 Good morning, everyone and welcome to the fifth meeting of the health and sport committee in 2017. Could I ask everyone in the room to ensure that their mobile phones are silent? It's acceptable to use them for social media, but please don't photograph or film proceedings. Agent item 1 is an evidence session on the Scottish primary care information resource. Can I welcome to the committee Richard Fogel, deputy director primary care Scottish Government, Libby Morris, lead GP, Scottish primary care information resource, and Sean Held, NHS National Services Scotland Scottish primary care information resource? Can I invite Richard Fogel to make an initial opening statement? Good morning. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to update the committee on SPIRE. SPIRE, the Scottish primary care information resource, is a significant part of our plans to transform primary care and general practice in Scotland. SPIRE will provide a service to GPs and to the wider healthcare community for reporting on and extracting data from GP records in Scotland, an approach that is safer and simpler than current arrangements. It's been designed and developed in full collaboration with GPs through the Scottish General Practitioners Committee of the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners, and in collaboration with patient groups and the Information Commissioners Office. I know this committee has expressed a very strong interest in how data and intelligence can be used safely and more effectively to plan, coordinate and deliver services, ultimately to improve outcomes for individuals, communities and for the whole population. GP Held data is potentially the most comprehensive data source we have on the health of the Scottish population. However, current arrangements do not allow us to maximise the opportunity to use this data to benefit patients and the wider population. Current arrangements do not meet the most up-to-date data protection and information governance standards. Current arrangements involve different systems of variable quality that are technologically outdated and can add to the burden of busy GPs. SPIRE is designed to address these concerns and to provide a safe, secure, simple system that can be more easily integrated and linked to other data systems, including source, which covers wider health and social care data. The most important questions people may have about SPIRE may well relate to concerns about privacy and the safeguards on confidential patient data. Robust information governance is critical to SPIRE. SPIRE has been developed in strict compliance with existing legal frameworks and best practice has set out in the recently revised recommendations of Dame Fiona Caldacott. We have provided a briefing note on the information governance framework on SPIRE to the committee. Full details of the framework are set out in an extensive privacy impact assessment, which we will make available to the committee after the session. It has only recently just been published. One of the most important information governance safeguards we have put in place is to ensure that every patient has the right to opt out of patient level or identifiable data being extracted using SPIRE. Even when such data is extracted, there remain very significant safeguards in place. But it is vital to maximise public confidence in SPIRE that every patient can exercise control over their data and how it is used. To ensure that every patient in Scotland is aware of SPIRE and their right to opt out of SPIRE, on the 7th of March we will launch an extensive public information and engagement campaign. The campaign will cover radio, newspaper, social media, but also critically will involve GP practices themselves in engaging in an informed manner with their patients. No data extracts will take place until the campaign and engagement has been completed. An important purpose in being here today is to ensure that Parliament is informed of this development and members have the opportunity to understand what is planned to allow you all to engage with your constituents with as much information to hand as you need. Following the session, we will send information to each and every MSP and we will be very happy to brief you individually or collectively on any of the details that we discussed today. Thanks very much. I think that when we were briefed by you before that a number of us had concerns particularly about data protection and sensitivity and that is the reason why we wanted this to be a public session and that all of this be on the record. So, that is the reason for bringing you folks back. Thank you, convener. I think that you have fairly well explained why it was decided that another approach was required, but I would just like to learn a bit more about the decision to stop practice team information being collected in 2013 and to ask if comparable data has continued to be collected by ISD or any other body, even if it has not been published since then? I can take that, so I am from ISD, so I was involved in the decisions about PTI. I think that the first thing to say is that PTI was a good start, but SPIRE will give us a much better, much more robust replacement. A key thing about PTI was that it was limited to 60 practices who participated, the idea being that those practices were representative of Scotland, so we could get an idea of what was happening across primary care in Scotland. What PTI did not allow was granularity below the local board level or within practices themselves. We made the decision to stop PTI to focus on developing SPIRE. The type of utility that SPIRE will allow will be a greater ability to extract different types of data, but it will also allow analysis to be run locally within the practice, which PTI could not do, and also to facilitate working at cluster level with the data. In terms of a direct placement for PTI, SPIRE will be that replacement, and certainly the data that we used to collect from PTI could be extracted if we chose to do so using SPIRE. That does not mean that we have not published any data from primary care in the intervening period. We have recently developed MSAs of primary care indicators, which are published on the ISD website. That allows analysis down to individual practice level, which was never available through PTI. That pulls together a variety of sources, including data from co-off, the old quality outcomes framework. Again, the intention would be that equivalent data could be extracted through SPIRE. In the period since the previous system? It has ceased, and it has taken four years to get the replacement up and running. Have we still been collecting data? We have not been collecting the data through PTI, because we have decided to stop that, but the data that we have been collecting is the co-off data, so co-off data has continued. There are other sources of data relating to primary care, which we have been using in the primary care indicators. Things like prescribing data are available and have been used. There is also data relating to secondary care. Part of the secondary care data includes information about referrals from practice, so we can publish equivalent data. That is all available publicly. Just finally, the replacement system for PTI. I think it was initially expected to be operational in 2040. Why has it taken so long? I think the key thing to say is that SPIRE itself is a more complex arrangement. One of the key things around SPIRE has been agreeing the information governance principles that Richard mentioned about being absolutely key to the development. Before we developed the software that we work in practice to extract the data or report on it, it was absolutely key that we developed the information governance principles with key stakeholder groups like Patience and the BMA and RCGP, which we did. We have agreement on the information governance principles, which allowed us to develop the software to then be used to extract the data from the practices. Another thing to say is that, back when SPIRE was first created, the intent had been to go for a big bang approach whereby we could effectively deploy the software to all practices and switch it on in a one big bang. However, as the project developed, we recognised that a more efficient way of doing it would be to do it board by board across the country. Each board has different setups in terms of how their GPIT is run and provided. It was absolutely critical that we made sure that the SPIRE software did not interfere with that in any way. There's a two-stage approach whereby the SPIRE software is deployed to the NHS board to then deploy it to the practices. We then make sure that there's no technical issues with the software, and that's what's been happening over the last year or so. Then there's a period of what we call switch on, whereby we switch on the software which is supported with training for the practices to use. What I would say is that it's developed over time to ensure that it's as robust as possible and that we deal with challenges as we go along. One thing to say is that we also had an eHealth assurance review, which I think was last year, who were looking at what we'd been doing and how we'd done it. They came back saying that the approach would be taken whereby changing from big bang to this more incremental approach was the right thing to have done, and they supported that approach. My question relates to whether or not SPIRE will be compulsory for GPs, if you could expand on that specifically. No, it will not be compulsory. Practices can choose whether they switch it on or not. Scots explained how it will be installed in practices, but it's up to the practice to switch it on. There are lots of advantages to practices, though. They can use the SPIRE software to look at their own information, they can run reports, they can look at interesting clinical questions, for example multimorbidity within their own practice, so it's entirely up to practice whether they switch it on or not. After that, there's a second stage process whereby patients have the option to opt out of their identifiable information being extracted if they want to. Anything that's anonymous is okay in the old way that the QAF extracts could be taken, but practices can use the information themselves for their own. Given that we'll have potentially an opt-out for patients, it's not going to be compulsory for GPs to collect this. The health boards across Scotland are going to have local variations and potentially postcode lottery in terms of the collection they identify. What's the quality of this information then going to be for the Government and for organisations? We're anticipating that the vast majority of practices will want to sign up to it because it will be useful to plan their own services, as well as Scots mentioned cluster working, which is one of the new ways of going forward with the NHS in Scotland, whereby groups of practices will work together. For example, they might want to look at a certain topic, they might want to look at prescribing safety as a cluster in order to look at the services so that they might want to work with their local pharmacists. We're expecting that there will be enough advantages for practices that they will all want to switch on and join in. If I could say one thing about that, we've not yet settled the new GP contract and it may well be the elements of the SPIR extract would have to be compulsory in terms of being contractual, but that's not yet settled. I'd like to add a point of clarity. SPIR isn't a data collection, so what SPIR does is it pulls on the data that's already collected in the GP practice, so even if practices don't participate initially, the underlying data that SPIR uses is still recorded in the practice as part of the day-to-day running of the practice, so it's not about GP's choosing not to record the data in any way. I just wanted to, I see huge opportunity from this project in terms of both improving practices, so there's nothing more powerful in data for health care improvement and also in terms of improving the quality of research that goes on in Scotland, so I think there's a huge opportunity that concerns me is public perception, so I think there is likely to be a concern about confidentiality and privacy and I'd like to hear a little bit more about what you plan to do in terms of public engagement to allay those fears and concerns and to help people, help the public to understand what a powerful tool for improvement might be. The public information campaign is all about being open and transparent and giving people as much information as we possibly can about how the system will work, but what's probably more important is all the patient stories behind that. The FAR Institute has got a section on its website where there are 100 patient stories of how health has been improved by the use of research and gives very practical examples. There are other things that we hope will become patient stories. For example, the news last night talked about the astonishing differences in outcomes for cancer for people living in different postcodes in Scotland, but they just gave the stark figures what would be really nice if we could use some of the SPIR data to delve deep down and actually find out some of the reasons for the discrepancies or maybe to use SPIR to look at things like how many patients are smoking, how many patients are obese, what drugs are on, what other morbidies they've got, have they got mental health problems and maybe try and give us some clues as to where we might find the solutions to the problems rather than just an awful headline. So we're building up a whole series of patient stories. Thank you. And the public engagement thing that you're launching in March 7, how long is that going to run for? It's been on for four weeks and as Richard said it's a variety of approaches including radio and newspapers briefing. We've got an extensive website as well where we have an effect of the public facing website that explains it all and is relatively plain English as we can. And then there's a more technical website behind that for people who want more of the details. So the privacy impact assessment which Richard talked about goes into a great degree of detail about how it's all going to work, so those that want to read that and understand it can do that. We've also got a helpline in place for the whole duration of the media campaign that people can call if they've got queries and we've got a dedicated SPIR mailbox as well that we'll be monitoring throughout to answer questions and queries and we've got the SPIR team on standby throughout the period to deal with the queries as they come in. I think it's worth saying that we are very, very mindful about public confidence but we see that the development of public confidence is a process and not an event, absolutely. And this is a conversation in which parliament must have an appropriate role. We have looked at the public information campaign, the coverage we expect to be around 93% of the Scottish population and we put in place measures to try and ensure that we get as close to 100% if we possibly can. But just to be clear, very few campaigns are able to reach 100% of the population, so we've spent quite a considerable amount of time and that was part of Scott's answer about why we've taken in response to Ms Johnson's question a bit more time about this because actually looking at the hard to reach groups in Scotland, making sure that we cover those who might not be able to use social media or not listening to the radio and fundamentally underlying it I think is the role of general practice and general practice staff to engage with their patients appropriately. When all the public information campaign does is make people aware that this conversation needs to happen but ultimately the patients and general practice staff need to engage in that conversation and people need to understand that they have the right to control their own data. Can I just get an understanding of what's the situation at present? Say a practice is able at present to know how many diabetics it has on its books for example. Is a practice able to release that information without the consent of the patients who suffer from diabetes at present? At the moment there are lots of very ad hoc arrangements across Scotland, so health boards for example might want to be looking at the things that you mentioned and there are various ways of anonymising the data. Strictly speaking the law and the duty of confidentiality that GPs have says that information should only be used for anything other than direct care by taking out all the identifiers, so taking out data, birth, name and address and postcode. There are ways that you can use machinery to scramble the information and effectively anonymise it which is what SPIR will do but the problem for GP practices at the minute is that there's lots of people asking for their information and lots of people asking for data. It might be for very good reasons like cancer research but you still have to stick to the rules and know you're right. Identifiable information should never leave the practice without the consent of the patient unless it's for direct care. I'm just trying to understand and to understand what will that change? It will apply a uniform mechanism for doing this so that the public can be reassured that their information will be stripped of all its identifiers and it will apply a uniform process right across Scotland. If I'm a diabetic and in my general practice surgery do I have to give permission on the SPIR for the fact that I am simply a diabetic to be used? We're talking about the opt-out in relation to patient identifiable data, aggregated data in which you cannot be identified is not subject to the same approach. So in terms of how many diabetics and it depends I mean Scott might be able to say more about how the data is collated at a practice level, a cluster level, at a locality level but absolutely it's the aggregated data where you are not identifying, you're just part of a group, it's dealt with in a different way. And certainly we expect that the vast majority of extracts that we run through SPIR would be at the aggregate level as we've talked about. This is more about the numbers and get a sense of what's happening across the country. In terms of what Richard was saying about if data is brought into ISD so that we are then feeding back data about diabetics for the country, we have other techniques that we use as a process which we call disclosure control so we actually look closely at the tables that get published to ensure that there's no other way of identifying individuals from the tables that are there so data is very, very heavily scrutinised at all levels of publication. I mean all I would, I'd just observe that if it's a question of public confidence in the system then I think these things need to be made clear, that it's only an identifiable data that what is identifiable data, what's the definition of identifiable data? So there's two levels, one is at the individual patient level, so data that's aggregate is usually kind of aggregated up so that it's high level so you can't identify people. You can also get data that might be at an individual level but we strip out all the identifiers about the patient from it so that might be things that there's a system called recoding that's used in GP practices which would identify the disease type that the patient's got so we can extract identifiable, sorry patient level data with all the identifiers stripped off or through SPIRE with appropriate approvals you could extract confidential data but if we did that which would be things like names and addresses and all that kind of stuff we are clear with information governance principles that that would require the approval of the patient to give that data out. Additional approval yes because my understanding at the moment of this isn't that you have to opt out of this system yeah so everyone will be covered by it and if I don't want to be I have to approach my practice and say I don't want to be included in this. Alex. Thank you, good morning to the panel. A couple of questions from me firstly in terms of uptake and the voluntary nature for GP practices. I'm just interested to know what kind of market research or user relations you've had with GPs and what that the profile looks like between those who are really excited about this and those who are ambivalent and those who are quite reluctant and what the reasons for that are. We'll work closely with the SGPC, the BMA in Scotland and also the Royal College of GPs and they have both been reassured by all the information governance so they are supporting the project and recommending it to their practices. The college particularly are concerned with them maintaining quality, maintaining high quality services for patients and so they see this as a way of helping to promote that. The BMA are potentially more concerned with the security and the information governance so they see this as a much better process which will be open and transparent for patients but also give reassurance to practices that they don't have to worry about all of the extracts. Just to repeat a point before I mean especially around the cluster working that is a contractual obligation and so while we want to maintain absolutely a sense of this being a voluntary approach to instill confidence at the same time we want to make sure that the data we need to ensure that our services are being provided appropriately is there and that issue is something that we resolved in the next year. Great, thank you. The second question I have is a sense of applications of this beyond the health board and the health sector indeed. In fact one of the points I and colleagues consistently make in Chamber and in this place is about the impact of planning decisions on local healthcare services and how readily it will be for planning committees on local authorities to interrogate this data when they're making significant planning decisions about the impact of large-scale housing developments, about citing care homes in particularly older demographic areas, things like that. How easy and I mean how much foresight have you given to that application? I mean essentially the system that we've developed is robust enough to cover as many