 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the second meeting of the health and sport committee in 2017. I would ask everyone in the room to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent. It is acceptable to use mobile phones for social media but not to record or film proceedings or take photographs. Agenda item 1 is the decision on taking business and private. Today's decision is whether we agree with our consideration of the evidence that we will receive on the draft, proposal and statement of reasons the Transplantation Authorisation of Removal of Organs, etc. Scotland Bill, whether that should be taken in private at future meetings. It's normal practice for us, the committee, to consider the evidence received in private. Can we agree that, please? The second item on the agenda is an evidence session with the Scottish Health Council. Can I welcome to the committee Richard Norris, director of the Scottish Health Council, Sam Whittle, chair of the Scottish Health Council, and Robbie Pearson, chief executive of healthcare improvement Scotland. Can I invite the panel to make an opening statement? As members will know, the Scottish Health Council was established in 2005. The reason for establishing it was to ensure, support and monitor the effectiveness of NHS boards' involvement of patients and the public and their activities. Originally, it was housed or set up within the confines of quality improvement Scotland, but now it is part, since the reform act of healthcare improvement Scotland. It's got 14 local offices across Scotland, and within the context of the healthcare improvement Scotland budget, it's got around £2.3 million. So our local offices support a range of activities with communities, and they do provide advice, facilitate and support events, but they do that in the context of supporting the NHS. But at the same time, they work with third sector, with lots of different networks, and evaluate activities and try and build skills and confidence. The local offices do gather patient and public views on a wide variety of topics, often through local discussion groups or by street canvassing. In examples include the recent review of maternity and neonatal care, which the Scottish Health Council supported by delivering a programme of engagement activities across Scotland, and they talk to a wide and diverse range of groups, 65 in total, as well as one to one discussions and questionnaires to get those different range of views. More recently, the Scottish Health Council has been involved in the delivery of Our Voice, which is the more recent initiative around gaining public views, and has worked very closely with the Scottish Government, with COSLA, with the Health and Social Care Alliance and others to introduce this new approach, and this perhaps is a more visible role for the Health Council in terms of public engagement, rather than simply ensuring that health boards are engaged in public involvement. So there have been a lot of issues raised during the time that I've been chair of the Scottish Health Council, and the introduction of Our Voice has added to some of those changes in the way services are delivered, and we have recognised this, and we are the, I am, as one of the joint chairs of the rather separate review which has currently taken place of the Scottish Health Council. That review has not reported yet, and so I will be extremely interested in hearing the views expressed today to ensure that those views are also considered as part of that review. Okay, thank you. Donald. Coming in for their submission, sorry to the panel for their submission. Can I ask about the independence of the council? You're a committee of Healthcare Improvement Scotland. That is a non-territorial health board, as we all know, and it sits under the Scottish Government. What response do you give to widespread concerns about the council's independence from both Healthcare Improvement Scotland and from Government? On the subject of independent scrutiny, could you comment on what appears to be a very limited use of the independent scrutiny panels? I think there have been three between 2007 and 2009, but none since then. The independent scrutiny panels have written. Can you answer that one? Yes, I mean, the decision to establish an independent scrutiny panel would be one that would be made by the Scottish Government, and I suppose thinking back to when they were first established, they were a fairly new innovation. I still think that there may be occasions when they would be useful, but I think that what was also seen happen is that quite often, the NHS boards also commissioned independent reports in terms of some of the clinical issues that they are facing, and that's perhaps also a development that's happened because of independent scrutiny. They could still be independent scrutiny, and we did provide a view some years ago to the Scottish Government that there was benefit in that because it did reassure members of the public who maybe didn't have as much confidence as would be desirable that there was, in a sense, good clinical and sound clinical evidence for making change. So that's an area that I think is still something that could be potentially in the light of integration of health and social care services could be something that would be useful. In terms of the issue around independence generally, although we are a governance committee of healthcare improvements Scotland, the actual work of the committee is undertaken more or less sort of separately. For example, when we are considering views about whether something is of any particular significance, we don't refer that to Healthcare Improvement Scotland. The committee itself has a minority of members who come from Healthcare Improvement Scotland. Five of the eight committee members are not Healthcare Improvement Scotland board members, and they are appointed separately, totally separately, they are not appointed by ministers. Do you want to add anything to that, Rick? Robert? I think just to add that it's important in terms of that distinctive identity of the Scottish Health Council whilst it operates within Healthcare Improvement Scotland, it is quite assertive in terms of retaining that independence and that's particularly in the context of when we get into issues of major service change. Just to be clear, the decision to set up a scrutiny panel would be the Government's decision. So how independent is that? Having an independent scrutiny panel, the decision to call one is a Government. Can you call it? Not at the moment, it's not within our guidance or ability to call that. But the actual appointment of the people would be independent. So that process, and this impacts on any Government. If a Government does not want scrutiny, then it's unlikely that it would form scrutiny panels. Does that logic follow? I think that there's an important point of distinguishing between the architecture around scrutiny, independent scrutiny panels and the independence of them. I think that obviously it's up at the moment to the Government to call that, that is currently the arrangements. And the important point I think in terms of the context of Healthcare Improvement Scotland but specifically the Scottish Health Council would be very clear in those instances where it is established that it would be absolutely independent of the Scottish Government in establishing such a panel. Can I ask about the panel itself? Sorry, the Health Committee. We've got a former civil servant, a former council chief executive, a former NHS chief executive, a solicitor, a former MSP and a consultant who gets the majority of our work from Scottish Government Quangos. Do you think that that's a representative organisation? A former civil servant? Former senior civil servant? Yes. Former council chief executive? Yes. Former NHS chief executive? That's it. According to the list that I saw, there was more. Of the Health Committee? Scottish Health Council Committee. A solicitor, a former MSP and a consultant. It's not a medical consultant. It's a consultant who gets the majority of their work from the Scottish Government. More or less, yes. Does that sound like a diversion representative body, if that's the organisation that's to promote the patient voice? I'm a bit concerned that you may have the wrong list. If I have to apologise, that's the list that I have. There are five council members. One of them is a solicitor by profession, but doesn't work as a solicitor. One of them is a sort of, has got a special interest in older people and actually works with older people. One of them works with disabled groups and the other one works with a housing group. So it doesn't sound... Before the end of the meeting, we'll come back to that because it seems to be a bit confusing. Yes, I'm a bit confused. Scottish Health Council is intended to improve patient focus, but preparing for this morning it seems that only just over a thousand people were engaged via social media and events in recent times. I think it's also fair to say that when constituents became aware that you were giving evidence this morning, I've had several emails of people who are clearly unhappy that the Scottish Health Council isn't helping them to influence decisions that have a major impact on the delivery of health services in their area. I wonder if you have any comment on that. I think, Richard, this probably goes into the realms of how we engage with our local communities more specifically. Perhaps you would like to follow up. So, our role, as Pam has described, is to support boards to engage with local communities and support local communities to have their voice heard. What is not our role is to campaign on behalf of local groups, and that's an important distinction. If there are groups or communities who feel we've not done enough to help facilitate their voice to be heard, then we're always interested to hear from them and think about how we can reflect on that and do more in that area. But I think there is sometimes perhaps an issue about how we execute that role, that it's very important that people understand that we're not there to campaign on their behalf. If I may just come back just because we are pressed for time this morning, that's absolutely not, you know, the constituents who are contacting me do not have that misunderstanding. They appreciate that it's a facilitative role. But I just wondered what proactive work you might lead on a national basis with health boards to make sure that that participation is absolutely optimised and maximised? Convener, if I may, I think that's a fundamental part of the role of the Scottish Health Council because the original premise for establishing the Scottish Health Council was to ensure a more consistent approach for NHS boards in particular in engaging with local communities. And I'll ask Richard to say a little bit more about that in a moment. But one of the key things that comes out consistently in terms of engagement with communities is I'm always asking my voice and my views at the end of a process and not at the beginning. And I think one of the things that's fundamental to this and the learning, if we're going to have more fundamental and radical service change, is the importance of that voice being heard consistently at the start and not at the middle or indeed at the end of a journey. So I think that's an important message and that's heard loud and clear about the consistency and the quality of that engagement between NHS boards and the communities. But Richard, convener, I may wish to say a little bit more about our overall approach to how we promote a more consistent and higher quality engagement with individuals and communities. So we work at a number of levels, so at the local level. We have local officers in each territorial health board area and they will give quite practical assistance and advice to boards and they'll also meet with local communities. In terms of looking at the national, if you like, at the national picture, we developed a few years ago a participation standard and we conduct biannual processes whereby boards will look at that standard and we will verify the progress that they think they've made by talking to local communities. We've also published a thing that we call the participation toolkit, which has a range of different engagement methods. There is no, there often isn't any one correct engagement method. It will often depend upon the context and on the issues. So there's a range of engagement methods in there and what we'll do is we'll engage locally once again with boards and communities to help them decide, choose which engagement method would be the most appropriate. We also help out with evaluating boards' activities, for example, as well. So there's a number of different things we do. We've also produced guidance where we feel that boards need a bit more help with understanding how to engage on a particular issue or topic. So when, for example, boards conduct option appraisal, it was very clear to us that the guidance and option appraisal that was produced by Scottish Government and by Treasury was very technical and boards were struggling with understanding how they could involve people meaningfully in that guidance. So we worked with patients, patient representatives and boards to develop some guidance to support meaningful engagement of patients and community groups in that guidance. So those are some examples. There's a range of activities both at national and local level that we carry out to support boards to do that engagement. Maybe just come back with two quick questions on that point. I'd be interested to know that participation standard or if NHS boards are self-assessing on that. Is there any sanction if they're clearly not meeting an acceptable participation standard? There's a public petition at the moment on a service change to a care home. There's questions about the efficacy and the consultation process. I just wonder what you see your role is in reducing the number of such cases where people feel compelled to take additional action. So the participation standard self-assessment and how to ensure people do feel satisfied with the processes we have in place. So on the participation standard that is designed to give comparative evidence across Scotland for how boards are engaging with communities. So we feed back to boards, boards will self-assess but then we'll go and talk about their assessment with people they've worked with and with local communities and that's how we verify that and we'll feed that back to boards in terms of how we feel they're making progress. One example within that for example is how well they're using complaints and feedback for example to use that to improve services and we conduct an assessment of that across Scotland every two years at the moment to look at that. Sorry in terms of the chai, can I just give you some more about