 I welcome to the 33rd and final meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2022. There are no apologies this morning. Just for the record, our final agenda item this morning, which was consideration of the committee's action plan, will be rescheduled to a future meeting. Our first item of business today is an oral evidence session on the criminal justice provisions within the National Care Service Scotland Bill. Members will recall on the 23rd of November, we heard from a panel of witnesses on the possible transfer of justice social work services from local government to the proposed national care service. Today we will conclude our consideration by hearing from the Scottish Government. I welcome to the meeting this morning Kevin Stewart, Minister for Mental Well-being and Social Care, Anna Kiniston, Deputy Director of the National Care Service and Ms Katrina Dolrymple, Deputy Director of Community Justice at the Scottish Government. I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I intend to allow about 60 minutes for this session. I would now like to invite the minister to make a short opening statement and then we will move straight on to questions. Good morning to the committee and thank you for having me along today to give evidence. It is fair to say that the national care service is one of the most ambitious reforms of public services. It will end the postcode lottery of care provision across Scotland and ensure that those who need it have access to consistent and high-quality care and support to enable them to live a full life wherever they are. People with experience of receiving social care support and providing it have been clear that there is an urgent need for change. The NCS Bill sets out a framework for the changes that we want to make and allows scope for further decisions to be made. This flexibility enables the NCS to develop, adapt and respond to specific circumstances over time. The principles of any new system will be person-centred with human rights at the very heart of social work and support. No decision has been made yet on whether justice social work will be included in the national care service, but we are making provision to enable it and considering what is the best approach. I acknowledge that, unlike care, justice social work has the unique feature of being court-ordered, placing requirements in those in contact with the service and adding different practical considerations. To fully support those involved in the justice system, a holistic approach that recognises the links between offending and other care and support needs is required, whether justice is included in the NCS or not. The work in progress will collate evidence, work with partners to develop options for the future of justice and include a public consultation at the end of 2023, which is a result of the feedback from stakeholders in the consultation. Justice social work staff and people with lived experience will be central to our programme of work. The NCS will bring changes that will benefit the workforce, too. The importance of staff in the social work and social care sector has never been clearer and we are fully committed to improving their experience as we recognise and value the work that they do. We are committed to co-designing and working with people with first-hand experience of accessing and delivering social work and social care to ensure that we have a person-centred national care service that best fits the needs of the people who will use and work in its services with human rights at its very centre. We will now move on to questions. If I may, I will start with an opening question. Minister, you acknowledged in your opening statement the specific role that criminal justice social work or justice social work has in our courts among other settings. With that in mind, you will be aware of the forthcoming bail and release from custody bill that the committee will be beginning to consider. It includes a provision whereby justice social work could have a greater role in providing courts with information to inform decisions around bail. To date, the evidence that we have taken from witnesses, both in oral evidence and written evidence, suggests, perhaps not surprisingly, that this will potentially see a greater justice social work resource requirement. I wonder whether you could outline your view on what might be the best model bearing in mind. I appreciate that we are at a very early stage, but perhaps an optimum model for justice social work would be, for example, to remain within local authorities or to move to a care service setting. I think that that is a pertinent question. I am not a great expert in the bail and release from custody bill, but I will give some detail about that in this answer. The key thing in all of that is that, as I said earlier, no decision has been taken around whether criminal justice social work is in or out of the national care service. The cabinet will take a decision at that later point after all the work that we are doing is complete. However, whether in or out, there has to be connections. We have to make sure that those connections are right and that all of that works for people. At the end of the day, some of the scrutiny of the bill has been about structure, but the realities are that what we are all striving to achieve, no matter what, is good outcomes for people. No matter whether in or out, we have to make sure that those connections are right. The bail and release from custody bill, as the committee will be well aware, is in three parts, which focus on two separate stages of the criminal justice system in Scotland. Part 1 focuses on how custody is used as part of bail and remand decision making in Scottish courts, and while, among other matters, reform the legal framework within which courts make decisions in individual cases regarding the use of bail and remand as part of a criminal court process. Part 2 focuses on how certain release from prison custody mechanisms operate, with an emphasis on increasing opportunities for improved reintegration of people leaving prison and improving the support provided to them and at least to reduce the risk of re-offending. The bill also makes provision to provide information on prisoner release to victims, support organisations and introduces a permanent power of executive release in emergency situations. Part 3, which covers some of the areas that you described in your question, convener, is split into four distinct areas. The one that you are most interested in this morning is the enhanced role for justice social work in provision of information to the court. Also, there is the reform to the legal framework within which bail decisions are made, the recording of reasons when bail is refused and how periods on electronically monitored bail conditions affect time-served for custodial sentences. The main thrust of your question and the main thing that we are looking at today is the enhanced role for justice social work in the provision of information to the court. The bill, of course, has taken account of that additional work and the resource required. One of the things, convener, which is beneficial here, is the enhanced role. We also have to make sure that the enhanced role for criminal justice social workers matches with some of the other roles that social workers have in wider community settings. Let me give you an example, because I think that it is always best to do that, in a way that shows that we have not got the linkages sometimes quite right here and why no matter in or out that linkages have to be better. We have come across and the committee will be well aware that myself, officials have been talking to a huge amount of folks listening to the voices of lived experience about their feelings about social work, social care and support. One of the folks that we have listened to is a young guy who is at risk of offending, who at the moment has 15 different interventions going on. Those are not necessarily linked, and it would be fair to say from hearing what this young man said, that sometimes he feels like he is being put from pillar to post. He does not know really who to trust in terms of the advice that he is receiving. Those are the kind of situations that, no matter whether in or out, we have to do better in terms of outcomes for people. Again, we have that job of work to do to create much better linkages between criminal justice social work, children's and family social work and others, and the care support in order to get that right for individuals. That is why we are embarking on the work that we are doing in terms of research and data gathering, and, most importantly, listening to the voices of lived experience in order that we get that right as we move forward. Thanks very much. That is a very comprehensive response. You have covered a lot within that. Just following on from that, what I would like to do is refer to the evidence that we received from Clare Wilson, who is a chief social work officer in Aberdeen City Council. I suppose that the question is whether it would be