 Good morning and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2022 of the Qualities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. Our first agenda item today is to decide whether to take items 3 in private, which is consideration of today's evidence. Is that agreed? Now we can see people. Yes, so that is agreed. Thank you all very much. Our second agenda item is a session on the lives of gypsy travellers in Scotland. I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I welcome to the meeting our witnesses, who are Suzanne Munday, who is Gypsy Traveller Program Manager at MECOP, Dr Lynn Tammie, from I Right, Dr Maureen Finne, from STEP, the Scottish Traveller Education programme, Leslie Dury, who is national coordinator at article 12 in Scotland. Finally, we have Davy Donaldson from Progress in Dialogue. Thank you all for attending to give evidence today. You are all very welcome. Please remind witnesses that if you wish to come in on any of the questions, just to indicate that by typing R in the chat box and I'll do my best to bring you in and my clerks will keep an eye on that to make sure I'm not missing anybody. To start off, can you ask each of our witnesses to make a short opening statement starting with Suzanne Munday, please? Okay, good morning everybody and thank you for the opportunity to give evidence to the committee this morning. We welcome the opportunity to give evidence to the committee on progress against the implementation of the Scottish National Action Plan, improving the lives of Scotland's gypsy travellers and the five key themes within it. Whilst the principal focus of this evidence session is not the pandemic, it has been our experience that progress against the action plan has been and continues to be inextricably linked with the impact of Covid-19. For the last two years, much of our efforts and those of our partners have been to support the community through the pandemic and this has been on top of our day jobs where we have done our best to maintain core services. This has meant that progress against the priorities in the action plan have either been delayed or stalled. There have been, however, notable achievements such as a £20 million accommodation fund as part of the commitments within the housing to 2040 strategy. Yeah, this has also caused the sense of frustration at the slow rollout of the money and local authority decisions either not to apply or to delay applying. The decision to extend the current action plan is, I think, recognition of how much still needs to be done. However, the action plan as it currently stands cannot be a static document. It must take into account and reflect new and emerging priorities such as the impact of rising fuel costs and the overall cost of living on a community that is already disadvantaged economically and financially. For example, an advice and resilience service that we set up as part of our immediate response to support the community through the pandemic made over 90 successful applications for welfare benefits, hardship funds, charitable grants, referrals to food banks and emergency fuel top-ups. We are extremely concerned that the cost of living increase will continue to impact disproportionately on the community. In closing, our contribution today is very much from an organisational point of view. We would urge the committee to undertake further engagement work directly with the community to hear their views first-hand. For me, I will not repeat what Susanna has done, because I think that what she has done is very finely put probably most of our thoughts over to the committee already. Just to add that a major issue for me is the drawing down at local government level of funding that is available for either new-build sites or upgrade of existing sites. I feel that it is too slow. Also, the issue about how that is dealt with by the people that are working at grass roots level, I wonder how that is monitored and evaluated across Scotland earlier comparisons had. Another issue that is continuing for us in Covid is connected to this also is the issue of digital inequalities. Although a lot of work has been done since Covid first came to these shores to get data and devices out to gypsy traveller children and young people, my concern is to follow on from that. There was provision of data that is not continuing, but how are young people supported to continue with their learning and particularly learning that takes cognisance of the nomadic underpinnings of the community? I would like to see people turning things on its head and not saying that young people and families are interrupting their learning because of their nomadic practices. I would like to see how provision is made, particularly online provision, so that young people can continue with their learning but it still fits with their cultural practices. Thank you, convener. Morning, committee. Thank you again for having me as well. I am coming from STEP, which is the Centre for Traveller Education. Our work is to ensure that nomadic communities such as Gypsy Travers have equitable access to education, but also that children's rights to education are respected. We work closely with the TNET, the Traveller Education Network, a body of local authority staff, and we have recently, as part of the action plan, developed a network with 80 teachers to deliver digital learning throughout Scotland, and that is local authority staff. I echo what Susanne has said in that a lot of our work on the action plan has not only been stalled but it has shifted. We have had to be quite reactive and change our normal ways of working to make sure that we deliver some kind of services for families throughout the pandemic. The list of barriers to education experienced by families, as Lynne has touched on, has been huge for many, many years and it ranges from racism to practical things like transport and family concerns about the fact that schools and perceived irrelevance of much of the curriculum to travel our lives. It is a fact that, in all education indicators, Gypsy Traveller children have for many, many years continually feared worse than any other group. The stats only show half the picture because there are many children who do not ever go to school. We carried out research with 16 local authority staff and 10 families, which revealed the devastating impact of the pandemic. In the mirrors that Lynne and Susanne have just said, more than two thirds have said that there has been a significant decrease in engagement in education. Many of the families are young families with primary school children who have not returned to primary school. The implications of that for the future are worrying. Although we distributed over 100 kits as part of the national initiative during the pandemic digital kits, staff reported only a slight increase in the use of technology for education. The emphasis is on the digital divide in that families at home, Traveller families, are not in many cases able to support their children with technology. Technology was used for many other useful things but not for education in the main. Most worrying is our recent consultation with 10 new families who knew about the availability of help and resources in education. They talked about the lack of continuity across one local authority to another. That has been an on-going concern of mine. We need to have consistency. The problem is forecast to grow because local authority staff are also reporting that they are increasingly stretched from the pandemic. Many families are out with the Gypsy Traveller families who need additional support for learning services. It is a bit of a lottery now. On a positive note, parents and teachers reported that there is immense potential in positive benefits in the use of digital technology for the future and the fact that it did complement the Traveller way of life if they were supported enough to use it effectively for education. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me this morning. I am from article 12 in Scotland. I work with the Gypsy Travellers providing educational support, capacity building and pathways to work. One of my key concerns this morning is to help to share some of the views that we have learned from our young people in regards to their concerns and the issues that they are having. In particular, I would like to agree with all of the witnesses prior to this that what they are saying is absolutely what we are hearing from our young people. In particular, there are concerns about continuity of services between local authorities, whether that is educational services or mental health services. We would really like to see a stronger plan for supporting families no matter their housing situation, whether they are living roadside and shifting between local authorities or where they are in a settled site. Additionally, we want to see a lot more focus on, as Dr Tammy mentioned, digital issues and digital access for young people, because I think that this is a way forward for many young people to have continuity of service. Thank you for having me this morning. Thank you, Leslie. Finally, we can go to Dady Donaldson, please. I gave evidence to the session about five years ago now. I described the situation towards Gypsy travellers in Scotland as having stagnated for decades. Although I am sitting here today and very thankful that there has been some progress made, particularly in starting a conversation around inequalities that Gypsy traveller communities face in Scotland, we have also seen some movement in terms of accommodation. I think that that has been already articulated before me by other witnesses. However, there is still a real need to recognise that inequalities and issues continue to persist towards our communities today in Scotland. I hope to raise some of that today. Some of the key points are the unsustainable funding models that we continue to see rolled out from central government level towards projects, which are very important to do fantastic work, but they are not giving enough funding to be sustainable and continue year after year. We saw that, for example, with the great project. I was involved with the Gypsy Traveller Youth Assembly in article 12, where we brought together some fantastic young people and really empowered them to tell their voices and tell their stories, but the funding did not continue. I am really sad to see that model continue throughout many of the third sector work. We have also seen a rise in gesture politics, and I do not raise that to put a dampener on the great co-production that has happened and the cross-party work, particularly between COSLA and the Government as well. However, we have seen a rise in people making statements that are seen as more gesture than action, particularly at central government level, that do not translate down to the grass roots. There have been many occasions where activists such as myself have went along to events and heard some fantastic rhetoric, but that has not then translated into action. The Gypsy Traveller Communities