Chamber and committees

I want to ask about enforcement and the guidance on that.

Glasgow City Council—certainly in my constituency—is very good. I have constituents who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters and who had no access to local services. The council had a direct conversation with them about their lived experience and put in dropped kerbs to allow them to go about their lives.

However, when it comes to enforcement, there are breaches from drivers. I get that enforcement has to be intelligence led, practical and cost effective. That might lead to enforcement in areas where other enforcement is already taking place—where there are clusters of potential driver breaches. In addition, it might not be in their local communities that those on a mobility scooter or in a wheelchair have their lives devastated by not being able to cross the road. A constituent of mine has had to travel an alternative route of almost one mile because of breaches involving dropped kerbs.

What guidance is there that local authorities should not focus their enforcement only on clusters of potential breaches or on areas where enforcement is cost effective, but should carry out enforcement where there are individual breaches that could absolutely devastate the lives of those with mobility issues?

I could not get involved in an evidence session on kinship care without putting on record my thanks to campaigners whom I first met in 2006, ahead of the 2007 election, at a hustings in the constituency that I now serve, and to Adam Ingram for his challenging work on kinship care payments as Minister for Children and Early Years. I also record my thanks to Glasgow City Council, which I met back in those early days and which, after meeting me, agreed to a £50-a-week kinship care allowance. That seems tiny now, but at the time it was groundbreaking. That shows how far we have come, although we obviously need to go further.

I am sorry, convener, for putting that on the record. Institutional memory is sometimes important in sessions such as this.

I have a supplementary to Mr Mason’s question, which I will ask before my substantive question. Mr Mason asked about the wider support that kinship carers receive. The wider support that they want is often for the young people whom they are looking after. Many of those young people have emotional and mental health and wellbeing issues, have experienced significant trauma and have to wait for child and adolescent mental health services and other services, which are often delivered by the national health service rather than by local authorities.

In my constituency, there is the Notre Dame Centre, which is a centre of excellence for dealing with such situations. It takes specific referrals on kinship care. It has a very delicate funding framework to ensure that it can continue to do that. To what extent, minister, do you assure yourself that the wider support for the emotional wellbeing of young people in kinship care and for the trauma that they have experienced is adequate and consistent across Scotland?

Dr Rushton, you said that you commissioned a review, which I think you said cost £50,000. Can you co-commission research and reviews? Mr Griffin is talking about setting up a new body for Scotland with a very modest research budget. There is also SCOSS, which, as we have heard, is not necessarily proactive in the area, because of its other commitments. Can IIAC co-commission research jointly, whether that be with SCOSS or another Scottish body, even though you are making recommendations not at the Scotland level but at the UK level?

That is very helpful.

We have focused on eligibility for industrial injuries disablement benefit. You may have said some of this other stuff already, but will you say a little more about the work of IIAC on wider issues around workplace health and safety that you are involved in, separately from making recommendations or presenting evidence to the UK Government about whether we should extend eligibility for industrial injuries disablement benefit?

Thank you. I think that you must have read the question paper, because you are pre-empting my questions superbly. That answer was extremely helpful, because I was going to ask you about any on-going work programmes with the Health and Safety Executive. That goes back to Mr Mason’s question about whether there is duplication or overlap in what you do, work that is complementary, or a combination of all three.

I am conscious of the fact that, earlier this year, the Health and Safety Executive produced some research on Covid, although not long Covid. It also looked at cancer in the construction industry, although not among firefighters—cancer among firefighters is very topical at the moment. The Health and Safety Executive is already doing a lot of work in the area, and you have helpfully put on record that you observe some of that and work in partnership with it, which is important, but do you want to say any more about your on-going work or partnership work?

I am particularly interested in long Covid, neurodegenerative disease in footballers and cancers in firefighters, but please do not restrict yourself to that list simply because I have asked about those issues. I am trying to understand the dynamic between what you research, what you commission, what the Health and Safety Executive does and how that all fits together.

That is really helpful. Thank you.

I am keen to say yes, but I know that time is probably against us, so we would really appreciate it if you could follow that up in writing. I say to any Fire Brigades Union colleagues who are watching that that is due to time constraints. We are keen to hear what Dr Rushton has to say about firefighters, but we would appreciate it if she could provide that in writing. I suspect that the convener will have my guts for garters if we do not move on.

Will we get a case study within the guidance? Guidance can be dry and dusty, so I think that social work professionals would like to see a case study of a situation such as the one that I outlined to you that shows them—perhaps more eloquently than I did—what they should be doing rather than what they perhaps are doing. When finances underpin what is done and there is a budgetary impact on a local authority, we have to ensure that there is best practice and not budgetary practice, if I can put it—delicately—like that.

I am sure that the Notre Dame Centre would love to see you if your busy diary ever permits you to go along, minister. I would love to take you to show you what excellent work it does.

I will move on to my substantive question, which was going to be about the progress that the collaborative has made in recent months. However, I have a specific question on the progress that still needs to be made.

I had written down that there is a guidance rewrite group and that a national kinship assessment framework is being developed to get national consistency. I do not have an active case at the moment, but over the years, one of the issues with consistency has related to kinship care and bereavement.

I explain that as what happens when there is a gran or an auntie at hospital when a loved one passes away and the kids are in very vulnerable circumstances. Often, gran steps in and says, “I’ll take those kids home.” If gran does not do that, social work services will say to gran, “Would you please look after these young people? They are very vulnerable.” The outcome is the same; it was always going to happen. However, one situation would be deemed to be an informal volunteer-led relationship between the children and the local authority, and the other would be the local authority placing the child with the kinship relative.

I understand that some local authorities show good flexibility in acknowledging that the formal placement would have happened anyway, but others do not. The approach is inconsistent. That matter has been raised with me over many years.

In relation to the work of the collaborative, the guidance rewrite group, the national kinship assessment framework and, indeed, access to the Scottish recommended allowance, can the minister give me an assurance that such situations are being taken into account and that guidance and best practice will be rolled out, putting the onus on local authorities to do the right thing by kinship carers in bereavement situations?

Cabinet secretary, I have found these exchanges very helpful. The focus has been on what supports are available for applicants, but there are issues that have, as you said, been addressed and there have been improvements.

Quite rightly, that can be compared with what happens in the DWP and across the rest of the UK. In this committee, we should consistently draw comparisons between Scotland and the rest of the UK, because we want our system to be as modern, progressive, dignified and effective as possible. It is absolutely right that we undertake that type of scrutiny.

With that in mind, will you tell us how young people who get child disability payment are being supported with their applications for adult disability payment? In addition, can you contrast the experience of young people in Scotland, under our system, with what it would be if they lived elsewhere in the UK?