better to address the issues within the system before introducing a new level of management, i.e., a care service model. Her comments were that what would be beneficial, and I am just putting this to you, is to pause the bill in terms of justice to enable a review of the current system, co-design a new one and then a careful transition over to the national care service once the social care part is established and arrangements are in place. I suppose that, bearing in mind that we have the bail and release bill coming down the track, as you have alluded to, and the potential increase in workload that that will bring to justice social work, I am just interested in what your thoughts are about the comments and the suggestion that Ms Wilson made in her written evidence. As I have outlined already, the establishment of the national care service will have an impact on community justice partners, whether justice social work is included or not in the national social work agency. That reflects that many community justice partners rely on effective communication and collaboration, as I have already outlined, with other partners across health and care. I have to reiterate this enough this morning that community justice partners are actively involved in the work to inform a decision on justice social work, and that will make certain that the options appraisal will fully consider the implications and opportunities for improvements across community justice, as well as justice social work specifically. We are doing this work, convener. We will still look to improve before the establishment of the national care service. We will still seek to improve whether justice social work is in or out, because, as I say, we have got to get those linkages absolutely right. I have heard a number of calls for pauses to the national care service bill, or elements within the national care service bill, but what I would say to the committee, as I have said to the health committee yesterday, is that, for many people, they want to see all of that moving at pace. I have to strike the right balance in what we are doing here, and I think that that balance is about right. Derek Feeley himself, who was the chair of the independent review into adult social care, suggested and recommended that we establish a national social work agency. He said that all of that should move at pace. There are many other stakeholders out there, particularly the voices of lived experience, who want all of that to have happened yesterday. I get the points that people make about some of their feelings around that pace of change, but pausing that is not going to stop the work that we need to do anyway to ensure the best outcomes for people. In NCS, as far as I am concerned, it is the best way forward. I will move straight to questions and invite members to come in. I will bring in Katie Clark and Fulton McGregor. The Feeley review focused on adult social care. Where did the idea of bringing wider social work functions into the national care service come from? Derek Feeley concentrated on adult social care in his review, but he also made recommendations on national social work agency. What we found in our initial listening to people was that many folks felt that bringing in adult social care into the national care service only was not enough and may lead to difficulties in terms of transition points and cause problems in terms of linkages as I have outlined. That is why we consulted on bringing other things into the national care service in that consultation. However, we have always said that the work that Derek Feeley's report was done went into very in-depth about adult social care. We recognised that, if we are to bring community justice and children's services in, we needed to have the evidence base to do that. That is why we carried out research options appraisals and listening to stakeholders, which is the most important thing about whether those services should be in or out. As I have explained to the convener this morning, Ms Clark, whether in or out, we have to make sure that those linkages are right. That research, that options appraisal and listening to stakeholders will benefit no matter whether those services are in or out of the national care service. I appreciate the mention of that in the Government consultation, but it is quite clear that when we have spoken to social workers and other people involved in the sector, they feel that there has not been a proper consultation and there has not been a full consultation. Why was not that full consultation carried out with social workers, with people with lived experience and others, before coming to the Parliament with the bill? Do you think that there is a need to carry out that full consultation before the Parliament considers the issue? We have said that we will consult on those issues after the research, the option appraisal and listening to stakeholders. We have committed to doing that. What I would say to Ms Clark and to others in the committee, we did not suddenly pluck that out of the air and decided that all of that should be in national care service. What we did was we listened to the voices of lived experience, listened to their views about their thinking in terms of what they wanted to see out of the national care service. Your rights to say that some stakeholders have said that the evidence base for bringing in criminal justice and children's services is not as great as it was from the independent review carried out by Derek Feeley and the recommendations from that review. Derek Feeley pointed out in that review about linkages 2. That is why we are conducting all the work that we are doing at this moment. It is why we have not made a decision around whether children's services are in or out, because we want that evidence base and we want to listen to stakeholders. To give you an example of how stakeholders are involved in informing that decision at this moment, officials have established a reference group, which is meeting regularly to provide and inform and support the programme of work. That group consists of stakeholders, including COSLA, Community Justice Scotland, the Scottish Association of Social Workers, Social Work Scotland, the Risk Management Authority, the Victims Organisation Collaboration Forum Scotland, the Office of the Chief Social Work Advisor and the Care Inspectorate. Those research partners will work directly with justice social work staff and their clients to obtain insight into how policies work or do not work, as the case may be, on the ground. Additionally, the options appraisal process will include officials making visits to stakeholders around Scotland to ensure opportunities for the workforce and those with lived experience to participate in all that. My very clear commitment has been to listen to the voices of lived experience, to ensure that stakeholders are involved and we will continue to listen all the way through until we make the decision one way or the other. I reiterate my point from earlier, no matter whether those services are in or out, we have to make sure that those linkages are better for people. If we work on the basis that there is a parliamentary majority for the Government in this Parliament, will the legislation be passed if the Government parties voted through before decisions are made as to whether national care service would include social work? We are voting on a framework bill, as Ms Clark knows. In that bill, there is the provision to move criminal justice social work and children's services in, if Parliament agrees to that. I expect there to be scrutiny all the way through that. I have said to numerous committees, and I will say to this one, that we want to be open and transparent about all of that. If there is a decision to move criminal justice social work or children's services into national care service, there will be scrutiny because there will be scrutiny in terms of the secondary legislation. In all of that, as we move forward, we will convey our decisions to Parliament and to committees for full scrutiny. As I said earlier on, not only to this committee but to others. My door is open in all of that because I want to ensure that we get that right for the people of Scotland. You are saying that delegated legislation will come to this committee. Thank you. Was that a question or was it a comment? I am interested in what the minister was saying that we would have delegated legislation that would come to Parliament, which presumably would mean this committee. I mean, whether it is this committee or another committee that will be delegated legislation. If it can be helpful here in terms of the policy memorandum, because the bill comes with another suite of documents and I am not quite sure that everybody has looked at these to the degree. Section 30 of the bill requires the Scottish ministers to consult publicly about any proposed transfer relating to justice services using the enabling power before regulations are brought forward and when laying draft regulations to transfer justice social work functions, the Scottish ministers