 Good morning and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2015 of the Health and Sport Committee. I would ask everyone at this point, as I normally do, to switch off my mobile phones as they can often interfere with the sound system. I ask you also to note that some of us are using tablet devices. Instead of a hard copy of our papers. I have apologies this morning from Dennis Robertson, who is not able to be with us, and welcome Graham Day as the SNP substitute to the committee this morning. Welcome, Graham. First item on the agenda today is a decision on taking business in private. I invite the committee to agree to take item 4 in private. Item 4 is our approach paper to our work on infertility and we normally take our approach papers in private. Can I have the committee's agreement to do that? Item 2, of course, is a number of negative instruments that we have before us today. The first instrument before us is the health and care professionals council registration and fees amendment rules order council 2015 SI 201593. There has been no motion to annull and the delegated power and law reform committee has not made any recommendations as to the instrument. Do any committee members have any comment on the instrument? We have no comment from many committee members at this point. Can I therefore ask if the committee has agreed to make no recommendation? Thank you. Our second instrument is fish labelling Scotland amendment regulations 2015 SSI 2015-48. There has been no motion to annull and the delegated power powers and law reform committee has not made any comments on the instrument. I invite comment from the committee. Mike McKenzie. As convener, I would like to welcome this instrument and just draw the committee's attention to the fact that what this instrument does is differentiate between fish that are sustainably caught and those that are perhaps caught by unsustainable methods and also country of origin and convener in particular I would like to recommend, given that this is the health and sport committee, Scottish fish as a truly healthy food. Thank you for that contribution. Are there any other comments from any committee member? Does the committee agree to make no recommendations? The third instrument is national assistance assessment of resources amendment Scotland regulation 2015. Again, there has been no motion to annull and the delegated powers and law reform committee has not made any comments on the instrument. Do we have any comment from committee members? We have no comment from committee members. Can I seek agreement for the committee that we make no recommendations? Thank you. The fourth instrument is national assistance sums for personal requirements Scotland regulation 2015, SSI 2015-65. Again, there has been no motion to annull and the delegated powers and law reform committee has not made any comments on the instrument. Do we have any comments from committee members? We have no comments from committee members. Do the committee agree that no recommendations are made? That is agreed. Thank you. Now we move to agenda item number three, which is a first look at the legacy from the Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow last summer. We have a round table this week and another next week and it is an issue that the committee is committed to returning to. Clearly this item is also relates back to our 2012 inquiry and support for community sport. As usual with our round table, I will introduce myself and then go round the table. My name is Duncan McNeill and I am a member of the Scottish Parliament for Greenland and Inverclyde and convener of the health and sport committee here in the Scottish Parliament. My name is Bob Dorris, member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow and I am deputy commissioner of the health and sport committee. Hi, good morning. I am Stuart Harris, TV executive of sport Scotland. I am Mike McKenzie, MSP and I represent the Highlands and Islands region. Good morning. My name is Billy Garrett and I am the head of sport at Glasgow Life. I am Annette Mill and MSP for North East Scotland. Good morning. I'm Ian Murray from Highlife Highland. Good morning. I'm Graham Dade, MSP for Angus South. I'm Rhoda Grant, MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Good morning. I'm Dean Wilkinson, sport and physical activity development manager at Edinburgh Leisure. I'm Kim Atkinson, I'm the chief executive of the Scottish Sports Association. I'm Richard Lyle, MSP central reading. Good morning. I'm Aiman Johnny, still the in council with responsibility for sport countryside in Leisure. Richard Simpson, MSP with Scotland in Fife. Thank you all for that. Begin with a softball for the witnesses here this morning and those who participate in our panel and ask them a general question about how they see the bodies that they represent that contribute to the active legacy of the Commonwealth Games. Good. Thank you, Cuvierna. When the games were announced for Glasgow in 2007, I think the sector saw an opportunity. Sport Scotland in particular sought to put in place and perform a leadership role and try and bring the sector together, looking at building a world class system for sport at every level, for everyone in Scotland, schools, clubs, performance, people in places driving that, but underpinned even round this table by lots of very strong partnerships. Our two specific legacy commitments and there are others that we've influenced were around the performances at the games through a sustainable performance system, 53 medals, 63 medalists talks for itself and the other one was around community was the commitment to provide and work with partners to construct 150 community sport hubs so far. We've got 137 that are active and evolving, 167 are on the stocks and about 58%, 60% are in schools and we think there's some real potential to build this on through 2020. Lots of other contributions through facilities, but a lot of other colleagues give a bit more of a local picture. Thanks, Stuart. Anyone else? I'm quite happy to. Then, Eamon, thanks. Obviously, from Glasgow Life and obviously the Commonwealth Games has loomed large in our work plans for a number of years. Glasgow developed a legacy plan, which covered five years before and five years after the games, so, in a sense, we're still in the midst of that programme. There were six key themes for that legacy plan, prosperity, more active international image, more greener, more accessible and more inclusive, and at the moment all of these themes are in the green in terms of delivering on the actions that were set out all those years ago. Obviously, there was a mention there of facilities, part of the legacy and one in which we continue to work is the physical legacy of the games, obviously. Glasgow was very proud that all of our venues utilised by the Commonwealth Games were opened one year at least before the games and the first people to use them were the community in Glasgow. The community in Glasgow continued to use those facilities very heavily. Also, we have seen some positive measures around participation and we continue to work with clubs in the city around both our community sport hub agenda, which we obviously deliver in partnership with Sports Scotland, but also around coach education, volunteering and capacity building among clubs. Some of the statistics that are included in the submission I passed on are very encouraging, but obviously we're not complacent. Every statistic tells something, but obviously there's a wider picture in terms of household surveys and overall health surveys. From Glasgow's perspective, we're certainly clear that there's a lot of work still to be done, but we think that the direction of travel is currently very positive. Thanks, Eamon. Thank you, chair. Obviously, you heard from the national agency and the host city, but I think one of the important things around the games was around Annola Scotland games and 32 local authorities being part of that national celebration and opportunities that the games provided. I think that the springboard for us all was the games legacy. There was a framework. We were able to contextualise that and then look at that at a local level in respect of delivery. For us, our focus areas around being part of that All of Scotland approach to the games was around key areas in relation to PE and school sport, club development, coach teacher education, district squads and our performance athletes within the county as well. We were servicing that performance opportunity and exit routes within our schools and communities, but a big part of our focus as all was to see a real physical infrastructure legacy. So we were able to absolutely work as a chief executive of Sports Scotland has alluded to in relation to partnership with the national agency to look at facility infrastructure on the ground that our communities could benefit from longer term leaving a legacy. And as a small local authority, a relatively small local authority, we were able to invest with our partners 8 million linked to games legacy in relation to active infrastructure. So that was a big part for us. I'm not going to drop into detail of numbers and data just now and that may come out through questions, but the early observations are and the indications are that school sport programmes or active schools, our community sports hubs, those indications in relation to numbers, engagements, activities are going in the right direction. Ian Moray With the rural and scattered nature of Highland, our focus was less on the development of large facilities but more on helping communities to do more for themselves. It was always going to be about communities helping to do more themselves. So volunteering absolutely is at the heart of our legacy plan. At the moment there are building blocks in place, which is older primary school kids helping to run sessions for the retorts at the bottom of primary school, secondary school kids running for primary school kids and becoming trained in sports leader awards, et cetera. What we were keen to do was to take those building blocks and turn it into a leadership programme so that there was support for a whole fresh generation of volunteers coming through. Now what we are seeing is those people coming through the system and at the top end are now being introduced to other achievement awards, volunteering awards and moving them, handholding them into club situations so that there is a whole fresh generation of volunteers going into clubs to help replace some of the older generation who are coming out of it. To us that is what the real enthusiasm of the games is given. It is given agencies a real enthusiasm to support volunteers better, but it is also given a whole new generation of people in interest in sport and volunteering that, hopefully, can then feed through to the club system. Just building on some of the points that colleagues have made, I think that the biggest success to a degree of the games themselves and the legacy of the games to date has been that partnership working. It has been that focus across sport across the country about making a difference and leaving that lasting legacy. I think that no small part has been that partnership working, but it has also been that focus of resource and the political will that has come behind that. I guess that thinking about the legacy in the seven years since we won the bid, then obviously there has been huge progress on that. It has been really positive to read the submissions that everybody has made of those great case studies and those great examples that show the legacy that has been built up to date. From the point of view of our members as the governing bodies for the different sports in Scotland, they have got similar positive case studies in terms of growth in membership. Volunteering, as Ian was talking about, officiating different events, different people getting involved, coaching, etc. Part of today coming together in my mind is around where all those successes have come together. So looking at some of the legacy strands of the programme, some of the asks that our members have made in the longer term around what they would like to see around legacy, a lot of the success in that comes out in the case studies that have been presented by partners today and showing that if we all work together then obviously we can get that bit further. I think that there is further opportunity within that without question. As I say, it has been seven years since we won the bid. There has been an awful lot of progress and I suppose in the minds of my members it would be about looking forward and saying great. So where can we be seven years, 14 years, 21 years if we continue with that resource, we continue with that political will and we continue with that partnership working? It is clearly a very good story to tell here. The line of questioning is not going to be just opportunities for people to tell that good story but it's almost like next steps and look over some of the