living at the grass roots have not seen any fruition from that rhetoric either. The other point that I was hoping to raise was that we saw some fantastic co-ordination of services such as toilets, water and sanitation during the Covid lockdown. However, that is no longer the case, and families on the roadside are continuing to struggle to access basic needs. We are also not seeing any adequate provisions or protections put in place for ancestral stopping sites, a point that I raised in 2017 as a point of significance to me and my own family. We see that particularly in spite of cross-party support for a motion to protect ancestral stopping places in 2018. The other point that I want to touch on, and I am just going to touch on it because it has been raised by one of the other witnesses as well, is the cost of living crisis and our movement towards a cashless society. I am growing increasingly concerned, particularly for employability within Gypsy Traveller Communities, that tends to follow trades and tends to follow an oral teaching—very little Gypsy Travellers go on to do apprenticeships and those types of things that we know as an inequality and an issue. However, we need to also think that, if we are moving towards a cashless society, particularly after the pandemic, how is that going to impact communities that traditionally work on cash and particularly do not have a permanent address? Lastly, a point that I want to raise and a point that has been raised by many activists for decades now is the fact that we still have no Government apology for the cultural trauma and what has been turned as a cultural genocide of Gypsy Travellers throughout the 20th century, post-removal and post-centralisation of families throughout Scotland. Apology has been called for by activists such as Roseanna McPhee and Seamus McPhee, and certainly others as well. I just hope that, in 2022, in this year of Scotland's stories, that this will be the year that the Government will strongly consider making an apology, strongly consider recognising the impact of cultural trauma on today's inequalities and tell Scotland's Gypsy Travellers story in film. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here. Thank you, Dairi. Before we go to questions, a number of you mentioned the grassroots, and I just want to put on record that the committee, as part of our on-going work programme, absolutely determined to go out and engage directly with the community when that's appropriate. That's certainly something that's in our plans for the future. We're now moving to questions, so I'm going to hand over to Maggie Chapman first. Thanks very much, Jo. Good morning to our witnesses. Thank you very much for giving up your time to join us this morning, and thank you for your opening remarks. There's a lot of challenge in what you've already told us and a lot of areas for us to work on, both as a committee, but, as Davey said, in his final comments, as a Government and as a country more generally. I'm interested. Many of you have talked about the work that local authorities do, the services that they provide, and working with individual local authorities with COSLA. The action plan makes mention of the need for close partnership working. Obviously, there are different levels of responsibility between local government and the Scottish Government, but the third sector agencies and organisations play a crucial role in all of this as well. I was just wondering, if I can ask each of you in turn, what are the things that we are getting right with the partnership working and, more importantly, what are the things that we are getting wrong, and what is it that we need to fix? A couple of you have already talked about things such as monitoring and evaluation that need to be comparable across the country, but I'm interested in specific examples, if you have any, and if you're prepared to talk about them. I'll go to Suzanne first. Thank you very much, Maggie. In terms of what could be done better, it would be really helpful if each local authority and or health board were required to develop a strategic plan setting out how, as a local authority, they are going to meet the requirements of the national action plan. At the moment, the development of such groups across Scotland is incredibly patchy and inconsistent, where they are in existence and there is community involvement. I think that that does help with the partnership working, it does help to build relationships, but, as I say, these groups are really quite few and far between, so I think that that's something that would be really, really helpful. I also think that it's important to provide support to the community to participate, and that can be practical support such as access to digital devices, support to use devices, to the best of their capacity. The five organisations that are here are essentially the main ones that are working with the community. There are a number of other community groups who are doing fantastic work. I would say that, in Perth and Kinross, there are certainly two that spring to mind, but, again, it is about adequate resourcing for those groups as well, because it's all very well, I think, saying that we want to engage and we want to work with the community. However, if the community doesn't have the resources and the capacity to do that, then it is essentially empty words, so that would be my view. Thanks, Suzanne. That's really helpful. Can I ask Lynn, for your comments on the two, please? First off, the partnership. That is right. We all need to be working in partnership, but there needs to be a line of equality there or equity, and sometimes that isn't there. Sometimes there are directives coming from—I'll describe the Parliament as central government here just for the purposes of it. We have directives, very good directives at times, coming from central government down to local government and down to the third sector, but, as I mentioned before, wonderful offers are wonderful and money is really important and good amounts of money is important. It's how that is drawn down and how it is dispersed at the local level. There is not a consistency there. Indeed, there are a number of local authorities that are not participating or not considering participating on what is an offer when we are talking about equality for the community. I think that there is a gap between what the thinking is within the third sector and the thinking of policy and plans coming out of central government. The thinking and understanding of that is at the local level and by the local level. The street level workers, the people who would be delivering on whether that is a plan and officers, housing officers, community development workers, social workers and so on. Although there is a good attempt to create a strong partnership, there is too much fragmentation in my opinion. I also want to give an example of looking at upgrading sites and thinking about decanting people if a site is going to be getting upgrades. Down in England, the general consensus is that a local authority in question would have a piece of land that everyone would be decanted to, so they would still be together and there would be room for trailers and so on. From my experience and understanding of people from the community coming to me, that is not happening. The stress that that is putting on families is a measurable stress in the trauma that will come after families who rely on each other for support and mental health support as well. I am not able to get that because their close family members could be in other schemes or in other streets. As we are thinking, the tightness of the Gypsy Traveller community, if there was an understanding of that at the local level, there would never be a decision taken to house people all over the city or town. If we are talking about working in partnership, we have to be sure that all actors in that are fully aware of the culture and the needs of the Gypsy Traveller community in that respect. That is helpful. Maureen Wight, Lynne Wight has just spoken about the kind of top-down directives and the mismatch, the disconnect. Maureen Wight spoke in your opening remarks about, for example, the curriculum not necessarily being relevant to Traveller communities' lives and their experience. I wonder, Maureen, could you pick up on that and give us either other examples or a little bit more on how we have not got that right yet? I think that it echoes some of the previous comments. It is a disconnect between national and regional delivery. I am a great advocate for the changes that have occurred in Scottish education over the past. In fact, I have been involved in a lot of them over the past five years. To be honest, it is unrecognisable now. If you read the top-level policy, then there are no reasons why Gypsy Traveller children do not have a personalised learning experience that is relevant to their culture and that equips them for whatever lives they lead and that they should have choices whether they want to lead a Traveller life or whether they have other opportunities open to them as well. The disconnect happens within leadership at local authority level. As I mentioned, there is no continuity between services. For example, one of the local authorities that I know, probably with the most Gypsy Travellers in Scotland, has no specific education staff dedicated to delivering either outreach or in-reach or any kind of services, which would suggest that it is not in strategic planning that would suggest that the curriculum has not been designed to be relevant. Whereas other authorities might be smaller and have less Gypsy Travellers, they have very well organised services that meet the needs in a very strategic way, encouraging children into primary school, picking up children where they drop out, thinking about pathways and all that. A good example of the non-interpretation of policy would be in terms of attendance, whereby the seamless coding has become increasingly flexible over the past years. Gypsy Travellers perceive that the coding and the tracking of their whereabouts and their children's attendance to be one of the main barriers for them turning up to schools. The communication is not coming out from the local authority, in fact, even nationally as well, to be honest, on this level. If they were aware of the fact that codes are designed to be flexible to accommodate different lifestyles, they would not opt out. They would work with local authorities in dialogue to try to find more flexible solutions. That is one of the examples of where the policy and practice could be much, much better, but it is not being used in the way that it was intended. The curriculum documents and the transformation of the curriculum accommodate for Gypsy Traveller-based material. It is not just about what children learn, it is how they learn, it is problem-based approaches, it is real-life scenarios and situations, it is intergenerational approaches, it is using technology. It is all of those things for and part of the curriculum. It is relationships. All