 Fy collaeth i gweithio y 21 ymlaeniau ddechrau ym 2015. Fy gydig i mewn ffuntiyng. Mae� i'r lleiwach rymd yn freistgafol eich dod o wybodaeth ysgol agor ymgeltdol. Mae'r lleiwch cymunedol a'r llyfr yn gweld i'r ffuntiyng, ond rydaw'n摩tau ymlaeniau a tyfnodd arianiau a phormat a phobl. Mae hynny ymlaeniau a thef angen i gyfryddiad ar y cwrtaeth. Rwrs i waith i agor Jane Baxter ar y cwrtaeth. aelwyr diolch yn ddiolch yn gallu gyda Llywodraethau, a yw'r awlion noddol yn dechrau'n wnaedd hanfal â Llywodraethau, a'eraeth yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch yn ddiolch. Mae ymdweithiau ymhellall yn cael ei bach yn oed, ac yn gwych chi'n rhesu'n garlicadol hefyd, hisbwych chi'n ddiolch yn fryd yn dwiwr. Fodd ddod, yn i'n ffordd hyn mae'r ddiolch yn ddiolch yn gwybodaeth. Ieame 10 yma ysgonom ni anfod. Y gwaith y tro yn oed gyd-ran iawn ffrogr am ddefnyddio'r niwg ddyn nhall a'r ysgonom ni anffod y wneud i ddylwn ni'n mynd i mwynedd a'r ysgonom ni'n ddefnyddio'n gwybod i ddullun nesaf wnaeth i ddweud o bwysig buns i ddweud o bwysig sydd gyrraedd. Fe wnaeth i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud o ddweud o ddweud i ddweudio'n gweithwyr of our continuing examination of the complaints process of integrated health and social care provision. I welcome this morning Paul McFaddon, head of complaints, standards at the Scottish public services ombudsmen, Alison Talar, team leader , integration and reshaping care, Scottish Government, both of whom have given us evidence previously on this issue. I would also like to welcome Mike Liddle, policy manager for review of social work complaints procedures. Professor Craig White, divisional clinical lead, planning and quality division, both of the Scottish Government, and Simon Singh Gupta, head of strategy, planning and health improvement at West Dunbartonshire health and social care partnership. I invite Alison Taylor to give an opening statement and then we'll move on to questions from members. Thank you, convener. Good morning, committee. I'd like to start with just a few very brief words about why it is we're integrating health and social care in Scotland. I think our aims around this are really quite simple and frankly pretty obvious, so it won't take long. We're doing it because we need to improve care and outcomes for the growing numbers of people who have complex conditions and complex support needs. Many but not all of those people are older, and I would go so far as to say many if not all of us are directly affected by integration, probably because we have a loved member of the family who will need to be getting integrated care, not in five years' time, not in 10 years' time, but right now. This is an immediate and pressing challenge that we have. Certainly it's one that I feel as an immediate and pressing challenge. We often say that support for people with complex care requirements, that people are focusing on with integration, that it needs to be person-centred, and that's alongside the fact that they will be getting care from a range of different professions and from people who are working for a range of agencies. So there's some tension and challenge in there. The challenge for us, the people who collectively, if you like, are working to integrate health and social care in Scotland, is to find ways to improve the processes that govern health and social care, and at the same time genuinely enable that local flexibility to adapt to the complexity of the situations that people find themselves in. I feel very strongly that there's no point in that context in us focusing on big systems alone. We could set out tidy results that might look quite good, but I don't think that they would reflect properly the complexities that people experience or the fact that people's lives can be quite messy, frankly. So we need to find ways to ensure that there is congruence and clarity in the systems of health and social care, but at the same time that locally there is flexibility to adapt appropriately to people's needs and to people's experience. So with all of that in mind, we are reforming the complaints processes, specifically under integration, to ensure that we achieve that congruence, consistency and clarity. We are legislating to apply the SPSO's three-stage model process to complaints about both health and social work services. The same three-stage process will apply regardless of who is the provider of a service, and that might be the health board, it might be the local authority, it might be the third or independent sector who are providing that care, but the same process will apply. Obviously, as the committee knows, the Parliament has already legislated to bring together strategic planning of health and social care services, and that is under the direction of the new legally constituted partnership arrangements between health boards and local authorities, embodied in the new integration joint boards. As the integration joint boards are new public bodies themselves, albeit not the providers of the care, we will also be legislating so that integration joint boards are subject to the SPSO's three-stage model process. My letter to the committee from a few weeks ago set out the timescale and process for those changes and also gave you some update on recent progress, which I hope was helpful. To go back to my first point, how does this approach that we are taking relate to our focus on person-centred care? It will mean that it does not matter to the complainant whom their complaint is against. The process for handling the complaint will be the same—it will be congruent. That is also the approach that will be taken on the ground as people make complaints. The legislation to integrate health and social care requires people working in different organisations to work together and take shared responsibility for outcomes, and it is the same with complaints. Health boards, local authorities and the new integration joint boards are all committed under the legislation to ensuring that complaints are handled in a joined-up way. In practice, put simply what that should mean is that whichever agency receives a complaint, they will work together as necessary to resolve it and learn from it. To conclude, I am delighted to be joined by three colleagues who were not with us at the last session with the committee. As you know, Suman Singupta is head of strategy planning and health improvement at West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care partnership. Suman has long experience of complaints handling in what is already a well-integrated health and social care environment. West Dunbartonshire has been at the forefront of integrated arrangements in Scotland for a good number of years, and Mr Singupta is well placed to describe how those systems work in practice in relation to complaints and how we can build upon and improve them. Professor Craig White, divisional clinical lead in planning and quality division in the Scottish Government. Professor White has provided us with very valuable clinical advice on integration throughout our development of this policy and legislation, and he is also directly involved in our on-going work to improve complaints processes and standards of clinical care. Lastly, Mike Little, who is the policy manager for reforms to social work complaints, might work in a division that works closely with my own in the Scottish Government. I am very pleased that they are able to join us and thank you for inviting us to discuss complaints with you today. Thank you, Ms Taylor. Rather than talking about congruent systems, can we just say that to the system will be the same wherever in the country folk are? I think that what we require in all of this is simplistic terms that folk can understand. For the record, could you outline for us the timetable for legislating for this three-stage complaint model? Yes. Different pieces of legislation are involved for different aspects of the system, and if I may, I may invite my colleagues to contribute as well, who are leading on these individual pieces of work. In outline, there are legislative changes in relation to NHS complaints and the timescale to have those enforces by April 2017. There will also be legislative changes in relation to social work complaints, which my colleague Mike Little leads. Those two are timetabled to be enforced by April 2017. There are further legislative changes required in order to bring the integration joint boards within the scope of the three-stage model process. The process around that is to consult in the remainder of this calendar year and lay an order early next year in January. We expect the parliamentary process around that to be complete around about the end of February, although it is somewhat dependent on the establishment of the individual integration joint boards. If it is acceptable to you to convince the convener, I would suggest that Professor White and Mike Little may be able to contribute some more detail on the legislative changes relating to the NHS complaints and social work complaints. Professor White, first, please. As Alison has mentioned, the work that is currently developing and refining the current legislation and guidance around management of NHS complaints is already happening. The Scottish Government has invited Paul and his team to lead the process to work with complaints handlers across NHS boards. We are very much looking at how we test, refine and develop the changes that might be required, as opposed to imposing a centralised change without the benefit of local learning. We have a network of handlers who are working with front-line teams, identifying ways that the process might need to be changed and bringing much sharper focus on ownership around front-line staff so that, when people who use services are dissatisfied or want to make a complaint, they can be handled early by the healthcare professional that they are in touch with. The work that has started that meeting of that group was on the 14th of September, and it is beginning the work of testing out the change. The idea is what will capture the learning between now and next year, and then start to develop that into the revised guidance, which will then, as Alison said, through a negative instrument be reflected in the amendments to the regulations under the Patient Rights Scotland Act. Over the past several