your point about the care home? Is that a particular case? Yeah there's a public petition on a service change to a care home and it's questioning the consultation process. Now I sort of feel if constituents were aware that the Scottish Health Council existed would it not be the case that they would come to you to see what action you might take before it gets to that stage. So I'm just wondering in terms of you know how aware is the general public that you exist? In terms of care homes I think one of the issues that's risen for us in terms of integration is our role in terms of social care and care homes. I know that we have been involved in some examples where people have asked us for information but I think your point is right that our profile problem needs to now be higher in the light of integration, in the light of that demand, to understand what are the best ways to engage. By that point I'm a bit worried Mrs Whittle that you don't know your fellow board members but yourself as the chair who's a former senior civil servant, George Black who's a former chief executive of Glasgow City Council, John Glenny is a former chief executive of Borders Council, we've got Kim Schluman who's a solicitor, Elizabeth Cortherson who's a consultant, Irene Oldfather who's a former member of parliament, Marie Wong who's a fitness consultant and Alison Cox who is a consultant who gets most of her work from Scottish Government. That's the board, are they diverse, representative and independent? That's the question I'm asking. They are certainly independent and they are. Do you recognise that as the board? Yes they are the board. It's just that when you describe them as being consultants they describe themselves as consultants. Well Elizabeth Cuthbertson actually works for a housing group so I'm not sure you can count her as a consultant but yes no I think that's what their professional background is but in terms of them as individuals they are very outspoken in support of the wider public. Alex Rowley Good morning to the panel. Thank you for coming to see us today. I'm going to pick up on some of the questions that Alison asked about the role of the health council as being the patient voice at that level of engagement. I think that we've discussed quite well but also to speak to a statement that you made Mr Pearson about the health council being quite assertive in the area of major service change. I've been an MSP for 10 months and in that time I've made I think quite assertive representations to the cabinet secretary about three major service changes that my constituents are directly affected about around potential changes in St John's and Livingston which serve my constituents. It changes the closure of cleft services at Edinburgh and indeed the redesign around the Centre for Integrative Care which many of my constituents travel great distance to to use. That's three major representations I've made in 10 months but I can see that the health council has made six in six years and I'm just wondering what is the filtration that what is the bar that you set where if you are acting as the patient voice how do you determine when you make a view available to the Scottish Government and when you don't and it would seem that that's awfully few representations to make in the last six years. I think that the first thing in terms of clarity is about the role of the Scottish health council. I think it's got probably three broad roles. I think the first is about promoting that consistency of engagement at a local level between NHS boards and communities and individuals and patients. I think the second is about support for that level of engagement and support and the second which I think has been quite a strong area of focus in the past year or so is around that quality assurance of major service change. At any one time there are around 35 to 40 different pieces of service change happening in Scotland in which the Scottish Health Council is engaged in providing support. Some of those reach the threshold in terms of what we would consider major service change. The position of the Scottish Health Council just to be quite clear about it is not there to make representations it is there to when it comes to service change major service change is to provide a quality assurance role of that and to offer a view to ministers as to whether that is major service change or not. I think there's an important point in just distinguishing the role of Scottish Health Council in that. Ultimately major service change in terms of the national health service is a matter for ministers ultimately to decide upon. The other point you made was in respect of how assertive the Scottish Health Council is in terms of exerting its independence. One of the things that Pam Wittle said at the very start was about that distinctive accountability for the Scottish Health Council sitting within Healthcare Improvement Scotland. There is not a chain of command that takes decisions or views in respect of major service change back into the Board of Healthcare Improvement Scotland that is done quite distinct from the Board of Healthcare Improvement Scotland and I think it's important in giving confidence to the independence of the decision making of the Scottish Health Council that that is protected. Thank you community so in the six views that you've offered on major service change what would give us an idea of the anatomy of what that view would look like what does it contain when you give it to the Scottish Government? I wonder if you may hand that to Richard to elaborate upon but we established at the same time the guidance came out in Scottish Health Council did rather in 2010 was guidance on major service change and what the criteria was in respect of consideration of major service change and perhaps convenant Richard may on behalf of the attendees today maybe set out a little bit more about what actual major service changing criteria is for consideration is contained in the specific views offered by the health council. Yes so when when boards are looking at making a service change the Scottish Government expects them to go to the government with a view with their own view as to whether that constitutes major service change or not and as part of that process they ask them to come to us and to ask what our view would be of that now it's not always possible to tell or to say at the start of a process whether that will become major or not so you need sometimes to explore that a little bit further before it becomes clearer. We would we would normally ask the boards to use our guidance we produce that Robbie referred to on identifying major service change it what that does is identify a number of issues nine in total that are areas which which if there's in a sense if for example if one of them would be if it's unscheduled or emergency care for example if the proposal concerns that in our view that makes it more likely that it should be seen as major so we'd ask them to go through go through those nine issues and then give us their views on what they feel the issues are in terms of the service change they're proposing what we would then do we'd also be in a sense we'd we'd support the boards in that in their engagement with the community we'd be present at some of those local meetings and we'd talk to local community groups and patients groups what we then do is in a sense look at that information our staff and also two four members of our committee would then meet to discuss their particular case and we would arrive at our own view of whether we felt that meets the threshold of major or not and it's a subjective it's not a science it's it's quite a subjective process one thing that we would do is we'd be very mindful of similar or close examples because we'd want to be consistent in the approach we take so we'd look across Scotland and we'd say are there similar examples which would would give us some idea of where this should sit and we would then provide our view to the board and the board would then go to the government and then the government would make their decision whether they view that as major service change it's not a distinction that we think is always very helpful it implies that if it's not major it's not important and these changes are always important to the people who are affected by them and we feel that sometimes it creates these two classes of service change which seems to suggest that all service change falls in one or the other but actually it's more of a graded it's not it's not just a binary issue we're well aware I mean the reason why we would give our view is because we're thoughtful about advising on what would be a proportionate degree of engagement for that board would it require a formal consultation we're aware certainly recently from the point of some of the campaigning groups for them the real issue here is the referral to the minister and that's why rightfully it is a Scottish Government decision on whether something is deemed major or not because that is entailed when it seems major here and this is the rub because this parliament passed a motion before Christmas albeit an opposition led motion on the fact that we would expect the cabinet secretary to bring major service redesign to parliament to at least have that scrutiny and that discussion and my anxiety about this is that if we are setting the bar very high as to what we define as major service change then whilst you know the the government is not bound by that parliamentary motion I think parliament would take a dim view if if we didn't get a look in this but if we don't even get to the races with some of these because they can hide behind your views or your lack of view that this is a major service change then they could decide not to bring it to parliament at all that's really a comment you don't have to come for that I've got to pick up Mr Cole-Hamilton on that and I'm extremely concerned with what he's seeing there as a clinician to think that this parliament would actually be preventing major service change which is driven by a clinical need or by the lack of a clinical scrutinising well I just wanted to clarify that there because I've got a background in health I'm a nurse I still am a nurse and I was involved in lots of quite major service changes over over the course of my career and in particular involved in service changes and service redesigns is in my role as a as a unison divisional convener some of which were a more welcome than others shall we say and but I fully appreciate that any service design causes anxiety to the service users and also to the staff who are involved in in running that service or managing that service so can I can I ask the panel you know what what difference to decision does some of the immediate interest or public concern make to how you view services and whether it's a major or a minor change it's one of our excuse me it's one of our nine categories we you know one of the one of the one of the one of the areas we say that needs to be looked at is the area of political and public concern so we acknowledge that in itself you know it's something that needs to be taken into account so it's it's it's about trying to get the right balance I suppose between those different factors and we were very clear I mean we were aware of the parliamentary debate we were very aware that we were being asked to give an independent view and we wanted to base our views on our normal process and where we'd be looking at this in in the context of other changes and so that's what we wish to do it's not if there is a high degree of public and political concern that would make it more likely to be seen as major but that in itself probably wouldn't be sufficient you'd need to have other factors as well could you maybe elaborate on what those other factors are yes so for example if I mentioned earlier one of the categories was whether it was emergency or unscheduled care for example we know that that's always likely to make it more seem to be more likely to be major and from past experience if it can if it's concerned with unscheduled or emergency care the impact on patients the number of patients that are affected the experience of in other parts of Scotland of similar proposals the if any possible if you like knock on effects or ways that that change could impact on other services so if there are any particularly strong financial issues concerned as I say when we produced this list of nine issues that was seven years ago we consulted with health boards and with patients in the public and with professionals at the time our experience has been is that some of them tend to be more used than others if you like so certainly whether it's unscheduled or emergency care tends to be a very big factor for example and convener if you would allow me one so I think throughout the the hearings that this committee has had we've we've had lots of discussion about the changes that need to be made to the NHS the the shifting resources from acute services into community services into the integrated joint boards budgets and so on and delivering care at different venues how do you see your role in that process do you see more complaints coming to you do you see you being more active in encouraging health boards or iji bees to to consult more widely I'm just interested to see how you see the future of the Scottish Health Council with with that as a background the answer is yes I think I to be to be honest I don't think there's any doubt that the role of the Scottish Health Council will need to change because of the of the changing way that services are provided we don't have any formal remit within iji bees unless it's around health the elements of their care at the moment and but and I think the development of our voice makes our role change as well I think it's the future of the role of the Scottish Health Council I think we'll have to change thanks very much convener can I just touch on another issue around the service change looking at the criteria you describe I find it quite astonishing that in six years from 2011 to October 2016 only six out of 27 changes have been deemed to be to be major so for example the closure of of CIC was deemed to be a minor a minor change so can you just clarify who ultimately makes the decision on whether it's a major change and of the six that that's been deemed as a major change how many of those six have you had a different view to the health board or have you simply gone along with the health board's conclusion that it's a major change just to clarify it is the guidance is very clear that when boards wish to know if a proposal constitutes major service change they should seek advice from the Scottish government we're we're we're asked to provide a view but that is not it's not our decision on whether something is seen as a major service change or not if in terms of your question how often do we