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With that, I welcome the cabinet secretary, who is accompanied by Andrew Watson, head of finance policy, and Terry Holmes, head of finance co-ordination, and invite him to make an opening statement.11:30 Thank you, convener.
That takes us on to the concern of Assistant Chief Constable Ruaraidh Nicolson, who has asked for local, multi-agency co-ordination. Are you satisfied that, should the UKBA be granted more powers, that will not be at the expense of local services here?
We make a recommendation in the report about the need for a more co-ordinated and national approach. One of the things that struck us, looking at the plans in more detail, is that given that it is a national service—delivering broadly the same services across the country—we might have expected more by way of national co-ordinated workforce planning.
If we have a standard, we can collaborate to a greater extent and utilise helicopter space and ships; everything could be co-ordinated and collaborated on if we adopt a standard.
The clinical and care governance guidance that I referred to also requires that integrated services have a co-ordinated approach to pooling various sources of information.
It is the net effect—in that instance, for carers—that we need to look at, and there needs to be a degree of co-ordination between the two Administrations on an on-going basis.
The dimensions are: making sure that parents have enough opportunities to understand their child’s education and development needs; collaborating with the community and co-ordinating resources across community groups; providing opportunities for volunteering; making sure that there is good information about learning at home—the learning at home dimension is...