months, we have been working with the SPSO, the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body and colleagues in Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council, on the proposals that we are going to be making. We have received a letter yesterday from the Presiding Officer inviting us to bring forward proposals to put forward a draft order in the Scottish Parliament to make the changes to the SPSO to allow them to consider the merits of decisions made in relation to social work complaints. What we are looking to do is bring forward a draft order in the next week or so, which will be laid in the Scottish Parliament and consulted on. The consultation will take place over the remainder of this calendar year, with an aim to bring forward, if possible, depending on the consultation responses, the order into the Parliament in January of next year. This is a superaffirmative order, which is under the Public Services Reform Act 2010. It is a particularly lengthy process to get it through. It requires a 60-day consultation period for the draft order, followed by 42 days in committee, as I am sure you will know, followed by a plenary vote. It is not something that we can rush through. We are also slightly time constrained by the fact that Parliament rises in March next year. If we are unable to get that through in that timescale, we will look to bring it forward after the elections in May. Next year, we have a superaffirmative order to deal with the joint boards, health and social care boards. However, there are other aspects in terms of health complaints and social work complaints that will not be dealt with until April 2017, if I pitch you up right. The superaffirmative order relates to social work complaints. The order in relation to bringing integration joint boards within the scope of the SPSO will be laid earlier than that. There needs to be a consultation on that piece of legislation as well, and it needs to involve each of the new bodies as they come into creation. That will be earlier next year. The matters that are not going to be dealt with until April 2017, can you clarify what those are for us, please? April 2017 is the date by which we expect to have changes to NHS complaints and social work complaints fully in force. The reason for the data around that, again, I am sure that Professor White in particular would want to speak about that somewhat, is because the changes themselves are obviously very important and important to provide that simple landscape that you describe, convener, but even arguably more important is the staff training and development and communication that goes around them, because what we need to make sure is not simply that we have changed the process, changed the legislation, but that people fully understand what their new responsibilities are, if I may suggest that Craig may wish to say a word or two. Yes, as Alison mentioned, we have learned from other change and improvement programmes across the country that in order to have a sustainable process, that staff feel that they have been able to influence and inform, understand and then are able to implement for every person, every time they are required to do so. We have learned that it is crucial to work with all the teams across the country, particularly with the emphasis on front-line resolution, early respectful engagement when people are dissatisfied. We are confident that, through the networks of learning that we have, it will not be April 2017 before we start to see the changes, but it is very much taking the learning and the revised processes that have been tested out across the country and then describing those in order that the legislation and the guidance are updated to reflect that learning. However, it is very much around how we take staff with us and respond and listen to what staff and, in fact, people who have used the complaint system have said that they want us to get this right. One of the pieces of learning from the previous legislation where there was a three-day period for early resolution is that that often wasn't sufficient for people to arrange to have contact with persons who were dissatisfied. That is why we have listened and we are now testing how to do that within a five-day period. We are very much trying to listen to what feedback we have received and take that on board. Mr Senggwp, how are you feeling about all of this from the health and social care partnership side? I am quite encouraged by it, but through discussions that we had as we framed our integration scheme some months back with colleagues from the Scottish Government, it is effective that most of those changes have already been put in place at a local level. When we talk about any client, patient, service user or services that are under our previous community health and care partnership arrangements, if they had a complaint that they wanted to make or any feedback, they would be handled in the same way. The message to our staff was that it doesn't matter who you are employed by or the traditional label attached to your service area. If somebody makes a complaint, you receive it. If you can resolve it there and then, absolutely, that is the way to do it. However, if it needs to then be escalated up, you make a note of it, it gets passed up to your management line and then we formally deal with it. It has really been important for us to make it as easy as possible for the service users, whether they are patients or clients, to provide clarity to our staff so that they are not wondering which policy to grab hold of in terms of managing a case, but they are applying the principles, because the principles are all the same, irrespective of whether it is the exact legislation in relation to the NHS or for social work functions and procedures. We want to make it straightforward for them to deal with it and for the process to be fair. Where there has been a degree of complexity, and that is maybe even overstating it, that is just about the decision about which policy to use. The way that we have handled it is by being a senior management decision that sits with the head of service. Frankly, if any head of service responsible for integrated services cannot get their head around which policy to use, it is not really worth much in terms of what they are doing. The idea is that the substance of those policies are all the same. It is about being fair, it has been proportionate, it has been responsive, and that is the approach that we have taken. At the end of the process, whatever the outcome, we have made a point of bringing the learning back. Previously, we had a community healthcare partnerships committee, which is a joint arrangement that involves non-executives from the health board, other stakeholders and then also councillors from our local authority. We brought the learning back from our complaints processes as part of our overall performance management to them on a regular basis to show not just the learning from the NHS complaints or social work complaints but in the totality. Then, in terms of the guidance that has now been talked about, effectively that complexity is addressed from our perspective. The only points of difference for one around the timescale for acknowledgement, the guidance that has been proposed and the change of legislation will harmonise that. People are dissatisfied and it has to be escalated out with our arrangements. The removal of the social work complaints committee and going a direct route up to the SPSO with an expanded function for the SPSO reduces that complexity, so it is the same all the way round. In terms of providing assurance to our integrated joint boards both that we are applying the policies and procedures properly and that we have got it wrong because we do, as all services and ages do, that we have appropriately apologised for that and taken action. Three, we have identified learning that we can apply more systematically and that we have taken that learning. That is what we have already been doing and that is what the new guidance on the standard is going to set out. From my perspective, it should be much cleaner all round, but I should say again that these are the kind of changes that are at a local level that they have just been making. In my perspective, we have already had in place for some years now. Mr McFaddon, from the ombudsman's point of view, are you happy with what it has now proposed? As we outlined in our submission to the committee in the past few weeks, we have been very pleased with progress since the last committee. A lot of credit goes to Alison, Mike, Craig and colleagues for moving us forward so far in quite a short space of time. We have been involved in a lot of discussions around the three key areas of social work, NHS and the guidance for integration joint boards. I mean, I think that, as we know from the last session, the key issue here has been that the processes and the complexity of the processes and the length of some of the processes have been getting in the way of allowing some of that simple early quick resolution that has just been being outlined. I think that we are now, we now have very important agreement and consensus on the end point and how we bring all this together. That in itself is a bit of a challenge, but we now have clarity on where we want to get to. I think that the steps that Alison has outlined in terms of the legislation, I think that work that we have been involved in discussions and all of those, and I think that we are content with the legislative approach proposed. I think that, in timescales, we would always like to move a lot more quickly in those things, and I appreciate Mike's comments about where possible he can maybe try and bring those things forward. I think that that would be helpful if we can, but we do recognise that there is a lot of work involved in putting aside the legislative issues themselves. I think that Craig's point about making sure that we get it right is very, very important, and that was a lot of the focus of discussion, not just at the working group of NHS complaints handlers recently, but also in our work with other sectors. I think that local authority, college universities and other sectors, I think that a lot of discussion was, let's make sure that staff are supported through this. It is a process not just for processes sake, but it