 Rydw i'n dweud am hyfforddiant, and welcome to the 6th Meet in the Health and Sport Committee in 2017. I could ask everyone in the room to ensure that their mobile phones are in silent. They can of course be used for social media, but please don't take photographs or filmed precedence. Agenda item 1 is the third evidence session on child protection and sport. I welcome to the committee Andrew McKinley, chief operating officer of the Scottish Football Association, Stuart Ragan, chief executive at the Scottish Football Association, a David Little, chief executive of the Scottish Youth Football Association. I think that it would be appropriate if we asked Mr Little and a representative from the SFA if they want to make a brief opening statement and it would be brief. Mr Little, would you like to make a brief opening statement? Thank you very much for inviting us back this morning. My first comment was that the M8 was kinder to me this morning than it was on 7 February. Again, I would just like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our 15,400 volunteers for the work that they do in providing recreation and football for young people, our 60,000 kids. Again, I think that it would be fair of me to talk about the contribution that SFA makes to Scottish society. Again, working on round figures, if you take our 15,000 volunteers, if you take on average five hours per week, if you take an average rate of £10, and if you take a season very conservatively based on 30 weeks, that is a contribution of £22.5 million. I would suggest that the monetary value is not the important thing. The important thing here for Scotland PLC is the activity that our young people have actually got. I would say—and no doubt I will answer questions on this—that this has been a school day in that we have learned quite a lot from the process. One of the things that we have learned is that there is a difference between encouragement and enforcement, and we will talk about that later on. Stuart Owen Andrew. I would like to echo Mr Little's comments and thank the committee for inviting myself and Andrew back today. I would like to make five points if I can. The first one is to remind committee members that we have just launched an independent review of historical child sex abuse allegations or into historical child sex abuse allocations in Scottish football. That work has started with Martin Henry as the chair. The second point is that we are working very closely with Police Scotland and collaborating on matters of a criminal nature. The third point is that our board back between August and October 2016 have agreed and implemented a board directive to all Scottish FA members, including the youth FA, in order to ensure consistency of policy and application as far as child protection matters are concerned. The fourth point is that we are in formal correspondence with the youth FA in relation to a series of concerns that have arisen through both Government correspondence recently, which we were copied into, and also evidence given to this committee at the last meeting. The reply to our most recent correspondence was only received last night, and I am not in a position to comment on the detail of that at this moment in time. Finally, for the purposes of clarity, I would just like to advise the committee members of the assistance that the Scottish FA has supplied and continues to supply to the Scottish youth FA in relation to this matter. First of all, to confirm that over the last six years, approximately £0.25 million of unconditional financial support has been provided to the Scottish Youth FA, along with financial support to all our A&As, as part of a programme of investment in something that we call One National Plan. Secondly, the Scottish Youth FA and other A&As benefit from free accommodation and facilities at Hamden Park. Thirdly, back in 2015, in February, we offered support on child protection matters to the Scottish Youth FA, which was rejected at the time in favour of further financial support. We have also offered a range of training and education programmes to all members, most recently pre-Christmas with a seminar looking at policy and procedure. Finally, in January of this year, we have appointed a dedicated full-time member of staff to work with the A&As on matters of child protection, which, to be fair to the A&As, including the Youth FA, have acknowledged and appreciated. I would like to focus, if I may, on the administration of the application process for PVG disclosure requests. In evidence to the committee, the Scottish Government suggested that the process that the Scottish Youth FA used to complete applications for PVG disclosure requests for submitting to Disclosure Scotland operates differently to some other sports bodies, possibly leading to a greater administrative burden on you. I would like to understand if you think that you are following best practice. In your evidence to the committee the last time, Mr Little, you suggested that you said on the record that I reckon this year that disclosure checks will cost the SYFA £70,000, that you have six full-time staff members and one part-time staff member. I would just like to understand where that cost comes from, because for volunteers who are doing regulated work in qualifying voluntary organisations, there is no fee. Mr Reagan has just pointed out that perhaps one of the reasons that you turned down an offer of help was for further financial assistance. Could you just clarify? Can I say, in respect of £70,000 first, that £70,000 is made up of salaries, it is made up of volunteer costs and the sundry items, for example, postage. That figure covers the three areas. In respect of that, it is vitally important that we know exactly who our members are. In fact, it is a requirement to be able to quote numbers, and that goes to support the one national plan. I think that the means that we have adopted is an online registration system whereby I believe that it is nice and simple. It has evolved quite dramatically over the period where the club secretary has a login, a secure login, goes into the system and logs their members. It also enables SYFA to find out who has been checked and who has not been checked. We are also working with Police Scotland, and, quite recently, we had to make a referral to the Scottish ministers. The system that we have was invaluable because it enabled us to be able to give full details in respect of the person that was being referred. It enabled us to answer the questions fully in respect of what we had seen when we were doing the PVG check. I think that some other sports operate a completely different system, and it is a more at-length system, whereas we feel that we are able to fully ensure that people are going to be checked and compliant with first aid, compliant with other coach education. We need this in-depth system. What I am trying to understand is if you could clarify why the SYFA rejected the offer of assistance from the SFFA in terms of the significant backlog that we heard about the past time. I would like to understand if the SFFA has given a quarter of a million pounds of financial support to yourselves. It sounds perhaps as if financial support is not the issue here. In respect of the backlog, the support that was needed was the support for our 239 volunteers out in the community. It was important that we re-engaged and re-energised and got them working again so that they would process the forums. We have also looked at our online system, and we are currently speaking to our IT people whereby we are going to put a dedicated section for league officials so that they have data, but data in real time, as opposed to the older system that was laborious in sending reports out on a monthly basis. They will be able to analyse that on a daily basis, and that will manage the flow of forums and will also manage the requirement for meetings within the individual leagues. Can I direct a question to Mr Reagan, convener? Mr Little, you do not spend £70,000 on that process, do you? That is the equivalent of two admin assistants full-time, for a year, licking a great many stamps and envelopes for a system that is supposed to be free. Where do you come to £70,000? Is it two full-time people on this continually? It is two full-time, but at the moment we have got another two working on it. We have