 Good morning and welcome to the 8th meeting in 2015 of the Health and Sport Committee. As I do usual at this point, I would ask everyone to, in the room, to switch off mobile phones as they can often interfere with the sound system. You also note, though, that some of the committee members are using tablet devices, and this is instead of the hard copies of our papers. I have apologies this morning from Dennis Robertson and Richard Simpson, who are unable to be with us, and I welcome Graeme Dey as the SNP substitute to the meeting this morning. As usual, with the affirmative instruments, we will have an evidence-taking session with the Cabinet Secretary and our officials on the instrument. Once we have had all of our questions answered, we will have a formal debate on the motion. First, we are going to look at two of the instruments, the general medical council fitness to practice and overarching objectives, and the professional standards authority for health and social care references to court order 2015. The health and care associated professionals knowledge of English order 2015. I welcome the Minister for Public Health and the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Shona Robinson, Jason Birchhead of regularity unit chief nursing officer directorate, Ailsa Garland, principal legal officer of the Scottish Government. I welcome to you all. I give the cabinet secretary an opportunity to make an opening statement. I have apologies for the late news. I had some travel challenges this morning. The Scottish Government and the health departments in the three other nations are committed to legislative change in healthcare regulation to enhance public protection. That is why we are seeking to make changes in priority areas agreed in discussion with the UK regulatory bodies through the two orders that were made under the Health Act 1999. Each order makes amendments to existing legislation regulating health professionals. I want to begin by speaking first in relation to the general medical council order. Reform of the general medical council's adjudication function has been a long-term UK policy objective and it was agreed that the medical practitioner's tribunal service should be established. This order will therefore amend the medical act 1983 to make that tribunal a statutory committee of the GMC, specifying its powers, responsibilities and duties and modernising its adjudication function. The order will address patient safety issues, including strengthening the power of the GMC registrar to require the disclosure of information from a doctor in the context of investigating allegations and in the event of known compliance to refer a doctor to the medical practitioner's tribunal service for decisions as to whether to impose conditions in relation to registration or suspend that doctor's registration. The order will bolster the objectives of the regulator in relation to its fitness practice functions to expressly take account of the need to maintain public confidence in the profession and the need to uphold standards in addition to protecting public health and safety. It will also amend the grounds on which the professional standards authority can refer a fitness to practice panel decision to the relevant court and introduces a corresponding new right of reference for the GMC. I want to turn now to the knowledge of English order. The Scottish Government and the health departments in the three other nations recognise that overseas healthcare professionals make a valuable contribution to the NHS and we are keen to ensure that highly skilled professionals do not face unnecessary barriers to working. However, it is vital that all healthcare professionals practising in the UK have the necessary language skills in English in order to properly communicate with and care for patients. This order will affect healthcare professionals coming to work in the UK from within the EU and following work with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the General Dental Council and the General Pharmaceutical Council and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, a system of language controls for EU nurses, midwives, dentists, dental care professionals, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians has been identified to provide greater patient safety. This order gives those regulatory bodies the appropriate powers to apply proportionate language controls so that only those healthcare professionals who have the necessary knowledge of the English language are able to practise in the UK, which will sit with existing requirements to provide assurance that they can do their jobs in a safe and competent manner. It will strengthen the regulatory body powers in relation to proportionate language controls and require applicants to provide evidence of their knowledge of the English language following recognition of their professional qualification but before registration and admission on to the register. The order will also make corresponding amendments to the fitness to practice powers of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Dental Council, General Pharmaceutical Council and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland so that they can take fitness to practice proceedings in cases in which a healthcare professional's knowledge of the English language affects their fitness to practice. Therefore, a new category of impairment relating to English language capability will be created, which will allow the regulatory body to request that a professional undertakes an assessment of their knowledge of the English language during a fitness to practice investigation where concerns have been raised. Those changes will strengthen the regulatory body's ability to take fitness to practice action where concerns about language competence are identified in relation to healthcare professionals already practising in the UK. The order is compliant with EU law, which clarifies under recent changes to the directive on mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The ability of national authorities to carry out language controls on European applicants in order to establish that those benefiting from recognition of qualifications have a knowledge of language that is necessary to practice a profession. Any language controls must be fair and proportionate. For example, there cannot be automatic testing for all European applicants and any controls take place after the applicant's qualification has been recognised by the regulatory body but before registration. I am at happy at this stage to answer any questions that members may have. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Do we have any members who have a number? Graham Day, followed by Rhoda Grant. You can be here. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Can I just ask you how in practice this will work? At a very practical level, how will it actually be delivered? Also, who will determine the standard of English and thereby what is proportionate? It will be that the bodies themselves will produce guidance that will set out in some detail what is required. Do you want to say a little bit more detail around that? Yes, cabinet secretary, that is correct. The various regulators are under duty to publish guidance about exactly what the assessments would involve and prior to registration of new professionals seeking first registration. How will we ensure consistency across all those bodies? What we would expect is that the guidance will be quite similar across the regulatory bodies and they are going to be working together in the production of that guidance. We would see a continuity across those regulatory bodies. Have you had sight of the guidance? Are you involved in talks with the guidance? What are the important principles that the Scottish Government would wish to see in a set of guidance made available for implementation? I understand how the guidance is being developed at the moment. Jason, do you want to say a little bit more about the detail? The regulators are currently in the progress of developing the guidance and it will cover key points such as listening, reading, writing and speaking. There are various testing levels that they can utilise so I think that they are part and parcel of working on those bits of guidance at the moment and we will get more details further in the year. We will have sight of them at an early stage. The other question is how do we address that from a Scottish perspective? Are there any important principles that the Scottish Government wishes to see expressed in the subsequent guidance? Is there a bottom line or are there a few ideas from the Scottish Government that such a guideline would contain? As I said in my opening remarks, it is about proportionate and fairness. The standard of, I think that we would want the guidance to set a benchmark that is proportionate and fair, that is a standard of English that is required for professionals to practice but it is not onerous in that it sets a bar that is difficult for applicants to reach. The regulatory bodies do not want that either. They want a standard that gives them satisfaction and reassurance that the person is able to do their job properly. Who will take the lead on the development? Who is taking the lead on the development? The regulatory bodies themselves are doing that. You are quite content for them to do that. We will see the guidance. They have the knowledge of the profession and the English standard that would be applicable across their profession. They are definitely the right people to do it, but we want continuity across the regulatory bodies and the guidance that they produce, and we would want an early sight of that. We had some evidence from the BMA and also from the medical defence union about the instrument. BMA may seem quite concerned that the chair of the tribunal would be more likely to be legally qualified than a doctor, and they were concerned the way that this was set up might. It might not disqualify doctors from taking that position, but it would certainly make it more difficult in that it was only if the chair was legally qualified would they become the case officer? I wonder if the cabinet secretary could give us her views on that. The MPTS's discretion does not have to appoint a legal assessor. Only in the circumstances where the chair is not legally qualified, there are various intricacies in that which the Department of Health has been leading on. Ultimately, in terms of the GMC legislation, it is in a reserved area, and the Department of Health has been taking a lead on those specific points. I am quite happy to raise that point directly with them, if that would help. That would also be helpful to get more of an idea here, because I understand that we are going to vote on that instrument. I do not know whether we can delay until you are able to provide that clarification. Can you clarify the point once more? The point is that, where the tribunal chair is not legally qualified, there can be the case officer. That suggests to me that, if it is a doctor that is the chair, there cannot be the case officer, which then might be a barrier to a doctor being the chair of the tribunal, because he would then need two people rather than one person. The MPTS has a discretion to look into what is appropriate in the circumstances of that particular case. In the circumstances that you described, if it was not appropriate for the doctor to be the chair, if it needed to be a legally qualified person, then I would ensure that that was the case. Does that help with your query? Not really. It would be really useful to know what would be done to stop a barrier being created for doctors becoming the chair of the tribunal. There would be no barrier for that to happen, but it would be a case of the tribunal to look into the circumstances to make sure that the right person had legal qualifications within that tribunal. It is quite open for them to have a legal assessor within the tribunal that is not the chair of it, but I think that the rules will enable a certain amount of flexibility to ensure that doctors are not prevented from being the chair of the tribunal. Do you know if any guidance will be issued to that effect? Yes, I think that there will be definitely guidance issued on the point because the particular concerns that you have raised have been analysed in the consultation response, and it is something that GMC will take forward in the future. We can certainly say that it was raised at the committee this morning as a point that needs to be clarified strongly in guidance so that we can feed that back. I do not think that it is a material issue to this, but I think that it is an important point and we will make sure that that is picked up in the guidance through feedback. The BMA was also concerned about how decisions were advised to people. It was kind of saying that the decisions would be given by email rather than by letter, and they were obviously concerned that people might not be reading all their emails and that it should be out by letter. I am keener that way to communicate electronically, but I wonder what steps would be taken to make sure that they received it, whether there would be read receipts, delivery receipts and so on. What happens if those are not perceived, whether there would be a system to monitor whether or not somebody has received and, indeed, read the decisions? If they have not, is there a fall-back position for people to be written to? I think that it is important that they obviously have