is a process that is designed to act as a catalyst for weather cultural change, and that requires more than just launching something and expecting it to be implemented. It does involve supporting staff and senior leaders in terms of education, training, awareness and further detailed guidance. I think that we are content with progress as well at the moment, and I think that we have agreement on the end point. One of the things that the committee was concerned about previously was that there was more emphasis on process than there was on people. Have we reversed that? I think that we have always been quickly that the end point is about people and culture, but I think that process is important, particularly where that is a barrier. I do not think that there is any doubt of anyone here around those areas that the key aim is at the end of it focusing far better on resolving things quickly for people, early resolution, all those things that we have managed to get a degree of success with in other sectors. That is the end point here, so I think that we are all in very strong agreement with that, and it fits very much the agenda of the patient's rights and integration more widely. I have listened with interest in terms of the complaints handling process that is going to be put in place for local authorities and health boards, and there was mention of staff training and the integration of the service. Ms Taylor, you also made reference to the independent and third sector involvement in the delivery of the services. What discussions have taken place with the independent and third sector about some of the issues that have been identified this morning as being crucial for the successful delivery of a complaints handling procedure? Those things I mean by staff training, understanding the processes and where they fit in in relation to the complaints handling process, because it is okay to say that local authorities and health boards have the complaints handling process and they have the folder behind them, and they can pull it out. How does that tie in with the third sector and the independent sector, particularly in times when we find that the third sector continually claim that they are being under-resourced by the health boards and local authorities to deliver those vital services? I can speak to this question in relation particularly to the third and independent sector direct involvement in integration broadly and in relation to the Cairns Spectrum's role in our consideration of how to improve complaints to a small degree. I wonder if it might also be helpful to hear from Mr Sunggupta about local practice around engaging directly with the third and independent sector, who are often very small providers and it is the local context that tends to bring their greatest benefit to people who are using services. From the outset with integration broadly, our third and independent sector colleagues have been represented on everything that we have done. We had extensive working groups associated with the development of the legislation and the policy and all of the statutory guidance that now goes around that. I think that the question is probably broader than it relates particularly to complaints. It is also about staff development and understanding an outcomes-based approach. Often, in fact, it is our third and independent sector colleagues who bring the most rich insights to some of those conversations. Some of their specific experience has been tremendously useful. We have worked on going in relation to workforce development, which closely involves the third and independent sector. The Cairns Spectrum has a role to play with respect to any complaints specifically about registered services, which will remain in that context. However, with the narrow focus on responding to complaints, could Mr Sunggupta? I will do my best to answer the question, but please come back to me if you do not think that I am quite getting to the number of the issue. In terms of the resource available, if I start from that part, times are tight all round. If I had a health board hat on or a council hat on or speaking to colleagues from any party sector, everyone would say that the resources are tight. However, by the same token, I would not expect the committee to say to health boards, councils or any provider that that is an excuse for us not to take on board feedback and especially complaints around the services that people are responsible for delivering. In terms of the approach that was also the third and independent sector, a consistency of report is important. We need to recognise a variety of scales here. We have national bodies delivering services, as well as small ones. What we expect from what also varies quite markedly is that Alison has talked about registered services, which is really important. If any organisation is registered to provide social care responsibilities, there is a series of obligations that go alongside that for the benefit of the service users. Not the people who are procuring the services or the contract relationship is primarily with, but for the people who are there. If we are talking about front-run resolution, that same point applies. It is not then about a separate top-down process from the health board or local authority or integration joint board. It is about them taking that seriously. To be honest, I would have thought in this day and age that most organisations would get that in principle, and some of them would be further along that journey than others. There will be capacity in training issues. If you are looking at the resident care, that is for Scottish Care to give some consideration to. SCVO has a role in terms of third sector organisations. We have a range of umbrella bodies out there that should take some ownership of those issues. The approach that our colleagues have talked about—my two have all talked about—in terms of developing health social care staff employed by health boards and councils is clearly very important. I have said this to colleagues that we should not lose sight of the fact that the nature of what our staff at the front line deliver is to dealing with people when they are in vulnerable positions. They are dealing with difficult, complex cases, and they are often dealing with risk. For those of them from a professional background, that is part and parcel of what they have been trained to do. If we are then looking at the third sector, an independent sector organisation, which is in the business of care by the same token, to a greater extent, that is in the business of what they are about. I do not think that it is unreasonable for us to have an expectation that those organisations will apply a reasonable standard in terms of doing that. We absolutely should not make sure that we have excessive bureaucracy here. Again, from a local perspective, we have much of an interest in the integration joint boards, helping the council for that not to be an overly complex process, as the community says, process for process is sake. However, wherever you get services within Scotland as relates to health and social care, you should feel confident that if you have got a complaint that it will be dealt with respectfully, seriously, that we are possible to be resolved there and then, and if you need to have recourse to a more formal process, that will be there for you. John Lennon, thank you for that response, Mr Sam Gupta. The issue for me is, and I think that the term was used, small providers. The availability of small providers to deliver services, and compared to a health board or a local authority, where there is a background support team that is there on hand, might not be available to a small provider. As we go forward, it is trying to make sure that we have guarantees in place that those small providers will be able to deal with the complaints handling process in the same way that the health board or the local authority. There has also been reference to other bodies in terms of care homes and the care commission. How do we ensure that when we are talking about the complaints handling process in this area that those organisations, the crossover, do not get lost? Because one of the problems that we have at the present moment is the myriad of different bodies that if someone wants to make a complaint about care services, who do they go to? I have certainly found that some constituents have been passed from different organisations to different organisations because they are told that it is not the health board that deals with that area, it is not the local authority that deals with that area, it may be the care commission, it may be social work. It is trying to find a way forward that people, when they make a complaint or a member of the family makes a complaint, they are getting that dealt with by someone who can action that complaint and not be passed to maybe five or six different organisations to actually register a complaint. In responding to Mr Wilson's concern, it may help the committee to be aware of some guidance, which was issued around clinical and care governance of integrated health and social care services. Alan Baird, the Scottish Government's chief social work adviser, and I have reviewed all of the integration schemes in relation to the specific aspects of clinical and care governance, and the committee would suggest to be interested to note that the importance of a single point of contact for people who use services is emphasised in that guidance, but we would also expect the integrated joint boards in seeking assurance that services were implemented in accordance with the guidance to have assurances that where services are contracted to other organisations, such as smaller third sector organisations, that the same standards and quality in this respect around complaints handling apply. I know that, when Scottish Care was involved in the process to develop the clinical and care governance guidance, it was discussing the importance at that stage of agreeing contracts, for example, with third sector, that these sorts of issues that you have mentioned that might become barriers subsequently are addressed ahead of time. It will be absolutely crucial for the boards to seek assurances from people who use services, that they knew who to contact, that it happened first time, and it was dealt with correctly irrespective of