numbers. So as a Glasgow MSP, you'd expect me to be asked to pick through some of the Glasgow life numbers and a lot of very impressive numbers there, but I refer to your submission. I'm keen that more people get active and by that I don't mean people becoming active for the first time and not just people who are already very active, becoming more active. I was looking at the type of people who use Glasgow club membership, for example, and it was categorised into five areas. I suppose the one jumping out would be the hard pressed category that you use, where across Glasgow the profile of Glasgow, if I'm reading this right, would have 49.2 per cent of those who would categorise as hard pressed and the profile of those who use Glasgow life facilities is 41.8 per cent. Obviously, that's a bit of work to do, but hopefully that's a closing gap. I've been interested to know, obviously through other providers as well, how you're getting on with that kind of thing, whether there's been a closing of that gap. 41.8 to 49.2 isn't brilliant but it might show progress. It's an opportunity for you to say whether there's been progress in relation to people who are most deprived of communities accessing Glasgow life facilities. The second thing is, do you monitor? Obviously, you could have 41.8 per cent of people from the most deprived areas having one visit to a Glasgow life facility over the year or two or three, but someone from the wealthy achievers or the comfortable of these are the categories within the submission that Glasgow life use having 10, 15, 20, 30 visits a year. It's just to try and get a kind of young surround those numbers, particularly for Glasgow life, but how some of the other providers would monitor that to make sure that it's good if people who are kind of fit and healthy get even more fit and healthy, but what we're really interested in is people who have been less active or not active at all getting involved. I do have a follow-up question for Glasgow life later if that's okay, convener, but we just need to take a look at that. I think that we are interested in it and maybe some focus on hard press. It's a new sort of death by addition to this. The committee is usually dealing with poverty, absolute poverty, deprivation. This is a new line of the onus, so maybe we have an explanation on that. Well, these categories are from the CACI statistics, so they're not categories that Glasgow life have determined. Actually, I think the questions that you've asked are really good ones and actually the questions that we discuss extensively within Glasgow sport. On the one hand, I think when I made my initial comments, I did make reference to the fact that certainly from a Glasgow perspective it's important that we are not complacent about some of the positive statistics in the submission. That issue around representation and ensuring that our service users, the people that we work with, the people that we engage with, represent the community of Glasgow as a really, really key one and one that we do try to focus on. In some ways, that latest set of statistics in terms of the demographics of Glasgow club members took us slightly by surprise. We thought that the gap, if you like, between our membership and the overall population would be slightly bigger, so in a sense we were encouraged. That gap has closed. Along with overall membership of the Glasgow club expanding, that gap has closed. Again, when we talk about the Glasgow club, we are clear what that means and what it doesn't mean. Obviously, we have roughly 65,000 Glasgow members in a city of 600,000. That's a really, really positive figure and it does tell us something about people being involved in physical activity, but it could be a small number of people who are very active, but there is an element of the population city who are still non-active. From our point of view, just so that we're absolutely clear, our absolute focus is on getting the disengage engaged, getting the inactive active. To that extent, we have launched recently, you might know, a number of initiatives. One, the most significant being what we call the Good Move programme, which we manage in partnership with the National Health Service and a number of housing associations in the city. Those are what we describe as adoption programmes. These are programmes absolutely designed and tailored and targeted to reach people who are inactive. We look across every conceivable barrier to activity. Those barriers can include affordability, location and the nature of the programme. We're trying to break out of the leisure facility model, take products into a community context and community facilities, school halls, church halls, wherever. In terms of how we market and advertise, we're trying to be innovative, so we've had staff going out visiting bingo halls, we've been marketing in local supermarkets and a whole range of initiatives, some of which will work, some of which might not, but are absolutely designed to touch people that we're currently not touching. That is a real priority for us and I think it's important to be clear about that, that there is still work to be done there. Is there any other comments on participation argument on who we're reaching, Stuart? Just to pick up that theme about projecting forward, we talked about more of a system for sport and we've got active skills being in place for 10 years now, community sport hubs for four years. What we're looking at now is how we plug additional resources into that infrastructure, which I think is quite exciting to do, so we can look at areas where there's the greatest need and begin to look at how we further support community sport hubs in developing people. There's a theme underlying all of this, which I think is very positive around giving the power back to communities in a sense, which allows that as the essence of a community sport hub, is for local people to decide what they're doing, to manage their own programmes with support, not on isolation from professionals across the piece. It's a bit of a change in landscape, a mixed economy that I've referred to before, where you have provision through trusts and other local bodies, but communities being able to be in control of what they do and bringing that community together. I think that we've seen some real positive direction going forward. Our commitment to active schools in other four years, £50 million in community sport hubs, could never end in, which is an area that has huge potential to bring communities together and put a community hub in each community in Scotland. We're well designed for that with small towns and communities. Bigger cities are more of a challenge, but if we use the infrastructure to target more in a partnership sense, then I think that that could be fruitful. Anyone else? I'll try to elicit some more responses for the tune, because I'm looking for outcomes here, because we're touching on the outcomes and there has been some data there, it's been presented and others, and I think we're still awaiting some of the initial reports, so we're looking for some of that, but Ian, you wanted to come in and say something behind that. Our area operates a very cheap all-inclusive membership scheme, which is aimed specifically at that band of people, yes, below the benefits line, but that band of families, which are just above the benefit line out, we don't really regard sort of well-off middle classes as our target market. The target market is that the people who need a healthy lifestyle the most, if you like. I very like Glasgow Life, we're now trying very much to get away from just waiting for people to come in, we're going out to other facilities and other community facilities to see people, but one of the big strides forward I think we're making is the relationship with the NHS, where NHS have got their own heat targets to meet, and sometimes they're having difficulty in getting people active relating to avoidance of cancer, etc. Instead of waiting for people to come in the door, what we're finding now is, where we're getting real success, is people being handheld into the door by the NHS with us together, and that gets people across the door that otherwise would never really want to take part in activity within a local authority-type facility setting. Bob, you wanted to come back and just clarify some of that, I think. Graham, do you want a supplementary on, Bob? Thank you. I think that, in some of the stats that Mr Garrett was giving, you said that the gap had closed. Are you able to quantify that? Obviously, the baseline was 41.1. I don't think I hung up on the numbers, it's just more about making sure that it's measured and the statistics are there, rather than debating the figures, that's not the reason for asking it. It was 41.8, what was it before or what is it now? One of the issues is that previously it was measured in a very different way, because obviously this analysis is, if you like, carried out in terms of the most recent language in the most recent categories. Previously it was recorded differently. I can't remember the statistics, but I can certainly get them to you. That would be good. I apologize, I'm not trying to cut you off, but there's a number of little stepping stones to what I'm trying to draw out in my head that I want to ask. Are you able to provide information on how many of the 41.8 per cent that are using the facilities are using it less than five times a year, or less than 10 times a year, or less than 15 times a year? Do you have that information? We do, yes. Every member, every time they utilise one of our facilities that's recorded, so we can break that down. I mean, there's a whole, the committee might be interested, and certainly you may well be interested. We've actually got a significant amount of data in terms of the Glasgow club, in terms of not just how frequently, but which facilities. There's some interesting statistics of our facilities, something like 85 per cent of users come from within a mile or a mile and a half of the facility, so it's very much a local usage pattern of each of our facilities, which is sometimes surprising. I think that would be quite good, and I'm not asking the questions of the other providers, but we're asking the panel. No, no, no, I'm just, I'm asking a question. I'm asking really, but the point I'm making is getting round about how we can compare across the country to see that the figures are collected in a structured way across the country in relation to that, and obviously that's been helpful in, and you didn't know what we were asking for, but that's been helpful in submissions. I suppose the final thing, and I'll let everyone else in, convener, is, and it'd been nice of me not to do this, you mentioned affordability, and a constituent said to me the other day, they stay in the summer scenario of Glasgow, they run a local boys football team in Summerston, there's a Glasgow-like facility at John Paul academy, sits empty for much of the time, they can't afford to use it, they've sought to use it, I've only just been given this case Mr Garrett, I don't expect you particularly to respond to it, but could I maybe get a commitment from you that I could talk to you directly about how we could do something there to make sure that my constituents can use a facility that's sitting empty? In terms of that specific issue, absolutely, and what I can say in general, I mentioned it deliberately, is that we do recognise that affordability is one of a number of barriers it is, and we have, you might know, we offer a significant number of services completely free of charge, but we do charge for a number of services, we try and make those as affordable as possible, but usually, and I think some of our usage statistics support this, usually the community in partnership with us can find ways to utilise the facilities. Summerston, an area I know well, actually, and there's a real tradition of community football in that part of Glasgow, and a number of very well-organised local clubs may be held up, Summerston juniors, I can think of others, so I'd be quite happy to have that chat with you, yeah? If I didn't raise it, my constituents would have said, you had the opportunity, why did you do that? We'll excuse you for that, Danderity, Summerston or whatever it was, but the important issue, I think, will eventually get back to the focus that the committee had in its report, which was more strategic, it was about support, about volunteers and whatever. Of course, though, the numbers that we're looking at here and how they're collated, what drives them to ensure that there's not gaming going on and everything else, and it's not linked to money and whatever, whatever, as we see in others, when we present the numbers, you know, I think that we are interested in that. Graham, you wanted to ask a sort of follow-up with Bob's, and then we need to give the panel an opportunity to respond if they wish to do so. Thank you, thank you, convener, and actually getting your guidance on this and trying