 Y gallwn cyfwyr o gwelwch, mae'n gweld o'r flynyddoedd i'r dynnu ein ffordd, yn anghytig gyda Ben Baxter o'r Ffair Nhaid Ffawr, yn gweld o ffair nals y mae'n ffordd. Mae'n gweld o'r fliesnyddiaeth gyda'rIP ond yn gweithio i gael, ac yn ddweud mor gynllunodd o'r ffordd, nad wrth i gael fwy o gydaidennig yng Nghymru, mae'n gweld yn gweld osweithio i'r dynnu. I now call on Jane Baxter to speak and to open the debate. You have seven minutes or thereby please, Ms Baxter. Thank you. I'd like to begin by congratulating Fife partnership for what I believe was a bold decision to set up the Fairer Fife Commission. The commission was set up as an independent body with a membership from across the public, private and third sector, with support by a secretary act comprising officers from the council and from Carnegie UK Trust. I welcome that this commission was established to provide a strategic overview of the scale, scope and nature of poverty in Fife and the effectiveness of activity currently undertaken to address such poverty. The commission was asked to report to Fife Council and Fife partnership by November 2015 and my motion seeks to acknowledge the significant contribution that I believe this report will make to the on-going efforts to reduce inequality in Fife. I want to thank all those individual commissioners from the public, private and third sector who gave up their time and energy to fulfil the brief set out by Fife partnership. The report is enriched by the evidence from a wide range of witnesses and the testimonies of community organisations across Fife. Thus, we have a report which combines data with lived experience and this, I believe, makes the recommendations all the more powerful. I attended the launch of the report at the Cottage's Family Centre in Cercodi last November. That's a centre which was originally developed by a group of local parents and established in 1987. Its purpose is to provide a family centre Cercodi, which caters with the needs of families with preschool children. The Cottage's Family Centre adopts a community development approach that puts the needs and aspirations of families and children at the centre of its service development and delivery and it encourages their participation in the management and development of the centre. The centre embodies the ethos and culture called for in the report and along with six other organisations, it hosted visits by the commission and supported their service users to give personal testimonies to inform the commission's work. Now, it's true to say that fairness is a broad umbrella which encompasses subjective and objective concepts. Fairness can mean different things to different people. The commission defined the fear of Fife as a Fife where all residents have the capability to live good lives, make choices and reach their full potential and where all children are safe, healthy and happy. I believe that poverty and inequality is a huge barrier to Fife achieving that vision but I also believe that poverty and inequality are not inevitable. They are created by the collective actions of society and can be reduced by that same process. The commission's own analysis states that ever-widening inequality is neither natural or intractable and as such it's important to recognise the scope and ambition of the Fair of Fife commission report in addressing this important issue. Fairness matters may be a report specific to Fife. However, the messages within it are pertinent to all areas in Scotland and will resonate with many. Indeed, the organisation for economic cooperation and development is a strong advocate of the argument that inequality is both a moral issue and a severe drag on the economic performance of a society. I believe that this report, while concerning Fife, does have value across Scotland for it provides a route map for new ways that the public, private and third sector organisations can work alongside communities to reduce inequality. I'd like at this point to highlight that the report does recognise the work Fife has been doing to tackle these issues. It states that there is no doubt that Fife has hugely capable, knowledgeable and committed people working in all sectors. Fife, along with all communities across Scotland, has no room for complacency especially with the hard financial choices now facing councils in Scotland. We must ensure that resources are targeted in order to develop person-centred and sustainable solutions. That will require more partnership working, co-location of services and a willingness to reach out to where people are rather than expecting them to come to us. I'm heartened to see that the commission's approach to tackling poverty and inequality is truly citizen-focused, put in community at its centre. That inclusive approach can result in evidence that leads to solutions rather than simply recognising the scale of the problem. It's the difference between data and knowledge, and more knowledge leads to better decisions. The report includes recommendations that reflect its local perspective. For example, why not replicate the principles of the city deal concept with a five-town deal with support provided to local geographies? Or a free travel card for those seeking work or recently gaining employment? Or a non-commercial tariff for broadband to be made available for social housing tenants? The report includes numerous such recommendations, which are rooted in local people's lived experiences. The challenge will be to make them happen, to develop a why not culture and release the latent energy in organisations and communities. I believe and have seen from myself through my work and political experience that putting communities at the heart of decision making increases the quality of decisions made and the likelihood of them having a positive impact. I am therefore confident that the report's recommendations, of which there are 40, gather into eight