Chamber and committees

It might have been yesterday; I beg your pardon.

Children and young people across Scotland deserve the very best that there is to offer in all aspects of their lives. It is our job as members of Parliament to do everything that we can to ensure that no child is left behind.

As we know, one group in particular that can face challenges that many of us in the chamber cannot begin to imagine are children from a care-experienced background. That is why the Promise to care-experienced children and young people that they will grow up loved, safe and respected is such an important commitment that is agreed upon by all parties across the chamber.

Since that initial commitment in 2020, we have seen immense changes to the world that we live in, not least due to the Covid pandemic. In turn, those changes have had a direct impact on all our young people, but the Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to delivering on the Promise to care-experienced youngsters by 2030.

The Promise drives the Government to implement transformational change that will look to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up, and to ensure that every child feels safe, loved, respected and able to achieve their full potential. That is why I am delighted that, since 2020, the Scottish Government has spent £235 million on the Promise-related initiatives, including The Promise Scotland whole family wellbeing fund and the Scottish recommended allowance for foster and kinship carers.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting a friend of my granddaughter, and I am sure that she will reach her full potential. In fact, I would go so far as to say that she has the potential to be a future leader. Alishba Malik is 13 and probably the most focused and driven young girl that I have ever met. She has her future planned out. She told me that she will go to the University of Glasgow to study English and politics, which is a subject that she is passionate about. She even has an internship at Harvard lined up, and there are no limits as to how high she wants to fly. Alishba is care-experienced, and we talked about the Promise, Who Cares? Scotland and what they both mean to her. She is inspirational, and I am in awe of her.

I realise that not every youngster has confidence or self-belief to Alishba’s level, but I tell her story to highlight that it can be done, with love and support, and that the work that is being done on the Promise is working for youngsters of all backgrounds. The independent care review told Scotland what change was required, and the Government is delivering that change. The key areas are listening to children, families and care-experienced adults, and placing them at the centre of decisions that affect them. That includes redesigning the children’s hearings system, for which I volunteered 12 years ago, and transforming the way in which children and families are supported.

We know that sibling relationships and attachment are crucial, as is, where possible, keeping siblings together. I agree with Oliver Mundell’s point about local authorities not having a record. That is simply not acceptable. Support for young people moving from care into adulthood is imperative, as is removing stigma and creating a positive attitude around the language that is used when talking about care-experienced people.

I welcome the continuation of care-experienced student bursaries, which have been available to students in higher education since 2017-18 and for students in further education since 2018-19. That helps to close the attainment gap. However, we cannot be complacent as we approach the midway point to 2030; much more must be done so that change can be felt more consistently in the lives of care-experienced children, young people and families.

Although I recognise that much progress has been made so far, the shifting economic context and the persistence of poverty mean that, for Scotland to achieve its collective ambition, we need to step up the pace. I acknowledge the issues raised by many members and by Who Cares? Scotland. It is crucial not to lose the overall vision for the transformational change set out by the independent care review, which outlines a smaller, more specialised care system.

The Promise will ensure that those who need it can receive person-centred support, place-based activity and universal service provision. As we heard earlier this year, “Plan 24-30” was launched to map the responsibilities and timelines. It requires the Promise to be on the road map to success for Scotland’s care system and makes clear its responsibilities. That also demonstrates to organisations the flexible and dynamic approach that will be necessary to ensure that families receive appropriate support.

The Promise also aims to reduce the number of children who are in care while ensuring that those in care have more positive experiences. However, to achieve that, we will require a consistent approach that revolves around values and understanding across the workforce to ensure that the right support is available for care-experienced young people whenever they need it. Success is also dependent on our ability to shift from intervention to prevention to ensure that families receive the support that they need before reaching crisis point.

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the forthcoming Promise bill will build on what has already been achieved. The Promise has the ability to change the lives of thousands of care-experienced young people across Scotland for the better, and it is a Promise that we are determined to keep for children who deserve no less.