the most efficient system, which is why they have prioritised electronic delivery, but, as I understand it, there will be a receipt system there. If in the very rare occasions where email is not available, presumably that would be by letter. The order makes provision for the decision to be sent either by post or by email where that has been requested to be sent, and there is specific provision to say that it is only affected when they get an electronic receipt showing that the email has been opened, so it should have been pre-arranged how they are going to receive the decision, and they have to have evidence if it has not been received as well. Thank you, convener. I will just follow up briefly in some of the comments that Rhoda was making. Mr Birch, I thought that it was reasonable in relation to making sure that there are no inadvertent barriers in relation to a medical professional being chair of a tribunal, but, as you said, there could be discretion, so it would not be an automatic, it could not be the chair, and discretion could be shown in relation to that, and that would be teased out in guidance. It is not a barrier for me in approving this SI, but it is just important to get that clear on the official record today in relation to that, so there will be a degree of discretion. It will not be by default that they cannot be chair. There will be a discretion there. Discretion and rules have been made on that point by the GMC. That will be fleshed out further in guidance. That is important for me. It is not a deal-breaking form, but it is important that we get that on the record when we are raising concerns that other people have raised. In relation to a competence level in English for registration, I am just reading from the notes that we were provided for in preparation today, and I will just read from it directly. It says that the relevant regulatory body would set out in advance the criteria as to what evidence would be appropriate to demonstrate an acceptable level of English language knowledge, and the important thing for me is that the criteria must be flexible. I suppose that if I were to raise any concerns, it would be that we had a uniform past fail barrier for people in terms of standards of English, because that would not just catch other EU nationals, but it should quite rightly catch UK residents long-term. What I am trying to tease out here is that it would not just be straightforward to set a test to say that you have an relevant standard of English, but that the regulatory bodies will think very carefully about the proficiency levels that will be needed to perform each particular role. It is just to get that confirmed, but also to confirm that we are still seeking to encourage other EU nationals and others to work in our national health service, because they are vital to our national health service. I welcome the fact that, if you could just confirm this, it would be helpful that it will be made clear that they have their relevant qualifications irrespective of whether they then get registration at that point, so that there is no qualification barriers if you are able to confirm that. Will any advice be given for individuals who maybe do not have English proficiency but may wish to get to that particular standard to allow them to apply at a future date? What would the Government view in relation to being supportive to allow people to take further steps to get to the level that would allow registration? In general, in terms of the details, we do not want unnecessary barriers, and that is why the words fairness and proportionate are used in the opening remarks. The issue is that the effect of the order changes at the point so that the EU professional will still be able to be entitled to be registered, but only after their qualification has been recognised and they can demonstrate the necessary knowledge of the English language. That is not a question about their qualification, it is about the English language. In terms of the guidance that the regulatory bodies will set out, they are all looking towards the international English language testing system, which is a bit of a continuity of approach. That is a test of all four language skills, so it looks at listening, reading, writing and speaking. The academic version of that test is widely accepted by employers as a good standard. The guidance that they will develop will probably centre out around that testing system, as I understand it, Jason. Do you want to say a lot? Absolutely. They do not have to stick to that, but that is seen as a good standard. The really important point is that there cannot be blanket testing. It is only when there are concerns of language ability that crop up. There is a definite separation between recognition of qualifications, compliant with the EU directive and the ability to get on the register in practice. Can I just be clear, cabinet secretary? I think that I picked up from your opening remarks that assessments could be deployed retrospectively for people already in post. Is that correct? Concerns are raised, yes. Can I tease that out a little bit? What would the envisage be for raising concerns? Who could raise concerns? What filters would be in place to perhaps filter out malicious complaints so that they did not escalate to the point where somebody was put through an assessment unnecessarily? It would be fitness to practice ground. It would be investigated in the same way as any allegation would be normally. It would go through the same checking procedure as it would do if there are any concerns raised about that healthcare professional. That is one of the key points of the legislation to introduce any fitness to practice ground. More on the evidence that we have from the medical defence union. They were concerned that the tribunal could refuse to admit evidence. They are also concerned that the tribunal could award costs, which they thought was a punitive measure, rather than an investigative measure. On what grounds would they refuse to admit evidence and allocate costs? I know that there are some concerns being raised about that particular point. The logic of the policy is to prevent certain circumstances of fitness practice cases going ahead such as vaccination cases, which are not likely to succeed. That is the logic behind the costs being introduced in the proposals. I understood that the allocation of costs was to the defendants. If you are being asked to come to a fitness to practice tribunal to defend your own record, you may face having costs allocated to you. It is almost like a barrier for you to look for justice, I guess, from a better... Of course. The actual fitness practice case results in that happening. It is a technical issue that was raised in the consultation. Again, it is something that guidance will be provided by the GMC to cover this particular concern. On the area of costs by the GMC in due course? What about refusing to admit evidence? If you are saying to somebody that we are taking you to a tribunal because of your practice, we are saying that we are not going to admit the evidence that you are putting forward in your own defence and what more we can allocate costs against you if you defend yourself. It seems to me pretty onerous. It depends on the circumstances of the individual case. The rules at the moment state that something quite similar can happen. That needs to be taken into account. On evidence, can you come around the label? That would be normal in any sort of court or other form of tribunal that sometimes evidence might not be admitted if it was thought to be irrelevant to the particular case. I do not know the actual detail of the particular concerns that you have been raising. It is not very clear in the instrument what basis evidence could be. I do not think that it comes from the instrument itself or not to my knowledge. I do not know whether it is to do with how they are expecting cases to be managed going forward or whether that is going to be set down in rules. I am not sure. I think that we need to clarify that point. I might be wrong and I understood that they already have those powers. That is not a diversion from the situation that can happen at the moment, but I think that we need to get clarification on that. I think that you may have answered that question, but my understanding was that any tribunal process that is for the chair of the tribunal to decide what is admissible and not admissible is in any quite right. That would not change that particularly, but I think that we need to get absolutely clarification on that, and we will do that in short order and drop you a note back as quickly as we can. Are there any other questions? The medical defence union, the regulation 21, which it is opposed to, basically says that they do not see a need for the GMC to state an overarching objective in primary legislation, because in practice the tribunal system already bears in mind the maintenance of public confidence in a profession and the maintaining of proper standards of conduct and behaviour. They do pay proper regard to such objectives already, and in shining that in primary legislation they say that they could well result in a panel placing an emphasis on this aspect, to the detriment of the fundamental responsibility of the panel, to ensure a fair and just hearing. There are two elements. There is the overarching objective, which you mentioned, and there is an overriding objective for the panels to consider things that are fair and just. If there is a conflict between the two, the overriding objective takes precedence, that the rules are fair and just, so that hopefully answers that part of the question. I think that in terms of the case law, having public confidence being maintained as part and parcel of the overarching objective is already there, but that sets it on in a statutory footing, so it is clearer. The intention in due course is to have all the regulators with the same overarching objective to have much greater consistency. That is helpful, thank you. I think that the only final thing that I would ask in my reading from the notes in relation to the BMA submission and some of the points that have been raised today, it does appear that a lot of this is formalising, putting in a statutory footing things that are already happening, but I suppose what I would ask is, because my preference would be to support this today, but what I would like to ask would be how is there a natural review process of this? For example, in one-year time, in two-year time, three-year time, do we review this to make sure that it is continuing to do what we want it to do? Where would that sit? I think that that is important to raise today, committee. We would do that in the normal course of events anyway, and we would expect the regulators to monitor the effectiveness of the new procedures with any changes. What we could perhaps do is to agree to furnish the committee with the findings of that in a year's time from the regulators in terms of any issues that are arising. We are happy to do that. I think that that would give me some comfort. I think that that is possibly good as part of—I just want to recap for those people who are members of the committee who have asked questions and raised some concerns. I am sure that I got from the cabinet secretary a recognition that the concerns that were raised this morning were not being dismissed. There would be concerns that he would take into the discussions in and around how the guidelines would be implemented. He would seek clarity in some of the questions that have been asked here this morning and return that information to the committee. I think that that would be useful just to have that on the record and then we could move to the next stage in terms of the debate and how we proceed with the SSI. Absolutely. I will give you that commitment. I have not got any other questions from committee members. We now move to agenda item number two, which is a formal debate on the first of the affirmative SSIs, which we have just taken evidence. I am sure that I do not need to, but I will remind committee members and others that the question session is now over, so there are no other questions that can be put to the minister at this point. Officials are not allowed to speak in the debates, as I am sure they know. I can now invite the minister to move motion S4M, so 1, 2, 5, 6 and 4 laid out before us and previously discussed. Thank you. Do any members wish to contribute to the debate? Just to put on record that, obviously, fitness to practice is really important, there is no move against the SSI at all. The concern that I think was expressed earlier was about making sure that it was fit for purpose and worked well. Given the reassurances of the cabinet secretary, I think that we could meet some of the concerns that have been expressed to us today. Members, can I ask the minister to sum up and respond to the debate? Just to reassure Rhoda Grant that absolutely the points that have been made will feedback and will come back to the committee on the couple of specific issues that were raised and indeed in a year's time or the appropriate moment around the analysis and review of the operation of these new processes and procedures, we would be keen to come back to the committee with an update, so I will put that on record. Thank you. That concludes the debate on that question. It remains for me now to put the question that motion S4M, so 1, 2, 5, 6, 4 be approved. Are we all approved? Agreed? Thank you. That is approved then. We now go to agenda