must also lay before Parliament a summary of the process by which they consulted in relation to the function transfer and the responses that they received to that consultation. Slightly different from delegated legislation coming to the Parliament and whether it is this committee or indeed another committee having the opportunity to scrutinise and indeed vote on that delegated legislation. Would you give an undertaking that you would bring delegated legislation? I am very happy for the minister to act to respond but I am just quite keen to keep questioning or on track around the potential transfer for justice social work I have not planned to ask about this but it was because of what the minister said that I am pursuing that point but it could be something that we could pursue at a later date. Convener, we do not have anybody from SGLD here at this moment from the legal site. What I will do is write to the committee and outline all of the processes most of which are outlined within that policy memorandum. I am not going to read the entire policy memorandum out to the committee, you will be glad to hear, but we will outline all of this to you in writing about how that process will work. To Ms Clark and to others, I am more than happy to continue to have that open-door policy and to listen to what folk have to say on those issues and to consider what folk have to say. I will bring in Fulton MacGregor, followed by Russell Finlay. Thank you, convener, and good morning minister. I hope that you are not too tired after last night. I think that we are probably all just a bit jaded this morning, Mr MacGregor. It is actually following on from Kate Clark's line of questioning in something that you had said in response to the convener earlier, and that was that the cabinet will decide at some point about whether justice services go over to the national care service. Can I just clarify? Is that a decision, and I think that you have already answered that, is that a decision that they will go over, or is that the decision to consult to go to the consultation? Well, we will consult, as I have said, and again I would reiterate the points that I have just made around about consultation and 140 of the policy memorandum. Section 30 of the bill requires us to consult publicly about transferring any of those services, including justice services, using the enabling power. We will consult, and we have laid that out quite clearly. Thank you for clarifying that. You will know that, in those particular areas, justice in children and families—I am not talking about the adult care social work, I am talking about those two particular areas—it is not a particularly popular thought at this point, but obviously people want to be taken with the Government if it is where they are going. What I am trying to ascertain is that, if there is a consultation, the Government has decided that it is a good idea. The Cabinet has decided that it is a good idea. In the consultation, we would start a load of responses that are perhaps not for it. What way will that be put on the final decision before bringing legislation, if that makes sense? As always, the Government will look at consultation and consultation responses. I would say to Mr MacGregor that he said that some of those proposals are not popular. What I would say to Mr MacGregor is that I have found a lot of folk out there in terms of the conversations that I have had where there is popular support for change. If you talk to front-line social workers of which I have done a fair amount of, Mr MacGregor has seen me being questioned by folks in the cross-party group, for example, but if you talk to front-line social workers, many of them see all of that as an opportunity because what they want to see is more freedom and autonomy for the front-line. What they want to see is, again, the spirit of the 1968 social work act coming into play. Many of them feel at this moment that they are bound by eligibility, criteria and budgets, rather than making the right decisions in terms of preventative support. I would say to Mr MacGregor that it may well be that some stakeholders, and I know that there are stakeholders out there, do not necessarily favour those proposals. There are also a lot of folk in the front-line who do, but what I will say to Mr MacGregor and to the committee as a whole, as always, we will analyse consultation responses and look at them and act accordingly. Thank you, minister, for that response. Taking you back to that cross-party group meeting, I really appreciate your attendance. I think that in that particular cross-party group meeting, a lot of the social work front-line staff who spoke were from the adult care services. I have, having worked in that area before, spoken to a lot of justice in children and family social workers over the last wee while and I would say that there is trepidation just now, and that is just what I have found. It is nothing new, though, that we have spoken to this committee about. That was an issue that was raised a long time ago, but justice was becoming into the health service, and it was not popular then and was resisted. I just wanted to put that out there, but one of the issues— I wonder if I can maybe come back on that point that Mr MacGregor made, because I recognise that sometimes folks are wary of change, but others do see opportunity. Can I say to Mr MacGregor and to the committee that the cabinet decision will be taken on the basis of evidence collated by the sector? I was clear at the social work cross-party group, and I want to be clear again today with the committee that the social work profession should be and needs to be at the heart of shaping the future. We need to listen to the profession. That is what I have committed to do. That is why I have made all of the appearances that I have and why I have made the visits that I have to to listen to what folk have to say. Thanks, minister. I do not doubt your commitment to that. I mean, I think that it is very much an open discussion that we have to have, and it might be the best way. That brings me on to my last line of questioning. It is about what the benefits would possibly be and how it would maybe go over. Obviously, in the document, it is justice in children's services, two very separate things. They work very closely together just now. Is it the Government's intention that would both go over, or could it possibly be that children and families go over, but not justice? What are the thoughts around that? Do they both need to go or not go? They do not both need to go. Let me give you another example, convener. There has been a lot of discussion at the committee about what should be left out of all of that. There are other things that are not going to be in the NCS but have very clear connections. At the social justice and social work committee the other week, there was argument from some that housing and homelessness should be in, for example. That is not a proposal that has been put forward by the Government. However, what we do know is that there are very clear connections between care, social work, housing and the list goes on. What we are doing in that regard is making sure that the connections between the NCS, whatever is out or whatever is in, have a clear connection with housing and homelessness. Obviously, committee members will understand that, because of my previous role, I have a real desire to make sure that all of that is absolutely spot on right. No matter what is out, what is in, those connections have to be there. Does it have to be that both go in or both stay out? No. That is good to clarify that. I should have brought my link to my final question, minister. It was about the linkage that you talked about, which I think is very important. I welcome the fact that justice and children are in the same bill, because I think that the linkages between them are really, really important, and probably more so than between justice and adult care services, for example. However, you just brought me into the housing issue, and that obviously would not be coming over to the national care service. That is a massive link that is required in justice, and it is probably one of the biggest areas of concern that you will hear. I think that you have answered what I was going to ask, because, convener, I was going to ask the minister if he had thought about how housing services and other local authority services would work into this, and he has answered it by saying that there would be those strong ones. Absolutely. Myself and my officials have spent a fair amount of time looking at the linkages and, of course, listening to the voices of lived experience and stakeholders. If we look at housing and homelessness, I am in regular discussion with Shona Robison on those issues. I have had a number of meetings to listen to housing and homelessness stakeholders, as folk could well imagine. As the former chair of the Housing and Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group, I think that that is incumbent on me. What I would point out to the committee is that, in terms