Chamber and committees

Good morning to the witnesses, and thank you for joining us today.

I will touch on a couple of issues, the first of which is the register of foster carers. A number of respondents to the call for views were supportive of a register in principle but felt that further detail was required on how it would work in practice. We have touched on this already, but a lot of what is in the bill will be set out in regulations at a later date. What is the potential impact of having the details set out in guidance, and how might the proposals in the bill be improved? Is there anything specific that you want to highlight to the committee in that regard?

I will come on to a couple of other questions after that.

Thank you for that. I am not sure that I could say that the bill captures the principles of good transition, so I hope that there is an opportunity to strengthen that area. I have highlighted to the committee some of my concerns about CSOs being removed when the young person turns 16, and I am not sure that the bill would necessarily prevent that practice within local authorities. Maybe I will come in later with regard to that.

If no one else has anything to add, I will, in the interests of time, move on and put another question to you, Claire. I raised with the previous panel the issue of family group decision making, including in relation to kinship care, which is part of the bill. Do you wish to make any points on that?

I will just put on the record that the Government made an apology to forced adoption individuals—to the mothers and fathers involved, and to those children, who are now adults. Despite that, the situation with getting advocacy and being able to access services has, for many of those people, not changed. For a lot of people, it then becomes an exercise in expectation management.

Good morning. I have to say that I have found this morning’s session very disappointing. Anyone watching this or who watched the debate last night would get the impression that the Government is just running down the clock. I really hope that the minister will go away from this meeting and think again about the powers that she has and about the Government’s position.

I am concerned because, in relation to conversations about a non-legislative solution, the Government has not worked with Liz Smith on what alternative funding mechanisms might look like. Why has the Government dedicated time to that and not worked with Liz Smith?

I am not sure that I am clear about the detailed costings of all the potential alternatives. You have done that work, so they could be provided to the committee and to Liz Smith to get to that financial point—

I do not understand why the minister has not asked the City of Edinburgh Council or Aberdeenshire Council about how such a negotiation is done, or what the costings are.

To ask the Scottish Government at what stage the current funding application is for the Edinburgh biomes project at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. (S6O-04904)

The cabinet secretary will be aware of the risk to that globally important living collection of plants if the heating system were to fail, which reinforces the importance of delivering the project. The uncertainty of funding each financial year makes planning the project even more challenging. What assurance can the cabinet secretary give the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh that it will receive the necessary funding to complete the project? Will she agree to visit the site with me and other Edinburgh MSPs to see the global importance of the project?

I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Before the schools returned, I spoke to several teachers who told me that, for the first time in their careers, they did not want to go back to school, due to the levels of poor discipline and violence that they have personally experienced in their schools. Today’s statement is very much a repeat of what the Scottish Government has already outlined. Unbelievably, it concerns a national action plan that includes no new actions—just more talking and a marketing campaign.

I will outline my concerns to the cabinet secretary. I believe that the Government has failed to take forward real changes. There are no clear outcomes or consequences in the guidance on how teachers can respond to any violence that they might experience. Teachers who are punched or who have chairs thrown at them do not need to be told to undertake a risk assessment. The Scottish Government’s incoherent guidance and reluctance to even mention effective consequences, let alone apply them, is letting down hard-working school staff and the majority of pupils who simply want to learn without disruption. Is the cabinet secretary asking pupils, teachers, parents and carers to wait another two years before the Government will outline how it will get a grip of violence in our schools?