Committee
Justice 1 Committee, 21 Feb 2007
21 Feb 2007 · S2 · Justice 1 Committee
Item of business
Family Support Services
There was quite a lot in that question, so I will take a little while to respond. I welcome the report that Mary Mulligan produced, which is a solid and comprehensive piece of work. It has helped us in our consideration of the issues, as well. As you know, I have taken a personal interest in this subject for some while, although it has come into the remit of the education ministers only in the past few weeks as the funding arrangements have transferred. Like you, I have had the opportunity to engage with the organisations and I have visited one or two of the projects, which has been interesting. The starting point must be our common agreement that the whole area of family support services is important for a series of objectives that the Parliament, the committee and the Executive share against social breakdown, and so on.On the issue of working locally, there is agreement—although concern, at the same time—that the proper way in which to provide local services is locally. That is not exactly a directive, but an understanding that has gone across a series of ways in which the Parliament and the Executive have worked. The objective is undoubtedly for local authorities that are already involved in family support services in varying degrees to provide the services in a comprehensive way that suits their local needs. We face the problem that, at present, a goodly part of the funding—which, as you rightly say, has traditionally been a bit patchy—comes from the centre. The challenge is to move the current funding from the centre to the localities without its disappearing into the grant-aided expenditure pot, vanishing without trace and taking some of the services with it. Therefore, the issue of establishing sustainable services is very much at the heart of your question.As you are aware—you touch on it in your report—we are endeavouring to have a transition period: an additional year of the UVSF funding as a preliminary measure in moving towards more localised funding. There will then be a couple of years of ring fencing under the GAE arrangement. During that period of three years, we will have fairly close contact with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and individual local authorities to ensure that the funding moves satisfactorily to the local level.We hope that the three-year staged arrangements for transferring the funding will land the current funding, as adjusted, in the laps of the local authorities in a way that goes with the grain of what they are doing. The funding will be moved in that way and will be provided at that level, and it is hoped that that will continue with any appropriate adjustments that may take place over time. We are very much focused on the outcomes and—not to beat about the bush—although we do not want to take a directive view on the matter, we are keen to ensure that the change happens. If we discover, as the arrangements move forward, that there are remaining issues about whether certain local authorities are providing the support, we will want to engage with that and ensure that discussions take place—hopefully, in a partnership way—so that the services can be sustained not just on a static basis, but on a more satisfactory and comprehensive basis in the longer term.The key to all that, in many ways, is the current round of unified voluntary sector fund allocations, which are under consideration. As you know, the four national bodies and 13 local family support organisations that are currently supported have made bids. We cannot give the committee the precise figures at the moment, as they are still to be announced formally, but in the current funding round we are making significant additional investment in family support. In almost any sector, it is much easier to transform and change through growth in funding than through rearranging static funding that does not go around adequately.At the level of the sector as a whole, we will award family support that is 46 per cent greater than 2006-07 funding levels. The figure will rise to about £1.8 million, from about £1.3 million at the moment. I hope that the committee will see that as a significant additional investment in the sector that recognises the importance that we attach to it. At umbrella body level, we will award the national family support organisations 49 per cent more than in 2006-07: £917,000, up from £616,000 in the current financial year.
In the same item of business
The Convener:
Lab
Item 2 is our family support services inquiry. I welcome Robert Brown, the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, and his officials—Rod Burns from t...
Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab):
Lab
First, I want to make two or three points on the Executive's response to my report on the provision of family support services in Scotland.I agree with the E...
The Deputy Minister for Education and Young People (Robert Brown):
LD
There was quite a lot in that question, so I will take a little while to respond. I welcome the report that Mary Mulligan produced, which is a solid and comp...
The Convener:
Lab
Is that additional funding the additional £300,000 that Hugh Henry announced at stage 3 of the Family Law (Scotland) Bill?
Robert Brown:
LD
No. The funding to which you refer was one-off change funding, on which Mary Mulligan touches in her report. It was designed to help national and local bodie...
Mrs Mulligan:
Lab
I suspect that some of them may require a more detailed response. Colleagues will ask about other funding issues, so I will steer away from that area at the ...
Robert Brown:
LD
I very much hope that they will, and it is very much our intention that they should. Local authorities provide a number of services as a result of statutory ...
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
Page 3 of the Executive's response to the reporter's report states:"We agree that engagement with local authorities by both the Executive and the family supp...
Robert Brown:
LD
I will ask Rod Burns to speak about that in a moment. I have had some engagement with the sector, but the matter has only recently come formally to the Educa...
Rod Burns (Scottish Executive Education Department):
There are no formalised plans yet from the perspective of officials, and there is no formal business plan for how we are going to set things out. However, as...
Mr McFee:
SNP
Would it be fair to say that your plans are embryonic, particularly in relation to local authorities and COSLA?
Rod Burns:
"Embryonic" is an interesting choice of word. So far, we have engaged unofficially with COSLA. We would not have been able to propose the three-stage move in...
Robert Brown:
LD
We are heading towards the beginning of a three-year transition period: one year of continued funding and two years of ring-fenced GAE. The announcement of t...
Mr McFee:
SNP
We are in the post-embryonic stage, and I realise that a number of issues are still to be resolved or even discussed.How successful will the Executive be in ...
Robert Brown:
LD
There will be continued engagement with the local authorities, as there is across the board in a number of areas. I have no doubt that the Executive has a fe...
Mr McFee:
SNP
Family support services would not be the first services for which there had been ring-fenced funding and, when the ring-fenced funding ended, the service had...
Robert Brown:
LD
It should be borne in mind that local authorities are locally elected bodies and that they have a mandate from their electorates. There is a difficult but in...
Mr McFee:
SNP
I am interested in that answer in relation to what the Executive wrote to the local authorities in 2001, although I realise that writing is not everything. I...
Robert Brown:
LD
I think that you are talking about a different sort of process. I was not involved in the 2001 scenario, so I cannot speak from detailed knowledge of it. Fro...
Mr McFee:
SNP
I do not think that anybody here would disagree with that, although some of us may have issues about there being little or no provision of services in some a...
Robert Brown:
LD
That will come after a year of continued central funding.
Mr McFee:
SNP
Indeed. I presume that you expect that ring fencing to encourage growth of services, as opposed to simply maintaining what is currently in place.
Robert Brown:
LD
Yes.
Mr McFee:
SNP
You do not want to micromanage the local services, but is it fair to say that the Executive's intention is to take a closer interest than it does in other se...
Robert Brown:
LD
That is a fair summary. I would not disagree with that.
The Convener:
Lab
I will continue the same line of questioning. Are you confident that COSLA is as committed to the provision of family support services as the Executive is? Y...
Robert Brown:
LD
The answer is undoubtedly that it does feel as strongly. Officials have had detailed contact with COSLA. As we all know, COSLA is an intermediary body that r...
The Convener:
Lab
I am not sure that I agree with the Executive's position—I remain to be convinced about whether it should be for local authorities to determine provision. I ...
Robert Brown:
LD
I take your point. We are responsible for the family support strategy but, as in most areas of Government activity, a good part of service provision is deter...
The Convener:
Lab
I hear what you say about the local bodies being an important dynamic, but I do not necessarily agree that they are best placed to decide on where the gaps a...