to broaden it out to wider Scotland. In seeking to get the disengaged engaged, are the charging regimes in place across the range of facilities across the whole of Scotland pitched at people from deprived backgrounds? If they are, can we have some examples? Now, if you look at Edinburgh as a case, it offers a 10 for 8 on swimming at the Commonwealth pool, very good, but it's still £48. Is that too high a charge, for example, for many pockets in Edinburgh? And if I can make broad an out further, can I be clear on to what degree Joe Public can walk up to these sports hubs on spec seeking to utilise the facilities, or do they generally have to be members of the participatory clubs? I'll give you a break, but I'll all come back to you because you'll have it, you'll have it in the last best strategy. Is there anyone else that we... Dean? Yeah, I mean, just in terms of the question regarding the 10 for 8 pricing, it's one of a number of pricing points that we have, that's a specific reference to a membership. The membership is very popular overall, our members across the border, 22,000 members, in terms of the 10 for 8, there's 1,500 members who are taking that opportunity up. Generally around access points in terms of making our facilities, our services more accessible, we've got a number of pricing points raising from going from free access for a number of weeks to get people into the system to £1 a week, moving up to half price, full price. So there's a total range and it almost goes back to the original question in terms of what are we doing to act on that sort of legacy that we're trying to do? I think from Edinburgh Leisure's point of view. Our purpose is about making a positive difference, creating opportunities to take part. We predominantly obviously manage a portfolio facilities, around about 30 facilities, but we also have a sport and physical activity development team, which is very proactive, picking up on some of my colleagues' comments earlier in terms of getting out into the community, working with how to reach, working with partners across Edinburgh. I think that's also another important point in terms of knowing what our position and our place is. We've got a great opportunity in delivering the new sport and physical activity strategy across Edinburgh and through that we're able to sustain some of those programmes that we're putting place because of that drive and enthusiasm and commitment behind the games at the time. One of our challenges is around keeping some of those schemes sustainable. A great example being the High Flyers Wheelchair Sports Club. One of the first wheelchair sports clubs in the region, it was something that kicked off on the back of that enthusiasm and we're keeping that going and that's still in place. It's quite a small legacy in inverted commas on a really sort of co-face delivery perspective, but I think come back to your point, it's very important to understand what the barriers are. How do we remove those barriers? How do we increase access across a range of communities? Can we broaden it out to get back into the strategic thing and one of the recommendations of the committee way back in 2013 was that those sport strategies that were beginning to become on their way alongside the sport hubs. Are the sport strategies in place right across all of the local authorities? Do they reflect the issue of access, equality, participation? Because the access issue, as we found at that point in time, wasn't necessarily the price. It was the fact that up to 60 per cent or something could be closed during the holidays. Now given the investment, the public investment will put into some of the new schools and the facilities that are around them. To have them lying there, we boys at the gate looking through is not a question of money. Are the strategies in place? Are they making a difference? Are they addressing the issues of access in terms of cost and being open on weekends, public holidays or whatever? If we could broaden it out to that, it would be aiming. Honing in on Bob's point as well. Two things I'd like to cover. One is the issue around highlighted Glasgow. The challenges for Glasgow absolutely will be significant on a greater scale, but the principles will be consistent across the 32 local authorities. That bit about moving from inactive to active is an absolute focus across local government just now, and we'll all be in challenge with that, linked to our SOAs etc. We will be designing interventions to try and meet that significant challenge because we know what the wider benefits are longer term to the individuals, to communities and indeed the public pound. Those interventions will be taking place. If I can give you some specifics on that, rather than that overall statement, we would be looking right now, as we are, through our self-evaluation, through looking at hekyogs and tools that we use, how good is our culture and sport, what are we doing to take a closer look at inequalities? So, in the authority I'm on, people die earlier than they do in one end of the county to the other. What programmes and interventions are we designing that we hope are going to have a positive impact? We're then trying to measure the uptake, so the uptake of people accessing Glasgow life or the uptake of people accessing our facilities. We've engaged in a citizens panel recently, where we're trying to capture that data, but we're also looking at interventions that allow people in a certain category, i.e. benefits, i.e. children and families on benefits, and how we allow them access to facilities A at times free of charge and B at peak times at concessionary rates, and when we're then designing new sporting facilities, i.e. 3G pitches, how we look to design payment structures that cater for clubs that are trying to be connected from children and youth to adults within communities, where they can have concessionary rates, a club rate, rather than a group of us around this table who can afford to pay just having an evening let, so we're trying to design accordingly to meet some of the challenges that you're raising there. You know, the question is, does your sport strategy lay all of that out clearly? Business plan, so forget the titles of whether it's a strategy or whatever, have we got the documents in place across local government that captures that, yes. And it's got your ambitions, it's got your targets, where you're looking for it. And that would be in a service business plan, so a strategy. Is that common in every local authority throughout Scotland now, Billy? And I'll give you an opportunity, Stuart McMillan. We have, at a Glasgow life level, there is a business and service plan, which is what we call that particular document. And then underneath that, there's an individual business and service plan, for instance, for Glasgow sport. I think the point you made about an overall strategy is a key one. So within Glasgow sport, we approach the issue of access, and I use that term in its widest sense, in a strategic way. We certainly don't believe that moving people from inactivity to activity is all about how many people come in through to our facilities. That's one part of a really big story. So we work, I mentioned, good move, but also there's a major review, for instance, live in Glasgow, just now about utilisation of the school estate. Utilisation levels in overall terms within Glasgow, the school estate, are low, and we're looking at ways to maximise utilisation of that school estate. We do that in partnership with education, active schools and others. So that's a real priority for us at the moment. The work that we do with clubs in the city is also part of that access strategy, because that is another route for people to get involved in physical activity and sport in a local context. So we try to look at it in a holistic sense. It's in terms of access. Clearly what's important for the members of this committee is that issue about affordability, and I can assure you it's a key issue for the elected members in Glasgow as well. It's a really difficult one. It's one that we have to navigate our way through, and managing that in a context of a reasonably challenging financial landscape is a challenge that we all face across the country. The Glasgow club, the membership scheme, just to go back to the point that I think you were making, that's only one way that you can get access to facilities. You can literally just walk up to any Glasgow sport facility, and if it's a free offer, utilise that, or if it's something you have to pay for, you can pay for that. There's no requirement to be a member of the Glasgow club. That is an offer that we make, which is quite attractive, but it's certainly not the only way you can get in. We operate free swimming, we operate free five-side football, we operate free tennis, free bowls. There's a number of things that we offer free within the city. Obviously, if the finances are allowed, it might be possible to do more. Although I would say one thing, we've operated some of those schemes in Glasgow for a number of years, free swimming to take that one. What's interesting is that if over time you couldn't really see that making it free has actually resulted in a significant increase in participation in that particular programme. Again, I think it's important that we look across all of the barriers. Some of those are physical. We're also focusing, along with our colleagues and social work, on access for disabled communities and disabled participants, because that's another barrier, the location of facilities is another barrier. Just threshold anxiety, people thinking that these facilities are not for them. That's another barrier. We do try, in a strategic sense, to work across all of those. It's been brought to me, actually, that free football and the free part that's been given doesn't make it free for the kids who participate, because the clubs still charge the same fee as they were charged when they were paying for pictures and things. It's not necessarily passed on, but I'm sure that they're using the money wisely. The school estate, as you've heard us talk about before, remains an issue, but also an opportunity, if that makes sense. We've heard some good figures about the availability. As you would expect, we still think that there is more that can be done. I think that we're several steps forward from where we've been in the last few years with the report that Sport Scotland provided. I think that it was a lesson for everybody in what is open, what isn't available, where there are opportunities to work more collaboratively together. There is a focus around the programming of facilities, around the management of those facilities, but also how facilities can be best optimised, where the facilities do work in partnership with the local clubs and the local area. Again, there are any number of great case studies on that. It's a positive story of progress, but, as you would expect, I suspect from our members, there are further opportunities. That partnership working is at the key of that. The affordability point that Graham picked up on is something that some of our members would raise, particularly around some of the team sports, around access to facilities, where that does remain a challenge. As you picked up yourself, convener, yes, sometimes that kind of positive impact on the membership to a club. Sometimes that might be that the club can then do more with the money if there is more affordable access to facilities, that they might be investing in the infrastructure that is the people that make that club operate. There are any number of ways a club may invest to provide the best quality of experience or the best number of experiences around taster sessions and other bits and pieces. It's a slightly more complex landscape from that point of view. Ultimately, I think that the challenges continue to come for our local authority partners, and they'll speak better on that than I would, convener, around a challenge of budgets. You've heard me say it before, but I think that cross-budgeting remains a challenge for sport. We hear a lot of discussion around it, and I'd be intrigued here for partners, though Ian's got some really great case studies that I'm sure the committee would be keen to hear about, and other partners as well, about where that prevention agenda really sits between particularly health, mental health and sport and that relationship. If we are strategic about looking at cross-budgeting, I think that that looks slightly differently for sport. The point that Billy was making in saying that the number of percentage of their members that use local facilities again are huge opportunities, but if there are pressures on budgets that jeopardise those facilities, what does that look like around participation? We need to be a little bit more strategic about some of that budgeting, and I suppose that there potentially is an opportunity for the committee to further contribute to that. I'm sure that there's no accident that