who provides the service. If it would be helpful, I would be happy to send you that guidance around a single point of contact as part of the wider clinical governance arrangements. I think that it would be very interesting to see that if you could send that to the clerks, it would be useful. John? I wonder if Mr McFadden has any comments to make on the points that I have raised earlier in relation to the issues that are faced by people and individuals who contact SPSO. Particularly at the present moment and in the future, I know that, in your paper, you have indicated that SPSO hopes to be geared up to be able to deal with this around about the same time as April 2017. Are you confident that all the processes will be in place to ensure that that single point of contact will be well advertised and well recognised by the individuals who wish to raise concerns about the level of care that is being provided? Yes, I think that we do. I think that the process itself should make that clear and should provide consistency and clarity, not just during the process, but where people should be sent posted to any other agencies or where there are joint issues that should be collectively responded in one response. I think that there is more just to this and just launching a model complaints and procedure. There is the implementation of that. There is a real availability of all this material, etc. One of the things that we have been aware of in terms of people coming to us with complaints about the care provision, as well as the care assessment and other elements of the healthcare provision is that we would like to be able to work with the care inspector a lot more closely. That has been part of the discussion with Mike and his team around the social work legislation to make sure that we are able to share information and possibly lead to more clearly joint investigating with the care inspector around some of those issues. I just wanted to get some understanding of how much the staff have been involved in the process and consultation up until now. I am thinking particularly of staff representatives or unions involved in the process, given the complexity of the situation in terms of the outcomes of a complaint that may well read to disciplinary procedures or action that has been taken and what involvement they have had in that process. Ms Taylor? I will start. I think that probably the answer is partly to do with each individual piece of legislative work. Staff representatives of bodies and unions have been very closely involved in the whole project of integration at the broad end of the process from the outset. I suppose that the general point that I would make before handing over to colleagues would be that we are not creating a split new process here for anyone. We are refining the NHS complaints process to make it a bit more effective and a bit swifter. We are refining the social work complaints process to harmonise it with the SPSO3 stage process so that it is the same as the NHS process so that we have that simple mechanism. With the joint boards, we are adding them to the SPSO3 stage process as well. In a sense, this is about refinement and some improvement and an opportunity to learn. I would hope that, as a consequence, there would not be of specific concern to staff representative bodies. However, I would, if I may, suggest that the colleagues leading on the legislative work itself might want to add to that. In terms of the social work complaints, we have been in touch with the SPSO3, which is the representative body for social workers in Scotland. We have shared our draft consultation document with them and our draft order, which we are going to be bringing forward. The main change that that makes is that, in terms of what will affect the staff, is that there will be the ability for the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman to speak more directly with the SPSO3 and with the care inspectorate. The idea behind that is to enable, as Mr McFadden said earlier, joint investigations and also to allow SPSO3 to share information that they receive as part of a complaint where it relates to either a member of staff, social work staff, or a care service with the appropriate regulator just to enable them to look into that. At present, they are unable to do that unless there is a significant danger to life, I believe, is the term. We will be making that change. The change to the actual social work complaints procedures itself will just be a case of refining the system that is there, getting rid of the complaints review committees and bringing it into line with the other models. We are taking in, Professor White. Are you saying that there are legislative barriers in terms of co-operations in this front unless there is a danger to life? Yes, I am. That will change completely and utterly with the new legislation that you are bringing forward. It will now allow SPSO3 to speak to the care inspectorate and to SPSO3. There will be a much lower baseline in terms of what the level at which that will trigger. I do not know if Paul wants to add anything. On that specific point, the inability to share some information relates to the fact that our legislation requires us to work in private and to respect the privacy of people who have brought complaints to us. It means that it can be difficult to share some types of information unless a series of tests are met. I think that it is just about trying to make sure that that is relaxed a little bit, to make sure that we are able to share more broadly information in the interests of joint—where there is joint interest—with the care inspectorate, in particular, for example. Professor White. There are three points that I would make in response to that question. First, we have been relation to the current NHS Scotland complaints process that was subject to wide consultation and a number of the staff-side organisations that were involved. Secondly, there is a national group called the Scottish Partnership Forum, which is a regular meeting of representatives of organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing, UNISON, for example, and Scottish Government and NHS Scotland officials. There have been recent discussions in relation to the duty of Canada provisions of the health bill, but it is very much relating to what you said about complaints. Investigation and reviews are very much around learning and should not be about disciplinary conduct or capability matters. There are discussions with the Scottish Partnership Forum around how we make sure that processes like complaints focus on systems process review and learning, and we make sure that the separate processes for staff are in place. Thirdly, I mentioned to you that the current working group that is testing, reviewing and learning around the changes that we want to make and the improvements that we want to make has been established. It is an important point, and I would like to seek assurances, which I will do after the meeting from that working group, that they are linked with the Scottish Partnership Forum. I am interested to see that, apart from Highland, the integration joint boards have not been formed in every 32 local councils. Are they being formed now, apart from Ayrshire? Are the boards coming up? I am interested to see what the progress is on the integration joint boards. During this year, 2015-16, each health board and local authority has to submit its integration scheme, a scheme of establishment, for its partnership arrangements to ministers for sign-off. At the present stage, 25 out of 31 have been signed off. Some of those 25 are in the process of being established. There is a parliamentary order that establishes the integration joint board itself, and six are completing their schemes at the moment. That is actually quite good progress. I am quite pleased with that, because the deadline to get it all done is March. Is there any resistance to this in any case? Was it all everybody's? No. It can be quite challenging for people. There is a lot of detail to work through. Those schemes work out at about 80 pages. There is a lot that they have to go through to agree around finance and functions and other things. My team has been providing support, but I think that it is a productive process. I think that it genuinely brings people closer around the idea of working together to improve outcomes for people. I think that progress is constructive and good. Finally, Hyland has a different system. What do you think of that system? I think that it is very interesting. I have been very lucky. I have been able to work in this area for a number of years. I have had a chance to look at the way people do things in other countries as well. There are two options in our legislation for integration. They both operate on the same principle, according to my philosophy at least, which is that you need to have a single commissioner and a single budget for planning services for people with complex needs. You can do that in different ways. You can exchange functions or you can pull functions around a joint board. However, as long as you create the single commissioner and the single budget and you put people at the heart of your strategic planning, that is what seems to be the key for success in systems that produce good outcomes. I think that it is very interesting as things start to evolve and develop in our different localities. We will look at outcomes, we will look at who is shifting the balance of care in time and see what is working and whether we can learn some lessons from whether, in fact, people have found that Hyland arrangement easier or more difficult, but we do not quite know yet. I want to try and stick to the complaints scenario, because that is what we are here to deal with today after our last session. I would like to ask you to clarify a few points for me. When we are talking about improving care and outcomes in general and this process in particular, are the service providers in the NHS and social work services able to access this complaints process too? It would be a bit naive to think that opportunities for service improvement will only come from complaints from clients or service users. There are possibly well over 100,000 people involved in delivering this service in Scotland. What is their role in driving forward the improvement agenda and can