Committee
Justice 1 Committee, 21 Feb 2007
21 Feb 2007 · S2 · Justice 1 Committee
Item of business
Family Support Services
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 requirements. A number of other services—for example, youth work services—are provided in a much more discretionary way although they are not exactly voluntary. Often there are calls for services to be provided on a statutory basis. I do not think that one would ever rule out the possibility of considering that step if it was required.Local authorities recognise that the work that is done through family support goes substantially towards meeting many of their other policy objectives. If authorities view the issues holistically and corporately—as we know they do, in many respects—it is difficult to ignore the importance of the family support sector, particularly against the background of the challenges that we read about in the newspapers day after day. I do not know that the divide between statutory and discretionary is so crucial in that respect.It is necessary, however, to get local authorities into the habit of regarding such services as central to their requirements. We would not normally impose a requirement such as the two-year ring fencing—we have tried to avoid hindering local authorities or putting restrictions on their funding arrangements—but in this instance it is necessary and desirable. Once that measure has been in place for two or three years, there is every chance that there will have been an expansion to more substantial services, through funding changes, and that a sustainable approach will have been taken by the local authorities. If not, we will have to consider whatever measures might have to be taken. Nobody should be in any doubt about our determination to make the proposals happen in a sustainable way. They are central to what we want to do and they will have to happen.Having said that, I have no reason to think that the local authorities are not keen to sign up to our agenda. The issue is one of bringing local authorities up to a certain level so that services are less patchy than members have indicated and more generally available throughout Scotland. How that is done among the authorities, whether they are small or large, rural or urban, is very much a matter for local decision. Councils may well make use of the expertise of existing centres. Alternatively, they might set up new ones. Whatever they decide, I am sure that they will work with voluntary sector bodies to do that.
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...