 Good morning, and welcome to the 11th meeting of 2023 in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. This morning, we have received apologies from Karen Adam. Agenda item 1 is the agreement to consider evidence in private at 9.45. Our first agenda item is to agree to take item 5, which is consideration of today's evidence in private. Are we all agreed? And moving on to agenda item 2 is to take evidence on two affirmative statutory instruments. These are the first tier tribunal for Scotland general regulatory chamber, an upper tribunal for Scotland, composition and rules of procedure, miscellaneous amendment regulations 2023 draft, and the first tier tribunal for Scotland allocation of funds to the general regulatory chamber regulations 2023 draft. I refer members to paper 1 and welcome to the meeting. Siobhan Brown, Minister for Victims, Community Safety, is accompanied by Marcus Tarmers, who is the senior policy officer, and Emma Thompson, solicitor, legal directorate of the Scottish Government. I recognise that this is the first appearance of the minister before this committee since her appointment. Welcome, minister, and please can I invite you to speak to the instrument before us. Thank you, convener, and good morning committee. This suite of two regulations will expand the functions of the first tier tribunal for Scotland general regulatory chamber to include hearing appeals against decisions of a local authority to issue penalty charge notices in relation to the low emission zone scheme, workplace parking licensing scheme and drop footway parking, double parking and pavement parking prohibitions. They will also amend the chamber's composition and procedure rules to include these appeals. The Scottish tribunal structure was created by the Tribunals Scotland Act 2014, which introduced a new simplified statutory framework for tribunals in Scotland. It consists of the first tier tribunal and the upper tribunal. The Transport Scotland Act 2019 provides legislation enabling the creation of low emission zones, workplace parking schemes and the new parking prohibitions. The act allows for the civil enforcement of all by the local authorities. The route of appeal against local authority penalty charge notices for each of those is in the first tier tribunal. The first instrument before you is the first tier tribunal for Scotland allocation of functions to the general regulatory chamber regulations 2023. Those regulations provide for an allocation of the appeal functions mentioned in the general regulatory chamber for the first tier tribunal. The second of those regulations is the first tier of tribunal for Scotland general regulatory chamber and upper tribunal for Scotland composition and rules of procedure miscellaneous amendment regulations 2023. Those regulations amend existing regulations that make provision in relation to the rules of procedure of the general regulatory chamber when hearing parking and bus lane appeals. Those rules of procedure will apply with modifications to appeals against decisions of the local authority to issue penalty charges notices relating to the new low emission zone scheme, workplace parking schemes and the new parking prohibitions. The rules will now refer to transport appeals to include all new and existing appeals. Those regulations also amend the existing composition regulations for the general regulatory chamber when hearing parking and bus lane appeals. That provides for the new appeals to be heard by a legal member alone in the first tier tribunal, as in the case with the parking and bus lane appeal. The Scottish tribunals will be able to hear such appeals as of 1 June 2023. It is the case that these two instruments play a part in enabling the general regulatory chamber to hear those new appeals. I understand that the DPLR committee considered those regulations on 28 March and there were no points raised. I am happy to answer any questions from the committee. Can I just say on a personal level and a professional that I am pleased to see this come before, because it was in fact the pavement parking bill that was introduced by my predecessor Sandra White during her time. I am sure that she will be delighted to see that this is coming to fruition. No other member of the committee has indicated that they wish to ask any questions or make any comments, so we will move straight to agenda item 3, which is the formal business in relation to the instruments. Agenda item 3 is consideration of the motions for approval of the affirmative instruments. I invite the minister to move motions S6M-08337 and S6M-08338. Do members have any final comments? If not, are we all agreed? I invite the committee to agree to delegate to me the publication of a short factual report on our deliberations of the affirmative SSIs that we have considered today. Are we all agreed? That completes the consideration of the affirmative instruments. I thank the minister and her officials for attending, and we shall pause briefly before moving on to the next agenda item. Our next item of business is continuation of evidence on asylum seekers in Scotland. We will take evidence from two panels this morning, and I welcome our first panel, Brona Andrew, who is the operations manager at TARA, who stands for Trafficking, Awareness, Raising Alliance. Welcome. Superintendent Claire Dobson, Partnerships Prevention, Community Wellbeing Division, and Chief Inspector Elaine Thomson, Safer Communities Team, Greater Glasgow Division Police Scotland. You are all very welcome. To members, I refer you to papers 2 and 3. After they have made their opening statements, I will invite each of you to do your line of questioning. Prior to that, could I ask Brona if you would like to go first? I am pleased that I have been asked to join the panel this morning and to see the letter from our lived experience group included in your papers. TARA has been providing government-funded support to women survivors of sex trafficking since 2005, and we have witnessed the evolution of our collective response to trafficking for nearly 20 years. I will speak to that experience and the vulnerability of women, but many of our concerns will be shared for men and children. The Nationality and Borders Act brought significant and concerning changes to our current process for identifying and protecting victims, but we are shocked at the wholesale dismantling of the vital and life-saving support for survivors being proposed by the illegal migration bill. During 2021 and 2022, we supported 156 individual women of whom 138 were seeking asylum over and documented at the point of referral to our service. It is probable that, had the illegal migration bill been in place, those women would not have been able to access our support. Indeed, we considered the removal of support to only benefit human traffickers and perpetrators of abuse, as the removal of protections for those 138 vulnerable women would have meant that the remains sexually exploited generated approximately £36 million over a two-year period from the Scottish sex industry for the traffickers. We are also of the view that the current increased normalisation of hotels to accommodate those seeking asylum will create a ready-made group of vulnerable women easily accessed by traffickers. Such groups of already traumatised women experiencing poverty, uncertainty and isolation are acutely vulnerable to traffickers, and we already have many women in our service who were accommodated in hotels elsewhere in the UK, who were then approached by traffickers and sexually exploited throughout the UK. The UK was considered to be a global leader in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation, with the support provided in Scotland, although not perfect, considered to be ahead of the curve. That could no longer help to be the case. My name is Claire Dobson and I am a superintendent in Police Scotland's partnership prevention and community wellbeing division. Police Scotland is a values-based organisation with human rights at the centre of all that we do and we are committed to working with our communities. ACC David Duncan has recently been appointed to drive the policing together portfolio demonstrating our commitment in the area of equality, diversity and inclusion. My division has a national focus and part of that work involves the monitoring of community tensions and matters locally and nationally that impact on our communities. Where we see tensions, we work to support communities as well as our colleagues in local policing divisions to provide that support. Police Scotland is committed to working with asylum-seeker communities in supporting and promoting community wellbeing. We do that in a number of ways. As I stated, we monitor community tensions and assess the impacts on our communities via community impact assessment tool. Those can be monitored locally and nationally. We have a number of community advisers representing different communities and regular on-going engagement with them. We have a national independent strategic advisory group and a number of professional reference groups as well as policing together independent review group. We deliver training to and have a number of hate crime champions across the country as well as hate crime advisers. Where there is a significant incident or operation, we have the ability to operate a community reassurance cell to monitor and manage community tensions. We also regularly engage with our partners nationally. We seek to increase awareness of behaviours that constitute hate crime. As can be seen from our recent campaign, don't feed the hate monster and seek to encourage people to report hate crime to us and also how they can do that such as via third party reporting centres. And where hate crime is reported, we will carry out thorough and robust investigations. We work closely with our colleagues of local policing who engage directly with asylum seekers on a daily basis and listen to their lived and living experiences. Our officers carry out a vital role locally in supporting our communities and the operational environment that my colleague can provide an update on. Good morning everyone. I am Elaine Tomlinson, chief inspector for partnerships and safer communities in the Greater Glasgow division of local policing of Police Scotland. Thank you so much for this invite to be here this morning and we are absolutely honoured to be here representing the voice of local policing. My role concentrates on continually enhancing collaborative work in Greater Glasgow division. We accept that we can't do everything on our own and partnership working is beneficial to us all. I hope this morning to provide you with an overview of the challenges and best practices in local policing, while also providing you with a broader awareness of the national situation involving the current asylum seeking process. The officers involved in numerous departments, numerous partners involved and most importantly the vulnerable people who are seeking asylum in Scotland. None of us can ever lose sight that families and individuals seeking asylum have been forced to flee their homes and their countries to evade the horrors that we can never ever imagine. Leaving behind their homes, their jobs, their loved ones in the hope of finding the basic privilege of safety. Police Scotland's legislative purpose is to improve the safety and wellbeing of people, places and communities. We work to the laws of the country considering all the threats and risks and we police that accordingly. In Greater Glasgow division we have developed a public health approach to policing which is a vision to ensure our approach and processes better support of public health partners to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone in our communities. That approach has applied to all the areas of our policing, not least engagement and interaction with the vulnerable people that we are discussing today, our asylum seekers. We ensure that we work collaboratively with our relative partners in an attempt to reduce the trauma, the fear and the anxiety faced by those people. Every person has the right to seek asylum in the UK and the current process requires each person to attend home office or migrant help to conduct a screening interview to collect the basic information about their identity and their journey to be here in Scotland. That is done by obtaining biometric details such as fingerprints, a process that was convened by the Refugee Convention of 1971. I hope through discussions today that I will give you an outline of the process through the eyes of our officers and also through the vulnerable people seeking asylum to provide you all with a greater understanding of improvement and best practices. Thank you again for this absolute privilege to be here today and we would welcome the opportunity to be involved in any subsequent task and finish or working groups that may be created to help in the advance of finding some of these funding, some of these sessions. Collaborately we realise there's still more work we can all do together and through shared learning we can enhance that current work. Thank you for your time. Thank you to all three of you for your opening statements. I'll kick us off about legislative context but just with an opening question and then I think my colleagues Pam and Rachel are interested in the impact of the bill so they'll come in very quickly after me. The Scottish Government has said that the bill would amend the powers and duties of Scottish ministers to provide support and assistance to victims and potential victims under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act 2015. However, the committee has also heard concerns that the bill would exacerbate exploitation and trafficking in Scotland. As an opening question to get us going, how are victims of human trafficking and exploitation currently supported in Scotland and do you think that the bill will make their situation worse? At the moment, the Scottish Government funds TARA to provide specialist support to adult women traffic for sexual exploitation and it also funds our colleagues and migrant help to provide similar supports aimed at adult men and women traffic for other forms of exploitation. That support includes access to temporary safe accommodation, early legal advice, access to health services and of course access to psychological assessment and treatment and I know you're going to hear from my colleague Nina later on today. That support is available for TARA to women at the point of need. Women don't need to have been entered into the national referral mechanism at that point. They can come into our service if there are concerns or indicators of human trafficking. Our support is available 24-7 and is wraparound and is very much led by the women and is very much trauma informed. That is the support at the moment. We are given a great deal of autonomy around assessment of need and the length of support that is provided, so we are