that is written into the curriculum, and it could absolutely meet the needs of Gypsy Travellers, but it is not, unfortunately. Thanks, Maureen. That is quite a significant challenge for education across the board, isn't it, to enable us to get that right. Leslie, you spoke about education as well and some of the issues around continuity of services. Onda, could you say a little bit more about where we could do better around partnership working, around building that continuity and embedding it in how the services, the functions that we design, how they play out and how they support the young people that you work with? Absolutely, great question. I would like to re-emphasise what Dr Finne has said, that question of continuity and the difference between local authorities is a major part for us. I will say on the positive side, everyone we contact in local authorities is very eager to partner with us, the very support of the goals that we can create together. However, between local authorities, we have had the experience recently, we have started a roadside education pilot, which means that in the north-east in Highlands of Scotland, we are looking to find families who are living roadside and helping them with educational support. We needed the help of local authorities to give us the references if they knew of a family living roadside, if a family came into their local area. What we discovered once we were making these connections in such a detailed way, which we have never done before, was that the difference in how the structural design of who was responsible for handling Gypsy Traveller family's living roadside was wildly different between local authorities. Oftentimes, it seemed that they essentially assigned it to whoever had the capacity. In some local authorities, it would be a Gypsy Traveller liaison officer, which is great, or there might be a teacher of additional support needs that is assigned to a remit for young Gypsy Travellers. However, often we were finding that the person in charge was, for instance, someone in housing, simply because it was being seen as an issue of housing. But if you can imagine, that's a lack of training and a lack of capacity for all the other support and signposting that travelling family might need to simply say, well, it's an issue of housing, they live roadside, let's assign it to housing. We also have seen some, for instance, where it's considered simply a issue of what site they're headed to or what site they're living on. Seeing that what's being treated as a semantic when, in fact, there's such a wide breadth of support and signposting that these families deserve aren't seeing much continuity between local authorities that way. Thanks, Lesley. That's helpful. Davey, if I can come to you now, your challenge was to move away from gesture politics is one that I hear, and I've heard you do when I was thinking about this before. I suppose one of the obvious questions is, what is it that we need to do differently? Is it in our direct engagement with Gypsy Traveller communities? You spoke about funding and the sustainability and continuity of funding being really key, but there seems to be, there's obviously a gap, a disconnect, a hole happening intentionally or otherwise. I just wondered what your thoughts were on some of the ways through that for us. I think that when it comes to partnership working, on one level, I want to congratulate the plan in recognising that local politics and national politics, when it comes to Gypsy Traveller and Equalities, can be totally disparate. I think that the plan recognises the need for partnership working principally between the Scottish Government and COSLA. I think that that's something to be celebrated. However, my role as an activist and a role of progress in dialogue in supporting grass-roots community champions to defeat their own marginalisation in a way and to be empowered to take the lead and take the charge in their own right. To me, partnership work needs to be much more localised, it needs to be much more grass-roots. I think that there's some great strengths in supporting the third sector to act as a go-between. I think that there's some great strength in funding the third sector to create projects to empower and sustain engagement with grass-roots communities, something that I benefited from as a young activist. To me, what we need to start seeing is how both MSPs and local government actually work with their own Gypsy Traveller constituents, be they constituents living on a permanent site or be they constituents moving through their area on a regular basis. How are we seeing that engagement happen? How is it characterised and is it sustainable? My experience has been that it isn't sustainable, it very rarely happens, and if it does happen, it's because we've got a particularly passionate often politician or perhaps a housing officer or a GTLO who's pushing for that to happen. I want us to think about, how can we create that into a system? How can we make sure that local Gypsy Travellers are supported to be empowered on issues that matter to them? To me, the partnership that is lacking is the partnership that is being disconnected. We have focused on supporting the third sector and on being a go-between between communities and authority. We have overlooked the fact that there are some fantastic grass-roots communities out there who move into those areas or may be permanent in those areas who have their own issues that matter to them geographically. How do we access those communities and how do we talk to those communities without a go-between? To me, as an activist, the whole reason I do that is to try and make sure that equity is built so that Gypsy Traveller communities are treated no differently to settled communities in terms of the issues that matter to Gypsy Travellers, matter to politicians and their decision makers as much as it does to settled communities. I think that what we often do is politicians, particularly at a local level and a national level to a certain extent. That is a challenge, but they rely or they become scared. I am going to use the word fear because I have had quite a lot of conversations with local councillors particularly who have expressed that they do not know how to do that. I would not feel comfortable going down on to a Gypsy Traveller site alone had that told to me. There is a real fear, and because of that, we fund the third sector to act as a go-between instead of thinking, well, our duty as authority is to make sure that we are engaging with those grassroots communities directly. It is a bit of a mixed bag for me when it comes to partnership. What has been done thus far should be celebrated. There is a role for the third sector, but I also think that the third sector is being made to filling for the gaps and the lack of action from authority as well. Thanks, David. That is really clear. Joe, I will be guided by you. I know that Suzanne wants to come back in briefly, but I am conscious that I would be hugged. I think that if we could move on now, that would be good. Suzanne, if you have something in particular to say, I am sure that you will find a point to bring it back in. I want to thank our witnesses this morning for not just being really insightful but also educational. Something that you spoke about there, Davie, in particular, is that engagement with our Gypsy Traveller community within our constituencies. I am certainly going to take that away, so thank you for that. I have heard a bit about the plan that things have stalled. Reasons for that of course were highlighted being the pandemic, but even the pandemic aside, just in regards to parts of the plan being stalled overall or held up, I am just wondering if each of you could give me a little insight into where you feel that that has happened or whether you know that it has happened. I will start with Suzanne. Thanks, Karen. It is really just echoing what witnesses have previously said, that I think that the biggest frustration and certainly something that has been fed back to us is the progress on more and better accommodation, which is possibly the overriding priority within the action plan. For example, again where there has been progress in terms of things like the interim site design guide, and community members have been involved in that, and the first iteration of that has been published. I think that it is the ability to drive forward change. We have been working with community members, both in terms of the accommodation funders part of housing to 2040. We understand that some of the delays have been around, for example, things that are beyond the control of local authorities and of Scottish Government and Parliament, such as Brexit, the impact of Covid on the essentially society shutting down for probably over two years now. We know from the community that there is a lack of site accommodation, there are issues with the planning system. Debbie has already talked about roadside camps and traditional stopping places. I think that those are probably the things that have been delayed the most and have just really fueled that sense of frustration within the community. Thank you very much. Can I go to Dr Finne, please? Yes. I suppose that there are two things. The first thing is the fact that access to working with the community has been installed during the pandemic, and that went on for a long time. One of our initiatives was trying to increase uptake of the 1140 hours for early years in childcare education. The community did not want to be concerned with that at that particular time. There was so much going on, and we got involved in a lot of other things as well. What actually happened was that we spent much, much more time being strategic and planning and working with a cohort of local authorities. One of the strong messages that came out of that was the fact that delivery could not be coherent across authorities. There had to be local and regional differences, not just because of the geographical spread of the families, but also the nature of the families' lives, how they travelled, where they went to school, where they lived in houses, where they lived in sites, and it is a whole different ballgame. We have managed to modify approaches, and we have now got a national guide for teachers, staff and everybody. We are now delivering that successfully. We have delivered 100, and we are now on to our second round of 100. We are working with about six local authorities to do that. That has been a benefit. What really stalled for us was community advocacy. I do not take it as what Dairie said, but as a third sector, I do not know whether we are a third sector. To be honest, we have a strange position because we are not knowledge exchange at the university. However, we work on a consultancy basis, on a research basis, very directly with families, and then we can be seen as a third sector in the way that we deliver national messages. We try to get as broad a national picture as possible by consulting with communities, and then we try to make sense of