Chamber and committees

Yes.

It is not, but hang on a minute. We are expecting them to be held by a stable, lifelong, loving relationship in their own birth families.

Fraser McKinlay, what is your solution?

Okay. Can I just put that last question to Fraser?

Again, that is a stable, lifelong, loving relationship, even if it is not in their birth family.

The Scottish Parliament’s job is to hold to account the Scottish Government and extensions of it, including social work, to ensure that they are delivering on the ambitions that are set out in the great rhetoric that we have around the Promise. I am worried by the evidence that you have given and by your press release in the summer, in which you said that we have reached breaking point and have, I think, three-year-olds in residential care.

We have a situation where social workers are having to take children home. The system is creaking.

For me, this process began 10 years ago. The origins were in a care review in New Zealand. We saw that ambition to change the whole care system and we said, “Why does Scotland not have that ambition?” It was actually nine years and 11 months ago, on 15 October 2016, when Nicola Sturgeon stood up at the Scottish National Party conference and declared that she would rip up the care system if necessary.

I do not see which bits of the system have been ripped up. We do not have direction from a person, organisation or body saying, “Here’s how we go forward,” or saying that some things have to stop and some things have to start. I am hearing good evidence on the ground that only half the people who should be getting throughcare and aftercare support are getting it. Some care leavers cannot even get the council tax exemption, because local authorities do not have the paperwork in place. That is fairly basic stuff.

There has been success on further and higher education and the bursary, but the system looks very similar to how it looked 10 years ago, when we said that, from that day forward, it would change. That is an entire childhood, from the age of five to 15 years, and we have the crisis that you have talked about.

We have not even touched on residential care. I do not see how someone can form a lifelong loving relationship when there is a staff rota pattern that involves 20 people going through their house every week. We have children as young as three in residential care, and I know of five and eight-year-olds in there, too.

My question is: why are we stuck? There have been many different people sat round committee tables, scrutinising many people in similar roles who are accountable for the non-delivery that is happening. What is happening is tragic, but we are told, “We don’t know what’s working, but it’s great rhetoric—let’s sell that.”

What has to change? The Audit Scotland report is clear that there is, at best, a guddle in terms of who is driving this forward. We have the different Promise accountability mechanisms, with the strategic adviser, the Promise group and the Oversight Board. Then there are others such as the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland that are associated with the work. Then there are local authorities saying that they do not have the resource to deliver—

I totally respect that, but who should be responsible for making sure that that happens? As you said earlier, the situation seems to be a bit of a mess. Who should be responsible for making sure that all the things that we have discussed actually happen?

That, for me, is the core issue. For all our children, it is about a stable, lifelong, loving relationship. If we zone in, that is what we are trying to achieve for children and young people, because, if they have that, they are held, guided, grown, developed and nourished. That is exactly what you are saying about being safe and respected.

However, somehow, we seem to lose focus on that, and we are left with a feeling that, although we are sometimes meeting the Promise in one area, there is evidence that we are nowhere near meeting it in another. We have not even implemented reforms that predate the Promise, and it feels like a boorach, because we do not have everyone in the system working towards that goal. A child needs to be cared for in a stable, lifelong, loving relationship. Who will provide that, and what are we doing to enable that to happen?

10:30

A resolute focus on that would be helpful, because I am left with the question of who is responsible for delivering on the promise that such a relationship will be provided. Saying to a child that someone is going to love them and that it is our job to make sure that they are loved is quite a basic promise. However, we are saying that the Promise can be delivered by various people, that the Government has too much control, that we will give responsibility to local authorities, and that many different agencies will be involved, from justice to housing to addiction services and so on.

When she was First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon told us that the Promise was the biggest priority for Scotland, and that it was an overarching policy on a level with independence and climate change for the Government at the time. Therefore, the Government should have overarching power over every other agency and institution to say what should happen. If it is the case that the policy has that level of priority for the country, who should be responsible for delivering on it?

Sorry.