asks as you could possibly think of. So in terms of as Richard was saying around the working with clusters and practices etc also work closely with integrated boards around how they are planning and delivering services. So Richard mentioned the tool we've got called source which pulls together data to support the integration agenda. One of the big gaps at the moment is primary care data within that and SPAR gives us the opportunity to essentially kind of address that gap. But the beauty of the SPAR system is that it's flexible, it's designed to be bespoke queries for particular purposes. So as these purposes emerge then we can develop the extract that will then pull out the information as approved through the SPAR system. We're short of time so we need to crack on. Ivan? Thanks convener, thanks for coming along panel. There's a couple of things I just want to touch on. First of all I'm still not 100% clear on this identifiable tag. So as I understand that everybody's data would go in and be, it would be, when it's aggregated you can do that with it and people don't opt out of that. But the opt-out is what exactly because I'm assuming that your personal data doesn't get identified anyway so what exactly are you opting out of? Yeah, so to give an example, so within the record for the individual patient there are fields like postcode and postcode is a field that we would often use to derive things like the deprivation index. So people wanted to do analyses to address inequalities and do that kind of thing. The deprivation index isn't in the GP record. So in terms of one of the extracts that we could do with approval would be at individual level with say some of the key diagnostic type information but it would also bring in postcode and there's a process we've got whereby the kind of identifiable data and the payload which is the kind of diagnosis stuff is split so that they're never brought together to allow us to derive the deprivation scores, attach that to the payload data and then we get rid of the identifiable stuff. So that in essence isn't identifiable because the analysts using the data in ISD would never get sight of any identifiable data but allows us to use identifiable data to make those derivations. So in terms of the opt-out patients would be opting out of their data being used in that type of extract coming through to ISD. Right, I'm kind of struggling with that because it's not identifiable. Because of the process you're putting it through and it's valuable data because we do need to know from a health inequality point of view exactly that information. So why would you be able to opt out of that? So in terms of the principles we've developed feels like postcode are deemed as identifiable because that identifies effectively where you live. So therefore we are giving patients the ability to opt out if they wish to do so from that. Fiable from the analysis you're doing. That's correct but it's still using the individual level records and as Libby mentioned in terms of developing the information governance principles there are still some concerns from some people around extracting that level of data. Given what you said there that it's not identifiable at the individual level and the fact that that data is very very valuable for us understanding different impacts of social deprivation being one of them. Does it not seem that you're kind of been about to two belt and braces on this and two over the top? I think we're starting from a position where we try to build as much confidence as possible in the system. So I think we want to extract as much risk from this as possible. So you're right, we are being cautious. There's absolutely no doubt when it comes to patient confidentiality and privacy that we're taking a very cautious approach to this but over time we will develop the system and as the confidence in the system develops we can look again at the principles underpin this but I think it's something that we are very strongly believing in and I think it's supported generally in terms of the debate around the Caldecott principles etc that we start from the most cautious position to build confidence with the public and then at that point I think we could look again at how that data is used. I'm just concerned that you're raising spectres here that don't actually exist and in some ways it could be counterproductive because you're creating an impression that there is a problem when there clearly isn't in the way you've just described it. Well I think there's a very delicate balance here Mr McKee in terms of allowing the public not I think to be overly concerned about a change in how their data is used and then when I say confidence is instilled in the system then we can look again as to whether we've been a bit too cautious. Okay okay and I suppose that the thing I wanted to talk about was yes sure was round about the main issue here which I think is the benefits I think we really need to focus on. We've talked about the health benefits clearly you can slice and dice the data to understand correlation between different factors different outcomes etc. There's clearly issues where GP practices could figure out where they're doing well and not doing well and understand that and you've kind of talked about that. I think there's another couple of things I just like to understand how far you plan to go on these and it's round about third parties so clearly people are doing university research and we talked about cancer research there's going to be a whole range of stuff there and some private sector stuff as well clearly who want to understand some of that data. What's the mechanism for interacting with those organisations that some of you've given some thought to and also how do you plan particularly in terms of relating to the private sector generate some revenue to that because clearly what you're sitting on here could be very valuable commercially and the second thing is big data analytics is clearly an innovation focus for the Scottish Government with the big data innovation centre etc and that is exactly the kind area and we're probably enough fairly maybe not unique but close to being unique position of having five million data sets in Scotland that we can pull into one place and then run big data analytics on it so from using it as an economic development point of view and supporting the big data innovation centre or drive is that something you're conscious of and what kind of discussions have you had there? We're having some detailed discussions with the Scottish School of Primary Care which encompasses all of the university departments of research and also with the FAR Institute to develop exactly the kind of informatics institute that you're talking about. Initially we will be focusing on services for the practices themselves but absolutely over the next two, three years then we want to develop just exactly that kind of facility. Just to be absolutely clear though in terms of the commercial opportunities here Spire data goes through the well-established research principles that governs all health research in Scotland so in terms of direct access from commercial interest to this data that is not available so it would have to be part of a well-established research project with a partnership that's understood within the appropriate research framework than an ethical framework. Absolutely the data is not for sale. Thanks. Richard. Morning. GP practices are going to get Spire what about GP out of hours which operates six o'clock date o'clock next morning and then in 24 hours at weekends? Will they get this or is it only just GP practices? At the moment it's just the GP practices but there are all sorts of plans for how we develop in the future so once it's fully rolled out to the practices that will be one of the next considerations as well as community nurses and I think we mentioned social care as well. Okay one of the questions that no one's asked is what's been the cost of this? What's the setup cost and what is the annual cost of running it? I don't have those figures so in terms of the setup cost which is primarily around developing the software and building that is £676,000 and the annual cost is of the order £400,000 to run the service and just to put it in context when we ran the PTI that was mentioned previously which was the 60 practice that had an annual cost of around about £376,000 so the utility we'll get from Spire for a similar sum of money will be far greater. So it's not millions then? It's not millions. Basically you can get the information, one more question, the GP can get the information but I take it you can actually, will the information also be centrally held somewhere? So the principles we're building in terms of the extracts that would be taken there will be extracted for a particular purpose and held for a time-limited period around that particular purpose. So in terms of the data that we extract from the GP practice it'll be taken into a safe haven within NSS where the analyst would be analysing it and then analyse it and once that work is done then after a period the extract would be destroyed. That's right, thank you. Is it on budget? Yep. Even despite a delay it's on budget? Yep. Could I ask if all patients will be written to about this? Receive individual letters, they will be able to hear about it on local radio and they'll be able to read about it but I've not got a radio. They'll be able to have information at your local library or in the pharmacy. I don't go to the library. In your GP practice? I very rarely go to the GP. How do I find out about it? Because I don't think that's particularly acceptable. If people are, if we're going to do this, we're going to instill confidence, people need to know about it. Now as much as you put posters up and radio programmes and all of that stuff, as much as you do that, my experience working in my community for the last 12 years, 13 years is that if you don't stick stuff in people's faces and make them very aware of it, you will miss a big chunk of the population. So I would ask that, I have real concerns about that if you're not going to alert people individually that this is going to happen. I think that's a potential to undermine confidence in the system. When we have looked, there have been previous whole population mail drops, which have not achieved the extent of coverage that you might expect. Maybe not, but people have got them. It's a difficult question. Mail drops are very, very expensive and for the benefits of reaching the last 6 per cent of the population who won't be reached by all these other ones. Presumably, this investment is spent to save. We're not implementing this for fun, this is designed to hopefully improve healthcare and I would expect, down the line, to save money. It's a judgment. There were lots of discussions in the early days of the public information campaign and we took advice from patient groups, we consulted widely and the decision was taken to do it this way. I agree that it's a judgment, we could have done it the other way but this is what was decided. Thank you convener and thank you to the panel for an interesting session. It's just to pick up on one of the points that Mr Finlay made there. You'll be advertising on radio, you'll be advertising on newspapers and flyers and GP surgeries. How are you going to reach those who don't speak English as a first language or those who don't read? The leaflet has been translated into nine different languages including a British Sign Language video for people who can't just understand the normal ones. We've also engaged quite extensively with the Alliance and particular groups, for example the Learning Disabilities Network, to ask them how they would like the information to be given to their particular groups. There are different methods that we've also engaged with the Deaf Blind Association and they are producing their own materials. We've tried to tailor things to suit certain groups and to reach the hard to reach ones. You're saying that we advertise on GP surgeries? Is there an onus on GPs and GP staff to alert the patients registered at that practice that this is being rolled out to the air and on the date that it's being rolled out? As you're saying, it's not going to be a mass switch on. How would I know that my particular practice was signed up to this on a particular date? Well, you can opt out if you want to at any time and you can opt out now even in advance of the public information campaign. No extractions will take place for at least eight weeks after the public information campaign, so there will be no switch on of extractions for quite a while, but GP practices themselves might use their own information for their own purposes and that would be on-going and they don't need to inform their patients about that because that would be to look at their own information of their own patients. Each of the practices is a practice toolkit with many materials for them to use about SPIRES, so we've been very proactive in engaging with each of the practices to make sure they have the information they need and all the materials are translatable in other languages if we haven't covered them in the nine that Libby mentioned that we've got there and we can turn that round quickly and that's in place to do that. So the switch on in terms of the extract of any data would be round about the 7th of May, so it would be eight weeks after the public campaign starts on the 7th of March. Okay, Miles. Thank you. How many patients have currently opted out and how many patients do you envisage willed opt out and are you expecting to? So the answer in terms of how many patients have currently opted out the answer is none because that's the reason we're doing the public information campaign. In terms of how many we expect to opt out that's a difficult question until we've actually run the campaign. What we can base it on is kind of what opt out levels have been like in previous campaigns like the emergency care somebody that was done, Libby you were heavily involved in that, you have details about looking at a level of opt out for that particular system. That was 10 years ago and patients were leafletted on that occasion and over the first few weeks there were several hundred opt outs and I think there was a total of about two and a half thousand overall and that number has stayed static for years. Thank you very much that's been very helpful this one, thanks for your time. Can I suspend briefly for a change of witnesses? Agenda item 2 is a round table session on sport for everyone. Since it's a round table, we will go round the table and introduce ourselves. We have a number of guests today and we also have one of our colleagues, Brian Whittle, who is the spectacularly well informed Brian Whittle who is joining us today for this evidence session. My name is Neil Finlay, I'm the convener of the health and sport committee. I'm Claire Hawke, I'm the deputy convener story of the health and sport committee on the MSP for Ruthergone. And my name is Ian Murray, chief executive of Highlife Highland. Tom Arthur, MSP for Renfisher South. Mark Monroe, chief executive for Scottish Athletics. Miles Briggs, conservative MSP for Lothian. Julie Clark, University of the West of Scotland. Donald Cameron, conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Morning, I'm Alex Cole-Hamilton, I'm Lib Dem, MSP for Edinburgh, West End. Alison Johnston, MSP for Lothian. Richard Loyall, SNP, MSP for Ovingston and Belsall. I'm Gannan Reid, I'm an electorate in sports management up the road at Edinburgh University in the Institute of Sport, PE and Health Sciences. Brian Whittle, MSP South of Scotland. Kim Atkinson, I'm the chief executive of the Scottish Sports Association. Mary Todd, MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Ian Hooper, director of sport at Glasgow Life. I'm Colin Smyth, MSP for the South of Scotland. Ivan McKee, MSP for Glasgow Provin. Okay, thank you very much for that. Alison, I think you are ready to start us off. Thank you very much, convener. I'm really pleased that we're having this session. I think I'm going to kick off by looking at the survey results. It's probably fair to say that a lot of the information gathered isn't a huge surprise to any of us with regards to barriers. Three of the very common barriers are expense, lack of time, that work-life balance and lack of adequate facilities. I do feel that we've known this for a very long time but nothing much seems to change. I'd be grateful if those joining us this morning could perhaps describe what they would do to take this forward. So who would like to kick off? The work I've mostly done for the past five years has been researching the East End around the Commonwealth Games and the impact of regeneration there. One of the things that we've done in our data gathering is disaggregate findings in terms of barriers, in terms of people who are more and less active. For more and less active there, our bar is very low. It's just have you done anything remotely sporty, which could be walked quite quickly in the past four weeks. When you split these barriers, one of the things that you see, as well as the usual pattern of lack of time, lack of interest, concern with cost as a feature as well, for the less active group, which for our sample is about half of them, is concerned about your health not being good enough to do anything, is a massive feature. Certainly our Survey in 2012, that was the biggest thing. For that group, just concerned that your health wasn't good enough. There's got to be a lot of scope there for outreach in terms of people understanding at a fun level what is exercise, what is sport, what is engagement. It's not something separate, elite, athletic. It's something that you can do within the community, do with your friends. I think I'm sure Glasgow Life will have a lot to say in this, but there's massive scope for particularly that very important least active group for doing things that can help. Would anyone else like to comment on that? Maybe some of the things that are probably relevant to barriers. I mean there's been an awful lot of research that's been done over 20, 25 years and the different barriers to participation amongst different population groups and the survey that's been undertaken just contributes to that. I think in terms of what needs to be done to overcome and address those barriers, particularly in relation to the totally inactive, requires intense work, requires collaboration and partnership between key partners. It's very much around a prevention agenda in terms of health. There is an example in your packs of one area of work that I'd probably like to highlight, which is the Good Move programme in Glasgow, which is a partnership between the Public Health NHS, the Wheatley Group, Housing Group, PASS for All and Glasgow Life. It's a wide-ranging programme. It's aimed at targeting the inactive in all age groups, so part of the Good Move programme is to target older people, parties to target families and very young children. It is a programme that now encompasses around 7,000 individuals, which we're tracking in terms of levels of activity, so we have witnessed over the years increase in activity levels between those that are involved on the programme. So it's very much an area that is about, as I say, collaboration. It relies on funding from a range of partners, and I think that's a really key issue to understand that this type of good work and good practice, in my view, needs to be sustained into the future. Ideally needs to be expanded so it can have a population level impact. But this is very much one of the key areas within those programmes. There's a whole range of programmes from tea dances to focusing on programmes on those with particular health conditions, but health walks has proved to be one of the most popular activities. We're running something like 60 to 70 health walks a week in our urban parks, mainly volunteer-led. We're very much focused on urban parks in the deprived communities in Glasgow, and they're really growing in popularity. And there's a lot of research now saying that embedding walking into daily lives is probably as good a strategy as anything in terms of getting the inactive more active. So walking and cycling, I would argue, are two key areas for development. I noticed on the website that you were looking at doing some visits. You wouldn't have to walk that far to get to the Crags Community Sports Centre. I don't know if you've been there before already, but that's a really interesting example that's held up as community empowerment. And it's right next door to us. I think that's interesting development within sport, quite a slow development of social business and social innovation. Obviously Scotland is known for that. So it's interesting what's happening there in terms of what was run by the community. And then that didn't work out. Taken by Enver Ledger, that didn't work out. And now taken over by local volunteers from basketball club, governing body basketball and housing association. Because anything what you've got there is something that is a bit alternative in terms of having hip hop, BMX, aerial yoga. It's a bit different in terms of sport. Where's the kind of radical innovation in terms of the delivery of sport? That kind of fits a bit with the counterculture of youth culture. The interesting issue would be though, to what extent is that, do you look upon communities as a unified thing? In what ways do the different social classes mix in the Crags Community Sports Centre? It strikes me, we talk a lot about mass engagement, but we don't really talk about class much in sport. You look at something like Spartans Community Football, another really interesting place to go and you've probably been into the Health and Sport Academy, where they do kind of get that influence of class and they get people there who are from the local community, who can build relationships and are doing some really interesting things in terms of crime and education in particular. But they've got that business acumen and compassion for the community. This year I have with some of these things as we kind of miss out something about what is the role of local government and that's something about an elephant in the room and all, discussions of sport and maybe we'll come on to that in terms of Spartans could be doing some great work in terms of education, but they'll do it for nothing. So in terms of, these are difficult times for local government in terms of budget cuts and whatever. So there's some kind of issues there, what is the role of local government in places like that and also places like the Crags. If local government is transferring assets or maybe failed businesses, again what's support to be put in place to help these places? Are we providing middle class playgrounds with some of these things or we're putting a lot of responsibility, there's a lot of talk about responsibility and all these kind of things, but that's a lot of responsibility in a few people. So again, where is that local government role in community empowerment? It's a nice spot for too long there. I think it's always an interesting question around barriers and I suppose there are many sets of barriers and different kinds perhaps, but I guess in terms of coming back to the points about walking and cycling, our members from a walking point of view are ramblers and obviously Scottish cycling, both reporting increases in people being active. So from a walking point of view there's more than 700 circular routes being used through their middle routes app. So that's more people getting out and being active, so they've got an increase in membership. Their membership retention is at 89%. So that's a lot more people getting active in walking, which is obviously something that's very accessible. And again, from a cycling point of view, more people being active in terms of participating and more people being and more clubs generating. So that's more than 2000 people as individual members in increasing cycling and they've got an increase in 16% of new clubs. So there's lots happening in those areas, but I think that masks the innovation that's happening perhaps across other sports. I know that was a phrase that Gavin picked up, but I think one of the challenges is around I think times a very interesting one coming out from the survey. And I suppose it's an interesting question of how much of that is a reality of a lack of time and how much of that is a perception of a lack of time in either way. If somebody doesn't think they've got enough time that I appreciate is the hard and fast reality. But if people truly understand the benefits of taking part in sport and being active, does that change what that reality is and what that looks like? So we know that only 4% of Scotland's population understand the chief medical officers guidelines for how active you to be for your own health. 