disagree with the board as you as yourself said most service change is not deemed major and quite often when something is major it's fairly clear that it is major to everybody a couple of examples recently would be in terms of Greater Glasgow and Clyde for example where Greater Glasgow and Clyde had expressed their view in a board paper that changes to maternity services and to like burn hospital hospital were not major and we took a different view it hasn't happened a lot because there isn't by definition there isn't hasn't been a lot of major service change however we have noticed more recently a larger extent of major service change and we think that's probably a trend that will continue so it's ultimately the government decides whether they refer a controversial decision to themselves is that that's pretty much the case when something's been deemed to be a minor change can you just describe what your role is around supporting health boards in the consultation because there does seem to be a lot of criticism that actually when it's a major change you have a major role when it comes to a minor change you have a lot of very poor examples of consultation right across the board if you look at article today and today's times it can give you some quotes from a number of people Yvonne McClatchy of Dumfemin who was opposed to the change in the cleft palate surgery being being centralised in Glasgow she said the shc is a chocolate fire guard one public engagement meeting was arranged the day before the decision they couldn't produce minutes or a record of answers from officials i've complained to the health secretary that they are hopeless Catherine Hughes a disabled patient who campaigned against the closure of the CIC bed said consultations were utterly useless and added the shc is toothless just a tick tick box outfit which doesn't explore key points thoroughly and the CIC engagement process a patient panel was actually chaired by the official who proposed the cuts Caroline Davidson who was campaigning to save the children's ward from closure the REH said our engagement process is a seriously flawed shambles with managers dominating in little information so there's a lot of anger out there from patients and communities about the consultation process that takes place for a minor change but what role do you actually have in terms of influence that consultation so our role when it's not major is advisory so we will support the board and we will feed back to them our findings and and for example in terms of the engagement exercise around centre for integration for care we did publicly feedback to the board the views that have been given to us from participants but we're clear that ultimately the decision is belongs to the board and the one thing I'd also say ad ad about that is that I accept that people you know people have given their views they feel that the engagement process was not was not as good as it should have been and that's what they said to us there was however certainly evidence that there was a very open and realistic discussion at the board where they were fully aware of the strength of feeling of the campaign groups and if I can compare that with when we first started um what what would be a much more common feature would be that you'd get a very controversial proposal there could be lots of public controversy there could be marches lots of media the proposal would go to the board there'd be very little discussion it would often get passed unanimously or fairly near unanimously what we saw with that particular proposal the centre for integrative care as we saw a very open and lively discussion at the board the chair of the board actually didn't support the proposal and supported the case that had been put by the campaigners and I think that demonstrates that um they were clearly aware of the issues and they were clearly aware of the strength of feeling um but it's not our role to if you like replace the board's own governance and their own ability to make those decisions it never has been so we can't say to the boards they've made the wrong decision or that sort of decision they should take that quite properly is the role of the board our role is to is to help the boards go through an engagement process so that they are fully aware of all the issues when they make that decision no time to ask whether your role was about influence of the decision it was about how you facilitate appropriate and proper engagement and the concerns and the quotes I read out were concerns over the engagement process itself ultimately they'll have concerns over the final decision but they've been very specific about concerns over the engagement process so you're basically saying you're happy the way the health board's conducting engagement process you're not therefore what influence do you actually have over that engagement process and if you're unhappy how public do you go and explain in your unhappiness over the consultation process we did actually write formally to uh Greater Glasgow and Clyde and we put down some of we put in that in that letter the feedback that we'd received from people who'd been involved in that engagement process um and through that through that formally to their attention we'd also had meetings with the board and that's quite normal and that would happen in other circumstances with other boards too basically health boards your opinion health boards are kind of consultation processes that are not in your opinion frankly up to scratch but unlike a major change you don't actually have a huge say in that consultation by the sounds of it in most cases it would take our views on board even if even if not for that one as learning for the future but you're absolutely right we don't have a remit to intervene and stop boards engaging on uh change which is not deemed to be major or to be able to if you like give them orders in terms of how they do that we don't have that remit Maria just just one saying i'll come to you in a minute um are all your um minutes discussions with government meet uh minutes of meetings with government are they all public publicly available or do people have to foi to get those i think in the spirit of openness with this committee we're very happy to to share the i see and as no what was asking i'm saying are all your minutes and discussions with government with health boards etc are they all publicly available the the in terms of being publicly available on a website or available readily we won't click on it no not everything is there but in terms of transparency if there are things that are missing from that in terms of minutes of scottish health council meetings for instance or other documentation very happy to share health council meetings if you meet with health board a b or c to discuss issue a b or c are the minutes from that published anywhere only publish those thank you um marie thank you convener um i would have to declare that i'm a health professional too and i have to admit that as a health professional coming into politics it's um it it's been difficult for me to see um how politically heated some of these um discussions can be in how much of a political football the NHS can become so um i wonder particularly thinking about difficult decisions where there are safety grounds for the change how much weight should be given to what the public wants and how much weight should be given to what the clinicians are suggesting as a way forward what the remarks in that respect convener i think the important thing here in i think the lessons in the learning from our engagement with communities and patients is about the range of experts and voices and where that sits um and traditionally that i said at the very start in terms of um some of the comments i've made that uh some of the process around service change can appear opaque and when patients are engaged it's further and further down the track and therefore the the level of the engagement can feel pretty minimal so one of the key things i think is about a much earlier and open engagement about um safety about the quality of care of which safety is a fundamental part and i think some of the the work that's been shared so for instance by the chief medical officer um around real estate medicine around the national clinical strategy starts to have a more open conversation about what's the quality of healthcare and how do we deliver it in scotland but i guess just in my opening remarks on answering that question is i think we need to have a a different relationship between patients, experts and clinicians and i think one of the key things is making sure that that conversation is held at a start so there's a better understanding and in that i have to say as well is there is important issue of language and about how people can get lost in a very technical and obscure language and i think the important thing is not to be condescending or patronising how we engage with patients but to actually be level with them about some of the challenges in delivering increasingly complex healthcare and the workforce challenges for instance within that but can we then have a may pass out of the palm of richard in terms of a particular balance between engagement around safety and patient care just to say i mean we so when we're looking at how boards are engaged with the public the the guidance is produced by the Scottish government um in 2010 and that in fact uses a phrase that has been used that was used previously in fact it's had a been in use probably for about 10 years or so if not longer and what it says is that expects boards to give the views of patients in the public the same priority as it gives to clinical standards and financial performance it does have one important provider though it does say it unless they're exceptional grounds e.g safety and when we've had discussions with patients in the public about where the how they feel that balance should work do they feel it's the right balance they feel it is but they agree with the point that actually if they may be overriding issues around clinical safety then that's clearly very important um as robby has said our our view is that this is this is the best this issue is best tackled by boards being open honest with their communities and not appearing to prejudge issues um or to use that as a way of saying well we're not going to engage um and it's a tricky one and we understand that this is sometimes quite difficult um uh we would also never stand in the way of a board making any changes that it felt if it had to make changes of a temporary nature to ensure that services were safe we would never want to say they shouldn't do that without engagement um we would want them to make whatever necessary urgent changes uh they had to to ensure that services were safe it is probably worth pointing out that of course the Scottish Health Council's role um focuses around the engagement with the public whether or not the board has engaged with the public or does engage with the public not necessarily or doesn't hasn't got the the remit to focus on those other elements which may be um a stumbling block in the process thank you um can i ask also about um your citizens um panels is that what you call me yeah so i'm interested to know in just as a completely change of subject i think some people touched on it before i'm interested to know how people become a member of your citizen panel so it's not randomly selected like a duty service would be who people still put themselves forward I presume for that role we've already just done this so um this is this is the first one um that we've we've had um and i think in a way um it is uh semi random is it not rigid it's well it's it's it's random in the sense that people don't self-select for it um so as Pamela said this was we did we this is partly a test it's quite innovative um we initially used the electoral register to identify people and we mailed them and invited them to um to join the panel um we also we we were quite ambitious we wanted to recruit 1300 people across Scotland and that was quite important because we wanted a minimum of 13 each integrated joint board area um and that was to ensure that was one of the things that we wanted to do to make sure it was reasonably demographically representative of the people of Scotland um so we also did recruitment by going by basically going standing on the street or going to shops and so on so we had approached people and asked them um with the results is that we've got a makeup which is broadly representative we did actually end up with more women and men but in other respects it's broadly representative um I we now we're now analysing the first set of results back from that um it's random in the sense that I suppose the important point was is that we wanted it to be not people who if you like self-selected themselves and said we want to join it but actually were people who were approached and therefore um in the sense that you know there there are a panel of citizens as opposed to uh people who who who may be quite commonly get more involved in participation networks nothing wrong with uh people who who get involved but it was very we were very clear we wanted to get if you like we wanted to try and get that more representative of the people of Scotland thank you thanks for coming along to talk to us there was two or three things I wanted to to kind of touch on um and first of all I'll have to round about the role of the SHC which is to monitor the health boards involvement of the public as you described described at the start now there's clearly a process there um from health or men's proposal you being involved in part of that engagement process um and then moving on with a recommendation to government um and first of all I'd just like to say it's quite heartening to see specifically on Lightburn which I know something about being local to me um that you did play a role in that process in terms of redefining that as a major service change which the health board clearly hadn't wanted to do and they proposed that that was a minor originally so it's quite heartening to see that so I suppose my first question is to set the scene is are you comfortable with the the overall flow in that process and I suppose it's a leading question but take it as you like or would you be happier with government ministers intervening much earlier in the process as has been called for um from other other other sides can be none of it if I may make some some broader marks and then hand to palm and Richard and then the Scottish health council role I think the point that's been touched on earlier which we will need to think about about the process is in terms of the £13 billion that is spent on health and social care eight billion of that is sitting within the integration authorities so a bit of redesign rethinking is required in terms of us as um Scottish health council