that. However, community advocates are absolutely central to that process. I think that we are still struggling to redevelop relationships with young people, young mums, to become community advocates within local areas, to train them to lead childcare workshops and things like that, to increase their own literacy skills so that they have the confidence to then go out and set up groups and be advocates with their own educational processes. The big challenge of that is the fact that you need so many community advocates because there is no one voice that represents any aspect of that community. We need young mums who have lots of children, who live in sites, who travel a lot, all that kind of thing. We are finding that a real challenge just now, because we need to get a national picture. People are not as keen to be involved in that advocacy way because there is so much going on, but that might just be our experience, I do not know. That is really helpful. Thank you. Could I ask Dr Tammie, please? That was coming on the back of what Maureen has just said. I really was taken by her point about needing many advocates and that whole self-advocacy, if you like, but everything is linked here. All the issues that were speaking about are accommodation, employability, education. They are all linked and for people to have that voice and to truly participate, so not consultation or a few voices being seen to represent the whole, if you like. To have that, we have to go back to the first principle and that is about capacity building. If we are looking at encouraging young people as an example, empowerment is not something that you can hand to somebody in a jug and go, there you are, have it and off you go. When people have not had that level and there has been higher and lower sections in society, people need help, especially if they have not been engaged in the normal decision making processes or democratic processes. There needs to be that support there. That is a continuing role in the third sector, and it is looting specifically that Lesley can speak for her organisation much better than me, but that is at the heart of that. It is working with young people so that they have that capacity built, so that they can look at ways that they can access apprenticeships, whether that is through the provision of online learning, so that they can get the core skills that they might be getting in school. However, there has to be a point where everyone is brought to the same level. For me, that is about true empowerment, true participation and capacity building, if you like. It is not a case of saying that we would do ourselves a disservice if we speak about getting rid of one layer of support, because it is then almost like that. I did community development courses a lot of years ago, and my grounding was always about not being really careful that you are not setting people up to fail. It is an equal partnership when you are sharing learning with people, but you have to understand that people have to have that critical consciousness opened up, if you like, and that comes through capacity builder. A major part of what Susanna has mentioned is this idea that a lot of the action that we have seen in the action plan has been around a lot of us pushing education for capacity building. In particular, something that I think could use a much clearer way forward is tackling racism and discrimination. It is a key part of the action plan. What we are hearing from our young people is that this is very essential for them. This is something that they want to get involved with. We have also heard this through Mekop from the community members that work with Mekop, that for our young people it is very much something that they are ready to have a bigger voice there to feel empowered there, but I think that we need a clear way forward. We need to know what action that action will look like. I know that the Scottish Government has been working on that. There will be some things in the near future, but just to emphasise what Dr Temmie is saying, the young people are there and they are ready. We just need to help them to come to centre stage. There are many points on the action plan that have stalled. There have been many different excuses tabled, including Covid, but we need to be realistic with ourselves as well. We are moving into a time with lessening restrictions of a time of fewer movement. We are not seeing the same restrictions as we did in the first lockdown, for example. We need to start being realistic in what we expect of the action plan and where we expect the action plan to come forward with action now as well. I am not going to touch on some of the points that I was going to because they have been articulated already by the other witnesses, but I want to touch on one point and, following on very much from what Lizasyn said, the movement for change is the wording in the action plan. It is the need to tackle racism and discrimination that persists towards gypsies and travellers in Scotland. To me, as an activist, working with many local authorities on issues such as accommodation and some of the other quite complex and unwieldy issues to do with funding streams and all those other issues that come to that, when you boil it right down to its core, the issue does not lie with how the funding gets distributed or where the funding comes from or if there is funding in existence. The issue lies with human action and human thoughts around gypsy traveller communities. We see that gypsy traveller communities funded less often their services are not given adequate attention. We have heard some good examples already around engagement, particularly with some local authorities, not having a worker at all that looks to engage with gypsy travellers in a sustainable way. The reason for all of that is racism. Boiling it right back down, the reason gypsy travellers are treated differently is because they are seen differently or not seen at all. What we need to see happen is that gypsy travellers, given the empowerment that they need—I agree with Lynne and I said in my opening statement or earlier on that I owe a lot of my activism to that early start—I got in terms of being developed as an activist. That is important, but we need to see a real shift in direction to think that we are delivering on accommodation, but that happening in silo is not going to change anything. We need to change society's views on gypsy travellers, and the only way that we can do that is by tackling unconscious bias, by tackling stereotypes and by tackling the discrimination that surrounds us. The way that we do that is by empowering gypsy travellers to be seen. Most of the time when gypsy traveller community champions are seen and heard, people leave thinking that that is not what I expected. That is not the way that I was told that gypsy travellers are. That is not what I was brought up thinking. That is what we need to see happen, and that is what we need to hear in order for any of this action to be long-changing and long-standing. I want to look a bit at the plan itself. As we all know, there are five themes that have been brought out from the plan. They are accommodation, access to public services, better incomes, tackling racism and discrimination, and the better representation. Davie, you talked about it earlier and you have continued on that about the rhetoric. It is good to have all of these themes, but not all of them are working at the same level across the sector that you have. It would be good to talk about what you think will develop in the long term, because at the moment, the biggest issue facing any individual is the cost of living crisis. That has a massive impact on all of these. It would be good to hear about the priorities. Do you think that any one of these themes has a higher priority? Are they running in parallel with one another? Is there one that is overtaking at the moment in being seen as the theme that is making the most progress? You have strong views on that already. I think that they all intersect. It would be wrong for me to say that accommodation is more important than employability or vice versa. However, I think that we need to shift focus slightly in the sense that we have all been focusing on accommodation. There are a lot of partners around the table today that are not represented in this meeting. We need to make sure that we are thinking about how the labour can be delivered by different partners and how we can make sure that we are not missing out areas or themes to prioritise certain themes, which I would say has been happening up until now. Employability and the cost of living is something that I became acutely aware of recently. A lot of my engagement is with gypsy traveller men. A lot of them are really worried about their businesses. They are really worried that very few of them have what we would term as professional training or professional qualification. Most of them have learned their skills orally or have been taught them by other gypsy travellers, principally their fathers and brothers. Most gypsy traveller men have not had that formal education that many settled people take for granted. Although there are issues with formal education settings, something that we need to start thinking about more is how we can help gypsy traveller young people to access employability sectors that might not traditionally have been accessed by gypsy travellers, making sure that they do not feel that they have to constrain their way of living into a certain occupation. That is something that needs to be looked at, but when it comes to the daily living costs and trying to reduce the cost of daily living, we have seen some great work happening locally, but it is not cohesive and it is certainly not across the board. How can we take those models that have been proven to work, proven to make a significant impact on families and broaden them out to a national perspective? That is one thing. When it comes to living costs, we cannot overlook movement towards a cashless society. For most people, that is not an issue, but if you do not have a fixed address or do not have formal education, opening a bank account, for example, can be something almost impossible for some people without correct support. How are we supporting people on a national level? Again, there is some local work happening, which is great to see, but how can we broaden that out so that it is not that some gypsy travellers have the support and are able to access employability and that a cashless society will not matter to them, but others are totally on the edge and, financially speaking, are facing great difficulty if we move towards a cashless society. You talked about, at the opening, your opening statement about frustrations that the sector may have. It would be good, once again, to get your view about how the themes are managed and whether there are frustrations across that process and developing the long-term access. Sorry, is that to me? Yes, sorry, Susan, that is to you. Oh, sorry, yes, so sorry. I think that, in terms of