking is the Executive's review of children's hearings. I imagine that we will have some part to play in that, although I think that we will divide our remit with the justice committees.
We should request that we do that.
Yes, although I certainly think that we should be involved with the review. However, the Executive has to carry out its consultation first and we will not want to get into that until it has explored the issues and knows where it is going with them. That will be for a later inquiry. The issue for this inquiry is whether we need to know a bit more about the targeted early-intervention stuff—I think that that is Rosemary Byrne's point.
Yes. That is exactly what I am looking for.
I have two suggestions. We need to write to Disclosure Scotland on the range of issues that have been raised by Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and by the witnesses. We can reflect on whether we need to take oral evidence from Disclosure Scotland, but our inquiry might be satisfied by its answers to the question that we pursue in writing.
At the moment, our timetable mentions a lengthy session on 26 May. We are not talking about an all-day session, but that is one of the days on which the Parliament has to move out of the chamber because of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is possible to have a longer discussion that day; I think that we have agreed that we would probably want to continue the session rather than have two sessions. Provisionally, it is intended that we have the minister before the committee on that day as well, but we have a little bit of scope to call other witnesses if we want to.
I suggest that we write to organisations such as Disclosure Scotland in the first instance. There is a tendency to over-consult orally, which can make it difficult to focus on the issues. The discipline of writing to an organisation enables us to ask the specific questions that we want to put and to get equally specific replies. My only proviso is that we need to ensure that we get a response in good time so that we can form the questions for our session with the minister.
I think that there is general support for that proposal, as one or two members have spoken in favour of that course of action. That deals with Disclosure Scotland. The remaining area that has been touched on is the targeted early-years stuff. I think that the general feeling is that we should have a bit more evidence on that area, but I might have misinterpreted the consensus.
My thoughts on Disclosure Scotland were that we should clearly flag up our concerns. In some ways, however, that is a side issue and one that we would have to pursue outside the remit of the inquiry. That said, I am happy for us to write to Disclosure Scotland, as that is a consultative way of taking things forward.
It is fair to say that we are not obliged, by any need to report to the Parliament or by any legislation or whatever, to finish the inquiry by a particular time. Obviously, there is merit in setting self-defined areas for the inquiry. It is right that we do so. A lot of the issues feed into other areas of our work. The question is how much further we want to go on the inquiry. We may be able to review the matter after we have seen the minister. The staffing issues are important, for example, and I think that we would want to pursue them with the minister. Some of the other issues will feed into other inquiries that we will undertake. We are going to be legislation bound for a bit, with the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Bill and the proposed Gaelic bill to deal with.
We will lose our impact if we let the matter drift. Instead of hearing more evidence, we should focus on the subject. I have no problem with the suggestions that have been made today. We should not wait for anything; we should pencil in the sessions and the meeting with the minister and get on with producing the report.
However, we can, if we wish, hear a witness or witnesses on 26 May. Even on the current timescale, we would still have time to consider that evidence. I suggest that we hear that evidence before we hear from the minister—we have an hour or an hour and a half in the morning, if we want it to use it. It would be possible to fit in some other evidence taking if the committee wished.
We are hearing from the minister on 26 May and we then go straight into writing our report.
Yes. We have a couple of time slots later on, when we can consider our report, so we have a little bit of time to consider the issues further if necessary—but we will not do so if we do not need to.
That suits my personal timescale.
I do not think that the business of the whole Parliament is entirely linked to that.
If we could, I would like us to fit in some more witnesses on 26 May.
Whom would you suggest, or what areas are you thinking of?
I will have to think about that—I might speak to Martin Verity later.
I caution against having too many witnesses on the day that we hear from the minister, as we will not have time to reflect on the important points that they will make. The whole point of having the witnesses before us is to distil from their evidence the key points that we need to pursue with the minister. The problem with having a whole load of people in the morning and hearing from the minister in the afternoon is that we will not have time to reflect on what the witnesses have said.