got volunteers coming in to work on it as well. How many are you processing a year? We should, this year, process somewhere in the region of between 5,000 and 6,000, I think. So between those six people that you have mentioned, that is 1,000 each, and that takes them a full-time job for how many people? Two full-time, two-part time, plus volunteer support, plus volunteers carrying out the checks within their communities. I find that very, very hard to believe. When we move on, if we talk about child protection and its totality, there is also the operations manager's time, and there is my time, in respect of the protection panel that we operate. That works out on average about three a day. Three forms process the day between all of those people. Not all forms that come in are processed. The forms that come in that are fully compliant are nice and simple, and they go through the process. Unfortunately, there are a lot of forms that come in. For example, forms come in where officials aren't registered with SYFA. We have to encourage the clubs to register said officials, and that all takes time as well. Mr Reagan, the SYFA provisionally accepted an offer of support from Disclosure Scotland and Volunteer Scotland to clear the backlog of PVG checks, but then decided to decline that. I would just like to understand if you know why the SYFA declined that offer, and what sort of support does the SYFA give affiliated bodies like the SYFA? I will make a comment myself, and I will ask my colleague Mr McKinley to come in further because he is closer to the detail. As far as the Disclosure Scotland point is concerned, we have only been made aware that they turned down the offer of support very recently, as the process has unfolded. We are not fully aware why they turned that offer down. Subsequently, since our board directive has been implemented, we have offered support, and we have in January put a full-time staff member in place to support on all matters relating to the board directive. Maybe Andrew can come in further. Just on the Disclosure Scotland point to pick up on your question, as Stewart has said, we only became aware, at the same time as you, that they have been turned down. My understanding of the reason why they have been turned down, and I am just reading this from the same documentation, I think that you will have seen, is that it was not the support that the SYFA felt it required. There was also a suggestion that the SYFA felt that it would have a negative impact on morale of their volunteers, I believe, was what was stated. Can I just ask one further question? I did read that suggestion that it might have negatively impacted on volunteers, but it is such a serious issue that I do think that it has to be treated as such. I am still failing to understand why those offers of support have been rejected. Can you just briefly tell us what exactly would make the big difference? What form of support would help you? First of all, we welcome the appointment of Jennifer Malone from the SYFA. What would make the difference? What form do you want the support to take? I think that, at this particular stage, we are trying to get the ability to bring more volunteers in to do more of the work. It would certainly assist if we had the ability to increase staff by another one. You were getting an offer of help for nothing. The help that was on offer was in respect of the checking of the forums at the meetings. We all do respect that. That was not the assistance that we were required at that particular time. Can I also say that we have since had meetings with Disclosure Scotland and Disclosure Services, where we have spoken about training, we have spoken about process and we have asked that that training be distributed via our leagues because there are still some myths in respect of disclosure checks. We may come to that. There are a number of people who want to ask questions. Colin. Thank you very much, convener. Can I ask a question about the role of the SYFA in overseeing compliance? You mentioned that the directives that were issued in relation to child wellbeing and protection were issued in August 2016, given the fact that the PVG system has been in place since 2011. Why did it take until August 2016 to implement directives effectively to tell your clubs to comply? Quite simply because there was no evidence until recently, until last year, that there was actually a problem with PVG checks. We had had a series of concerns which had been flagged to us back to 2014. We were in dialogue with the SYFA on a number of these matters. We obviously decided when it came to 2015 that we needed to put in place a process because of the lack of consistency of application across Scottish football. We took that to our board. We agreed it in August. We then had to get the wording legally checked and it was rolled out in October 2016 right across the Scottish SYFA member base. You say there was no evidence, is that because there was no problem prior to you making this decision or because you simply weren't aware there was a problem? The issues that we had were issues of process. Basically people finding it difficult to deal with the process. One of the points that has been raised earlier is that the youth FA handle the management of PGVs centrally. They take on board responsibility for the management and processing of those which is different to other sports where clubs or associations undertake them themselves and self-declare. That's not a new issue. They've done that all along but it's five years since the process started and you implemented a directive. What's happened? To the Scottish SYFA's knowledge, there has been no issue raised with the Scottish SYFA from members or from members of the public other than minor process issues, which we've been in dialogue to try and resolve. When it came to the middle of last year, we had concerns about how the process was working and we wanted to put in place a system that dealt with this matter consistently right across the member base. What prompted those concerns? Feedback from our child protection and wellbeing manager, Donna Martin, as far as the application of that process across Scottish football. From conversations she'd had with individuals across the game. The sheer number of backlogs, if you like, is that what prompted it? That was one of the concerns that clubs and individuals were finding it very difficult for decisions to be made and for process to be implemented and therefore we needed to try and put in place a consistent approach to handling this, which is what we did through the board. Are you happy that your monitoring didn't pick a problem up earlier? Is that a concern to the SFA? Issues may have been in place or you've basically seen it as a relatively recent problem? From our knowledge, it's a relatively recent problem other than, as I say, minor process issues which have been flagged to us. I think it's worth saying for the record that at this moment in time there is no evidence to suggest that there is a problem as a result of the on-going management of the PGV scheme. There is actually risk and the issue is risk that we have got to address and therefore we are managing that to mitigate risk using the directive as the vehicle to make it happen. So why, if there's no major problem, have you given member organisations 11 months to ensure clubs are using the PVG scheme? That seemed an awful long time. Well, I think maybe Andrew can look in place as far as the detail are concerned, but there's not just one action that members have to take. There are a whole raft of issues and the most serious as far as we were concerned was the need for data sharing. Because of the fragmented nature of Scottish football, we have over 100 members that coaches could potentially move from member to member and unless that data is shared, there is no visibility. So the first decision, which the deadline for which was last week, we asked for that data sharing protocol to be signed by all members. That has been actioned. There are a series of other steps including training initiatives, which have to be taken, which we feel whilst is important, is not as important as some of the other initiatives we've put in place. So we've given a little bit more time for several thousand people in the case of the schools and the youth FA and the women's FA to actually go