you're the health and sport committee, and again, maybe there is an opportunity that the committee can support some of that work in really gathering that evidence around the benefits of people participating in sport and being active. What are those benefits? What do they look like? Where can we hear some of the great case studies that colleagues will have to tell today, and how can we use that as evidence? What can the committee do to add value to that research and to champion the research that I'm confident we've come out with that? So, what an opportunity there, hopefully, convener. Stuart, access to these public schools and things, that's still an issue that's being tackled. We can take evidence, but three years ago, well, two and a half years ago or something, we raised that as a big issue of access to our schools and public, and we're hearing today it's still an issue, but progress has been made, but Stuart's going to tell us how much progress is going to be made? We've just completed a strategic conversation with all 32 local authorities and their partners. Three focal points of those conversations, one about ambition, how ambitious are they? Secondly, in terms of the key outcomes of participation and progression, so people are moving on, but people are just getting engaged in sport, trying to ascertain what's possible in those areas. The two key elements that will either provide traction towards success, or maybe just stability, is the resource allocation, so what resources are available that we can add some value to as a national agency, and again that's all we can really do is add value to what's going on locally, and I guess the integration. When we talked a few years ago, Duncan, there was lots of strategies out there, but many of them were disparate. What we're now insisting on in Sport Scotland is that we have a combined sport and the facilities pieces inside all of that. Every local authority has a strategic context, which is connected to their own level of ambition and resourcing, but they are very different. If it was uniform, then it'd be fantastic. We would all probably be out of a job, but there's still work to do in certain areas, depending on the level of resource and the ambition that they're aiming for. We've got quite a lot of data. I guess for me, others can talk about this themselves, there's probably more data in place than there was a few years back about the school of states, a good example. That data is accurate, it's up-to-date, it's in the public domain about how much space is available and how much demand there could be to use it, but it does have a resource ask and a programming ask, but people are, I think, getting into it. There's a momentum following the games, it's not always just down to the games because a lot of this we started way before, but I think strategically there's a better place, needs to be more integration, and we're beginning to tackle the hard questions, like access to the school of state and beginning to make some progress, and we're working with Glasgow, East Lothian as two authorities in that area. We do have a lot of data and it'd be just interesting to maybe have a conversational find about how much you would find useful for the members, like around pricing and things like that, there's a lot of stuff. I think we'd appreciate that because although we have examined some of the numbers here today and some of the issues, if our focus has been the report that we produced in 2013, it wasn't necessarily about that, it was about capacity, it was about access and how we sustained an increased interest in sport that we expected to arise in and around the games, and whether we could catch that enthusiasm and ensure longer-term participation. So it is a bit disappointing to hear that we're still struggling with the issues of access. When we produced the report, we didn't think any of it was easy, we knew that there were big issues and hopefully at some point we'll look at volunteer resource as well, which we also said in the report was absolutely essential about understanding that workforce of it carries some of this enthusiasm and the split between sport clubs and indeed schools and where sport is delivered, but Dean was wondering. It was just said to that last comment around the access to the school state. I know that the local authority's got a huge commitment to improving that, which is an on-going project, community access to schools, CATS programme that they've been working on. We're obviously keen to support that. On the one hand, I think, as a trust, you could almost see it as a risk in terms of opening access to a facility that might be close by to a trust-run facility. However, we see that more as an opportunity. We obviously have pinch points within our programming, peak times, difficult to get access for some communities, for some clubs, for some users, so strategically working together in terms of the programming of a school facility, a school swimming pool compared to one of our swimming pools, I think that it's just going to be a benefit to communities and users, so that's something that we'll be taking forward. In our area over the last three years, there's been definite progress on two fronts, one in terms of facility planning, and now there's a definite policy whenever a new high school is being built that all of the community facilities within a reasonable distance are grouped on the new campus. For example, in Wick, with Sportscotland's assistance, the local town pool, which is probably in 1980s about ageing, is being shut down, local libraries being closed, and fantastic new facilities on the school campus are being opened up and High Life Island will be running on behalf of the local council. That's happening across the board, even some of the bigger primary schools are getting that treatment, and it means that it breaks down the barriers of people feeling that schools, once you've left school or left school for the day, the last place you want to go back to is the school. It breaks down that barrier and it becomes schools go back to the days when they're hubs of the community, and I think that's real progress in our area. The other progress that's being made is for those schools that aren't big enough community facilities to have staff on site to operate them. The council's moving very much to handing over the overall bookings of all 29 secondary schools, all the community facilities to ourselves, so that that allows some of the movement that Dean was talking about, where one facility is very busy but another one's quieter, or perhaps it's about not saying that these two or three facilities won't be accepting community bookings because we're going to group them all together for efficiency into one local facility, so it's much more efficient and actually will make the money go along. Money's always an issue, but it'll make it go a lot further. Do those businessmen and any of my colleagues jumping in here, Richard? I've got two questions, convener, so if you're very fun. One is that in our report we said that 25 per cent of children leave primary school unable to swim. That's a fairly hard figure that was in our previous report. Do we know if that's improved? I'll go on to my second question if that doesn't get an answer. That would be a national figure, so I can only speak from a local level and it wouldn't reflect that. I suppose it relates back to some of the initiatives earlier that the free swimming that my council offered and the other council's offer has improved that figure. I think to come in and speaking about the earlier question, but linking it to swimming and the statistics there, how you design around that, so I'll give you an example. We have school curriculum swimming and for people that pass a set criteria they are then awarded 10 free swim, so you've passed, you've come out of school swimming, get into your local sports centre for your charge and go and swim in your local town. For those and they tend to be in hard to reach communities because they potentially come from homes where they don't get to go swimming, A they will have the block of swimming, B if they fail to make the target they'll have some top up swimming that we've been able to do in partnership with the national agency, but thereafter if they're still failing to make the criteria of swimming and remembering with a coastal authority, they have free access to our community learn to swim programme. So, core provision in school, topped up in school, if they're still failing to make the target they will get free access into a community learn to swim programme. That sounds like best practice to me, so is that being spread out? It's not. It's very different across the piece. In terms of what Eamon was talking about there, in terms of core provision, in some authorities, swimming is no longer part of core provision. That's just the fact, that's why education is telling us. I mean others all round the table will be able to tell their own story, but we find it really useful to work with each individual authority on their context and try and improve that. And there's a political and a management well required to deal with some of those things. We can't always have, as Eamon talked about, top up whilst the resources are welcome. It's not really dealing with the core issue, which is, you're almost talking about an entitlement richer for every child to swim, which is probably where it used to be, but it isn't at the moment. But we will continue to work with local authorities and their partners, Scottish Swimming, to try and continue to improve it. My second question, which I should declare an interest in, is in relation to NHS and social prescribing. I should declare an interest. My son is a director of a company, which is one of the smartwatchers that is being developed on physical activity and has had a significant grant to look at the aspects of the psychology of ensuring that physical activity continues with the smartwatchers. Anyway, that's the declaration. My question is in terms of, as has already been mentioned, NHS in partnership with us. They are fundamental. I mean, they're the only area that's getting an increase in funding. So what are NHSs doing in relation to the evidence groups that we've got for forests today? What are they doing to support the development of physical activity, particularly in those who may be obese or who may be type 2 diabetics, where it's a fundamental necessity for them to become physically active and to continue to be physically active? How are they supporting you? What's happening in terms of actually writing a prescription by GPs? Is that something that's being done or looked at or supported? So just that general area. That's my really important question, and I referred to our partnership with the NHS earlier. In Glasgow, I think it's fair to say that we have a really, really positive relationship with the health board in the city. That's a strategic partnership that goes back some years now, and it continues to expand and be enhanced. Already we operate the, I think, the biggest GP referral scheme in the UK in Glasgow. That is absolutely about, if you like, creating a culture within general practice, from a medical point of view, where physical activity is one of the key prescription tools that GPs have. Now, that's actually been a long road. I mean, not that long ago, GPs simply wouldn't, if you like, contract into that kind of process. That's changing. We work with the NHS in a strategic sense to try and influence the training of GPs, the training of clinical and medical staff, at the same time as working with the NHS to develop programmes, design programmes, designed to deal with the issues that you mentioned. In practical terms, as an example, we have a number of posts within Glasgow sports, development staff, counsellors, coaches who are entirely funded by the NHS. That's a partnership that we operate with the NHS, and that's proved extremely successful. That partnership goes from strength to strength. In Glasgow, given some of the health indices in the city, that is a partnership that we are really keen to invest more and more in. I don't mean invest in terms of money, but in terms of resource and management time. Just to finish off, we're also working with the NHS to try and create innovative approaches. I don't know if you're familiar with Dr William Burden, the Beat the Streets programme. We've brought him up a couple of times to talk to a group of stakeholders, including the NHS. We are now working on developing some kind of population level saturation physical activity programme to try and pilot that in one or two parts of the city along that line. That includes a technology aspect, because people have to be able to measure on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute basis their physical activity. We're talking to a couple of organisations and companies about how we might do that. I think that you're very much thinking along the lines that you're suggesting. That was an