healthcare improvements Scotland but healthcare improvements Scotland in the round think about how then do we relate to a different world that is now emerging and as we get to the end of the life for this parliament the majority of the spending health and social care budget as intended and expressed by the cabinet secretary will be within those integration authorities so there is a bit of the journey here that we need to now think about in the context of service change and existing um advice support and guidance from the scotch health council but can be there in terms of the specifics in terms of how do it works at present on time to palm and Richard yeah um I suppose thinking about that one I mean I think there was an issue around exploring with with communities with the board the if you like the some of the aspects around that change so we could give that proper consideration um could the government have called that in further for you know earlier in the processes they could um uh they they they chose not to they were clear they wanted to follow that local process um I would agree with Robbie I think this is a good time to look again at how that process works um for example you know the fact that we give it we give her own view um when that first started that was a fairly blunt to be blunt very informal process and there wasn't really a lot of interest uh in our view or how we arrived at it and that's we've seen that change and like understandably I think because of the reasons why it is because it gets called in so I think it's I think it's helpful I think perhaps to think again particularly in the light of integration um how that role should work I would like to see people have more confidence in the local decision making process so that it's not necessary to have a big discussion every time about whether it should be seen major or not um and I'd like to get away frankly from that very what I think is perhaps a nobody simplistic division between major and non-major because I think as I say it does have a very unfortunate message for people who's who who are being affected by some change which is very important for them it doesn't mean it's not important just because it's not major I mean that that original it was when when we first started it was called significant service change and they called it major because they felt that was bad to call it significant because it meant other change was insignificant um so you can't really win with the terminology so I think looking again at how we have perhaps a better way of classifying change would be very helpful I'd like to move on now and focus on the relationship between yourselves and the health board in terms of fulfilling that that remit we talked about at the start and as I mentioned I've I'm aware of the lightburn situation and a lot of concerns have been raised with me by local groups about that engagement process because we're not yet on to the the consultation process I mean for example the stakeholder reference group with those that are meeting with those 13 members there's seven of the members of that group we're actually health board employees including the chair the director of planning has gone to the media we talk about politicising these things the director of planning took a full page in the local newspaper to argue that the case at the health board was pushing forward the health first public involvement manager told the stakeholder group that the board wasn't in a position to invest in the hospital which kind of prejudges the the process and the meetings themselves that were held where two were held on the same day a location that was most of the community was fairly inaccessible for the people that were affected by by the change and actually turned up at one of those meetings and was the health board tried to prevent me from speaking at the meeting which was an interesting process but as you can imagine did did make my views known at the meeting so for a number of examples there where people would call it a question engagement process specifically there and obviously we've heard that from other other parts from other other issues as well I suppose the question is round about how you intervene that you've touched on that to some extent in terms of that process but also round about this Feta Comple if I'm still allowed to use Feta Comple in a post Brexit world would it be in a French phrase but in that in terms of that are we do you have any evidence or any data round about the number of proposals that are changed through the consultation process or is it by and large the reality that once the health board has made that decision does that just kind of get carried through or is there any data as I say on how what percentage of those are actually changed through the engagement in the consultation process? The issues which we regularly find that we have to really push some of the health boards to consider is the option appraisal approach you know it isn't it shouldn't be this is it there needs to be some sharing and we would really like the public to be really engaged in developing those options because our view is that it's much more likely to have a successful process if the public are engaged and sometimes there is resistance to the option appraisal approach and sometimes there isn't and that may reflect why sometimes you only get a small number of majors because they may have already moved through that process because perhaps they're working together in a better way but on the other hand we do know that there is some resistance in some cases to developing a full option appraisal. I mean I suppose two points one is before a board goes to a formal consultation we will monitor the quality of the board's engagement process as Pam said around the option appraisal process for example and the option development process which are very important and if we don't feel that they've done sufficient work to go to a formal consultation we will say so at that point because we don't feel there's any benefit in boards going to a formal consultation if they haven't done sufficient work to prepare for that. Once they've come to the end of that consultation process we will also then publish a formal report in which we'll describe what the board did and they'll also describe how we feel they've complied or not with the guidance. In practice if we don't feel the board is doing as much as it should to demonstrate compliance with the guidance we wouldn't want it to get to a point where we let that go to the end of the consultation we'd want to step in and say to the board we think you need to be more thoughtful about how you're approaching this we've got some suggestions to make and we'd like to have a discussion with you and we'd hope then to have an agreement with the board in terms of a way forward. Okay thank you Congeana the time we've got left I've listened quite intently to some of the answers that you've given can you can you really honestly tell me how relevant the you know the SHC is your remit is to monitor health boards and how they carry out you know what they do for for patients and how they carry out their functions should your remit your role be actually increased do you believe that now all the changes that Richard Norris has said has come along the last couple of years that you should be given more teeth because quite honestly from where I'm sitting I don't think you've any I don't think there's any doubt that the the role of the council probably does need to change I find I find quite an element of frustration at times that there isn't wider awareness of what the health council is even its name is a little bit confusing and so there are there are a lot of factors which I think have actually stacked up so I think there is a need for change whether or not it's teeth or whether or not it's whether or not there's a there needs to be some separation of different aspects of the role that I think is an issue which we will need to consider. What are the problems I have locally in my area? NHS Lanarkshire is I don't believe that they they get across to the public what they're doing correctly and basically they don't publicise it enough in the greatest respect to Ivan McKee I will also attended meetings where I've just totally aghast at what you know what they were doing um but basically you know how how do you sit down with boards like this and try and entice them to either change their views look at what they're doing and some I have to point out that some of the things that they are doing are correct because we have to change it's a it's a new world out there things have changed since the 19 you know since the NHS was first set up nearly 70 odd year ago um you know and we have to look at the the revamp and and redressing and time and I have to say I also agree with my colleague Marie Todd that I hate the NHS getting used to the political football all the time uh and basically we should all work together we've got one of the best health service in the world in the world and we continually kick it so what would you do to sit down with NHS boards to try and get them to get their view out there better because I think they ain't doing it I think this um I think this is something which we are extremely aware of um and you can see from their perspective that there's they would see us they might see us rather um as not really being part of it not necessarily knowing exactly what's going on and from that perspective um I think that's quite a useful bit because we're we we tend to be more like the public in that perspective because if they can't convince us then they haven't got a hope of convincing the public um and so I think there is uh I think there's uh one of the things that we do constantly try to do is to in is to work with boards to make them more effective about engaging with the public and recently there have been some boards who have recognised the importance of doing that and have made significant progress but these are isolated these are isolated approaches I would like it much broader across the piece. My last question is how can you get across to the public that you exist? I think that's absolutely right and I think it's one of the things that we hope to be able to address. Thank you. Thanks Richard can I say it I'm sensing a lot of frustration here with committee members and I certainly have that I'm looking here. The Scottish Health Council has a budget of 2.3 million and it's looking for extra funding from the Scottish from the Scottish Government according to the the accounts and over the last two two years it is engaged with according to your own accounts 1180 people in two years. I am really struggling you've got 14 offices 14 offices and you've managed to contact just over a thousand people and engage with them in two years with a budget of 2.3 million I'm failing to see what we get for our money and I think Richard is absolutely right I think you're a toothless hamster I really do I think I don't see where you're adding value in this and I think this needs a major overhaul of some kind if we're going to genuinely have some sort of transparency processes that patients in the public genuinely engage in because at the moment we do not we absolutely do not in my experience haven't been an elected representative since 2003 so I think there's a lot of people frustrated in this room the committee will have a discussion afterwards on the evidence that we've had can I ask about your review what's the timescale for the review of this I'm anticipating we will be able to publish the review in February is there still time to submit to that review I am more than happy to take your comments okay thank you okay thank you for your attendance this morning and most to spend briefly for a change of panel thank you the third item on the agenda is an evidence session with sport scotland welcome to the committee Stuart Harris chief executive and Mel Young the chair could I invite you to make an opening statement gentlemen thank you very much thank you for inviting us along and very keen to give evidence today this morning I mean from our perspective trying to put it into a kind of overall scheme of things globally I think sport in the world now is starting to be recognised in the key inputs it can have in terms of the wider population not just about winning medals I myself have travelled around the world a lot in the connection with sport in this area and particularly lately governments around the world are starting to recognise the impact that sport can have in these wider agendas socially in terms of health etc in terms of the wider community and I've certainly seen with with previous work that I've been doing not connect with sports going around the homeless world cup for example where sport you're making an intervention with the most marginalised people on the planet and actually changing their lives as a result of that sport and so there's many many other examples of how you use sport in different areas to create that change and we in sport scotland have actually now created a system which is connected together so using to using the high performance with the community connected into one overall system to make an impact to create change so when when I'm around in other countries in the world and talking about Scotland governments and others are really interested because they're saying look Scotland that you appear to be ahead of the curve I think we are quite definitely ahead of the curve in terms of the way we have this integrated system here in Scotland something to be really really proud of something in fact I think we can we can we can go on so that so that sitting here today is really interesting because sport is part of that active Scotland and what what active Scotland has I think as a policy again is is is is innovative in world leading and sport has a critical role to play in that it obviously cannot on its own sort out all the challenges that we have in in in health across Scotland but it can work with with in other areas and I think there's plenty of examples of where that can happen but we need to be better at that so sport very very happy to be sitting here having this discussion to give evidence today and delighted to to answer your questions thanks very much the committee is looking at participation in sport what's you know in your view is the main barrier to participation in sport well what we've what we've trying to put in place is a system which breaks down those barriers so there's a degree of universality about that so we've got a foothold in every school in the country so we give every young person an opportunity to try activity sport physical education and begin to join that up with with what's happening in the community it's really important when you look at any system where you've got schools and schools connected to community to performance driven by people and facilities and