item number three, which is a formal debate on the second of the affirmative SSIs, with what I have already pointed out in terms of who can speak and who can't. We are in the debate. Can I invite any member who wishes to contribute to the debate? We should invite the cabinet secretary to move the motion for me. Finally moved. Thank you. Can we—Ninette Millan wishes to take part in the debate. I welcome this because it is crucially important that communication between professionals and patients is clearly understood on both sides. I think that this will help in situations where there are currently problems. Does that support this? Any other member wishes to take part in the debate? No? Okay. Cabinet secretary, will you sum up and respond? I agree with Ninette Millan. I think that this will enhance the arrangements and the guidance that we talked about earlier on. I will make sure that we keep the committee updated as that guidance is developed by the regulatory bodies. Thank you. I now put the question that motion S4M, so 1, 2, 5, 6, 3 be approved. Are we all agreed? Thank you. I now move to agenda item number four, which is to take evidence on our final affirmative instrument of the day, community care, personal care and nursing care Scotland amendment regulations 2015 draft. The cabinet secretary will remain with us, but we are about to be joined by Mike Liddle, team leader, reshaping care integration and reshaping care division and Ruth Llyny, principal legal officer of the Scottish Government. Can I invite a brief statement from the cabinet secretary at this point? Be very brief, convener. The draft affirmative order before the committee today reflects the Scottish Government's commitment to increase free personal and nursing care payments in line with inflation. The order, if approved, will continue to benefit vulnerable older people. Last year, we increased the personal and nursing care payments for residents and care homes in line with inflation. The regulations will further increase in line with inflation in the weekly payments for personal care by £2 to £171 per week. It will increase the additional nursing care payments by £1 to £78 per week. In line with our partnership arrangements with local government, councils will meet the cost of the inflation rate increases totaling around £1.5 million in 2015-16. An additional amount of £1.5 million annually was added to the funding for local authorities in October 2012 to cover the additional costs in the current spending review period up to 2015-16. The free personal and nursing care policy continues to command strong support, and I hope that the draft order can receive the committee's support. I am happy to take any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions for the cabinet secretary? I don't see any questions. I will therefore move to agenda item number five, which is a formal debate on the affirmative SSI and which we have just taken evidence. Can I invite the minister to move motion S4M-12562, please? Formally moved. Thank you. Can I offer members the opportunity to take part in the debate? As I am required to do. No, there are no members who wish to take part in the debate. I presume, then, that there is no wish for the cabinet secretary to make any further comments. Then we will put the question on the motion. The question is that motion S4M-12562 be approved. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. That concludes today's consideration of subordinate legislation. Cabinet secretary, officials, for their attendance, and I am now going to suspend briefly while we set up our panel on evidence. Thank you. The committee now resumes our meeting and goes to agenda item number six, which continues last week's initial look at the Commonwealth Games legacy. This morning, we have a round table of community sports hubs and local sports organisations. Welcome to you all this morning. As usual, when we have a round table, we invite people to introduce themselves before we move to our discussion. I should start. I suppose that my name is Duncan McNeill, convener of the committee and MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde. Good morning. I am Paul Widdish, trustee and volunteer at Inch Park Community Sports Club, which is a sports hub best in Edinburgh. Bob Doris, MSP for Glasgow and deputy convener of the committee. I am Darren Reid, community sports hub officer for Highlife Island. Rhoda Grant, Highlands and Islands MSP. Good morning. I am Graham Clay. I am the senior sport development officer for Northern Lanarkshire Leisure. Good morning. I am Colin Kear, constituency MSP for Edinburgh Western. I am MSP for Highlands and Islands region. Good morning. My name is David Smith, chairperson of Drumchappel Community Sports Hub. I am Fiona Cardwell. I am the club coach and volunteer sports development officer for Glasgow sport. I am the net mill and MSP for North East of Scotland. I am Andrew Smith. I am a sports development and facilities team leader at Westerland Council. You are all on the record now at the committee. You can sit in silence for the rest of it. Our first question, just to get the discussion going, is Richard Lyle. Thank you, convener. As the convener already said last week, we heard from Sports Scotland and Sports Association, selected local authorities today. I want to hear from the people who are at the coalface. One of the submissions that was made to us was a comment by one of your fellow colleagues, and I will quote it. I firmly believe that sport is yet to be a permanent feature at the top table of national responsibilities until such time sports continue to fly in the face of this relative adversity. What in the panel's view is the adversity to sport and how do we move sport up to the top table to ensure that sport is given its rightful place to improve the health of our nation? Andrew, do you want to, I have seen you bracing yourself there, but I am just trying to process the question. Right, Andrew. You are first to respond then. I think that a major challenge of sport is making the ties between the sport agenda and the health agenda as well. There are definite benefits and there are obvious ties, but at the moment a lot of them seem to be anecdotal rather than actual evidence-based. There is a massive amount of benefits that will bring to people and communities, along with the health benefits and the fitness benefits. There is also the social ability and the opportunity to meet new people and to break down barriers across communities. However, it has been able to make the definite ties between sport and the other different items on the agenda that will allow sport to raise up on the agenda. I will give you a comparison of where I think sport is behind on this and does not help itself. Participation is important when it comes to sport. If you were forming a new medical treatment, you would not measure it by how many people start the treatment. You would measure it by the results. Some of the things that Andrew cited are right and there are lots of evidence out there. However, when you look at things that are published, when we talk about legacy and impact, a lot of it is around numbers. I think that to start to persuade people that do not work in sport and the benefits of sport, we need to come a bit more outcomes-focused in how we put our case forward around the difference that sport makes. We all see it, those of us who work in it every day, but I do not think that from a communications perspective, we are so strong at putting the outcomes forward, that they are wider in terms of the benefits and not just the sporting elements. A couple of points, really. I believe that there is a reliance on volunteers who are already well overcommitted and well overstretched. Due to their personality, they are wanting to make a contribution and feel that what they have got to offer would be beneficial. However, there are not enough people to be able to participate. Another issue for me would be in drum chapel funding as ring fence. For our community sports hub, there was a budget that came along with it, but the money is to be spent on certain issues. It has already been mentioned that we want to hear from the people at the co-face, which is great. Thank you very much for the invitation to come along and speak here today. However, who better to know what money should be spent on in some of our communities than the people who live there or operate there? To receive a budget in order to benefit sport is fantastic, but walking around my community, the issue is that it may be issue A, and it is important to the people in that community. However, when you come back to your community sports hub meeting, the money can only be spent on issue B, C and D. You are walking around and you think that you can make a difference on issue A, but the tools that you have to do the job do not fit. That is an issue. For me, probably as well, the number one issue would be the postcode lottery of access to sport. The community where I live, just to give you some idea of the issue, it is £35.50 to hire a national grass pitch or a pitch for under-16s. Neighboring authorities that border Glasgow most of them give access to facilities for under-16s for free. The other local authorities, for instance, Western Bartonshire Council for a facility of the same nature is £13 an hour. The barriers that we face straight away when we identify an issue get people involved in sport, increase participation, commonwealth games legacy, all the kind of buzzwords. The number one issue that we meet every time we go to an event, congregate people together to consult their views is, oh, wait a minute, we need to pay all that money for use of the facility. Why don't we go to a neighbouring authority and hire the facility when that takes away the point of doing it in your own community? For me, those are free, the major issues that we face in Drumchack on Glasgow. The number of issues there, anyone who wants to take up some of those issues? Barriers, the strategy, we just give the money down to the communities. I was trying to elicit, put you down in the machine for the speaker. I was trying to elicit some panellists in there to see if we can get a discussion in it. Sorry, Bob. I think that David touched upon the first point there about the opportunities that we have with community sport hubs is to have that very much community-led approach. Where we found real success in the Highlands has been able to investigate that local sporting infrastructure from the bottom down, so very much being around who is involved in sport within the local community, where does sport happen within the local community. More of that conversation is about all those people talking to each other. There are a lot of people involved in sport sport professionally and in the volunteer level, but the community sport hubs have given us opportunity to nail down who is doing what within the local communities, where it happens and what is the needs of the local clubs. You mentioned the volunteering base. One of the key objectives of the community sport hubs in the Highlands is about that people. How do we help and support the people who are on the ground making sport happen to make it slightly easier for what they do? If the community sport hubs are going to be a success, it has to be community led. It has to be driven by the people who are on the ground making sport happen within our local communities. Andrew. In Westland Council, we have used the hub as a vehicle to bring together services in that local community to tackle a number of inequality issues. It is being led by sport. Let us get adults and children and young people to facilities to play sport through clubs, but it is also to look at the health benefits of that and joining those kids and the schools in those communities to the health services that are there. We have really used that as a vehicle to drive that all happening in the local community. Within the hub, we have a forum for the clubs. Local people can come and tell us their issues when a large part of those issues are funded and around the pricing structure of sports halls and things around West Lothian. We have used the hub to tackle that and look at pricing structures across hubs as we start to roll them out across the county. Within that club forum, that feeds into a strategic steering group that is led by the headteacher of the school and by local councillors and allows them to understand the issues that the local people are facing with regards to health and sport. I hope that I can answer your questions there. Do those tensions still exist? We took evidence from that nearly 18 months ago in community sport and access to community. We had that tension between local clubs, who do not see themselves as part of that sport hub. I would say to David, do not bother paying professionals to deliver sport in the hub or the community centre. I have been doing that for 20 years. If he gives me some of that money, it will save me getting out in fundraising and I will be able to spend more time coaching. That would be a community objective. We have heard some of that evidence here that a lot of the money that was given to certain sport and activities and legacy activities in Glasgow and beyond was not going into the sport clubs. It was going into to establish other means of delivering sport when hundreds of volunteers delivered that sport, who needed urgent help with fundraising. How do we manage that and how do we reduce that tension and better working relationships with existing