the frustration, one of my colleagues mentioned at the very beginning that the joint work that went on with partners, with Scottish Government, with COSLA, when we were in the particularly acute phase of the pandemic, showed what could be achieved where there was a will and how potentially very bureaucratic and maybe admin heavy systems could be adapted and made flexible to enable better partnership working. So I think there is a model there and we need to look at how we can take that forward and not lose the learning from that approach because that was affected. The main frustration for me is that the action plan by its very nature has a time limit. The key thing is what happens beyond the current lifespan of the current action plan. Working on equality for the community is everybody's responsibility and what we need to see is how it is going to be embedded across housing, across education, across health and social care, across the criminal justice system, across everything. Thank you. Lynn, you spoke about the grass root issue and that there was a big disparity amongst the councils and how they manage things. Is that the case that there is a difference across some council areas when you are looking at those five themes and how successful they have been? Yes. As others have said and Leslie pointed that out really well when she was talking about their work reaching families who are living roadside, that in some local authority areas you have gypsy travellers on workers or officers to tell those. In some areas it is a teacher and someone in housing. That demonstrates that there is no continuity of service because they are all professionals and they are probably very good at their profession. However, there is such a difference on the way that those people operate and their knowledge around the community that I do not think that you could ever have continuity of service across when there is such a difference in skills and knowledge-based within the people or indeed there are local authority areas that do not have anybody in particular. I wonder if I could go back to what other people have been saying there because it just always brings me back to the issue of capacity building. When we are talking about members of the community having their voice it does all go back to capacity building and people are not being seen and heard, that is perhaps because they do not have the confidence to be seen and heard and feel that they are going to have the backing of local authorities, local elected representative or indeed people like yourself. It is all about building that as well, but capacity building is also for those professionals who are working with the community. Perhaps there needs to be a network established. I know that step of T-net is a network of teachers, which works really well. Perhaps we need to be looking at a network of all the individuals, whatever their profession, coming together and having their capacity built so that they feel confident. Someone mentioned earlier that people do not feel unconfident, they are not sure about the culture, they are worried that they will get something wrong. That is that whole thing, but going back to the first principle, I think, is that we need to look at what is there and that gypsies and travellers plus the professionals who are working with them feel confident to come together and work together. I hope that that answers your question and I know when I'll be back. Thank you very much. Time is pressing and my questions have been answered, but if other colleagues want to make it, I'm more than happy to give them some time as well. Thank you to the panel for your answers so far and for joining us today. It's been really helpful. If possible, I want to talk a little bit about the cost of living and extend part of the conversation that we've just had. I'm keen to know, given the lived experience of fuel poverty and the fuel poverty strategy that we have in Scotland, do we think that the needs of the communities that you represent are sufficiently addressed in the fuel poverty strategy and, of course, in the action plan? Do you think that further work will need to be done, given the upcoming energy cap rise and expected energy prices? I'm also keen to hear a bit more about the impact of the cash flow society that David has been mentioning. Anyone in particular, Pam? Possibly I'll start with David, just because I've been quite intrigued by that concept and how we can address it and support people through this course of living crisis. When it comes to fuel poverty strategy, I'll leave that part to Suzanne because I know that there's been some work already happening on that. However, I will pick up your point on the cash flow society and just add to what I've said. When it comes to the cash flow society, again, I just want to reiterate that, for many people living and housing particularly, but broadly speaking, it won't be as large an impact as it will be for the Gypsy Trafford community to have traditionally relied on cash, principally because opening a bank account can be quite difficult to get literacy issues or a lack of formal education, but also if we boil it down to the basics, if you don't have a permanent address, it can be very difficult to gain access to those types of services. I think that when it comes to the cash flow society in general, I don't think that central government have paid enough attention to it as perhaps they should for all communities. In progress and dialogue, we do support a range of marginalised communities, and many of those marginalised communities are really concerned about it moving towards a cash flow society. However, when it comes to Gypsy Traffords, we need to think, well, how are we going to support people to improve their employability and also work to mitigate those impacts that are going to be coming with the cost of living and with moving towards cash flow society? I think that the two have to marry up. I don't think that they can be taken in silo. I think that if we're talking about employability and supporting Gypsy Traffords going forward into different career paths, we also need to think about how it's going to impact on the traditional career paths of Gypsy Trafford people. I won't take up too much time. I'll perhaps pass to Susanna, if that's all right, to pick up on the fuel poverty strategy. I'd like to go back to a point that's coming across really strongly, in just how interconnected everything is. I don't think that you can look at fuel poverty without looking at the quality of accommodation for the community. If that accommodation is not wind and water tight, your fuel costs, your heating, etc., is going to go up. We also know from our work with the community that a lot of the issue, people are already struggling with debt management in terms of energy costs. You're already starting from that sort of financial disadvantage. A lot of families rely on bottled gas and the cost of bottled gas is really expensive. We have families who actually don't have access to an individual energy account, and it's quite technical. Forgive me, this sounds a bit confusing because I'm never quite sure about this, but our understanding is that on some local authority sites, the local authority is the principal account holder and individuals on the site buy energy essentially from the local authority. If that is the arrangement, then again you're limited in being able to find the most cost-effective tariff for yourself, but that in itself links back to the digital divide, because so many of these deals require you to go online and to be able to search. I know that I find that quite confusing myself, but if you don't have a device, if you're not confident in using IT, if you have problems with connectivity, then again those are additional barriers. All of these things are interconnected. Thank you, convener. Can I ask a couple of supplementaries on that as well, please, if that's what you want? If you're just looking on the same area, then yeah, I mean there's a couple of folks still to bring in. It is, thank you. Specifically, in just directly to respond to Suzanne's point around that, it's really interesting. Do you have any information from the people who you represent about the likely increases of any tariffs, particularly where local authority is the provider or the account holder? Is there anything that can be done to mitigate the impact of that being passed on, but also recognising the cost that a local authority would have? My other question is slightly broader, but it's still on cost to living, and it's about what we can do to make sure that Social Security Scotland can provide the best possible service to the Gypsy travel community. Most of the panel make the point around making sure that they train in an engagement with the community and understand the interconnected aspects of it. Again, it goes back to the point of the casual society as well. Thanks. In terms of getting hard evidence, we don't have that in terms of what the additional cost is going to be. What we have heard directly from community members is just, and I think probably akin to the settled population, are just huge worries about the cost of fuel on household income. We do know that this is a community that is already financially disadvantaged, so there is potentially a piece of work to be done there. In terms of what local authorities can do, we have been made aware of funding that is going out to local authorities to help to offset or to mitigate, to some extent, the increase in the cost of living, and I think it's called LASER funding, L-E-C-E-R. It would be interesting to know how much of that is any is being directed towards Gypsy traveller communities to help them offset any increased costs they have. We are aware of work that has gone on in two local authorities. Perthynkin Ross is one that springs to mind where they have worked with a local community group around vouchers that have been distributed to members of the Gypsy traveller community to help to meet the cost of living increases. However, in terms of a Scottish-wide picture, we do not have any further evidence at all, so I think that there is a piece of work to be done there. In terms of social security of Scotland, I am again aware that Scottish Government is currently undertaking some research to look at the community's experience of social security Scotland and the welfare benefits system. That work is currently on-going and we are aware that Gypsy traveller community members are part of that research, so we are awaiting to hear what those results are and then hoping to take any recommendations forward. Back to Pam, there was an MD Ashworth particularly wanting to bring in Pam. Thank you, not unless David or anyone else has anything further to add. Yeah, I think that David does. Sorry, I have been calling you David, that might be your Sunday name. David, thank you. That's all right. Just a really quick one. A model of good practice that I think should be noted and perhaps encouraged in other areas. Progress and dialogue have