through that procedure. About 11 months is a long period of time. Say no and Stuart referred to it earlier on, we're having on-going official formal correspondence with the SYFA to understand the specific problem of the PVG, the PVG numbers. So just because the directive compliance may be further down the line, there may be other issues that we feel need further investigation and may go through our disciplinary process, but that will depend on how that correspondence plays out. So we just want one final question. The directive is obviously aimed at affiliated national associations rather than individual clubs. No, it's all clubs. We can only do it to our members. So it's at our member clubs plus affiliated national associations, but it then has a timescale for the affiliated national associations to get their members in line. But we obviously don't have a direct link with their members, so we would then have a right to audit them to make sure that they had got their members in compliance. So that's how the directive will flow down. Emma, are you satisfied that your affiliated national associations will meet that deadline that you've set? We believe they should, and we've brought in an individual to a specific individual just to assist them with that. You said they should, but will they? No, we believe they should. There's no reason why they shouldn't. I'm being a good morning to the panel. I was struck, Mr Egan, by your comments in respect of what you described as unconditional financial support to the SYFA. Given the line of questioning that Colin Smyth has just taken us down, I'm very concerned by that because I'd like to understand the relationship between the SFA and the affiliated bodies. We've just heard about the chain of events that led you to issue the directive around making sure that PVD checks were up to scratch, but can you unpack what you mean by unconditional financial support and what due diligence your organisation performs above your affiliated bodies? That's quite a worrying phrase. No, I disagree because when I explain the nature of the funding, you will understand that we're giving that funding in relation to the delivery of certain targets and certain objectives that have to be achieved. What I meant by unconditional funding was that there is no conditions attached as to how that money should then be spent. The money can be spent by the youth SFA on promoting the game, they can spend it on governance, they can spend it on people, they can spend it on training, they can spend it on what they want to spend. I understand, thank you. Can you then give us an idea of what kind of conditions, obviously we're not talking about the restriction of funding, but what kind of expectation around compliance the SFA had to affiliated bodies prior to the directive being issued, because it strikes me that the directive is very much a tool of last resort. It's not happening, so we need to say absolutely red line time this has to happen. Prior to that, what kind of contract or understanding was there between your organisation and the affiliated bodies as to what their duties were with regard to compliance with child protection legislation? Okay, so it's worth explaining again just how the structure of Scottish football operates. We have over 100 members, each of them are separate businesses in their own right, each of them have their own constitutions, rules, regulations, boards and so on and are responsible for managing their businesses and indeed it would be very difficult for us to tread into their businesses without facing some kind of judicial review. What we have to manage are members is a set of articles and a set of rules and we have a compliance officer who will investigate potential breaches of those rules and only if evidence is brought before us will we actually carry out that investigation. In order to tighten up in areas of governance, we have around 18 months ago started to look at an independent audit of all of our ANAs and we have employed a consultant to carry out that work and we've had initially a review of policy and procedure and we are working on that to roll that out right across the game. We've been through one cycle of that audit and as I said it's very soft touch in terms of our policies in place initially as opposed to the execution of those policies. However, as Andrew explained earlier, if there are specifics that have been brought to our attention we will investigate those directly and I mentioned earlier that we are in formal correspondence with the youth FA over a number of concerns that have arisen on this matter relating to child wellbeing and protection and the response to that was given to us last night. The directive seems like a very sort of short life solution to the immediate problem that we face in terms of the backlog of PVG applications that have been unprocessed. What is the stage after that? When the SWFA is up to scratch with all officials now checked and vetted and the rest of it, what will your organisation do in terms of the process? You've just described to ensure that this can't happen again, that there won't be a slip backwards with the SWFA getting to that position again. Clearly there's two ways of handling that. The first way is to handle it through the compliance officer and any breaches or any evidence of any breaches will then be investigated on an item by item basis but the independent audit that I referred to will effectively be widened so that if there are areas of concern in any particular organisation and it doesn't have to be the same area of concern in each organisation, that can be investigated more fully and we can then identify where improvements need to be made. Could you be in a position, sorry, just to follow up with the funding that you described, to make that contingent on across-the-board checks? Yes we can and clearly the way that we have described the funding previously is its performance-related funding. If there is failures in performance then clearly we have the ability not to make that funding available. For me however, I think there's a fine balance to be struck between not funding a volunteer organisation and providing support to allow them to do tasks that clearly are of importance to Scottish football so I think we just need to get that balance right. I just want to ask Mr Little a wee bit more about the process, just to understand how that process works in terms of processing the forms. Typically what would happen at the start and then what would be the journey of that application process as it went through the various stages of your organisation? What actually happens is that a person wishing to become an official approaches a club. The club carry out their due diligence, simple questions, have you been with another club, what was your role with that club, why did you leave that club, the ability to collect references at that particular point? I think that this is one of the real important issues here. They also base bringing a person in on local knowledge because inevitably there's knowledge within the community if there is a problem with an individual. That process sounds fine. Is that process documented or is every club going to do it based on what they think and feel at the time or is there a standard for it? There is a document but what we've actually done is that we've drawn up a flowchart and the beauty about flowcharts is that we can send them out on a regular basis via our social media platforms and put that on to the websites. That's happening just now. Okay, so every club has got volunteers in it and that's your 230-something volunteers that are processing the initial contacts if you like through your flowchart and then documenting the output from that. Are they recording that then on your system or a system locally or how do they record that? The clubs cover the 15,400 volunteers. What we have is we have 239 volunteers who are volunteers to SYFA and they are classified as additional signatories. Right. So it's not just the case of we've got an official that's linked to a specific club, they're linked to SYFA and when leagues are setting up meetings they would go to the list and invite as many as they feel they actually need to come along and carry out the checks. Once they've completed the checks, the ID checks so that we know that if a guy turns up and says he's