social sports clubs and the new sport clubs that have been built up, mainly in and around our educational facilities and community support facilities? Graham, Paul, Darren and Andrew respond to that. David, do you want to come back? Not at this point, but I will let you in if you do. I would say that, within North Lanarkshire, the main vehicle for the utilisation of the community sport hub budget has been to develop those types of organisations that you are referring to in terms of our sports clubs with the history of delivering within that community. Very little of the sport hub budget within North Lanarkshire has been used to deliver new activities that have had a short term focus. It has all been very much long term volunteer development projects in order to ensure that we are empowering that local community to deliver what is needed. I think that I am slightly coming back to that friction or that clash of supporting the clubs and the outcomes of perhaps facility managers. It is where we see that friction because we have a clash of objectives in terms of people who are operating facilities obviously have to meet their income generation targets in terms of letting that facility. It may be of benefit to them to not have a community organisation in there. You may want a commercial organisation in there who are paying a higher let cost, so that is where that priority of sports development and facility development can clash. Paul, you want it in? I am not from the local authority. I am a community-based sports hub, but one of our team does sit around the table in Edinburgh around the discussions. What I would say is that there is still some work to do on that, but it has got better. I will explain exactly why. When the community sports hub strategy started out and we started looking particularly at school-based models and things like that, there was such a drive around a single metric around getting sports involved and getting people involved that it became a bit of a numbers game. A lot of the time it was more of a reporting exercise rather than doing any real new or improvement to provision or supporting the clubs in those areas. I think that there has been a recognition of that and I think that that is starting to change from what I have seen, but I do not think that we are quite there yet in Edinburgh. One slight worry that I have is that we then go and grow too quickly and bring in more sports hubs, whilst we have still not addressed that problem and then we hit the same problem again. I think that there is a step back that I have been lobbing for in Edinburgh that says, let us just make sure that we get it right before we grow any more sports hubs rather than starting to do another six here and another eight there and then adding more reporting and more participation numbers and not actually getting into what is going to make a difference in the communities. Is that what you were meaning earlier when you alluded to numbers here? Do not count on the number of sports clubs or do not judge on just the numbers of participation and the numbers of coaches? I will give you a manifestation of that that is a prime example where without wanting to be too critical of one or two of the other setups and hubs, one that has been put forward is really successful and Edinburgh has somewhere in the region of 35 clubs within its hub and several thousand members. We were pushed politely a couple of years ago why we only have three or four clubs. We have quite high standards that we have set around if you want to be involved in the community these are the things that you have to deliver otherwise you are just a commercial let and they are about getting young people involved, they are about going and delivering in the schools, they are about delivering in the community organisations so I guess rather than collecting clubs we have set a benchmark and said this is what being a community sports hub is all about yet the reporting that was done two years ago there is no opportunity to talk about that it was about how many clubs, how many. So I think there is something about the way national reporting has been driven in the past that has driven that behaviour and as I say I do think that it has started to change but I don't think that we are quite there yet. I think that just from my Highlands point of view and I will touch on the numbers that fundamentally our community sport hubs are a club development tool we are going to have hopefully by the end of 2015 60 clubs involved with community sport hubs catering for 3,600 participants of sport around 350 volunteers and fundamentally our community sport hubs are about supporting this to happen and supporting that club infrastructure to make sure that they are delivering the best that they can deliver and trying to reach that world-class sporting system within every one of their communities. Also just to touch upon that understanding of the local need so a community sport hub for us has been an opportunity to come together with local clubs so if one club is struggling with coach development, with promoting themselves the club along the road is asking for the same thing so collectively it's a lot easier to deliver these things and especially in a rural context delivering coaching courses if we can team up with the school, with the school's volunteers and the club volunteers we can actually make things happen within our local communities. Just the final point is about the professional input that comes alongside the community sport hubs that have been a real benefit in terms of having that conversations with the head teachers, with the head of PE, with that, the school's coordinators, with the facility managers that are attaching on youth work so there is a professional structure within local communities. Through the community sport hubs we're starting to have that conversation with how we're best supporting that local sporting structure. I agree with what Paul said about the report and if you take Armadale community sports hub at the moment we saw massive growth in the first year, year and a half but now we're at a stage where the facilities are maxed out and we're not going to get a lot of additional growth from that one facility. The numbers do tell a certain story but again it's that it's the kind of software evidence that goes behind that and the actual impact we're having on the clubs and increasing number of coaches, increasing number of volunteers, the amount of work that the clubs are actually now doing in the schools in the Armadale community that they weren't previously doing, that's the kind of stuff that we in a local authority are looking at and reporting back to our councillors and senior managers. With regards to the sustainability of our project we set out from day one when we received the money from Sport Scotland to make the hub sustainable and within that sustainability it was being able to afford a professional officer in the hub from the income that was generated from the letting. We've been able to achieve that at Armadale and what that means is for my team is sports development, a facilities team is I've now got an extra member of staff that's now based in the community and we can drive a lot of the provision that we run across the county, we can drive that very locally to the clubs in that sports hub. That officer doesn't work a nine to five job, he works a very flexible kind of work pattern which allows him to be there at evening and weekends to get to know the clubs, to be able to support them and understand their needs. So that kind of looking at that kind of sustainability with the professional officer side of it. We also have an affiliation package that we'll be rolling out to sports hubs as we move into other school estates across West Lillian that looks at everything from their accreditation, be it with the governing body or with the local authority accreditation package. It looks at what after school stuff they're doing, it looks at what curriculum stuff they're doing and it also looks at what other community things that they're doing. So for example a fun day in the community, a fun run or some other kind of health promotion thing, are those clubs active, are they there and are they promoting their club and the health benefits that their club could bring to the local community. And that affiliation package then helps with the letting procedures as well. So again if we've got two clubs looking at the same space on the same day and we know one club's just there for adult members and you know they're just there to play the five-side football once a week compared to a club that is looking to develop young people through volunteering and through the sport, you know this affiliation package helps us to make a good informed decision on who can get that let, so there's a number of benefits that that's brought to us. And then I'm going to get one of the committee members to move us on a wee bit. David, go on, thanks. I believe that in Drum Chapel there's been a kind of co-ordinated approach. Glasgow Life have been very supportive of all the clubs in the area, obviously through being chairperson of our group. You form relationships with all the different people who become part of the sports hub. There's a variety of different sports and you're able to see first hand the difference having that staff support makes, which is very good. It's pleasant to hear from the other people contributing to the discussion that facilities seem to be good in other areas and there's different packages available for deciding who's going to get access to which let, but again bringing it back to Drum Chapel the issue for us was for a long time the facilities were not up to standard, so there was old style astro pitches down gravel parks which are not very suitable for modern sport. The issue for us for a long time was definitely facilities. After realising that there wasn't much we could do to improve that, the focus then became on coach education and improving the standard of coaching that volunteers deliver. That seemed to make a big difference through meeting other people in different sports. You could see the difference that was meeting, so access to first aid courses or doing child protection courses or progressing through your coaching pathway in whichever sport you belong to through the national governing body all seemed to make a big difference. Now for us the issue is that the facilities in our community have improved tenfold. There's a new third generation astro facility being put down. There's better facilities available. Tennis Scotland have made a huge investment in the local tennis courts. The local sports clubs improved from a ramshackle building to almost a real top-top quality facility. Now for us the issue we are finding is that these local people and these local communities who have been campaigning on these issues for a number of years prior to my involvement in sport in 2007-08 when I first got involved in my local community now seems to be that we have these fantastic facilities and they're the pride of the community. People love being there, having the opportunity just to set foot on those kinds of surfaces and do your coaching is everything that you've ever dreamed about as a volunteer. Now the issue is that we're being priced out of using those facilities and people are travelling from other parts of Glasgow or outwith Glasgow using facilities in the local community. Now I don't have an issue with that. If someone wants to come and use the facility great, it's populated, it's been used, there's a benefit to other people. But surely the people who live in that community who have been using the horrendous facilities that were there previously should have an opportunity to get on to those type of surfaces, get into those types of indoor buildings, use the new equipment that's been bought for the benefit of the people who live there. That's certainly not the case now as we sit here today, which is tragic. So this morning on my way here into the train I've received a number of text messages and phone calls about volunteers at the club I coach at looking at private sector facilities which are cheaper to hire than those in our local community, the Glasgow life facilities and for me that's an absolute travesty. Now the other issue for us in our community would be the prescriptive nature of support from whichever organisation is supporting you. So for us it's Glasgow life and obviously there's been a tremendous support for a prolonged period of time but the problem is that the staff who support you also have an agenda and it's been mentioned at the table as well about you know in order to receive our support you have to do this, you have to do that. Now we have to remember the nature why people volunteer and for me and all the people I've ever met, the reason they volunteer is because they enjoy it. They may be participated in the sport as a child, had a fond experience and want to give that back to the community where they live but also that's why it's important to them. And the last thing a volunteer wants to hear is someone who's given up their time for free to pass on whatever knowledge, experience or expertise that they've developed. The last thing that that type of person wants to hear from somebody who's been paid to sit at that table with them, let's not beat about the bush, is in order for you to receive my support you have to do this, this and this. So an example of that would be in order for you to receive my support you have to go into the schooling