interesting response. I'm sure others, as a committee, would give some time to go and see some of that work, if you could organise that. You said that it's biggest in the UK, which is good. How big? How many people were each in what you mentioned? In terms of the exchange of funding? In terms of numbers, to say it's the largest GP referral scheme in the UK, I don't know if you're thinking 50,000. It's nothing like that. It will be maybe 10,000 to 12,000 in a sense, referrals per annum. Over the years, we have refined and amended that scheme to try and make sure that it still meets the needs of service users. Interestingly, the percentage of referrals with mental health issues has increased significantly over the last couple of years. We've had to amend the way that we train our councillors to take that into account. I think that that is a natural link for the Health and Sport Committee, in a very intense one. I'm sure that some people would give time and maybe set something up there. That would be good. Did I see an indication from you, Ian? I think that the big progress that we've been making locally is a better understanding of what the NHS is looking for outside partners to deliver for them. It's not about going along to the NHS and saying, we've got a good idea, can we have some money to deliver it. It's about going along and saying, we see your targets here, did you know that we can help you to deliver that? For example, we've got a number of projects going on false prevention at the moment, because every broken hip costs £67,000 before you blink an eye, that sort of thing, so the more we can help to avoid them, the greater the saving to the NHS later on down the line. We're now delivering false prevention work in care homes, in day centres, in some of the community hospitals, and we've recently been invited into the biggest area hospital in Rigmore. It's really breaking down the professional barriers between, only physios can do this, to hear we have trained, exercised people who are sensitive to the older population and understand what they need. Some of the anecdotal feedback from, for example, care home managers is, my goodness, you've given those two ladies there three years of their life back, they used to come and be wheeled out in the morning, plopped into the chair, lunch on their lap, watch and tell it all day, they're now up walking, going through for their lunch, it's like they've got several years of their life back. You start to get that kind of evidence very quickly, and I'm sure we're not alone in any of these, but we're also doing lots of work on cardiac rehabilitation, where the allied health professionals actually come into a leisure centre, they bring with them the people they're working with, and then gradually as the medical side diminishes and the sport and leisure side active lifestyle continues, so the aim is a seamless transition from somebody who's had a heart incident to somebody who's got a more healthy active lifestyle long term, so there's lots of great case studies across the country, both with councils and arms-length organisations going on. It was just to add to that, I mean, we've got examples we can make reference to from Eddmer Lege's point of view on healthy active minds, mental health interventions, steady steps, falls intervention. I think the point I wanted to make was just around your last comment regarding the prescription in terms of we're trying to come up with a single point of referral process or system just to make it more efficient and effective. I'll just go back to what Billy said before in terms of the funding that comes down from our health partners. It appears for members of staff, development officers to manage and it usually requires a project assistant as well. I think where we need to be more effective and efficient is just how we administer the operation delivery of that, because we're all working at managing, administrating, recording the admissions and referrals. Obviously, there's implications regarding data protection, which we need to overcome, but it is just an area of work that strategically would be a massive boost and a massive help, would be much more effective and efficient if we can get such a system in place, but we are working on it. I'm always delighted when you hear these great case studies and best practice, and I think that's a challenge and a frustration as part of that, is that we hear a lot of these great case studies, and I've heard Ian speak before about some of those examples of the work that they do, and again, Stuart could talk the same about the investment in active schools, the same as our colleagues at Scottish Athletics could talk about in relation to the investment that was from health that's gone into the Jog Scotland programme. There are any number of these great case studies, but I guess I'm unsure, convener, where they are shared. There is no body that does that sharing. None of us have capacity or remit to do that, and I guess partly why that would be our plea to the committee, and hopefully as a collective in saying that there's a huge opportunity here. Excuse me, we're doing some of the work with some of the health charities in Scotland around some of that and saying we nick their figures, so we're having a little chat with breast cancer care saying, well, we know that people being active can reduce breast cancer by between 20 and 40 per cent, but we never talked to you, we borrowed your figures and you talk about it, and vice versa with Sam H, with the British Heart Foundation, with those big health charities. The commonality of message is so powerful, where they're saying, we want people to be more active as well, you know, being a doctor yourself, you know, the benefits of people being active. I think there's a conversation shift to be had in that, where actually a lot of those health charities are really up for a discussion about the benefits of people being active and want to have a different kind of conversation in there. I guess there's a little bit of facilitation to help make that happen, but we certainly would suggest there's a will in there, but I think part of it is taking a stage back in perhaps better understanding when we talk about that radical shift in prevention and better understanding those real cause-effect relationships. So when we talk about social care and you talk about the link with the health budgets in terms of hospitalisation, I think we understand the link if somebody has a fall to the impact on hospital admissions and the impact on social care, because obviously so often a fall will result in the hip fracture, so I think half of women over 50 will have a fall that will result in the hip fracture or will have a hip fracture at some point in their lives. Well, as you start to track those cause-effect relationships back, I think we're good at getting back to the point of the fall being the impact on the breakage and being the impact on social care. What we're not so good at is going back to Ian's point and tracking that back and saying, well, people are 30% less likely to have a fall if they're physically active, and I don't necessarily feel that we take that cause-effect relationship to the stage back where that link between health and sport and people being active really comes into its own and where those opportunities would be. So again, I think there's a significant opportunity there, and again coming back to the point that this is about people living longer, healthier and happier lives, and the link within that in sport is just remarkable at that individual level and at that population level. So I guess there's hopefully that opportunity for the committee if the committee is minded to do so, because I do think there's a gap that there isn't an automatic fit with anybody to take these great case studies, the figures that have been quoted, those great examples to pull that together and say, okay, here is the evidence about the contribution of sport and being active. This is why it's so good for health, working with health and those health charities, and to do the champion where a difference can be made. So hopefully it's a real opportunity for the committee. There's not been doing it, so who should do it then? Who should ensure the best practice across the... If it's not sport Scotland or... Yeah, well, I've got an alternative view as you probably imagine. I welcome what the royal colleges said recently, and it's the first time I've seen such a strong statement about the benefits of physical activity from inside the profession. There's lots of really good case studies around locally. Another one, I could add, healthy options up and open. Fantastic, but struggling for longevity, because there's no real policy. So again, what I would be up for, might maybe the committee can help, is some form of national conversation about this, because it's a void, and what's this great work going on? I think we need to get into that prevention conversation and to be able to say as sport, as a sector, this is what we can help with. We can't sort it all, but we can help. I was just looking at a statistic there, which we have to be mindful of as well. Community sport hubs, 122, we've got data from 8,881 deliverers, 92 per cent of which are volunteer, and that's a big commitment inside their own community. So taking on more is difficult, but if we can find a way to share resource, and the open example is a great one, if you ever get a chance, go there, because the community health partnerships, along with the social enterprise that runs the sports activities, they've got a little social enterprise in the middle, which employs a couple of people, and people with current conditions are helped to become active in their own home and out in the open, and some great stories that really inspire you. But it's very localised, and I think if we can have some form of conversation nationally, we'd certainly be up for that. 36 million Scottish Government investment into sport plus lottery pales when it comes into the NHS budget. There must be some way in which we can work better together than national conversation is required. That's another point. I mean, I'm happy to take you in if it's at this point, Mike, if it's a supplementary of that discussion, because I've got Richard Lyle glouring up to one quick question, because it strikes me that there's been a lot of academic work, academic medical work, forging a pretty strong link between active lifestyles and health benefits. It seems to me, in terms of the discussion we're having this morning, the link that's perhaps not so well understood is that that between participation in sport, and we've heard some great evidence on that, and the legacy effect being quite strong and apparent, but that translating into a more generalised active lifestyles on behalf of the general public, because we're the best well in the world. Those actively participating in sport are only really, despite all those good figures, the tip of the iceberg. So I think the health benefits are well understood. I think what's not so well understood is that the pound that's spent through your organisations translating all the way through that pipeline into perhaps a preventative spend figure in our health boards and the link, and I just wondered what our guests think, or if they're aware of any work that has been done. Perhaps it's something our committee can help with in terms of finding that correlation and work that really proves that robustly. I'm looking for quick responses here, because we're starting the year, we're in the last 20 minutes, and Richard Leonard has been very patient. Mike, you can explain that supplementary to him after the committee. Kim, is there any brief responses, please? Just to try and be quick, I think it's that real juggle, Mike, around what is the value that people place on the benefits of people being active, and there are any number of suite, as to whether it's skills acquisition, whether it's learning, whether it's increased employability, whether it's physical health, whether it's mental health, either in the benefits or the reduced risk. There are so many different ways of cutting it up, so let's make Scotland more active, said if we were all 1% more active every year for the next five years, we'd save £85 million to the economy. So, if you want a financial stat, that's part of it. I'm not an economist, I can't tell you what that looks like. It would save 157 lives a year, which for me, people living longer health are happier lives, that is the more powerful statistic. I'm an idealist, I'm not an economist, so I accept that there's a difference. So, it depends how you want to cut that cake. Is there research? Absolutely. There is some of that financial stuff, but I think the quality of life stuff is where we're not winning, and I would actually challenge your point in saying we understand the benefits of people being active and taking part in sport. Perhaps we do, but I don't think the general public do. If you're talking about self-directed care, I'm sitting with the suite of figures that we could all quote day in, day out, and I don't think the public have that awareness that that is probably the best thing they can do to improve their own health. We've had that campaign around smoking, around other things which people understand, I don't think people have that same understanding around the benefits of being active, so I think there are some significant opportunities in there. Is anyone else getting anything to add to that? Richard Ryle? Thank you, convener. I knew I was far away, but I didn't know I was in Princess Street. In regard to the many comments that have been made, can I say, I've previously been a councillor for many years. I know the commitment of leisure departments, leisure officials, I know the commitment of Stuart Harris in Sport Scotland, and how many hubs you've done, and by the way we're applying for one in Bellsill, and I hope you'll support us in regards to that, and there are going to be several clubs who are going to allow members of the public, encourage members of the public to come along. I think that it comes down, convener, to the point of, and I refer myself to the Scottish Sports Association presentation, which I'm sure Kim will come in and answer, but also I have a question for the wider witness panel. You're on about the factor of schools, new schools or schools not being used in the estate percentages, which are absolutely terrible. 