they raise complaints in access to procedure? Professor White? The clinical and care governance guidance that I referred to in an earlier response also requires that integrated services have a co-ordinated approach to pull various sources of information. Yes, complaints are made by individual people, but there might be feedback through reviews of services or reports of adverse events or discussions around risk. The governance requires the integrated health and social care services to look at all that information in the round in the interests of learning and improvement priorities. A member of staff somewhere can raise a complaint about some aspect of service delivery and use the process that you are about to legislate for? In that context, that would not be the NHS complaints process, but that would be part of the clinical and care governance process, where staff observations around the quality of care are vital in terms of looking at opportunities for learning and improvement. It would not be the complaints process. How does that sit with the whole vision of integration if the staff delivering the service cannot access the complaints process that we are putting together? Could you maybe explain how a member of staff would complain compared to a member of the public who was in the main deal and was here? A member of staff could raise a complaint on behalf of a patient or service user, but that would be processed in relation to the complaints scheme around the individual and the care. In terms of staff raising concerns about the quality of care, all services would have mechanisms where staff can report, for example, through adverse events or incident reporting systems. If they have concerns about the quality of care delivery, they would report through that mechanism. In many of our teams, there are daily processes where teams get together and discuss those matters. It would be very much around those locally-owned processes to say that, for example, I had a concern today that we were not able to respond to Mrs Blogg's request for that information. We really need to discuss that as part of our learning as a team. So, in summary, it would be through adverse events or concerns, processes that the board has for reporting those sorts of events, or through the learning mechanisms that all teams would have in place. Does it encompass the whole care? Is whistleblowing the opportunity that is available right across the system? Would it capture whistleblowing examples, for example, with that going to the complaints process? Anonymous issues raised through the whistleblowing process. The concept of whistleblowing would suggest that the mechanisms that are in place have not been effective and that the staff member feels that they have to go outside of that. However, we are beginning against a strain to areas that are outside of my expertise, but my understanding is that, if I relate back to clinical and care governance, people need to be clear what process to use for what concerns. Certainly, I would expect that staff if they did not feel that they could use the processes that I have mentioned, they would need to know what mechanisms should be used within the place that they work. That would be part of good staff governance. Alison Ewing said in her initial remarks that it is the same process, no matter who makes the complaint, but it might be different when we look at that in terms of service deliverers accessing the system. Mr Sengupta, you said that things can be resolved there and then. That suggests to me that there is a kind of non-complex versus complex assessment of what the complaint might be so that people can get things resolved quickly without recourse to that process. Is that correct? I am sorry to interrupt there. If it helps, I think that there is probably a bit of context around this from where I sit at a local level. Complaints is only one way that we get feedback. Our complaints procedure is very much orientated around the service user, so that is not the mechanism from where our staff would raise concerns. We have other arrangements for doing that, but there are multiple ways for doing that. However, that is very much about the people who are there that we respond to providing services to. In terms of how we go about redressing, it depends on the nature of the issue, and it depends on how that feels for that individual client, patient or member of their family. A lot of issues that get raised might often be about communication, for example. If someone is unhappy about something, that can be resolved there and then, and the policies set that out. It is not outwith the policy, but what happens is that the machinery of it, if you want to better them, does not kick in, because it just requires that member of staff who they are dealing with—an individual can say, right, I am unhappy about this, I have a concern about that, to do myself, my mother, my father and the person that I am caring for—and that member of staff, whoever they are employed by, because this is currently within both social work procedures and indeed NHS procedures, should take that on board and say, right, how can I address that? How can we make this better? How can we sort this out? If there is a need for an apology there then, that can be given as well. However, first of all, it is not something that is a bit more complicated that requires more consideration or indeed it is something where the person, the individual member, the public patient client does not feel happy with what the member of staff has said, then they can escalate it through a more formal process where we formally write to them to acknowledge it and we investigate it. It is all part of the complaints procedure and the reason for that is to put the emphasis on dealing with things as quickly as possible to the satisfaction there and then of the client or patient. That is really the point, and it is part of the policy where I try not to get bogged down in bureaucracy for want of a better term. Again, that is incumbent on all of us and it is incumbent on our staff, if I am being honest, to make that as easy as straightforward as possible. Most people—not all there are instances, but most of the time when an issue comes up, they would just—with the feedback that we all get—want to be sorted there and then. Often, it is small stuff. Again, there are complex issues, but more often than not, the complaints that we will get back will be around misunderstandings or miscommunication or things that can be relatively easily sorted out. In many cases, the member of staff of the team had not been aware of what they were doing in the first place. Just that bit of the patient, the client, the care of feeling confident and being made to feel confident enough to just raise that with them and the member of staff not being too defensive about it is taking it on board, often mean that a whole range of things can get sorted out fairly quickly. I could also just add on to the point that Professor White was saying in telling me your earlier question, if it helps. Again, I think that the clinical care governance approach locally is very, very important to us, so again, the feedback that we get from our staff is in their multiple ways, whether they want to raise that through their supervision, their one-to-one supervision, in their team meetings, through critical incidents, significant interviews, or multiple mechanisms for that. They also have recourse to their unions if they have concerns around the way that the services are orientated. Again, within our integration schemes, we have made provision for, well, within the NHS, it is whistleblowing within local thought talk about public interest disclosure. Those arrangements are in place, so there are multiple steps for using it. I think that it goes back to an earlier point around there being lots of ways in. At the local level, again, the more joined up in the fewer we have got here, the better, because it means that we can focus resources and get clarity, but, by the same talking, if people are unhappy with how process X has worked out for whatever reason, they will often want recourse to a process Y. I think that there is a balancing act that if you remove other options, people will often feel unhappy about it because they will not feel that their issues have been properly worked through. I think that that is a bit a lot clearer around. I will just ask another question about the other end of the process. If a person raises a complaint and they are unhappy with the outcome, is it straight to the ombudsman or is there an appeal mechanism? Mr McFadden will take you in there. I might be just to outline some context in terms of the model CHP, which is operating elsewhere in which we can agree to outline all those areas. In the complex and non-complex issues, that is at the heart of it. I think that our experience would tie up with what Suman has outlined, that the majority of things that people raise or complain about are issues that can be resolved quickly close to the front line and probably better resolved by people, staff or managers as close to that point of service delivery as possible. The committee knows from previous sessions that around 85 per cent in local authorities, for example, end at that point without progressing. However, there are some things that come in that are sufficiently and very clearly complex or serious that are not suitable for five or 10-day resolution at that front stage and would escalate straight to that stage to a 20-day investigation. That is quite right and I think that it is important that those people are taken straight through their rather than attempts to resolve in that front line. After the stage 2 investigation is complete, there is a bit of flexibility around timescales there. If, for example, it is particularly complex or is needed to undertake outside investigation, that is the point at which people will be sent posted to the ombudsman. At the moment, in each of the different areas, it is at different points and at different stages. In the new vision that we have and that we are working towards, every area after that stage 2 has been completed and they would all be sent posted to the SPSO at which point we would have a remit over all of these areas. That is where the simplicity comes from in terms of how the system should be designed. You