Chamber and committees

PE2006 is on reviewing and simplifying the legislation in relation to dismissal of property factors. I am delighted to see that we have been joined by our parliamentary colleague Sarah Boyack, who will speak to this petition—we will hear from you in just a moment, Ms Boyack.

The petition, which has been lodged by Ewan Miller, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 in order to cover dismissal of property factors, or to bring forward other regulations that would achieve the same aim. Such actions could include giving the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland powers to resolve disputes relating to the dismissal of property factors.

When we last considered this petition on 3 May 2023, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government and other relevant stakeholders, and we have received responses from the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, the Property Managers Association Scotland and the charity Under One Roof. Those responses, which are set out in the papers that colleagues received ahead of today’s meeting, note the instruments that are already available to home owners to challenge property factors via the First-tier Tribunal, which I referred to a moment ago, and the courts process more widely. In a response in June 2023, the minister also committed to providing an update on progress towards the publication of the voluntary code of practice for landowning maintenance companies by early this year.

We have also received submissions from the petitioner and Shelagh Young, highlighting their own experiences of the difficulties and challenges involved in trying to remove their property factors—I suspect, too, that many of us as MSPs have been contacted by constituents with individual and specific issues—and they have also expressed concern that the gravity of the situation facing home owners across the country is perhaps not being fully understood.

Before I ask members to comment, I wonder whether Sarah Boyack would like to assist the committee in its consideration.

Our last on-going petition is PE2008, which was lodged by Kirsty Solman. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to create a separate accident and emergency for children and young people presenting with mental health issues.

Following the previous consideration of the petition, the committee put points raised by the petitioner to the Scottish Government. The submission from the Scottish Government outlines a number of workstreams including work with Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service to improve unscheduled care pathways.

The minister’s response notes that attendance at a children’s hospital instead of general A and E may be advised where that is available and appropriate. In response to the petitioner’s concerns about the efficacy of phone assessments, it states that a patient-centred approach is adopted when considering the suitability of digital technology and that that is included in the national guidance for clinicians. The minister’s response recognises that the child and adolescent mental health services target of all boards achieving a 90 per cent standard by March 2023 was not achieved and points to on-going work with health boards to develop CAMHS out-of-hours service provision.

The petitioner has responded to the minister raising questions about the impact of significant staff cuts on the planned work with Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service. She has asked how many psychiatric teams there are, as her experience involved waiting for several hours because the team was not based in the hospital. The petitioner shares that many families have reached out to her to say that their child could not get help through the mental health hubs because they were under 12. She asks for clarity on what services are available for children under the age of 12.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

Thank you very much. We will keep the petition open, and we will investigate further and return to it when we have those responses from the minister.

I would like to ask the Scottish Government whether it thinks that the current law of trespass in Scotland is worth the paper that it is written on. [Laughter.] I say that in all seriousness, because I was not quite sure what somebody’s remedy is under it. We will keep that petition open, and I can say to our petitioner that the briefing seems to recognise some of the issues raised.

PE2062, on introducing a national screening programme for prostate cancer, has been lodged by Bill Alexander. It clearly has a topical flair to it, because it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a national screening programme for prostate cancer. The SPICe briefing states that there is no one test used to diagnose prostate cancer. The most common tests include a prostate-specific antigen blood test, a physical examination of the prostate and a biopsy. The briefing points out that PSA blood tests can sometimes miss cancer in some patients and can just as easily falsely diagnose others. A heightened PSA is not the same thing as prostate cancer. However, advancements in magnetic resonance imaging technology and biopsy techniques could facilitate the development of a national screening programme.

The Scottish Government response notes that the United Kingdom National Screening Committee considered whether to recommend population screening in November 2020 and, frankly, concluded that it could not happen based on the available evidence. However, the screening committee will review that recommendation in the next 12 months. The response highlights a large prostate screening study called TRANSFORM—I think that that is a large study rather than a study of large prostates; I assume that it is that way round—which will look at potential innovative screening methods with hundreds of thousands of men due to be recruited for the study. I comment on all of this as somebody who has had a heightened PSA test, an MRI and biopsy myself for the matters at hand. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action?

What does that mean?

That takes us to the end of our public business this morning. I look forward to welcoming those who follow our proceedings back at our next meeting. Thank you.

Good morning and welcome to the first meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. Because of the prevailing weather alerts, several of our colleagues are joining us online, as are all our witnesses this morning. I imagine that we will have a particularly exciting time as we try to negotiate the technology with the various participants.

The first item on our agenda is a declaration of interests. Unfortunately, my colleague Maurice Golden is not able to attend today, so his substitute, Oliver Mundell, is joining us for the first time. Although Mr Mundell is no stranger to the work of the committee, this is the first time that he is attending as a substitute, so I invite him to declare any relevant interests.

Item 2 is to decide whether to take items 6 and 7 in private. Is Mr Torrance, who is online, content with that?

I think that you look very fetching and smart, Mr Barn. I do not think that you need to be concerned at all.