4%. If people understood what that is, would people prioritise things in a different kind of way? So the barriers for people being active is one thing. I think the barriers that our members face as the governing bodies for the different sports and how they can help more people to get active is a different question, but hopefully the committee members have a chance to look at our paper which shows significant sets of increases across Commonwealth Games sports, across Olympic and Paralympic sports, obviously the two enormous events we've seen in the UK over the last few years from a multi-sport point of view, but also huge number of sports which aren't involved in either of those and some which perhaps aren't competitive in that same way, orienteering, a particularly good example. 20% increase in individual membership. There are barriers that our members face, and again, as you say, I'm sure we'll come to those around cost, around facility access, around a range of other enablers people that help, but I think there are ways that if we can look at those sets of barriers collectively, we can do things innovatively and differently, and I think our members across the board are looking and achieving against those. I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I'll certainly speak for myself and say that I am one of those who do not know what the chief medical officer's guidance is, and we are supposed to be informed. There's a problem there. I think that's a very fair question. Yes, it's 150 minutes of moderate activity each week, along with two muscle development sessions, and every time we hear that, we hear 150 minutes, and that's great, but the muscle development sessions are really, really critical in terms of support, particularly for older adults, particularly for balance, particularly for sets of confidence. When you're talking about that, for me, convener, you're talking about sport. When we talk about physical activity and sport, they are both equally important as we look at everybody, hopefully trying to achieve those benefits. I'm not sure that terminology would cut through with the public saying, you know, you have to have two muscle development sessions as well. What does that mean? Indeed, and there are a wide range of opportunities that can help with that, and it doesn't have to be pounding in the gym twice a week. There are a range of different sets of opportunities. Okay, thanks. With our sporting context as well, we shouldn't undervalue the role of sporting sports clubs within the local communities across Scotland that there's thousands of sports clubs across the country. The majority of those clubs are probably at capacity, which is one of the barriers to participation within sport and physical activity. A number of sports have shown that, with the right investment in people and in clubs, we can increase capacity, so that, for me, is key. The role of clubs, even within a volunteering context, we undertook a survey within Scottish Athletics last year, and we had £7.19 million worth of volunteer hours based on the minimum wage, which is staggering. So whether it's participation or the role of volunteers within the communities, we should not undervalue the role of clubs, and with the right investment within clubs, within local communities, we can definitely make a difference as well. There's some great examples across the country for that. Ian. Yes, I think that in terms of time and locality of facilities, I think that there are big sets of progress being made across the country, better utilisation of the school estate, the careful building of the school estate when it's being renewed to include more leisure facilities, which are closer to communities rather than having to travel. In terms of price, we operate a low-cost access scheme, which has seen an 18% increase over the last few years. In terms of young people, the active school co-ordinators scheme in our area has seen a 7% increase in individual participants taking part since the games. I think that those general self-generated universal services need to be backed up with absolutely some of the targeted work that Ian Hooper was describing. One that hasn't been mentioned so far, teenage girls, the level of activity in teenage girls, taking that big dive in first and second year at school, with a big focus on that in our area, we've almost closed that gender gap and the thing that has broken the back of that has been dance, has been fun, it's not been about hard sport, it's been getting girls interested in something that they're interested from Britain's Got Talent or whatever, but it's actually brought them in and that has led to a very significant jump in the number of older youngsters volunteering to lead younger people and that again breaks down the serious nature of sport and allows them to have a feeling of responsibility and leading on now, we've got 500 older youngsters volunteering out of the total of 1500 that are volunteering in parents and others for active schools and that leads them on to a leadership programme where they can gain qualifications and bring in people who really were not, girls who were not interested in any kind of physical activity end up being the coaches of tomorrow going out into their clubs having been brought in through the fun aspect rather than the serious aspect. Yes, thank you all for your comments and I'd like to thank Dr Reid for reminding us of the fabulous work that does go on in the crags and Spartans and you know various clubs across the country. I think we've obviously heard that one size doesn't fit all on what appeals to one person in terms of physical activity might not suit another but one thing that I think has come up in the paper that Charlie Rayburn from the Observatory for Sport in Scotland has emphasised and I've heard it time and time again, two, is the lack of evidence that helps inform policy making and the lack of evidence about how good sport is for you that would help perhaps inform budget making decisions. I think it has to be crystal clear to everyone how good being involved in sport is and a recent Scottish conference on sport, I think the message that came from that audience is that we don't have the evidence base that we need in Scotland to encourage that investment and I'd be grateful to perhaps hear from Mark Monroe and Dr Clark their views on that. Athletics as a sport has shown increases of over 50 per cent in membership more than 70 per cent in club membership in the last five years and our greatest concern again as you've touched on there Alison is that that information is not being captured where you know within which survey does it show the growth within governing body sport, within clubs, within local communities and for me I don't think the evidence base is strong enough I think we need to look at ways of how we monitor how we assess and evaluate that information and how we put that jigsaw together because it's a complicated jigsaw certainly to put together so there must be better ways of doing it in my opinion it's actually sitting round and actually determining what is the best way forward because certainly for me governing body growth is certainly not represented with any of the surveys we're seeing at present but the information that has been provided by Scottish Athletics says that jogscotland is the biggest increase and yet that's been chopped. Absolutely. You know we were receiving £100,000 per year from April that funding ceases where. Could you attempt to talk us through the logic of that? Again I would like to know the logic in that. That's a good question we're seeing 100 new participants a week come into jogscotland we're seeing new groups jogscotland as a programme is very much about the social element it's about physical health it's about mental health it has over 70 77 percent females average age 40 plus it's a great programme in terms of physical activity again we need to look at what information do the government want around those that programme what information is required and let's work together to achieve that but certainly to say we're in crisis mode at the moment around jogscotland is probably probably correct. So did you want to come back in on that Alice? No I would just be sort of you know be helpful to have that expert view perhaps from Dr Clarke and Dr Reid on on the lack of that evidence base that would ensure that programmes like jogscotland aren't cut. Government do you want to call in on that? Thank you to you. That's on the phone to Charlie to actually going to talk about the same thing that we we do lack an evidence base we we play the numbers game in sport that's for a number of years it's always about numbers we have a number for active school sessions and we have a number of community sport hubs and we have a number of this and that and you kind of speak to people when they bring people from sport into university and they kind of give a different view of what's happening so I think we have a real gap and it's always a disappointment with our students tend to read academic work it's on English sports policy and sports policy around there was a lack of good quality rigorous academic work on what's happening in community sport hubs and because like you I'm not far from a community sport hub and I've never been anywhere near it and I've not heard anything from them and it's it's almost like we're waiting for people to come to them and it's in some cases it'll be brilliant and we've had people like Benji Bersantet and Ysloy and it's doing fantastic work and I'm sure there's other places as well but we're not great at getting that kind of academics and practitioners together and saying well what what can we do to try and get a much much more rigorous evidence base for this but we don't feel a bit uncomfortable with all we've got so many numbers for community sport that equals success because it's I don't know that is what the reality is so it's um we need to kind of some way do that but um so Julie I want to respond to this in two particular segments the demographic with which I work is disadvantaged quite often people I work with most are the most 15% disadvantaged people in Scotland some of the most 5% disadvantaged by SND one of the fascinating and depressing things about that work is things like perception of time that is available things like perception of what is for you what is not for you is very very difficult if you're living in straight and economic circumstances so I would argue very very strongly for separate consideration of people who are under large financial stress these people are also very often geographically clustered one of the fascinating things that's happened in the east end is a large scale investment in quite a small space and we should have evidence coming through to see what that does for us in terms of physical activity and sport the context though is people who are worrying about heating their homes can't get their children where they need to get into school food so part of the economic difficulty wraps into this physical activity part of understanding what works and what doesn't is so much of this moves in parallel if your economic circumstances get better you're in a position to be more active you're in a position to think about what is good for you rather than just coping so in one chunk of that the problem with the evidence base is disentangling very complex phenomenon when you're dealing with people who are economically disadvantaged the second thing I'd like to say and again echoes back to your point about the funding environment and what happens we started for a couple of years doing surveys within schools looking at two particularly advantaged schools relatively normal you would say but by comparison advantaged two schools in the east end which were disadvantaged and two other comparatively disadvantaged schools we got a lot of information from that that's interesting information but did it on practically no money and weren't able to I would like to highlight some of the things that we did learn though because I think they're incredibly important comparing the advantaged and the less advantaged schools so for Glasgow the more normal schools the kids in the more affluent schools got access to a wider range of sports that's a wonderful thing we we've talked about the one size doesn't fit all if you're in an environment where you can try a lot of different things then you're more likely to find something that works for you in terms of speaking with teaching staff speaking with active schools coordinators another thing you learn is how under pressure teachers feel and the difference between the advantaged and the disadvantaged schools in the disadvantaged schools just getting kids to come to a club is a problem because they might have to go home and look after their baby brother or sort the dinner or 20 million other different things that children from more advantaged backgrounds don't have to deal with if you're from a more disadvantaged background when you go to a club the parents turn up with fruit and water and transport and the playing field is still very far from equal in terms of what we do to support kids in less advantaged schools and it is one of the most promising pathways that there is to again that population level change that Ian talked about so we've multiple problems one is the logistics if you're from a deprived background all sorts of other things are very important in your life and what you need is a clean safe willy area where you can walk around where you're not frightened to get in the bus to go to the lovely facilities that are available and the other is pressure on research environment itself you know we're trying to do things with little or no money very often and the learning that you can get from that is quite valuable the things that we learn are the amount of sedentary time young people spend so it's not just what you do physically it's how do you create an environment that gives people fun desirable things to do that give them other ways of losing their time and i couldn't emphasise enough i'd like to echo back the point on it's got to be fun being good for you isn't enough brian a general question i want you to put out there and the difference between sport and activity both of those words are extremely important how we're defining sport how we're defining activity and how we're linking the two of them together i think is i'm putting it out there because i think that's really important how we how we frame our questions and i think also i'd just like to compare it with Dr Juli Carter couldn't agree more with everything you just said there and that one of the questions of course then is how do we create an environment where or do you agree that that environment should be where schools are open after hours so rather than have to go home to go somewhere else we've got more chance of holding on to to kids for activity if we can if we can keep them within that environment very much so and using it as a space that is for everyone in the community bringing everyone in the community and i you know this is a personal career as opposed to some extent you know i believe the school should be for the community in the area things that you can do cross generationally that that's incredibly important as well something that you can do as a family that kind of thing has been done quite a lot in health research in terms of tackling obesity trying to change patterns i'm sure we can do the same thing that's not being done already with physical activity you know in terms of physical activity for me from my perspective as someone who's interested in health and well-being i do not care how you are getting your exercise i don't care if you're scuba diving if you're whatever or if you're walking to the shops faster than normal it's about that 150 minutes it's about that building strength so that you don't crumble from osteoporosis if you make it to be a 60 year old woman or whatever and i think it's incredibly valuable to have environments where people interact and environments in the community where people interact because again that's the buy-in that's the fund the club things mentioned earlier you know software research will show that people who aren't incredibly active groups who are less active they're more likely to do it in a club environment i mean there's possible exploration for ethnicity there as well that we've not had a chance to do but there are some hints that if you're from a minority background maybe you'll do something if there's a club where you can do it with your friends just to respond to a number of things actually that's been said in terms of the evidence space going back to that i think i think there is an issue about understanding what evidence we actually have and using that evidence to inform policy and action so i'm not saying that i'm not saying that we have a strong and coordinated evidence framework but i do think we don't we're not taking time to understand and collate the evidence that's been put together over a number of years julie just talked about a number of pieces of research that's been undertaken in the east end i could quote a myriad of research projects i've been undertaken in different parts of glasgo scotland and the uk i'm not sure we're very good at just learning from the evidence that's already been collated however one of the key learnings should be uh as it has as been said then we need to target our efforts uh and i think that's part of the issue the the evidence says uh that uh we need bespoke solutions and targeted efforts between partners if you're ever going to make an impact in areas like the east end of glasgo programs like good move i've mentioned community sports hubs is a nationwide program but but where it really has impact for me are in areas like drum chapel where it's really targeted where it's really making a difference in an area very much like the east end that has the same challenges as the east end but bringing organisations together and what's the role of local government in that another question that was asked i think local government uh and leisure trusts uh have a role in helping to facilitate and bring people together uh in situations like that i know in drum chapel um there are a recent policy conference there's a really good interaction between uh the local guide terry mclellan who runs who organizes and is the champion for the drum chapel community sports hub and our officer who helps uh paul that who helps to support that hub and has brought together a whole range of initiatives and activities so i think there's a facilitating role for local government uh i don't think the targeting shouldn't we shouldn't ignore the universal provision so let's not forget that the active scotland framework is not just about making the inactive active but making active or sustaining activity from those who are already engaged in activity and i know from our figures in glasgo uh over the last seven or eight years we've seen really significant increases in glasgo club membership tendencies at facilities and and we mustn't lose sight of that we we need to hold on to that that's important but increasingly our efforts i believe need to be more targeted at those population groups and those communities uh using the good practice that i think we know actually we just not we're just not taking the time to understand that good practice and roll it out so it has a wider and more population impact so i don't think there's anything that was not within our grasp we just need a more coordinated approach between partners and a bit of time to understand the evidence that we already have don't just take the discussion on to slightly different direction and that's to ask about capacity um it seems that capacity is is two things it's having