Chamber and committees

PE1861 is on using teacher-assessed grades to award national qualifications in 2021. I flag up that the petitioner has requested that the petition be removed from the petitions process, given that results have now been awarded for 2021 and work is under way to reform the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland. Given that, I am inclined to close the petition under rule 15.7. Do members agree to that?

Members indicated agreement.

PE1857, which was lodged by Stephen Leighton, calls on the Scottish Government to regulate the role of curator ad litem—I am sorry, but I am not sure how to pronounce that. I did O level Latin, but I am afraid that it deserted me there—no doubt, I will be suitably reprimanded. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to regulate the role of curator ad litem and ensure that historical claims of malpractice by curators ad litem in Scotland are investigated.

The Scottish Government notes that the curator ad litem’s first responsibility is to ascertain whether in fact a person has capacity to give legal instruction, which is similar to the situation in which a client has to have capacity to instruct a solicitor, because otherwise the solicitor cannot legally act. That decision is evidence based. In order to properly fulfil the role, the curator must be able to undertake full and relevant inquiries and to commission or prepare reports where necessary.

The Scottish Government notes that it does not regulate curators ad litem. Instead, there is general regulation of the legal profession and of social workers. Given that the number of curators ad litem is very small and that most of them are either solicitors or social workers, they will be regulated under their professional regulatory body if concerns or complaints are raised about their conduct. The submission advises that the Office of the Public Guardian in Scotland can investigate property or financial matters and the local authority or the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland can investigate welfare matters.

The petitioner advises that changes to the rules of court were made in 2017 as a result of someone complaining about a curator ad litem, but he believes that the law change has increased the risk of potential malpractice in the curator ad litem role, as its regulation is now overseen by curators ad litem themselves. There is no oversight by regulation of the role, yet there are claims of malpractice by curators.

The petition raises quite a complicated issue in respect of a position that I had not heard of. I note from the information that we have obtained that there are only a few curators ad litem in place—maybe as few as a dozen.

Do colleagues have any comments, having reflected on the issue?

Welcome to the second meeting in session 6 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. We are in Holyrood for the first committee meeting since the start of lockdown at which we will consider new petitions. I am joined by my colleagues David Torrance, Tess White and Bill Kidd. We are joined remotely by our colleague Paul Sweeney.

The only item on our agenda this morning is the consideration of new petitions. Obviously, there is something of a backlog of those, as many were received towards the end of the previous session and during the election. We therefore have a considerable number of new petitions to consider.

The first new petition is PE1850, which was lodged by Les Wallace. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to make the use of natural flood prevention methods a condition of obtaining a grouse moor licence. The Scottish Government submission highlights that it commissioned an independent group to look at the environmental impact of grouse moor management, which was prompted by a NatureScot report in May 2017 and was part of a package of measures that were aimed at tackling the on-going issue of wildlife crime.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s role in examining and mapping areas where natural flood management could be put to best use, in conjunction with responsible authorities, is highlighted as an area of importance in relation to the issues that are raised in the petition. The submission highlights that, following that analysis, plans include a total of 104 actions with a natural flood management element. The submission concludes that the Scottish Government does not believe that it would be appropriate to make the inclusion of natural flood management methods a condition of obtaining a grouse moor licence.

The Scottish Parliament information centre briefing refers to research that was commissioned by the Government and published in 2018 that sets out that it is difficult to demonstrate the role or potential role of grouse moors in flood risk mitigation due to a lack of studies assessing those areas.

The petitioner’s submission emphasises the importance of flood management from an economic, environmental and human perspective. The issues highlighted include loss of life, damage to homes and businesses, soil washing, chemical pollution and solid waste contamination in rivers.

In the light of all the information that we have received, do colleagues have any comments or suggestions for action?

We are very grateful.

PE1858, which was lodged by Alex Wallace, calls on the Scottish Government to provide free face masks for everyone in Scotland during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government’s submission highlights that it advocates the use of reusable face coverings and has provided guidance on how to make them using widely available household products. In respect of affordability, it notes that the Scottish Government has committed over £1 billion of additional investment to help local communities and build resilience in public services, some of which has been used by local partners, including in the third sector, to provide face coverings free of charge to people on low incomes and, in particular, vulnerable groups such as homeless people.

The Scottish Government notes that, although it is not providing face coverings centrally to the general public, local authorities and schools consider how to address any equity concerns arising from the use of face coverings. It also advises that many homelessness outreach teams provide disposable face coverings and that, as I think most of us will be aware, a number of supermarkets and other retailers provide free disposable face coverings.

Do colleagues have any comments?

I confirm that I have no relevant interests to declare.

Congratulations on your appointment, David. You are a continuing member of the committee. I remember serving with you on the Public Petitions Committee in a session that feels like 100 years ago now. You were also a member in the session before this one. I know that you will bring your huge experience to bear in your new post, to the benefit of us all.

I also welcome all the other members of the committee: Bill, who, it turns out, is older than me; Paul; and Tess. I hope that we have a successful parliamentary session.

Item 4 is consideration of our work programme in outline. There are two or three decisions that it would be useful for us to take. The first is to consider holding a business planning session, which will give us an opportunity to consider the legacy report and to consider and agree our statement of intent for the committee for the coming session, and also to discuss all the other relevant issues that we might wish to consider about how we do the work of the committee.

I propose that we hold a planning session during the summer recess and that we aim, all things being equal, to do that in person here in Parliament at some point, probably during the final week of recess.

Do members agree to do that? I will not come to you all individually, because we know from experience that that can take half an hour. I will take it that the proposal is generally agreed.

The second issue that is before us is to consider the status of 15 on-going petitions that our predecessor committee referred to subject committees. The committee had taken those petitions as far as it could and had decided that they would best be taken forward by a subject committee. By convention, at the end of a parliamentary session, if such a petition is still under discussion, it is referred back to this committee, because it might be that the subject committee that was considering it has been disbanded or constructed in a different form.

As I said, we have 15 petitions in that category; I suggest that we refer them back to the most appropriate subject committees, which might, of course, be the same committees that were dealing with them before. Do members agree to do that?

I see that we all agree.

Do members have any other matters that they would like us to consider this morning? Brief as this meeting has been, we have considered all the immediate items on the agenda.

I take members’ silence as agreement that we do not want to consider anything else today. We look forward to our next public meeting after the summer recess. Until then, I thank you all and wish you a good morning.