been working very closely with Aberdeenshire Council. We worked principally over the winter months of 2020, it seems so long ago now, but 2020 into 2021 to produce and enact a flexible wellbeing fund that supported marginalised communities to access funding, which had always been available from the local authority, but had been made available in a way that wasn't accessible or people weren't comfortable accessing. We had a network of community champions from marginalised communities, some from Gypsy traveller communities as well, and many of our applicants were Gypsy travellers who took calls, supported in the paperwork, supported in families being able to access funding that was given direct to the families and certainly supported through the winter. We're now moving to another fund, which will be opening in the next couple of months, which will be looking at the cost-of-living crisis. Again, that's open to all marginalised communities, but we did see, off top of my head, about 6 to 570 per cent of applicants were from Gypsy traveller families. That's something that could be a model that could be used in other places, working with people and organisations communities who have strong relationships with marginalised communities to access pre-existing funding that's there to support with the cost-of-living. Thanks. Dr Lyndon, were you trying to come in on this one? Yeah, please. It's just to come in the back of what Suzanne was saying, talking about this whole issue, about the local authority being the buyer, if you like, of fuel, of power, and then selling that on to all intents and purposes to residents on sites. I think that it's really important to state that this is not a new issue. Way back, I'm sure it was back in 2011, we were engaged on a site trying to negotiate because the local authority was setting the unit price on the metres in the units and the residents had no option or choice to look to another provider, if you like, so local authority was deciding who the company was that they were buying from and then selling it on, if you like, through the metres, which I always find a bit odd anyway. I'm not sure that that's a local authority's role to be a third, you know, an intermediary you buy and fuel in and selling it on. There have been several issues around that and that's on going and obviously before 2011, but people were having to, they just couldn't afford it, they were having to just, you know, know how, so they had utility units that could be heat, so they were shouting and cooking and freezing cold units. So this is not new, this is not because of the crisis that we're in at the moment, this has been a long on-going issue so that really is something I would like to see addressed given where we're all sitting at the moment. Brilliant. Okay, thanks. I'm going to move on now to Fulton McGregor and I know that Pam's got a couple of other questions. Go to me. Thanks, convener, and good morning to the panel. My main question is around an area that I know has had quite a bit of discussion already this morning and it's around the 18-month extension on the action plan. I'm happy for it to be in any order what the panelist's thoughts are on the 18-month extension. Do you think that this is enough time? So Fulton, if you could just direct it because otherwise we don't know where to spend the camera. Oh, okay, that's fine. Well, I'm quite happy to start with, sorry, put them on the spot then, there's quite happy to start with David Donaldson. I think, yeah, it's a difficult one to say because, you know, the pandemic is not over, the lockdown is, but we're still seeing it impact in many different ways, and certainly at a local level much of the local authority provision and support has still to be taken forward again after having been suspended after the last lockdown. We're still seeing physical interaction not preferred by some, we're still seeing people who, you know, we have to recognise disability and long-term health conditions within the Gypsy Traveller community are very prevalent, so many within our community are still very cautious about people coming around, about physical meetings as well. So that's something to be thought about. I think we need to have a deadline, we can't just have the action plan going on forever because it needs to remain an action plan and not just a list of things we would like to happen someday. So I do think the 18-month initially is a good period, and I would go back to a point that Suzanne made around the sustainability and around, well, where do we go next? I think that that's perhaps a better conversation to have, you know, post that 18 months, where are we going to be? What are we going to do? What's the funding going to look like? You know, how are we going to engage with the Gypsy Traveller community at that stage? Where will we look to enhance accommodation? You know, I had a conversation with Gypsy Traveller yesterday, whose site is undergoing some renovations, and they described it as a facelift. They actually weren't that happy with what was happening on the site. They said that it was very much a facelift. It was quite, the word isn't quite there for me, but you know, it was what people saw. It was quite aesthetic what was happening, and it didn't actually improve, for example, the heating of the shalys and the blocks. It didn't improve the amount of people who could stay on the site. The site was still the same size. It didn't improve the standard of living on the site. You know, so it seems to be a disconnect from what we're hearing out of COSLA and hearing out of local authorities who are spending this money, which is good, but actually it might not be yet spent in the way that many Gypsy Travellers want, or it simply isn't enough money to make a significant difference on sites for Gypsy Traveller people. So I think that the real conversation to be had is what do we do post 18 months. That's very helpful to have. I didn't see anybody else wanting to specifically come in, but Suzanne, I wonder if you're wanting to come in on this even briefly. Yeah, I mean, again, you know, I think a lot has already been said, but I totally agree with Davie that the issue has to be sustainability. You know, we are not going to make wholesale change across all of the priorities in the action plan within 18 months. The further we dig, the more that we go into things, the more things are uncovered, and there will always be new priorities emerging from the community. So it is about sustainability and how it just becomes embedded in everything that we do going forward, you know, from the education, the professional education of practitioners across the board, looking at structures and processes, and I think most importantly how the community are supported to be at the very heart of this. So I think the sustainability one is the key issue. Yeah, thanks for that. And if there's nobody else wanting in, just before I pass back over to the convener, I just wanted to put in record my thanks for all the work that all the panellists have done over the last few years in tackling head-on the unacceptable discrimination faced by Gypsy Travellers. You know, I've come across you all in various guises over the last couple years in the sister committee of the last Parliament and also in various cross-party groups, and you know, I was actually, I hope the convener doesn't mind me telling this wee story, but I was actually at an event on Sunday, it was a children's show, took my two boys to, it was in at Glasgow at the Pavilion, and this I think indicates how much work users have done that maybe it sometimes goes unnoticed. And it was a kid's show, it was about dinosaurs and stuff like that, and it was a play, and it was really good. But there was one comment, and it was a very lively show in the audience, we're interacting and laughing, and there was one point in it where, so that's the context for this comment, and one of the actresses in it was, it was that unconscious bias, I don't, there was nothing she meant by it, and she was referring to a child, so it wasn't any reference to Gypsy Travellers, but she used the word tinker, and the audience, there was almost like a gasp within the audience, so much so that my kid such as asked me what tinker was, and I could hear another kid away over the other side of the hall asking the same question, so this was quite a lively show, and that was the response, and I thought maybe five years ago that would have had a laugh or something like that, and I thought about this evidence session coming up today, and I thought that's a lot of the work that's down to some of the panels that are coming from us today, so I hope you don't mind me sharing that story, something just dawned on me earlier when people were talking, maybe I was meant to be there on Sunday with an evidence session just on this just two days later, so almost a responsibility to share that and praise the good work that the users have done because you have, and you won't see the societal changes because you're living the fight every single day, but I think that was one very small and obviously personal and anecdotal example, but I think that it was definitely worth sharing. Thanks, convener, for allowing me to... Yeah, thanks for that. Clearly we have made progress, but we know that there's well, there's some pretty horrific evidence that we've got some distance still to go on tackling some of that racism. Pam Goswell, please. Convener, and thank you to all the... Pam, your microphone has gone off. Thank you, back. Do you want me to start again? Can you hear me okay? It's okay now. Thank you. Well, thank you, convener, and I want you to thank the witnesses and for their opening statements and the responses to all the questions that truly does provide a picture of all the issues that people have been facing, and I would also like to thank all the work that you've been doing through Covid and before as well. My question is more around... We know that the access to education has already something that affected the gypsy and traveller community, and today we have heard the lack of devices or internet access is likely to have exacerbated the digital divide and access resulting in digital inequality. What do you think should be done to help close the gap? Should the Scottish Government initiate a catch-up in a programme targeted at gypsy and traveller community? My question goes out to Maureen First, Lynn and others, and convener, if it's okay, I want you to ask a quick question after that on the racial side as well. I'm trying to merge them in, but yeah. So, was that Maureen? Yes, sorry, Maureen. Hi there, thanks for that question, and it's the million dollar question. So, in my mind, it has not been the lack of kits or resources and even access to the internet. It has been the confidence and the ability to use the technical devices in a way that improves outcomes. My business is obviously education. What we've done to try to tackle it, but we don't have funding, we're doing this in a very temporary way, is we're doing a two-teacher