Chamber and committees

The information gives us a sense that the services are failing. I am thinking of the evidence that we took for our scrutiny of the Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill and the evidence on secure accommodation that we took recently from the commissioner for our scutiny of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill. What is happening on the ground does not match the intention of the policy—the mismatch is quite vast and seems to be growing—and the commissioner highlighted that.

I am talking about the new commissioner, but, looking back, the previous or outgoing commissioner was critical of many of the Government’s policies when he was in post, and he shone a spotlight on, and was very critical of, their development and implementation. We are transitioning to a new commissioner, so I am trying to figure out how best to respond to your question. In the past, the previous commissioner very much challenged the implementation.

I alluded to the massive gap that people see between the policy and how it feels to the young people on the ground. There is a massive disparity there, and the commissioner plays an advocacy role in championing the rights of those children.

Your question has answered itself, Mr Greer. Fitting it into our work plan would be a challenge, and there is also overlap. The children’s commissioner represents disabled children and children who are neurodivergent. She is responsible for advocating for all those people. Far too much overlap would cause conflict for young people. Who is their advocate? Who is best placed to serve them going forward? It would make scrutiny within the committee system and the education committee more complex.

Whether they have a vote is irrelevant. Young people deserve to have someone to act as their voice in here, regardless of that.

The role of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner is specifically to give voices to young people, which is something that the Government makes assumptions about. The other week, when the commissioner was giving evidence to us, some of our questions about the challenges were about what we presumed to be important, but she kept bringing us back to the point that she was there to make representations on what the young people had said. She was quite clear in reinforcing that argument. The assumptions that we make about the challenges that young people face today—and all these things—can be quite sweeping sometimes.

Going back to budgets and the spend, you may struggle to pinpoint the value added—it is a fine balance—but there is potentially the chance to be a little bit more critical about some of the more tangible things like spending on travel and ancillary items.

Part of the commissioner’s evidence—as a committee, we hear far too often about this—was about the massive implementation gap that exists between policy and what happens on the ground. The evidence outlines that the creation of another body or person to champion the needs of a specific group appears to be a reaction to ineffective policy implementation and a lack of access to justice.

We need to be mindful about how we proceed, with the potential for exponential growth in the number of commissioners or in their budgets.

I am here as the convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, and I am struggling not to give my party’s view—but thank you for your question. I will leave it there.

Okay! [Laughter.] It was also interesting to learn about her new and innovative ways of engaging with young people to make sure that she was hearing their voices. I am fortunate enough that a couple of members of this committee were part of that evidence taking and I know that they will reinforce that.

The commissioner’s powers are being expanded later this year with the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We will be able to gauge her powers of having some influence across the community.

Other than that, our scrutiny will be based mainly on the evidence that the commissioner’s office shares with us, aligned to our other programmes of work on legislation, including evidence on bills, and inquiries that we are working on. That is where we are.

They do, but disabled young people are covered by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner. As I said previously, the children’s commissioner is for every young person, whether able-bodied or disabled.

I am not certain that the commissioner spoke an awful lot about that specifically to us, because the evidence was about her strategy going forward. She was taking a new approach. In the past, you have heard about the gaps in keeping the Promise and how care-experienced young people still feel let down. We had an informal session with them and we heard some quite critical voices. It is the role of the commissioner to champion those voices as well.

Do you want to go first, Martin, while I have a think?