coach, wait a minute, I only volunteer with my club because I enjoy this. I don't want to be told that I have to give up more time to go here in coach, now I have to go there in coach if I want to keep you, so for us that would be another issue. Thanks for that David, there were issues in a very general nature that were reflected in our report about some 18 months ago the whole question of access and some of these questions that you've explained right down at the ground are still there obviously. I've got, I think, Mike Mackenzie, our first next committee question, you see if you can take things on. I was very struck by Andrew Smith's talk of thus far all we have is an anecdotal connection between sport and participation in sport and health outcomes and I think that's something you'll recall, convener, I brought this up at last week's meeting and I think it's perhaps a challenge for us as a committee to see if there's research beyond anecdotal to make the connection between greater participation in sport and not the health outcomes per se but the general population changing their lifestyles to the extent of the following more active lifestyles so that's something I think we should perhaps as a committee follow up on and perhaps feed back to the to the folk that have come in to give evidence today because I think if we establish that connection then we can perhaps make a better case in the future for funding for these kind of facilities. I'm interested if the witnesses this morning would agree with that and the other thing while I've got the microphone, convener, while I've wrestled the microphone to me is just the question of funding because I noticed that David has brought up the method of funding of our sporting facilities and I wonder, and again this is a question maybe for the committee to investigate though, I wonder, I'm a bit forgiving my ignorance but I wonder how much you know that is charged for the use of facilities. I would expect that something that the UK Government should be sympathetic towards looking at either reducing the VAT or zero rating it. I am aware and Darren will know for instance the Lochaber Sports Association I've got a particular problem with VAT at 20 per cent on the construction costs of a facility there and it strikes me that we've funded the commonwealth games, we're talking about the legacy, that's happened in Scotland, what contribution are the UK Government making and the mechanism for that contribution seems to me to be one whereby we could look at maybe a reduction of VAT. I wonder what witnesses think about that. Paul? So, go away to start with that. Okay, a couple of quick things on both outcomes and funding and then a direct answer on how you can help. The outcomes are there and Drum Chapel are involved in this as well. I know those of us that are involved in youth work and sport and Robertson Trust and different funding bodies that are involved in sport have benefited from an awful lot of work looking specifically at outcomes. There's quite a nice framework now that covers things like links to antisocial behaviour and various other things and the difference between outputs and outcomes and then applying that back to your programmes. The research is there and the outcomes that sport can deliver for the community and for society in Scotland have been well researched and are available. The challenge, I think, is that, one, they're not widely known and available to all sports clubs and two, back to a point that David made around funding and we've already talked about around reporting in some aspects, it's not asked for. So, in terms of being able to evidence that in order to release funding for certain things, it is very much about participation and things like that. So, there's maybe no incentive, if you like, to be able to bring this to the fore. So, in terms of what the committee can think about doing, the research is there but the question that I'd have is, well, how do we get it further out there and then how do we link that to the different submissions that are required as opposed to just the one-dimensional numbers thing. On the funding and the VAT issue, again, this is more of an expertise thing, it's back to volunteers. There are things that sports clubs can do in order to give themselves VAT breaks and various other things and claim back gift aid and all sorts of things. The issue is that most sports clubs are run by volunteers and the Treasury probably has a working knowledge of Excel and that's about it. So, the answer you'll probably get to the question, are breaks available to sports clubs? Yes, but if you're fortunate enough to have a club like ours where we've got some expertise to run that, that's great. We can benefit from that. For your general joblog sports club, it's just too complicated and too time consuming. So, the challenge around that one, if you were to look at it, would be how do you make it simple for people with a base level of skill that are doing the Treasury accounts to be able to make that work for their sports clubs? Anyone else? Fiona? Glasgow, just to take your point about the financial knowledge from clubs, you're right, I'm not going to say that there's not a lot of expertise at some clubs that are run by volunteers whose primary concern is their community and the development of sport. At Glasgow, we've identified that as an issue. We've currently got 10 clubs on a pilot programme, a sustainability programme in conjunction with Jobs and Business Glasgow. Now, we hope that through running that programme, those 10 clubs will have the skills and the knowledge to move forward in developing the structure of their club to make them financially sustainable. Hopefully, they'll get that advice and information that they're looking for in terms of where they can make savings, things that they currently aren't aware of. We are very good at sports development offices of telling clubs where funding is, but perhaps where we fall short as well, is telling them about the sustainability of their club and how they can structure it better in terms of managing their income and outcomes. David? Yeah, just to pick up on the points that were made about the clubs and stuff and funding. Volunteers who run their clubs, it's the people who participate in the clubs who pay the subscription weekly, monthly, annually. For us in Drumchapel, obviously, that can be a big issue. Now, according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, Drumchapel is ranked very lowly in terms of communities, so I've pulled off a couple of stats from the NHS neighbourhood profile 2014, which is a different document. Now, 47 per cent of children in our community are still living in poverty, according to this document. 69 per cent of households don't have access to a car or mode of transport. In 45 per cent of the people within our demographic are single-parent households on low incomes, so taking into account our demographic and the fact that members pay subscriptions, well, that's obviously an issue for us. Now, if we bring this back to the facilities being expensive, then that's also another issue. In terms of the points that have been made there, absolutely delighted to hear from Paul about how clubs can claim back gifted or there's VAT issues. That kind of information should be made readily available to anybody who ever puts their hand up to volunteer in a community sport. Probably I'd just like to finish by saying that if that kind of information is there and it's available to sports clubs to apply for, then why didn't I know about it before now? In terms of the point that was made by Mike about claiming back VAT and stuff, anything that can be done to make a volunteer's job easily, in my opinion, should be done, because generally a volunteer may have a job, a family. I think that we looked at that as a committee, and while it can be a barrier, it's not always a barrier, and we heard last week that it doesn't necessarily increase participation. Certainly, I live in an area where there is free football, but that doesn't guarantee those who participate get to play free, because it's not necessarily passed on. Maybe you can reflect on some of that and maybe tell us how you would pass that on to ensure that those people you rightly described in need, if there was free football there, would it mean free for those who play in a Saturday or Sunday or a Wednesday, which is a next challenge? Clubs still need to raise money and they still take the same charges as they took, despite the fact that they might be free. They're still taking the same charges from those who are participating, the poor people who are participating. There are big issues there, but we have really, I think, we've got the message of access in terms of school, all those transports can be very difficult. For my committee's point of view, we have got that message, but it might raise some other issues if anybody wants to respond to that now. If not, then I'm going to move on and take my next question. Andrew, you would like to— Just a couple of points you made there. You're very right about how onerous running a sports club can be on volunteers, and it's that balance of having professional people in place that can support the clubs to develop and grow. Some of the stuff that you touched on about gifted and things like that, that's open to—we're seeing more and more clubs in our area becoming an incorporated organisation, so four clubs historically have been constituted and that's it. Apart from the Government and Body, they've got no one to report to you or they've got no on, they've got no other status. There's a move now for clubs that are more organised to move to a charitable status, be that a full charity, be that a business limited by guarantee or be that a social charitable and corporate organisation. I'm learning about that just now, and I feel I'm a wee bit behind the curve with it, but there's a lot of learning to be done in that area and there's a lot of benefits that can be brought to clubs. Gifty is one of them claiming back that and things of that as well, so there's local authorities, I think. For me anyway now, we're getting guys in to give our development officers training to help us to understand this move over to incorporated organisations and it gives the clubs better legal support as well, and it takes liability away from committee members as well. Definitely agree with you 100% that there's a massive amount of pressure on volunteers to develop local sport in the communities and I see it as my job in my local authority to try and take a wee bit of that pressure off the volunteers. I volunteer for a club myself and I've got young family and I've got full-time job and all that and that's why I know how precious my time is and I know that that's going to be replicated across my committee and other committees and other clubs, so 100% take that on board. With regards, can I just go back to Paul's statement there just very briefly about studies and information being out there with regards to the evidence and the links between health and sport? I think there is evidence there, you're right with the Robertson Trust and other funding bodies as well, but that information is, as you said, has been held within those organisations. There's not enough educational evidence being done at universities that actually look at the links between health inequalities and participation in sport and I think until there's more of those reports and no studies done, there were ministers and there were where politicians will go when they're coming up with policies. They're not going to go to the Robertson Trust, they're not going to go to his other places per se, they're going to go to what's on the shelf through journals and things of that as well, so we need more of that, more educational studies based on what are the actual links between sport and health, so that's me finished. We are all keen, and certainly when we're looking to devise policy, we're all keen to get people more active for all the health benefits, not just physical health but mental health education, the benefits go on and on. It seems this morning that people are almost splitting into two groups. One is to use sports hubs for community development and to use the volunteers to do all that, and then there seems to be a bit about how do you allow those clubs to become fun, which keeps people going, which actually does the mental health thing, and how do you do you allow volunteers to volunteer in a way that is suitable for them? To me, I don't think that those two things are mutually exclusive, I don't think that we should be saying that or that, so I suppose how do we equip hubs to support both groups, because obviously we want to go into schools and into communities to encourage people who are not active now to become more active and maybe join clubs that are already there, but how do we also support and keep the volunteers who are maybe doing this for fun, maybe had a child who was interested in the sport, got involved themselves for that reason? How do we keep them on board while trying to, I suppose, grow the whole thing? New responses, Paul. They're getting harder aren't they, these questions, thanks. For a day job, I run a national volunteering organisation, and this is the constant challenge that we have. We work with charities all the time, and it's the constant unanswered question, which is how do you deliver your strategic objectives when you're relying on a voluntary workforce who are doing it for the things that they enjoy? Still don't have an