for our from our perspective we're beginning to build that capacity across the country however we have to continue to build that capacity so we need more people involved we'll continue to look at how we access more facility time um in every authority across across the country so lots of progress being made lots to do but the system approach we think is often greater value than a funding stream project based approach which has probably been a thing of the past in terms of that universality the you don't target areas of multiple deprivation well we've tried to we've tried to take a view that if we targeted every school in the country um that would give us an input to each of those schools and probably if you have a system i think you've got more opportunity then to target so what we'll do going forward is we'll work with local partners and we're quite keen to to touch up against the attainment challenge authorities to look at how we get closer to education and some of those authorities to look at how we attribute to that attainment agenda but also offer more and better opportunities for people in every community across the country so that universality is the other purpose you don't target them well in the schools in the schools area we we've gone for every single school so you don't target it in that instance no in terms of the active schools programme what evaluation has been done of that we have an annual evaluation we work independent evaluation has been done of that each each coordinator works with contributes towards gathering data so all the data is sent in and contributed and contributed centrally nationally so each school each coordinator has a job to bring forward all of the data from their school so we have data from every single school and equally we've also got from time to time independent evaluation of how we're getting on so the last four or five years has been a huge amount of progress in how we've built the numbers and access for children across the country and who carried out that independent evaluation and has it been published they've all been published we can't remember the last contributor but they've all been published can you provide a committee with it yeah we can do that thank you you can provide you with as much detail because Colin you mentioned here would it be fair based on your comments earlier to say that you think it's important an important role of sport scotland to increase participation in sport from those who are a currently inactive and b also those who come from the least wealthy areas given that the lower level of participation in sport amongst those in more deprived areas yep i think that that is our role um we have a strategic role across across the country to look at how we bring partners together across and creating physical activity strategies um so we're looking at how we bring partners from health from the local government from the trust everyone locally we can contribute to people being active across across the piece the aim would be to have that strategic physical activity strategy looking at play dance sport and recreation active living and for us to be a part of that that solution locally so our contribution will be to add value to local resources local focus in school sport in club in in leisure and recreation so from our perspective both a strategic role and a contributory role to make sure that we add value to each local community going forward but just looking at the two groups i mentioned you don't actually measure activity levels amongst the projects that you support based on that criteria you measure activity levels based on sex for example you measure it based on age but you don't actually measure the fact that that someone's particular background or whether or not they were when they come to an event were inactive before they actually came to an event so you can't distinguish whether or not little johnny's coming along to four events a week instead of three and he's already active because you don't actually measure that at the moment i think that the the recent bbc documentary on meadow myth concluded the fact that participation in your performance sports programme nine out of ten participants went to a private school or a school in a wealthy area but you don't actually measure that at the moment so so why don't you measure that at the moment why do they have to do their own research to get that information if it's such an important thing to increase activity from people that are inactive and to increase activity from people from deprived areas well we think from from our perspective and building that system if you have an impact and a contribution to every single school in the country we believe there's the opportunity and we're too small to do it alone we fundamentally work in partnership across all of those areas so our aim in aspiration is to have more and better opportunities you're correct we haven't managed to touch everyone as yet we want to create more and better opportunities i would prefer to look at the information in a slightly different way in as much as two-thirds of the more talented individuals that are involved in sport at that top end come from state schools we aspire to improve that we aspire to give everyone the opportunity we measure absolutely everything that we do in terms of intervention every single school submits data every single community sport hub submits data and what we're seeing is growth in all of those areas these are big samples these are in the schools arena we're talking about nearly 300 000 young people in the community sport hubs we're over 100 000 people and this is not a small measurement sample so we believe that we are beginning to tackle that with partners we have to improve the measurement to try and look at how we can specifically say if there are inactive people beginning to be more active and only recently we've started to have a look locally in the east end of Glasgow where we ourselves Clyde Gateway the NHS Glasgow life are beginning to look at how collectively we can look at how we all work together to get people more active from just simply leaving the house to taking some exercise at maybe a local sport centre so whilst there are general measures of how we're taking things forward we accept we have to look a bit more closely as partners at how we are more specific about that translation Donald could I just ask about the budget the budget proposals I think it's fair to say that the total sport budget for the coming year 2017-18 is down in cash terms by 7% and 8.3% in real terms and I accept that that's the sport budget it's not the sport Scotland budget but could you tell the committee what implications you feel that might have yes I mean from my point of view it has quite serious implications at that level in terms of what we're trying to do you know as I said at the beginning we're building this system it and it's developing and we're getting more people involved so therefore the implications for that quite serious but we also have another hit as well because a lot of receipts are going down so in addition to that reduction we have a lot of reduction as well which will further impact us so taking those two together is very serious level of cuts that will have to be made I think there's three areas probably one is into the sports themselves potentially second one is it to the number of people who are involved over a thousand people connected in some way with the funding that we do and then thirdly is within within sport Scotland organization itself there will have to be some kind of serious thing possibly redundancies even we don't want to go down that route the overall budget component for sport in Scotland just point zero point point one four percent and out of that investment from the scottish government make sure getting massive impact if the strategy going forward is about getting help scottan to be a healthy nation to become active actually the last thing you should be doing is cutting the sports budget um so it presents us real challenges for us these these cut the two of them coming together particularly significant challenges yeah um we will take a prioritisation approach though so whilst we are what i've said about having a system we've absolutely passionately believing that system of school to community to performance people and facilities underpinning that we will have to hit performance sport quite hard this time round because the priority for us will be around community uh given opportunities across the nation so rather than just taking a salami slicing approach we're taking a brave approach in my opinion which says here are the things that we think we must prioritise and the choices that we make i will be in that that area we will try and keep a balance so that we don't break the system completely but for me that prioritisation approach is vitally important you can't just take a lumps out of a system and hope that it will continue to deliver both in engagement and participation terms but also in success from a medals perspective both are equally valuable but in this instance we will have to prioritise community following on from that do you have any concerns that that could perhaps break that performance system completely um we will be measured as measured as we can about about taking up forward but you probably saw a uk level um one or two sports have been completely taken out of the funding system um investment system so therefore we will try and avoid that and make sure that we do not um break any particular sport um but we'll have to be very specific with each sport to make sure that they're clear on what their targets are what their ambitions are what they will try and achieve both in supporting community development and also performance so it's not the ideal thing to try to be honest um and where as mellid said earlier on this double whammy around lottery is quite worrying quite challenging but for me we'll continue to talk with the government about how we take this forward because the belief in the system is vitally important we see this as something that is unique to scotland is important to scotland and gives us a better chance of actually achieving the twin goals that we've got around performance and participation i mean it feels like a sort of surprising conversation to be having you know a couple of years after the commonwealth games when we've heard a lot about legacy how would you assess the active legacy off the games and you know are you concerned about that legacy in terms of funding i'll give i'll give you a specific first up um our legacy commitment from um the commonwealth games specifically with partners was around community sport hubs and we deliberately focused on on that so the target was 150 community sport hubs we now have 157 um we will continue to prioritise that there's almost i think i mentioned earlier on there's almost over 100,000 people now involved in community sport hubs we were bringing communities together bringing sports and activities together to make them more sustainable and offer them a chance to do more things for themselves um so that will be one of the key priorities for me uh hence the reason looking at when you're building any system the twin goals of participation and performance are are both important but for me we have to protect that system which looks at giving people locally opportunities to participate for whatever reason they want to participate now that particular strategy was done deliberately we could have been we could have a sport scotland said there's lots of different things that we could we could focus on but we focused on one infrastructure project across all 32 authorities and i think it's been a been a success all of our partners can probably report similarly on what their plans were locally in building a legacy in terms of priorities and targeting i note that the percentage of there's been a fall in physical activity amongst children um since a 3.9% fall since the commonwealth games which seems quite surprising and more notably amongst girls do you take when you see these figures when you have the results do you step in there and take action to try and address that yes we do um again i'll give you a specific we work with each local authority on active schools for example we're at the moment the breakdown in the breakdown in gender is 52 48 52 and boys 48 and girls we want to try and continue to to to improve that but with each local authority when they produce their results every year we don't wait on other measures to tell us there's an issue we actually just focus on what's happening locally so in all 32 authorities we take a very specific customized approach and how we then sit down with that authority and see how do we address that whether there's there's been gaps in staffing whether there's some issue with with schools there's been there'll always be some some changes we can't always go on that upward trajectory sometimes at plateau sometimes it'll dip but for me we take that action regardless on an annual basis with each of the local authorities we work with in terms of active schools community sport hubs and what other help we give them with participation locally can we normally ask a final question um thank you um you know the activity guidelines for children 60 minutes per day i would suggest and i'm sure others would agree that that is in no way sufficient anyway and i just wonder you were talking about an all systems approach and clearly we're the health and sport committee and we will be you know suggesting that an act of scotland is a is a healthier you know it's a well scotland in terms of engaging with other portfolio areas you might be aware that the government for example are only spending 1.6% of a massive transport budget on walking and cycling now you know coaches amongst us will you know i think there's general agreement that physical literacy perhaps isn't what it used to be children aren't out and about in the neighborhoods and for various reasons they're not able to cycle and walk us safely are you engaging with government and asking that things like investment and walking and cycling be looked at as part of a physical activity strategy yes we are um from our perspective mel touched on it just briefly in our view the active scotland framework the active scotland policy is world leading however it does need every contributor around the table sport being one education health transport planning ultimately we all have a responsibility to play and a job to contribute to that active scotland policy for me we still have to get better both nationally and locally at how we partner how we're then held to account by ministers by you by by government by committees because for for my from my perspective it's that partnership it's that agreement about what we're going to try and achieve just as you expressed it and then how do we each play a role