of those linkages, we need to build on some of the past work that we have done, which has been fairly good work. As the committee is aware, I introduced housing first here in Scotland, which ensured that there was a person-centred approach taken to ensure that not only was somebody housed appropriately, but all the other services came in to play around them. I do not have the most up-to-date figures—I said this yesterday, I should have looked them up last night—but we were busy with other things. The tenancy retainment rate in terms of housing first has been some 90 per cent, which nobody expected. Why is that? We ensured that housing, social work, health, social care, addiction services and others were working together to ensure that that person-centred approach was there. If we can do that in that regard, we can do it in other regards to make sure that those linkages are right. Beyond that, what I would also say to the committee is that there is the legislation that will come into play in terms of homelessness around public duties in terms of getting it right for people anyway, which of course is also beneficial in ensuring that those linkages become the norm. Sorry, convener, if I took a bit longer. That's okay, that's fine. All relevant points to cover. We've got about 20, 25 minutes left, so I'm just going to bring in Russell and then followed by Jamie Greene. Russell. I'll be very brief. Thank you. Good morning. So, the fundamental question from our perspective is whether criminal justice social worker will be in or out of the proposed new national care service. Now, you don't know the answer to that. Can you even tell us or indicate what you think is most likely? Convener, I think it would be very wrong of me to have sat here earlier on and say that we are doing all of the work in terms of research, options, appraisals, listening to stakeholders and the voices of lived experience and, for me, to say what I think at this moment. What I will do, as I've done in all of the work that we've done, is listen to people and look at the evidence. It will be that that will guide us in terms of our decision making around about and our right. The civil service is working on both potential scenarios just now? Yes, of course. As I said to the committee, no matter in or out, we have to make sure that all of that jails together anyway. So, absolutely, that work is going on to make sure that we get this right for people whether in or out. Okay, and do you have any notion of timescale as to when we might know? I think that the evidence is… Oh, I'll go through it all around what will come into play in terms of supporting the decision. We've commissioned that external research, as I've said, to understand the strength and weaknesses of existing practice and where improvements can be made. That research is currently being procured and that will go alongside a literature review and we'll actively gather views, as I've said, from stakeholders including staff and the voices of lived experience. The options appraisal will bring stakeholders together to further co-design and analyse different options, resulting in understanding of the desirability and viability of each. That will help us to inform an in-principle decision in autumn of 2023. The final phase is that 12-week public consultation to seek views and the proposed approach. That will commence in late 2023 and that will inform a final decision around about April of 2024. So, just to recap the procurement process, when is that due to conclude? I'll take in Ms Dolrym-Paul, please. Just to confirm that the procurement tender has now been awarded this week, so we expect that work to commence in January. It's to a private organisation? I can't provide any details, I'm afraid, at this stage around that, because the process is still confidential, as I understand that. What will the… Because once that confidentiality is out of the way, we'll write to the committee and let them know. But going by the timescales, if all goes to plan, it will be 14 months from now before we know whether criminal justice social workers in or out. That's what I've just said to the minister. That's just what I was trying to establish. Yeah. Okay, thank you. That's very much. Okay, I'm going to bring in Jamie Greene, followed by Pauline McNeill. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. Can I ask, minister, did you follow the evidence session that we took on the 23rd of November? I have followed many evidence sessions. I would be honest to the committee and say, I haven't watched all of the sessions, but I've had transcripts and summaries, as the committee would well imagine, which would be my bedtime reading, Mr Greene. I'm sure you'll look forward to it. I would commend perhaps watching the video of that session. I went into it with very open mind, but I think it was fair to say that having sat through the evidence from Social Work Scotland, COSLA, Unison and members of other social health and social care partnerships that gave evidence to us, it was difficult to come out with any positivity over the potential of the inclusion of community justice in the proposed national care service. There were a number of criticisms made around consultation prior to the bill being published, which I don't think have been addressed, and a number of very valid concerns around the structure of what any such integration might look like, particularly around people, funding, structures, leadership and so on. I appreciate that you haven't watched the session, but without having seen that session, I'm sure you'll understand what some of those criticisms might be. I wonder if you could respond to them. I think that there have been some criticisms given to all committees, and some have been critical friends who have given their views. There are others, of course, who do not want change, and I think that that would be fair to say. But change is required here in terms of national care service. We cannot continue in the same vein. We have changing demographics. We have a postcode lottery of care in Scotland, which is not good enough. One of the things that is a little bit frustrating, I have to say, is the lack of voices of lived experience at some of the committee sessions. What I would say is that those voices—those folks who are in receipt of social work, social care, help and support—are the folks that we need to be listening to, because they will rightly point out where the system doesn't work for them. We have been on a 20-year journey of health and social care integration, and there have been improvements, but there are still implementation gaps. One of the reasons why there have been those implementation gaps is because we haven't listened to people and we haven't let people help us shape services. I recognise that some folk don't want that change, but what I say to the committee is that, if you listen to the voices of lived experience, many of them are hungry for change. They want rid of the postcode lotteries, they want those implementation gaps plugged and they want a system that works for them. I come back to the point that I made to the convener earlier about where the system doesn't work for some folk, and I come back to that lad that I was talking about earlier at risk of offending. Fifteen different interventions and yet it seems that that doesn't work for him and we need to resolve those issues. The question is how do you resolve those issues, and the question that will be facing us all is whether a centralised approach to this, by removing that power and authority and probably funding from the current structures where services are delivered locally by local authorities, through ring-ferenced grant budgets from the Scottish Government, to some form of nationalised service. The implications around that are very unclear still where the money will flow, whether it will be diverted from or to, and which cohort of people will deliver the service. You talk a lot about lived experience, but what I get the impression is that we are not listening to the lived experience of social workers themselves on the front line, who are telling us and have given us evidence as such to quote one that it is leadership not structure that is the most important, that was from Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership. Closures themselves are concerned that removing just as social work from local authority responsibility will actually impede multi-agency working with other local authorities, and that a local approach is the best one. These services are best managed and delivered locally. There is a real concern that nationalisation will result in effectively privatisation of the service, where work currently being done by people paid and employed by the public service. This work will all be simply outsourced through a procurement process, a national procurement process to a third party, perhaps even a commercial or private one. Is that our genuine risk? No, there will be no privatisation of these services. I would say to Mr Greene because he talked of centralisation there. The national