 gweld wedi gwneud ffadaeth eich hyn yn yfodol, oherwydd hyn yn ychydig sy'n ddysgu i ddweud oherwydd bod gyda'n ddysgu i ddim yn rhywbeth. Dyma'r ffawr o fynd i chi, i ddim yn fawr o ffawr o fwrdd fel hyn yn eich tymnod o heddiw. Ond mae'n rhaid i'w ddysgu i ddim yn ei gwneud... ... bod chi eisiau i ddim yn ddysgu i ddim yn unrhyw ysgolfyniad, mae hwnnw i'ch confidigol o'r byd. in the name of Margaret McCulloch and the Equal Opportunities Committee's report on age and social inclusion. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call on Margaret McCulloch to speak to her and move the motion on behalf of the Equal Opportunities Committee. Please you have 14 minutes, Ms McCulloch. This is a good time for us to talk about social isolation and loneliness. During the yn y ffestiff yma, mae ymgyrch nhw yn iawn yn gwybod aeth am y gyrwch yn ôl. Yw'r enghraifft y byddwn yn ei ddechrau i gyfnod ar gyfer y ffiyth yn fwyaf, mae'n gwybod pobl yn ei ddweud yn y clywedd yn y calendar ar 2016. Mae'n mynd i gyfarwydd ar y ffiyth yn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud, i gydag ei gydag ei ddweud. Y Cyfrwyr Llywodraeth Cymru agriodd yn ffiyth yn ei ddweud i gyfnod ar gyfer y ffiyth angen save health and social isolation because we'd already heard about the isolation experience by younger and older people in Scotland. We had an idea of who might be at risk of social isolation but we hadn't expected to hear about the extent of the problem and the terrible health impacts. Our inquiry led us into communities where people were working hard to combat isolation in both urban and rural settings. We visited Easterhouse and Islay, and I'd like to thank those communities for their valuable input to the inquiry. What we realised as a committee was that, for all the people that were in touch with projects and services, there were many who were not being reached. For those people, loneliness was a long-term issue that had no end in sight. They also had to contend with the stigma of loneliness. They were ashamed to admit their situation and had lost the confidence to do anything about it. Many reported to health services, GPs and accident and emergency departments, when professionals knew that the underlying problem was loneliness. There were so many important things that we discovered about people's experiences, but what I'd really like to say before I move on to the detail of what anyone should remember about this topic is the terrible effects of extended loneliness. We have to stand together and say that it's not okay for anyone to suffer this kind of isolation no matter what their age, and we must acknowledge the impact it has on our communities and on our health and social services. Jane Kellock of Westlawline Council explained how important it is to think about how services are provided. She said, when systems breakdown is such a way that we disconnect from others or when life circumstances come along, we might lose people we are close to. For instance, we need to be able to respond to that in a human way rather than stigmatise people or further isolate them by treating them as if there was something wrong with them as individuals. All the agencies in the health and social care partnerships around the country need to be responsive to that and to consider the structures of how we deliver services, how we make contact with people and how we speak to them on an individual basis. That is all very important for keeping our communities connected. I cannot emphasise enough some of the health consequences of spending time alone without contact. We took very seriously aged Scotland's point that the need for contact is an innate human need in the same way that feeling hungry or thirsty or tired or in pain is and the health consequences for people are shocking. As Michelle MacRindale at the Food Train told us, research has found that just over 10 per cent of over 65s are often or always lonely, with that figure rising to 50 per cent for the over 80 age group. Research has also found that just over 10 per cent of over 65s are at risk of or are malnourished. John Mason. I'm grateful for Michelle MacRindale for giving way and she's mentioned stigma, but she's also mentioned just how widespread that is. I mean, would she agree with me that this is a very widespread problem? It's quite common right across Scotland and we need to take it very, very seriously. Margaret McCullough. Yes, I totally agree with the member. It is widespread all over Scotland and it covers all age barriers and all groups of people. But Ms MacRindale also went on to say that if Food Train doesn't think that it's a coincidence that the same number of older people are affected by malnutrition and loneliness and they're experienced that the two are interlinked, which also means that they can be successfully tackled together. We also heard from the Institute for Research and Innovation and Social Services that people who are lonely are more likely to have health issues such as high blood pressure, poor sleep and depression. For older people there are proven links between loneliness and poor health, including dementia rates. We also heard that, on average, socially isolated individuals were twice as likely to die prematurely. There were also poor choices such as inactivity, smoking, alcohol use and poor diet. The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland also told us that people who experience loneliness and are more likely to visit their GP have higher use of medication and a higher incidence of falls and to go early entry into residential or nursing care and use accident and emergency services. I've already mentioned the commitment to tackle loneliness that we uncovered. This is so important because rather than hearing that everyone ignored the issue or didn't believe that it was important, we heard about many initiatives. But we felt that even more could be done because of all the