groups—ambitious, poverty-free, fair work, affordable, connected, empowered, skilled and healthier—are relevant. They have realistic timescales and targets, and they have outcomes that will lead to reduced levels of poverty and inequality. The big message for me coming out of this report is the emphasis on maintaining a citizen focus, working together, being ambitious and achieving improved long-term outcomes for people, not just improvements in process or inputs. When the action plan that follows the recommendations of this report is published, I am sure that strategic partners will work together alongside communities to ensure that a beneficial change is made. I am looking forward and pleased to see that the initial focus will be supporting new ways of working and the intention to drive the cultural shift that will be necessary to create the fairer fife to which the report aspires. I hope that the fife partnership fully explores the more innovative recommendations. Further to this, community action will beat the heart of making real change. I welcome the report's assertion that top-down and post-change will no longer be effective. Fife Council and the community planning partnership have an important leadership and convening role, but change requires action from everyone living, employing, doing business and working in fife. I hope that this report will start a conversation in fife, a conversation between all sectors of our community and inspire a real drive for change led for and delivered by the community. The fairer fife commission report is trying to tackle an extremely serious matter in our society. Ways of Parliament must welcome any attempts to address this problem and, further, we must also take serious consideration of all recommendations to lessen what is a great unfairness in our country. I am pleased that this motion has been recognised with cross-party support as it is only by working together to address the new concerns affecting people's daily lives that we can build a better future. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now call on Rod Campbell to be followed by Alec Rowley. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First of all, can I apologise to the chamber for not being able to stay for the debate after my contribution to another engagement? Can I congratulate Jane Baxter on bringing this debate to the chamber today? I welcome the opportunity to speak very briefly on the Fife Fairness Commission's report. Since the commission was established in September 2014, it has progressed towards its remit to take a strategic overview of the scale, scope and nature of poverty in Fife and the effectiveness of activity currently undertaken to address such poverty. Tackling deprivation is a strategy that ought to be close to all of our hearts and one that I am sure members will agree is fundamental in achieving a better world for everyone, especially young people. I commend the people who make up the commission and have given time as volunteers in the creation of the work of the commission for the benefit of others. Martin Evans, the chair of the Fife Fairness Commission and the CEO of the Carnegie Uke trust, said in its introduction, that our report has been enhanced, enriched by those taking the time to contribute their thoughts and experience. That is undoubtedly correct. He particularly welcomed and expressed his gratitude to the looked after children from Fife who, supported by the Scottish Children's Parliament, spent the morning with him and provided an outstanding evidence on what is important for all children. The view expressed that all children should be safe, happy and healthy. That is undoubtedly the case. Can I also commend the contribution of the chief executive of Fife Council, Steve Grimond, who I believe has given valuable advice and support throughout? Looking at the report itself, the introduction obviously makes the important comment that the issues of fairness, poverty and participation are at the top of the political agenda in Scotland and indeed in many other countries. One of the great problems today in many western countries the gap between the rich and poor far from narrowing is getting wider, but as the report makes clear, there is no universally accepted definition of fairness. What is clear however from the report is that unfairness exists when inequalities are allowed to interrelate and compound, which results in those experiencing disadvantage in one area of their lives to often experiencing disadvantage in others. In our society, income and wealth inequality is strongly connected with inequalities in education, health, housing and our environment. That is undoubtedly true. I also wanted to highlight the evidence, the view of the ECD, who in a recent report advocated the argument that inequality is both a moral issue and a severe drag from the economic performance of a society. I think it is undoubtedly the case that if we tackle inequality, we are more likely to have a growing economy, so it should be a win-win situation. Looking at the recommendations themselves, I just wanted to highlight recommendations in particular the section headed fair work, which involves not only recommendations in relation to the aim of making Fife a living wage region, but also a recommendation to explore fairness and self-employment with a view to encouraging employed workers to structure their work and enterprise arrangements to maximise their earnings and work security. In my view, self-employees are particularly at the risk of economic downturns, of recession and of poor health, physical or mental, so I particularly welcome this recommendation in the report. Jane Bax has talked about the number of recommendations, there are too many to go through in detail, but one other one I thought was relevant is the recommendation to refocus the geography of economic development activity from a five-outwards view to one that looks at the