35 per cent of indoor space during term time, 17 per cent in school holidays, 19 per cent of outdoor space during term time, 11 per cent in school holidays, schools not being used. There are many, many clubs out there, many excellent facilities being built over the last number of years through Sport Scotland involvement, lottery, council, et cetera, 3G pitches. All the sweet facilities that we see are not being used, and it all comes down to, and I have to say it, because it was thrown at me a number of years ago where I went and got funding from the then Scottish Office to do a community centre and bring kids in, and we charged them nothing, and basically we had loads of people came. Affordability facilities, which received public investment, because it is public investment through councils or whatever. I've got two questions, convener. The one is, should provide easy and affordable array, which is not financially prohibitive access to community sports clubs. First, we've got all these free taster sessions. First, we've got all these army advertising enough, and do we think that the prices that we're charging are suitable to people in Somerston, people in Belsil, people in Inverness, or wherever? Do we think that we could do better? I am speaking on behalf of local authority colleagues here, and again, just going back to the community access to skills programme that they work on. From a price and structure perspective, I'm aware that they've got three different price bands, so they've got a professional fee, a voluntary fee and a concessionary fee, so it's trying to reflect the different types of users that are going to be coming in. I know that there's also some linkage work going in to try and offer clubs that come in to use the school facilities, some concession based on the fact that they are part of the local community sports hub. There's some benefits to being part of all the different aspects, different programmes going on there, but I am speaking on behalf of the local authority and I'm sure that they would be able to expand on that, if you so wish. I suppose that we've touched on this affordability issue already. In this conversation and other conversations, we always come back to it, and that's because it's such an important point. In a local context within Glasgow, I think there are a number of reasons why the school estate is not utilised to the extent that we would all want it to be. Affordability may be one of those, but I'm not sure it's the principal one. I say that, so let's take, as an example, you mentioned 3G pitches. In Glasgow, we are lucky to have a significant estate in terms of third generation football pitches, most of which are managed through Glasgow Sport, but a number of which are part of the school estate. Actually, in terms of pricing, the pitches in the school estate are cheaper than our price tariff, but yet utilisation is much higher in the Glasgow Sport pitches than it is in the school estate, where we charge more. I think it's important, and we talked about this earlier, to look across the broad range of issues. I think there are programming and management issues related to the school estate. In Glasgow, life administer the letting of schools outwith school hours. Education services manage the estate. There's another organisation, in fact another two organisations, depending on whether it's primary or secondary schools, employ the janitorial staff. What you have is a very complicated landscape, and that probably is a greater impediment to genuine community use than the price, not for a minute, suggesting that prices and affordability isn't important. We're trying to grapple with that in Glasgow that I mentioned earlier. There's a review, and we're looking at ways to streamline that, to make it easier for the public to understand how to get access to the school estate, not always easy. Part of that review will include looking at the affordability issues. Can we do better? Yes, I suppose that there's always the aspiration that we can, but I guess that a lot of the rhetoric around the school estate on behalf of our members, and I suppose more widely on behalf of the voluntary sector, is that these are public facilities, and so often they're public facilities at the heart of a community. What an opportunity that presents, not just for sport, going back to one of the points that Stuart made earlier about community hubs more generally, but around the voluntary sector, which is the underpinning fabric of so much of our civic society, and what an opportunity that could be, as I say, for all sectors? Would sports clubs quite often want the use of the games hall? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean to say that there isn't an environmental group in one of the classrooms next door, a knitting group, whatever that might be. The huge opportunity around that is a point where there is opportunity that we could make more of. I guess the opportunity that our members would raise is around clubs and the added value that club sport provides, and we've touched a little bit on that earlier, but I guess that's where that access to facilities opportunity, particularly whether it's school estate or other public facilities, presents an additional opportunity. We know the additional volunteering opportunities and skills development that come through people who participate in sport as part of clubs. We know what that looks like in terms of people who participate in sport through clubs participate more often and for longer than people who participate out with that environment, so again added value and benefits there. The connections, the networks, the friends, the social integration that that brings in a different kind of way is really important in its own right, so the focus of part of that is on clubs in its own right. We would hear from our governing bodies who would say that affordability is a challenge for some clubs in some areas that will vary across local authorities, and we've already heard different pricing structures, and there are some fabulous relationships between local authorities and their clubs, so yes, there's a lot of great, great practice. Is there more that we can do? I'm absolutely sure there is. I think that that idea of that portfolio facilities that's being discussed is really, really important. The idea that there might be any competition between a local authority trust and a school estate is a massive challenge. We need to make sure that absolutely doesn't exist, and it is about that portfolio and people working together, so can we do better? Yes, do we get the sense that there's a will, that there's just, these are public facilities which public should have access to for civic society? I think that there is a generation around that discussion. Are we quite there yet? No, but do I know that there's a lot of good progress being made, so it seems, and again, our local authority partners would be closer to that. I'd like to point out, if you'd let me just come into the other question that I have, since I've waited patiently for the last time. Yeah, as others richer than what I mean. Yes, I know. Stewart Harris made a very valid point, but again, you're dealing with 32 different councils who all have 32 different ways of doing, in my experience, things, and we have to have a national conversation on how we can right across the piece involve sport, schools, council, NHS, et cetera. Can I ask the question that I've been waiting to ask? Now that many councils have went into trusts, right, and some have been successful, and I have to say when North Lancer, my own council, went to, I was the SNP group leader on it, I was vehemently against it, but I've been proved wrong. They've been highly successful, but again, I think in some ways their charges are too high, take note North Lancer council. Do you think trusts are performing better for those who are now in a trust than previously under the leisure department as it was in the old days? Are you giving value for money? Yes, some quick responses. Stewart, I think it was partly addressed to you, and I've got Ian Murray, and I've got Eamon, who wanted to respond to your last question. For me, every picture is different. It's not so much about the structure, it's about what the plans say you're going to do, and how you're going to do it. And I would take issue with some trusts about how they do some of that work, that's well known, it's on the record, but at least we're having a conversation about it. There's no doubt that there's more of a fleet of foot, more of a commercial noose that I think the trusts have, and a bit of freedom, I think, to make decisions that are in the best interests of their constituent groups. But we need to be mindful of that integration around the conversation with education locally as well, that that's not forgotten, so it's back to the strategic position in each authority. What's the ambition, how is it organised, and how is it resourced, so that interaction and integration. There are more probably about 23 trusts now, most are going down that route, and if they go down that route for the right reason, not for a financial saving reason, it's for better delivery, then I'm all for it. If it's the wrong reason, then we'll probably store up some trouble. Ian, do you want to add a brief comment on that? Obviously, I'm an arm-like organisation, so I would say yes is the answer to your question. The reasons I would say is that it has allowed, we're relatively young, three, three and a half years old, I would say it has allowed us a huge amount more focus on the job in hand. Senior managers in any council service tend to get diverted off into corporate issues within the council, whereas previously I was head of service within education, culture and sport, picked up the culture and sport bit and went into High Life Highland, and now I find that all of the management team have got a much, much focus on getting the job done, a great deal more freedom, speed of operation. One of the interesting facts that struck me is how we are looked on by others. Previously, the NHS really struggled locally to getting discussions with us, because you're the council, you do what the council does. The general feeling I have now is that you're not the council, you're something different. It's somehow easier for them to come and speak to us and for us to get the doors open, as one example, but there's lots of others. I think there's quite a range of reasons why. Where I would agree with Stuart that there are, I think there are some that are maybe over-focused on income and money, but I wouldn't blame the trusts, I would blame the host councils. The rules of engagement have to be absolutely clear when trusts are established and changed, councils have to be very clear what they expect out of it. They're either council-owned companies or the councils are still the major funders, and if there's any lack of focus on people who are hard-pressed and not affording to get in, the council has that within the gift to say, that's what we expect of you, please do it, and to be measured in the future. I'll work back, convener, if that's okay on the trust one, an area that I had within the council within my remit, then to put them out. I think the key is, and Ian's absolutely correct, the landscape could be a bit patchy, but absolutely there are trusts out there. Clearly evidence in the social responsibility that they have with public money, and there's evidence in relation to how they're delivering that, I think, and we've got a couple of years or three years today