projects and services, because of all the projects and services told us that there were many people that they didn't manage to reach for a variety of reasons. Without a national prioritisation of the issue, we feel that there can't be the large-scale improvements that we need to see. We recommended a strategy because we recognised that the issue of isolation has to be integrated into planning and services for things to really change. We have noted the Scottish Government's response to our recommendations that a national strategy is developed. We recognise, as the cabinet secretary states in his response, that it is important to strengthen the connection and resilience of individuals and that this work rests on skills, trust and obligation of front-line workers and ordinary citizens. The Scottish Government considers that it is very hard to manage from centre because a strategy might not have the impact expected. As a committee, we are so committed to ensuring that there is a response to what we see as a worsening situation that has a huge impact on so many members of our society, that it is difficult to see how we can achieve better outcomes without the strategy. However, I take some reassurance from the Scottish Government's commitment to take more evidence of what works for addressing social isolation and loneliness and that it is looking to build this more expert— The member for taking intervention in regard to the strategy, would you agree with myself and other members of the committee that we should be monitoring whatever evidence is taken in regard to a future strategy? I totally agree with that. I also think that it would be important at later dates as well that the equal opportunities continually keep an eye on the situation. However, mapping is also important as the work being done to look at prevention and the links between statutory and third sector services under the work being done to support community planning partnerships. We know how important prevention work is. What we have been trying to promote in our report could in fact all be seen as prevention work. That is why we see that as so important. The Equal Opportunities Committee should have a role in engaging with the Scottish Government in how those developments will help to keep the issue of social isolation and loneliness at the forefront of services and how people within those services respond to the needs of lonely people. The Scottish Government has said that it does not want to bolt anything on to existing policies. It will be the work of this Parliament and any future equal opportunities committee to make sure that work has been taken forward and to find out what has been achieved at a strategic level. We can't stand still on this. Response to our report and the level of engagement with the committee on this issue makes it so important for us to listen. The committee thought a national publicity campaign was important because of the stigma that is associated with loneliness and to show what communities can do. We heard from witnesses that people were so ashamed of their lives that they had lost the confidence to seek help. This is something that services have encountered. We also wanted Scotland to have a national campaign so that we could tackle existing perceptions. As a society, we are prepared to accept that so many people are alone and not able to participate in society. Do we think that it is acceptable for people to be so lonely that their mental and physical health is so badly affected and so many people are not reached even by established services? We need a lack of acceptance about social isolation as zero tolerance, if you like, so that we can change our thinking and tackle the problem. Best practice has shown us that lives can be changed and sometimes with very small but intelligent interventions. The Scottish Government has told us that it will work with stakeholders to consider what innovative approaches it can use to raise awareness of issues around loneliness and the role that communities can play in addressing it. As a committee, we can only encourage that work and we hope that the Scottish Government will keep us informed of progress. I would now like to turn our attention to the situation faced by many young people. The committee thought that it was very important that we should not just focus on the situation of isolation and loneliness for older people. We have already heard about extreme isolation during youth homelessness work and some of the informal sessions that we use to set up this inquiry left me with stark evidence about what early isolation can do to a young person. For young people, there were three very important areas of evidence. Firstly, bullying because of a person's identity can cause social isolation that endures well into a person's life. It can de-skill them and isolate them from so many positive experiences. Discrimination starts a chain of events in a person's life that affects confidence and reduces the chance of positive outcomes in later life. Secondly, unacceptable behaviour around people's identity should be explained to the perpetrators. That might sound obvious, but we heard from front-line youth workers that smart work needs to be done to explain to those who are asked and exclude the terrible impact of their behaviour. Thirdly, that leads us on from this point, peer-to-peer support and initiatives are key. That came through evidence, particularly from Enable and Roshney, but it was clear that if steps to tackle social isolation are taken seriously, they should begin with young people working with other young people to skill them up and support the connections that so many of us have taken for granted. I am glad to see in the Scottish Government's response that it supports anti-bullying work and it agrees that so much stems from this. Enable highlighted with us the importance of staff confidence in schools. Things need to be tackled