answer to that entirely, but I am going to go into one or two things that I think could help on that. Specifically, I think at a national level and when you're thinking about it as a committee and you're thinking about community sports hubs, it's the recognition that everyone's different as a starting point. There are models with ones in schools, there are models like mine, which is a wholly owned community asset, there are models around sports clubs, there are models that are based in deprived communities like Drumchapel, there are models that are based in ones that are a bit more affluent. The reason I'm explaining that is that the needs of each one will be different, the reasons the volunteers will be volunteering may well be different. When I think about the local cricket club that's nearest to us, Carlton Cricket Club up the road, a lot of the kids that go to that are from independent schools and their junior section generates a profit in the way that it's 140 pounds just to join and you get a nice key to the gate and you can walk your dog around and that sort of thing and most of the volunteers are parents of the kids. The volunteers that we work with are working with some real challenges and they're working with some young people that if they weren't doing sport the outcomes that are set out for them are quite difficult so their social cause can be quite different. Now what that means, so it's a very long answer to me saying well what that means is that if you think about the model at that sports club up the road the motivations are very different to the one that I'm working because of the community needs and I think just a recognition that each community and each community sports hub has different needs and that the volunteers may have different motivations and then being able to support what that is would be a good move forward as opposed to maybe just looking at each community sports hub as a nebulous concept. Anyone else want to respond to that? Andrew and then David? I think it's important that a lot of community sports hubs are based within a school estate and we've spent a lot of time working on a relationship with the head teacher of that high school and then the head teachers of the subsequent primary schools so working very closely with active schools teams as well. When we're talking about clubs we'll be helping with curriculum time activity and after school activity. It's not necessarily the head coach of that club that's doing the evening stuff because they generally have full-time jobs. It's looking at other resources that are available to us so for example sports leaders courses they're running every high school in West Lothian and it's about looking at can we develop the young people in these courses to support some other sports activities. It's not going to be your Olympic level sport, it's sport for fun so it's getting the kids engaged and getting them to want to choose to take part in that sport more often. So it's looking at what other mechanisms there are locally that can allow that youth participation and that's going to school curriculum time and extra curriculum time participation that then can feed into clubs. David, thanks. We find in our community that in terms of keeping people involved in making it fun there seems to be a kind of a two-pronged approach where I'm of the thumb belief that whatever people are involved they're your biggest and best resource and if you can utilise whatever skills or abilities they bring to the table then some special things can happen. So it's obviously been made aware that I've been banging the drum this morning about finance but at the same time I'm sitting here and I'm reflecting about some of the real kind of special people and characters that we've got in our community and about the things that we've been able to pull off together as a collective through being involved in the sport hub and a couple of events spring to mind that kind of demonstrate this dual-pronged approach which would be the drumwealth games with something that we've been organising for the past few years and that's mainly targeting people in primary schools and high schools and it's about saying to the kids who are involved there, hey this is all your clubs who are in your local community, come along, try it, see if you think it's fun, if you do great, here's the contact details about how you can join and that's about targeting new players, new athletes, new performers and engaging them in a fun experience which we've found has been working really well. The other thing that we do in terms and this is maybe more about kind of PR and targeting the community would be an event called Dean the Park and we get around a lot of the financial aspects with that by we just hold it in our local park and we all turn up with every equipment we've got, we plan it, we organise it, we advertise it and everybody comes along for a day and takes part for free so there's football, taekwondo, judo, lots of different sports in the middle of that park and leaflets and fliers and information is handed out, parents can come and try the sports with their child whether the child is two months or 20 years old and we've found that these two events seem to be working really well hence we're replicating them every year so that in terms of increasing involvement and removing barriers we've found that these events are working really well in their fun, the community engage with it well. Dave Beatton of Dumford, Tom Chappell that was a good one, that's to be tweeted out later on that day, well done. Dan, you want to respond to Rhoda's question as well? I think the rest of the guys around the table have made some really good points but just to get back to just Rhoda's question I think the opportunity through the community sport hubs is all that partners are around the same table so you have the guys that are social clubs, it's the fun element, you've got the schools coordinators that are driving the participation levels through schools but you've also got the other side of you, you've got the performance sport, you've got the clubs that are driving athletes to be the best they can be and I think that's the opportunity through the community sport, has it all these people around the same table and collectively for our local communities we're delivering that quality package of sport and physical activity that caters for every need within the community and I would like to get our community sport hubs to the stage where at the moment yes we've involved sports clubs and the people that are directly involved in sport but maybe around that table as well should we have the NHS, we're starting to get the youth work around the table as well because all these people have influences on the sport within the local community and do we get to that, hopefully get to that end point where if I'm a person within that local community there's something for me to keep me healthy and active. Just similar to what you've said yourself there, two events that David spoke about I can't stress enough the importance of partnership working for both of those events to work the D60 group is a group that was set up to celebrate from chapel's sixth eighth birthday around that table is the forestry commission I sit there and represent the community sport so I've been going back to speak to David and the guys involved with that hub and those events only happen because of those groups coming together similar with the drum wealth games active schools play a real key role in the communication side but the schools helping us understand what events the kids want to do so that we can put on fun activities that they want to take part on and more importantly we can follow up because it's delivered by local clubs so for those kids enjoy it the very next day they can go and play football or tennis locally it's not down to a commercial enterprise to deliver that for them and they're having to pay top door for it if they can have that in their own school on a Friday and then that next week they can go and take part in whatever sport they enjoy I think that's really important that we're making sure that activities in the local area are sustainable through utilising the local clubs that are willing to take part but it is very much a partnership approach and I think that's how we get around the issues of ensuring that things are fun for people but we're still meeting the objectives that we're looking to meet. Thanks, convener. I'm really interested in discussions. I'm interested in teasing out where actually there's less going on because David Smith gave a really powerful example of volunteers leading in drum chapel and I'm sure a variety of issues you raised in terms of cost and pressure and volunteers do need to be dealt with, convener, absolutely. I sat at a meeting in Royston in Glasgow as part of our regeneration of that local area, convener, where we're trying to map out where the sporting opportunities are within that local area and there are a few and it's mainly football and there may be others but there might just not be that many. So it's not specifically to Glasgow live because there's a variety of local authorities represented. I'm just wondering what mapping is done for the various local authorities where there are black spots if you like, where there are people who would thirst to be involved in a variety of sports, may not have had the opportunity and how you do a bit of development work to take forward communities that maybe aren't at the stage that David Smith and the sports hub and drum chapel are despite obviously the barriers you need to overcome to develop further but what can a mapping exercise happen in the different local authorities to go? Well actually in this part of local authority there's not that much going on, we know people are travelling out with their community to do sports so in Royston for example they may go elsewhere, they may not go at all but how do you tease some of that out and how do you do the sports and physical activity development work to nurture some of that? Andrew from the local authority perspective. We're now moving into a second phase of funding for the committee sports hubs and one of the first schools we're working in now is Whippern academy. That was actually highlighted through the council meetings with senior managers. We were looking at, it's quite close to Armadale so we were looking at putting a hub at the other side of the county. The senior managers and councils were quite keen that we use the model we've got and try and make it work in an area that's more challenging so Armadale has been a challenge but Whippern is going to be a bit more of a challenge. As you described there there's a couple of sports clubs there, mainly football and actually some of the football teams or clubs within the clubs have been moving out to other facilities in other parts of the county because the facilities in Whippern haven't been accessible or they haven't been at standard for the clubs to want to play there so there's a wider regeneration package happening in Whippern and the community sports hubs is part of that so the first stage for us to tackle is access to the facilities around the school estate. The school estate actually has, you know, it's got a rugby pitch, it's got a 3G football pitch, it's got a three-balm sports hall, it's got a dance studio, it's got a swimming pool but access to it through the current PPP contract has been quite restrictive so we're now using the sports hub to go in and challenge the contract and try and get the maximum out of that PPP contract that allows us more access so at the moment we're not getting access to the weekends and we're working in discussions to get that open. There's a 3G pitch sitting there that would allow the clubs to play football on the 3G pitch of the weekend no matter what the weather apart from maybe snow so it's looking at that we're still struggling to get access to the swimming pool which would allow more swimming club use within that town and so we're using the sports hub to be able to open access to the facilities to allow the clubs to come in there. With regards to increasing numbers of clubs and developing the clubs I mentioned before I've got a sports development officer now at Armadale that kind of works directly with the clubs so he they'll go and they'll meet with them face to face they ask them what their needs are what their development needs are and they'll look at the clubs on a on a base by base sorry one club at a time effectively and then we will generate a plan of what coach education they need what lengths to schools the clubs have he would work with active schools coordinators to introduce better or more links with the schools that hopefully will drive participation so with us putting the hubs into different areas we're able to to improve that a bit more and improve that kind of contact with the clubs that we don't have at the moment because we've only got five officers working across the county of you know 60 odd clubs so we're using that to direct officer time to to to those clubs in those areas a bit more so. Yes, Cadeiam, Cadeiam. Thank you. Just in response to that initial mapping exercise that was carried out within North Lanarkshire that was about establishing a working relationship with the cultural trust to operate our community access to facilities and just having that picture in terms of reporting on what is currently provided within each of the sites that we use all of our hubs are school sites. It's certainly just the case