adequate and sufficient facilities and it's also about having enough people to to help with sport participation and i think in the Scottish athletics submission there's a hint that this might be becoming an issue and i just wondered if other common comments could could be made as to whether it's a wider issue than just athletics i represent a very rural area i wonder if it's a particular issue for rural areas um are there waiting lists in some sports and i say all this because if we succeed as we all want to succeed in getting more people to participate in sport it would be a tragedy if we weren't able to facilitate it because there weren't you know there wasn't the right facility or there wasn't the right there weren't the right amount of people and we just couldn't couldn't achieve it i'll just be interested in people's views on capacity yep i think to answer your question and kim will be able to give you some probably better stats than i can i think the majority of sports clubs in the country will face capacity challenges our biggest success in the last five six years has been the investment into a programme called club together and back in 2011 as a sport we recognised we needed to invest more into our clubs into our club people and into our volunteers and recruit more volunteers to allow that capacity to grow we also had one eye on london olympics and one eye on glasgo 2014 as well as windows of opportunity and inspiration so what we did along with our local partners and some national funding at that point in time we invested into part time roles to work alongside the volunteers and volunteers are crucial within this but to aid them with capacity building so we they were called initially club together officers now they have various titles depending on the club's situation so we've grown from 17 clubs working on that programme now to 33 clubs we've seen a number of the clubs within that programme more than double their membership in that period of time which is a huge success factor but it's very much about investing in people in the right people in clubs and valuing the role of volunteers and valuing the role of clubs in their local community because we can make a difference but volunteers need support and need investment to that support it can I return to your question just for a second and then I'll be back to you in terms of statistics I agree with everything that's been said but I would also make a plea for not forgetting about the qualitative human stories that are associated with that and I think more and more research now is being balanced it's figures on one side but it's actually a few good really good examples because I think recent conversations with colleagues for example in Perth or Falkirk they're very clear like we are that there are some absolutely wonderful stories about somebody who has been completely inactive very hit with type 2 diabetes immobile something has grabbed their attention and they've got they've got a little bit more active then they've come to a class then they've got friend then they've increased the social network they have rediscovered their lives and they end up doing absolutely marvelous things and in a local community when when those stories are publicised and that person is known around the place that actually has a much more stronger effect in some of the small certainly rural areas to their whole group of friends for example in I think one of the one of the centres that part of the committee is going to on Monday that has a really good programme for older people in fact the the manager's proud boast is that they now have more people over 60s attending courses in classes than any other age group in that centre which is kind of it's quite unusual I think but that's been because so and so has done well and has grabbed three of our friends mostly ladies it has to be said and in the end it's got it on a Friday morning the last time I was there it was 95 people over 65 three-quarters ladies and a few men hiding in the gym because they've been grabbed grabbed by the wives and brought along but very inspirational stories which really have a big effect. Kim did you want any? A couple of points convener if I can I think going back to Alison's point I think I echo the point about what evidence is it that we think we're missing we know as a nation two and a half thousand people die every year because they're not they're not active enough as a developed world nation that is an incredibly staggering figure so what evidence don't we have around around there we know the benefits of taking part in sport and being active everybody will tell you them the former chief medical officer called it the best buy in public health the chief medical officer called it the best buy in public health what is it that we don't think we know from that point of view we've got a suite of evidence and mark's already given some of it we've given it to the committee about the benefits of the great work that our members governing bodies are doing but we also know that actually to create a difference in the Scottish household survey so the information that tells us if participation is increasing or decreasing and and how we measurement measure at a government level we need a five percent increase across the population of people being active to change that figure so in terms of do we understand what's happening I don't know do I know what the great work that our members are doing and what that counts is yes how does that impact on evidence-based policy and budget setting I don't know but I can tell you the figures that our members are telling us about the people that are benefiting we know that a 900,000 people are members of a sports club so going back to the great point that Ian's just made there are so many sets of benefits that people have there are benefits across the governing bodies across the 13,000 sports clubs where people can tell you about people's lives who are being changed and some of the stories particularly Scottish disability sport would make you cry at the lives that have been saved not just the lives that have been changed through the power of that so we know the impact that clubs have we know that they're the fabric of society we know the benefits that mark talked about from volunteering but I think there's a fundamental question about the culture going back to the point I think that that again was made are we in are we about investing in numbers or are we about investing in values if we're talking about people living longer healthier happier lives we know that people taking part in sport as Julie so eloquently put it sport and physical activity people find that but do we know that that actually we're talking about benefit about a set of benefits that are about values and not necessarily numbers clubs again Julie's point again we know that evidence shows that people who participate in sport in clubs participate for longer and more often than people who participate in other environments so again marks point clubs the fabric of society yes we can get more people involved they get so many extra sets of benefits and just on donald's question about capacity absolutely marks point would be echoed across a huge number of governing bodies how are we failing these people that they want to take part in sport for whatever motivational reason they want to get involved but actually we don't have enough sets of facilities or we can't afford the facilities that are available or we don't have enough people who are able to get involved in volunteering to be coaches because they want to be for whatever set of reasons or whatever set of reasons they want to volunteer so facilities is a barrier from that point of view the school of state continues to become a challenge within that convener so the last report i think was done in 2013 only a fifth sorry a fifth of the school estate was being used in holiday time and a third was used being used in term time local facilities local facilities where local people access local people know that there's somewhere that is a safe environment to them it's a known environment to the men it's easily accessible and yet actually we still know that it isn't being managed it isn't being programmed it isn't being used to the extent that we would benefit from there's a huge number of opportunities available for people local communities but they don't know about them how do we connect the dots where people know where their local jog scotland group is where they know where all the different sets of activities are happening across 52 sports across 32 local authority areas people don't know and if they knew how good it was for them and how many different kinds of opportunities and the diversity of opportunities for the diversity of population maybe people would so we need to challenge those sets of waiting lists but again we need to look at how we increase the capacity of the challenges that that many local authorities are facing but actually there are school estates there are ways we used to call it the sleeping giant there are many sets of opportunities if we can try and stretch that a bit further but it comes down to the question of what are we investing in are we investing in numbers are we investing in values clear thank you convener and thank you to the panel for being here today i needed to clear an interest here i'm a mental health nurse and i want to explore a little bit about the benefits to mental health from having an active lifestyle certainly we there's a good evidence base that walking improves mild depression and is certainly good for other forms of mental illness and i was particularly struck by the report the drum chapel community sport hub get active in drum chapel about some of the the case study some of the stories there about how people's lives had been improved through becoming active in sporting clubs becoming just physically active and the benefits that there had been to them from a mental health point of view as opposed to a physical health point of view and i wonder perhaps the panel might be able to comment on that i was thinking particularly perhaps yourself ian is a from Glasgow life but also to how how we can look at extrapolating that out and getting that benefit i don't think we can just look at this as a physical health issue we need to look at this holistically it's definitely a physical and mental health issue or benefit without i suppose i suppose drum chapel community sports hub is just just an example of what i was saying before in terms of there is evidence there there is the report spirit 2 12 had done some monitoring and tracking and there are some things going on in in drum chapel and i'm really pleased the committee is going out to drum chapel community sports hub to see what's happening in that area but i think there's a cocktail things going on in drum chapel that that could have wider lessons for the rest of scotland in terms of in terms of targeting in terms of getting people working together different agencies working together in terms of people in that community really taking ownership themselves and working together than sales local champions increasing local volunteers the the key role that the school that's played in drum chapel as well and the head teacher in the school and the active schools coordinators but this is this is an example of a community where different agencies and people have got together and clubs and the number of clubs are working together as well but the clubs have gone beyond their normal remit they've stretched their barriers completely they're getting involved and engaged in attracting people into their organizations that they wouldn't normally go out their way to target the football club is targeting goals there's programs for disability and mental health the bike station that's been set up there to get people riding bikes through a bike loan scheme is there's not a cycling club in drum chapel but it's just come out of this community sports hub initiative and the involvement of different agencies so i think and i think there's a growing growing evidence coming out of that that case study as well so yeah real benefits in terms of physical and mental health really challenging area in terms of in terms of people's lives it's a strong refugee and asylum community in that in that in that community as well so it's really tackling it so as i say it's something that we need and this won't be the only community sports hub and this won't be the only example of good practice in Glasgow or elsewhere in Scotland we just need to understand in detail what's going on in areas and communities like this where there is success there is real progress being made in the most challenging of circumstances go out to drum chapel hear that you'll hear that the report says it actually in there Julie one most encouraging things i think that came out of the go well east schools research was looking at a shift in the orientation with the schools and the teachers we spoke with from sport as elite sport sport as you're going to be successful you're going to be represented spotland to support as something everyone can engage with at some level even if that's walking one of the first things i did when i went back to university as a mature student was doing research on urban green space and health priorities and mental health is a massive positive outcome from that anything that you can do that gets people out in the world engaging with the world it builds your confidence that can happen at the level of primary schools having more outdoor play activities having more things that are outside to engage with physically rather than just being parked outside informal exercise is colossally important i'll argue again and again for a quality urban environment where people feel happy and safe to walk about any exercise that you do in green space and again it doesn't have to be something elaborate like the cunning garloop it just needs to be somewhere that is pleasant to be anything that you do in green space you're more likely to sustain exercise that environment and again it is lightly as well as improving your physical health to help you with your blood pressure to be calming there's quite a cluster of research particularly done in england is very very good things if we are starting in schools at primary level getting people used to being outside moving not thinking you have to be an elite athlete just that you might have a nice time this is a good foundation for into adult life feeling that actually you can go for a walk without having a dog or some other alibi with you it's not an insane thing to do you can be out in the world enjoying it and again the more we give people good quality urban environments the more we attend to things like parks like the forest park in Glasgow the better that will be i strongly endorse anything that involves outdoor engagement that can be working on an allotment it can be going on an organised walk it can be doing your own with friends on the back of that organised walk there's all sorts of ways of engaging positively with the world to support your mental well-being gavin then Colin yeah just quick points about that a bit of indoor engagement um just kind of throw it out there what counts as a facility um it's a few years ago now but you know we had to come back to my point about the importance of local government with the closure of leaf water world leisure pool um i do remember at that time there were some people talking about that that was merely people splashing about um in water um actually with my favorite sporting leisure facility on earth um so there's there's anything debates there about what counts i hear there's all this kind of talk about local authorities building resilience but what counts as a subsidy and what is investment you know giving them out of money that is available in some places um you know that seems something that um you know might be worth thinking about what's the best in premium disadvantage communities may not be going up and down rectangular pools it's going to be pretty cold and whatever but um things like that you know what what counts as a proper sporting leisure portfolio in cities i think needs to debate that a bit um a bit more sorry claire i was wanting back in calling then i'll bring in thank you Cymru and i'd like to thank dr clark for speaking about the elaborate cunning garlip which is in my constituency and i can certainly recommend it as a as a destination to go but i think we do need to look at broadening what what we see as being sport and exercise and activity i think sometimes we people see sport as you say is being elite sport and if you're not good enough to be top of or first then sports not for you and i'm really encouraged to see that so so many women are engaging in particularly dance and yoga and things like this which are are perhaps not competitive um and so are more inclusive um i was particularly keen maybe to hear a little bit more from from ian hooper about how you're engaging with refugee and asylum seeking communities having worked extensively with them right across Glasgow in my previous role and they are a very marginalised group who have particular needs particularly with the cultural challenges for women in particular to access community facilities and how you're going about doing that and perhaps if there was something in the east end of Glasgow too that's that's also looking at that population just a few things i suppose just before coming on to that just referring to it's more than just sports your your first comment um i think it's the toronto charter that talks about the seven key investments that will make a difference in terms of physical activity and health or physical and mental activity and health sport is one of those and the whole school approach is one of those but it's two of seven seven key areas of focus and a more integrated approach in terms of in terms of health services in terms of advice and prescription around physical activity urban design particularly around cycling and walking green space safe green spaces embedding activity into daily daily lives are some of the other key areas that go beyond traditionally what white term is sport so we're just going to be careful that we don't view sport as the panacea for for solving some of the health issues that we face in terms of our work with different bme communities in Glasgow and we have a growing bme community in Glasgow what one example might be particularly amongst muslim girls and women is single sex sessions that we're running out of northwoodside pool in the north of the city which is sort of grown in popularity it tries to be sensitive to some of the cultural barriers that that are faced by some of these communities and some of these groups but we're working with what i suppose what we're trying to do is work with the leaders in those communities so and there's such a wide range of communities in Glasgow now in terms of the african community that's really growing as well as the asian community and eastern european communities so we're trying to understand and get to know and work with the representative leaders in those organisations and develop programs of sport and physical activity and support those organisations with capacity building whether it be volunteering whether it be training coaches whether it be providing facility time in local facilities we're trying to support where we can in some ways we try to do that with clubs across the city we see that as an important role for our staff in Glasgow life capacity building in terms of supporting traditional clubs but a lot of these organisations in the refugee communities and asylum communities are not traditional sports clubs as we would view them they're new organisations that have often a broader role than just sport but nevertheless we're trying to work closely as much as we can with them in terms of supporting their volunteers and their access to facilities can i come back to the issue of access and participation for people from less affluent areas that dr clark mentioned the research that's been done showing that the people from deprived areas less likely to participate i think dr reduce the phraser we create in middle class playgrounds but can i specifically ask those whose role it is to provide sporting activities on the panel do you routinely measure the socioeconomic background of those people who participate in your activities i was struck by that the recent bbc documentary the medle myth that revealed that the nine out of ten participants in publicly funded elite athlete programmes either went to a state school in a wealthy area or a fee paying school but their ally is the bbc had to calculate that figure themselves because that information wasn't actually held so do we actually record that information and if you don't routinely record that information how do you actually measure growing participation rates for people from were deprived backgrounds without having to carry out frankly some university research i think with all of these things it's a range of indicators that help given indication and i was saying earlier that we operate a low cost leisure access scheme and we we found a recent postcode analysis tool which allowed us to check our our aspiration was to attract medium to low income families to the scheme and it's not that we're not worried about the rest of folks but they have they have more options than than middle to low income families so we've recently conducted a survey there and about two-thirds of our population of two-thirds of our membership come from medium to low so we took that as a reasonable reaffirmation of the intent of the scheme and one other example the half the committee are going to an area the avi mor area next week and having looked at the free school meals there how many of those youngsters are taking part in active school coordinators and again it's about 65% so nearly two-thirds so again it's it's built it helps start to build a picture rather than be a a one statistic that that says everything else yeah um we probably could be better at this if if i was to be frank but um we do have some key measurements uh we have a a Glasgow club membership which is like a universal membership of our of our facilities in Glasgow the public facilities we have something like 62 000 members of that Glasgow club at the