are not an appeal body, though. You cannot reverse a decision, as I understand it. A person is fundamentally unhappy with the outcome that has been arrived at. Who did they appeal to? In terms of health, we have a role in relation to clinical judgment, which is a standard above my administration. My administration itself can look at decisions in terms of how those decisions were made, as opposed to the discreased element of those decisions. The proposals in relation to social work are to give us a similar role as we have in health in relation to professional judgment. It may not be accurate to describe it as an appeal body. We will be looking at the discretion of decisions, for example, about how someone's care needs have been assessed, and whether or not that was made, and whether or not a good decision was made. That is where the new system will help to provide a good route to the ministry of justice for people. Professor White wants to come in. In relation to Mr Coffey's point about referral to the ombudsman, in discussions with a lot of NHS colleagues, I have been encouraging people in leadership roles to review the requirement to go to the ombudsman as a failure. As part of our policy emphasis on front-line resolution, we certainly expect more effort to go into looking at why people feel dissatisfied and to look at ruptures in the relationship that they might be having with the people who are involved with reviewing the complaint and bearing in mind that people will all have a continuing relationship with the public service, and we really need to get the local organisations to look at that. It certainly seems to me that sometimes the threshold for saying to people will go to the ombudsman is too low in some of our NHS boards, and certainly I have been having some quite robust discussions with some staff in boards around asking them to reflect on that and take more local ownership around that, respecting that sometimes people will need, and there will be benefits of referral to the ombudsman, but really trying to discourage people from setting that bar to too low. I was just to ask you finally on your plans to engage the public with us, which can be a complex process. How do you plan to do it? I would hope that what you don't do is issue pages and pages and pages of process description using all of this language that is very complex for people. How do you plan to engage with the public and simplify the process to make it easy to access and understand? Ms Taylor, without using the word congruent, I think would be a start. I agree entirely with you, Mr Coffey. I think that pages and pages and pages of process would be a very bad approach. The most important thing is that people know how to complain locally, because it is in the local system that you get the service or your relative gets the service or whatever. There is an enshrined integration arrangements in the scheme that has to be produced. The local partners have to make sure that they make it clear to the public how to make a complaint. We sent through some leaflets that Ayrshire and Arn use in this respect. I am sure that Mr Singupta would be happy to speak as well on that. Sorry. I was just caught. Basically, it comes down to making sure that people know locally how to make a complaint. I think that, at its very, very simplest, it comes down to speak to whomever you are in contact with, and that person is under a professional obligation to respond appropriately. That is what I was trying to get at when I talked about flexibility, because you cannot really set out rules for all of that, because there will be so many different situations in which people may find themselves wishing to speak to someone. In terms of how we are going to improve the system without making it overly bureaucratic, but in terms of the planned improvements to the NHS complaint scheme, we are going to encourage people to say what went well with the way that we responded to your complaint and what did not go so well and how we could make it better. People's responses to how we could make it better are going to support boards to test and refine and continue to ask that question around what did we do well, what could we do better so that, as we work towards the dates that we mentioned earlier, we have a large body of learning from across the country of what good looks like, and we design that into the system and support implementation at scale across the country. I am new to the topic from the perspective of a committee member, but I am not new to it from the perspective of having been a councillor and an MSP. We have talked a lot about the way in and the first point of contact, and I find it quite often that that is me. People just come to me to complain, but they do not always use that word, they just want something sorted out. I raise it and it gets fixed. Partly my question has been answered in the response to Mr Coffey, but I am wondering, having listened to all the discussion this morning, does my request to get something fixed? Does the learning or the culture change or the feedback go into the same system or does it just take that one off? We have it off the email. How does that sort of information come into the system from people like me? Mr Sangut, first, you seem keen to answer that question. No, I am just trying to ask if it helps. From a local perspective, and I have something that has to do with MSP and local councillor inquiries, the simple answer is yes, all the learning is. Again, the way this works is that we need to get feedback from as range of areas as possible. Also, if there is a tension or a concern or anxiety, we would rather know about it and look into it. As you will know—in fact, for you, I will often know in terms of your constituency work—there are a lot of issues that can be easily resolved. There are issues where, like I said, we have got it wrong and the services staff have got it wrong, and that needs to be addressed so that it does not get wrong again. There is also in fairness—it goes to the point that Mr Coffey was talking about—where people are being unreasonable or they are being vexatious. A big point here is having a fair process. We take all that stuff in, we make sure that we address it fairly and proportionately and swiftly as far as we can, whenever we can, and then we take the learning from it, because that feeds into how we develop our services. One of the things that is really important in terms of the development of what we all have to do is that it is not driven by the financial situation and it is not driven by a range of policies. They are coming out nationally from various professional bodies, but they should be in response to the views and experiences of the people who are providing services to all of them. One of the things that is really important for us—and it goes to Professor White's point about the clinical care governance arrangements—is that we do not put too much on us on one route for that feedback and over all the others, because what we need to try to do is far as we can get a balanced view of things. The views that we get expressed through elected councillors, MSPs and others are as helpful as any other formal complaints procedure or in formal consultation or formal consultation that we do with our clients, patients and carers. The best practice in this area would usually involve questions being asked in relation to what was it about the relationship that our teams had with this person that felt that they were not able to raise it with us or that we were not able to resolve it and that a third party had to be involved. As well as looking at the care episode, I certainly would expect there to be a mechanism whereby there could be a conversation or reflection around what does it say about the culture or the clarity of single point that we have talked about. If it is that clear, why did the person not come through that route? I think that there needs to be a mechanism for that learning to be captured too. Do you want to hear from Mr Liddle from the social work point of view? Yes, please. Please, Mr Liddle. Your role in terms of social work at this moment in time? Third party complaints not from the service user, but when they come to a third party like MSP or a councillor do you think that that should be fed back in? It would work in much the same way for local authorities that they would again take that learning on board as well in the same way. I think that in the long term this is going to be an extremely effective way of improving service delivery and improving the customer experience, but in the short term there is going to be a massive input to changing the culture and working with staff to make them feel okay about being complained about. It is not a comfortable place to be, but it is how we learn. Do you think that there is going to be sufficient space and resource for that to happen in the short term? There is going to be a lot of training—you all mentioned training—but that involves backfilling the staff and to go on that training course. Is that going to be possible? Before being in this job, I was assistant director of one of the health boards with responsibility for complaints, among other things. I certainly found that that came up a lot because staff need support. They often feel threatened or concerned about the implications, particularly if the culture is not one of a learning focus culture, if perhaps they are more used to blame. It is absolutely crucial. In terms of Scottish Government, we have provided funding to NHS education for Scotland in every financial year since 2012 to support the essential training and development requirements in order to equip staff. I would anticipate that, not only would that continue, but we would need to look at how we sustain and enhance that, given our policy commitment to earlier front-line resolution. I am again with a theme from the evidence that we have given is that we are not looking at complaints in isolation. We are talking about the training and the cultural change that we are talking about, but it is not just about complaints. That journey is one that we have been on for years. We have quite a long distance to go and different places are different places at it, but if we were having a conversation about, for example, what happened in mid-staffiture or any other things where things have gone