of of building it into a picture of broader knowledge so looking at the active schools reports in terms of priority sports within the areas in terms of where there's a large amount of participation that's particular not catered for by the community and working in partnership with Scottish Government bodies of sport you know looking at what are your priorities for development sport in North Lanarkshire what support can we have and really just kind of having that whole partnership approach as has been spoken about a number of times today and then again tying in our sport specific development plans to our sports development officer so it's the whole concept is sharing information and getting as many people around that table as possible so we can have that picture of where and when we need to develop sports within our hubs. Is there always wanting in there or not bit? No, okay. Is where there are clubs you can capacity build and you can help develop them. Where there are volunteers you can capacity build and you help develop them what I suppose I was looking for was where there's a map exercise to see where there's maybe a lack of clubs or a lack of volunteers and therefore a lack of provision and what development work is done I mean in some respects the low hanging fruit to achieve success is identifying clubs who with a little bit of assistance could be spectacular and that's a really good thing to do but it's perhaps there isn't the range of provision in clubs so I'm interested to know about work in relation to that but in also I suppose maybe the the sports trust around the table and local authorities around the table where they have a centralized system for mapping out who's using the the larger facilities within the local authority areas maybe can work out who is using those facilities and who are not using those facilities because understand people some people travel out with their communities if they don't have facilities others won't and has mapping and planning been done in relation to that I mean I'm not trying to be awkward I'm just thinking that this is a really obvious thing to do to plan getting those least likely to be physically active physically active or those who haven't volunteered yet to work with them to start volunteering and yes it's important to bring forward and develop volunteers that already exist and clubs that already exist but it's where there's a gap in what works going on around that if I just give one specific example in terms of within our sports hub at St Margaret's which is in Erdre there is no history or club infrastructure within the sport of netball and it's just not something that exists within that community however netball is one of the largest participation sports within the school environment in that area and so that is very much the circumstance where somebody would have to travel a number of miles to participate in that sport and the approach we've taken with that is you know going back to what Andrew's touched on earlier through our school-based volunteer so identifying our young leaders within schools and we established a coach development program within that high school cluster for that Erdre community where we took young people from the age of 16 to the age of 24 put them through a range of generic coaching qualifications upscaled them to give them the expertise to become those leaders within that community and off the back of that we've identified three new volunteers to establish a netball club in that community and again they're on that pathway now of going through the sport specific coaching qualifications where the community sport hub aspect comes into that is we're actually linking that to one of the stronger clubs within that hub who are a football club who are a legacy level quality mark club so you know you did a 500 member football club looking to expand the provision that they offer within the community so that's an example of the sports hub identifying a need and then taking a volunteer development approach and then tagging that into an existing club to give them that infrastructure and support so that these new volunteers that we've worked with aren't left with that soul burden of running that club. I hope that answers the first part of that question. That's a great example. I think that was one of the biggest aspects of getting the community sport hubs off the ground and Highland was that mapping process so it was a really exciting project in terms of starting with a blank canvas and saying well actually let's go to Tain a local community and see what's out there and by getting you know the people that are not necessarily captured in your in the asmo stuff that comes through active schools and there's lots of groups out there that say well we're not a sports club we're just a group of guys that play badminton on a Tuesday night or we're just a group of guys and girls that go go running on a Tuesday they're not necessarily captured anywhere but I think the community sport hub has been the vehicle to capture these groups of people and identify that where the gaps are and just sort of as Graham touched upon by having the schools around the table by having the schools around the table we managed to identify well there's a lot of Graham's example netball going on in school and after school but there's no club provision can we make that happen is there an opportunity to make that happen or not so I think just in terms of the community sport hub project that mapping process initially was was absolutely vital to to where we went with it anyone else andrew again within the early stages of the weapon model getting developed we've done well the forum the club forum there at the moment again as I alluded to that earlier there's councillors involved in that and weapon there's also a weapon community trust that looks at you know the town as a whole and what things can benefit the people of weapon and there's also a sports club they're called weapon sports club that is a moment it's a coalition of kind of football clubs but they're looking to expand to support other sports that are going on so different sports as well so we're they're all around the table as well as that there's youth leaders within the school as well so at the last sports forum there for the weapon community sports hub the youth leader actually presented to findings of a questionnaire that they did within the school to ask the people in the school what sports they take part in where do they take part in the sports you know are you leaving weapon are you doing it here in weapon and you know so we've got a good bit of information from S1 to S4 within weapon academy about their aspirations of you know people that are taking part in sport why are they taking part those who aren't why are they not and those who you know those who are where you doing it you doing it locally you doing it further afield or whatnot so we have done that mapping exercise and we'll continue to do it it's vital to do that or else you're you're not going to you know have any targets you're not going to support local communities so okay Colin Kear, Richard Lyle I'm happy here that things are moving along quite nicely with the terms of clubs and the likes with the sports hubs one of the questions I have though and I don't think I think it might be touched on by a couple though is particularly those that are PPP school projects and the likes but might come into other areas as well but we've been dealing an awful lot with hubs dealing with clubs but what about the people who just want to be able to walk in and use a facility such as a swimming pool or something like that what's being done for them the people in the community who really you know somebody like myself who probably could lose a few pounds and learn but can't get into his local hub just to go for a swim so maybe what kind of works being done on that to create space and availability for these people so I think this can be a bit of a problem for sports when it gets or physical activity when it gets mixed up with sports clubs and participation things and you know one of the things that we found we've had to do at Inch Park is think very differently about how we engage young people in particular and that don't have an interest in sport and it's sort of to from a different angle it's to the same point which is actually they don't want to go along to an organised session where there's 30 other people that they think are going to be better than them and be sure you know there's how do you engage somebody who has such a negative perception of sport and physical activity and probably themselves as well in something and help them sharing the community asset so and actually those sorts of people aren't going to just walk in either even if you you gave them that opportunity so we've had to think quite differently about how we structure programmes how do you quantify that because there are people middle-aged people it's not just kids middle-aged people how do you quantify that because that's a bit of a sweeping statement because people come into sport at different times for different reasons and I'm not sure at this moment in time I would wholeheartedly agree with what you just said which aspect sorry about about the sweeping statement you're not going to get them in anyway that was what you just said you know because of the negative attitude it's not a negative attitude it's people it's people who want to go in okay it's another struggle to get people who are not interested in going in but for those people who do want to get in but can't get the time and space but don't want to become members of clubs sure I was giving a specific example about a group of young people that sits to the same point I'm not saying for a minute that there are not people in the circumstance you describe however I don't have an example of that for you so to be able to to answer your question about you know access for people in different areas I can talk from experience of that specific group and that specific group that we work with are the young people that that are in the situation we describe now the reason I make that point is the answer is still the same which is rather than having a traditional membership model on a Tuesday night where people come along to a structured space you have to create opportunities that meet the needs of those young people or not young people if you're talking about different groups and what we've had to do in that aspect is actually target people in the area that you know aren't get it you know through the schools and our links that aren't getting access to physical activity and look at activities where we can bring them together in an environment and introduce them to physical activity so I think the short answer to that in terms of an example is I think the traditional sports model will cater for you know the people that share an interest in sports there also needs to be some recognition when we're looking at the work to do in communities around how you engage people that aren't engaged in sport and physical activity and activities around that and that has to be factored in to access and programs and what you build rather than just having the traditional sports structures and what I don't have is any example because of the way we're structured of that specific group that you're talking about I know would I say that you know it doesn't exist it's just not something that we particularly cater for at the moment. Dave, David and then Andrew. I'm wanting to highlight the fact that for the people sitting around this table who have got a keen interest in sport it may come as a surprise for some of us to hear that there are people out there no matter what creative ideas and methods and initiatives we come up with there will be people out there who don't have an interest in getting involved in any sport so I think that's a fact that we do have to accept however having said that it doesn't mean that we can't try to be creative we can't try to come up with initiatives we can't try to reinvent the wheel if somebody did something five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago that worked well can we no replicate that and I think an answer to your question maybe something I've already highlighted but just to kind of emphasise again is that in Drumchapel we've got a fantastic track record of putting on events over a sustained over the lifespan of our community which feeling already highlighted is 60 years where people can come along and try things and see if they like it now if people like it and want to get involved and play to the competitive level they're directed towards that club so for example the D60 event which takes place in a big open field in Drumchapel all the sports are there Glasgow life are there all the different initiatives if people want to play to the competitive level and they want to play football they're directed towards a local football club if they want to play to the competitive level and it's netball, volleyball, hockey whatever the sport is they're directed towards the club because they all buy into it and they all want to participate if people are wanting to take casual bookings or play for fun or get advice about when they want to drop in and play a particular sport they can be directed towards that club as well but they can also be directed towards the facilities that are in our community so if someone wants to play casual tennis they're directed towards the local register centre if someone wants to casually book another sport they're directed