Hansard

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...