significantly concerned at the proposals within the Illegal Migration Bill to supply the Scottish Government's powers to provide that support on the ground. Can you expand a little bit about your last sentence there? I'm concerned at the moment on the face of what I've proposed within the Illegal Migration Bill is that there will be notability for TARA or equivalent services to reassure women of their protection. That is almost a disincentive for survivors to come forward to ask for help. What we know and what we've learned over the 20 years that I've been involved with TARA is that women are very wary of those in authority and I include our service within that. Quite often traffickers have told women that they are here illegally, they will either be imprisoned or they will be deported immediately if they come forward for support. At the moment, we are able to provide reassurance that that isn't the case, that with legal advice access to the NRM that there is a degree of protection. If the bill is enacted as it is now, we will no longer be able to offer those reassurance, so there's a clear disincentive for survivors to come forward to services like ourselves to look for support, and that will have a knock-on effect and that we can't then link them into our colleagues in Police Scotland and support those women to access justice. Thanks for clarifying that very important to get that on record. Can I get a view from, I'm wondering whether either both, or either Claire or Elaine, which one would be best to take it Claire? I suggest that Elaine could take the support question and I can cover the potential impacts of the bill. In relation to the support that Brona has mentioned, we have engagement currently in Glasgow and in other areas where we have asylum seekers, where we are engaging constantly with asylum seekers and the vulnerable families, making them aware of the police. We are very, very aware when they are coming from other countries that they are potentially fearful of the police because of the culture in their country. It's about us engaging with those people to make them aware that we are completely different policing at their respect, and we will engage with them to look after them and protect them, slightly different from what they may be seeing in their own countries. We have to engage to get the buy-in from them that they will work with us. We continue to do that through meetings at the hotels. We now meet them at community engagement events. We are fully embedded in numerous engagements in Glasgow and across the different areas of the country where we have asylum seekers, so we are assured that we are providing that reassurance to them. Obviously, with any new piece of legislation, we would review it to understand what the impacts might be on changes in relation to how we uphold on how we manage that. From a policing perspective, the changes to the bill mean that, potentially due to the reduced timescales, we are committed to trauma-informed policing in that education and making sure that we get the absolute best evidence from an individual. Sometimes that takes a little bit of time, and it takes certain approaches. There is a concern that there is a specific and set timescale that is shortened where an individual may be having to navigate more than one process at one time, so that we may not get the best evidence in terms of the offence, if you like. They may then engage with the system equally as well at the moment, although sleeve-to-remain is not a guarantee of the process that is certainly engaging with the ANRM. Ultimately, they can be given the time at the moment to work through that process, and they will be given support by services through TARA and other organisations and agencies to have the time and space as the investigation progresses and to work through that. Given the changes, there is the potential for victims to be less likely to engage in the ANRM process and to bring themselves forward for the fear that they would then be potentially deported within the 30 days. There is the potential that we may see a fall in engagement with the ANRM and an increase in duty to notify from organisations. Lastly, to mention potential impacts, if we find that people are less likely to engage in the ANRM process and with support services, it could potentially risk the fostering of human trafficking in exploitation conditions, where potential victims could potentially stay in those sectors and stay in those hidden areas of the economy where they are exploited. For example, there are agricultural areas where we have a lack of food production workers and areas that are hidden in the economy because they might not feel that they can come forward. As I say, that is probably the last one that I would cover today. Last week, when I asked about trafficking and exploitation, I was told too often that times happen that victims do not want to deal with the police. First and since sometimes they would go to be supported by a third sector, it might be a joined up approach that you are working on with the police Scotland and third sector. My question is around what sort of partnership working do you undertake with the third sector in this area? Do you foresee any changes or improvements to be made in the future? My question starts off with Elaine, because Elaine, you mentioned the trust and being a woman of being background. I understand that being in other countries, my mother and everything, the trust with police is very less. When you mentioned that, that was something that I definitely resonated with. Also, to add to that, is there a language barrier as well? Absolutely, happy to come in there, convener. Pam, thank you for those questions. The engagement, as I have already mentioned, is that we have to deal with those vulnerable people and make them trust us almost. It is bringing that trust in because they have come from countries where the police have a completely different policing style and we have to engage with them and make them understand the policing style that we have, the approach that we have. We work really closely with our third sector partners and we are really proud of that. They are the golden nuggets of doing the work with us. We also have third party reporting centres, which you might be aware of now, so there are 400 over Scotland and over 50 in Glasgow. That figure is continuing to grow as we engage with more businesses and organisations who want to be involved in that. We have the high street coffee shops now wanting to be involved in it, which is fantastic. The opportunity there is for those ladies, if they still do not have that full trust in Police Scotland, we are able to engage with them and tell them to attend at the third party reporting centres to report the matters where we have trained the staff there who can report it back to the police. There is always an option to come to us and we will absolutely continue our engagement with our partners. We cannot do it alone and we do accept that. I am happy to answer any other questions. Just on that, Elaine, is there any change or improvement where the Scottish Government can help a little bit more? Do you think that there is a change from when you started supporting to now the fact that you have reached out to 400 third party places as well? Do you think that change is happening and what can improve? Absolutely. The change is our learning. It is our understanding that people will not always want to come to the police and they can come to us via those other measures. We are absolutely getting them to engage with us, but not directly. They are fearful of coming to a police office, they are fearful of talking to a police officer. We will continue to break down those barriers, but if we cannot break those barriers down, they have got the third party reporting centres to come to. Our plea would be that we continue to have more of them across Scotland and we are continuing to train more staff. That is resource intensive for us, but it is absolutely vital to Police Scotland, so your support would be absolutely beneficial to us. I come in from experience for Tara with trafficking. Quite often we have women referred to us who are very reluctant and weary to speak to the police, but we are able to provide them with space and time, to provide them with information about what it would mean to engage with the police and give them options around meeting colleagues within Greater Glasgow's human trafficking unit, just to provide an intelligent statement or whether they wish to make a formal complaint. We found with that time and space and that approach on working closely with our police colleagues that the majority of women are willing to then speak to the police formally and tell them about their experience. A good example of how partnership working is really important was with operation altercation. The court case early last year where I think it was four human traffickers were found guilty of trafficking offences in Scotland. Tara worked very closely with our colleagues in the Greater Glasgow human trafficking unit and our colleagues in the Crown Office victim service to support two vulnerable women to give evidence. Given the length of time it can take from reporting through to the court cases happening, that was a significant period of time. If it was not for close partnership working, I do not believe that those witnesses would have remained engaged in the service because they were both acutely vulnerable and one in particular I think may have disengaged. The ability to have that time and space and that close partnership working with Police Scotland reaps benefits in that traffickers are found guilty and punished for their crime and women achieve justice. We have two victim navigators as well that work are embedded within our human trafficking unit and they provide support to victims in terms of translators and in terms of working with Tara. They have a national remit so that they can be used around the country. I would say as well that nationally we are doing work, I note some of your comments as well, supporting individuals in and around trying to encourage people with third party reporting. There is a lot of work on going on within the local policing division, but nationally we have supported Scottish Government in some of that work, but nationally what we are looking to do is trying to improve that service because we understand actually that that is going to be key in terms of people feeling safe and coming forward. We want to fully support that and expand it as much as we can and work with individuals. We are also doing a lot of work in the BAME community as well in terms of the chief constable's commitments to become an anti-racist organisation. We have collectively, as a national division, we often support local policing divisions, so Elaine and I have done some work recently in and around the African community. From a national perspective, we have worked nationally across Lothian and the Scottish borders and up in Fife. We are engaged in trying to support all of that as well. I want to say that that is a great initiative that you put 400 places out there and people want to add to it because I am dealing with domestic abuse and things like that. It is important that those people out there can get that support, walking into a coffee place or anything so great initiative. Confinir, just one final point you mentioned about language barriers. We have had the new Scots law brochure translated into 10 different languages. When we have asylum seekers presenting at the hotels in Glasgow, we are presenting it to them in the language that they most understand, which has been absolutely vital to let them understand. It breaks down policing, it breaks down basic Scottish law and it gives them a greater understanding of living in Glasgow in the surrounding areas. I have forgotten to mention that. Thank you for that information. Thank you. I have a colleague who is going to go further into language, so we will come back to that. Rachel, is there anything else that you wanted to ask about this particular area? First of all, the human trafficking statement. There is not a statement, but the strategy in 2017 is quite a while ago that that was put into this domain. I just wondered whether there could be some development on that. There is not a statement as such in terms of modern slavery. There have been calls for that, so there have been Covid backlogs with caught backlogs. First of all, I want to ask Police Scotland around the preventative strategy. We know that there are human traffickers bringing women into Scotland with the promise of employment. You mentioned meeting some of the employment gaps that you mentioned on farms. Is there a preventative strategy to allow employers to understand that that is happening and to look out for the signs? Secondly, on the point around the caught backlogs, what is the percentage of the successful prosecutions? I will see that human trafficking cases are very complex as well. Are women being trafficked aware of the backlog and does that put them off as well? There are two lots of questions there. In terms of preventative strategy, the national division is looking at creating a preventative strategy across the organisation. We do a lot of prevention work and a lot of that prevention work is day-to-day work in and out of the hotels and directly with the asylum seekers that Elaine could cover better than me. In terms of specifically a prevention strategy for human trafficking, we are committed to the strategy that was set out in 2017. We have a dedicated human trafficking unit that does all that work. To give you more detail on the work that they were doing, I would have to get that information and be able to present it back to the committee, because that is certainly not the area that I cover within the organisation. I could certainly get that information for you. In terms of the percentage of prosecutions, that would have to be provided by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, in terms of their figures and what is reported and what comes through in relation to that. Ultimately, we are committed to having those conversations as part, obviously, of one of the strands of the human trafficking strategy specifically about that information out to businesses and about that prevention and that knowledge gap and how we actually get out there. We are very keen to engage through our partners in terms of providing and getting information out there. As Elaine said, we are keen to get translation strategies and other documents translated. We were involved in the safer communities aspect of the new Scottish strategy in terms of some of that content. We are aware that that is an area that we want to be in. That would be great if you could provide those figures. As I understand it, there has been very little progress in terms of prosecution since 2019 and, in 2019, the number of human trafficking cases has increased by 50 per cent. I am very