Chamber and committees

I would expect nothing less of Mr Rennie.

That was very similar.

Yes. I might put it more strongly than that: that would be inappropriate. I think that it should be 24 hours for good reason. If you were a parent, the very latest that you would want to know is the next day. Your parental responsibilities span the weekend, and the consequences of an incident such as that might be germane, because they might result in your child being distressed and unable to articulate why. The very longest time that a parent should have to wait before knowing that something has occurred is 24 hours. As I indicated in my previous answer, in some cases, that might be too long. That is the very longest that I would want it to be.

Yes, but that level of detail would require to be resolved. The Government is engaging on that point, but I think that that would be a matter for regulations. Strictly and formally speaking, we are talking about the education authority rather than the local authority—in other words, the council that is acting as the education authority for the school in that area. I think that where the school is situated is the more appropriate consideration. I understand the alternative point of view, but I think that that would be the most appropriate and simplest way for the system to work.

The bill says that it is for education authorities to determine.

There is a really important point here. I have deliberately given the bill a narrow scope. Such considerations need to be context specific. I do not think that it is possible to provide a single set of guidance for all possible settings, particularly when it comes to different age ranges. There have been some calls as to whether the provisions could or should apply to early years settings. For practical reasons, that becomes really complicated. On a commonsense level, we all know that the level of physical interaction that needs to be provided with the youngest children is very different.

On interaction with the existing law, providing a single set of guidance to cover both education settings and care settings is complex. I do not think that double reporting would be required. The Government is also of the view that, if there is double reporting, that can be resolved, at the very least, through clarification and so on. I understand your point but, from my perspective, it is a matter of providing clarity within school settings. To provide something more comprehensive would be beyond the scope of what is achievable or manageable in a member’s bill.

Again, it is incumbent on the Government to look at all those things in the round. Even if you go beyond my bill’s scope and look at some of those settings, such as residential schools and early years settings, they have multiple layers of oversight, which my bill does not alter. Likewise, residential schools must have a relationship with the local authority, which my bill, again, does not alter.

How those different things interact needs to be looked at. Frankly, the scope of some of those bodies needs to be considered. I looked at early years when I was a member of the then education committee in the previous parliamentary session. The Scottish Social Services Council, the Care Inspectorate and local authorities all have a view. We need to consider that.

On the question of the scope, I do not think that the bill will require additional or dual reporting because it is about regulating school settings. It is clear when a school setting is a school setting, and those bodies will already have relationships in place. The wider point is important and needs to be addressed, but it simply would not be sensible for me to attempt to do so with this bill.

That is my understanding. I set out the pattern of my direct engagement with the Scottish Government, but there has also been engagement between the NGBU and Government officials. The Government also notes that education authorities are currently meeting the costs that are associated with the restraint training that is required by the existing guidance and that those costs are acknowledged in the financial memorandum. In a sense, the Government notes our approach and seems broadly to agree with that.

That topic requires detailed guidance. A raft of considerations is involved in notifying parents, guardians or carers that an incident has occurred, but those should quite rightly be a function of guidance rather than put in the bill. I simply want to ensure that the notification happens without question, which is what the bill sets out.

I also note that there have been questions about whether 24 hours is too long. It would be perfectly within the gift of the guidance to specify a shorter period than that. I cannot quite come up with an example, but there are circumstances, particularly around the recording of the incident rather than the informing element, in which a period of reflection or bringing together all the perspectives might be required before the recording can be completed. I expect to see context and other considerations properly included as functions of the guidance, but they are certainly not things that can be included in the bill.

Yes. That is a feature of the bill. HMIE would need to consider how restraint and seclusion form part of its inspection regime. I would not want to overspecify that.

In my view, any regulator or provider of oversight is always there to provide support and encourage good practice as well as to stop bad practice. As you outlined, the Care Inspectorate’s role in reducing restraint in care settings is a good example of what we would hope for in the new regime. I would not want to specify precisely how that would work but, clearly, the inspectors should be asking about those topics, particularly in settings where such things might be more likely to happen.