moment um 47 percent of the population in Glasgow live in simd one which is the most deprived and 41 to 2 percent nearly 42 percent of our Glasgow club members come from simd one so it's almost not quiet but almost representative or approaching to being representative which is we feel a reasonably good indicator um obviously the other thing that we're trying to do through the good move program but also we've introduced it into active schools in Glasgow this year is tracking every school child's level of activity or in activity again both in school and out of school so that's something that we've initiated ourselves in Glasgow over the last 12 months we routinely track everyone who joins a good move program in terms of both postcode and also levels of activity or in activity as they as they progress through the scheme so wherever we can we're tracking two things postcode areas of deprivation and levels of activity julia do you want to come in on that yeah um the work Glasgow life do is absolutely tremendous um we've given them some figures with our research we've collaborated over the years it's very very useful that there is an issue however big picture socially with a bit of a blind spot in the social gradient of health where you get an awful lot of poor people you'll also get a disproportionate amount of people who've poor health one way or another to illustrate that quite graphically the first year that we surveyed in the east end 2012 45 percent of the people and again you're pretty representative there 45 percent had some kind of long standing illness or disability that's a massive percentage of the population a third of the people we interviewed had within the last year consulted some kind of health professional or doctor or nurse about mental distress in one form or another so you don't have a normal population if you want to put the air quotes very carefully around that if you have a deprived area there is a disproportion of people who have poor physical and poor mental health the issue there people with long standing illnesses are far less likely to be engaged in physical activity they're far less likely to find facilities accessible to even think that they might use them and that's where there's colossal scope for outreach for helping people to understand what it means to be physically active what it means to engage in sport particularly if you are physically inactive a very low level of physical activity can put you forward quite a lot can improve your life can set you off in that trajectory that Ian was talking about so while we've got good representation of Glasgow life from post codes we have to remember the people who aren't represented really might need a lot of help and support just to understand that it's possible for them to be more active than they are well and do you want to come back in? I think that's useful and I think that what the Glasgow life do is maybe the exception rather than the rule across Scotland I just wonder whether Kim or Mark want to add anything you know if you've got a local athletics club does that club for example routinely measure what the socioeconomic background are of their members so you can you can tell what the participation rates are from certain communities? It certainly is Ian touch on it's polling area we could be more targeted more focused on if I'm absolutely honest we do retain information on our membership across clubs and across the organisation within jugscotland so we're well aware of where our members come from in terms of the resource that we invest into clubs to develop those clubs and to develop those clubs in their local communities it's only the last few years we've really started to do that and these are areas that we do need to target more of hands up absolutely on the issue of people in the most deprived communities I've been made aware of the one of the partners in Glasgow is ANM Scotland ANM the organization which provides free sport for significant numbers of young people thousands a week providing free sport and I was talking to them recently and they were telling me that you know they are now taking food to their sporting sessions because children are turning up they don't eat or children are turning up they don't have trainers so they give them trainers to participate not because you're wee Jimmy you're poor there's a pair of trainers but you've been really good you've performed well that's to encourage you to take part which you know I think that provision of free sport at that level at the very basic level is absolutely fantastic I and I think that's probably where we should be across Scotland to target those people in the most deprived communities but I wonder what impact an eight percent cut in the sports budget and the rolling cuts that we've seen in local government are having on that type of initiative to target the people that we really have to get to. Julie? I can only say I think it's very worrying times I was talking with a colleague outside about the teaching work I do which is around the idea of the social determinants of health all the things beyond your personal genetics that contribute to your health and one of the things that I do working with both under gadget and master's students is you look at the outer rims of the social determinants of health which is your context it might be your school context your work context your community context the wider socio-economic context and in times like this all the things that help people that help protect people who are in a more vulnerable position are the first things that get the chop we have a little window of opportunity in secondary schools following the common health games where the teachers we have some evidence are more enthused when the pupils are a bit more engaged when they're asking to do sports that they've seen in the games with that lovely little window of opportunity and if we cannot follow through in that then the inequalities we found before the more affluent and the less affluent schools will just go back to bifurcating its perilous times to follow on that I think what would be really interesting in this idea of long-term strategy to tackle to tackle health inequality through activity and the idea of early intervention into intervening your preschool homest especially in the most deprived areas and the importance therefore then of what we do at nursery schools what we do at primary schools what we do at secondary schools is that an area where you know we're most likely to be able to tackle this inequality we did a you'll find a long version of the report online looking prospectively looking in advance at the regeneration in the games and thinking what might happen what do we know about the evidence base that suggests what might be useful and analyse that in terms of different pathways we didn't start out with the pathways we found them in the research that we were doing and the schools was one of the most promising of them the other of them was for more deprived people the urban environment itself making sure people feel they can walk around and be active that's sort of thing like are the streets safe are the cycleways kept clear does it become normal to cycle and that's something you can do in schools that's something you can get in very very early with I think it's incredibly promising and to regard that as an investment ideally you know where I queen of the universe to start costing it as an investment you know to start thinking we should have money from this budget because if we don't have that further down the line that's going to hit you in health that's going to hit you in employment where I queen of the universe yes very quickly just um some of the work done with um Spartans over a number of years I think some of that austerity and budget cuts is actually a bit of an opportunity for them there's a number of schools that took students who had been excluded from mainstream schools they're now closing so that's an opportunity for them in terms of developing there and they call it an alternative school um but they have much more personalised one to one mentoring um an education with about 12 or so pupils um who can't cope with mainstream education so there's there's a there's a positive side in that respect there is the other sense is to look at sport for development work here or internationally is the sense that it you know it's it can be I'm not saying they're not doing it on the cheap but the state can get it on the cheap because they're not funding it so it's again get back to the research thing that you have to provide evidence um which is what we are trying to do with Spartans to say well look what what's working what are some of the challenges so you know it's it's looking at some of the positive sides um to these things but also to be aware of yeah there are some advantages but there are some disadvantages if you look at what's happening in terms of it puts a lot of stress on these innovative social businesses sport social businesses which often you don't see when you see some of the publications about it you see the good news um but that's hard it's a hard thing if if somebody's saying well we can be like Spartans or we can be like the crags or whatever but we need to have a bit more honest debate about you know some of the downside in terms of how the impacts on their personal life and their work life balance and all these things that we also go with but maybe particularly difficult for them trying to balance business and social society yeah I think I think one of the sad things about the year on year um cuts so far is a return in in many councils of debate about what statutory services and what aren't because I think what that misses is the opportunity lost once once a service once a set of animator type posts have gone they've gone um and once a building is shut that community has lost that and I think in many respects that creates a disproportionate effect on that community it's not just a well it's a unfortunate swimming pool shutting or whatever but it's it's the lack of ability to keep it to to have fun enjoyment mental health etc etc and of course it's not just the leisure budgets of the education budgets means janitorial over time for those schools that aren't managed by the likes of the organisation or mine they find it very difficult to keep the school lets going because of those but before I finish I think there are opportunities that I think doors are opening much more with the NHS because the NHS and councils are struggling themselves and for example we've seen a lot more doors opening in terms of joint working with the NHS because we're able to say we can help you achieve those aims that you're struggling with because of some of your cutbacks we can work as a partnership with you so it's a it's a whole mix of games but I absolutely agree the eight percent cut in the sports budget has a lot more effect than eight percent Mark yeah I mean these are worrying times for sport and particularly for governing bodies the cut that sportscotland have received recently around the sports budget coupled with the significant reduction in lottery funding will undoubtedly impact on governing bodies and an undoubtedly impact on our ability to deliver good work around clubs around volunteers and coaches and clubs within local communities so it is really worrying times and coupled with that we're seeing massive reductions in sports development teams whether within local authorities or leisure trusts every year on year posts are disappearing or being merged together an impact of that will be felt in the immediate future and in the medium term as well so really worrying times for sport I have to say in terms of the funding and we're just waiting to see what happens in the next couple of months Miles thank you convenient I've kind of wanted to pick up on Ian's point and also Kim's earlier about access to the school estate because in my time since May since I was elected actually trying to help organisations to be able to get into the school estate beyond the school bell has been a total nightmare certainly within Edinburgh and I really want to know what are these barriers and when we're drawing these conclusions together to try to put together what we think we can do to move forward how can we make the school estate more open is it a problem with the head teachers is it like we've heard from me in this a janitor issue or is it local authorities just don't want these buildings to be used in the evenings and because of the costs which should be associated with that and I think we really need to be clear of what these barriers are to be able to break them down pick up on one thing and before I come back to that Miles if that's okay just on the the budgets and I think the point that seems to me is we don't know in terms of what the scale of impact that's going to be but I share Mark's concerns and those that have been intimated by others and as I think we've already said that's one scale of potential cuts you know local authority budgets are obviously under continuing pressure and have been but I figure that I think we maybe haven't covered today as 90% of investment sport in Scotland goes through local authorities so whatever the cut at national level will be you know significant challenges as Mark has outlined but again the access and all the support that's provided whether that's around facilities whether that's around the sports development teams as Ian is so eloquently talked about the impact that they have on working with clubs and helping clubs work is absolutely material so while the vast majority of sport is run by volunteers more people volunteer in sport than any other area volunteering isn't free it takes people to support and help provide the networks and facilities that make that happen and that's through governing bodies through local authorities and through leisure trust so yes it's enormous the benefit that we get from it but we do still have to invest in that to make that happen there's investment and there's political will to make things happen and again I think the two go hand in hand there are things that we can do that don't cost money if we prioritise sets of things miles being particularly good point in there around school estate and a range of other things but there is more that that we can do I think the fundamental question is who who's the beneficiary it's not sport people benefit in the health budgets and the mental health budgets is clear so rightly put forward in justice in education in so many other areas they're the budgets that are going to save if we're genuinely talking about preventative spend yet this tiny budget that's called sport that goes from national and I appreciate local governments touches I would argue more people than any other budget so the 30 whatever million it is that sport Scotland get that is invested in community sport touches a fifth almost of this population pick another budget that does that and oh look it does preventative spend at the same time so I genuinely think it goes back to that point about investing in values and also around legacy being the longer term and again welcoming the committee's reminder that legacy is so important this isn't about a legacy from the Commonwealth Games in three years time yes there are aspects of legacy but let's keep coming back to this in 10 20 30 40 years time where we hopefully are seeing that the scale of that it's a great question Miles and it's one that we've talked about and I know we've talked about for a very long time the sleeping giant is still a phrase that we would use in terms of the opportunity that the school estate brings and whether that's as a community hub or or a community sports hub I think a community hub seems very fair in terms of you know if there happens to be an athletics club you know training outside if there happens to be you know a range of sports in the gym you know meeting rooms why can't there be a knitting group a local heritage group a local cultural group in some of the areas why can't we be talking about this as a real community asset because surely that's what it is and I think it's a great question Miles I don't think we know the detail of what the sets of barriers are so the last report that we have access to is the one done by sports called in 2013 which contains a wealth of information but we don't know where we are in terms of moving that forward a collective basis we don't know what the challenges remain with pfi and pfi contracts in terms of the cost we don't know how much the barriers are still the sets of janitors because so much of it is local and anecdotal information what we do know is it's not being used to the extent that it could be what we do know is that there are sets of barriers as mark has outlined where facilities we've got clubs with wedding lists we know it's somewhere where people can go and we can make more use of what are the barriers we need to know more about that because there shouldn't be barriers we can make that happen and we can do that in a very affordable way I would imagine but we do need more information on it to make it a reality okay we're really tight for time I think we could go in for a couple of hours but we're tight for time Ivan then Marie and then we'll do our round up okay just briefly it was something that Julie mentioned earlier and Kim just touched on which is round about the preventive spend concept which is clearly something as a committee we're very interested in and you said if you had a magic wand or whatever you would do whatever I suppose it's really to throw out the nasty question conceptually we all get that okay and anecdotally we can talk about specifically we've just talked about impacting the mental health budget etc but is there any data there that actually nails that down and says if we spend a million pounds here we're going to save 10 million down the road because we understand that higher participation rates in a population at least XYZ delivers ABC five or 10 years down the road do we have that level of granularity and robustness around data and if not what do we need to do it right because I've got to believe the amount of academic research it goes on around this area that somebody's done the number crunching on this and if not it would it would seem to me that it's something we should we should be focused on I have a strong suspicion that again with time money and staff there's a lot of data out there that you could find a way to wrangle into something cogent and then decide what you needed by way to fill the gaps you know I have a strong suspicion there's a vast amount of information out there the whole big data thing you know everything that Glasgow life collect is a matter of course the councils collect is a matter of course there's got to be a lot of information out there it's a research project yes say here it is um you've got it actually if you don't have it we certainly don't have it yeah and absolutely but I've had that earlier session which you may have been aware of which was running about precisely big data and I know that you've probably got a big data as well what do we need to do to get that I think I think Judy's exactly right I think I think it's not necessarily new data that needs to be collected but some but time some resource needs to be expended on collating the data that's already been collected I'm aware of various studies that have been undertaken that address that very issue about you know and some of them are in particular local authorities or some are in particular regions uh of the UK so work has been done on this collating it into as you say into one could cogent sort of argument um is probably what's what's required so yeah work needs to be done I'm not sure it's necessarily uh unique uh data collection it's actually you know collating what we have and I might have to say I mean someone mentioned the school this day what are the barriers to accessing the school this day we've done it the evidence is there you know what really was an enormous study done by Sport Scotland that looked at the barriers to the school this day so you know we just got to start understanding the work that we've already done and start acting on it come very briefly yeah just three headline figures in attempt to answer your question so we know that people being active as a 30% reduction in all-cause mortality all causes of mortality 30% 30% increase in wellbeing going back to Claire's point the figure that we would quote most frequently on that convener is let's make scotland's more active so the national physical activity strategy quotes that if we were all 1% more active over a five-year period it would save 157 lives a year and 85 million pounds of the economy and economists did that not us but in terms of the best guess that we've got to answer your question let's make Scotland more active 157 lives a year and 85 million pounds to economy over the five-year period how much money does it cost you to generate I don't I'm afraid I don't think there's a plan behind how you would expect how you spend that but I think there's a lot of sets of ideas that we've come together and I think that's Ian's point around bringing that information together as Julie said around what is that that plan there are a lot of sets of plans in place I think partnership opportunities and investing in those can bring that to reality missing but somebody needs to see how much does it cost to generate not 85 million pounds would be my thought process exactly that's a job for you I've been vener um I just wanted to um comment particularly around the stuff around Highlands and Islands so I'm a Highlands and Islands MSP and I read the submission from Highlands and I thought this is a really good news story because we have a really challenging geography we have a scattered population we have areas of deprivation and poverty and actually what you're showing me is that you have increased participation across the board increased women participating in sport increased elderly people participating in sport and you also in your oral submission have said that you've got some good data around the fact that people are coming from a poverty or a challenge social socioeconomic background and using the high life scheme so I just wanted to say how have you done it and how can everyone else do it too yeah absolutely um well I think