Some fearsome new facts from the ground show that, for the first time, the number of staff who are leaving the health service has outstripped the number who are joining it, with 75,000 NHS staff being absent due to mental illness over the past five years. It is little surprise that record numbers of NHS staff are leaving the health service. Recruiting more NHS staff will have little effect if existing staff are leaving at a higher rate, so what steps is the cabinet secretary taking to ensure that our NHS staff are valued, respected and protected? Does he accept that his predecessor, Humza Yousaf, bears the responsibility for that exodus?

I have a brief supplementary question about retention. You mentioned some of the things that you offer for flexible working, but you also spoke of your higher attrition rate, which is perhaps due to the nature of the people who come to you. What else are you doing to try to tackle the retention element and keep as staff in post for as long as possible?

Everyone always wants more, but what else is there in the package that the staff get? It is not just about pay and pensions, is it? Do they get anything else that will encourage them to stay with NHS 24 or is that all predetermined nationally by the NHS? I am thinking of health facilities, gym facilities and all those sorts of things. I am not sure—I am maybe overreaching a little bit.

That is very helpful. Thank you.

You will know that the NHS has a target to reduce sickness absence to less than 5 per cent. However, your submission notes that the sickness absence rate in the Ambulance Service is 8.9 per cent, and that you have a high proportion of staff with mental or physical health problems compared to other sections. What is your current sickness absence rate if the Covid-related absences are removed? What are the main underlying causes of those non-Covid absences? Is it still the musculoskeletal and physical pain aspects?

That precludes my second question, because there was so much in the answer. Briefly, on the evaluation of all those systems or the things that you are putting in place, do you have something to assess how they are working and what impact they will have?

The minister may be heartened by today’s figures, but I am utterly dismayed. Originally, the Government planned to implement the standards by April 2022, but it was forced to push the deadline to April 2024 with the promise that only standards 1 to 5 would be fully implemented by April 2023—and here we are. Today’s analysis lays bare the failure of this Scottish National Party Government: a full third of standards 1 to 5 have not been fully implemented, despite the promise of 100 per cent implementation.

In the foreword to the report, Tom Bennett from the Scottish Recovery Consortium highlighted that in many Scottish local authorities the failure to meet those expectations is leading to “tragic outcomes”. The minister’s statement made scant reference to the prison system, but the report itself is totally damning. It states that

“Clinical capacity to deliver the MAT standards in prisons is insufficient”

and highlights

“structural and healthcare capacity issues”

across the prison service. So, it is shocking that the minister remained almost silent on the problem in our prisons in her statement. That is exactly the time when we should be intervening to support those who want to break the cycle of substance misuse. Given the emerging drug trends unfolding in our prison system, can the minister tell us specifically what has been done to break the cycle of addiction in prisons?

And going in.

I think that Colin wants to come in on that point, Stephen.

Good morning, and welcome to the 19th meeting in 2023 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee.

The first item on our agenda is a round-table session on violence in schools. The committee is aware that a number of incidents of violent behaviour have taken place in schools across Scotland over the past year. We want to understand more about those incidents, so we have arranged this discussion so that we can hear from a range of voices. In particular, the committee is keen to understand how common incidents of violence in schools are, which factors contribute to such incidents taking place in our schools and what could be done to help students, parents and teachers.

I welcome our witnesses. In no particular order, we are joined by Anne Keenan, assistant secretary at the Educational Institute of Scotland; Mike Corbett, national official for Scotland at the NASUWT; Beau Johnston, member of the Scottish Youth Parliament; Carrie Lindsay, executive director of education and children’s services at Fife Council, who is representing the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland; Dr Colin Morrison, co-director of the Children’s Parliament; Nick Smiley, chair of the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists; Dr Joan Mowat, senior lecturer in the school of education at the University of Strathclyde; and Cheryl Burnett, chair of the National Parent Forum of Scotland. Thank you all for joining us.

We begin with a bit of housekeeping. Today’s session is a round-table discussion. It is intended to be more of a conversation than a question-and-answer session, which is what Government ministers who appear before the committee get. Members will pose questions to help to create a structure for our discussion, but if any witness wants to come in, they should please catch my eye or that of one of the clerks, who are sitting to my left, and I will do my best to bring them in.

I will start off by asking an opening question to set the scene. Does the panel think that we currently have a clear picture of the violence that is taking place in schools across Scotland? I invite Cheryl Burnett to answer first.