assets within Fife and to support towns to attract good jobs to Fife. It's an important debate, I welcome the opportunity to make that modest contribution and I thank Jane Bax once again for bringing the debate to the chamber. I know Colin Allitt Rowley after which we'll move the closing speech from the minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I also would thank Jane Bax, I congratulate Jane Bax for bringing this debate to Parliament today. The Fife, Fairer Fife commission, was an important step in the right direction in terms of looking at how we tackle inequality and poverty in Fife and I congratulate those who served on that commission and indeed the report that they brought forward. It is important, however, that we then start to look at these recommendations, all 40 of those recommendations and it's important that the partners in Fife, who set the commission up, now start to set out the detail of how they intend to see these recommendations actually put into action and they start to set out in that programme a timescale and actions that need to be taken and by whom. Because whilst the Fife partnership, I did have the pleasure to chair the Fife partnership over a period of time and it was not always clear, as I would say, for community planning more generally, what each partner brought to the table and what their role actually was and I think that's something that, and it's not a criticism of the Government because I know the Government's committed to community planning as I am, I am also committed to community planning but I think we actually need to start to actually get much clearer outcomes and much clearer information of who's actually responsible for what, what is it that they're going to deliver and how all that comes together. An example in terms of one of the recommendations in here around the living wage, clearly employers have a large part to play in the living and the living wage as they do in terms of apprenticeships but I was never convinced of the role of employers at the table in terms of the Fife partnership and who actually represented them. Indeed I would say the same about the third sector. I was never convinced that the body that came on the third sector actually represented all third sector organisations in Fife so I think there is, whilst in the right direction, there's a lot more work to do there but you know, if we go back to the first half of the last century and the beverage report and the five evils that beverage talked about once, qualar, idleness, ignorance and disease he set out a clear agenda at that time of why we had to tackle these five giant evils within society and the reality is, in one shape or form or another these five evils are very much with us in Fife and across Scotland today and the fact that there are 75,000 people in Fife living in poverty indeed poverty in Fife you would say in absolute terms has grown over this last decade or certainly this last five, six, seven years and we've seen with the welfare reforms that are taking place just now and the evidence of that is that we have food banks and absolute poverty can be defined where people are not able to actually access what you would describe as the very basics in order to survive and I would suggest that being able to eat being able to feed your kids is the very basics in our society that people need to be able to survive and so the growth of food banks in Moncastiton say in Crosshill, in Cowanbeath, in Recythe and in Burkain the growth of food banks right across Fife and right across Scotland is the absolute evidence that absolute poverty is there in communities across Scotland and we need to work out how we're actually going to tackle that if I could pick up, as Roderick Campbell said there's a lot of recommendations here all worth it and we need to see a programme on how they're going to be implemented but if you take credit unions for example I myself, I'm a member of the Dumfemlen and District Credit Union and they have a branch up in Kelty that I save and borrow with but we need to see the development of credit unions not just for poor people but for the whole community and there's more that needs to be done there and more I believe that the local authority can actually do so it's nice words to say that we need to grow credit unions and grow them into employers and I agree with that and part of the partnership should be about that but we need to set a clear strategy a measurable strategy we measure outcomes about how we're actually going to grow credit unions across communities one of the most successful community credit unions in Scotland is a small credit union up in Blingary in Benarty, the Benarty credit union and it sits now, we are sets in millions of pounds and it has helped thousands of people in those communities over the years it is a massive success story so again there are lessons to be learnt there but the key point for me is I very much welcome the support I welcome the work that has been done but I do say that all the partners now need to look at this set out clearly how these recommendations can be taken forward, how they can be achieved how they will measure that and more importantly is going to do what to try and achieve that thank you thank you very much Mr Rowley I have now called the minister to close the debate on behalf of the government seven minutes or thereby please minister welcome thank you for the chance to come here thanks to Jane Baxter for this motion on the fairer of life commission this has been really quite fascinating for me as local government minister because it is a wonderful example of a local authority leading a partnership approach and really reconnecting with some of the spirit of even before beverage when very often across Scotland it was our local authorities that were the pioneers the experimenters that were at the forefront before national government had caught up fully with the need to deal