it's it's it's arranged it's having having the grass roots that's how the universal stuff in place through I would say is our local access scheme but then as as Ian was saying it's also about the targeted stuff working having a clear plan for working with teenage girls for volunteering for working with older people um so Ian's wrapped that all up into the scheme that's described in his um we haven't wrapped it all up but we do have definite targeted areas that we're trying to and then it all all of that amalgamated back into one shows some really encouraging trends thanks and one particular thing I wanted to ask about because well it's in your written in information so so I talk all the time about just how difficult it is for people kids growing up in the highlands to access facilities you know like I spoke a couple of weeks ago about lads from my village you have to come down to Glasgow to use the velodrome and things it's really quite challenging at every level in sport but you've got some great stuff in here about using non-sporting facilities yeah do you want to tell us a little bit about that well it's it's simply that part of part of this issue about um taking this the scariness sometimes of sport and big public facilities they're quite scary for older people they're quite scary for young people so we have been experimenting in a range of daycare daycare settings us our folk going out to the old folks home or to the daycare setting um doing activity in libraries you know libraries are nowadays so much more than just books etc so involving community activity in a library um and village halls just reconnecting with communities if you like rather than expecting people to come to the big public sector buildings i'm the last bit idea of vc dance on islands yes and so thanks thanks very much for the prompt one of the things that we've been experimenting is with particularly with the older girls leading dance sessions so you've got canna muck rum tiny little islands with a school maybe of four or five youngsters who would never get a chance to take part in any of that kind of activity we've now been experimenting with video links where you've got a sixth former or a fifth year in in malleg or wherever um leading leading sessions with the three or four youngsters in their little classroom and it's really heartwarming to see and it's beginning to work yeah okay um a couple of things just as we finish um sport cims organisation um you gave us um details of increasing participation it might be helpful if if we maybe see the other side of that if there are sports where there is a decline in participation if we're aware of that and if you if you have statistics that you can maybe send to the committee we don't at this stage just with a week to pull that round of it's a big ask on our members to pull all the sets of data together so we don't have it at this stage but we can we will aim to get a wider picture in due course certainly as well so so do you only accumulate figures from sports that are in going that way no um we had a week to turn to go out to our members to say what's your data and turn around to get the submission in in time so unfortunately it was a combination of factors with their time so it was simply a case of what has come in as opposed to where we are with it so as I say we will try and get a clear sort of more broad picture but it was timing on behalf of our members I'm afraid thank you we also the committee will be over the next couple of weeks we'll be out and about so we're heading to some of us are heading to the Phoenix community centre in Easterhouse and Drumchappell community sports club and others are heading to Avymor and can you say to see Avymor primary school can you say bed knock centre and can you say high school and action so we'll be out and about and following that we will be at Spartans and then Edinburgh and some of us will be at Muirhouse as well to see what's going on in those communities finally we usually just do a wee quiz around the table and there's a couple of issues I think that we've not covered it might be worth asking people to comment on the committee's focus is on a number of things but we're looking at the active legacy from the Commonwealth Games so maybe if people could give a few words very briefly on whether they think there has been one and how successful that has been we're also wondering whether people have been engaged in with the new integrated joint boards as partners are you involved at all in discussions and debates around that and the final thing is on health inequalities is a key consideration for this committee and are we making progress so three quick things you've got a sentence on each when we go round don't blabber on for ages because we've not got time so if you want to just pick one then by all means but if you have a general comment on those so we'll just go round this way to you have to remind me the third one I would say yes on legacy I think the games gave an enthusiasm for volunteering and things that have really contributed to some of the things that we've been doing yes to joint boards and what was the third question health inequality yeah and I think again through some of the targeted work we are beginning to address those yeah just in terms of legacy first of all legacy doesn't just happen it has to be planned and resourced and delivered but in terms of athletics and that's the only sport I can talk about there's been huge growth in the sport across all levels with that's just general participation where that's club activity where that's event entries and participation in our event programme significant increases across the board there our early athletes have improved dramatically over the last two years where we now have five world-class athletes participant breaking records week in week out so the evidence for athletics is certainly legacy does exist and has it's been exceptional yeah my focus is the host communities living around the games area and I think the answer will be up to a point the schools pathway is a high point oh better than was and that's always good isn't it you know I think what has been gained for the schools locally is a very very good thing it needs sustained it needs continued what will show for the local people is quite possibly not any kind of population changing activity I'd be surprised by that but if you're providing a better environment you're one step in the way and I'd like to meet sure that gets hung on to at the moment people with long-standing illnesses are 40% less likely than others to take part in any support there's things we can do to engage with that this actually had the on your marks document out and it said in it if Scotland rises to the challenge of mass engagement and participation we'll have done something that no country's ever done before I think we to ask questions about Scotland and society and we've seen reports about inequality in Scotland how do you develop mass participation in a class divided society I think one of my former lecturers when back 30 years or something said to a panel 2009 said that kind of language in the document was far too ambitious it was setting up sport Scotland for failure and it was setting up people for disappointment so I suppose my worry is is in the kind of environment we are obviously it's a very political environment can we kind of talk about failure and things that don't work do we engage in impression management of badging things that are legacy which are not really legacy so it's that kind of yeah these are kind of a few comments I'd like to throw in to the panel come thanks community I think the point we made earlier to show an increase in participation sorry to sustain in participation we've had to increase so there are more people taking part than there were before but we've got more people in the population so I think there's a point there that's important I think in terms of legacy that that we need to keep talking about the benefits that the 900 000 people who are already members of sports clubs get so yes we want more people to get the benefits of those but by continuing to invest in sport and physical activity those people continue to get those sets of benefits which is a preventative there are more people playing and engaging in sport and by engaging I mean volunteering and coaching and getting involved in in officiating in any number of other areas which are benefits so our members report on any number of sets of increases there and as you say other people will so it terms on your banding of legacy but yes there is a lot in that and certainly from an inclusion point of view our members at disability Scottish disability sport would support a number of aspects of legacy in there that have made a difference I'm just conscious that isn't maybe something we've got to today but I think it's about an ongoing commitment to legacy and recognising that as an investment and not a cost as we've talked about before in terms of your points about health inequalities and joint boards we set on the national strategic group for sport and physical activity so again I know there's discussions there with the Scottish Government and colleagues about where there are sets of opportunities so at a strategic level in investigating we're a small part of that yes I was just going to focus on the one issue you raised Commonwealth Games what benefit did it have in terms of sport and physical activity and legacy well I think it's focused people's minds it's in some respects focused this committee's minds it's we established a plan back in 2009 which we continue to monitor to this day and we'll do for the next three four years our sport and physical activity legacy plan we've seen a whole range of indicators moving the right direction universally across Glasgow so that's a good thing but and that's in volunteers tendencies and many of the things that Kim Kim have just mentioned but probably more importantly than that it's got people together to think about how do we maximise the sometimes inspirational impact of a milestone event like the Commonwealth Games and how do we get policy providers and different agencies together to think about that and plan together including researchers we've we've brought the research community the Commonwealth Games have brought the research community together in Glasgow and it's set up a forum for for the universities so I think there's been a benefit in just the question being raised and making people be accountable for answering that question what is the benefit from the Commonwealth Games I think there is one but I think you know I think it's good in itself it's focused people's minds okay thank you everyone very much for a very stimulating discussion I think we could have gone on for some time I will now suspend briefly until the next time the third item on the agenda today is subordinate legislation we have one negative instrument today the instrument is the sale of 19 vapour products prescribed document scotland regulations 2017 ssi 2017 13 there has been no motion to annull and the delegated personal reform committee has not made any comments on the instrument could I invite comments from members no comments as a committee agreed to make no recommendations thank you very much agenda item four subordinate legislation this time it's an affirmative instrument as usual with affirmative instruments we have an evidence taken session with governments not the cabinet secretary the minister promotion already and give it time and our officials on the instrument once we've had all our questions we'll move into a formal debate on the motion the instrument we're looking at today is the sale of tobacco registration it's sale of tobacco registration and movable structures and fixed penalty and no city scotland amendment regulations 2017 draft can I welcome the minister for public health and sport and our officials we've alien Campbell minister for public health and sport Joanna Irvin principal legal officer Morris Fraser team leader health improvement tobacco control policy and Elaine Mitchell senior policy officer officer health improvement tobacco control policy all scottish government could I invite a brief open statement from the minister good morning committee thank you convener and thank you for inviting me to give evidence to the committee on the sale of tobacco registration of movable structures and fixed penalty notices scotland amendment regulations 2017 the approval of this SSI will allow them to become live on the 1st of April the SSI is non-controversial it makes two minor but necessary changes to the existing tobacco regulations the changes will apply these to realtors who retailers who sell nicotine vapor products from movable structures rather than from shops movable structures include pop-up shops and vans for example and these details include the registration number description and size of vehicles or the locations where the retailers will operate they are designed to restrict the sale of nicotine vapor products to under 18s from movable premises registration of these businesses helps trading standards officers enforce the law monitoring and controlling the sale of these products will deliver positive public health benefits nicotine vapor products are relatively recent technology and not enough is known about the possible health impact caused by long-term use until evidence is available the Scottish government has adopted an open but precautionary approach we aim to limit exposure to nvps amongst children and adult non-smokers whilst making them available to adults who do smoke and who may wish to use them as an alternative to tobacco products the measure within the SSI will help us to achieve that aim thank you very much any questions mr leil morning minister i'm certainly welcome this this order taking the most of these products are sold in shops that are popping up everywhere and there is a number of sold in normal tobacco shops what steps are we taking to ensure that all these shops that are popping up you know you give i an empty shop one week in the next week it's it's now a vaping shop um what what steps are we taking to ensure that all these regulations will be enacted well this is part of taking that precautionary approach this SSI if it's moved today will come into force in the first of April and it will place on them to become registered pop-up shops and movable premises so that for example that pop-up shop or something like a van or something like that that will have to be registered that registered lies with the Scottish Government and we have we would anticipate that helping to to have some kind of oversight over how the sale of these NVPs is continued in Scotland and the health benefits that that will bring in line with the approach that we took to tobacco sales thank you any other questions no yep my also why the question which i was interested in more from the perspective of meeting with constituents who are trying to quit smoking who are actually using this as a transition product and what's the sort of government's view on these products as a transition products for people trying to quit smoking and are stepping down from actually the nicotine content well again that's why i said that we've got this precautionary approach as well because you understand that people do use that as a means to to stop smoking and but there is also a limit on that some of that clinical evidence as well so that's why we understand that it's important for that but this is about making sure that this is regulated as well and to also stop young people taking it up and to that exposure to non-smoker non-smoking adults as well so that's that precautionary approach that we want to take in balance with understanding that people do use that in a practical sense to come off smoking and that smoking is worse than than using a vaping and what what work's been done to look into that evidence thing because i know the industry tobacco industry itself hasn't really been able to undertake that work to look into or fund that research so is the Scottish government or universities in scotland undertaking that when we continue to keep a watch and brief on that Morris would you like to outline some of that more explicitly surely yes scotland actually is a world leader in the research into the effect and the potential effect of electronic cigarettes and nicotine vapor products more generally so we're very lucky to have some very well respected experts who keep us particularly through organisations like ash scotland and more important probably cancer research uk who pulled together evidence from all over the world for us and they're continually looking for any new evidence of the impact on health so we're connected very well with these people in fact the minister has a subgroup of experts who evaluate research and we have that group meet at least twice a year just to keep us up to date thank you what people are very interested in how that research develops and certainly questions about the these products and that number of constituents I'm sure have been in touch with us all about them no other questions no so we now move on to agenda item five which is the formal debate on the affirmative SSI in which we're just taking evidence during this stage members should not put questions to the minister during formal debate and officials may not speak in the debate can I invite the minister to move the motion formally moved thank you any members wish to contribute no thank you can invite the minister to sum up if she wishes or respond nothing other than to welcome the interest that the committee has in this and you know we'll continue to keep your abreast of any developing research as that as it comes to light okay thank you question is that the motion s5m 03790 be approved I will agreed thank you very much can I suspend now for a change of panel okay six item on agenda today is a further affirmative instrument the second affirmative instrument we're looking at today is the national health service Scotland act 1978 independent clinic amendment order 2017 draft welcome minister for public health and sport and her officials revealing Campbell minister for public health and sport dr Sarah Davis public health consultant Alyssa Garland principal legal officer all Scottish Government again could I ask the minister for an opening statement thank you again and thank you for providing with the opportunity to give evidence on the national health service Scotland act 1978 independent clinic amendment order 2017 which exempts clinics provided by health boards special health boards and the common services agency from the definition of independent clinics in the 1978 act the committee will be aware that independent clinics were brought within the regulation of healthcare improvement Scotland through a series of Scottish statutory instruments which came into force on April the first last year at that time the definition of independent clinic in the national health service Scotland act 1978 was amended and a number of exceptions to the definition were set out the instrument before the committee simply adds to those exceptions to cover clinics provided by health boards special health boards and the common services agency the legal name of nss Scotland this means that these clinics will not be required to be registered with health improvement Scotland the kind of clinic which will be covered by this latest ssi includes a blood donation clinic not cited within a hospital or an nhs 24 clinic similarly not cited within a hospital and which would be operated by health professional groups which are regulated by this legislation so in closing convener i would like to highlight to the committee that the intention of this ssi is simply to ensure that nhs services are clearly removed from the legislation and again i'm happy to take questions that the committee may have okay thank you any questions nope thank you we now move on to agenda item seven which is the formal debate on the affirmative ssi in which we're just taking evidence member should not put questions to the minister during the formal debate and officials may not speak in the debate can i invite the minister to move the motion formally moved thank you any members wish to contribute nope thank you the question is that motion s5m 03893 be approved i will agree thank you very much and can i suspend for the change of panel agenda item eight is an evidence session on child protection and sport can i welcome to the committee alien camble minister for public health and sport mark mcdonald minister for childcare in early years jared heart director of protection service and policy disclosure scotland and john lann head of pathways sport scotland before we move to questions can remind members and witnesses that for the purpose of the stand and order rule on subjudice no mention should be made of any live or ongoing cases during this evidence session or to any issues which might prejudice those cases can i first of all invite the minister to make an opening statement well thank you convener for inviting alien camble knight to this meeting to contribute to the committee's consideration of child protection and sport as you said joining us today are jared heart from disclosure scotland and john lann from sport scotland we welcome the opportunity to discuss this important issue with you sport plays a pivotal role in scotland's life and makes a huge contribution to the health and wellbeing of children we're determined to ensure children can enjoy sport in a safe and secure environment and i welcome the committee's focus on this i know the meeting will focus on the pvg scheme and how it is used by sports organisations but i want to emphasise this from the outset it's not processes or procedures which keep children safe it's people pvg scheme is a system and process which helps to support organisations and people but it is and can only be a support to protecting children that said i think the scheme we have in place which is delivered by disclosure scotland on behalf of Scottish ministers has played a key role in creating a system of checks and balances in which we can all have confidence the pvg scheme was established in febru 2011 and replaced previous disclosure arrangements under the police scotland act 1997 that had been in operation since april 2002 its purpose is to provide