Willie Smith that we know and we can prove that he actually is Willie Smith, they complete the forums, it's then their responsibility to submit the forums for processing at SYFA. This is where we feed them through the system and then send them on to disclosure services. Can I say the beauty about that particular system? We've had various procedures in place for 15 years now and they came about because of an incident. There was an incident in Glasgow where a person had gone to join a club. The club complained to us that this person was unsuitable. That person then moved on to two other clubs and then eventually I received a phone call from that person's social worker to say that we had made the right decision in not allowing him to work with young people. That was the catalyst for 15 years of work that we realised at that particular time that we were out of step that we didn't. There were no procedures at that time but at that time we came across John Harris who was at Volunteer Scotland at the time and they were carrying out all sorts of training, rehabilitation of offenders, etc. Just to be clear on that, does that mean that the process that you're operating is more robust than or has additional parts to it, additional components, additional questions, additional information to it over and above the PVG process? I think so, but the beauty about it is that it's used for a slightly different thing as well. Within the system, each official has a category, a code and if that person is a code in, that means that he's not awarded membership or has been removed from membership and if he goes to any other club, they will not be able to register him, so in effect it puts a bar on the individual. Just moving that forward, you talked about in your office, you've got two staff who are working full-time on processing the applications and if you add up their costs plus some other costs, you talked about postage, you talked about volunteer, is that volunteer expense as you were talking about? That comes to your £70,000. Meeting rooms, the whole sunders. That all stacks up, so in effect you've got two full-time people working on those. If you're doing between £5,000 and £6,000 a year by my calculation, that means that they're having to do one in about 30 or 40 minutes each. Does that stack up to what you'd expect to run through one of those applications in your office? I think that this is a bit like how long is a piece of paper? Some are longer, some are shorter. It will average out. There are some that are problematic. For example, one of the biggest problems that we've had was with the driving licence. On the driving licence it shows up a middle name but on the forum there's no middle name and in the beginning we had quite a high rejection rate. I believe that the rejection rate at the moment is very, very low and that's under 5 per cent. That stacks up £70,000 to two staff, the other costs, the rate that they're processing them through. That will make sense. Looking at that whole process, where is or was the bottleneck in that process? The bottleneck, there was a number of factors. One was the SYFA structure, two was the officials, three was the clubs, not pursuing the individuals to carry out the checks. I'm asking specifically on, if you look at that process for others, paper coming out at one ending in three, three or four steps and coming out at the other end, what point was holding that up? The reason I'm asking that question is to understand whether the offer of assistance from the SAFA and others was focused on the right place or not or what kind of support you needed to fix that problem. I'm assuming that wasn't your admin because I'm assuming that would be an easy place to fix it. You've mentioned that it was further upstream when you had 239 volunteers. It was the engagement between the 239 volunteers and the leagues for the setting up of meetings. That was the blockage at that particular time. Your view is that an external organisation coming in and trying to put resource in there wouldn't have helped because they wouldn't have had the local knowledge or they wouldn't have understood the process or had obtained too long to bring it up to speed or what was the reason why throwing bodies, if you like, at that part of the process wouldn't have helped. We had to re-engage with the leagues and we had to re-engage with the additional signatories. During that period, we had to encourage them to get out there and carry out the checks. During that period, there was a restructure within SYFA. Unfortunately, there was a period of time when I wasn't there and there wasn't a chain of command that has now been rectified with the appointment of an operations manager who has full powers when I'm not there. I have to say, Mr Little and my colleagues are struggling at times to follow some of the answers that you're giving us. I'm going to ask some very specific questions if you could please try and answer them very specifically. Your organisation set a deadline for completion of PVGs by 28 February. Can you tell me how many of new officials have completed their PVG by that point and how many of those requiring retrospective checks were completed by that point? Retrospective checks were completed in October 2015 when that process finished. At the moment, the backlog that existed has now been cleared. There are no outstanding PVGs in the SYFA. In respect of that backlog, there are no outstanding checks, but there are two periods, two spikes within the system. One is February. No, I'm not asking about that currently. All of the backlog checks have been done. That process has been completed and people who are not compliant have been dealt with. Currently, how many PVG checks are outstanding within your organisation? In respect of the backlog, Nell. No, how many outstanding PVG checks are there in your organisation as of today? As of today, with the new members coming in in February—we will get new members in August as well—there are 1,170 new members who have joined the SYFA in February. There are 1,170 new members who have joined the SYFA in February. Their PVGs are outstanding. There is no one else apart from the group that is joined in February. In respect of season 2017-18, yes. Are any of those 1,170 people or volunteers who are currently outstanding having contact with children? Some of them will have contact, but they will not have unrestricted access. What does that mean? It means that they have to be part of a supervised club environment, so that they can come along. The process is that a club must have fully approved officials. If they are bringing in new officials, the new official can come into the club but needs to be supervised and cannot have regular unrestricted access. Wait, wait. Regular unrestricted access or no unrestricted access? No unrestricted access. No unrestricted access, not regular. They shouldn't have access to children without supervision. The supervision is with someone who has already been through a PVG. With officials who have been fully compliant. How many officials have been placed under an automatic precautionary suspension as a result of not submitting a PVG application form? In respect of the backlog at 488. And they are in what position currently? Precautionary suspended. And what does that mean on a practical level? That means that they are completely debarred from participation in any football under the jurisdiction of SYFA. And how long were those 488 people coaching or doing whatever within SYFA before they were suspended? That would vary from official to official. And what access would they have had to children? They would have had access via supervision. Only via supervision? Yep. Even the historical ones? Yep. So at what point did SYFA stop any unrestricted access to children from people who did not have a PVG? That's been in the procedures from day one. And when was day one? 15 years ago. Could I ask Mr Lyle in reference to what Claire asked a second ago, year 30, season 17-18? Yep. Was there anything more missing there from other seasons? No, 16-17 was cleared up via the back clock. I was just wondering if that was just a turn of phrase or if there was something else. Yes. No, no, the point that I was trying to make was that the new members are in respect. We've got two different playing seasons, that's the difficulty. Miles? I think for