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Joint working will develop even further with the new powers. We are seeking to provide a power that will apply once those new powers have been taken up.
Professor Aldgate makes a number of recommendations, including that there should be a new legal status for kinship care and that local authorities should pay the same financial allowances to kinship carers as to foster carers.
As Murdo Fraser said, the role of the business community in whatever the new set-up looks like is as important locally as it is nationally.The status of the people who staff any local facilities is another concern.
One school-bus run in my old secondary school was plagued by difficulties for years until a new head teacher arrived. Within six weeks, the situation was sorted out because of a new procedure that involved significant self-regulation by pupils.
That investment has allowed us to recruit more doctors and nurses, to build eight new hospitals in Scotland, to buy the old Health Care International hospital and to start to tackle unacceptably long waiting lists.