We are not necessarily suggesting hearing from a whole lot of people.
It is not my instinct that ministers do not intend to implement "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright". I think that ministers are not aware of the level of detail that we have gone into on the subject, because of its widespread nature. If we are trying—in a genuinely cross-party way—to draw ministerial attention not to the charter, but to "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright", we should take some time to share with the minister what we have discovered in our inquiry. The expectation is that the minister will read our report at the end of our inquiry. He is more likely to engage with the report's recommendations if we use the meeting not just in an interrogative way—although we have an interrogative function—but for sharing information and discussing the issues. We know an awful lot that we need the minister, and the officials sitting next to him, to take on board.
To be fair, I think that Robert Brown told us about that, which is to do with the fact that, because the Parliament will not meet in plenary session during the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, committees will have more time.
We have had this discussion before, although I should add in fairness that we did not previously know the times that were available to the minister. I understand that we will have an hour, from 2 o'clock. That is the slot that we have.
An hour?
Yes. It is pretty fixed.
He does not like seeing us for very long, does he?
I might be wrong, but I am not entirely certain that we will need more than an hour on the subject.
I am conscious of what happened at the previous budget process session with the minister. To be fair to the minister, it was not his fault that we had limited time then, but the committee has not had that much time with Peter Peacock.
The budget is more complex and raises a whole series of issues. That slot is the one that we have, although we could take longer with the minister. I do not think that there would be any difficulty getting a bit longer if necessary. The idea was to hear from him at 2 o'clock and then, from 3 o'clock, to discuss the emerging themes, which would inform our draft report for two or three weeks later.
Why not ask whether the minister is available, suggesting that the session might take longer than an hour?
Do members think that the session might require longer than an hour?
Yes, it might. If we are taking other oral evidence, I do not think that we should do so on the same day; we should do so in advance of that day. It is important that the minister and his officials have the opportunity to reflect on the Official Report of the evidence that has been presented to us.
There is nothing else on that day, so we could have an extended meeting if we want—with nothing in particular to put in it. I am not saying, however, that we have to fill the time up. I am not sure that it is that difficult to take other evidence on the same day if we want to. I am in the hands of the committee.
I do not have the timetable for this to hand, but I have another suggestion. Will we be moving on to the long-awaited subject of powers of intervention?
Yes.
I know that we have other witnesses, but I do not think that we need to spend a whole meeting taking their evidence. We might be able to double up. I envisage being able to hear from the early-intervention witnesses in one evidence-taking session, with a panel of, say, three. There is no reason why we cannot have that session on the same day as we deal with the powers of intervention.
I do not think that we can do that. We have meetings on 5 May and 12 May with various officials who have agreed to come. I think that that will take up the bulk of the time. There will be several panels, as has been the case in the past. We will not just be talking about ministerial powers; we will be talking about the independent schools bids. I think that 26 May is the realistic slot, although we can have that session later if we have to because there is no set timescale. However, the question is whether we want to take other evidence at this point or later. We could make use of the slot on that day. I would like us perhaps to hear some evidence on early-intervention techniques that are being used at the moment.
Is there any possibility of swapping witnesses around and taking some of the evidence on powers of intervention on the morning of 26 May and the evidence on early intervention earlier? That seems to be a more sensible way of organising ourselves.
Yes, except that we have tight timescales if we are to get the witnesses at an earlier date.
The committee has expressed its views, so I suggest that we trust the convener and clerks to come up with a solution.
I am not sure that the convener has got the feel of the committee. Am I interpreting the committee's views rightly by saying that there is a desire—albeit not an overwhelming one—to take some evidence on early interventions? We want some suggestions on that and we have to have them within the next few days. We are talking about sure start Scotland and issues in that general area. We would prefer to take that evidence a week earlier if we can but, if we cannot, we will do what we can on that date. Is that a reasonable summation? Is that agreed?
As members have no other points to raise, we will take a short break. The minister will be here at 11.30 am.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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Annual Report 2003-04