vetting information to assist organisations in the decisions they take about a person's suitability for regulated work there are two workforces in the pvg scheme regulated work with children and regulated work with adults scheme membership covers paid work and voluntary and unpaid work there does not have to be a contract of employment in place between the organisation and the person doing regulated work upon application by an individual checks are carried out by disclosure scotland to determine if the applicant is unsuitable for scheme membership the pvg act allows ministers to exclude people who are unsuitable on the basis of past behaviour from working with children and or protected adults and detects those who become unsuitable this is achieved by disclosure scotland keeping a list of individuals who are barred from doing regulated work with children and a list of those who are barred from doing regulated work with adults a person can apply to join the scheme if their normal duties include carrying out particular activities with children and adults the sort of activities relating to children in sport include teaching instructing training or supervising children being in sole charge of children unsupervised contact with children under arrangements made by a responsible person for example a parent or carer providing advice or guidance to a child or to particular children which relates to physical or emotional wellbeing education or training a manager whose role involves directly supervising a person carrying out these activities can also join the pvg scheme as you know many of the supports organisations rely on volunteers to deliver their activities ministers have long been aware of the important contribution volunteers play in enabling and supporting children to enjoy and participate in sport and other activities to that end pvg fees are free for volunteers undertaking unpaid and voluntary work for a voluntary organisation we're currently reviewing the pvg scheme that is only right that we keep something this important fundamental to our approach to child protection under review the evidence taken by this inquiry to date has brought to light some potential issues with regard to how the scheme operates in sporting activity which we will no doubt discuss I'm keen that our review explores these issues and seeks to address them so I'm pleased to inform the committee that the remit of that review is being widened to include the code of practice to consider if conditions of the code could be strengthened to ensure that disclosure checks by all organisations are carried out in line with the expectations of Scottish ministers and I believe Ms Campbell has a few words she'd like to pull on the record as well at the beginning thank you and I too am pleased to be here before the committee this morning and I think the fact that both ministers with responsibility for keeping children safe in sport here are here shows how seriously that we're taking this issue but I want to start by saying thank you to the thousands of people who weekend week out give up their time to enable our children to enjoy sporting activities and to do so safely the vast majority of people involved in coaching children in sport do so for the best of reasons and it is our children who benefit from their commitment but we have to make sure that sport is a safe place for children to spend their time and that's why we have funded through sport scotland children first to develop and implement the safeguarding and sport service which provides information support training and advice to give sport governing bodies and clubs on protecting children this work includes the minimum operating requirements to safeguard children ensure that sport governing bodies take a consistent approach to child protection children first monitors progress and compliance with the mwars and these mwars are being enhanced by a set of standards which are being piloted by 10 sports and will further strengthen the protection of children in sport the children first guidance document 10 steps to safeguarding children in sport provides invaluable resources to clubs and governing bodies across scotland there is also a further safety net whereby any clubs using local authority or leisure trust facilities must be compliant with their local child protection safety procedures and policies in addition to our investment in children first through sport scotland we invest over three million annually into governing bodies to support their overall administration and running costs this support underpins work and child protection and pvg administration as well as other areas such as equalities and anti-doping this inquiry and the recent allegations of sexual abuse and football have prompted Scottish ministers to reflect on what we do currently to keep children safe for my part as minister for sport i've engaged in discussions with the key stakeholders to determine if our systems are good enough and that dialogue will continue and i can advise the committee that i'll be hosting a round table discussion with mr mcdonald and partners including police scotland sport scotland nspc children first celsus disclosure scotland and some of the sporting governing bodies to fully understand how the pvg scheme works for them and what more we might consider is needed to support them to protect our children that round table will be hosted by professor k tidsill who is a well-known academic expert in children's rights and policy i'll also be writing to all 52 sporting governing bodies to ask them to reflect on their current policies and practices on child protection and to offer to work together to further develop our child protection system i firmly believe that we already have a robust system in place but there is always room for improvement and development and just as mr mcdonald said at the outset processes are only part of that picture as people using those processes appropriately and effectively as well as their known skills knowledge and their own conference which keeps children safe in sport and other activities and of course we're happy convener to answer any questions that you undoubtedly have okay thank you clear thank you convener and thank you to the ministers in the panel for coming along to to sip this today and you'll be aware that two weeks ago we had a session here looking at child protection in sport and we had a represented from Scottish youth football association the issue was raised with them about the 1300 coaches who were awaiting pvg clearance according to the bvc scotland report on the 6 of febury and the committee were told that the reason for that was due to a large number of turnover in coaches a large administrative workload required to process pvg checks in a small in an organisation with a small number of full-time staff and thousands of volunteers and that the sy fa estimated it would cost them 70 000 pounds to administer the pvg scheme this year i wonder if the panel could tell us what the Scottish government believes changes need to be made and by whom to address the issue of the the high number of coaches have not been pvg checked by the sy fa and if perhaps disclosure scotland could tell us if they've offered that organisation any assistance in clearing that backlog well i'll perhaps start i think i had a look at the evidence last week and as i said in my opening remarks there are no fees for volunteers undertaking regulated work if they're doing so for a volunteer organisation which in relation to the clubs that sy fa would be dealing with would be the case and so the the fee will undoubtedly be related to administrative processes and in relation to that the offer has been made and gerry can perhaps give a little bit more information to support sy fa with any of the backlog issues they are facing and indeed there is an opportunity for volunteer scotland disclosure services to undertake some of the checks on behalf of sy fa which would perhaps remove some of that administrative burden but i'll let gerry give a little bit more detail in relation to the dialogue that has taken place between disclosure scotland and sy fa yes we conduct compliance audits of our various bodies who countersign pvg applications and we did one of those with the sy fa in september and a small backlog was detected at that point and at that time we offered on an informal basis some support and helping to clear that backlog as time moved on it became clear that the backlog was larger than a the small number that was reported in the september and i wrote to the chief executive of the sy fa on a number of occasions through the period december through to january to offer very practical assistance with clearing that backlog which by then was in the hundreds rather than the high hundreds rather than the small number that was previously intimated to us and whilst they initially accepted that offer of support it eventually transpired they did not wish or require that offer of additional support to clear the backlog so it wasn't accepted by the sy fa and that remains a position to this point should add convener if you think it would be helpful and more than happy to provide copies of the correspondence to the committee if you feel that would be beneficial yeah sorry convener i was waiting to see if you were going to answer that i know i thank you i'm quite astounded by the information that that you're telling us so essentially the sy fa have been afforded or offered assistance to clear this backlog and have not taken up that offer have they given it any rationale for for why they've rejected that assistance not in any great detail no we made the offer in december i've written twice to to make the offer um and we've had also informal contact with the sy fa through our compliance team um i think it was initially accepted but then in january the information came back to us that they didn't think it was a practical way forward to have that support we're still trying to ascertain the exact number of the backlog but there is still i believe and colleagues can correct me if that's not the case but i still believe there is a backlog outstanding i think it's a significant number and has there been any discussion with the sfa who were also in attendance at that hearing about their responsibilities in terms of ensuring compliance with the pvg and to protection requirements for the sfya and i will pass that across to i understand as well the sffa have also been seeking to i think progress this and for the sfya to make some progress on that and they've got regular discussions there however i think you're you're right to pursue that line of questioning and that we have an issue there in the sfya in that they have a backlog that there has been an offer of help and that help has not been taken up so i think for me uh is the minister of sport and wanting to ensure the smooth running of sport and ensuring good opportunities for children that for me is a as a concern and i know that that concern is likewise shared by the minister for for childcare and early years as well and so we want to as i said in the outset we want to make sure that children have opportunity we understand that many children are getting great opportunities by a number of volunteers who do fantastic work in each of our communities and probably some of us have children in our families that experience that good work run by fantastic volunteers however that said the structures that seem to have been in place don't seem to be matching that fantastic work and we need to make sure that the support is taken up and that we can proceed with confidence that children's protection is as robust as it can be with all the other things that happen in place the culture change the the support the assistance that comes from sport scotland all the other areas in which sporting bodies can be assisted we need to make sure though in this particular instance that the the help is taken up and that progress is fast tracked thank you i'd you know at the last meeting obviously this issue took up a fair amount of the time that we had to discuss it but we also heard that there were various differences in practice between sports bodies about whether coaches could volunteer in a limited capacity without completed pv checks i think we heard from Scottish women the example of parents who were perhaps standing pool side during a session now clearly there was an element of supervision there but i'd just like to understand the Scottish Government's position on that in principle this issue of of volunteers taking part in a limited capacity perhaps or not but without that safeguard i understand this is always a balance about encouraging sustaining and maintaining volunteer numbers but we also have to look very seriously at child protection yeah so it essentially comes down to the activity that these individuals are undertaking so there's a difference between supervising a child undertaking a sporting activity and watching a child undertaking a sporting activity so if you have for example a parent volunteer who is working alongside a coach who is supervising the session it would be our expectation that the coach would be subject to a pvg check but that parent volunteer would not require to be because they were not the supervising individual so they would not be undertaking regulated work in terms of what you've highlighted in relation to perhaps differences of practice i think that's why we've taken the decision to include the codes of practice within the review to make sure that we are creating a robust code of practice that ensures that at all in all sporting governing bodies there's an approach being taken that matches up to the expectations that ministers have okay i'm going back to the previous example then of the the football scenario do you think that Workscotland funding should be contingent on adequate child protection systems you know perhaps that might encourage the syfa to feel that they wanted to take up the kind offer that would be put to them and i think again you're correct i think to pursue this line of question and because i suppose as well that this kind of highlights again the way in which football is structured and that the relationship between sport sportland is with the governing body and the governing body is the sfa it's not with the funding doesn't go directly to syfa um so um i think what we need to do then is to make sure that collaboratively the syfa and the sfa make sure that there is rigor and robustness and that's why the sfa issued the directive and they have set a deadline i think it's 28 of february further to be compliance with all their coaches and to clear that backlog but that again then calls into question why that help isn't then being taken forward to ensure that that will be met by the end of this month but again you're right to kind of point out that there is a difference between the way and the approach of football versus other sports um as well but as and also to get that point out that there is a a balance that has to be made the whole disclosure system was brought into place to be proportionate as well and to make sure that there was that balance that we didn't you know didn't put off volunteers who wanted for the best of reasons the best of intentions to provide opportunity but you're right we need to make sure that the the systems in place adequately protect children and i think it's also worth to put pointing out that there has been a huge change in culture uh for a number of years now through the work of sport scotland helped and aided by children first to make sure that children can enjoy sporting experiences with with in safe environments discussing that safe environment um the minister for child care and early learning pointed out the difference between those who were supervising and those who were watching and i suppose talent scouts might come under the the heading of those who are watching and they're not um currently covered is that and when you consider that they may be in a very powerful position in the lives of some young people who who are ambitious um is there any aims to have a look at that area i think again it comes down to what an individual's normal duties would be and the incumbency upon that you know to determine whether or not that individual would then be required to undergo a pvg check would sit with the employer so most football scouts will be employed by professional clubs and therefore it would be the determination of the professional club as to whether their normal duties would require them to undertake a pvg check um it should be noted that from the information the SFA have provided it would appear that most contact that scouts make is with parents rather than directly with children um so therefore they're there of the view at the moment that perhaps that that is why they're not perhaps covered by the scheme however they have agreed to look at the issue around scouts and other intermediaries as part of their independent review and we welcome that because i do think that there's an area where as you identify there may be some gray areas in relation to how these individuals operate and i think some clarity around that would be welcome thank you hey alex thanks to add however though that i think that there is worth in us continuing that dialogue with the SFA on on those issues um the review as you know is set up for to cover historic abuse there's no timeline set timescale set on that so i think it's appropriate for us to explore some of that alongside that review process with the SFA um and if there are loopholes then explore what ways in which there are mechanisms for government to to close those loopholes okay alex thank you convenient good morning to the panel um i'm astonished absolutely astonished at the revelation that the SFA have turned down this offer of help to get through the backlog not least because they had the directive in october and then that offer was made a month later in the knowledge that the SFA had to make good on these checks by febru that they would turn it down particularly when they told us that they had they were trying to process something like 800 a month and a lot of this was largely done by a volunteer network um but i was also concerned that this directive was only issued by the SFA in october this is a piece of legislation that has been implemented for a decade now and there still seems to be a significant degree of confusion within governing bodies of some sports not all sports we are aware of a number of sport sporting disciplines that have a zero tolerance approach to having coaches either on the pitch or in the in the area without those those checks what confidence do ministers have that the governing bodies of all sports in scotland are aware of their duties under the act in terms of ensuring compliance and how can this be better improved upon in this forthcoming review i don't think there's a a question around the awareness of governing bodies in relation to their responsibilities and what there appears to be certainly in relation to the syffa is a question around the processes that they are following and the systems that they've got in place and that's why we've extended the offer to them to help them to clear the backlog which sits at their end it should be added not at not at government's end in relation to clearing up of applications there is no backlog in terms of applications being cleared once they are submitted to disclosure scotland that i think is something that we will be able to take forward further as part of the round table which the the minister for public health and sport and i are going to be hosting and that will give us an opportunity i think to get a better understanding of what the issues are that the governing bodies themselves feel exist and how best those could be tackled as part of the the review of the scheme that we're taking forward and do you have the power if needs be to make this offer a compulsion almost to say bring them bring them into special measures and offer them and give them this assistance we have a code of conduct which organizations who counter sign disclosures must sign up to which is specified in statute we have the power to to adapt that code of conduct and we're going to urgently look at that code of conduct not only to cover the process efficiency of organizations in following the right steps to get a disclosure but also using the scheme in a in a reputable way so that large backlogs for example aren't part of the deal if you sign up to be a countersigning organization you know there's a way in which we can intervene to try and address those concerns should they build up so we're going to do that work immediately to look at that code of conduct thank you the minimum operator requirements that compliance on those is monitored quarterly and sport scotland have a great deal of work to do with the the governing bodies on that on that compliance as well and you know again there's that additional pilot around the statement that will enhance that process as well which is going to be piloted with 10 clubs as well so there are while there's pvg is one element of that there is a whole host of things that have happened in amongst sporting governing bodies sports clubs over the last decade or so to ensure that sporting arenas and environments are safe for children and pvg is one element of it but the compliance on mwars is certainly something that is regularly monitored by by sport scotland youth football must be one of the biggest areas for disclosure and within sport yeah absolutely so you know we've got huge numbers we've got a small organization with a very small number of staff which is processing huge volumes of forms on a voluntary basis and i can't help but think that they're being hung out to dry by the sfa because when we took evidence here the representative of the sfa basically said it's them it's their fault and hung them out to dry now i can't help but think that there are people in that organ i don't i want a question the competency of the organization obviously to cope with the volume of what they are getting but there surely there must be some responsibility on the overseeing body that they are affiliated to to ensure that this works better do you have confidence in the sfa the sfa's role in this well again you know you point out that the this the way in which the syfa