Chamber and committees

::The committee has been undertaking work on the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill, which the Government introduced following the Promise. We have been doing some really good work on that. Many of those who have given us evidence are care-experienced individuals who reported their vulnerability and abuse, much of it historical.

I have been concerned that, in our work on the bill—which the Parliament is considering in order to improve outcomes for care-experienced young people—we have not looked at the mandatory reporting and criminal justice elements that could be in it. A number of the witnesses have raised the issue of mandatory reporting. Have any of you considered the bill as an opportunity for Parliament to do something about that? Have there been any conversations on that? Parties are still working on stage 3 amendments. The bill provides an important opportunity. We know the levels of reported abuse of care-experienced young people, and there is an opportunity to do more on that in the bill.

::That is grand. As I have said, meetings are on-going with ministers on having some framework for all this. Thank you.

::Detective Chief Superintendent Taylor talked about historical abuse and the on-going inquiry. What is the witnesses’ assessment of the on-going abuse within public bodies, and of the fact that it is not being investigated at this time?

A petition is going through Parliament at the moment—I am pleased to see that some of the petitioners have come to this session—that calls on the Scottish Government to establish an independent inquiry and an independent national whistleblowing officer to investigate such concerns, specifically the mishandling of child‑safeguarding inquiries by public bodies. However, the suggestion seems to be that we should look only at historical cases, when in fact this is often a live issue. Professor Jay outlined some of the concerns in that regard.

I just wonder whether, in your professional capacity, you think that there is any point in looking at a historical case if we are not also going to examine what is happening today and take action on that. I will put that to DCS Taylor first.

::Do you think that having a national whistleblowing officer would add to that?

::We know that a number of local authorities are dealing with complaints concerning individuals who are still working in education departments. When reports on live cases are made, how does Police Scotland decide whether to investigate them?

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Also, what about the wider picture of prevention? I sat on the Health and Sport Committee in the previous session of Parliament, and one of our inquiries looked into disclosure checks of people working with young people in sports organisations. The findings were pretty shocking. We discovered that there was a backlog of applications and that, at that point, the Scottish Football Association was letting people work with young people before the checks had been completed. Luckily, that situation was investigated and completely turned round. However, sometimes such situations are allowed to carry on—safeguards are not properly put in place, and people are allowed to work before being investigated.

What is Police Scotland’s position? Reports are often brought to us as MSPs, and we send people to the police, but it often does not feel like a proper, active investigation process is taking place.

::I have a couple of questions. The first is about the 18-month timescale for the national review to be undertaken by the four inspectorates. What is the reason for taking that amount of time to make a recommendation?

::Thank you for that clarification. The Scottish Government now says that, until that review comes back, it cannot take a wider view. There is therefore concern that it will take quite a long time to get the Government to take a decision.

Thank you for that. Do you know whether discussions are taking place between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on funding formulas in order to react to any potential increase? The City of Edinburgh Council receives the lowest funding per head of population from the Scottish Government, partly because the education budget is aligned with the numbers of pupils in the independent sector. Is that being taken into account in the projected additional needs and costs, or is that just a conversation to be had when the schools are over capacity?

Thank you for joining us today. I am a member for Edinburgh and Lothian and will ask specifically about Edinburgh, because 15 per cent of families in the capital send their children to independent schools. I have spoken to a number of schools and know that behaviour change is already happening, but I would like to know whether you have any up-to-date data. The latest census provided by SCIS showed that 9,310 Edinburgh pupils were in independent schools.

City of Edinburgh Council told me that there are 23,150 secondary pupils here in the capital. That is the highest level since the 1980s, with rolls up by 3 to 4 per cent this year. Some 16 schools will be over capacity by 2030. Given that situation in the state sector, where do you see capacity for additional pupils coming into it? What joined-up thinking is taking place about local authorities needing to find more places if more and more families are unable to cover the additional costs?

I want to ask about the impact on bursaries. Is there any anecdotal evidence of a reduction? Access to specialist training in Scotland often relies on bursaries—we only need to look at the Scottish rugby team, individuals who compete in the Commonwealth games or the Olympics, or individuals who study music. I just wondered whether any work has been done on that. We have all touched on the fact that we are in the early days of the policy, but there will be an impact on the nation—on sports stars being able to access training and so on.

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