Chamber and committees

I am pleased to be speaking on behalf of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. First, I thank the member in charge for introducing the bill, which has given us the opportunity to discuss both at committee and, importantly, here in the chamber today the important issue of how to improve the opportunities for disabled children and young people as they grow up.

I thank colleagues for their detailed consideration of the bill and all the people and organisations who provided evidence, either in person or by responding to our call for views. ARC Scotland helped us to organise informative, informal sessions involving young disabled people called divergent influencers, a group of parents and carers of disabled and young people and a group of practitioners who are involved in improving the experiences of young people as they make the vital transition to young adult life.

I also thank the pupils at Buchanan high school, which is an additional support needs secondary school in Coatbridge, who hosted an extremely informative visit and told us about their preparations for leaving the school that year. Speaking to all those pupils was invaluable and it gave us a great insight into the issues that children and young people are facing.

I have not yet had that detail. Perhaps the Government can make that clear in its contributions during the debate.

Make no mistake, we intend to return to the issue of the transitions strategy, and we will be pressing the Government to move more quickly on introducing and implementing an appropriate and robust national strategy. It will not be an option for the strategy to lie on a shelf, gathering dust.

The committee heard concerns about the legislative competence of the bill’s provisions on the assigning of a minister with special responsibility, and about the accuracy of the costs associated with the bill. The member in charge responded to those points.

A major concern for us was how the bill, if it became an act, would interact with the laws that are already in place in this area. For example, the existing legislative framework refers to additional support needs rather than disability, and we felt that it was unclear whom exactly would be covered by the bill.

The committee was also concerned about the need for a diagnosis in order for young people to access support as set out in the bill, even though the definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010, which is used in the bill, does not require a diagnosis to be made.

To ask the First Minister what work is being done to support the expanding role of the general practitioner surgery. (S6F-02562)

The expanding role of GP surgeries is critical in helping to prevent acute hospitals and accident and emergency departments from being overwhelmed. However, they cannot recruit and retain the various MDT members that the First Minister has referred to.

Colinton surgery in my region has contacted me to express its concern about the disparity in pay that is developing between GP surgery staff and national health service staff. There is now a two-tier NHS pay scale. Staff at the surgery are frustrated and demoralised. Pay for GP staff was uplifted less than it was for their NHS colleagues under the agenda for change. Will the First Minister find the investment to ensure that an uplift can be agreed to support those expanding GP practices that continue to struggle?

At the Education, Children and Young People Committee meeting yesterday, we heard powerful evidence from Who Cares? Scotland regarding the importance of siblings being kept together, whether in residential care or in foster care. We heard about the conflict relating to the reducing numbers in residential care, which sometimes prevents that. Could the member reflect on that?

The oversight board has concluded that delivering the original aims of “Plan 21-24” is no longer realistic within that timeframe. You have spoken of some great successes in Glasgow. What assessment has your organisation made of that? Do you believe that the Promise can be kept by 2030?

Thank you, Louise. Nicola, do you want to come in on that?

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session with the first of two panels on the progress that has been made towards achieving the Promise. I welcome Kevin Mitchell, executive director of the Care Inspectorate; Mike Burns, assistant chief officer of the Glasgow health and social care partnership, and convener and chair of the national chief social work officer committee; and Fraser McKinlay, chief executive of The Promise Scotland. Good morning.

I would like to say on the record that, although we are hearing from a range of organisations today, we very much want to hear from children and young people, too, and we hope to arrange to do so in the coming months. I want to make sure that people are aware of that.

We will move straight to questions from members. Michelle Thomson will kick off.

Remember that workforce issues will be explored by another member.

That is fine.