towards any of the other facilities where that can take place so I really am trying to get at the person who's just decided to do something outwith he just wants to in my case what five minutes of the road to a sports hub jump in a swimming pool for half an hour and swim twice a week something like that doesn't want to get involved he's made up his mind he wants to lose a bit of weight he just wants to go for through it and do that doesn't want to get directed to clubs and he doesn't want to get patched into that that system he just wants to do it himself now there's the example and when you walk up to my local facility you can't use the pool despite the fact that it's empty what I'm trying to say is what sort of stuff how can you change the pattern I know it's difficult when you're doing block bookings for clubs and various initiatives which are all really welcome I'm not saying it's an easy ask but what is actually being done in terms of just letting somebody get on with what they want to do because it seems to be that one of the things that was actually talking to a neighbour of mine who's going through this one of the things that puts him off is he doesn't want to get involved he just wants to go and do his own thing really should be me I have to say this yeah I think just to make a point about the drum chapel sports hub it's not a facility based model or a school based model it's just an area based model where the clubs within that community come together so to take your example in question if in drum chapel you did want to go for a run in the gym or to the swimming pool for a swim the community sports hub don't have any ownership of those let's what's what with individual clubs just put what they require so if you did walk up there there should be a timetable that allows you to swim in a public open time out with the community sports hub where you wouldn't be directed towards any particular club you could just swim as an individual and Collins identified in the area as well we focused on clubs and you know whether it would be a club that that sometimes is developed out of an illness or a stroke or a heart attack well we tend to group people together when when life simply isn't like that people pursue an individual and the you know the the pay and play model you know is something that the people can enjoy and do enjoy and again it might be back to what David's saying about but these assets and having access not just in cost barriers but to others there's a whole lot of issues that that that are barriers we might want to we might want to look at but we've got seven minutes I think in this session and I've got Richard Lyle to get in again but I've got Nanette Millan who hasn't asked the question and I'm going to let Nanette in get quick responses and then you're going to finish up with a quick question and quick responses to thanks Richard Nanette. It really is a sort of a follow-on from Colin Kear's thing and it's almost how inclusive community sports clubs are across the generations if you like in a community involving the sort of grannies like me and the mums and the dads and the kids and all the rest of it. I mean is there an effort to really be inclusive to all generations thinking in terms of how important it is to be active and ideally contribute to sport throughout throughout one's life any thoughts or comments on that? What would your strategies tell us about that wider involvement whereas the anyone want to pick up on that? Andrew? Good. Again with our work in Armadale it's based within a school site but it's the sports hub is across the town and the officer working in it at the moment so he supports the clubs and the facility at Armadale academy but he works very closely with Wesleyan Leisure who have a leisure pool and a fitness gym there in Armadale as well right in the centre of the town but they also support the facilities of the local bowling club as well so it's looking at what sports provision is there across the town and in what ways can we support them so the bowling club for example the majority of the support comes with actually supporting them with the facility so if the heater packs in who do they go to within the council to support them getting their heater fixed and things that as well but it's also we're working with them to get to understand that you know they have an agent population within their club and getting them to understand that you know there'll be benefits to linking with the schools they've got a good volunteer base because the majority of their members are retired now and they do maybe have a bit of extra time on their hands to work within the schools so we do very much look across the age kind of spectrum and we do understand that club sport isn't for everybody but it is the majority of the work that the sports hubs for us are there to work with and again that's kind of directive from sport scotland is you know the sports hubs are there to develop clubs and so all the stuff that we do around about it is the stuff that we as local authority want to achieve as well as all the stuff from sport scotland so Graham and David I'm sorry to restrict you but we're going to our last five. Graham, just to come back to your point there in a minute. I think it comes back to clubs understanding what their role is within the community and not being there just to serve one specific group of people. I don't have a specific example of a piece of work that's been done but more of an assurance that within the christian community sport hub what we're doing there is we're linking with the community forum which has representation from community council uniformed organisations as well as senior citizens groups so it's about building that understanding within those clubs that they fit into a broader picture and we're looking to start to create links between those representatives from those groups to ensure that what is offered within the hub does cater for the full community so just a bit of work that's happening there. Thanks Graham, David. I was just going to say that it takes a number of different issues a number of different factors to build a club to get them to the level where they can look to start creating provision for different areas. I'm quite fortunate at the club that I coach at that we're well developed and we've got a pretty resolute committee and the fact that recently we've just created an over 35s football team and now we're looking at a 50 plus football team but the issue that we are coming across at the moment is that maybe some of the other clubs locally are not at that stage where they can cater for that so you're coming up with all these great ideas to enhance, to develop, to grow, to get better, to increase participation, to do all the things that you want to do but then when you go out and you start to speak to people about it for one reason or another the other football clubs or the other organisations in your area or out with your area are not quite at that level so you stimulate an interest in your community, you get people active, you get people involved, you get people infused, you get people ready to participate and then you like who we're going to play against okay right we'll leave that to another day so that's a kind of issue as well. Anyone else? We've got our final question then from Richard Lyle. David, all the points you made today, the music for my ears previously councillor in North Lanarkshire had an area deprivation and the points about costs etc. I mean I'm sure Fiona will sit down and work it all out. The pricing, basically the schools, new schools were built, I was on the council when we built new schools in North Lanarkshire, the situation of going the gates are shut but we've got all these 3g pitches but really a question I want to ask, we haven't covered and just quick answers guys. We're concerned about kids being a beast, diabetes, all the different things, you know all the great work you guys are doing, all the great street work you're doing, night time, football etc blah blah blah but how do we get parents to get their kids out of their bedrooms away from their iPads, their computers and their game consoles? Just quickly. Tough one. I think it's about culture building and it's about trying to change the culture that we currently have and trying to get people, not just out of the bedrooms, just getting people out of the house and getting them to enjoy the local space not just at the sports hubs but you know there's local parks and we need to get people out of their house and being more active and you know that activity could be cycling, it could be walking down the path, it could be anything so it's about an overall culture change. I think we are, hopefully most of the guys will agree with me around the table that we do, that is one of the biggest challenges within sport is you can enthuse that one child as much as you want but if they go home and their mum and dad go no I'm not leaving and when is the answer when coronation street's on they're never going to get to that sports club so it is about it's about changing that culture and about helping families or mums and dads, make those decisions and with more information and make better choices. The final whistle here, Dave's got about like five seconds I think. Right quickly I was just, trust, it takes time. How do we get the parents and these people involved? How do we create opportunities for them to get involved? Can we reward clubs who participate actively in going through accreditation schemes? So how do we reward clubs who become organised, who become quality marked, who adhere to their national governing bodies, stringent standards who participate in their local authorities standards and then how do we get these parents involved? Can we create an opportunity for them? Is it just about their child coming along and participating or is there something we can hook them in there as well and then obviously rewarding and taking that time because it takes time to build the trust, it takes time to engage with people, it takes time to create all these opportunities, make them sustainable all the points that have been raised today but how do we do it? That's for me is the pertinent question. We've had another, I'm sorry to cut people off, we've reached that point. We've had if you like another interest in a wide-ranging discussion about the games and its legacy, how whether we should be measuring the inputs or the outputs. We haven't even spoken about sport literacy or physical education in our schools and all of that but we will as a committee, gather some of that and have some discussions and I hope that we can focus in on a couple of areas in the last year of the committee that we can focus in on and get some action on because the area is so wide and if we can focus in on some of those most important areas to ourselves or to the wider communities that we represent then that would be the challenge for us but thank you all for your time this morning in your written evidence and I hope that the committee, I'm sure the committee, will barely use some of that evidence in their further discussions and their further work programme. Thank you all very much indeed, thank you for your attendance this morning. We're going to have to push on now so the usual sort of chat after the meeting if I can get item 7 agreed with quickly, we might actually be able to speak to some of the participants here. We now move to agenda item number 7 which is our first approach to the petition P01453, Richard, which has been referred to by the Public Petitions Committee. The petition, as you know from your papers, is from Caroline Wilson and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce an opt-out system of organ donation in Scotland to help save more lives. You will have seen the paper, of course, which recommends that we defer for the consideration to this petition until the introduction of the proposed member's bill on this subject. I think that that's entirely sensible, but obviously we need the support of the committee to do that and agree that we would defer our discussion on the subject. With the full knowledge, of course, we would be able to return to the petition at a point in the future. Do we know when that's likely to be? We don't have a definite indication as yet, but it's in progress. Bob, your name, Richard. Obviously, for the petitioner, given some kind of details of potential timescale, as Rhoda suggested, it would be helpful. Rather than assisting it indefinitely, do we put a timescale of when this comes back to our committee again to decide whether or not we would take it forward, or do we just say until we get more information? Yes, but you could until more information or for the consideration in three months, if that would be a condition that you think would be valuable. It just allows it not to be open-ended and it allows us to update the petitioner in relation to that. Are we deferring it and asking for additional information? If that information has caused for thought, we could consider it again. Is that okay, Richard? I agree with you on that. If you remember, this is a massive campaign by the evening times. I think that most of it is signed up to the time. Basically, I think that we have to ensure that this is kept in the forefront of the agenda. I think that we all agree. No further comment, but we are deferring until and I question some information on the timeline. We are reading that. Thank you all very much for your attendance, participation and patience this morning. Thank you.