parents I represent to learn that there's over a thousand people without PVGs being involved is something they are deeply concerned about. I think something this committee is. And I have to say this is a second occasion that we've had both organisations in front of us and I just do not get the impression that your two organisations working together to fix this. So is it fair to say there's been a total breakdown in communication in the past and that's still on-going? I think the appointment of Jennifer, the welfare officer, the wellbeing officer, sorry, have been positives. We're in dialogue in respect of that just now. I think we're in a far, far better place now than we were before. Can I comment on that? And say that for 15 years the Youth FA have operated a process. It's only in very recent times that we've become aware of issues. The PVG check, I think it's fair to say, is not an ideal process. There are areas that need to be looked at and I think the government are looking to do that as I'm aware. One of those, for example, is that if you haven't been caught, your PVG check will come up clean and you will carry on operating in the way that you do. Having identified a series of concerns, what we are now doing is putting in place processes right across the piece to make sure that all members operate consistently. There is no suggestion that there's a breakdown of communication. We have worked well together, but in terms of flaws in the system, gaps, issues that we have with the Youth FA, they've now been identified, flagged and we're informal correspondence with the Youth FA on those. And what confidence in future years do you have that this will not be another issue? That we will be sitting here next year with another 1,000 people? Well, to be fair, I think you need to understand that the new people, that is normal that any new person coming into football has to go through a check. You cannot automatically be cleared on day one and in order to make sure that the risk is mitigated, none of those people will be allowed direct access to kids unless they are with people in a supervisory capacity who've been through the PVG. So that is a normal procedure. I think it's fair to say that that isn't 100% foolproof, that supervised access. I think that's where concern does exist and I've not heard anything which suggests that's going to be recognised. I think you're absolutely right because as I said before, people who haven't been caught from inappropriate behaviour with children may be one of the supervisory people that's carrying out that work because we struggle and the PVG scheme itself doesn't capture those issues, which is why this area can't be just about the PVG check. It has to be about vigilance, it has to be about training, education, looking for other signs and signals and that's part of the process we're putting in place through the wider work that we're doing. Can I just make a comment on that? The vast majority of forums, certificates that come back are clear. As Stuart White rightly said, PVG is a bit like MOT, but what we have is a system whereby the clear ones are easy and the people who have committed heinous crimes are easy because they're not getting membership, but that way, great area that's left, we have a protection panel and the protection panel interviews potential members to discuss suitability and there's certain things that the disclosure certificate throws up that would debar people from being members. It's my understanding, SFA, ruling body for football in Scotland, so what control do you have over the SYFA? Devolved power applies, which operates and has operated in Scottish football for years. We're a member's organisation, we devolve power to run different parts of the game, whether it be youths, whether it be amateurs, whether it be women, schools and so on and so forth. The way that that's managed is through a set of articles and disciplinary rules and if we are made aware of breaches of those rules or if there are concerns raised with us, we have the power to investigate, we have the power to take action and we have a range of sanctions that are open to us to implement if a member breaks those rules. I just need to understand that. So, can you fully control the SYFA or not? Well, it's not about control, it's about actually managing and regulating the game, we're a regulatory body, we don't run youth football, that's the responsibility of the youth FA, we don't run amateur football, that's the responsibility of the amateur FA, what we do is govern and regulate through articles and rules and, you know, every one of those devolved bodies run their parts of the game and we can intervene if there are breaches. Have you, with the greatest respect, called Mr Little one to your office and said, sought this? We are in the process, as I explained at the beginning, through formal correspondence of trying to identify answers to concerns that we've raised with Mr Little on the youth FA and that is ongoing, the most recent reply was received last night. Mr Little, for the comments you've made and I've listened intently, again I have to raise, you were offered help in December, you provisionaly accepted that help, then in January you reversed that decision and said you declined that help, now I know you specified why you declined that help, but at any time have you approached Sport Scotland, SFA, Government or anyone in disclosure Scotland to say, I don't need that help, but I need other help? I would answer that on two things, one, we had meetings with the disclosure Scotland and disclosure services to discuss support packages, including training, et cetera, and that was a very positive meeting. Can I say that the link from Sport Scotland into football is via the SFA, but at a very positive meeting with the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Children and Early Learning, Mr McDonald, the Minister for Sport, I raised the concern about the interface with Sport Scotland and in correspondence I think it's come here, she has agreed that that channel will be opened up. So are you basically telling the committee now that you are willing to accept any help and all help in order to resolve, currently you're the fall guy, you know basically are you going to ask for this help, are you going to refuse the help, are you going to take the help? We will always sit down, we will always put that up, if I could just get to the actual point, we will always get involved in audit procedures, we've passed the SFA audit, we've passed the disclosure Scotland audit and that will lead to the support package which we will accept. That's not what I'm asking you, so you can do that. I'm asking you, will you accept any and all help from any organisation in order to resolve this, yes or no? Any relevant help, yes. Yes. Can I ask you, and this may be straight to the matter, do you seem to me a person who likes to have control, do you have too much control, are you vetting every paper that crosses your staff's desk or are you letting the staff get on with it? The staff have functions to perform, they get on with it. So you don't personally vet every form that comes across your desk? No, it would be physically impossible and that was why in answer to a previous question that we had to restructure because sometimes a blockage would occur if I wasn't there, so it was a case of getting the right staff in, which we now have, and getting them in and empowering them to make decisions which wasn't there before, especially during the period that I wasn't there. Okay, thanks. You said you'd passed the SFA audit, is that correct? Yes, in terms of the audit that has been carried out, as I said, year one has been a very soft touch audit, as far as implementation of policies and the implementation of initiatives across a range of governance areas. Explain to me a soft touch audit. Having a policy in place, as opposed to us going through and investigating how that policy is actually operating in practice. Extremely soft, so if you have a policy in place, tick the box. No, for year one, and it was made very clear that the governance audit has been introduced as a new initiative about 18 months ago, and because different organisations were in different places as far as their governance was concerned, what we wanted was to get everybody up to a level, and therefore the first