Chamber and committees

I know that individual social workers whom you employ will have particular roles in areas such as throughcare and aftercare, but other social workers cover a wide range of issues. Therefore, am I correct in thinking that those social workers who deal with care issues can also deal with the other issues?

However, do you recognise that your colleagues in Dundee City Council are completely and resolutely opposed to the proposed change? The chief social workers and all the people who do that work think that it is completely untenable.

Do you think that there is a risk of a culture clash, Jude Currie?

Nicky Connor, have you seen a marshalled evidence base to support the change?

Who have I yet to ask? I have not had the perspective from NHS Highland. What is your view, Louise Bussell?

I thank committee members for their feedback and the discussion on my amendments. I take on board in particular the constructive comments from Fulton MacGregor and Karen Adam regarding some of the specific detail.

I disagree, in a broader sense, that the amendment goes against the principles of the bill. The bill as it stands significantly liberalises the process—rightly so, in the demedicalisation that it achieves. Amendment 45 is about putting a further safeguard in place in the bill as it stands, so I do not agree that it goes against its principles.

That being said, I am very keen to look for a sensible centre ground that can command the broadest possible public support. I still think that there is work to be done in this area. Taking on board those comments from colleagues, I ask members to allow me to continue to pursue conversations with colleagues in committee and elsewhere, so at this stage I ask the committee’s leave to withdraw amendment 45.

Amendments 45 and 48 seek to address concerns of the broad public regarding the robustness of the legislation. We are absolutely clear that Scotland requires a better system for trans people. There has already been discussion this morning around bad-faith actors, and I believe that the proposed system could be improved in order to command broader public support across Scotland. The system must be robust for trans people and non-trans people. In particular, it must recognise the very real concerns of women regarding the possibility of abuse of the system.

The bill is not merely an amendment to the 2004 act. Demedicalisation, which Labour supports, is a profound change and opens up the process considerably. The Government recognises that and that is one of the core purposes of the bill. As such, it requires a different kind of safeguard against those who might abuse the legislation. As it stands, a balance must be struck and I believe that more could be done to achieve that.

Amendments 45 and 48 are modelled on the process for obtaining a passport, which is a well-understood and commonly respected process for changing personal details that applies to every one of us. When someone changes that documentation it requires a signature from a person of good standing whom they know. The effect of the amendments would be to ensure that an application is made as part of the community, rather than as a solitary individual.

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for engaging on the amendment. The cabinet secretary has indicated that the statutory declaration is a sufficient safeguard. I ask her to put her thinking on that point on the record at this stage. I believe that that reasoning has not featured in any of the discussion of the bill, its consultation, ministerial correspondence, the stage 1 report or the stage 1 debate. At this point, it would be good to hear the cabinet secretary’s rationale.

I have concerns that a statutory declaration on its own could be seen as transactional because it amounts to a small fee being paid to a lawyer to witness a signature and say that current identity documents have been produced—it is not about knowing someone. The broader effect of amendments 45 and 48 would be to raise the bar for bad-faith actors and would increase the confidence for trans people seeking recognition.

I am keen to hear from other members and the cabinet secretary on the sufficiency of the statutory declaration in the bill as it is proposed and on the rationale for a passport-style system being too high a bar for the GRC process yet being appropriate for the process of changing personal details for every member of the public.

I move amendment 45.

The bill is about creating a national care service. My understanding is that social work and children’s services do an awful lot that is not about formal care. Will you explain the breadth of the proposal in the bill and say how much of it goes beyond care? We have heard a bit about prevention, but it would be useful to hear more.

Convener, the list that was supplied at schedule 3 is useful; however, if the children’s commissioner’s office, in particular, has any further areas of concern, including about other legislation, it may want to write to the committee and supply those, as that would be particularly useful to the committee as well.

Claire, you talked about defining the problems and about families who get into crisis before services step in. That is the preventative space. It does not seem to me that that is a care issue. Is it appropriate, therefore, for those services to sit within the national care service? That is going to be a huge service and it will be dominated—rightly, I think—by the huge problems in social care that we have in this country. Is there a risk that what we are discussing will become a Cinderella service or, even worse, that some of the prevention issues will be ignored entirely?