interested in the preventative element of that, rather than letting women go through the terrible trauma that they are going through. I will bring you in on the hugely complicated cases, as you can probably imagine, in terms of investigation. They are quite lengthy cases and they can sometimes span obviously more than one country, essentially as well, so that probably will build in specific delays as well. However, in relation to the prevention strategy and the prosecution figures, we can certainly get that information. On the point about women being put off by, I do not even know if they would realise the extent of the backlog. Just to concur with Clare, our experiences as human trafficking cases and investigations are hugely complex and detailed. We would expect them to take a period of time, particularly when police are taking a trauma-informed approach and working at the pace of the survivor in that. I have to be honest and say that I do not think that women are aware of that. They are not aware of our processes. We have supported women who have not even understood they were in Scotland. Never mind understood how our criminal justice system and processes work. That is part of our job and it is part of the role of Police Scotland and independent legal advice to provide women with that context and information. I can tell you that women seek justice and those who are going through that process, although they might be frustrated. At the delay, that frustration is around the trauma that they experience and the fact that they want to tell their story, they want to give their evidence and then they want to move on with their life. The frustration and anxiety are around the ability to provide and tell their story to the court. I would say that on the whole, women barely understand who Tara is and what our role is. Never mind understanding what it needs to give to begin that process in the court backlogs. I am going to move on to Maggie. She is online today. I want to explore a couple of questions around the use of hotels and how they either support or do not support the important work that you are needing to do. Brona, if I can come to you first, you mentioned in your opening remarks that one of Tara's concerns is that hotels provide a very ready-made place for traffickers to go and target vulnerable people. Could you say just a little bit more about that, how you have seen that function, if you have seen that work in Scotland and particularly looking ahead as we are letting you see the use of more hotels across Scotland, how you see that changing the nature of the work that you have to do? I can try. Tara, our support provides safe accommodation for a short-term basis. We then ensure that women are able to access independent legal advice and if women wish to do so, we will support them to make a claim for asylum and then we will support them to move on into that asylum support process. In order to do that and mitigate that, we have regular monthly meetings with our colleagues in Migrant Health's Asylum Health team mirrors to try to troubleshoot and plan for women. Historically, that has meant that please do not locator in this part of the city because exploitation happened there. Could you locator elsewhere and to look at that need? Now the concern is the move and women would move from our accommodation frequently into community accommodation. Our concern now is women being moved into hotels. Unfortunately, hotels are easily identifiable. If I was a perpetrator, I would know where to go. Women struggle within hotels for isolation, poverty and lots of reasons. At that point, women are acutely vulnerable to traffickers grooming them and saying that they are telling lies or grooming them to believe them and go with them. We are concerned. For Tara, we are able to mitigate that because when women go in and move on from our accommodation, we continue to provide them with support. That support is robust and dependent on need. We are able to maintain close contacts with women, which can act as a protective factor, but that is only for the women who are identified and being supported by Tara. There are women in hotels who are not accessing support, who are not being identified as having been trafficked or who are not being trafficked at this moment but are vulnerable to traffickers coming with lies to tell them to leave with them. They will have a better chance of life with them and then exploitation occurs. We certainly have experienced that. We have a number of women who were accommodated in asylum hotels in England, who were then groomed and approached by traffickers, sexually exploited throughout the UK and recovered in Scotland. You paint a pretty bleak picture there. Are you concerned that, as we start seeing hotels become institutionalised and the hotel accommodation being used for prolonged periods of times—months, if not years—in some areas, the issue is going to be exacerbated? I think so. The feedback that we have from women who are in hotels is that they find it very isolating and feel quite restricted in their freedom. They struggle with things like basics and feeding themselves. Quite often, our team provides women with rice cookers and an effort to help them to look after themselves. Women come to us and their health is poor and they have not been well fed. Nutrition is an issue. A big part of our role is to try to support those women to feel safe, to look after themselves and begin to get physically well. They are then able to take on the challenges of recovery and moving forward. Hotels in the short term are difficult enough but, in the long term, we are really concerned that women will not be able to begin to move through their trauma and begin to envisage a life of hope and stability where they can make a difference for themselves and, in some cases, their children. Thanks for that, Brona. I think that we have heard before that the nature of hotel accommodation not being one that is conducive to trauma recovery at all. It is important that you highlight that. My final question for you, Brona, is just around the relationship that Tyra has with Miers, as she is the hotel manager in Scotland. How have you found your relationship with Miers that the regular engagement meetings that you have with them, are you able to identify issues early on or are Miers receptive to the kinds of requests that you make of them around transferring particularly vulnerable people? How would you describe that relationship with Miers? We probably have a very good relationship with Miers. We are very sympathetic to our approaches. That has been based on the regular monthly health and housing multi-agency conference where we all get round the table and issues are identified as an opportunity to troubleshoot. We all take on actions in order, so the women are very much at the centre of that. Because of that, we have certainly been able to have a positive working relationship with Miers within the context of what is becoming increasingly restrictive. Does that make sense? Okay. Thanks very much for that, Brona. I know that that does make sense. If I could move on to Police Scotland clearly, and I am not sure which of you wants to take these questions, but there are very similar questions around the partnership working and that multi-agency engagement that Brona has spoken about. You have mentioned how your engagement with Miers is. What kind of notice do you get from them when new hotels are going to start being used for asylum seekers? How would you describe your partnership working your relationship with them? I would say that, at a national level, we are involved in broader national meetings, essentially, in and around Coslett and with Miers. We also support the local police and divisions, so each local police and division where there is a hotel, there are structures in place and there is a strong partnership link, so there are discussions with local authorities, with Miers and with other health and social care partnerships around the table. So there is a lot of discussion in terms of that delivery, what supports in place and where there is support that is potentially lacking, that Miers can come to the table, have those discussions and have that understanding. That probably looks just slightly differently around the country because we are dealing with different local authorities around the country, so localised structures and local authority structures might be slightly different, but Elaine Cynpo will probably give a bit more information from a divisional perspective, but there are divisions, divisionally with the hotels or lesons specifically with local police and local authority. There are briefings for local councillors and there are briefings for community and there is work done in the community as well in terms of integration, so there is a lot of discussion and a lot of communication on-going, so that is probably a broad overview from a national perspective, but obviously Elaine Cynpo can give you it from a local policing division perspective on how that looks. Yes, Elaine, if you would. I suppose particularly that I am interested in the hotel connection and the information that you get, the information that you need around that. Absolutely, I can cover that from a Glasgow perspective and a local policing perspective. So, in Greater Glasgow division, we were the first division in Police Scotland to have an asylum seeker liaison officer who was predominantly dealing directly with Mears and linked in with Mears and attends the delivery and procurement meeting. Cozla go to that with the council Mears and ourselves, we all go along to that meeting and we discuss all matters relating to the hotels and we also have our internal partnership working with our own human trafficking team that Bronas mentioned and obviously linking in with Tara as well. So, we have those meetings there and we have the time and space to discuss any concerns that we have with the hotels and we can assist with any developments moving forward. You mentioned notice periods. The notice period has always been sufficient for our senior management team and the Mears head of operations to introduce any plans and local concerns before we take anything further. As I previously mentioned in my presentation, we have the engagement with the hotels through our local, through the asylum seeking liaison officer but more importantly through our community policing officers who go into the hotels. The other safety element we have is where we have to educate the staff and give them an awareness of the asylum seekers and the vulnerabilities that they have and we fully engage with them and embedded with that work there that they have a much greater awareness and they will report any matters to us. I hope that that answers your question. Maggie, if there is anything else, let me know. Thanks Elaine, that's really helpful and good to have that fleshed out like that. I suppose I've got another question still focused on hotel use but thinking about how you engage with local communities and when a hotel has either been newly identified or has been in use for asylum seekers for some time, how is it that you feel community relations and the engagement that you have responsibility for? How do you feel that goes and are there things that we need to be thinking about given the changes that could come in with the new legislation? With how we engage with local communities where hotels are in use? I'll come back in there from a Glasgow perspective and other local policing areas. We're fully engaged and we will continue to be engaged and we're also mindful of the community tensions that can be in our local communities where we've already got engagement and we need to work with our local communities explaining the situation to them, understanding them and it's about listening and listening properly to people's concerns and making sure that we're taking everyone's concerns into consideration when we put plans in place and then we link back in and have our collaboration opportunities to link in and raise our concerns and issues and through our collaborative work we can reach the most the most agreeable solution for all parties concerned so we do continually engage with the communities at a local level and then again a national level through Clare's team so we do have that covered Maggie, thank you. I suppose to link to that in the same way as hotels might be a target site for traffickers and people who want to exploit the vulnerable as the silence seek is do you also have the view that hotels can be a site for targeting by far right extremists? You know we've seen what's happened in Erskine for instance, do you have a concern around that with prolonged and extended use of hotels? If I could get a brief answer, I'm just conscious of the time and I'm also mindful that we will be taking evidence on that particular issue in greater detail in the forthcoming week so a brief answer please. A brief answer would be that we are well aware of the hotel at Erskine that you've specifically mentioned and the reassurance that the local policing staff, the senior management team, are fully aware of and engaging with both communities to ensure that they're both given their voice and both listened to. We do have community impact assessment structures in place so that we have a structured process so that we can record any tensions where we can manage them and monitor them and we can mitigate the risks and we can put actions in place to make sure that that will be monitored both nationally and locally. Can I bring Fulton in place? Would you prefer it if—yeah, no problem at all. I was conscious that you're ending up being last. Thank you very much, convener. I just wanted to perhaps tail into the conversation about the legislation and about indeed what can be done within devolved competence in relation to those issues. The Scottish Refugee Council has called on the Scottish Government to use its powers under section 9 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act of 2015 to look at creating an anti-trafficking protection process that would bypass that NRM. I just wondered to what extent do the panel feel that that would be useful in terms of protecting our obligations under the EHRC section 4 obligations? I wonder if I can maybe start with Brona just to get a sense of do you want to see the Government push that forward? For a long time, Tara has been very supportive of what we would call a Scottish NRM. At the minute, the national referral mechanism is owned by the Home Office. It is a bureaucratic process in which first responders are named to complete an online form. It goes to one of two competent authorities to case workers within that who make a decision on whether somebody is potentially a victim and then a second decision about whether somebody is conclusively a victim, very much based on paper. That tends to happen remote to the survivor. For a number of times, even before the human trafficking legislation in