head-on. Equality training is very important for staff and it is also important for children to know their own rights. We look forward to the revised anti-bullying guidance that is due to be published this year. One of the most important areas of work that we explored was the idea of linked worker system, where someone was able to signpost people to services that might support them. That link between services and projects within communities, we believe, is essential to moving things forward and building connections with people. Advances have been made in social prescribing where a GP can refer patients to local services as an alternative to treatment or statutory support. We were greatly encouraged by the work of the deep end linked worker project, which allows a linked worker, often from a community development background, to be based in a GP practice. We were very glad to hear that this programme has been evaluated by the University of Glasgow and we look forward to the Scottish Government sharing the final report. In conclusion, there are many individuals who have clearly made their mark in the committee's inquiry, and I want to quote from two of them directly, contact the elderly, discuss their monthly Sunday tea parties with us and told us that this event was something that sometimes the only entry in a person's calendar. One of their clients told them, I'm really looking forward to going to the tea next Sunday, I haven't been out for seven weeks. Who cares Scotland told us about a young person who used their service? He says, I have seen other people who have left the care system end up in tenancies where they've ended up being all alone. The loneliness has meant they haven't been able to keep up a job or have become homeless after losing touch with those they used to be close to. When they started preparing me for leaving care, I was really worried about ending up with no one. I have seen how devastating this has been for people that I know. Presiding Officer, we believe that this inquiry has been the first of its kind by any Parliament anywhere in the world. Many of us have been moved by the evidence that we have heard and persuaded of the need to address the social consequences and health implications of loneliness and isolation. I would personally stress that this isn't a lightweight report to be politely noted and then put on the shelf. It is a compelling case for change, and it must be heard. Thank you. I now call on Markleby Agie Minister, ten minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you also to Margaret McCulloch and all the members of the Equal Opportunities Committee for their inquiry into age and social isolation. It is a great opportunity to respond to it, but it has also been a very positive exercise. It is a very welcome contribution and timely, at least because of the festive season that was just highlighted in the opening remarks. The report has raised important issues about how widespread social isolation has become across all levels and ages of society, how it can affect and damage a person's sense of belonging, their empowerment and their contribution to society. Alienation is a word that is often used in the context of Jimmy Reid's contribution to Harry Burns and his sense about work, but it also applies to society with the same risks. To their credit, the committee has been praised on this with what Age Scotland has called the first parliamentary inquiry to be carried out specifically on isolation and loneliness anywhere in the world. I would just join that praise. Alongside the constructive recommendations and evidence in the Equal Opportunities Committee's report, there is a strong moral case for tackling this issue. We are social creatures and a lack of social contact hits people across the board, poor health, shorter lifespan and makes it harder to follow through on good lifestyle choices that could have beneficial impacts. Now, there aren't any quick fixes, let's agree on that. Everyone in Scotland has to be committed to addressing this issue with tangible, measurable actions against it. To begin, we must consider the differing needs of age groups in society. For example, there are the implications and complex needs of our ageing population. As that is only projected to continue, 20 per cent of children born today, 20 per cent will live to be 100 years old, the statisticians tell us. Our young population, by contrast, has a whole range of ways of communicating, interacting socially that previous generations didn't. A strong emphasis on technology and virtual contact, but that can have negative and positive impacts on social isolation. Changing working patterns, family patterns, social patterns will also cause our forms of interaction to change as indeed they always have over time. What we must do is adapt. We are together, though, and that is good news on the need to bring about greater community. It is a very helpful place to start. From the Parliament and its MSPs to all the passion shown by the people that contributed to the committee's report, to the evidence, to the public services, the communities and the goodwill of extraordinary people who are trying to make a difference. There is already that collective sense of willingness, commitment and social obligation to tackle that issue. Leaders, organisations, communities and individuals want to work together to capitalise on what we are already doing that is good, but also to learn from that and to share it more widely. I want to begin by outlining our strategic approach to the committee's recommendations. We will endeavour to build this strand of work into all of our on-going, broader programmes and the frameworks already in place. That means the purpose, the objectives, national outcomes, overarching approach to public service reform, because we recognise the issues that have been raised here. That will also include the important roles of community