care service will balance the need for local flexibility by having care boards, plan and commission care, while providing national consistency through ministers being ultimately accountable. Why have we moved in that direction? Because people have told us that they want to see ministerial accountability. I should say to the committee that accountability has been way up there in terms of the discussions that have been had. You will see from the Feely review and from other work that folks do not feel that people are necessarily accountable as they should be for the delivery of these services. People cannot believe, quite frankly, that I am not accountable for the delivery of social work and social care services in Scotland at this moment. Folks around this table have written to me to intervene in social work and social care situations in their area, which I cannot do because that is dealt with by other autonomous bodies at this moment. However, the public has been quite clear over 72 per cent in terms of response to the consultation that they want to see ministerial accountability. They also want to see local accountability strengthened as well, which we will do. However, that is not centralisation. That is about national accountability setting and national high-quality standards that should be applied across the board to ensure that those postcode lotteries disappear. However, it is also about local delivery, local flexibility, local innovation and local accountability. I am all from ministerial accountability. That does not address any of the practical questions that have been addressed to us that we do not have answers to. It seems that no-one has answers to really practical questions. For example, will all those social workers that are currently employed by local authorities be choked over to some form of other government agency? I know that all those remain known and unknowns, given that we have real issues with retention and churn within the social work sector, massive problems with resource to deliver local services. It is unclear how any of that will address what are clearly current shortfalls. Just before you come on to that, I would also like to respond to the financial issue around this, because at the end of the day, money talks with all of this. The minister will be acutely aware of what I think is quite a highly critical report from the Finance Committee, a unanimous report around the weakness of the financial memorandum of the bill for the NCS. If the money will follow from the current status quo of grant funding to LAs, would that be redistributed to another agency or body, or would that money still continue to flow, as it is? As you say, it is simply lines of accountability that are changing. Let me answer those points. Let me start off with the point of churn, as Mr Greene put it. I agree that there is a lot of churn within social work. Without naming authorities, because it might be a little bit naughty for me to do so, we know that there are folks who will leave one authority to go to another because pay and conditions in that other authority are much, much better. That causes real grief. That means that there are difficulties in some parts of the country in terms of recruitment and retention, because some local authorities are paying much more or the conditions are better in those authorities. What we need to do is to ensure that there is some kind of uniformity there and an improvement in terms of pay and conditions, which is not something that I can do at this moment in time, because that is not a matter for me. In terms of transfer of staff, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that local authority staff, for example, will need to transfer their employment. It remains the Government's position that new local care boards will work collaboratively in partnership with the NHS local authorities, third and independent sectors, to improve support locally and nationally. We will have the discussion with social workers, their professional bodies and others as we move forward, as I have said. However, there is the opportunity for improvement here not only in terms of paying conditions but also in getting career progression right, too. One of the things that I have been told by care workers and social workers, too, is that often the opportunities are not there for career progression. We need to do better in that front for the simple reason that we need to attract more folks into those professions. For young people in particular, a number of whom I have talked to, as you can imagine, while paying conditions is way up there, career progression, education, continuous professional development are also high on their agenda, and we need to get better at that, too. We have that opportunity. If we look at some of the survey work that has been carried out by the professional bodies, you will see that some of that stress is caused by the fact that folk feel bound by budgets and eligibility criteria. I come back to my point earlier about creating freedom and autonomy and being person-centred in terms of support and changing the current situation where there is a huge amount of spend on crisis and moving to prevention. That reduces the cost of the public purse, but it also reduces the human cost. I am sure that the committee has heard this from front-line social workers, too. A lot of the stress that is felt is because folk do not feel that they are able to put in the right help and support at the right time. That is what we need to change. I am going to bring in Pauline McNeill, followed by Collette Stevenson. Just to remind members, that is coming up to five to the hour. I am happy to extend the session to around about 10 past 11, but we have four members coming in. If questions and answers can be fairly succinct, Pauline McNeill. Thank you for your answer so far. I am hearing clearly what you are saying, that this is work-in-progress consultation, that you are treading carefully, that you are working on the basis of recommendations. That is very welcome. The follow-up on a question from Katie Clark, which I think is quite important for me anyway. At some point, we will decide on the general principles of the bill and the framework that you outlined and the duty to consult. If you voted in favour of the general principles of the bill, what you are voting for is a duty that you are voting so that the Government will consult. Ultimately, you could be voting for the principle of the national social work agency to be included in the national care service. That would be my worry about voting for the general principles, although I support the ideas behind it. Obviously, you would be voting for the framework bill and the general principles of that bill. As I have said to other committees, the framework bill scenario was the way in which we established the national health service. Other aspects of that were slotted in in order to make that or to fulfil that creation. You are voting for the general principles of the framework bill, but that is not the end of all that, as I have said. At the end of the day, we will continue to speak to and listen to stakeholders, the voices of lived experience and, of course, committees and Parliament as we move forward in terms of our future decision making around those moves and possible secondary legislation. Thank you very much. I note that you said in answer to Jamie Greene that some front-line social workers were in favour of it, so I think that it is important to note that. I will certainly be looking at it from that point of view. You may not be able to answer this now, because I say this because I remember that there was a proposal under the Labour Administration that looked a bit similar to this. I wondered if you would write to the committee on this. The reason that I mention it is because, at the time, there was uproar from the criminal justice social work. It never got off the ground because there was depoposition to the centralisation of it now. I acknowledge that this might be a different context because it is in the context of the national care service. I ask that question because I would like for accuracy to note if there are any similarities, and perhaps your officials could dig a wee bit into that. The other reason that I am asking is because, when you answered Katie Clark in relation to where did this come from, I would have thought that, although it is a recommendation, your natural instincts might have been not to go with it because it is controversial, even though you might work it out at the end of the day. I am not expecting an answer, but I wondered if you would give me an answer at some point. I do not know the history of the previous proposal, but I am quite happy to go and look at that. I will maybe be able to fit in that reading over the Christmas and New Year holidays. We will have a look at that and I will write to the committee on certain aspects. I think that, for some folk, some of the proposals are controversial that we are putting forward, but the key thing in all of that is the voices of lived experience. The