that could evidence that. Picking back up on the school estate question and the bit about access, I actually thought there was a misperception around the school estate in the start. I have to say that, the bit about it's not being used, they're not being used at all, and actually I think when Sports Scotland commissioned that work, I think it dealt with that perception. I think that the bigger situation is need and capacity, is the need and capacity, because it doesn't matter to me in East Lothian whether our organisations and our communities are accessing the school pitches or that accessing our community sports pitches or facilities. Strategically it does not matter what it does allow us to do now that we've had a closer look at the school estate with our partners and audited use. What it has highlighted for us is where we've got some windows of opportunity that we need to move around strategically, it's allowed us to do that, but for me, school estate primarily, sweating those facilities is sweating those facilities with curriculum physical education after school sport and into school sport. If we're really serious as a nation about the school estate, that's absolutely fundamentally really work work and hone in on school sporting activity. Yes, then we can look at community sport stop-up, but in a East Lothian context, our need and capacity is being met with a balance of strategic provision within the hearts of communities, both school and community, but it's allowed us by taking a closer look to see moving forward, of which we will have as a growing authority with a potentially 30% population uplift, that estate is going to become really important to us strategically over the future years about how we sweat both of those assets, community and school facilities. Okay, I've got a couple, Rhoda, once I've got any other committee members meeting about this point in the net, you want in. Right, I'm going to take the people who haven't been in first, so it's Rhoda Grant, and then Annette Millan, if you want in the net, and I've got a couple others, and I've got 15 minutes, Max. Can I ask two questions? One that hasn't been touched on at all, but I found really interesting from the Glasgow live submission about employment and apprenticeships in the lake that were created. I think that while that has a lot to do with people's mental health wellbeing and the lake, while it's not part of this committee's work, I was keen to hear a wee bit more about that, and what opportunities are there, especially for the more deprived areas? Yeah, I didn't regard it as part of the remit for this discussion, but going back to that argument about taking a holistic approach to, and within Glasgow life we have conversations where we use words like wellbeing and wellness, and looking at individuals across the full gamut. So it's part of that there has been a focus within both Glasgow life and Glasgow sport on the employability agenda. There were the Commonwealth apprenticeship schemes that we operated in Glasgow and continue to do so, and they have been extremely successful. We also, and touching on the point about disadvantaged communities, so for example, if you think about the Emirates arena, as part of the employability programme that we put in place there, we now employ 27 local youngsters who came in through that employability programme in the Emirates arena in a number of different posts, so that's permanent full-time employment that those individuals got as a positive outcome from a larger employability programme that we managed in partnership with Clyde Gateway, a local economic development company. We're always looking for opportunities to do that kind of thing. Another example, which might be in the submission, I'm not sure, is we operate a programme called Coach Core, which is funded through the Royal Foundation and the Tom Hunter Foundation, and that's about taking, again, youngsters who haven't gone into full-time employment, haven't gone into training, who are in that, you know, occupy that difficult landscape. So, it's opportunities for that constituency to get involved in sports coaching, train the sports coaches, and the first cohort of that programme has recently completed. Well, I think 95% of the participants going on to positive outcomes either in terms of employment or education. Some of the employment, again, with Glasgow Life, we have taken them on as coaches. So, in terms of our overall strategic approach to these issues, we don't see any distinction between employability, mental health, sport, physical activity. We absolutely don't. In a sense, it maybe touches on the question that Mr Lyle was asking about what do we see as the value of Glasgow Life as an arms-length organisation. And actually, one of the advantages is our ability to do that, our ability pulling together within Glasgow Life as we do youth engagement, community engagement, physical activity, a whole range of different things, including libraries and museums, to take that holistic view. And the power that gives us, the power to work collaboratively and break those distinctions down, has given us a real advantage compared to maybe more of a traditional local authority structure. I hope that answers your question. That's helpful. My second question is, obviously, the commonwealth games give us a focus in listening to what people are saying today. You know, that's hugely successful in getting people more active. But realistically, we all know that we have to do an awful lot more. I'm wondering where the next goals are, what are people trying to aspire to, and what will drive that, given that the commonwealth games are over, and yes, there's a legacy programme, but that focus goes off. How do we keep the focus on activity, on wellbeing, and how do we build on the legacy and set goals for that? For me, it's about continuing to be ambitious. There are 32 geographies that have got a whole host of partners inside them. We're working well with the majority of them. It could be better. There is definitely some national conversation to be had, which would allow us to develop in those areas from a national perspective. There's a strategic group for sport and physical activity in place, which I think has got real potential, which has got health, transport, education, sport, justice around the table, which could really get into the big issues. There's an enthusiasm around, I think, from the volunteer workforce out there, and there will be lots of major events around. The medals, the success, will still be there, but I think that if we can all work better together, and really, as Duncan mentioned earlier on, focus on the outcomes. The outcomes are about participation, engaging and keeping engaged, and also progression. It's going to take ambition, it's going to take resources, and it's going to take an integration of those resources locally. However, I'm really hopeful that we can build on that as a nation and be ambitious for our communities. I absolutely agree with Stewart's point about ambition. Irish the Bishop talked a little bit about Rora's point about building that momentum and working beyond the legacy. A couple of the parts that we maybe haven't touched on today, I know that PE and school sports are always a particular favourite. There's been, again, significant progress, as I'm sure we're all well aware of. Again, that's something to absolutely be celebrated. I think that the quality focus of that is still the main priority now as we move forward. There's been a huge investment from the Scottish Government through Sport Scotland and Education Scotland around CPD for teachers. That, again, is enormously welcomed, but, again, if we don't address the prioritisation of PE in initial teacher training, we're going to be plugging that £6 million gap between now and the end of time. Again, there's a priority in there that can make a significant difference, so that would be an ask of our members. You mentioned volunteering a little bit earlier, convener. I think that there's a huge opportunity still around there. I think that there's still a latent opportunity of a legacy around that. We've talked previously about employer-supported volunteering, the massive opportunity of the games to people to look differently at the benefits of volunteering, not just for sport but the wider voluntary sector, lots of organisations, additional special leave come games time, back now to the day of year, two days a year. It helps run events, it doesn't underpin volunteering in civic society, so I think that there's a significant opportunity that remains there. And the last part that we haven't perhaps picked up in that same way was performance, so, again, Stuart touched at the beginning about the enormous success of the games, the fact that added that through the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic cycle. It's the most successful period that we've ever seen for performing sport in Scotland. Again, to be enormously celebrated, compare it to looking through the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, there was the announcement of the UK Government at that point around continued resource towards real. As I'm my understanding convener, the additional investment that has gone into performance sport was for the games and is no longer. So again, where is the legacy around performance sport? Stuart mentioned those structures and systems, world-class systems. Our systems have proved to be the best that we've ever had from a performance point of view, so there's continuity of asking there to say we want to continue to build on that. Thank you for that, Nith. You're great, brother. The net. I was actually going to ask about employer-supported volunteering, and Kim's obviously answered that question, but to take that forward, how do you see the way forward for that to get back to where you were just ahead of the Commonwealth Games and get more interest from employers? Have you got any ideas for actually doing that? I think there are a number of different opportunities with that. I think people have seen the excitement around volunteering, but again, I think there's a change in language about how we talk about volunteering. I think we're very good at saying, please, in the net, volunteer, we need somebody to do whatever, please, please, will you help out? As opposed to changing that conversation about saying, we are needing whatever that might be, but here's what you might get out of it. I don't think we have that same discussion around volunteering, it was part of the submission of our paper and saying there's a 20% benefit in terms of premature mortality if people volunteer. Now it's not quite as much as if they're active and participating in sport, but again, it's significant. I think some of that is galvanising the voluntary sector together and saying, you know, and that's obviously a conversation that we've had in saying, this would be, as our members have said all along, the biggest volunteering legacy. So we're 50,811 applications, they weren't all from Scotland obviously, for the games, but that broke records. Where are we breaking records in relation to the legacy for volunteering? Yes, there will be some of those people who will be focused on an event legacy, who want to volunteer in events, and there are mechanisms for that. But where are we turning that round into conversation? Where are we looking at the Scottish Government and other organisations as exemplars in that and saying, we've value volunteering, we value that as a benefit to an individual, we value that as a benefit to the organisation in terms of recruitment, retention, productivity, keep going through that list, and I don't think we have that conversation. We have great conversations as a nation around the rights of an individual for flexible working if it's childcare and rightly so, but we should have an entitlement for people to contribute to their society. We talk about so much about empowerment of communities and rightly so, but where's there a point in empowering communities if you aren't enabling communities? The least active so often amongst communities are in our most deprived communities. That is so often where there's least volunteering, it's so often where people are most time deprived. We all appreciate and I think it was a key factor of our report in 2013. Everybody loves volunteers. The people who deliver sport are the best people in my community, and we all need that. We asked, our ask as a committee to this community and why was how do we define a volunteer? How many volunteers are out there? How do we ensure recruitment and retention? How do we identify the gaps in volunteering like you described there about the Pife communities? There will be too many volunteers in some communities and not enough in others. How do we fund, how do we resource that? We asked basically for an audit for sports, people involved in sports, people who are involved in the delivery of sports, give us an audit. How many volunteers have we out there? How