in that that will change population behaviour so to make the nation more active we're all going to have to contribute it can't just be sport you know for this conversation before can't just be sport we're too small but we can play both a strategic role in motivating and coordinating people going forward but also our own specific role but it needs that coordination at both levels we think it's better recently locally because we've just grabbed that national that that role that leadership role locally we were bringing partners together setting the strategy and making sure everyone has a role to play in delivering against that so we need to improve that both nationally and still improve locally sorry yes supplement supplement to that yes very much i mean i'm relatively new into the this job in as the chair and one of the things that's quite clear is that is that government's working in silo so coming together around this is i think is absolutely vital students if i can just share a anecdotal example for you from another country in in brazil in rio all their bus shelters are mini gyms so that what you see in the morning oddly is people in suits doing pull-ups on on on bus shelters and and then children later on doing step-ups etc and then later on you'll kind of see that there's races in between the bus shelters that the kids get involved in doing and so that's an example i think of of just thinking out the box slightly it might be you know applicable here i don't know but obviously the transport and the planning have come together and then sports so sports provided the role of let's create a race around this it's thing that's the way we need to think and then work together and come up with these things and that's how you'll increase activity by being smart about this the health service showed it in the over 75 group there was between 2014 and 2015 an 18.5 increase in physical activity levels now this is obviously very welcome news particularly given that the 75 plus group is the the least active i wonder if you could perhaps explain to us what accounts for this ride is this a result of games legacy increased investment and how we build upon this progress i certainly wouldn't put it down as a games legacy i think there's a greater degree of awareness amongst the older population about the health benefits of of activity i think my assessment is that there are more coordinated opportunities locally now an example from our perspective our contribution is when you have a community sport hub we can have cycling clubs walking clubs swimming whatever you like we can connect it to that in fact maybe a community sport hub should be a community hub full stop so we think there are lots of more opportunities we need to get better collectively as society showing people where these opportunities are and that's the job of local agencies helped with ourselves and others so i think there's a greater degree of awareness of health benefits of physical activity plus there's more and more group social opportunities such as jogging clubs cycling groups community sport hubs that i think are helping contribute to that when i said games legacy i was struck the percentages that i have in front of me in 2012 25 2013 26 2014 26 2015 31 so perhaps the games legacy wasn't the correct term but perhaps inspired by the games do you think it had any impact and increasing awareness of the benefits absolutely and i think i think that's probably from up from my perspective we often get asked this question you know what's the inspiration effect inspiration requires action though so whenever a young person or even someone my age or older gets inspired wants to do something you have to then know where to go and what to do and for me socially there's there's an acceptance and a camaraderie around that that then allows someone to stick at that activity and for me i just think the awareness message is as high as it's ever been for me um so whether it be older people looking at the health benefits quality of life extension of life mitigating against chronic illness and disease um a mitigation for that or young people running about daft at school or at home and then actually beginning to get into some more formal formal sport and activity at the right time for them so i think the awareness level is much better the system approach i think is in good shape we continue to get good feedback from partners in other countries we look at it um and think that we've got a really good product here but we have to make sure it continues to be in place and continues to develop and evolve it doesn't take a huge amount of money we're not asking for a huge amount of money but what we have here is something that's working pretty well we must try and protect to achieve those two outcomes at whatever age you are of um people being active and engaged and also progression how do they get better at something thank you convener um i represent the highlands and islands region and um as well as some of the other barriers that folk face in terms of getting involved in space in sport there's obviously the issue of geography to tackle in the region that i represent and in terms of competitive sport much of it happens down here in the central belt um kids i mean my own kids have got up in the middle of the night on a saturday night to travel down on a bus to perform apparently in some sort of competition that starts at nine o'clock in in Glasgow on a sunday morning um what are your aspirations for um encouraging participation from the whole of the country i know that the islanders pace a pace a particular challenge in terms of expense in in terms of participation um yep really good question i was just up in Orkney at the weekend um at the sports awards great social gathering great celebration of all things that are good a couple of answers to your question one we're trying to build infrastructure on the island i'll just focus on the islands for a minute then we can come back into maybe some of the rural questions build some capacity and some infrastructure on the islands both in terms of facility uh access and expertise so we have over the last 10 to 12 years i would probably say i've been really committed to all 32 authorities to be fair but we've specifically looked at the island communities as having a real challenge we have had some discussion recently with the island yeah focus your attention is it mainly the northern isles or all over all well the main focus for us has been chetland ornate in the western isles we recognize there are other island communities more islands there are other islands there but that all to be fair that will all come in under that local authority so our island view we will cover the islands there through their strategy um so we don't hopefully exclude anyone so building that capacity in local communities we think is vitally important um we have from our perspective looked at ways in which we can help talented athletes or those on that performance pathway with that transport um to competition of off the islands or from deeply rural rural areas we require the help of ferry companies you know the air services all of that is part of that solution so again that integrated approach is is really important we have had some discussion with with with the island authorities about clubs and and schools coming off the island that's a bit more challenging because the affordability of that would be quite difficult um across the piece so we think we've done a good job in helping understand what the needs of the communities are and for those on that talent pathway we just we're just putting another tranche of of support in place will help probably 60 athletes not just from that from the islands but from highland as well to kind of get to those training sessions at that level will help them take them to the the next level so we're well aware of those those needs locally thanks and can i follow on from that um just in terms of the accessibility of sponsorship and funding to to all so um in the village where i live in Strath Peffer there's massive cycling huge you know mountain brilliant easy access to good mountain biking facilities and there's a couple of young labs in the village who have taken that to a next level and both are competing um at a very high level in cycling in both nationally and internationally one of them now one of them has a disability and it's much harder for him to access funding and sponsorships than it is for the for the other lad in terms of making progress to that elite level and i know the news story yesterday about the female boxer you know the it was all over the news last night about this promotion guy who's been again women doing that type of sport for his whole life but is now one round by that lassie so i think it's difficult for women to gain funding and my daughter was a brilliant footballer but she'll never manage to make a living at it so what are you doing to tackle that type of issue i mean if i i can say broadly we obviously want to support as many athletes as possible i mean inequalities is it kind of the heart of what we're doing in terms of sport i mean in a more general sense you can have a look at what's happened with the paralympics and how that's inspired people that not only to get involved but probably in the wider society made the issue of disability you know more inclusive um i do think however on the issue of sponsorship um that it's really poor in scotland the level of private sector support that comes in if you compare it to other countries it's it's way behind and i kind of think that we are doing really well with sport and there's more we can do not just the community but the high high level supporting athletes and and the sponsorship levels and support from the private sectors is really poor and that's something i think we we will want to have a look at to see how that we can do this because there seems to be a view all well the government just does all of this when of course it can't so having the private sector come to the table i think we would help enormously and at the specific cases of what you're doing but for us on sport and sport scotland side we would certainly want to support the two people that you're talking about and do so in the best way that we can in some cases it probably depends a little bit on the standard in that event as well because there is a bit of a cut off once you reach a particular standard it does unlock more resources and more help from the system so whether it be i think i think one of the challenges that he started out as a mountain biker and that that isn't a paralympian event so he's having to convert to a different kind of cycling yep and you know that that is a conversation with the young lad who has actually got some significant disabilities but he boxes and there is no obviously outlet for that but he still wants the box so we can help where we can with those local opportunities and try and prove the coaching in the club to help him specifically but it's there is no olympic or paralympic outlet outlet for well but here i mean he's in a coaching group his coaches based in Manchester but he still has to trek on the train to his bike down there yeah which is tricky what i wanted to specifically ask about was with regards to the school estate and primary schools specifically and from my experience i don't think we're really utilising the primary school estate for sport and i'm just interested to hear your comments on that and how you think post school hours we can have more sport within primary schools because certainly what i've been doing different visits often when the school day finishes these buildings are locked up and i think we're missing a great opportunity to actually try to utilise them more I'll probably start with giving a bit of an aspiration of mine that the schools become community hubs and they become a focus for sport for other activities in a very programmed way making sure it's very clear just where the opportunities are and that people can can can get into those we did a study a few years back which showed that the school estate was 95% available so that means in terms of definition there's someone there to look at after the building and to open and close it look at health and safety but it's only 55 to 60% accessed so how are we taking that forward in our discussions with every single local authority we're looking at how they build the capacity and access to facilities the only way we're going to increase participation or engagement is to increase the capacity and availability of space often and this is it's not a competition but often there's a focus on on coaching and volunteering and that's rightly rightly correct but it has to go hand in hand with facilities space and programming so that we can make the most of those spaces and have places where coaches can coach and volunteers can can work with with those groups so our aspiration would be to have and we can't be silly about this because there's a cost attached to it but the bottom line we would like to get a programmed approach with each local authority which maximises the space that they have available and particularly the use of schools because they are deep in communities they sit in what I think are really good spaces for community activity and engagement and for me that that will probably be one of the biggest factors in in developing and sustaining participation in the future local communities local spaces local uptake see if I can just add to that point I mean I think one of the things where we're going with this generally in sport has got them what we've got to do within this general overall framework it's about a culture change and this is just part of it and all these questions that you're asking are all connected to this so in the past people have just said well it's the school so it's the school and when it shuts it shuts and then we go away to get people to think just the general population and us that actually that school asset is there and we can use it requires a change and it takes time but it but it's slowly happening and I think that across the board that's what we're trying to do with sport here to get people to be at all ages and all levels and wherever they're from to just automatically get into sport and play it and get involved at wherever it can be and that's what we're desperately trying to do 157 community sport up 60 percent are in schools and we think that's great we need more but that's a good start so what's the plan to make that happen the plan for us is to a time at a time when local government is having its budgets shredded how are you going to make that happen yeah well we'll continue to work with each local authority to look at their estate we'll look at probably there's a model which community sport hubs enshrines which does I think give the community more responsible for running their own affairs and