Chamber and committees

The group met only last month for the first time. As the bill passes through the Parliament, the group will be taking all these issues on board. I am sure that it will listen to and take on board all the issues that are raised today.

When it comes to this group of amendments, the choice for members is straightforward: to support either Maurice Golden’s amendment, which will remove the ministerial duty under section 5 to review the act, or Rachael Hamilton’s amendments, which would add to the matters that the Scottish Government’s review under section 5 would have to address. I encourage members to support Mr Golden’s amendment.

The Government’s position on reviewing the act is that any such review is best undertaken by the Parliament, not the Government, and that it is up to the Parliament and relevant committees to do that scrutiny as they see fit. I urge the committee to support Mr Golden’s amendment and to reject Ms Hamilton’s amendments.

I also place on record the fact that I am keen to work with Ms Hamilton as we move to stage 3. However, the bill is not mine but Mr Golden’s, so I encourage her also to engage with him.

I do not know whether Ms Hamilton is aware that, last year, Jim Fairlie and I held a summit on dog legislation and dog welfare, as a result of which an expert advisory group was set up. The group has made quite a lot of progress, and I updated the committee on that at stage 1. Given some of the concerns that were raised at stage 1 about working dogs in general, not just gun dogs, one of Mr Golden’s amendments is for the Government to get the experts in the advisory group work to define “working dog”. That is why I cannot support amendment 19 at this stage.

The expert advisory group is also looking at welfare and a range of other issues. I could go into them, but perhaps it would be better if I wrote to advise Ms Hamilton of all the work that is being done in the background, which she might not be aware of.

The issue of disabled access to child contact centres was raised during the passage of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, which was prior to our time in the Parliament. That led to the bill being amended to provide that the body appointed to oversee regulation would have a function to report any failures relating to the duties under the 2010 act. The intention was to ensure compliance with those existing duties.

As I said, we are now proposing that the Care Inspectorate takes on the notification role. The EHRC, not the Care Inspectorate, is the appropriate body to enforce the equality duties. The regulations will just make it clear that the Care Inspectorate would notify the EHRC so that it could take further action.

I am personally not aware of any, but my officials who have been dealing with this matter might be.

Yes—enforcement would not be up to the Care Inspectorate.

It could become more common. However, it is simply a notification of non-compliance. As I say, it is not up to the Care Inspectorate to rectify things; its role here is simply to notify the EHRC.

One of the issues that was raised is whether additional burdens will be placed on child contact centre providers. All service providers are required to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010, so those should already be in place. What we are looking to do is to notify and underline an issue.

I do not think that I can speculate on what that might mean when taking forward future legislation. I do not know whether any of my officials has any other intelligence to share on that.

As I said in my opening remarks, there will be costs involved for the Care Inspectorate in taking on the role, including for additional staff such as inspectors and complaints advisers, and the Scottish Government has a strategy for funding over the next couple of years.

On the concern that child contact providers might not meet the registration requirements and that there might be closures, we want to avoid any reduction in the number of child contact services, as any lack of availability will impact negatively on children who use the services and the wider family justice system.

The intention is that regulation should not be onerous and that the 18-month lead-in time will help providers to plan and prepare for regulation fully coming into force. We will work with the child contact service sector and the Care Inspectorate during the lead-in period to support existing services as they prepare for regulation coming into force to ensure that they are ready on 1 April 2027.

Yes.

Good morning. The two draft instruments relate to the regulation of child contact services in Scotland. As the committee is aware, the Scottish Government has been working towards this for some time. Our overall policy aim is to ensure that child contact services are safe, conflict-free, child-friendly places for a child to spend time with a parent with whom they do not live. There is widespread support for such regulation.

Child contact services have an important role in the family justice system, helping children to maintain relationships when parents separate and doing so in a supportive and child-focused way.

There are currently around 45 child contact centres in Scotland, and there is already good practice happening in the sector, which I have seen at first hand. However, there is currently no external regulation of child contact services. A key driver for regulation is to have a body in place that provides independent oversight, which will ensure that there is consistently good practice across the sector, while also driving improvements where needed.

The first instrument, the draft Regulation of Care (Child Contact Services) (Scotland) Order 2025, will extend the Care Inspectorate’s regulatory framework to child contact services by adding them to the list of care services that the inspectorate regulates under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. The instrument will, in effect, put the inspectorate in place as an independent oversight body.

The Care Inspectorate has been our preferred choice for that role for some time. It is an experienced scrutiny and assurance body that already regulates a range of services that are used by children and families, and we believe that the Care Inspectorate is best placed to provide oversight and to achieve the best outcomes for children who use child contact services. We have been in detailed discussions with the inspectorate during our preparation of these Scottish statutory instruments.

The second instrument, the draft Regulation of Care (Child Contact Services) (Equality) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, will confer an additional function on the Care Inspectorate, requiring it to notify the Equality and Human Rights Commission of any failure of a child contact service to comply with its duties under the Equality Act 2010, in particular the duty to make “reasonable adjustments” for disabled people. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is the appropriate enforcement body for those existing duties, and the purpose of that function is to ensure that child contact services are meeting their 2010 act duties without placing any additional duties on them.

Both draft instruments provide for a lead-in period of 18 months before regulation will fully come into force on 1 April 2027; that is to ensure that the Care Inspectorate will have sufficient time to carry out the necessary preparatory work. Child contact centres will be a new type of sector for the Care Inspectorate to regulate, so it will need time to build knowledge and understanding of the sector, as well as to recruit and train new staff, to prepare materials—for example, in relation to registration and complaints—and to develop a bespoke quality improvement framework. There will be engagement with the sector and other stakeholders during that time. The 18-month period will also give child contact services time to familiarise themselves with the new regime and to prepare.

The two instruments are a significant step forward towards the next phase of implementation for this regulation work, and the next 18 months will be important in how the Care Inspectorate regulatory framework will be shaped for child contact services.

I am happy to take questions, convener.