level was to demonstrate that they had a range of policies and procedures in place that has been carried out, and all of our organisations, bar one, have actually completed that first audit. Moving forward, we then have the ability to identify gaps, and that's where we will start to look into the implementation of those procedures and policies. Could I suggest that it's a fairly low bar, that audit, that, geez, you would need to be outstandingly incompetent not to have policies in place? In terms of implementing a brand new system from scratch, what you want is to get every part of the game into the same place, and as we said previously, many of these organisations are volunteer organisations. We've helped them put in place those policies, we've helped them write, in many cases, the procedures that need to be in place, and now we're looking at the execution and the implementation of those procedures, so year one was literally getting to a level. Donald. Thank you, and good morning. Following up, the questions that Richard Lyle asked about governance and the relationship between the SFA and SYFA. If you thought there was a serious problem in asking this of the SFA, if you thought there was a serious problem with something, anything that the SYFA was doing in terms of its activities, do you have the powers to step in and, for example, suspend its activities, take some kind of control of the board or the employees within SYFA? Do you have those powers? Yes, we do, but there's a process. What you don't do is jump straight to the sanction, which would be the sanction you mentioned, which is suspension. You would follow a process, which is investigation, review, it would go through our compliance officer, it would be investigated and dealt with by an independent panel, and one of the range of options might be suspension if there was a serious breach of our articles or rules. So, as I said, we have those powers, yes, to answer the question, but there's a process to follow. Do you have a use those powers? Yes, we have. I accept that this is a how long is a piece of string question, but how long normally does that process take? It depends on the breach. If there is a breach with one of our members, it could take one or two weeks. If there is a more serious breach, it could take several months. It depends on the nature of the issue, but yes, we have a compliance officer and an independent judicial panel meeting every single week for variety of football-related and non-football-related matters. You asked about timescales. There's obviously an appeals process. You'd expect any process. There's the first hearing, an appeals process, usually heard by a judge, and then we have been judicial and reviewed by our membership in the past, and we're certainly not in control of that, but that is why we need to make sure that we follow that process absolutely properly so that we don't open ourselves up to judicial review. I accept that, but I'm actually talking about something slightly bigger than just the problem with a member. If you thought there was a real systemic issue with what one of your bodies, the SYF, failed the amateur bodies, do you have the powers to step in and basically take control? Yes, we have the power to step in in terms of take control. That is the end of the process. If there was a significant issue, but within that there could be a range of issues. If it's criminal, then it's a police matter, and clearly we would pass that matter across to the relevant authority. If it's a substantial or a serious breach of the rules, then yes, we have the ability to step in. If it's a financial failure, for example, we could step in. Given the evidence that we've heard previously, I have to say, Mr Little, I've been struggling to work out whether, as Richard Lyle says, you're the fall guy or whether your organisation is well-meaning and incompetent or whether there's something deeper, deeper problem within your organisation. Am I wrong in all three fronts there? My three options have put you. Am I wrong? I think that, yes, in respect of competence of the organisation, I think that you are wrong. I think that we always carry out due diligence. We have a very good range of skills on our boards and on our working groups, so I would certainly dispute that. I am big and ugly enough to take responsibility. During this period, most certainly my personal position caused difficulty, hence the reason that we had to restructure. I think that we've taken care of that. I don't think that there's a competence. In 2015, I went on holiday. The second day of my holiday, I was diagnosed with cancer. During 2016, I was going through chemotherapy. They discovered that I had tumors on my liver and had to go into Edinburgh, followed by further chemotherapy. At that particular time, I was out of the loop. In respect of that, that was why we had to restructure so that there was there. The answer to your first point, yes. Forgive me for asking that, but I didn't mean to have to declare public information about your health. I apologise for that. No, it was one of the major contributory factors. At that particular time, the governance before the restructure was that the lady that was the PA at that particular time was allowed out to visit me every second Wednesday for an hour and 15 minutes. I discovered during that period that it was going to be an hour and 15 minutes, because when my wife came back, that meeting was finished. That was unacceptable. I'm not being flippant here, but one of the best cuers outside the NHS is daytime television, because it enabled me to pick up a pad, especially when my wife wasn't about, and to write things down. During that period, we did restructure, and if you pardon the point, that has cured an awful lot of the ills. What is the turnover of your organisation, the financial turnover? Financially? It will be around 400,000. Any other questions that people want to raise? Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. Oh, sorry, yes, sorry. I've got one more as well that I forgot about. Obviously this morning, we've been talking about PVG, but the Health and Sport Committee's inquiry was into child protection and sport. During a previous hearing, we had the Children's Commissioner here, who raised some very serious concerns, which I think certainly do stray into the realms of child protection. I would like to hear particularly the SFA's comments on his concerns that he raised here, where he spoke about, and I'm quoting here, the overall culture remains in professional football clubs that they have control over children and young people who are in their charge. This was in regard to children and young people signing contracts to play for clubs. The use of the word control, I queried with the Children's Commissioner at that point in time, because I thought that it was particularly strong language and really did play into a power imbalance between children, their parents and professional clubs. I would like to hear what the SFA feels their role is in that, and what the SFA can do to redress that balance? I'd say that we were astonished at the Children's Commissioner's comments that suggested that the power vacuum that existed between clubs and vulnerable children somehow created an opportunity for predators, pedophiles, call it what you will, to operate. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that that's the case, and the issues that we're dealing with are historical child sex abuse issues, and that's subject to a separate independent investigation. That wasn't the issue that I think the Children's Commissioner was alluding to, and it certainly wasn't the inference that I took from the information that he gave us on that hearing. It was about a power imbalance between clubs and children because of the the contacts that they were signing and because of the conditions attached to those that were being imposed on children and young people. It's not about sexual or physical abuse, but about power imbalance, which in itself can be abusive. Certainly the language used and the inference in the correspondence suggested something different. As far as the comments you've made about the power that clubs may or may not have over children, this has been the subject of a separate committee which has been running since 2010, and the Scottish FA and the SPFL and the clubs have made a number of changes to our procedures to actually improve the situation that the Children's Commissioner refers to. The Children's Commissioner actually presented at our convention on this subject, and he was invited to come and visit a number of the academies to experience first hand what goes on in an academy and the procedure that is followed. The reference to contracts we feel is overstated. We feel that some of the concerns are overstated, and we've made those points very clearly and directly to the Children's Commissioner, and we remain in dialogue on a number of those matters as we speak. I don't know if you want to add anything to that. I think that I said it last time that we were here that I think it was children's first or NSPCC talked about making sure that we got a culture that valued the children first, and we are very conscious of that. Some of the things that we have brought in, for example, are a children's wellbeing panel so that, where there are concerns, they can be looked at from a child's perspective. We have also brought in a youth congress. We are very, very aware of the fact that football is often seen as the big committees that make decisions. We have brought in a youth congress where we have young people who are going to help us to make decisions in Scottish football, one of them is to look at governance-type issues, and to make decisions in Scottish football that take into account the views of young children. We are cognisant of the fact that we need to improve that culture, a culture that values children, and we will keep working on that. For the record, Mr Regan, can you say that you do not believe that there is a power imbalance? I do not believe that there is a power imbalance. I think that there are processes and procedures that are in place that we are explaining, and I have continued to explain to the Public Petitions Committee, and we have made changes to try and deal with some of the concerns that have been expressed. We have a difference between amateur football, professional football, and we have a pathway that is followed that is very clearly laid out for all parties. We have made changes to that pathway to allow certain players to be released within 28 days, as opposed to players' feelings or parents' feelings that their children are signed up for longer than that. We are making changes. I do not believe that there is a power imbalance now. Just the fact that you are looking to players being released within 28 days, when we are talking about children, leads me with some concerns. On a totally unrelated issue, the only reason that I am asking it is because you are here in front of us and a number of colleagues from across parties who I know have been involved in this issue. That is the issue of the release of financial information on the amount of money that the SFA makes or profits from courses that are compulsory. I know that a number of MSPs have been involved in that issue and have tried to get that information. Can I ask a straightforward question? Why would not you release that information? The Scottish FFA effectively plows all of our revenue back into the game of football. In order to operate a coaching department, a team of coaches, we simply recycle that money. Can you then provide the committee with something that is transparent that we can see that? Absolutely. I have no issue with providing information in that regard. Thank you. I thank everyone for their attendance this morning and will suspend briefly to allow the panel to leave. Agenda item 2 is an opportunity for the committee to discuss the recent fact-finding visits that took place in the sport for everyone inquiry. On Monday 27 February, members visited Glasgow and the Highlands, visits to Aviemore Primary School and the community centre at Can you see High School and the Bad Knox centre. In Glasgow, members were in Easterhouse and Drumchapel, in Easterhouse. We had a session with people who had barriers to participation in sport, and then we visited the Phoenix community centre, which was a largely self-funded operation, and then we went on to the Drumchapel community hub. The following day, in Edinburgh, we had a further session with people who were experiencing barriers to participation in sport in Morehouse, and other members attended the Spartans community football club. First of all, I would like to put on record the thanks to the people in the community who assisted us in facilitating those visits. They were very, very good visits and all the people who participated in our discussions certainly gave us a lot of food for thought. I invite comments from members so that we can put on record some of the themes that emerged from our visits for the inquiry. Who would like to go first? I attended Aviemore, and can you see, along with Miles Briggs and Marie Todd, and I would like to put on record my thanks to the clerks for organising it, but also the organisations that we met, High Life Highland and those who worked in the community sports hub, Aviemore primary school and Can You See High School. Various issues emerged, and I don't want to take up too much time, but I think that there is an issue about the transferability of sports participation in a rural setting where community identities are perhaps stronger than they might be in a very urban area and the extent to which the great work that we saw in the Highland region could actually be transferred into, as I say, a very metropolitan urban setting. The other point that I would make is that if there is pressure, which there is on funding, it struck me very much that we should emphasise participation over elite sports and high performance. The clubs that we spoke to said that it is more important to get people involved, and we as clubs will pick up the high performance in due course as they come through the system. I think that that is an important point to make. The other point is that I do not know whether that was reflected at Easterhouse, but there are obviously some very key individuals on whom a lot sits. For instance, we saw the community sports hub officers who worked for High Life Highland are absolutely instrumental in keeping all the balls in the areas that they were. Again, I hope that, if there are funding pressures, the powers that be recognise the importance of these individuals, because I think that a lot, especially when you are talking about volunteers and a lot of organisations that rely on volunteers, how important these individuals are. Anyway, that is enough for me. Okay. Anyone else? Marie? Actually, the guys up in Kengisi and Avymor were very keen to highlight how hard they work on making it happen. I think that we were all struck by how great the co-operation was between clubs and the local authority and education and health. It was really quite impressive. I think that they were saying that there were some things. I think that, regularly, it is put back to them that you could not do this down in the central belt. It is easy for you guys in the Highlands. I think that that under-acknowledges how hard they work at it. I think that they were saying that there were some things that could be done very easily in every school in Scotland. For example, in Kengisi, they had this sports day and they invited all the local clubs in to give everyone a taster of the different sports available in the area. Every school in Scotland could do that if they had the will. One of the things that made the difference up in Kengisi, in terms of providing the will, was that the headmaster very clearly recognised the importance of sport participation in attainment and valued it. I think that that could happen in any school in Scotland. John Swinney said that the passion that we saw from every single person that we met was fantastic just to see how they had been driving that, particularly the two community sport hubs officers who kept being referred to as the glue that was holding all this together. I think that there was a real concern that if there were to be any budget restraints in the future, they might be under pressure to go. That is where all the good work could potentially be under jeopardy. The youth leaders were also something that I was hugely impressed with. All three of us tried line dancing to varying degrees of success, but the youth leaders that they had were providing classes