running their own programmes so rather than everything being delivered by professional staff for me there is an economy which is very clear about giving communities some power giving them the responsibility to work around and manage some of those facilities themselves and that's the way that we're taking things forward so it seems to me there's there could be a very positive mixed economy in Scottish communities in every local authority I don't see any any reason why it could be in every local authority where there's an element of programmed and delivered activity through professional sources and also community driven facilities programmes clubs community sport hubs where they are doing a lot of the staffing themselves around their own clubs which is what people do around clubs anyway but what I'm asking is is that going to be running magic beans where's the money to make these things happen because one of the what you know just to put in the picture the being the convener of the committee I get contacted by a lot of people I've been contacted by a lot of people about this and they don't buy a number of them and I would say fairly significant and influential people don't buy the model that you're promoting the club model they say it's exclusive that it prevents people from accessing on the basis of cost and that cost is the biggest barrier to participation and that they charge sport Scotland with being the latest in bureaucratic and not being a grassroots organisation that's in touch with communities particularly communities that are the most deprived and they keep repeating that cost is the biggest barrier and yet I've barely heard you mention cost this morning so where's the money coming from to allow people in the most deprived communities to access sport and for fitness well being and who knows what they might go on to I don't particularly I'm not particularly interested whether they become world champions I just want people to be active and engaged and I don't see where the money is coming from for your model well I mean it's interesting your comments we'll take those on board if any of those people want to come and talk to us we're happy to do that a number of them said they have um but and we can I will direct them to you yeah thank you for thank you for that um what we what we will do with what we do with our resources is work locally to get the best possible local plan with the resources that are available I take your point about the availability resources our from our perspective and we've used this statistic a number of times 95 of the budget for sport in Scotland 90 or it is locally based so therefore there's a huge reliance on what's happening locally sport scotland is 10 percent of that total budget um so the resources we have available locally we have to prioritize as much as we can but the system we have now I think allows us to prioritize and target and we will target those communities Alex so can I just add to that and I really take on on on your point um you know look there's a triple whammy if you like we mentioned our cuts then the lottery and that then you've got local authority cuts so there is a real issue about the amount of money that's available in sport and what happens of course the local authorities um they have issues about keeping prices low so that people can get involved or or getting income in and it's a real challenge across we we would want to get to a system where everybody um can participate in some level so the issue about lack of funding in the sport system be it in local authorities or us is a real challenge you're absolutely right about that and that's something we have to address if if I was sitting in government to be quite honest I'd be doubling this I'd be doubling the sports budget I'd be I'd be putting more resources into sport because long term it's going to have a a better effect for the for for society as a whole that's what I'm doing I'll be looking at the resources and also be looking at us how we can do this in a much smarter way so I know from other work that I've done it in point of fact some of the resources you require on the grassroots to get people involved isn't particularly expensive actually in some cases all the needs are balling some volunteers and some creative thinking so we need to think about that in a smart way about a grassroots level how we can do more in particular in the most poor areas and I think we have ideas and ways in which we can do that I don't buy the fact that sport Scotland is an elitist bureaucratic organisation at all we we are responsible for administering public money so we have to have systems that are clear and and and robust but basically we are providing the catalyst for others to to work in in the wider community that's why we're doing what we're doing it's a very very important part I believe of the fabric of society sport so we should be investing in it that's that's the answer to your question so investing it just to be clear you've said finance is a well increased participation therefore on it for an individual the same applies that their ability to access sport is there's a strong correlation to their ability to pay for that access I would believe so yes thank you and and and I mean you can what I'm trying to say is you can do sport anyway you can do it out in the park there for example quite easily and cost cost you anything but we're living in in a society now where as you know a lot of people over heart back to the days that we used to just play in the street well that doesn't society doesn't work like that anymore we have to have facilities in places where people can go and that's where the barriers are and how you get there how you transport there and the cost of being there so that's what we have to look at in in in the pure purest communities or people who don't have finance and how they can access these facilities that's the challenge but but sport will provide answers in the next if we can do that thank you convener good morning I'd just like to ask one question about the culture of elitism in sport acting as a barrier to inclusivity and this goes to my mind right back to you know early days of primary school one of I remember my own experience very early on p1 p2 we were sorted almost by pure review into those that could play football and those that really couldn't you were picked last often if you were in the second group and and not so much in the first group and then that became a received wisdom as you went through the school ranks and that I so found a school report just on the weekend which talked about my lack of interest in football I didn't have a lack of interest in football it was just perceived that I wasn't very good at it was probably true but um but nevertheless I did I was interested but the the PE teacher realised that I'd missed that bar and as a result you know it was only an adult life that I found sports that I was good at and interested in and got active through and this is a this is a massive barrier to kids and I think it goes right up to the you know where the weight of investment is in terms of investment is is targeted largely at the elite athletes who are competing at a global stage I think it is and I think that's why the focus lies but how do you break down that culture of elitism from that early age a couple of responses I disagree with with your assertion that the bulk of of resources is targeted at performance sport um we I mentioned earlier on 90 of the budget both ours and local agencies is for schooling community sport the remaining five to ten percent is we're probably the only agency that supports that that that end of it performance ended the word elitist doesn't apply for your budget not I mean the total amount of money that's spent on sport in this country and including advertising revenue sponsorships so all of that you know there's a lot of money targeted at the elite if you're talking about some of the professional sports that's that's something that we that's that's I always think they're slightly sepia you have to look at them sepia can I go back and address your school issue I it's an offer to any member of the committee we we could take you to your communities now and show you I think a different outlook our aspiration what we see happening now in in schools through integrated physical education lessons and programs second repeat teachers working with primary school teachers the emphasis in those classroom sessions and those those curriculum sessions being on equality everyone getting an opportunity having fun but also learning the active schools programs connecting the schools to the community again are open to all um they're not about competition yes competition does exist but it's not about that so I see a completely different world at that level and it's our job and I think we've made some progress active schools being in place for 12 years that kind of sustained investment I think is a real positive community sport hubs we've now been working for for six seven years on community sport hubs sustained investment in how we tackle that and it's not based on exclusivity we're trying our ambition is to get every single child capacity withstanding because that's the one thing back to the question you asked earlier on the capacity is one of the issues that we've all got to focus on people in space to try and get more more people active but I would as I say to anyone around the room I'm happy to come and show you in your own communities the difference in that aspect I'm not saying that wasn't your experience but for me I see a different thing now in schools and communities across Scotland yeah thanks convener thanks for coming along a couple of things I want to touch on just firstly before we leave the issue around about schools um is there an issue there um you can tell me to what extent this is true because of the the pfi model was in a position where accessing is going to school clearly in any time but it was under the pfi model it's a kind of pay-to-play sort of situation is that an issue that is one of the issues that prevents access in those facilities has been an issue I don't think it's as big an issue right I think there are schools that have been have been funded by whatever means I personally don't look at that too much because you want the space accessible um and if there are difficult conversations to have that's what the strategic partnerships are locally about having those those partnerships I think there's a lot of schools that have been built like that are now accessible there may be others of the older fraternity that may be slightly less bound and slightly more bound in contractual stuff it's more difficult to get around but we're constantly I can assure you constantly working to improve that capacity in every single authority across the country regardless of how it was built or funded so those contractual arrangements are getting challenged where it where it needs to be yeah yep absolutely yeah I mean it was just to go back to something you said right at the start round about the the active scotland framework and you said um and you made some big claims for that being a kind of world beating system etc do you know we just want to talk a wee bit more about how that kind of works and why you see it as being so advanced in terms of how everyone else in the world does this well it actually actually came about three or four years ago um when from our perspective we felt that sports sport in in scotland was being asked to do its own job plus a whole host of others now that's great well we'll take that we'll take that on where we can but with the resources we have the challenge is probably too big my professional and personal view is that if you're going to look at changing behaviour and make scotland an active nation it needs a policy um which is very clear about getting from one end i'll give you the two ends of the spectrum there's a whole bunch of things in the middle about the inactive getting the more active right up to those who are involved in performing sport in the middle there's skill acquisition but how do we give people that doesn't matter their age the ability to tools to actually participate at the level they want to participate at there's a whole dashboard of measures in there yes some of them are flat there's not many going the wrong direction and for me there was a a survey that came out recently which said in infrastructure and policy terms scotland was in second place we still have to make sure that that is connected to actual impact and my belief and it's a there's something i've i've been talking about a lot is we will only achieve that when the partnership of portfolios of sectors health education transport sport and anyone else we can contribute actually come together to work in a coordinated way to make that happen and then we'll begin to see things but having the policy and the actual infrastructure and many of the measures in place as a first first principle i think is fantastic and rather than expecting sport to do everything on its own and cover all of those those areas with the resources we have this is a much bigger corporate societal public sector driven yeah hopefully we'll get some commercial support as well but public sector driven and led for communities and the people of scotland i just think it's got real opportunity but we've got to realise it and that we've been continuing to talk to our minister how important we see that and if if she can have influence on other ministers to bring some of that together okay thanks Richard thank you can see that um i actually had a meeting with our local amateur football team on sunday night and basically you know if we go down to the cost basically you know there's a lot of clubs out there who um when members get together they'll chip in a pound you know and and that pays for for what you know people there's a lot of good clubs out there they're doing a lot of work um could you know let's talk about cost how are we compared to other countries and the charges that have been made uh to to you know for people to access you've you've got a lot of you know in my local authority you've got passport to leisure you've got you know they actually have um the the local authority um sport uh has actually increased in in North Lancer over the last number of years so cost wise where are we compared to other countries it's kind of difficult to compare like for like we don't think we've got that data but we we regularly look at costs and again we've got a number of reports over years that will look at the cost comparisons across the different parts of scotland and we can make that available for you if you wish as as well the cost can be an issue and when that happens i think people locally should go and ask the question why um we're happy to be involved in those those conversations because we think sport physical activity will