planning partnerships and the health and social care partnerships that Margaret McCulloch highlighted. That is where you can really create an integrated approach on specific issues of age and social isolation, as with all the other things that these partnerships are set up to tackle. We exist to tackle the problems that no one service can tackle on their own, and they have developed considerably in their efficacy over the years that they have been in place. We recognise, under the Christie principles, the need to alter the balance of public services away from crisis interventions and into more preventative approaches. That is an article of faith around this Parliament now, and I am glad again for that agreement. Tackling isolation before it leads to further harm is just a perfect example of one of those forms of preventative action. We have around Scotland an ever-clearer view of what works in public service design and delivery and the challenges ahead. Within all of our work, we will drive things forward through the Scottish approach, working in partnership rather than experts detached from lived experience, dictating from on high. That approach itself sees the value in the relationships and the networks and the input of people. Those are the people that make up the communities. Health and fulfilment lie in attachment to others, to society, to having a life with purpose, but that attachment also informs what we do and should inform good policy making. The findings of the Equal Opportunities Committee's report will be included in our fairer Scotland discussions and subsequent social justice action plan. People with direct lived experience of various forms of exclusion are helping this Government to shape the way we deal with social justice. That will be true for this literal form of exclusion, just as it is for financial exclusion or any other. The people who have lived the challenges that we want to solve are the ones who are willing to tell us the answers. Going through some of the main recommendations, there are several that jump out. One key one clearly is the national social isolation strategy integrated within all policy. The changes needed for mainstream services to respond to isolation in human way have to be embedded in the approach and planning into a wide range of services. We completely agree, and that includes health, education, housing, transport and so on. We want our social justice action plan to have that same broad reach. I believe that our forthcoming action plan in that area can fulfil that role by making social connectedness an important part of it. Connected to two further recommendations on the need for more evidence, we have committed to commissioning research and publishing findings in summer 2016 on how widespread isolation and loneliness is and to identify those who are most at risk. That will also include analysis on association between social connectedness and a wide range of important physical and mental health measures which will provide further rigorous evidence on which to base further action, not just to recognise what the problem is, because I think that we all do recognise that, but to try and get insights into how you can start to tackle at what works. NHS Scotland already published a review in 2015 on social prescribing in the context of mental health problems that looks at the benefits of linking systems much more widely. To move on to the publicity campaign to raise awareness, we certainly intend to work with our stakeholders and partners to consider what approaches we can use to raise awareness across communities and to tackle the stigma. A documentary to be shown on BBC One on Thursday night, however, called on this, sets out to present the issue and will do so to a wide audience. I would love to claim credit for this timely presentation on the television, but the Government just again shows that it does not have the arm to reach into telling the BBC what to do. Indeed, and long may that remain so. On the ground, there has been a real surge of willingness in this area from third sector stakeholders to share good practice and a real momentum highlighted by the festive season in particular that no one should be isolated socially. We are also asked to share what has been learned from the deep end evaluation and include link worker systems in a national strategy. The programme is being evaluated by the University of Glasgow and we will be sharing the final report at the end of 2016. Yes, we will consider very seriously the evaluation and that is the sensible approach to take, to look at the evidence and to refine practice on that basis. There is a lot more to report in terms of what we are already doing and what we have committed to do in terms of volunteering, transport, housing, health, the health and social care partnerships, digital inclusion, you name it. This is a really big issue. It is very hard to sum up in 10 minutes but it is a very worthy topic in terms of the governance debate too so that we can explore all of these issues. The time is right to take action here. It is a timely inquiry. It has given us a substantial challenge and we want to continue our partnership approach to try to share some of the great work that is out there and get more of it happening. This is a chance to make sure Scotland is different, to tap into the groundswell that is out there and through real concerted actions to ensure that vulnerable, socially isolated people, regardless of age, will have the support they need to be connected to the services and communities around them. I am a minister for two things. One of them is community empowerment and I want to ensure that everybody can be part of a community so that those communities can be empowered. Many thanks. Quite tight for time today. Now call on Jenny Marra up to six minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the committee very much for its inquiry and all the work