choose to approach the pvg scheme now that's not the same for other sporting organizations that other sporting organizations don't approach it in it they are the ones that do all of those counter signatories none of them will have the volume that that's organization but i understand that none of the governing bodies choose to approach it in that way so there is a way there are things that you know i think that that perhaps could be help the situation also to bear in mind that there is investment that goes into volunteer scotland to help voluntary organizations as well and i'm only saying that because there are structures in place my question my question was do you think the sfa have played a role in this which is basically left one of their affiliates to hang out to dry i think there is a role for the sfa as the governing body to make sure that children who want to play football are able to do so and participate in a safe way in a safe environment now pvg is one element of providing that kind of comfort of safety i think the evidence session that you took before the February recess and now shows that there are relationships that we need to explore that there are ways in which we need to show a bit more rigor and robustness into how those things are checked how quickly those things can be expedited and also drawing all of that together make sure that there's clear leadership that this is something that is going to be sorted and sorted quickly to give us in government you and the committee the our sports agency sports scotland the comfort that we all need to make sure that this is progressing in the way that i think we would all expect a good governing body to to organize itself i think there's in the sfa is the the recognized governing body and the syfa is one of the member associations of that body so so the molars that we have in place and the relationship is directly with them one of the components of that is how how that body administers and manages its pvg schemes among among other things in terms of the the molars that we have and i think what this is highlighted is that how the syfa choose to administer that is is probably different and has presented some what does that mean so what are they doing that's so different so everything comes through the syfa if you look at other bodies the the option not all the clubs have to come through the the governing body to get their their pvg done they can do it through local authorities they can do it through the the leisure trusts in some cases some very large clubs can can set themselves up and and act as the the intermediary themselves we have some clubs that do that and the governing body will also provide that service that's one of the molars one of the molars um the molars we have is that there is a mechanism through the governing body for the pvg scheme to be administers and managed if the club choose to do so the syfa have taken that responsibility on to themselves so all the pvgs and all the requests all the paperwork come through that body centrally doesn't need to be set up like that and presumably you've asked them why we've not asked them why yet because the the evidence they gave at the the last session was certainly the first time we've become aware that that was actually the process at which they were how they were applying the process and i think as gerald said earlier there was a backlog identified last year but it's only recently become aware that the backlogs to the extent that it is calling i'm seriously concerned about the fact we do appear to be being told about a sort of a massive failure of process here and the response seems to be well isn't that bad that this organization is failed to deliver what i'm not getting is exactly what is being done either by the scottish government or by disclosure scotland to enforce changes to make sure that they do start to comply i mean can i ask specifically with disclosure scotland how often you actually carry out compliance checks and how effective are these compliance checks given the fact that in this particular case we're talking about he indicated the figures seem to change every time you you check with them there's a rolling programme of compliance checks with bodies in the last 12 months we've done 33 compliance checks on bodies that are associated with youth sport and as i said we did the the sylfa check in september 2016 the number reported at that compliance check by the organization was 186 if i recall which is substantially fewer than the number that later emerged to be the actual figure of nearly i think it was 1500 at one point was the figure that was in the media and we have obviously shared the concerns about that number of outstanding checks for for safeguarding reasons and that was why i wrote well first of all we our compliance team informally approached the sylfa and offered support practical support with clearing and countersigning these checks and then when that wasn't accepted i then wrote to the organization and offered that further support formally and as i said before that hasn't been taken up in a sense for practical or practicality reasons by the sylfa i don't know any more detail about why they they haven't shared that with us as to why they haven't availed themselves of the offer we have no statutory powers though to a to compel anyone to use the pvg scheme it's a non mandatory scheme however and that's why the code of conduct response is perhaps the most appropriate because if an organization is going to sign up to use the pvg scheme as we would hope and expect all responsible organizations offering youth sport would do or seek to do then part of the deal needs to be that they use the scheme correctly and in a reputable manner and i think that we can make changes to the code of conduct that would tighten up the reins if you like on that aspect and ensure that we can manage backlogs much more purposefully but there are no statutory powers whatsoever for the government to compel sylfa to you know to do the checks at any particular rate or in any number. I share your concerns and when this was brought to light following the last evidence session in relation to the refusal of sylfa to take up the offer of support I've written this morning to Mr Little asking him first of all to meet with myself and Ms Campbell ahead of the round table that we're hosting but also urging him strongly to take up the support offer that is there from Volunteer Scotland Disclosure Services and Disclosure Scotland to help his organization to clear their backlog so you know that it's a you know a strong encouragement that i've given to him in that letter so hopefully he will avail himself of that opportunity but just to be clear i mean the first point is disclosure scotland effectively said that you only detected 100 odd cases so it was actually the media that revealed the thousands wasn't detected it was that was what sylfa advised was their backlog absolutely so but the actual revelation of over a thousand cases didn't come from whatever processes followed the compliance check it came through the media but what i'm not clear about is what power the government has in to ensure that these checks like we have hundreds of coaches across scotland currently without checks being carried out working with with young people but it's not clear to me what the government are able to do or are currently doing to actually enforce action to tackle that particular backlog well that comes back to the point that jenny made is that this is not a mandatory scheme so so we have there are limitations to what we can do in order to enforce in relation to that i should add you know i do share the committee's concern in relation to this but i wouldn't want people to get the impression that the only thing that stands in terms of child protection in relation to young people in sport is the pvg check there's a much wider culture out there in relation to the way that things operate at a local club level which is part of that wider child protection agenda so while the pvg checks are absolutely important and we want to ensure that they are undertaken there are other practices out there which are being undertaken through safeguarding which help to ensure that children are being kept safe while participating in sport and the committee certainly heard from a number of people given evidence of the different practices that are taking place but what's clear here is the pvg process has not been successful in delivering what all of us would like to see and what i'm not really clear about is how we then make sure that it does deliver i mean surely we accept that a football coach working with young people should be pvg checked i think you know whatever whatever we say about whether it's mandatory or not surely we accept that as a basic principle and what i'm not clear about is what the government are doing it to make sure that that is being carried out and what is effectively our nation's biggest sport yep well i mean we we have as i said made repeated offer to syfa to support them in clearing those pvg checks and we have a number of pvg checks which have been completed on a month by month basis in january there were 418 checks which were completed now i'm not sure how much of the backlog has has been cleared as a consequence of those checks or the checks that have taken place up until today but as jerry says that the evidence we would have would say that there is still a backlog there so that's why i have again written to syfa encouraging them to take up that opportunity but the wider review around both the codes of practice and the operation of the scheme will give us an opportunity to perhaps probe the exact issue that you're referencing there mr smith which is about how we ensure that you know where pvg checks are being carried out they're being done so timuously and there isn't this backlog being created but also around you know what expectations we ought to have in relation to coaches who are working directly with children who perhaps have not been subject to a pvg clearances yet and that link to that there was the point that that mark may mention that it's not just about the pvgs and again i would go back to the minimum operating requirements for children which has been in place for a number of years now which set out that kind of broader context by which we should be creating that safe place for children to enjoy sport and that is something that is monitored the compliance is monitored regularly by by sport scotland that there's work with children first is in developing that to enhance that even further but i think what you're what you're talking around the pvg i think where that gives us all a bit more confidence and where we can see explicitly where coaches have a pvg check in this instance in relation to football that comfort has not been given to us which is why there has been that offer being made to by disclosure scotland by voluntary scotland volunteer scotland and by us proactively seeking to get that reassurance directly from the syfa that they're going to get on and take that offer up and to make progress fast progress because the directive gives them until the end of this month to make sure that their coaches have their all their coaches have their pvg checks in place i think i can't be the only member who's concerned that this is the first time the committee's been told about this offer of funding especially as ministers have been aware of the work which we've been undertaking an opportunity to question all those bodies involved in this until now the offer of funding to help clear this backlog there was an offer of practical support from disclosure scotland at the point in which these things came to light which was made in december which is made in december well we've been doing your inquiry over the past few weeks and that information i think would have been incredibly useful and i'm saying that i'm sure other members of this committee would agree but specifically his fund has support like that being added out being offered in the past but there's also been voluntary volunteer scotland is also sorry but i was just going to get your talk like that being offered in the past for such backlogs to be cleared which haven't been taken up potentially but the sorry i didn't mean to interrupt i was going to say the volunteer scotland that's funded as well to help help volunteer voluntary organizations that's not a new thing that's been funded for a number of years to help volunteers cope with the the pressures that i put on with them to ensure that they're compliant with the pvg checks and we give volunteer scotland an annual payment which allows them to act basically as the umbrella body for a whole range of sports and other types of voluntary organizations across scotland and what that does is it allows them to work with those who would get ostensibly free checks you know in a way which is much more efficient and there's a significant funding package goes from the scottish government to volunteer scotland for that purpose and volunteer scotland also offer practical assistance to those organizations to use the scheme effectively we weren't i'm not aware of a previous incident involving the syfa to answer your your question however when i became aware of the backlog it seemed very very important to offer that practical not financial necessarily but practical assistance with clearing that backlog because we were aware they may be struggling to to clear it themselves and specifically when did you become aware of that in october and in december well in december was when i became acutely aware of the from the bbc and misty issue no no i one of actually how it happened was one of the compliance managers in disclosure scotland approached me with with concerns about the whole thing explained it to me and then i directed the actions that then took took place thereafter i was aware of the bbc reports also but it was a twin a twin approach of the information coming to me at that time and i accept what you the minister said about it being a wide question and simply pvg and their issues of culture not least because there's a range of of conduct from the very worst types of abuse through to to bullying but given the centrality of pvg to the current system do you think it should be mandatory i wouldn't want to preempt the review that we're about to undertake and we haven't fully defined the terms of reference for that review but i would expect that to be one of the questions that the review will consider when we look at the pvg scheme but i wouldn't want to say something to you on the record here before we've undertaken that review i think it would be important that we take a range of evidence in relation to the review and then come to a firm conclusion based on that but certainly from from what's been revealed during the course of this inquiry i think it's certainly a question that ministers need to give consideration to just i had a different question on pvg is his government sorry yes yeah yeah yeah thanks thank you donald on on that point convener um i think this speaks to the confusion that exists in in all sectors where pvg applies in in the sense that yes you're right it's not mandatory but actually it's an offense to employer engage somebody who is on the barred list in a regulated childcare position so the only way you can indemnify yourself against that offense is through pvg checking no that's not entirely accurate um this is not an offense to employ somebody if you do not know that they are barred if you have not been told that they are barred by the government that that that we did a consultation in 2016 right on this the parliament originally intended for there to be a discussion of an offense exactly like that and we did a public consultation last year about whether that offense should be brought in and the the outcome of that was that people thought the existing scheme was adequate in terms of the safeguarding that it provided and that they did not think that that offense would add any particular advantage to the current situation it is an offense to employ somebody who is barred if you've been told that they are barred it is also an offense under any circumstances for an individual who is barred to seek or to do regulated work with children or protected so to distill this down effectively our approach to child protection at the moment is don't ask don't help well there are over one million scheme members in Scotland covering a large proportion of regulated work in almost every setting so the current evidence is i think that the scheme is very well taken up and used by by employers across the country and voluntary organisations within pvg the phrase regulated work is is central do you think um do the ministers give consideration are the government giving consideration to that definition and whether along the lines that allison johnson was asking whether that should be widened we are going to give that active consideration and that will form part of the work that the review undertakes because um you know as allison johnson has highlighted questions exist around for example intermediary scouts um there is obviously the potential for confusion around individuals who are offering support in a voluntary capacity as to whether or not at a local level the clubs feel they need to be pvg checked i don't think there's any harm at the end of the day in somebody being pvg checked who might not be performing regulatory work in order that it perhaps provides that additional safeguard um i don't think there's any harm in that whatsoever but we perhaps do need to make those those lines a little bit clearer for local organisations so they can feel some comfort in terms of the approaches that they're taking again just go back to the colhamilton's point though as well the operating requirements also um have within that um making sure that the recruitment of people who and the selection of people who work with children young people have includes access to pvg checks as well so and again that minimum operating requirements are monitored by sport scotland and there is a whole range of supports on offer from either sport scotland directly from the community hubs through the local authorities there's a whole host of others i guess it was just to kind of try and counterbalance that don't ask don't tell because i don't think that's necessarily the culture that i think you would experience within sporting organisations that are currently compliant with the minimum operating requirements that are regularly checked by sport scotland don't know john would you like to expand on this as i said before to the committee the last time the minimum operating requirements are checked by children first we get a formal review on an annual basis and we get a quarterly report on the status of that and we obviously work proactively with them and the governing bodies where there's any deviation or or any difference at that point where a governing body is not fully compliant the move to the standards i think is a is a positive step and it is it has been an evolving picture you know i totally take on board that there's always you know new new best practice that emerges there's changes to what's going on there's you know the cultures constantly shifting so we are trying to learn and develop these things as we go and a move to the standards which are currently being piloted as the minister has said will be a positive step the the important piece there about the standards is that that's currently now being piloted by clubs and this is where it starts to take it way past the level that it's at now where we take the core elements of what's in the minimum operating requirements and we're looking at embedding that in clubs so this will give a much higher degree of rigor the pvg piece as the minister's already said there's a number of organisations that can undertake those pvg checks on behalf of the clubs and it's not that there's a lack of resource or lack of capacity there and that's definitely already there but the positive step towards the standards taken on board recent developments and trying to continue to influence and progress things i think is a positive step okay can i ask final question what's the timescale for the review the moment i think it's 2019 we're looking to have the review concluded by that beast legislatively legislatively so we'll have the review and then if there's legislation required off the back of that we would anticipate that being passed by 2019 so you're looking at probably 12 months for the review period the review has commenced effectively the current phases the terms of reference are being finalised and the ministers will clear those at the end of febru so it's not commenced then well the the work to engage stakeholders we've had two conferences for example to engage stakeholders around the review themes and a number of workshops with the whole the range of stakeholders have taken place already that's sorry that's what i mean when i say it's commenced but terms of reference will emerge at the end of febru and then through the summer and into the autumn the substantial work to to take forward the review says well conveners i think that the work that the committee's done has been very valuable and helping to flesh out some of the issues that perhaps we would have not had full awareness of prior to establishing the review so it will help us in terms of crystallising some of those terms of reference so i just want to put on record my gratitude to the committee for helping in that regard i think i maybe could reflect up back and say that some of what we've heard today has maybe crystallised some of the views of the committee in terms of how we view the whole situation that's emerged so i thank you very much for your for evidence this afternoon i just add as well that we'll make sure that we keep you updated with how the round table goes and also just to add as well that although there's the pvg review on going that the code of conduct will give further exploration of that because that doesn't necessarily need to have the review process completed before we can explore where there is opportunity within that to provide rigor to the system okay thanks very much could i ask members not to leave we'll try and crack through the rest of this quickly sorry yes we're just moving into private session