badly wrong, those issues have come up before. Anyone who is reasonable and responsible is very sighted on them within the professional bodies, as well as employing organisations and providers, etc. That is a live topic on how we can work with our staff to move forward. However, it is also quite clear that staff themselves are not living in a bubble. Their recipients of care often have interests in that, and they are responsible more often than not. They are very capable professionals who are developing themselves in this way. In that regard, we are all moving in that direction together. I think that it is really important, though, that the way that this will work on the ground is by how it is practised. The watchword for me around this is fairness. If people feel that it is a fair system for staff, they understand that when I am inviting that back, I am not going to get the book thrown at me. The person who I respond to is not happy immediately with what I have said, that it is going to end up in a disciplinary way, and that they will be appropriately supported. That is important to enabling that by the same token for our patients-counted service users. They need to feel that where something has properly gone wrong and the member of staff has done something wrong, that the organisation is going to squirrel them away somewhere so that nothing happens to them. It needs to feel fair to all parties. That is no different today than it was yesterday, but that is where we are trying to get into it better. John Wilson, please. Just to follow-up to that and take on that last point is about what consideration has been given to ensuring the protection of those individuals who make a complaint against either an individual care provider or an organisation. The issue for me would be that there has to be some consideration given to ensure that someone who makes a complaint is not unduly penalised in the services that they receive because that complaint has been made. You mentioned there about working with staff and ensuring that staff understand that there should be a complaints process in a good working relationship. Complaints should be handled fairly, but not in every circumstance as we know, as complaints have been handled in a fair manner, and some people have felt that they have been unfairly treated because they have raised concern about the level of care that they have been provided with, either by individuals or by the organisation that is charged with delivering that service. You to answer that is the team leader for integration and reshaping care. I think that that would speak to the need for strong and effective management, because good leadership and good management will instill the principles that Mr Singupta and others have spoken about, about learning from mistakes but not being threatened by them, about certainly not allowing complaints to lead to a diminution in the way that somebody is looked after or something inappropriate of that nature, because that would be quite inappropriate. It also speaks to professional standards, which will run through all of the professional groups that work across health and social care. It is probably a matter for strong management and leadership and vigilance, and it is something that I would certainly expect us to reflect in the guidance that we will develop around complaints under integration, which we are working very closely, particularly with our colleagues on the SPSO on now. However, I do think that it will be something that, for example, the chief officers in those systems will need to take responsibility for to ensure that there is fairness of the sort that has been described. You look like you are dying to come in. I agree with Alison in relation to professional standards. All of the regulated healthcare professions are quite clear in relation to negative feedback complaints being a critical source of not only learning for the organisation but for individual practitioners. I want to reinforce the point around the importance of including that in training, because people often will feel that perhaps a complaint was unjust or had a negative emotional reaction to that. Certainly, in personal dialogue, although I would not wish to minimise the impact on individuals, I would encourage those in leadership positions to have a conversation with people around them. It is ultimately not about them. They are in public service roles, and they need to develop skills to deal with the reactions that we have complained about but to focus on how to make things better for the person who has provided the complaint in the first place. I agree with what has been said. There is a cultural element to that, and it is about leaders who are very important in managing that and developing a value in complaints culture and moving away from this blame culture. Training is absolutely crucial to that, and we have supported the NES work that Greg referred to earlier and will continue to do so. There is also an element of transparency around that. The new model requires all complaints and all elements of feedback to be recorded and reported in a consistent way. That is important in making sure that people are aware of what issues are raised and how they have been dealt with to build confidence in the system. People are aware of alternative routes to provide feedback where they feel that the provision of the care that they are going to get is under threat because they are making a complaint that they have alternative routes to raise those issues with the boards or even to the SPSO as the independent external body. Okay, thank you. I have got a number of quick fires. Speed of resolution after a complaint is often something that can really annoy people and sometimes it is better to say to folk at the very beginning that their complaint is going nowhere rather than keep them on the line forever. How do we ensure speed of resolution in the new systems that we are setting up? I think that the first thing is going back to the front-line stage of five days. If we are able to get the majority of complaints in NHS, for example, to resolve within that time school, that is a huge achievement. We are at the moment where all complaints are moved into this kind of 20 working days. Speed of resolution there is something that we hope to achieve in this new process. There are challenges there again in supporting staff to be able to do that, but experience in other sectors is that front-line staff and managers are able to achieve this and are able to do this in a lot more effective way than putting all complaints into a complaints team at the back end. Ownership and responsibility as close to that front-line as possible is absolutely crucial in ensuring speed of resolution. In terms of the resources of the SPSO, do you have the resources to deal with those new systems? That being at the forefront of our discussions that we have been having with the various Government departments is that we need to make sure—indeed, the corporate body needs to make sure—that we are appropriately resourced. We are in discussions with the various teams and we have been given assurances, for example in relation to the NHS work from the Cabinet Secretary in relation to those. I understand that the corporate body has also sought to receive similar assurances. Of course, if all of this works well at the front-line, you might have less complaints to deal with. That is the ideal end-point, is to put ourselves out of business. Finally, Professor White, you said that during one of your statements that you saw complaints being moved to the SPSO as a failure. What would you say to the organisations out there, the local authorities, but particularly the NHS boards, who at the end of every letter now deal with a complaint, if you are unhappy, contact the SPSO. Here are the details. Two points. My understanding is that they are required to do that under the guidance in relation to the patient rights act. My advice would be that, although there might be a requirement to do that, they can also emphasise that they would not wish people to feel that they needed to do that if they continued to have concerns or feedback around a different way of resolving the complaint. Certainly, there are some really powerful examples from some of the NHS boards, where staff have been encouraged to say that they do not want you to go to the ombudsman, because that shows that we have failed to respect the importance of the feedback, and we want to work with you to make the improvements and changes. I would expect the group that I mentioned before to perhaps start testing out different ways of putting the basis of things in letters and saying that, through that, they can reduce the numbers that have to go to the ombudsman. I will add in additional content that is more focused on what we have been talking about, about respectful, on-going engagement to make improvements. Thank you very much. I just say to all of you that this committee is, without doubt, going to keep a close eye on how all of this is dealt with. I would not be surprised if you called back. I would hope that our successor committee will do likewise. I thank you for your contributions today and I suspend for five minutes to allow the witnesses to leave. Agenda item 4 is about our fat-finding visit to Manchester and an opportunity to report back in that visit where we spoke to key officers and officials about city region devolution and the use of local government pension funds to support local capital infrastructure investment. I would like to start by saying that, although there were some structural differences in the system north and south of the border, there were lessons that he could learn from Greater Manchester combined authorities experience. I felt that it was valuable for members to hear how much could be achieved through consensual partnership working by local authorities. This consensual working-enabled economies of scale, which worked to the advantage of all partners, allowed for strategic planning with a focus on integration of services to take place over a longer timescale with shared goals and benefits. The long-term vision was also demonstrated by the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, where it was evident that a great deal of effort had gone into creating local investment opportunities in the commercial