voices of lived experience are the primary motivation for me getting up in the morning and doing this work, because they know what works for them and what does not work for them. It may well be that something is controversial a decade plus ago, and now it has its day. That is the way that the world works at points, is it not? Including criminal justice social work has changed dramatically since the last administration was in power. I would say that it is only 10 years since I have left local government, and I can see massive changes in social work and criminal justice social work since I left a local authority. Some of that change, some folk would say, was for the good, others would say that it has been for the bad. One of the things that I have talked about is the eligibility criteria in budgets. It is also fair to say that many front-line social workers feel that social work has lost its voice at this moment, particularly in certain parts of the country. Again, that is something that needs to be addressed. I promise, Ms McNeill, that I will look back at the history over the course of the holidays. I am lying if I am not an anorak, and we will respond as best we can in terms of the question about similarities or not. I really appreciate that answer. Just for the record, I did not have a strong view for or against it at the time. I do not know, but I wanted to note that there was a quick controversial and, to take your point, that things have moved on. Thank you very much for that answer. Thank you, convener. Thank you very much, Pauline. I will bring in Collette Stevenson, followed by Rona Mackay. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. There are a couple of questions that I would like to ask you about. One of the big things that you have talked about is how there has to be consistency in taking it forward if you were to include children and families and criminal justice with the NCS. From the evidence that we have taken, and even from our own experience working with children's care homes, there seems to be a deep mistrust with the people who will live the experience going through the social care system of social workers. That was picked up on an evidence session that we took a few weeks back when we were doing bail and release. In terms of reform and changing that culture, would it be something that you would think about as even changing the name of a social worker, because there is a big stigma attached to that as well? I even know from having been a councillor with South Lanarkshire that there was even somebody who had the name of homemaker, which is quite an old-fashioned name. However, a lot of the kids that I worked with in the care experience system had a really deep mistrust of social workers. Convener, I could probably get myself into a lot of trouble if I was going to try and redefine names of folk's roles at this moment in time. I am not averse to having those conversations. I get where Ms Stevenson is coming from about some folk mistrusting social workers, but I also have to say that I have seen some very good examples of real trust being formed between social workers and those folks that they are supporting. I think that the element of mistrust often comes into play because a social worker has come in to play at crisis point rather than at prevention point. That is why we are looking at a number of things at this moment in time and we will do further test of change work to see how we can improve things further in that front. I met folks from Fife a couple of months back and I intend to visit there, but we have not managed to slot it in yet. They have a pilot going on at this moment in two areas of Fife where they have given social workers a clean sheet to do what is required to achieve good outcomes for people. Obviously with a reason, but basically a blank sheet. That seems at very early stages, but that seems to be already having very positive impact on people because the social workers have been freed up and have that autonomy and are not bound by some of the strictures there that could often lead to that mistrusting situation. I think that that work in terms of that activity and other work that is going on in terms of test of change, we need to look at. I come back to my point about the 1968 act. That community, social work, ethos, freedom and autonomy worked really well and some of the changes that have taken place since then, particularly in the 80s, have gone away from that. Let us see what that test of change work can do. I think that that will inevitably lead to greater trust again. I will follow on from that. There is one other question. It is more of a technical one. Is that touched upon the fact that social workers, if they were to move over to the NCS, would be getting too peed over? However, there are 32 local authorities and they have all got variants of procurement framework contracts. All of them probably staggered one way or another through social work. How would that work go forward? As I said, we are not talking necessarily about wholesale transfers of staff, I have said that to every committee. However, what we need to do, no matter what really, is to get to a point where we are stopping the churn that Jamie Greene talked about earlier and getting the right paying conditions levels for staff across the board in order to aid recruitment and retention within social work and within social care. In terms of procurement, I know that you have said to be brief, convener. I could wax lyrical, or probably not quite lyrical, for hours around about our ambitions for ethical procurement, but maybe rather than me doing that, which I have done elsewhere, maybe I should just write to the committee around about ethical procurement. I will bring in Rona Mackay and then very briefly we have Time Kitty Clark. I think that the session has been very reassuring on a number of counts. Some of the concerns that we heard were that witnesses did not want to think that this has been rushed through without them having a chance to be listened to and to be part of the co-design. From what you have said with the timescale to my colleague Russell Findlay, you are giving that time. That is very reassuring. The other thing that we heard from witnesses was that the status quo was not an option, so pretty much across the board people realised that they wanted something done, but I am very reassured that you have been listening to people with lived experience and all that. I am sure that other stakeholders will be. My question is, if pressure comes to you from local authorities not to include just the social work in the NCS bill and if that pressure is mainly based on some financial fears that local authorities have, are you confident that you can answer those concerns that local authorities might have? I will try to answer everybody's concerns and I will try to find solutions to all that is put in front of us. I know that the Finance Committee went over that and some depth have others. Local authorities have a concern around about the movement of budgets. I said at the Finance Committee that we will try to make that cost-neutral. I would reiterate that point. I want to ensure that we co-operate and collaborate to the max with local authorities. Unfortunately, on some of those issues at the moment, COSLA is not at the table. I hope that that will change because it needs to be at the table, too. On the co-design of national care service, others will be at the table, so they need to be at the table, too, on all of the issues, not just some of them, so that their views are heard, too. As I said, I think that there is worry around about resourcing. There always is. Let's be honest, that's the way of the world. As I said, at the Finance Committee, we will try to make that as cost-neutral as possible. We are just doing 10 pass, but I am happy to bring in Katie Clark if we can keep it as succinct as possible. I will be brief. You are going to write to us about what you call ethical procurement, but don't you accept that commissioning is tendering that leads to outsourcing and privatisation? No, I don't necessarily accept that at all. At this moment, we have had situations in which a huge amount of the tendering that has gone on and the contracts that have been won have been based on price. I think that there are emissions from that contracting, which I will be honest with you, has frustrated me over the years when I was in the local authority. I should say that not everything that we did was based on price, I hasten to add. There should be elements into those procurements, fair work being the main example. There are other elements, too, that we are looking at that can be built into all of that. What I would say is that currently, in terms of care, there is a mixed economy. Let's be honest, the third sector plays a hugely important role in all of this. I'm quite sure that nobody wants to omit the third sector from anything as we move forward. An ethical procurement will drive up transparency and bring fair work into play, but I will write in some depth to the committee about ethical