approach. We're sending out a person to a family, and then somebody's at the other end. You've been supported in the home learning how to communicate digitally and how to access resources. From an education perspective, digital technology is only as good as the programme that it's actually working to. We absolutely need, in education fronts, blended learning in terms of access to other public services. It needs to be clear. We need to remember that many, many, many traveller families have low literacy levels across the generations, so all the work that we are doing just now has got transcription, so you don't need to be able to read, if everything turns into audio, that kind of thing. There are a whole range of strategies that are not in place to support the access to digital technology, which increases digital divide, because if you're in a house, but your parents are always kid, then you're flying ahead. Gypsy travellers are falling further and further and further behind. Thank you, Maureen. Can I go over to Dr Lin? A little bit about now, obviously. Maureen's just said that it's not the access, it's that one-to-one learning that people need, and do you think there should be a catch-up programme targeted at the gypsy and traveller community more to that point than just overall access? I just want to echo first of all what Maureen said, and funding is an issue. I know that we are living in tight times, but I was involved a couple of years ago, at the beginning of Covid, on getting a decent amount of funding to provide devices and data, but there's no continued funding to sustain what was provided, particularly in terms of data access, or indeed increase. That needs to be in place, first of all, and the one-to-one support that was mentioned. Leslie, you're probably better going to Leslie for this, because you, article 12, are engaged in that at the moment, but back to my whole issue around capacity building, that's what's on offer, article 12, of a learning programme. What I'm drawn to about it is that it's online, and we're talking about older young people, if you like. The ones that may well be working when people would expect them to be in secondary school, but if there's an online learning programme, they can still be accessing that, but it's ticking an egg kind of thing, because you need to have the devices and have the training and feel confident to use it. Of course, as Maureen was saying there, we have to address the literacy levels within a whole family group. That has to be offered to adults as well, so it's looking at the whole family, if you like, not just the A young person or young people. That needs to happen, and it will need a lot of funding, but it's not a huge community in the grander scheme of things. There's been a lack of input and funding and will in past years, so just to get back, just to bring to the level that we've got a bit of equity across society, that would be a good starting point. Thank you. Article 12 has been picking up from what Lyn will be able to get devices and data to young people and get them trained up so that they were still able to access some of that support. We've tried to continue some of that as we continue to do online learning and hybrid learning. It's taught us a lot about the potential for that, especially if you're talking about families lifting in the future. It's a wonderful opportunity for giving that continuity we keep talking about, but it also has been very eye-opening in terms of support. If you're talking about moving forward and having a push to really reach young gypsy travellers with devices to address digital poverty, it absolutely also requires that support that Dr Finn and Dr Tammy are talking about. Just to give you an example, we've had a young person recently that's joined our programme and it's been several sessions because their level of literacy means that just the basic usage of a computer is completely new to them. We're using a lot of text-to-speech programmes, that sort of thing, that they're not yet ready to even think about using the device on their own. It's very much one-to-one support as they learn to use it. It really does take a lot of time for some of those young people to, like Dr Tammy said, have the confidence to be able to move forward with that. If you're thinking about a programme like that, absolutely, I think it would be wonderful, but it does need the kind of support to really think about the scale that would be needed there. Thank you, Leslie. Convener, if it's okay, could I ask Leslie that second question, please? My question is round today. We've heard a lot about racial discrimination and racism, which actually has no place in society to never mind the Gypsy and Traveller community. Can I ask the question round? Do you think there's more that needs to be done on education and awareness starting at grass roots, maybe at schools, with the students and children so that they go home to this and they talk about it? We've root out any sort of racism or racial tension with the Gypsy Traveller community. Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, what I've heard directly from young people, they do want to be going into schools and work at the level. I'm sure Dr Finn could address this as well, kind of what she's seen in schools, but we currently have a peer educator project where we've got a few young Gypsy Travellers that are learning how to work with the community and what they highlighted immediately when they said, when we asked them what they'd like to see changed was we need to work on discrimination, we need to go into schools and talk to people, so I think that would be a big priority. All of them spoke of their experiences with bullying and exclusion in school and, like you said, having that opportunity for them to take that and then bring that message to their homes and the outside community in terms of getting that message from the school elsewhere would be fantastic. Thank you. Lynn, you wanted to say something, and I know Dr Moran mentioned racism as well, obviously being one of the issues, so if it's okay if Lynn can say something and go back to Moran, please. Yeah, just to mention, I've put it in the chat actually, but we brought article 12, myself brought the concept of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month to Scotland in 2016, and it does have government endorsement now, and that in itself is building and building, and we managed to build it as an online provision during Covid. So that is a resource that's produced by community members that is growing and growing, so I would like to see, I know that schools are often, we don't have time to produce resources, we don't have funding, but here we have sitting this resource that will have much more added this year and the coming years funding permitting, and there is your starting point. If we could see that promoted a bit at central and local government level and down into schools, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here, it's there. Thank you, Lynn. Moran, did you have something to say on that as well, because I know that you highlighted it? Yeah, I think there's two sides to this. There's promoting the positive messages, and I would have to say that, to my knowledge, you rarely get racist bullying in private schools, so it kind of filters through into secondary school, and I would say that this is about how it's managed, and I think there's, again, it follows on the theme that we've been drawn on throughout, I think this morning, is the fact that there's a lack of continuity of processes across the country. It varies not just from local authority to local authority, but from school to school. I sit on the race equality and education group, the Scottish Government's group, and recently the subgroup on, I think it's the language subgroup, has changed the term bullying, in fact prohibited the term, the use of the term bullying, and it's now got to be described as a racist incident, and that's trying to get across the message of the gravity of what that actually means to the people at the other end of that. In some ways, in schools, bullying is a mushy term, you know what I mean? I think it has to be seen for what it is, it can affect lives, it can affect futures and all that kind of thing. Just finally, Mstech produced, with Davy Donaldson, Davy produced anecdotes from some of his travels, and from our experience of working with young people, we brought together a whole range of bullying, a racist instance that had happened during their experiences of going to schools, and we turned it into an unfinished graphic novel, and we distribute that now throughout the country, and it's used by teachers with Gypsy Traverse children in the class, but not just any class can use this as part of a literacy lesson, and the children have to finish off the story. Look at where a blind eye was turned, which is normally what happens. A report wasn't recorded, you know, a child felt unsupported, but the children have then got to finish off the story, and you'll find that the majority of young people don't have any racist attitudes to the Gypsy Traverse within their community. It's what spills out with the school community that becomes the real problem, and it's not managed in schools. Thank you more, and I think that Davy wants to come in on this. Yeah, there's no end of examples of racism and discrimination, and I'm sure that everyone sitting around this virtual table today can give anecdotal evidence, very recent anecdotal evidence, from across the board. I think that it's certainly an issue that's been recognised for a long time as being an issue. I think that there's a lot of strength in focusing on burns and getting the education in it in the very early stages of education, both at primary, and I also echo what Maureen is saying, because I agree in that going into secondary is where we see a lot of the issues going into the floor, and those hate incidents becoming a lot more serious as well. I think that those two areas of education, those early areas of education, are places where we should see more learning about Gypsy Traveller cultures, communities and, of course, the inequalities that we face. However, I also don't want us to overlook the importance of professional development, of professionals being given the opportunities to challenge their own unconscious bias, given the opportunities to challenge stereotypes that they may have been brought up with from their own parents, so that we don't see decisions being made that are negative towards Gypsy Travellers as a result of those biases and racial attitudes. We have seen some great work happening at universities, and there's a great scheme that's been endorsed with a few universities in Scotland now that's looking at building not only equity of Gypsy Travellers and Roma, but Gypsy Roma and Traveller into university settings as students and in cases as teachers and lecturers, but it also looks at how universities grasp the notion of racism towards Gypsy Roma and Traveller people and how they mitigate