with inequality the term municipal socialism was very fashionable in the early 20th century but that sense of local authorities as champions for their areas to advance well being to identify the ills in their local area is a really important one the fairer of life commission work is remarkable in a number of ways I have noted the division of the work into the four themes of paid and unpaid workplace being well life courses and transitions but how that has produced a great piece of work more of that in a moment the commission certainly has an impressive line up it has a series of people of distinguished background coming from a variety of different backgrounds as well I know one Jim McCormack who sat with me on the commission on local tax reform and made a great contribution but just like that commission it's not all in the people on the commission the commission itself is more important than that it's about the way of working that has been talked about that participative approach I have been fascinated both in my own work through the commission on local tax reform what I've seen from fairer Scotland and what I've seen here in the Fife commission about the sheer effect that having the personal face-to-face contact with the people who have to live these problems every day that you're trying to solve can have to sit around a table as the commission did looked after children, the users of food banks or people who have experienced sanctions to tell that story does mean the difference between as Jane Baxter very eloquently put it knowledge and data you get the understanding of what the real experience is with far greater colour than you would otherwise and those colours are very often very stark ones but it is remarkable and you see it in the recommendations that have come out that the people who are facing these challenges are not short of ideas for how to fix them they're not short of what needs to be done and the approach that has been quite common to public policy for many decades now of putting experts in a room and having them come up with the ideas for what to do on their own is seeing its day and this kind of approach where government does things with people rather than to people has a lot to commend it another thing that Jane Baxter said that I thought summed it up very nicely was the idea of developing a why not culture so that instead of these ideas sitting there and being felt to be impossible and people thinking well what can I do with that no one will pay me any attention to think well you know if we want to if we want to have a social enterprise capacity in business gateway that's greater why not if we want to join up services to look at one of the other recommendations that NHS staff provide a bit of information on income maximisation then why not we have to look at these take these ideas and run with them one of the great one of the great pieces of one of the things I have been constantly trying to do as I have gone around the country as the community empowerment minister has been to emphasise this message of participation that participation bringing people in getting them to give their ideas is very different to the old style consultation you can't do it for everything but for the core issue of equality and inequality in this country the people that we are trying to help should be the people in the driving seat of the action that is being taken and the only way to empower the disempowered is by showing faith in them by having these conversations by taking them seriously but then also showing the action that is going to come from it because there is nothing that is going to compound cynicism more than bringing people in listening to them and then going away and not acting on what they say or doing something else entirely and that is a circle that we have to close in all of our public sector activity to make sure that we keep the faith with the public here Alex Rowley mentioned some of the issues with community planning partnerships and I have to accept that I would agree with him on some of the areas where community planning partnerships do need to step up their work I have sometimes referenced somewhat frivolously the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy where somebody else's problem was recognised as a thing that could make anything invisible even if that is a flying sofa across lords if it is not your problem you just don't see it and wherever I go whenever I bang the drum for community empowerment and public service reform I say that somebody else's problem is a phrase that should be banned the community planning partnerships exist to bring all the people around the table so that the priorities can be isolated and the problems that can't be solved by anyone alone can be solved together and making sure that there is buy-in is some of the thinking behind the provisions in the community empowerment act but I think we'll need some further work in the next parliament probably building on that act as Alex Rowley said perhaps the key is making sure that we have very strong employer business representation around the table and that all third sector organisations can feed in because there's a very big difference between the big third sector providers that will work fife-wide and for example a small neighbourhood association in a deprived area and they both have really important things to bring to the table so I would just conclude by saying that this is a model of good work it's a model of combining the different public sector players the voluntary sector players, expertise and public participation I would commend it I do not envy the people who have to take these recommendations and turn them into an action plan that is ambitious but I would commend this work and I would recommend to any other council thinking about whether they should do something likewise to do so Many thanks and thank you all and now close this meeting appointment