I thank my colleague Karen Adam for bringing the debate to the chamber, and for her customarily powerful and moving opening speech. I also thank Stephanie Callaghan for her work in this field.

The debate is really a celebration of the 90 per cent of women—and the 10 per cent of men—who are raising their family single-handedly, often against very challenging odds. It also celebrates One Parent Families Scotland on the charity’s 80th anniversary—what a fantastic achievement. The charity helps lone parents to cope by providing essential services including welfare rights and financial advice, which—let us face it—can prove to be a minefield for the best of us.

In preparing for the debate, I had a look at the charity’s excellent website. I can honestly say that every piece of advice that a parent could want is there, including a helpline for answers at the end of the phone and a chat service. Crucially, there is also advice for anyone who is a student and a single parent or anyone who becomes pregnant while studying. After all, being a parent should not be a barrier to achieving a full and rewarding career. With support and the correct advice, it is possible to make it work.

As the motion says, the charity was originally founded

“in the 1940s as the Scottish Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child”

with the aim of keeping

“unmarried mothers and their children together”.

That strikes me as remarkable, when we think of what we now know was happening then and in the decades to follow, with babies being forcibly and cruelly removed from their unmarried mothers to be given up for adoption. Immediate respect and gratitude must go to One Parent Families Scotland for carrying on the pioneering and humanitarian work of the charity’s original founder, and I am proud to wear the rosette tonight in acknowledgment of its amazing work.

As we have heard, the charity has offices in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Falkirk and Lanarkshire. It employs 97 members of staff; supports more than 8,000 parents, children and young people annually; and provides welfare rights and financial advice that has benefited nearly 4,000 families, resulting in financial gains of more than £1.6 million for families. That is pretty astonishing.

We all know that parenthood can be difficult, even for couples who work as a team and share the responsibility for the massive decisions that have to be made daily. For single parents, however, that difficulty is much greater. In today’s society, there is intense peer pressure among parents to provide expensive and commonplace items, such as mobile phones, sports equipment and much more, and I applaud the way in which lone parents can cope with that. We are living through a cost of living crisis, and there is a far higher likelihood that single-parent families will experience poverty in comparison with other households. Scotland’s groundbreaking child benefit payment helps in that respect.

Of course, despite significant improvements since the 1940s, gender inequality remains a major cause of discrimination against many single mothers, who make up 90 per cent of lone-parent families. The stigma from decades ago, which Karen Adam talked about, might have gone but, sadly, discrimination remains in certain areas of society. As we have heard, single parents face unique challenges in combining the roles of sole carer and provider without the ability to pool resources with another adult. Therefore, organisations such as One Parent Families Scotland are a vital lifeline, and I cannot praise the work that they do highly enough.

I say as a final word to all the lone parents out there that no one underestimates the challenges that you face, but in spite of it all, you are doing great.

I understand that, but closures have still put money into your capital budget.

Okay—thank you.

That is helpful. I cannot help thinking about the contrast between what you have said about future proofing and forward planning and the problems that we are having with connectivity for body-worn cameras. Given that other forces in the UK are using body-worn cameras, I still cannot understand the problems and complexities that you are running into.

Good. Thank you.

Finally, I want to ask about the part of your submission on science, innovation and technology. It mentions developing the use of data science and so on, and also mentions artificial intelligence. What part would that play in on-going policing?

I move on to the part of your submission where you talk about supporting victims. You say that you will do so

“through improved trauma informed policing and a victim-centred approach”.

How are you doing that, and how is it going so far?

Thank you. I have a few questions about the three-year business plan priorities. I do not want to labour the point but, in your submission, you say that you

“will seek to streamline back-office functions to create efficiencies”.

Notwithstanding what you have said about getting police on to the front line, would that affect admin staff? Are we talking about redundancies among the people who work in offices and who do not have police training?

Good morning. I will pick up where my colleague Sharon Dowey left off and ask about body-worn cameras. That issue has been around for the past decade. How confident are you that the connectivity roadblock that you are talking about will be overcome? How far away is that? You anticipate that it will be in spring, but it seems to have been a long time in the mix.