procurement as we move forward. If there was a decision to bring social work into the national care service, it would lead to a significant increase in tendering. You accept that. That seems to be what you are saying. No, I don't accept that at all, but we will lay that out in some depth. In the spirit of it being coming up for the festive season, we are going to allow Fulton MacGregor to come in with a very final, very quick question, and then we will need to bring the session to a close. Thanks, convener. I wasn't actually expecting to get back in, so I do appreciate that. A final question is on how you are going to capture the lift experience that you have spoken about, minister. How do you think you are doing a fantastic job as a Government with that in terms of the adult social care part of it? I have seen a lot of the work that you are doing, and the lift experience is coming through loud and clear in relation to that. We have heard a lot of that at that cross-party group meeting that you referred to, but for this particular committee, I am just wondering if you have any thoughts. It might be to write to us, because we have come to the end of the session, about how you might get the lift experience of criminal justice service users on their view and whether they quite like the services just now, or whether they would quite like the workers who support them to be part of a national care service. I know that you spoke about one individual that the 15 folk involved with them, but I am just wondering if you have any ideas on how you might do that at a larger scale with justice service users, like what you are doing with the adult services users just now. There are a number of things that are going on at the moment. Of course, we have listened to folk all the way through this with a huge amount of engagement across the board, not only by me, but also by officials. We have had, for example, the national care service forum, which brought a huge amount of people in person to Perth concert hall, but also a lot of folk online and a lot of stuff before that. We are now at the stage where we are recruiting for lived experience panels, lived experience expert panels, should I say. At the moment, we have got over 450 folk applied. We are encouraging folk from right across the country with different experiences to play a part in all that, but beyond that, recognising that that is not for everyone, we are also involved in targeted engagement, supported by the third sector, and that will continue. People with lived experience will also be able to participate in the option appraisal workshops that I talked about, which will be led by the Scottish Government, specifically for people with lived experience of just as social work. I am absolutely adamant that we continue to listen to the voices of lived experience all the way through our journey here. I talked earlier about the implementation gaps that we all know that exist in service delivery. I truly believe that the only way that we can plug those implementation gaps is by having folk with lived experience helping us to shape those services along with front-line staff. I am going to bring this session to an end. Thank you very much, indeed, minister, and your officials for joining us today. I am just going to briefly pause the meeting to allow the minister and his officials to leave. Thank you very much, members. The next agenda item is to return to our consideration of the issue of legislative consent for the Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation Bill. This follows the evidence that we took from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, and I refer members to paper number three. You will also see in your papers that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service have provided us with its correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office. I am now going to open up the discussion to members and then we will consider what recommendation we want to make to the Parliament on legislative consent. I am just going to ask any members if you would like to come in, Jamie. Before I do, can I just ask procedurally what will be asked to do, because that may affect what I will say next, if that makes sense? Obviously, we heard from the Cabinet Secretary in relation to the legislative consent memorandum in which the Scottish Government is recommending that the Scottish Parliament should not consent to the relevant provisions in this bill, as set out in the draft motion. Our role today is to consider the content of the memorandum and decide whether or not we will agree to not consent or otherwise. I really just want to open up to members if you have any queries, comments or questions that you would like to make. From there, I will formally ask the question around the LCM. In that case, I am happy to give way to other members. If it is possible, I will come back with a summary of what I would like to say thereafter, if that is okay. I think that we should support the position that was put forward by the Cabinet Secretary that we do not give consent. However, at the last meeting, I got the impression that Conservative MSPs were going away to, if you like, use their connections to see if some of the concerns could be addressed. I will listen carefully to what was said, but on the basis of what was said at the previous hearing, I would have thought that that should be where we were given the gravity of the concerns being raised. There are two aspects to this bill. First, I will leave aside the constitutional question. The first question is, I believe that it is a very bad bill. I think that it shuts the door in justice for people looking for justice for what happened decades ago in Northern Ireland, and I think that it is in no one's interest to do it. The actual premise of the bill is very bad. Constitutionally, I think that it is a no-brainer. The response from the Lord Advocate, for instance, just one line of her response, said that the bill in its current form engages a number of areas over which I have constitutional responsibility and does so in a manner novel to Scots criminal law. So, this would be new ground and not good new ground, so I would strongly recommend that we do not consent to this. Okay. Thanks very much. Just for members, just as a reminder, the reasons that consent is not recommended are twofold. Firstly, the Government is of the view that the bill, as it is currently drafted, is incompatible with the Scottish Government's view that those who have suffered during the troubles are able to obtain justice and that those who committed offences during that time are appropriately held to account or punished. Secondly, the bill makes novel and unwelcome changes to the functions and responsibilities of the Lord Advocate as head of the systems of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland. Those are the two sort of key reasons that the Government was recommending that consent was not given. Would anyone else like to come in and collect? I totally agree with Rona on that as well. I don't want to give consent for this to go forward. The other thing that stood out for me was the financial implications as well, between £35 million to £50 million per year. That to me is not a Scottish bill. No, I know, but it is still a public purse as well. It is quite substantial as well and there is other costs incurred in with that as well, but yet absolutely at the heart of it, it is about the victims here from historic troubles over in Ireland as well getting justice. I agree with what has been said. There are two matters. First of all, the substance of the bill itself does not seem to me to have widespread support in Northern Ireland itself, which I did check after I left the committee the last time. That gives me a cause for concern that the subject matter is not really settled in terms of a consensus going forward. Therefore, the undermining of the powers in this Parliament cannot really be justified when the essence of it itself does not have full consensus among those who have an interest and are affected by it. For me, anything having argued strongly for devolution before I even got here, I have always been very strongly protective of the powers and to overturn or to hand those powers for those purposes. I would absolutely want to be sure that we are doing it for reasons that I felt were correct and justified. In that case, I do not. Therefore, I will be supporting the Government. I will not speak for the sake of it. Given the gravity of what has been asked to decide today, it is important to put my own views on the record, and that is simply to say that I agree completely with my colleagues, Rona Mackay, Collette Stevenson and Bolly McNeill, who have already outlined it. I agree with Collette Stevenson that this is indeed about justice for victims, but I disagree with Rona Mackay, who has a fundamental more opposition to it in principle. It is worth bearing in mind that the intent behind this is to achieve justice and answers for those who have spent decades not being able to get any. It is a