only be successful if there's a transparent two-way conversation locally uh we will help to facilitate that and we'll try and make sure um that there's there's an answer given um one of the things just another example recently but i was up in shetland we've just put in and helped what helped add to an indoor space a new indoor 3g 60 by 40 which for the island of shetland it could be fantastic lots of people were a bit sceptical about being expensive but one of the side benefits of this early early use is that the groups that have been going along they found themselves expanding because people really loved the opportunity the collective cost was then lessened to each individual and the whole thing was much more vibrant but the essence of your question is if cost is an issue that for me is something that is a strategic issue so therefore we need to talk about it locally each local authority is different about how they profile it so we have to look at this closely it was also if you allow me to do that it was also an area partnership meeting in first tonight in my local area where an interesting comment by an official was that someone came along and said wait a minute this park is is ours it's the public's it's no the council's you know so give me a key to get into it so i can bring my kids you know and the council actually did it because you know and i know there's a point of trust or whatever you know you get the key back i suppose but but the physical situation is all these facilities that are councils actually belong to the the public okay i know pfi comes into some of the the equation but you know how do we get how do we build up that trust with the local community in order to generate that's yours you can you know if it's a play area a kid can go to a play area and play in the play area if it's a football park somebody puts up a fence and locks a gate after five o'clock so how do we resolve that well we did have a little bit of a disagreement about that earlier on but for me that that a lot of that is the future not exclusively i think there's a real balance between managed and commercially operated facility space with programs that are different type but also we should give the communities the opportunity to run and manage their own facilities it's part of that strategic look uh part of that responsibility though is how they then would manage the cost of it and for me that's an exciting area to look at about how we take that club model and that's the essence of it is to give more power to the clubs and sports themselves to run their own activities every single community sport hub is like that is run by a coalition of local people who actually manage that that facility so armadale the sports hub in armadale is for me is a great example 30 different groups and clubs not all traditional serious sport lots of recreational stuff in there but it's a group of local people with some young people helping to staff the facility that drives it now i just think we're at the early stages of that model and more and more community management community ownership in partnership with local agencies is the way forward i take on board what you're saying about the cost of that but i think it could help in lots of ways to allow the community to run these things themselves thank you clear thank you panel and can i just say i've been really heartened to hear how sport scotland are thinking outside of silos that you're talking about working joined up working with with other agencies and about how much work you're doing at grassroots and all in one community there's a huge amount of work being done at grassroots and community hubs and we really have a vocal volunteers to thank that because lots of people do dedicate a lot of time and i think they deserve some recognition for that but i'm actually going to move on and talk to you a little bit or ask you a little bit about Brexit and what you think the impact of that is going to be on sport in scotland how significant do you think that issue is going to be to sport here and what sports do you think will be most impacted the formal feedback we've given is would be around and this because sport is largely devolved the bulk of what we do is in our own hands and so 95 percent of that is in our own hands so that will depend on how the economy works and how things are from a government policy perspective going forward so we'll put that to one side the one thing we did look at though from a high performance and i'm careful not to use the word the latest because it's performance the movement the free movement of specialist coaches and staff who can help teach us bring us to the next level may well be impacted so from that perspective we see that as being the as we sit here today goodness knows what's going to happen down the track but for me that's the one thing that we see could impact at that performance end but the rest of it depends on our own decisions our own economy and how things things go forward and i think there's a recognition that it's more likely to impact on the more professional if we look at it that way professional sports it's that movement of specialists absolutely and the movement of in particular in sports like football and rugby players and as you see in coaching staff have you had any discussions with governing bodies about how this may well work or with some of the the clubs or major organisations about the impact that might have on them not really i mean i think part of the challenge is heroes that ourselves included don't don't really know what what's going to happen so therefore it's difficult so there's been some preliminary discussions but it's still so much up in the air but it's in it's in that area and i think we have to have further discussions and ongoing discussions as the situation develops uh with the UK government okay and looking ahead then have you looked at how um a potential loss of EU funding might impact on sport in scotland i mean i think we we don't get so much EU funding but there are that you know there's a number of programmes i know that some of our partners sound like a rasmus for example that that's going to be affected um and um although the UK government saying that money will come to replace that that there's no guarantee that that would happen so again a previous answer it's really so much of this is up in the air it's very difficult to to actually say so i don't think there'll be a huge impact particularly in sports scotland for me for me EU funding but possibly on some of the other sports but i think it's an area that we have to create you know somewhere focus on going forward but but as you know situation change is kind of week on week so it's difficult for us to give a definitive answer okay thank you Brian thank you kevener can i just start by stating that i think this place um struggles to understand how to leverage sport and the impact of sport can i also state that i think sport in this country is chronically underfunded in the sport scotland or a remarkable job with the money that they have in the book actually should stop in this parliament here i think cutting the sports budget goes unseen and it's really easy to do and also includes the sports budgets within councils as well speaking to your point convener about about the cost of access to sport that is undeniably a cost of access to sport i'm thinking specifically from you know i was in the indoor arena of the emirates last night which is smack back in the middle of the east end of glasgo and it's £3.50 to get in um so um although we have some phenomenal facilities uh there's a struggle to access and you're absolutely right can i say that i think that uh the ability to to to access the opportunity to be active if it's reduced the result is is a cost or a pressure on health and on education on transport and welfare sorry can i just ask is mr rydwbl here to make a statement or ask a question i'm just gonna say that brian maybe you need to yes i'm getting to a question could be now yet that's why i'm just asking just now and you do have limited time as well in other words cutting the sports budget is i think is a false economy so to ask you email stewart um if you were properly funded over a longer term how would how would that impact the way sports done in this country well i'm not properly funded if we i'm i'm i kind of believe you need to invest in sport and what will happen is is you'll get long-term benefits so it comes part of the overall active scotland framework we have greater input there but then you can start doing more initiatives so you could start to see if you had more money you could say right we're going to subsidise access into into arenas as you mean for certain people on certain income levels or certain areas where it's costing zero to come in so that they're actually encouraged to come in and if they don't have the money they can do but you could require to have funds to do that so i i think increase investment in sport across the board will have greater impact in all aspects of society so you'll get a healthier nation more active nation more people participating and we could put funds in the in the appropriate places in the same way that we're we're doing at the moment the system we have i i believe the system is right that's why other countries are starting to go what's going on in scotland is really interesting and to your first point in your comment is something we should be really proud of in this country it's something we should be talking to the world about hey you know this is what's going on here on a relatively small budget and actually impacts have been made you've got to remember that this health challenge is a global one it's not just scotland it's everywhere and and we are ahead of the game people are starting to notice it so we we should be investing more in it in my opinion i'm bound to say that i'm sitting as the chair of sport scotland and i'm sure other organizations would as well but i just fundamentally passionately believe if you make scotland a sports nation the benefits to society will be it's really really significant for a small tiny investment you get much better times 10 times 20 back in terms of the impact for your society yeah can i also ask it and and you've been asked a lot today about the the targets around participation etc my question is do you have sufficient resource to hand to give an in-depth report that's being requested here in this committee we have a lot of information brent and i think it would be good for the committee to have a good look at that and then if there are gaps then we'll look at how we fill those gaps we take a prioritization approach to that though so those areas that we think we need to look at we'll look at them anyway because they're really important i guess if i have to go back to that system approach we've got so much belief in that system approach that it has to be the group of partners collectively and i think there's some mileage there where all of us together could probably look at how measurement actually happens across across the piece so there isn't just a point there because i think it's important when that system the percentage of children who meet physical activity recommendations is 2014 to 2015 has gone down for boys two and a half percent girls five and a half and all children 3.9 is that evidence of a system that's working um the the statistics are they're there than the public domain what we're seeing in schools across every school we look at and again we'll pull out every single one to look at them about how how we improve on the results from a year to year basis but you've sold us this morning the system and that the system is excellent and everybody's looking at this across the world and all the rest of it but the evidence of its impact on children is that the system ain't working now we're building a system we never said it was finished at the end of the day i mean we are building a system we're kind of it doesn't happen overnight uh the bottom line is i think we've we've 12 years invest 12 years of investment active schools we think that's that's shown a lot of progress last four or five years we're seeing continuing increases in participation but it doesn't include everything going um i understand the sort of national measures in the picture the snapshot they have and i'm also all i'm trying to explain is what we do around every school in the country about what that looks like and what the participation is in those areas clearly there's a difference between your perception and what's being reported and that's that is a problem sorry brian final final question just actually on that point there um being at the coface um and i've heard that discussed in here about capacity um would you agree there is an issue with capacity in that now i've never seen anything like it in my life with so many clubs now with so many kids wanting to participate but there is waiting lists in so many sports just now and actually it's the capacity especially in terms of legacy from the calm wealth games it's capacity is one of the things we really have to target the infrastructure i think we've said it a couple of times we agree um it's how much more space can we have how can we make better use of the space it's available and do we have enough people to keep to look after that and we'll continue to try and build that uh and go in that that positive direction that it will always be an enabler if you don't enable it doesn't happen you don't achieve the outcome so people and places space enable participation and progression and that's what we think needs to be continually worked on it the average volunteer will last three years and then they'll move on and do something different so we have to keep refreshing that and working to make it better okay thank you very much gentlemen could i just kind of i very very briefly just thank you just just to your point and picking up on the Brian Whittle's point is is that um i would challenge some of the figures that you're talking about we will provide some figures to the committee based on what we see as increased participation particularly among young people um there is an issue around capacity i know for example anecdotally in Glasgow gymnastics is suddenly taken off um and and there's waiting lists to get in the nest all these kids want to be gymnasts um which is a really really fantastic fantastic story so the the feedback we get in terms of participation is very positive so we have to sit down together and have a look at how these figures are being Scottish health service all right i know yep i'm aware of that how they're arrived at and our figures and sit down and compare contrast and certainly our view is that participation is increasing at all these groups all across the country okay gentlemen thanks very much for your evidence this morning as i agree earlier we'll go into private session now