that within their own student bodies and their own professionals. It can't be all focused on one area. It has to be tiered, it has to be intersectional throughout all professions, but where, as a Gypsy Traveller, where I want it to be most acutely felt, I feel like it's been done at primary and secondary school or it's been getting done in those areas a lot more and that's something to be celebrated, but we're still not seeing for the likes of Police Scotland, for example, the Civil Service. People who have in often cases authority and control over people and their decisions that they make, if they're different from people's lives, still don't have a grasp of who Gypsy Roma and Traveller people are and still don't have a grasp on the histories and cultures of those peoples. Thank you very much. Thank you. I guess just falling on from that point, I'll maybe stick with Davy initially. Obviously, the racism that the Gypsy Traveller Scotland and Gypsy Traveller community experiences is unique internationally and we are everyday seeing the horrors of what's happening in Ukraine. We know that in Ukraine the Gypsy Roma Traveller community, they experience the same sort of racism as do the Gypsy Roma Traveller community in Russia and I wonder if Andy wants to say a few words about that and maybe the experience in relation to refugees coming to Scotland, but Davy first kind of follows on, I think, from what you were saying. Yeah, I think, I mean, we're all harrowed by the stories and the reports coming out of Ukraine and Russia as well, of course, of the treatment of Roma people across there. I'm acutely aware of it being the chairperson of Romano-Lavins Glasgow and our role is principally to support Roma, many of whom have migrated from Eastern Europe in Glasgow and made their homes in Govan Hill and Clydebank. For us, we are greatly concerned not only with the treatment of the Roma cross in Ukraine, we've seen just for those of you that perhaps haven't seen this, but we've seen treatment of Roma refugees making their way to Poland and other countries borduring Ukraine and being treated totally different from non-Roma Ukrainian refugees. Some have been refused food and water, some have been limited to food and water that are allowed, some have been refused entry at the border. It's been horrific, some of the reports coming out and I urge everyone on this committee to look into that, but for us and certainly sitting in Scotland, well, what can we do? We're seeing, obviously, the homes for refugees and the homes for Ukraine being broadened out scheme, of course, where you can offer a spare bedroom or, if you're fortunate enough, to own multiple properties, perhaps a property to refugees as well. Something at Romano-Lavins that we're worried about is how can Roma access that scheme, many of whom have literacy issues as well? You're right in saying this, Joe, in that a lot of the issues that we see in Scotland in terms of literacy, in terms of formal education, employability, all those things are replicated and seen elsewhere in Europe. However, how can we make sure that the system for that scheme is equitable for Roma people to come through? But also, when Roma do come to this country, how can we ensure that they are not going to be exploited? We've heard rumours and reports of people, particularly farmers, I have to say, who are planning on taking on multiple Ukrainian refugees, many of whom are Roman, the ones they've identified, and will be exploiting them in terms of labour. That's something that we're taking forward at Romano-Lavins to tackle. How can we make sure that this does not give rise to a crisis in modern slavery as well? I think that there's a lot of issues there. Of course, we're all aware of Ukraine, but how can we in Scotland make sure that those issues do not come to the fore? I think that I saw you indicating that you had something to say. I don't think that there's much I can add to that. It's just a bit understanding everybody's humanity. There's a lot of images floating about Twitter just now. Again, we need to be careful that they're not real, they're not propaganda and what have you, but if they are indeed real, it's quite shocking because punishment beatings are never acceptable anywhere, whether it's in a war setting or what have you, but like any group of refugees, it has to be at the forefront that they're given the same protections as any other community, and will happen in Scotland, I'm sure. I see from the chat that Suzanne said that that's an issue that the community raised with Minister Christina McKelvie recently, and we're obviously speaking to the minister next week, so we'll maybe raise it then as well. We're coming to the end of the time, and we've covered a lot of ground, but I just want to check if any of our committee members have a burning question that they want to get on. Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, convener, and thanks for allowing me this. It's just around access to justice and representation. Members might know that I've been meeting with members of the Gypsy Travel community affected by the programme that took place between 1940 and 80, which was ultimately badly designed to integrate Gypsy Travelers into mainstream society, and we know the impacts of that on the people involved who are widespread, including post-traumatic stress disorder, long-term depression and effects of long-term ostracisation are some of the things that they've highlighted. Despite that, the community has highlighted that for a number of years. The community is looking for an apology and redress, and I'm just keen to hear from possibly Davey and Lynn, if that's okay, whether you feel that that would be helpful and the impact that that could have on access to justice for Gypsy Travelers, and whether or not you feel that people are empowered in that community to enjoy the human rights that they have and to hold people to account for them. I think that going to Davey first, you mentioned that in your opening summary, didn't you? The forced synthesisation and the forced removal of many Gypsy Traveler children throughout the early 20th century, and we have cases going right on until the early 1970s, is an issue that has been articulated by many Gypsy Traveler activists for decades now, and something that I'm really glad to hear from you. You've taken a personal interest in forwarding as well. I think that an apology will go some way to helping with the cultural trauma that has been created as a result of many of these activities, both for the victims of the forced removals and the forced synthesisation, as well as the relatives of them, who have been brought up hearing of that trauma and how it impacted on their own families. I think that the apology is something that will be very welcomed. We have been pushed back with the apology in previous years, but I think that with the apology given to the LGBT community and others, of course, on actions that had happened prior to this administration, as well as the First Minister's apology for the burning of witches and something that happened a good long time before devolution. I think that the argument is certainly there that, even though this happened prior to devolution, apology should certainly be made and will be very welcomed. However, I would urge that if an apology is to be made, it's made with the understanding that an apology in and of itself will not fix things and that this cultural trauma intersects with all the inequalities that gypsy travellers are continuing to face in our country. I would certainly urge for a conversation to begin around what we can do to resolve that cultural trauma and what we can do to make sure that the history of this trauma is told and how we can decolonise the curriculum, like how we have done with other communities and actions that I have been involved with as well. However, how can we make sure that those actions are also taken into account for sedentarisation and for removal of gypsy travellers throughout the 20th century? Thank you. Lynn, will you come in? Thanks, Pam, for raising that and the opportunity to speak on this. Many people who know me know that this has directly impacted on me and my family. We had three few of my grandfather's sisters were removed from the roadside camp, spent some time in one of the large NGOs' charities sites and then were trafficked to Canada. I'm quite emotional even speaking about this here because it brings all that back up and I wasn't prepared that this would come on the agenda, but anyway, I have shared it before and there's various programmes that have spoken about it. We were lucky enough to find the means as generations moved on to reconnect with the family members. The women who were taken last one died in 2002, but obviously their children will have yourselves. We're still in contact with them. The whole thing around anapology is quite a difficult one for me because whilst anapology would be welcome and for many people it's needed, I'm not sure that anapology would ever make things right for us because your family can never be what it is. The people who were trafficked can never be with their family or live the life that they should have lived. Anapology is important for the people who will find that that will give them peace, but I also think that if we are looking at something, we should be looking at something along the lines of truth and reconciliation, there needs to be opportunities to speak and for those who want to speak to the on-going trauma and what is still in your DNA because we know there's been research now that that does continue into your DNA. It's something that, as a family, we'll never forget and we pass on to our grandchildren and their children and so on and so forth. I'd like to feel less emotional when I'm speaking about it, so probably anapology would help me and other members of my family with that. I do think that if we are talking about the line of apologies, gypsies and travellers need to be central to that. They shouldn't be pushed aside for whatever amount of spurious reasoning and whatever. For many gypsies and travellers, that will bring peace. I'll just leave it at that, thank you. Thank you very much for sharing that line. That's really helpful. Pam's indicated that this is an area that the committee will look at in terms of future work as well, but I know that there are other processes on a foot as well. Thank you all so much for being so helpful in terms of a big range of areas that the committee will want to look at again and maybe come back to you, but right back at the start I said that we were determined to get out of the Parliament, get out of our offices or our virtual offices and meet directly with the community. We might come back to you to help to facilitate some of that engagement so that we can hear directly from members of the community in future. Again, thank you very much. That brings the public part of a meeting to a close. We'll now move into private session for the final items on our agenda, which will start in five minutes.