very sensitive and unique situation. It is worth bearing in mind that when I spoke to the cabinet secretary in the evidence session, he seemed to agree with the principle of a UK-wide approach, so I think that it would be somewhat hasty to oppose it, because I think that it would be more important that we could seek to overcome any incompatibility or issues between the various parts of the UK. I thank members for their contributions. I feel like I am summing up a debate or not, but it is an issue that I have spent some time on. First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not whatever I say next is not on behalf of the UK Government or the Northern Ireland office or any other UK minister or secretary of state. It is purely my own views and the views of the party here within the Scottish Parliament. I think that our party generally is supportive of the concept of the establishment of the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery. That is not to say that every aspect of the bill is perfect in its current state, but all bills, as we know only too well, go through an iterative process of scrutiny and that bill will go through that process in Westminster duly, and they also have the benefit of a second chamber, which we don't. However, I think that the clue is in the name. The commission is one of reconciliation and information recovery, and I personally believe that these are quite important steps forward in the peace process. I think that the argument that was made that both sides of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland have some opposition to it by its very nature demonstrates perhaps its necessity. Obtaining truth and closure are key pillars of that process. If this independent commission and it is independent and will be independent is able to do that and continue some of that work, then that's important. It is a five-part bill with 58 clauses. It's quite complex, and whilst there are some elements of it which are controversial, I assume, particularly those around immunity, perhaps even the issues of prisoner release and so on, but those have been issues that have been controversial for many years as part of the peace process. There are other positive aspects around the investigation of deaths, fatal accident inquiries and so on, so there are many aspects to the bill, and I think it's very easy just to take a very simplistic one-sided view on it. I'm very open-minded to what the bill is trying to achieve, and I feel it's appropriate to let it make its progress. On the specifics of what we've been asked to do within the context of legislative consent, I think I wanted to comment just on three things. The Government actually gave three reasons for opposition, I would say, rather than two. The first was around concerns made by the Lord Advocate, which I think were duly made and quite well made. Given that, at the time, we didn't have those concerns on paper, looking at the correspondence from the Lord Advocate to the Secretary of State in the UK Government, it is clear that those concerns are quite well laid out, but equally in that letter it does go on to offer what I think is a pathway through that. Indeed, the Lord Advocate herself talked about a memorandum of understanding with each United Kingdom prosecution authorities in relation to referrals, for example, so I think it seems that there is a genuine constructive willingness on the part of the Lord Advocate not to put words in her mouth to find a solution to any conflict that may arise between her role as head of independent role as head of public prosecutions in Scotland and interaction with the Bill and the powers that Pauline McNeill spoke of. I don't think that it's quite as simple as today handing over powers from Scotland to another jurisdiction. It sounds like there's an ongoing conversation to be had there, and I think that we should allow that to make us progress. I would note that, naturally, it is disappointing that we haven't had the response to that, and I'm hoping that when that is made available, we will have sight of it. The second point was around ECHR compliance and the potential legal implications of the Bill and human rights law. In the evidence session with the cabinet secretary, I did question that and I feel like it was more of an opinion rather than anything else. The cabinet secretary was unable to point us in the direction of any specific published views or advice on that, so it seems to be perhaps somewhat of a smokescreen. The third and probably the one that worries me most would be the political disagreement with it, because the Government are concerned that the primary reason for not offering legislative consent is that they believe that, as the bill has currently drafted, it's worth noting, it is incompatible with the Scottish Government's view that those who have suffered during the troubles are able to attain justice, so that sounds to me more like a policy difference of opinion rather than one of a legality. That is, of course, based on the bill, as drafted. The bill will go through a process and I would expect all parties, including members of the Government's own party, who represent them in the UK Parliament to do that accordingly and put their trust in them to do that properly. For that reason, it would be our bench's view that we should offer consent to the passage of the bill to let it run its course and work through the many issues that I have mentioned. I think that holding it back at this stage would be unhelpful in the process, so we would not agree to any recommendation to withhold consent. Thank you very much, members. That's been really helpful. Just from my own perspective, just to add in a few personal comments of my own, I think that, in relation to the point that you were outlining, Jamie, in relation to the correspondence between the Lord Advocate and the Secretary of State, I note that her last correspondence was on 10 October, when she wrote to the new Northern Ireland secretary and outlined some suggestions around the bill. As far as I am aware, she has not had any response to that. On that note, the bill is very nearly complete and through its journey. That gives me some concern that there has been nothing back from the UK Government in response to her correspondence. The second thing that I want to point out is some comments from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. The bill runs the risk of being found to be non-compliant with human rights. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission also expressed grave concerns about the bill in terms of its incompatibility with the Good Friday agreement. The cabinet secretary alluded to that in his statement, when he joined us a couple of weeks ago. Finally, I am quite uncomfortable with the notion that the ICRIR would have a role within Scotland that potentially impacts on people's access to justice, whatever that might be. I am also very uncomfortable with the notion that the role and function of the Lord Advocate could potentially be affected. The question now is whether the committee agrees with the Scottish Government that the Scottish Parliament should not consent to the relevant provisions in the bill as they have been set out in the Scottish Government's draft motion. I am just going to go round the table. I think that that is probably the best thing to do and if you can indicate your position. I will start with you, Russell. Do you agree with the Government's position that we should not give consent? I agree with the Government's position. I agree with the Government's position, particularly because of the concerns being raised by the Lord Advocate. I also agree with the Government's position. That is fine. What will happen now is that we will compile a report that will be presented to the Parliament? I make a small request to the clerks. Often, the SSIs or LCMs get waved through quite easily in the chamber. I presume that this will come to a vote to Parliament in plenary at some point. It would be nice to know when that is coming up so that we can keep our eye out for it. That is correct, Mr Greene. It will come before Parliament and it will be up to Parliament to decide and that may be on a vote if necessary. As soon as we have some information on the timings of that, we will let the committee know as far and as advanced as we can. Are you content to delegate to me the publication of the report that summarises the outcome of our deliberations on the LCM? The issue will now move, as we were saying, to the chamber for all members to decide based on our report. That completes our final business for the year. I would like to take the opportunity to wish all members and our staff, our clerks and other staff all the very best for the festive season. I hope that you all have a very happy and peaceful Christmas and new year. I also take the opportunity to thank all our witnesses, who have given both informal and formal evidence to the committee this year. It is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much indeed. We will now move into private session.