Chamber and committees

The next petition on our agenda is PE1692, which was lodged by Lesley Scott and Alison Preuss on behalf of Tymes Trust and the Scottish Home Education Forum. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to initiate an independent public inquiry into the impact on human rights of the routine gathering and sharing of citizens’ personal information, on which its getting it right for every child—GIRFEC—policy relies.

The committee previously considered the petition in May. The committee heard that, in January 2020, the Deputy First Minister and then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills had said that guidance and material to support information-sharing practice were being developed. In May, the committee agreed to write to the current Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to seek an update on timescales for the publication of that guidance.

The cabinet secretary confirmed that refreshed material has been published and explained that the refreshed material, including the statutory guidance for the assessment of wellbeing, were co-produced by working groups including practitioners from relevant sectors, that the statutory guidance on the assessment of wellbeing was subject to a public consultation, and that the remaining documents, including on the role of the named person and information sharing, were subject to direct engagement with key stakeholders.

In the petitioners’ submission, they argued that the cabinet secretary’s submission is irrelevant to the purpose of the petition. That is because the petition calls for a retrospective and independent public inquiry into the impact on human rights of the routine gathering and sharing of citizens’ personal information in relation to the GIRFEC policy and is not about addressing

“possible future harm through any ‘refreshed material’.”

Do members have any comments?

Wendy Brownlie, are you able to respond now?

I know that Carrie Lindsay wants to comment, so maybe she can be the first to answer my question. I am from the Lothians, and that is the area that I represent. We attract a lot of commuters and we get people coming in from all the surrounding local authority areas. Margot Black said that there are no catchments for nurseries, which we all know. Should we be considering provision that crosses local authority borders? I have someone in my area who lives in Edinburgh but works in East Lothian, and they cannot pick up or drop off their child around their working time.

Following on from that, there is a perception that families have to use the local nursery that is nearest to them. Communication on how broad based and open the provision perhaps is is not reaching the ground, and we have a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. I am curious about your thoughts on that. If you do not mind, Carrie, I will put you on the spot and ask you to answer that first, and maybe you can respond to Ruth Maguire’s questions at the same time.

Wendy, would you like to come in now?

Oh dear. Let us wait to see whether we get the connection back.

Margot Black, would you like to respond to Graeme Dey’s point?

We move to questions from Ruth Maguire.

I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. I am sure that everyone in the chamber will be deeply concerned that Scotland has the highest suicide rate in the United Kingdom. Last year, 753 Scots took their own lives; that is 753 people who were not given the support that they needed.

I welcome the new suicide prevention strategy and action plan and, like the minister, thank every organisation, family and individual that contributed to its development. Every suicide is preventable, and we owe it to those who have lost their lives, and to their families, to make sure that Scotland’s suicide prevention plan is the very best that it can be.

Although I welcome the doubling of annual funding for suicide prevention to £2.8 million by 2025-26, it does not matter how much money we spend on developing effective suicide prevention interventions when, ultimately, we know that the most significant barrier to improving mental health nationwide is the lack of well-trained clinicians. We may have mental health interventions that work—but we lack the workforce or infrastructure to deliver them.

A strong suicide prevention strategy requires us to intervene early. Samaritans Scotland said that the bar is still far too high for accessing support when facing a crisis. More sustainable investment in crisis support is required to promote and deliver 24-hour, open access, crisis support for those in distress and crisis. Does the minister agree that the prevention strategy needs to ensure that people are supported before they face such a crisis?

National Galleries of Scotland has said that the crisis is bigger than the pandemic and that the roots of the issue go much further back—as far back as 2008. Budgets have been reduced and have never fully recovered. Museums and galleries in Scotland have done everything possible to address the current challenges. They have reduced their operating costs by 67 per cent while increasing activity to help to achieve net zero, but budgets continue to shrink. What steps is the Scottish Government taking to accelerate and support our culture sector’s recovery? What additional financial resources is it currently considering? After all, the sector is critical to the city’s economy and the country’s reputation.

The minister must be concerned about the impact that her Government’s shocking funding is having on equalities in the profession. Will she highlight for members the percentage split between male and female practitioners generally, and the split in legal aid criminal work specifically? Will she set out in detail what steps her Government is taking right now to address that difference?