Scotland, we were supportive of a Scottish-based NRM that was more local and closer to the survivor and those services providing that support in the ground. We would be supportive of a Scottish identification and protection system, which are the obligations and duties conferred to Scotland at the moment. I know that there are concerns around immigration status and that being retained by Westminster, but I do not think that those are insurmountable, and I think that agreement could be reached on that. My concern with that is that the illegal migration bill within clause 23 would supply the Scottish Government's power to create its own identification and protection system, which is why we are so shocked and alarmed at the content of what is within the bill. I will correct my acronym, which is ECHR. I do that all the time, so I apologise for that for the record. I think that that is helpful. What is your sense, notwithstanding the challenges that the illegal migration bill presents, what is your sense in terms of engagement with ministers on that? Has there been a degree of work done already in this space to look at a different referral mechanism? I am not sure what has happened within Government and ministers around that, but there has been active listening around that proposal more recently than there has been historically, but it is certainly a model that is open. At the moment, Glasgow City Council is participating in a devolved pilot decision-making for children around trafficking decisions, and I think that their experience, if you have not heard it already, would be useful to to the committee around the difference that it makes for the decision makers to be closer to that child and a better quality of decision coming from that, and therefore protection. I appreciate Police Scotland being limited in terms of the opinion of what can be done in the devolved competence, but I wonder if, in terms of the practicalities, if you might be able to say something about would a different referral mechanism be helpful to you, to give you that opportunity? It is not really for Police Scotland to comment on, ultimately, what we want to do is to protect the vulnerable, and that is the most important to us. Obviously, the NRM and immigration are a reserved matter, so we would not comment any further on that. Okay, if I can convey that you mentioned the Police Scotland's interest in protecting the most vulnerable. Can I ask about, I suppose, your approaches in terms of how you support people at the moment? Obviously, there is a practice in relation to holding people under immigration legislation in custody, in suites or in sales, and I know that that is particularly concerning for people who are saying quite clearly that they are a victim of human trafficking. Very often, in some cases, they have left a really dangerous situation and then have been held in custody. I wonder to what extent would you recognise that those are an additional barrier, essentially, to trying to go through the processes of supporting someone who has been a victim of human trafficking? Do you recognise that the Angelina review had identified that as being an additional barrier? Do you think that there is more that we can do to find alternatives in order to process people? Ultimately, we are an organisation that works within the confines of the law and we uphold the law, and we work within that. The current processes are that where a person presents, they present to migrant help or they present to a police station, and subsequently they work through the system in that way. Elaine can give you an overview of what that looks like and if you would like that in terms of how that process goes. Ultimately, as an organisation, we will always work within the confines of the law when it comes to immigration and people presenting. It would be helpful if Elaine can do something. I am particularly interested in what you say about the confines of the law, but how do you ensure that everyone has access to interpretation services, healthcare, welfare? Is it your view that that is happening across the piece just now in Police Scotland and perhaps Elaine might be able to say more? In terms of custody, what I can assure you is that everybody gets access to healthcare within custody. Everybody gets access to interpreters or translators where they are required to, and in custody everybody gets access to. There are various support mechanisms around the country, just in terms of referrals and onward referrals, whether it might be the experience and issues with domestic abuse. I have previously been a custody sergeant myself a number of years ago, so there is a huge amount that goes on at that point of contact. Where somebody comes into custody, regardless of the reason, we consider and look at their vulnerabilities and what they are. One of the things that we would absolutely be on heightened alert for would be being a potential victim of trafficking as well, but Elaine can talk you through the actual process of how that is when somebody attends. I am happy to give you an overview of what goes on. Obviously, we know the process when mirrors are contracted by the Home Office to provide the accommodation and then migrant help with the first point of contact. We work really closely and I will go on about collaboration because it is the only way forward. We work really closely with the Scottish Refugee Council in British Red Cross. In fact, I have a meeting with them once a month with them in Glasgow City Council, the health and social care partnership, social work and ourselves. We look at the processes and challenges that have been presented to each of the agencies. Again, just to highlight what Claire said, the Scots law is translated into 10 languages that we have. We have the interpreters provided when they come to the police officers when that is required. They are processed in five stations with the live scan and three of them are all staffed at the moment. That is only within Glasgow. The immigration will attend. The reassuring part from a police officer point of view is that we will create an interim vulnerable person. We have an interim vulnerable person database and we create a record for every person who has been brought into the police office. We are able to then share that with our public protection concern hub, who then can share it with the social work. That will almost tie in all the points to make sure that the correct agencies are there at the right time to provide the right support. I am happy to take any more questions. I am grateful for that answer. I think that the record-keeping and the passing of information, I am particularly interested in the justification, if you like, for passing information to the home office straight away. Even if someone is saying that they have been a victim of a serious crime like human trafficking, would you not view that it might be more appropriate to find a system where we pass that to a solicitor in the first instance, or we have a discussion in the solicitor or a trusted NGO rather than going straight to the home office, which could then result in very quickly removal order coming through and that process kicking in? Would you recognise that there are issues around information sharing? Police Scotland has previously said that it is about safeguarding the victims, but I think that a lot of people would recognise that as being the best way to protect people. Post-new bill or just now? I think that we are talking about the legislative context of what the bill would do. Ultimately, it is not for us to comment on at what point anything would be passed, the legislation that, as an organisation, we are, we want to protect the vulnerable, but we do work within the conflines of the law. What we will do is continue to review the legislation and the legislative changes, as they come in. We will understand what the risks are, what the threats are and we will make sure that we can protect those individuals that come into our care, but we do work within the conflines of the law. We would not comment on changes to be made. Is that the case? Obviously, it does happen currently as well, so we have heard of cases where information has been passed to the Home Office and there has been removal papers served, for example, where people are in process. Do you recognise that? I would have to go and speak to our human trafficking unit. It is not my area of business, but I can certainly find that information out for you. Okay, I think that that would be useful. Thank you, Paul. Can I bring Fulton in, please? Yeah, thanks, convener, and I'm just wanting to follow on from my colleague Paul O'Kane there. It's in that area about access to services and support. I'm wondering what more, if we have something up yourself, Bruno, what more do you think the Scottish Government and local authorities can do to increase the consistency of support that asylum seekers receive? Do you think that it would be beneficial if a lot more was free at the point of access, for example bus passes? I know that it's quite a broad question, but I'm trying to find another way to ask the similar area that Paul was in. I can speak about survivors of trafficking and their experience of asylum, so it comes down to everything, doesn't it? More resources means better, more intensive support for vulnerable people and taking that trauma-informed approach. We certainly would be supportive of free travel and very supportive of that cane. We already use some of our funds to provide women with bus passes because it's essential for the recovery in terms of minimising social isolation and being able to access education and other opportunities, so we would be supportive of that. What we have found beneficial for the women that we support is that one-to-one support over a period of time, which builds up that trust and engagement and enables that safety net to be in place. Access to interpreting is available and there can be shortages of good quality interpreters. We have all experienced that. Our sympathies have been with Police Scotland in terms of access to particular languages and getting access to an interpreter at that time. Local authorities in Scottish Government is about understanding and ensuring that the individuals who are vulnerable are at the centre of what we do and resourcing services to meet those individual needs as best as possible. Local authorities in Scottish Government at a wider level can be ahead of the game if you like with that and know what interpreters are needed. How do you think that that information could be shared so that a local authority, for example at North Lancer Council where I represent, could be aware and say, look, here are the interpreters that might be required. Who do you think would be able to provide that information? Would that be Government or would that be third sector? I'm honest. I don't know who would hold that centrally and that makes me wonder whether we need some kind of national good practice guidance around use of interpreters. Certainly Glasgow's Vance Ginswm and Partnership have got good practice guidance about the use of interpreters and I think in Glasgow support providers are quite closely linked so we're able to be aware of where there are shortages. I think it is for interpreting services and firms to look at what they can do to encourage more people to become interpreters and to professionalise that service as well. I think that interpreters are a huge challenge and it's not just about access to them, it's about the equality of interpreting and how we use our language to support that interpreter to interpret. An example around human trafficking is not easily interpretable, it's not like for like, so we have to be quite careful about how we explain that and keeping our language simple for interpreters and that the interpreters are of a good quality and standard as well. We've had women tell us to ask us to stop an interview who have then said that that interpreter was appalling. He didn't understand or she didn't understand what I was saying, could we get another one? That's definitely something that I think we need to consider. It strikes me something that I could imagine would be a really difficult and complicated dish, I mean even from personal experience. I recently held an event for Ukrainian refugees who have settled in Coatbridge, a large number, so we held the event, we got all the folk in place but unfortunately the interpreter who was due to come couldn't make it on the day and myself and the MP were about to address the refugees that had come and it just so happened that a lady who was there was able to actually do it but we actually had that experience and I thought, well, you know, it's a massive issue. So I suppose moving on from that for Claire and Elaine, is that something that you recognise what Bronin said there about interpreters if you're having to deal with people on a a sort of police basis? Is that an issue or do you always get access to people? Essentially, I probably manage slightly differently for us in terms of checks and balances that need to come in. So we work closely and pulling all that together in terms of making sure that we've got the vetting and everything in place as well because we're always accessing vulnerable people and it's an area that we continually look at. In terms of understanding the different languages or type of interpreters that we might need, then we continually horizon scan in terms of, for example, the Ukrainian War and from that perspective then we would look to try and manage accordingly if we needed to change need and demand. It's a matter that's managed essentially by my own team anyway. So we would probably address that understanding the different need and languages via horizon scanning and understanding what community tensions there were and if we had to address that, address it in that way. I'm just conscious of the time as well. I did the right question, but I'm just attaining that, so that's okay. Thank you. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you very much to the panel. You've provided some very valuable information and context there. If my colleagues do have further questions that we want more information on, we'll put that in writing to you and I'm sure that you'll be more than happy to provide us with further evidence. I hope that satisfies anybody that didn't get to come in on this session. So I thank the witnesses once again for their evidence this morning and we will suspend briefly to allow time for a changeover of witnesses. Thank you. We will resume with our next panel of witnesses, three of whom are joining us remotely this morning. I welcome to the meeting Gail Finlay, policy manager at COSLA, who is with us remotely there. I see Gail Thomas Glenn, who is the chief executive of Perth and Kinross Council. Thomas is also online. Dr Nina Kerruth, consultant clinical psychologist Glasgow Psychological Trauma Services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, who is with us in person, welcome. Louise Long, who is the chief executive of Inverclyde Council, who is with us in person, and Suzanne Miller, the chair of the Scottish Asylum Dispersal Partnership Board and Chief Office, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, who is joining us remotely this morning. I am aware, Suzanne, that you will have to leave us slightly before the end of our allocated time. Thank you for all of you and welcome. I will invite each of our witnesses to make a very brief opening remark if they wish to and then we will move to questions. I will start with Gail Finlay, please. Thank you for inviting me to the committee to give evidence to your panel. As you said, I am a policy manager at COSLA, where I am the policy lead for various humanitarian protection schemes, but also including asylum. At COSLA, we have a number of roles that we undertake in relation to asylum and other protection programmes. We represent the interests and views of local government in Scotland at both a political and officer level, as well as providing support to local authorities participating and impacted by humanitarian protection schemes. We also have the role of a strategic migration partnership for Scotland, one of 11 across the UK, and we are funded to provide a facilitation role around humanitarian protection schemes. That includes asylum. We participate at a national level advocating on behalf of local government in the role of dispersal, and particularly in the role out of full dispersal. We also work around issues with Home Office, Mears, Police Scotland, health partners and the third sector alongside our local authority colleagues. We represent the role of local government in their approach to full dispersal, which we will understand will have a significant impact in Scotland. As part of our role, we support the structures within Scotland that have strategic oversight of asylum. That includes the asylum partnership board, chaired by Susan Miller, who is on your panel today. The committee may also wish to note that all 32 political leaders of our Scottish local authorities have maintained a commitment to participating in various humanitarian protection programmes. That includes full dispersal. Whilst we know that there are many challenges with each of the programmes, the significance of that should not be underestimated. Thank you, Gail. Dr Nina Caruth, please. Thank you. My name is Dr Nina Caruth. I am a consultant clinical psychologist at the Glasgow Psychological Trauma Service. We are a tertiary-level mental health service that offers psychological and multidisciplinary interventions to people who present with complex post-traumatic stress disorder following experiences of complex trauma. As a service, we work with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised individuals in societies, including those who are seeking asylum in refugees. I am the lead within our service to respond to asylum seekers in refugees. We also hold a national contract under the support and recovery strategy for victims of trafficking. I really welcome the invitation to come to the committee today and support the position that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. I have been encouraged to see the recent committees and the gathering of evidence from our colleagues who work within that area. I note that we are profoundly aware in our service of the difficult and traumatic experiences that asylum seekers and refugees have faced. I note that they are not a homogenous group. They come from many countries, but they have had different experiences in their home countries, experiences on their journey to the UK and also whilst here in the UK and Scotland. However, I will do my best to represent the key issues and themes as they arise. The context of traumatic experiences is that they have fled their countries due to persecution and threats to their life. That can include experiences of physical violence, sexual violence, imprisonment, torture, war, persecution and exploitation. They also fight multiple losses from their home, their families, their communities, their identity and their roles. The journey to seek safety can also be traumatic. Arriving in a new country and navigating a asylum system can be challenging. We know that as a result of these, there are elevated rates of mental health difficulties among this population. That can include depression, suicidality, anxiety, PTSD and complex PTSD. Our role is to try and build internal psychological safety so that people have ways of understanding their experience and having ways of coping with the distress that they experience in the present, processing the past and building a meaningful future. It is very difficult for asylum seekers to do this in the challenging circumstances where it is often difficult to make their basic human needs and have external safety. I would seek for responses that go beyond problem-solving to be transformative. I continue to be impressed by the people that I work with who have experienced significant trauma and yet are able to transform those experiences and continue to live their lives. It is remarkable and an example to us all. I think that this fits with the Scottish Government agenda of being a trauma-informed nation when we can transform the impact of psychological trauma. I thank the invitation to attend this morning's session. I am the chief executive at Perth and Kinross council and I hope to be able to provide you with the perspective from one of Scotland's smallest cities and a rural authority on the impact of refugees and asylum seekers in our communities. As a local authority, we have a history of supporting refugee programmes, previous asylum seeker programmes as well. In relation to refugees, we have supported Afghani programmes, Syrians and unaccompanied biners. In November 2021, we were one of the authorities outwith the main cities that I would suggest invited but were likely instructed to accommodate asylum seekers through the Home Office in Mears programme. We have seen around 120 individual males accommodated in Perth in hotels over that period, and through the council, public agencies and a range of community and voluntary sectors, have sought to do what we can within our limited dreamer to assist those individuals during their time in Perth and Kinross. More widely and more recently, in relation to refugee support, Perth and Kinross has become home to around 500 Ukrainians over the last year through the Home Office for Ukraine super-sponsor scheme. Again, the arrival of those individuals whilst I think they are largely positive in the area has created some challenges for services in relation to the debate that is placed upon them. We are happy to be here and to offer any contribution that we can. I thank you for inviting me to give evidence this morning. I am Louise Long. I am the chief executive of Inverclyde Council. Inverclyde is known as being a warm and welcoming place, but that is evident through our long experience of setting families from Afghanistan and Syria. We have worked in partnership with the Scottish Government Home Office and Mears in the past 18 months to open a hotel and to have some flattered accommodation in Inverclyde. At that time, we have supported the national and international Ukrainian displacement and have supported a number of people through a hotel, flats and the super-sponsor scheme. Whilst Inverclyde's statutory third sector and communities have welcomed those initiatives, it is fair to say for a small area that that has created some challenges. However, we continue to work in partnership with the Asylum Partnership Board, which is Suzanne Miller as the chair of, where all agencies work collaboratively together in order to ensure that dispersal is recognisable and is proportionate. In Inverclyde, we have a higher level of rented accommodation and that has the potential to have a disproportionate impact on the number of asylum seekers that we can take in Inverclyde. Therefore, it is important that any dispersal or asylum seeking accommodation that we find is managed and done in a way that supports asylum seekers but also supports our communities. We have also, like other local authorities across Scotland, understood the importance and the richness that new people knew to Scotland bring through our Afgan and our Syrian families. We have welcomed a number of families into our community and we will continue to play an active part. Again, thank you for the invite to attend this morning. Just briefly, on behalf of the city, I have been involved in asylum and refugee work since 2006 in Glasgow City. We are a very proud city in terms of our work on asylum and refugee issues. We have been a dispersal city for over 20 years within Glasgow City. I have been involved in that since 2006, but we still have the team who met the first ambulance plane from Kosovo a number of years ago that began our engagement and asylum and refugee work. I am very close to the work that we have undertaken in the city. Like Louise, our experience in Glasgow City is, whilst it has come with its challenges, our asylum and refugees coming into the city and settling here have brought a richness and diversity and changed our city much for the better. We will continue to welcome asylum and refugee seekers into our city, despite the challenges. I also, in my capacity as chair of the asylum partnership board, work with colleague local authorities, with meers and with the Home Office. As you heard in the previous evidence, to work really hard in a very difficult space to continue collaborative working to ensure that, as a nation in Scotland, we are able to do our very best by the people seeking sanctuary in our country. As I said, that is not without its challenges. However, it has been my experience working in this field for a long number of years. It is worth all of the challenges that it brings with it. Those relationships with the Home Office and with the Westminster Government have, at times, been extremely difficult. I am working in a space, as local authorities, where we are having to manage a significant lack of alignment in relation to the UK Government and our own Government here in Scotland. It has meant at points that we have very strange relationships. However, I remain convinced, as chair of the asylum partnership board, that we need to continue to work in that difficult space, to continue to work collaboratively and to be solution-focused in all the work that we do. I am very happy to be here this morning. I thank you for that. In the interests of time, we are going to crack straight on if that is all right. I have asked colleagues if they could go into questions. The vice convener, Maggie Chapman, is going to go first. Thank you very much, Cocab. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us and for your opening statements. I want to explore, in a little bit more detail, the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. Thomas, if I can come to you, you felt that it was more of an instruction rather than an invitation to accommodate asylum seekers in a hotel in your local authority. Could you just say a little bit about the experience that you have in dealing with meers and the home office and what are the challenges that you find in being able to provide the support or that you see the challenges in the support gaps that asylum seekers might have in hotels? Is that for Thomas? Is Thomas online? Just check and share. You can hear me okay. I can hear you now. So my initial comments about when we were introduced to the Meers and Home Office programme was very much a short notice. We were advised that we would be receiving in the first tranche up to 70 individual meals to be accommodated in a hotel in central Perth. We were told that that would happen within the space of a couple of days, and we went back to advise that we felt that that was an inappropriately short period of us to work with partners to prepare for the arrival. That arrival was still during Covid. There were a number of health and social care implications as well as wider implications that we felt needed to be managed for that number of individuals coming into the community. I have to say that that first couple of weeks were probably the most difficult. Subsequent, the local Meers presence has been very positive on the whole in terms of how they have engaged with partners. We have a system locally that brings together partners from the council, from the health and social care partnership, called Police Scotland, to an overgiven evidence earlier on, and from a range of community and third sector partners. We have sought to work where we can to make the experience to those individuals who are there now, and we have under 120 with us in Perth just now. When we recognise that we have limited opportunities to offer anything more than a range of activities to make the time as productive as we can, but for 120 individual men living in Perth, we know that there are a lack of things for them to be able to engage with, and some of them have been in the same accommodation for over a year. Thanks, Thomas. If I can just explore that point a little bit more. One of the things that we have heard in previous weeks in our evidence gathering is the relationship that councils have to have with the third sector, and the support and others. It is not just about support, it is about having things to do. Do you think that there is a challenge particularly for local authorities and areas that are not in the central belt and do not have the access to that broader ecology of support and activities that those in the central belt may do? Do you think that there is something particular there that we need to be thinking about when we have Scotland-wide dispersal systems? I think that there is probably two sides to that. I think that we work with much smaller numbers than colleagues in the central belt, Louise and Suzanne. The numbers that we are working with, while they have an impact at a local level just because we do not have the same availability of accommodation, and possibly the same availability in terms of the numbers of organisations. That can be a challenge, but on the other side it tends to be much easier to work across those organisations. We have very positive relationships with the range of community and voluntary organisations in Perth and Wight of Perth and Conross. Organisations such as PCARTH, the third sector interface, organisations such as Saints in the Community, a language in Johnson Football Club and the local leisure trust have all been instrumental in providing, at no cost, support and assistance. That creates pressures for those organisations, because often that has been done on the basis of trying to provide the best experience for individuals who live in our communities. However, there are individuals that we know in that community who have skills, who have talents, who have tried to apply those by doing some volunteering by working