many do we need because we can throw the doors open in every sports facility as Stuart said earlier? Throw them open, pay them again and never mind free, pay them again, throw the doors open. We have not got the capacity to deal with the ambition that has been described around this table today. How do we do that on the volunteers? Is there an audit? Do we know how many people are out there? Do we know where the gaps are? Are the strategies and the business plans addressing those issues as the Sport Committee asked way back in 2013? I talked to earlier on about a more systemic approach to sport. People are a key part of that, so to get participation and progression, you need to enable that. People place their profile on the stories that I think is important. You and I had a conversation the last time about the value of a national figure, which I think was 192,000 in terms of volunteers. That is a one moment in time. What I am happy to share with you is where we have got to around the clubs and community sport hubs and the data that we have around all of that, which is pretty detailed now, way ahead of where it was before. What it does is tell you the health of that community and the number of volunteers. I gave you that national picture, 122,881, distinct deliverers, 92 per cent of which are volunteers. We have that picture across 122 community sport hubs. We have a partnership with governing bodies, where 110 from memory sports development officers, sport specific, whose job is to work with community groups and clubs. They have data as well. We have 90 clubs and a direct club investment, again. We have the data there. We prefer that kind of information, which we are adding to what people have locally to try and determine capacity. As the guys will probably tell us here, it is all about demand-led. We cannot just throw the doors open and it will all happen, for the very reasons that you said. Demand and gradually build that infrastructure in that economy of provision by local authorities or trusts and communities doing things for themselves. We are making a lot of progress in taking that forward and building that capacity. I was going to come in on the other question, but I will just pick up on Stuart's point. I am looking at something in front of me here, which is exactly around what you are asking, chair, and a community called Preston Pans within East Lothian. Some of you may recognise that name around this table. One community, 148 coaches, 1,600 participants, 12 different venues, 10 clubs. It is like drilling that national information that Stuart is making reference to into what it looks like in a community. How many volunteers are there? How many clubs are there? What venues are they using? They are part around the one table because the approach that we have taken for community sport is not one site, not one venue, not one school or it is community planning for sport. All of those clubs, along with their physical educational lists in the primary and secondary schools, along with a sport-specific officer representing that community, planning, sharing, collegially for sport within that community. Why are we having football and rugby sessions at the same time? Let us look at the timetabling of that. Let us give that choice and variety within a community. It is that type of conversation there, convener, but if I can just pick up on the earlier question, I wonder to come in on that, which was around, there was a real nervousness around the games being the tipping point and what comes next and the risks in relation to will we lose sight, will our sight lines change? So what are the priorities? I think locally and nationally it would be concurred. What is the sport in infrastructure locally in relation to creating the opportunities to participate and ensuring that you have the progressive systems to allow people to come through locally? I think that would be from a sporting bear, but what I would shift, I think, is absolutely loud and clear for all of us is around the shift from inactivity to activity and wider physical activity and targeting inequalities. I think that if you would ask us what the priorities would be, they would be the three things. Graham Day and then Bob for the last question, I think. Falling on from Eamon John's point at the start of the session that these were essentially Scotland's games and taking in all 32 local authorities, to what extent is facility infrastructure to widen access to sport being delivered in rural or semi-rural settings, accepting the associated challenges, but bearing in mind we've got deprivation, health and fitness issues, as well as aspirations to compete in sport in these communities as well as the major cities. I mean, in corner basions you can build one huge facility and cater for many, many people, but in a rural setting you need to have multiple swimming pools, athletic tracks, indoor facilities spread across a range of population centres in order to provide the same kind of access to a similar number of people, and of course smaller rural schools don't offer facilities such as 3G pictures that can be tapped into. So I just wonder how well we're responding to that challenge and, for example, how many of the hubs that we've talked about today are located in such settings. Eamon? I think one of the enthusiasm that has lasted from the games is that creation of the sports hubs, and I think it's one of the good things that Sports Scotland had been doing over the last few years. I have to confess I wasn't really sure how they would work in our area, but you take the Queen's Baton really, for example, in Thurso, right in the north coast, that was used as an excuse for a great big celebration of local heroes, local sporting volunteers and a great big party, a sporting party, if you like, but what that did was break the ice between a number of clubs that have existed in the town for generations, but with great deal of suspicion between them, and they've come together to help create 500 people odds, came together to create a great sporting party, and the result of that is that, all right, we've got shared resources, you could loan that equipment, could we have a joint training session when you're doing that one, can we come along too, and they've gone ahead now and the Thurso Sports Hub is the result of that, and it's forging ahead with great enthusiasm, so the games did leave a very good legacy in terms of Sports Hub in our area, we're now onto our fourth one and we're moving with another four or five in the background. The earlier point I made about the council's view and policy now is very much we can't afford to have swimming pools everywhere, we have to choose exactly where they go, so we take the absolute opportunity when there's a big new secondary school or a big refurbishment, that's where it's going to, that's where the focus is going to be, and that's where we bring all the community facilities in so that we have a few strategically placed facilities right across, so maybe, I wouldn't dare to suggest that it was because of the games legacy that that's happened, it's just common sense and partnership working coming together at the right time. No one else? A quick question to Mr Harris, if you're not me. Right now, before I take. Before you take, Bob. Mr Harris, you spoke earlier about conferences, et cetera. I used to be, as a councillor, the chair of a subgroup for sport for APSE, Association of Public Service Excellence, and also attend the COSLA, AGM, yearly. Sports Scotland always was there. Have you ever carried out a conference where you've invited 32 councils or associated groups, people in this room, to sit down and discuss a national policy? We do quite a lot of that, to be honest, but COSLA have done quite a bit of that for us and I think they've been quite well placed to do it. The conversations have been held, COSLA have brought all of the senior representatives from local authorities together, meets around about four times a year, jointly chaired by the minister Archie Graham from Glasgow. It's a wee bit frustrating because I think it could probably do more, it could investigate itself a bit more in terms of that consistent agenda that we all have. But I guess I would probably say, Richard, that we can have all the conferences we like, but if it's not reflected in action locally, so it's plans, ambition, resourcing and interaction, then it probably wouldn't matter, to be honest. But there's some good sharing of practice, be assured of that. Thank you, Gwyn. Bob Doris. The fact is that I know it's been a long session. I feel it's came full circle a little bit for myself because we're talking about different structures at a local level and different partnerships. What I was asking at the start is how we measure the outcomes of some of that, and I just wasn't sure whether there was a consistent measure across all 32 local authorities in terms of those who are getting more active, whether that's through Glasgow Life or other agencies, whether it's through the club system, whether it's through community sports hubs, whether it's a local cycling group, whether it's a local walking group, whether it's a local dance group who has grown for a lot of women in particular, and whether we're capturing that and being able to cross-reference who's doing what when, where, privacy considerations, I accept around that, but just so we can then work out where the black spots are and put in those additional resources and targets that we all want to see. And usually the people that are doing the job in those areas are youth workers, and not formal sports clubs quite often, so North Glasgow, name check by local North A2 community, young people's futures, rising youth action, doing great jobs, linking in for sports groups where they can, but in terms of how they're resourced and how clubs that perhaps don't necessarily go through the club mark system or have that relationship with national governing bodies that you might expect, whether when we look at the funding streams that come through to support local community physical activity, whether we have to just start to look at some of that criteria that is insisted upon and think more cleverly about how we invest in youth work as a gateway towards then feeding into clubs because you have to engage with young people at a level they want to be engaged with in the first place before you actually go to a badminton club. It's great. You have to get the trust of them and develop that their capacity as human beings and build up trust with them before you channel them into all this other wonderful stuff that's out there. I'm just wondering just some reflections on consistent data collection across the country, just to open up a whole other conversation, but I think that's quite important to myself and just thinking a little bit more cleverly about how we then use that to use youth work provision and maybe those that don't necessarily have that closest relationship with national governing bodies and give direct funding towards local community initiatives. Billy. Just very briefly on the statistics issue, I think at the moment the only consistent national information that you can get is from the household surveys at the moment. I think one of the weaknesses is that yes, we are all capturing. I mean there's a wealth of data but it is inconsistent and also I think you can capture all the data that you like if you're going to actually take it into account and design services around it and I think there is a challenge there. On the second issue, I think from Glasgow Sport, I think we probably agree with you, I think there is a requirement for us to think about non-traditional ways of getting people engaged in physical activity. Innovative ideas, so we work very closely with Scottish Football Futures in Glasgow for instance who have developed in a sense through a youth engagement agenda initially. And there's a number of agencies in Glasgow who quite rightly challenge us about engaging with them much more proactively. These are organisations who don't come from a traditional sports club kind of context, so I think that is an important point. War of the mighty submission, Ken Wheeler. Well, if we're coming to the end of this point, I should thank you all for your precious time, your contributions this morning and your written submissions. Very much appreciated. I think your enthusiasm for the work that you do comes across, I think that came across again this morning. We've enjoyed working with you in the past, we have some ideas as a committee and we would look forward to working again with you in the future and we'll take the opportunities from the additional information that we receive to try and do that and to ensure that there is indeed a legacy on going not just from the Commonwealth Games but for all of the investment that's been made right across Scotland. Thank you very much for your time and attendance here this morning. We're suspending very briefly at this point before we go to our next stage.