sector and in affordable housing. It was able to reconcile any risks with such investment because of the long-term nature of the investments, their positive social impact and because those infrastructure investments were less volatile than other types of investment and provided a satisfactory return. I would now like to invite other members to share their views on the fact-finding visit, if you have any. John Finch-East was extremely useful to see how Manchester City Council worked closely with other local authorities in that region to bring together economies of scale and concentrate targeted resources to ensure economic growth in and greater Manchester. The issue regarding the pension funds was extremely enlightening. They were able to pull those together and create public projects, particularly in the area of housing delivery, both for affordable and social rented housing. I know that, having spoken to the representatives last week, some of them are meeting with representatives of local authorities in Scotland and the pension funds in Scotland. It might be extremely useful to look at the date and speak to some of the local authority pension funds to find out whether lessons have been learned and we could move forward and encourage local authorities to use that financial power that they have through the pension funds to do more social and economic projects in Scotland, rather than relying solely on international and other investments that do not deliver local social good. I remind members that the pension investment fund aspects are part of our budget scrutiny. We will also have the opportunity to tease that out further at our meeting in Inverclyde in two weeks' time, so I hope that we will all take that opportunity there. I do not know, does anyone else? I thoroughly enjoyed the day. It was nice to spend time with my new colleagues, so that was important for me. I thought that it was useful to have that little time out to get to know each other, but I set that aside. I was also very impressed with the vision that they have in Manchester. If they deliver on that, it will be very exciting for them. I like the fact that they are building on what is already there, because they have been working together for a long time as local authorities and they are building on that. Even the introduction of the mayor is basically just a development of what they have already. They are not doing new things all the time, they are just growing all the time. I share Mr Wilson's view about the pension fund, and I know that we are going to come and speak to people in Fife. I am going to have a chat in the next couple of weeks with the chair of the pension fund in Fife just to find out how that went and what their feelings are. I think that the convener is right that we should keep an eye on that and maybe revisit it as we proceed with the budget. Thank you. It was a very professional day. They put it together very well. They had obviously well prepared. I thought that it was very interesting. I was impressed with their direction and how they did it, and I was impressed with their integration, particularly with the greater Manchester. I know that it was easy because of the rule that they had been doing it for a long time, but I was just very impressed with the whole day. I thought that it went very well and I think that we have lessons to learn or things that we can find out. Thank you. Obviously, as it said, part of our budget scrutiny and beyond that, we will be able to tease out some of the issues that Inverclyde. For those folks who were not a part of the visit, we will make sure that you have the information that you need so that you can also tease out some of the issues further. With that, we move on to agenda item 5, which is the last item of business today. It is an update on European matters. As such, I would like to ask for a European reporter, John Wilson, to speak to the paper. John, please. Thank you, convener. As the agenda says, this is a paper that was drawn up by the clerks, and I am grateful to the clerks for drawing up this paper. They have brought together the background, and they have also included a spice briefing paper. I think that very usefully the paper from COSLA in response to the future priorities and EU priorities. I will draw attention to a couple of the bullet points that have been identified. That is one of the public procurement rules, just to draw members' attention, that there will be, according to the briefing that we have received, SSIs laid before Parliament later this year regarding public procurement rules and bringing them into line for harmonisation. The next one is the mandatory transparency register, which is a nice title for lobbying. Clearly, it is on the agenda of the European Commission in the EU, and it has certainly been on the Scottish Government's agenda. It is an area that we all need to work very closely on in terms of the future direction. I know that COSLA has read some issues in their paper because of the feel that they might be considered as lobbyists when it comes to the Scottish Parliament and to the European Union, so, as I said, it might be worth watching that. The last one that I would like to draw attention to is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which we have discussed previously as part of the European consideration. I will also draw attention to the Trade and Service Agreement, which is currently being worked up as well. Clearly, from the briefing that we have received from SPICE, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was hoped to have been signed off by the end of this year to coincide with the American administration, the outgoing American administration. Given some of the difficulties that have been experienced by getting that agreement debated within the European Parliament, it might be that, in my perspective, it might not reach us before the side of the American election. The situation is surely one to continue to watch, but the impact that we have already identified on public services in Scotland, particularly local authorities and allios, is one that we should watch with interest. Thank you for that update, John. We are asked to, if we want to, write to the European External Relations Committee asking to be kept informed about the implications of the suspension of the 2007-13 European social fund programmes and the implications that that has for the 2014-20 European structural investment fund programmes. Can we agree to write that letter? Thank you. Do you wish to take any other actions in terms of European matters that are considered in the paper? Obviously, we will keep a close eye on some of the issues that John has raised. I remind you that I am a currently serving member of the European External Relations Committee, and I am familiar with most, if not all, of this material. I wanted to bring to your attention convener the business relating to the digital single market, which features in discussion at the European Committee fairly regularly. We are all clearly supportive of the initiatives and the aims behind this. There are still some concerns expressed by some of the members of that committee about Europe's attitude to things such as mobile phone or roaming charges, which you may recall were due to be ended this December, and they will not be, presumably, at the behest of mobile companies lobbying the Parliament within Europe. That is extremely disappointing. At any opportunity, I have taken to raise this with visitors from Europe who come to the committee to ask them about this in the background and whether they will impress upon the commission and the member states to make some progress on this. It has been delayed now, so while you read some really important aims and objectives within the digital single market, that is clearly a major one. I think that it does the reputation of the European Parliament no good to have slackened off its commitment in this regard. To keep a watching brief in this kind of thing, convener, it would be of interest to this committee. Finally, to tell you that the European Committee is also looking at an inquiry with this as part of that, and what we are keen to see is just exactly how other European member states deliver those types of services, broadband speeds and so on and so forth, mobile roaming charges and so on and so forth. We are interested in the wider picture of that, but we are also interested, I think, in how local governments in Scotland are participating in the roll-out of things like broadband. We are keen to understand how other local authorities around Europe do that. So there is a role for local government here too that you might want to keep an eye on and see how that develops. Thank you for that. Obviously, some folk would say that there is not a huge amount of our committee dealing with those particular issues, but as you rightly pointed out, in terms of digital inclusion and the use of new technologies by local government and other public bodies, we have an interest in that and should keep a watching brief. Could we ask the European and External Relations Committee to keep us updated in the progress that they are doing? I am sure that Willie and Clare, as members, will do so anyway. Oh, you are no longer a member, Clare. Sorry. However, if we could maybe just write to the convener asking for us to get regular updates on that, I think that that would be extremely useful and it may well be that, at some point, our successor committee may want to look at those matters in some more depth. Clare. That is probably coming from my taking part in the education committee as well. In my time in this term of the Parliament, I do think that the local government committee would be good if we could have some updated information on the community's programme coming through. A local government committee delivers education. It is important for us to know how well that programme is working in Europe and to have details of the progress in those areas coming to this committee as well as the education. The remit scenario here, where does that fall? Okay, I will do that too, if everybody is in agreement. Grant, in which case, I will say that the next meeting of the committee will be on Wednesday 30th, in committee room 2 at 10 o'clock, and I now close this meeting of the local government and regeneration committee. Thank you.