with community organisations. However, clearly having been in that situation for over a year, in some instances, is challenging to maintain an active and enjoyable lifestyle over that period. There are chances for any community to maintain that number of individuals without any meaningful opportunities to engage with the Wight of Perth community. Gail, if I could come to you now, just from your experience working both within COSLA and seeing what is happening across different local authorities, what do you think we should be thinking about doing better or differently to ensure that we get, particularly where there are hotels, or that we get integration between the asylum seekers that are being supported, hopefully, in hotels and the immediate local communities and the wider local authority area? What are the key challenges or key asks that you would have? Thank you. Picking up Thomas' point on the speed at which the first hotels were established, it meant that that planning was quite difficult. As Thomas said, the first two few weeks of that kind of process was probably the hardest. What we are seeing now, and this is partly because of Suzanne's role at a national level and Cosla's role at a national level, is that we in Scotland seem to have a much more planned approach to this, so local authorities are being given notice, sometimes months in advance of potential hotels being stood up, which enables them to be more planning in place. We have seen that in a couple of regions that have just had hotels stood up, where they have been able to communicate more freely. Previously, there was very little communication with the community and community organisations, so that does help. Ultimately, it is one of resource because there is no money attached to any of the asylum hotels. There is an expectation that community groups and local authorities are providing all those services for free. If there are spaces on ESOL classes, it is great if people can get in, but there is no additional funding from any source to be able to provide that, whether that is a college or a community organisation. Ultimately, until we see a significant uplift in the resourcing around asylum, a lot of it is going to be done on the good will of which there is much in Scotland of services and community groups. There is recently a very small amount of funding attached to the increase of dispersal beds, but that is fairly minor and certainly would not pay for any medium-to-long-term interventions in a local authority area. Thanks, Gail. That is really helpful. I think that your point about resourcing, and it is resourcing for both the public and third sectors that are well made. My final question—if I can come to you, Suzanne, just about some of the situation in Glasgow, obviously you have got decades of experience in a way that other local authorities do not. With that experience comes the burden of having to deal with more and maybe some of the more complex situations. I am wondering whether you could reflect on the tragedy in the park in hotel. Across the piece, we have learnt the lessons that we needed to learn from that and what changes have not been made yet that we should be looking to make, and what else do we need to be thinking about to ensure that we do not see a repeat of that or a similar incident, but that we are genuinely being trauma-informed in our support for asylum seekers? Yes, thanks for the question. We have seen that there has been a significant amount of complexness, but that was what I was reflecting on. My opening remarks are always outweighed by the positivity, but we have had some difficult times in the city. Just in terms of numbers, I should have said in my opening remarks what any one time we have got somewhere in the region of five and a half thousand asylum seekers in the city. In comparison and proportionately across the UK, we remain among the highest and that points to the highest proportionately in terms of asylum dispersal. Obviously, we recently added our Ukrainian population to that. There is a lot of experience in that space. Specifically in relation to the park in, I would make a couple of comments that we did as a health and social care partnership, along with colleagues in the Scottish Refugee Council to undertake a review of all the people who had been accommodated within the park in. You will know that our teams were involved in supporting years during those difficult times in terms of the move that evening of those people from park in down to the alternative hotel accommodation. We actually based our teams in that alternative hotel. We took the opportunity because we were only engaged in the health and social care partnership with those people who are making the thresholds for health and social care services. We are not, by definition, involved in the universal population, although previously held that the contracts have been in the past. We worked with SRC and undertook that assessment. The outcome of that was, for us, some reassurance that, when people were being referred to our health services or our social work services, we were responding appropriately as a health and social care partnership. However, a real concern from us and our psychologists from the trauma service also touched on it in her opening remarks. The mental health and wellbeing of the asylum population was not being well served by the accommodation and support contract that the Home Office had with Mears. It was not a negative comment on Mears as a provider, but it was recognised within the contractual arrangements. For us, we were really clear. We restated our protocols in terms of referrals to ourselves and to make sure that they were clear. Our bigger concern was the mental health and wellbeing that people are not being thresholds for statutory intervention. We put a proposal together in terms of what we thought was required. It was a similar chair to our community-based mental health services. We put a proposal together and tried very hard to get the Home Office to fund that. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in that, but luckily, we were successful in getting the Scottish Government to agree to fund that. We are currently working on a pilot project that is funded by the Scottish Government in relation to that mental health and wellbeing element. For us, despite that front-line Mears staff working hard and focused on welfare, there was not the focus on mental health and wellbeing in our opinion that they are required to be. I think that that would probably continue to be a concern of us. What we have had to do supported by COSLA is work on that pilot project to be funded by the Scottish Government. I would hope that we will be able to demonstrate that the project would support that mental health and wellbeing and therefore should become our argument. It is likely to be that that should become part of the contractual arrangements that the Home Office has with crevaders. That was one of the most difficult places to get work that day. I can imagine that. Thanks for that, Suzanne. Thank you for your candor in your response. I think that one of our challenges is that balance. We have already discussed the tensions between the different approaches to support from the different Governments and different layers involved, so hearing that is really helpful. I will leave it there mindful of time. Thank you. I will pick up on a couple of points just for clarity. We have heard that sometimes we get lots of notice. I think that Thomas was saying that there was two days notice for the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees. I am not sure who the best person to answer is. Are there some incidents where it is less than that? I have heard anecdotally that some authorities have had about 12 hours notice of a hotel being used for asylum seekers and refugees. Gail, would you be able to quickly give me an idea of what the longest period of notice and the shortest period of notice you have had? As Thomas said, they were one of the first hotels outside of Glasgow to be established in 2021. The hotels that were established around that time all received a similar amount of notice of two or three days. There has been more recent procurement over the last six months. There we have seen more of a picture of four weeks notice for hotels being established. In fact, some hotels even longer, but that is to do with contracts not being signed, rather than a delay on the will of the home office. Where we see a slightly different picture in Scotland than we do down south in England—Susan will be able to test this—is that in England they see hotels stood up and the local authority told after the event. Because of the long-standing relationship and good open relationship that ourselves and local authorities have with MERS, we seem to get more early notice. That is not something that we wish to go back on. However, our colleagues in England would tell a very different story. Because of that relationship in Scotland, we are in a much smaller area. People know what is going on. MERS value the partnership with local authorities, so we wish to maintain a good relationship with them all. In the interests of time, if I could ask for as much succinct in your answers, that would be great. Louise, you indicated that you wanted to come in, and I am aware that Susanne wants to come in as well. It is just to say from the Inverclyde perspective that we were notified at the time of the local elections. We went back to MERS in the Home Office, and we were able to negotiate four weeks, because we did not have a council. Therefore, we needed to form our elected members and work alongside them, but they gave us four weeks in order to work alongside our elected members in our local communities. We have an excellent relationship with MERS locally, who I think is doing a sterling job. Just to add to that, I think that this is one of the areas where we have managed to operate in that really difficult space with colleagues in the Home Office. In terms of the difference, I represent the Scottish local authority chief execs in the UK-wide structures in relation to asylum and refugee. Particularly just now, there is real pressure on the system, and those are weekly meetings, which chief execs across the UK. It is materially different here in terms of the notice that we get, so just to support colleagues to say that it is different. We have worked really hard in terms of the human relationship that we have with a number of folk within the Home Office and MERS to use that to get the best that we possibly can for people who are second here in Scotland. In previous sessions, witnesses have referred to the difference between the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees in comparison with other refugees and asylum seekers, often painting the picture that Ukrainian refugees are treated more favourably. However, over the weekend, it was revealed that more than seven and a half thousand Ukrainian refugees are still in temporary accommodation and some are moved around the country. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Would you say that the Scottish Government overestimated their ability to cope with a number of refugees? What impact do you think the drastic shortage of housing has had on the ability to provide more stable accommodation in a community-based setting? Gail, you are absolutely right to make the distinction between the various resettlement and asylum processes. Resettlement, as you will be aware, in 2015 took on a whole new face in Scotland, with all local authorities participating, but that was a funded programme with matching happening outside of country and people were placed within a local authority area with preparation on both sides. Compared with asylum, where local authorities have no say or very little say over where people are placed and have no active role unless they meet certain vulnerability criteria in their day-to-day life. As Susanne explained around the parking incident, naturally the local authority would not have had much contact with individuals in that hotel. Ukraine is, again, a different system. It is the first time that we have had a Scottish Government-run system with the super sponsorship scheme. Clearly, the numbers in hotels are concerning and, as you rightly point out, it is down to the lack of available housing, not just in the social rented sector, but also in the private rental sector and the cost of that accommodation. Without the accommodation, the moving on of people is going to be very difficult and very challenging. We have seen that also with the Afghan scheme. You will be aware that there are a number of hotels in Scotland with Afghan families who are still looking for homes across the UK. That picture is not just the same in Scotland. Ukraine adds to the pressure in Scotland. That is the uniqueness that we have in Scotland and Wales around Ukraine. Definitely having that number of people arrive in that space of time is something that Scottish partners, whether it is Government, third sector or local government, have never experienced before. Thank you, Gail Cadaz. Thomas, the same question, and, obviously, Louise as well from Inverclyde. Thanks for the question. I will pick up on some of Gail's comments, but maybe just to begin with a little bit about the full dispersal scheme and the implications that that will have, because, like Louise said, our relationship with Meers has been a positive one after the initial challenges. If full dispersal is rolled out, that will absolutely add to the pressures that Gail had highlighted in terms of the wider housing pressures across Scotland. We have particular challenges in rural authority where we do not have anything like the same level of affordable housing. I think that we are about 16 per cent compared to the national average of about 26 affordable housing provision in our local authority area. That has already got a challenge. The Ukrainian programme, the supersports programme, has exacerbated that, in our opinion, in Perth and Kinross. Having said that, we have had some fantastic experiences where communities have come together and really welcomed Ukrainian refugees into our areas. I would cite probably the opportunities in Aberfeldae or in about Felderu, a community-based organisation that has been instrumental in bringing many of the 470 Ukrainians that we have got in Perth and Kinross just now. Yes, there is a challenge in terms of the whole range of humanitarian programmes on top of what we see as a housing pressure in our part of rural Scotland in particular. As an example, we can see a one-bedroom flat in Perth and Kinross on the market for £90,000 in a rural part of Perth you are just now, eiling for nearly £200,000 from a buyer from down south or from overseas. That pressure for affordable housing is a very real pressure over and above whatever has been added in the system through the current refugee programme and potentially through the full dispersal