that the children were getting more out of because they were young people leading those. I think that that is a real opportunity for all schools across Scotland to be able to increase the amount of exercise going on during the school day. I hope that that is something on the Spartans' visit, which we did. I think that there are lots of issues around this in the future, around what happens to children when they are not at school during the summer months. One of the biggest issues that I took away from that was the holiday hunger, which often takes place. The access to facilities is not being there and whether or not the school estate should be open during the summer to provide for that. Things like that should be looking to take forward as well. I attended the visit to Muirhouse Millennium Centre, which happens to be in my constituency. We met a number of local residents who are self-declared, not engaged in sport in any way. We were trying to unpack over a series of discussions with those residents what it was that was the barrier. I am sure that I speak for other colleagues who were at the visit who were quite surprised that what came out certainly in my discussions and I know in other discussions was that the big inhibiting barrier was in fact embarrassment above all other things. I was expecting the cost or availability or inconvenience, things like that. Time and again, more than a handful of the people I spoke to were citing embarrassment as the key inhibitor for them getting involved, which I thought was very telling. I wondered if perhaps that would change the approach that we took and if there was a way that we could distill and drill down into that particular barrier. Alison Johnstone Yes, there was a woman that I heard from in the Easter house the first session, where we met those who were probably furthest away from taking part and she said that, just the feeling that you had to put on a full face of make-up in your best lycra and get yourself into that gym where everyone was staring at everyone else, so she would prefer something more relaxed. I think that first session, I did feel that those people had real barriers. Some of the ones that we hear time and time again cost time, but one that I hadn't heard previously was people who were concerned about hurting or injuring themselves and then missing work because of it. That was a new one to me. They were very concerned that they wouldn't then be able to access any physiotherapy that they could be out of action for months. It was the first time that I'd heard that one. I think that group had real difficulty engaging. There was a man who had epilepsy and arthritis, but he was able to play snooker and pool. The whole social side there perhaps is massively important. The rest of the day, I think that the thing that struck me, we went on to visit the next chap in Easter house. He felt like a lone ranger to me, but I couldn't decide either if he actually wanted help or if he was slightly resistant. I don't know what others thought of that. Neil and I played table tennis, by the way. I couldn't decide if there was a reluctance there just because he'd put so much into it and he didn't want it to be spoiled or lost. Then we saw the traditional community club in the afternoon, which I thought was really impressive. When I've met Terry, the table tennis player before. Again, I think that we've got real characters in these situations. You know, it all does seem to hinge around one person, and if they weren't there, it would be interesting to see what happens. Support is clearly needed. The gentleman at the Phoenix Centre in Easter house was a remarkable man in terms of his drive and his energy. He had single-handedly driven that whole project to the stage where it's just about to come to absolute fruition and be a centre where, as you were saying, Miles, that is open and accessible outside of school years. He really does have to be commended for the amount of work that he's done. I found that the conversation earlier on in Easter house about difficulties accessing sport was fascinating. I heard some differing views about why it was difficult to access. People were talking about it, but perhaps if they had a buddy that went with them, they would feel more reassured going into a gym or a sports centre that they had not accessed before. It was quite daunting to get into that environment. As regards the afternoon at Drunch Apple Sports Hub, one of the link workers from the deep end GP practices had started up a group in that GP practice, which had been to help particularly at that point in time women who were suffering from mild to moderate depression, agrophobia, anxiety, who weren't getting out of the house and weren't socialising, and a group which they then set in the sports hub, but not with a sports focus to get those ladies into a group setting and to try and encourage them to talk about their problems and their issues and to socialise. That then has grown into a tennis club, which spoke about with such enthusiasm how this had been such a motivating factor to help them to get back on to their feet, get back out and be engaged with society and reduce their contact with health services because they were accessing sport and socialisation. There are real lessons there to be learned, particularly as the roll-out of link workers goes on through the country over the next few years about how some of those roles can be utilised. The visits to Glasgow came up with a number of things. There are a whole list of issues around people's lifestyle and people who are just too busy to try to make ends meet and have spare cash to go and spend on leisure activities, whether it's for them or their families. A lot of health issues, cost issues, social isolation gender issues and transport and wider societal issues around housing, environment, territorialism, all those social issues came up as well. I think that about the individual anchor people is key. You could see how if one or two people within some of these organisations fell under a bus, they might wobble to the point of falling over. Hopefully not because some of them have lots of individuals there who hopefully would take up the baton, but that is a concern. I think that will be repeated across the country in a number of these organisations. The issue that came forward, particularly at Drumchappell, was the social aspect of it, about belonging to something and not necessarily wanting to be the next Andy Murray or whatever, but just being part of something and enjoying, even watching sport taking place and being amongst young people and older people was quite a significant thing there. One thing that struck me was the very strong relationship that they have with Glasgow, particularly with Glasgow Life. That came across with our sports coaches, their active schools co-ordinators. They seemed to be really good and I think that's kind of what you were saying about Highland as well, that that's good but that links in, of course, to one of the issues that they were raising repeatedly was about the whole issue of funding, local government funding, where there's partnerships with local government and that is getting more precarious. That was my observations in two minutes. Just what you said there Neil, one of the things that they were doing in the Highlands to maximise what they got for their money, which they were saying could also happen all around the country, was using these young leaders to deliver sports and courses and things like that. So the children at the higher level in school were getting a chance to take on a leadership role, they were getting accreditation for the work that they were doing and providing essentially a free resource to the organisation in terms of delivering classes. They were being incredibly innovative and when we saw from the written evidence a couple of weeks ago, it's young kids from school who are delivering dance courses by VC to islands, it's incredible. They're facing the same resource challenges but they're doing something really creative with it up north. Okay, we've captured lots of information from the visits as well so it was just really to reflect on some of the themes that came forward but it was certainly helpful to inform our work and we'll continue with that over the next few weeks. Okay, as agreed, we'll now move on to private session.