programme, which we will have to manage early today. I suppose that one of the unique things about Inverclyde is that we have housing. However, we are a small local authority and that is why in my opening statement I talked about it needs to be managed and it needs to be managed well. One of the issues for us is that we have a lot of social economic challenges in Inverclyde and therefore we have gradually a bit like we did with the Afghan and Syrian families. We have gradually taken families, developed housing, developed support so that the community is not overwhelmed but also very importantly that we provide the right type of support to those who are seeking asylum in Scotland and those who are in New Scots. I would also say that as a local authority we might be slightly unique in the fact that our HSCP and the council provide services into the hotel in Inverclyde and that is because we need to manage some of the community engagement so that there is enough because in a small area there is not always facilities for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just ask a supplementary on that, Louise? That is brilliant that you are providing those services. Who is paying for those? Which budget is that coming out of? The community learning and development team provides English lessons in the hotel because I think that someone said earlier in their opening statement that our education college also provides services to the council pays for that and from our health and social care partnership we support the third sector who are supported and what we call care navigators, people who signpost people to all the different services, whether that be the football, gyms and there is a range of free activities that are involved in Inverclyde and obviously that is provided by the health and social care partnership. Okay, so the money for asylum seekers and refugees that all goes to meers so I'm just this isn't just directed at you I mean it may be that Suzanne might be in a good position to answer this as well so none of that money actually goes to local authorities but the local authorities are providing all the peripheral services that are required would that be correct a yes or you know a brief answer to that would be absolutely fine yes like anyone who lives in in the local authority area we make sure just this helps us that they have access to services yeah which is absolutely fantastic that councils are doing that but I suppose my point is it's like they're not getting any of the money that's allocated for that that was the point I was trying to get to Thomas I saw you nodding your head it was that in agreement that you don't receive any funds but absolutely I mean meers to the contract the individuals in these hotels as I understand to have eight pounds a week are there about to live on we don't get that direct funding but there is a cost that our council like Louise's council and our volunteer community sector are bearing to ensure that these individuals get the best of opportunities that they can can I cite one other little thing because it's not been mentioned but the importance of faith communities is important here. Perth has a small Islamic community that's been there for many years. We don't have a mosque in Perth other than a small three bedroom residential property that's been converted. The arrival of the asylum seekers into Perth brought many individuals who were from Islamic faith. That created a pressure on the local mosque that couldn't be accommodated. We had people attending for Friday prayer, praying on stairs, praying in bathrooms, praying in kitchens. As a council we worked with the mosque and we provided them with access to the council's civic hall on Fridays for civic prayer and it was fantastic. It just last couple of weeks when we were celebrating Eid Mubarak we had almost 200 individuals in the civic hall so there is a real role for the mosque and for faith communities to support that and they've done a fantastic job in terms of providing a whole range of supports to the individuals in our city. Thanks Thomas for raising that it's a really important point. Can I bring in Paul? Are you happy to be brought in just now? Thank you very much convener and good morning to the second panel. I think just building on that point about ESOL provision because I think this is quite important. I wonder if Gail Finlay could maybe comment just on the provision of ESOL across Scotland. Obviously we don't have an ESOL strategy anymore but it would be useful to understand what is causals position in terms of who should be responsible for delivering that ESOL because I think provision is patchy it's fair to say and that's to nobody's detriment it's just that there isn't a kind of concerted strategy. Thank you for your question. In terms of ESOL we would have liked to have seen the continuation of an ESOL strategy. It was an important I guess building block for what previously was really good practice that was recognised across the UK and has been copied by Wales and England and we now seem to have stepped back from that which is disappointing. In terms of the funding the funding is very limited that goes to colleges and it should be through the ESOL partnership shared out between providers in a local authority so whether that is a local authority or the college or third sector depending on what the need is. I think what we have seen due to cuts and excuse me some of the constraints around what's acceptable learning targets we have seen a lot of that kind of entry level and kind of the informal learning which people benefit from when they first arrive in the country cut. I'm also aware that there are huge waiting lists across the whole of Scotland and there are good examples of where colleges, local authority and third sector work in partnership but I think we are basically suffering from a very significant lack of resources in that area and the increase in demand with Ukraine, asylum, afghan has increased and even estimate how much but the waiting lists are significant and that is one of the real concerns around the lack of an ESOL strategy and I guess as part of the new Scots strategy and work that is something that we have worked with Scottish Government to try and address but we've not moved forward significantly at all on that. I wonder if I can just on that Gil, do you think the end of the strategy was a financial issue in terms of funding or was it just that it was felt that it would be better to integrate that into other strategies? Obviously I can't speak on behalf of Scottish Government colleagues that make that decision but our understanding was that it was because they wanted it integrated into the adult learning strategy and therefore the ESOL is mentioned in the adult learning strategy but it's a very very small part. The funding sits separately to that and sits with the Scottish funding council. I wonder if I can just to Louise Long, you touched on the ESOL provision in a community like Inverclyde and I think it can be challenging because I think people would very often rather keep things local and keep everyone in the community but very often I know that people might have to travel to Glasgow and other places. What is your ESOL provision like in terms of from either community learning development or West College Scotland and what would enhance that for you in terms of Inverclyde's provision? Through yourself convener, the college provides ESOL and our CLD team. I also provide a provision in the hotel. There aren't the kind of waiting lists that there might be in other places but that comes back to the point that I'm making and about it being managed and I was making sure we could always do more ESOL provision and getting specialist support into Inverclyde can sometimes be difficult and as the panel will know there's difficulties with people travelling who are seeking asylum because of the issue in relation to transport. Just one more convener if I may and it's on a slightly different topic but because Ms Long is here and as obviously as a West region member I'm particularly interested in the implementation of new Scott strategy in Inverclyde because Inverclyde is a community where there is an issue around declining population in certain communities. Do you see and does the council see an opportunity in bringing new families and through the new Scott's programmes in order to grow communities again and what work have you done in bringing communities together to understand the new diversity that might exist in a community that's been perhaps not as diverse as other places in Scotland? For colleagues we have a third sector organisation called Your Voice who's done a lot of work in this area in engaging with the communities within Inverclyde. We've also looked at the Afghan resettlement scheme and it comes back to that scheme was planned over a few years so there was funding that went with that scheme and so we've been able to attract a number of families from Afghan and Syria who have settled in Inverclyde when we have a big community. We've fairly recently had a big event at the beacon which you may remember in what we call our new Scots and we do see an opportunity if it's managed properly and there is some challenges because of the size of our school estate and the places that may become available the housing for families. There's a lot of single occupancies because of the tenants in Inverclyde and so it all needs to be managed as part of a strategy moving forward. Thanks, convener. Just following on from my colleague's line of questioning there, in the last session if you heard some of it there was a wee bit of a discussion around interpreters and access to interpreters for asylum seekers. I wonder if panellists can tell the committee about the provision and use of language interpreters across Scotland. I'm trying to think who might be best in a big panel or maybe start with yourself, Gail, from a causal perspective and then see where we go from there. Thank you for your question. I did catch that part of the last panel and I think they reflected probably fairly some of the challenges around access to the assured level of competence of interpreters and translators. Local authorities have contracts with various companies that they will use, MERS also will have a separate contract that they will use and, as you heard, Police Scotland has its own set of accredited interpreters. I would probably pass to one of my local authority colleagues to reflect on their practice locally because, obviously, that's not what we don't necessarily work specifically with asylum seekers and so don't use interpret surfaces on a regular basis. Yeah, thanks for that. I'm happy maybe yourself, Louise, with that bill. I've got three areas of question. I don't propose to ask all five panellists each question. They can be not be glad to hear. I wonder, Louise, if you can pick up on the interpreter issue. It's difficult and it's complex. There's obviously different interpretation services that we can access relatively easily. The NHS can access interpretation services and MERS has a provision. But sometimes, given some of the language issues, there may well be that it's not easily as accessible as we would like it to be and there's telephone and there's a whole range of mechanisms in order to support if we come into difficulties. I just interject. Susanne has indicated that she'd like to come in. I'd like to bring Susanne in just now before she has to leave for another meeting. Thanks, convener. Just to add, maybe by way of illustration, so in this city we have somewhere in the region of 154 different languages and dialects spoken in our schools as a result of the successful asylum and refugee work that we've done in the city. That maybe illustrates the scale of the challenge. It is very similar to ESOL across the country. I think that we don't have the consistency necessary that we would like in relation to interpreting services. Sometimes it can be difficult to access the very specific languages and dialects. Often, as local authorities or health and social care partnerships, you can be in a set of circumstances with people that are very sensitive. We need to be really careful in terms of our interpreting services and how we use them. We have to be constantly vigilant. There is constant pressure in terms of availability, but it's the complexity of our interactions at points with people that means that we have to be really careful. It's another area whereby it would be fair to say that every and any local authority in Scotland would welcome additional resources and that would include the city. Thank you. Thanks very much for that, Susanne, and to the others, I think that we've heard from both the sessions this morning and previously that this is, and I'm sure that the committee can certainly take forward it. I was also wanting to ask about asylum seekers and refugees who might need mental health support. How available is support for asylum seekers? Do they know and understand that they can access such support? I'm looking at yourself, but I'm looking at you, maybe, if you would be able to come in in this bit. I guess that the health service is accessible to asylum seekers and refugees at any stage in them seeking asylum or staying within Scotland. It's the kind of universal provision and it would be through our core business that we respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees. Within Glasgow, there's the asylum health bridging team who do the initial health assessments of new arrivals, both physical health and mental health, and would link them in with relevant services. I also recognise the role of GP practices and community link workers within Glasgow about supporting the primary care mental health needs of asylum seekers and refugees. For mental health services, our service is a psychological trauma service. We work with people with complex PTSD at the more moderate to severe end. We would see a large proportion of asylum seekers and refugees who meet our referral criteria. The other mental health services in Glasgow would equally respond if that was primary care or community mental health teams. I think that, as other people have touched on, it's about having a trauma informed approach about understanding the impact of trauma and how that might present with those populations and being able to be trauma responsive in providing specific mental health interventions that meet the mental health requirements. Our data is about being culturally informed and sensitive, so we talk casually about mental health now in Scotland, which is great, but not all countries would have the same language or the same understanding for mental health, so even us broaching that with people from different countries, there's some education information that needs to be done in a sensitive manner. It's maybe about talking about the impact of what they've been through and how that would affect them in their lives now and what supports might be available that could help them with that. In some countries, mental health might be more of an extreme end where people are removed and institutionalised rather than being a broad spectrum of mental health in the way that we might view it. I also really would recognise the value of psychosocial supports and the role of third sector and community sports in doing that, so particularly for trauma, we think about how to build safety as the primary task, and that can be from interventions that provide psychoeducational ways of coping skills, but it can also be through structure and routine and activities and meaningful engagement, so I think that there's a very specific role for mental health services, but there's also a recognition of the broader support that's provided as well. I think that I've got a very detailed description of some of the services in the way that they are and can be delivered, so I thank you for that. I'm just wondering though if you've got any idea of how much asylum seekers and refugees know that they can access those services. Do you feel that they are accessed regularly and that there is a general understanding that they can be accessed, whether they want to access them on lots of different issues, or do you think that there's more that we can do to ensure that people do understand that they can access that support should they wish to? Yeah, it's hard to know, isn't it? I mean, we certainly receive regular referrals, so there is awareness and there is people who are accessing services and I know how to do that, but I guess it's unknown about other people who don't have that awareness, and certainly maybe the kind of, I don't know what awareness campaigns are, how to kind of build that within community bases, starting within, as supposed to be heard earlier, from the trafficking area, and that's an area where we have close partnerships from the very start about letting people know about our service and how our service might have a role in supporting their care, and so that's a very clear example where that has worked well, and it might be, yeah, thinking more broadly about how can we inform asylum seekers and refugees about the different services available. Excellent, thank you very much. A final line of questions, if that's all right, but I can leave it. Is it all right if we come back? I'm just mindful of time, and if we have time, we will absolutely come back. I'd like to move on to my colleague Rachel, please. We know, panel, that the number of incidents of human traffic has increased dramatically. I wondered can the panel members provide examples of how their local authorities or their organisations are working to tackle modern slavery in terms of preventative measures and also raising awareness. We heard particular examples of that in the previous session, where the traffickers were bringing people, bringing vulnerable women into the country with a promise of employment, and particularly this may be relevant in Perth and Kinross. I would like to go to Thomas Glenn first, if I may. Thank you. I heard part of the session earlier on, and maybe just picking up on some of the context from the contributions that were made from Superintendent Dops and Inspector Tomlinson, and I think it was Ms Andrew from Tarrif. There is a context in terms of individuals potentially being nervous about engaging with statutory services. Police colleagues commented about that earlier on. We had the nervousness of people even engaging with health services at the beginning of their arrival in Scotland, even on things such as Covid vaccinations and so on. So immediately we have to get by that sense of nervousness about engaging with us in any issue, let alone anything, as potentially complex as human trafficking. I think that that is an important thing for us just to understand the importance of relationships in this process. Asylum seekers in Perth and Kinross are slightly different, and we currently have 120 individual males in the hotels that we currently have just now. The direct exposure to individuals who have been trafficked is not something that we have come across in terms of that experience. We have the structures that we have in place. We call them Police Scotland and others. The responders have run about things like MARAC and other structures to support women. However, in terms of direct experience of those who have been impacted by human trafficking, it is not something that we have had a huge experience of in Perth and Kinross. From Cozzler's point of view, through the equally safe strategy to eradicate violence against women, what advice have you given to local authorities in terms of raising awareness and encouraging women to report these terrible situations? Thank you for your question. The equally safe lead sits in a different part of Cozzler, but we work quite often quite closely. We also have a modern slavery human trafficking lead within our team as well. They meet regularly with local authorities and each local authority has responded to the equally safe strategy with many having a specific contact. You will also be aware of changing the law about requirements to report suspected trafficking and cases of modern slavery now on local authorities. That applies to adults and children. We are working with the Scottish Government currently to develop some guidance for local authorities about what that means. One of the mitigations that the Scottish Government has already put in is the independent child trafficking guardians, which is a follow-on from the Scottish guardianship service, which tackles initially the issue around children. That means that anybody who is under 18 who is suspected of victim trafficking will be given an independent guardian, but also anybody coming through the unaccompanied asylum seeking children services will be given a guardian as well. Those are intended to address some of those concerns that Thomas just said about how people feel about accessing services and some of the suspicion around more formal services such as the police or health services. It is an on-going piece of work and you will have heard lots of evidence earlier and in previous sessions about the potential impact of the illegal immigration bill. We are not quite sure yet how that is going to play out in terms of those roles and participation in those schemes. Just to be clear, I will ask Louise this question if I may. Some of the roles that Gail Findlay was talking about there, and we have heard a lot about the interaction between third sector, possibly social workers, community workers within the council, those roles will, as I presume, always exist. You will always provide those roles. Is that the interface between asylum seekers at the moment and your interface, just to be clear, in any community cohesion, trying to access services, looking at being the point of contact where somebody has issues around, perhaps they want to share with them around human trafficking, are those the right people? Can you just talk us through that? Human trafficking is a public protection issue, and a public protection issue is dealt with by social workers. They will always be dealt with by social workers or the police, sometimes jointly together if it is children through a GII process. We have a new to Scotland refugee and immigration team, which is multidisciplinary. It has health, social work and the third sector. That team supports anyone, including Ukrainians, Afghans, Syrians and those in hotels. Like Thomas, predominantly, we have about 50 to 60 males in the hotel accommodation. However, we have done work with the third sector about raising awareness about human trafficking, because, as Thomas said, it is unlikely to tell someone they think is official, such as the social worker or the police. They are much more likely to build relationships with colleagues in the third sector and, through that, to be able to build a relationship and, therefore, to be able to tell us what is happening in relation to them. Have you in the Clyde had women that have—I mean, you do not have to answer this, but it is just interesting to hear what Thomas Glenn said there about predominantly asylum seekers of a male. Do you have a combination of male and female in the Clyde, and therefore the potential to have somebody that was possibly being trafficked? You might not know about it, but you have the services there to provide if that so happened. We have predominantly male asylum seekers, but every local authority in Scotland has the services to be able to support anybody who is human through who is being trafficked. It is part of our statutory duty to provide care. I just come in regarding children in hotels and just to get some clarity on that. Last week, I think, it was Andy Settle from Just Right Scotland, and he mentioned in his evidence that there were unaccompanied children that were housed in a hotel—I mean, it was not located geographically, but I just wondered, Gail, could I get some kind of idea of what Andy was referring to there, if you can shed any light on that? How many unaccompanied children are local authorities dealing with and are they mainly in hotels or have they gone on to dispersal accommodation? I think that there are two separate issues there. We have seen across the UK with the dispersal of adults into hotels that some people who either have been—the age assessment has been incorrect or they have not declared that they are under 18 until they have arrived in a hotel. We have seen what we would say is that children are dispersed into adult hotels. We have seen that only on a couple of occasions in Scotland, in two of our hotels with low numbers. I am not being dismissive at all because it is extremely serious and it should not happen at all, but in England they are seeing hundreds and hundreds of children or under 18 being dispersed into adult accommodation. That is not something that we have yet seen in Scotland. I am not saying that we are not going to, but I think that because the vetting that goes with being in Scotland and the distances that people are travelling, we are seeing a slightly higher level of vetting of those arriving in Scotland. Thomas may be able to give you more details on what happened in Perth, but when the situation arrives immediately it is on the local authority to provide services to those young people, do an age assessment and then make a decision as to whether they move them out of the hotels immediately or do a full age assessment. It is on a case-by-case basis. In terms of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, there is a separate programme to asylum dispersal that COSLA oversees. Over the last year we have had over 300 young people arrived in a planned, if not very quick, way to Scotland. Local authorities are allocated a number of young people that they are mandated to take by the UK Government. There is a rotor system within Scotland and each local authority, including all 32 local authorities in Scotland, are required to take unaccompanied asylum seeking children. They may come from an asylum seeking hotel in the south of England or one of the Kent reception units in England that are specifically for children. They then arrive into an organised placement that is provided by the local authority. There are two separate schemes. You are probably referring to those children that have arrived as to the Home Office of Decided Or Adults, but, when they arrive in Scotland, they declare that they are children. The local authority has to then take care of them. There are two separate schemes, if that makes sense. Can I bring in Louise and, since you mentioned Thomas, I will give him the opportunity to come in, if he wishes. Louise, please. Children, unaccompanied children, is probably one of the most challenging areas for local authorities, particularly a local authority in my own, which is small. Currently, we are under great deal of pressure because of Covid, we have more children who are accommodated, very few spaces in our children's houses or our fostering. However, as Gail said, we are mandated to take children and we have a responsibility when we take children to make sure that they have a good placement, that they are safe, that they are given an opportunity to flourish. We do not have any children in any hotels nor would we. However, I can see that as being a real pinch point in the future because what may happen in the future is that we may take responsibility for children and have no places in them for Clyde and have to place them out with authority at great costs. Actually, the financial costs in relation to unaccompanied children do not play for the cost of their placement even in our children's houses. Thomas, do you want to come in? I hear you now. I think that we are good at it. Very briefly, as Gail explained, on unaccompanied asylum seeking children, that works well. It is managed and co-ordinated, so we have not had any difficulties in that locally. We have had a small number of instances of handful where young men turned out to be children when it was looked at again, and that was picked up very quickly. We had our youth work services and our children's social work services engaged initially, and that was picked up and dealt with through conversations with meers. Although the numbers have been relatively small, it has been picked up quickly, but clearly there is a risk in the system if that is happening. The only comment that I would add is that when we move to full dispersal and meers have not managed that and seek accommodation out worth hotels, that could introduce a level of risk in terms of the monitoring of where people are being placed and the potential for adults, not even adults in fact, to be children. That is a risk in terms of the full dispersal programme, we would suggest. Thank you, Thomas. I will give the last word to Dr Nina Carreuth, please. I just wanted to come in about the Glasgow context, because we also respond to mental health needs of unaccompanied minors and do work with the social work service in Glasgow and the Scottish Guardianship service. It is my understanding from working with them and our referrals that there have been unaccompanied minors in hotels in Glasgow just due to the demand and the provisions available. I believe that that is being looked at about how they place their alternatives and alternatives have been sought, so it might be something to follow up with the social work service there or the Scottish Guardianship service in terms of the numbers or the details. But we would recognise that this was raised earlier, that it is not ideal conditions for adults and certainly not for unaccompanied minors either, as we told concerns about their mental health and wellbeing in those kinds of environments. Thank you for that. Actually, that does give us more information to go on. We will follow that up. That concludes our formal business this morning, and I thank all of our witnesses for your attendance and for your valuable contributions this morning. Thank you.