by the clerks and the members that has been done. I would like to start just by picking up on something that the minister threaded through his speech there about Scotland being different on this. I may be misinterpreted what he said but I am sure that social isolation in our communities and certainly my community is not something that is specific to Scotland. We may want to take a competitive approach here with the powers in this Parliament but I am sure that it is not something that is particularly experienced in this country alone. I think that it is indeed a sign of our society and I was really taken over the Christmas period and the lead-up to Christmas first of all by the television advert by the John Lewis group who had a really quite pulling-at-your-heart string television argument that actually got to the point of social isolation and loneliness but it was not really that advert that really struck me it was the campaign by Age UK on the back of that advert that then appeared on my Facebook news feed and I noticed that friends of mine and people across Dundee in my community were signing up to actually go and visit elderly people in their houses and then I began to wonder about the societal bonds that have made it that it takes a campaign like that to actually instigate that kind of action for people and it took me back in my head to years and years ago when I was a young child and my father taking me to visit some of our elderly parishioners in our church and how delighted I think they were to get a visit from a young family of those kinds of bonds and it takes me to thinking about the bonds of inclusion that are very much alive in our churches, they are alive in our trade union movement in our political parties these organisations that really bind people of all ages together and form networks and events for people to attend I was really glad to see that campaign was so successful to use social media to foster those bonds again and to get people going back into that routine of visiting and going into people's homes I think every member across this chamber will recognise as I do one of the great privileges of campaigning and I'm very much looking forward to the short campaign in April this year but one of the great privileges of that is when you go to someone's door especially an elderly person to get that 5 or 10-minute visit it is a great privilege to be able to do that and I think that that gets to the nub of this debate today it's about how do we really have the infrastructure in our communities that people feel free and willing to actually do that because I think that the Facebook campaign showed that a lot of people want to do that and it's providing minister if you don't mind me saying what you meant about taking that innovative Scottish approach because one of the things that jumped out at me from the Age Scotland briefing this afternoon was the sentence that says though the state is not primarily responsible for the quality of people's personal relationships it does often have to deal with the consequences where these breakdowns are absent and that is where the budget implications come and that is where the human cost comes but the state, as I've already described in my opening remarks is not primarily responsible and I don't think people want the state to be primarily responsible for that but we do need the state I think supporting the infrastructure that allows people to have stronger bonds in their communities Presiding Officer one of the figures that really jumped out to me in preparing for this debate was the ONS'situdinal study of ageing and it showed that those aged 52 and older, 34% said that they felt some degree of loneliness and of those aged 80 and older this figure rises to 46% that's nearly half the population of our citizens over 80 saying that they are often lonely or felt always lonely or cut off from society I'm glad that the minister Yes, sure I want to thank the member for giving way I wonder if she would recognise the issue that we've addressed in the committee or felt challenged that there is a difference between isolation and loneliness whereas isolation can be measured to some extent, loneliness is much more difficult to pin down I would absolutely agree with John Mason he sat on the committee and heard the evidence and I think that's what I was just saying to the minister there that supporting these networks and mechanisms to make sure that people aren't socially isolated is something that the government does have a role in I was just coming on to some of the committee's recommendations I think some of them are very good In your last 30 seconds I'm glad that Alex Neil has responded to them and put the focus on services and budgets I think we do need some real commitment from the government and I think that the minister was going in that direction to provide this infrastructure to really support it I'm very glad that we're having this debate The last thing I would say on it is that health and social care integration provides an ideal opportunity and the multidisciplinary teams that are at work in our GP practices are really following up patients once they're over a certain age and trying to prevent a lot of ill health and a role in social isolation as well I look forward to the rest of the debate Thanks so much now call an animal goal the up to six minutes please Debra Zwick all the razzimataz of Christmas has come and gone and some memories like some presents will fade the jumper that gets lost at the back of the wardrobe but other images stick with us and I, like Jenny Marra found very poignant that television advert was shown during the festive period a young child season sends him a telescope so that he can share in the young child's Christmas but ultimately that image is of someone who is both isolated and alone and social isolation is defined by Professor Mima Catan as an I quote an objective measurable state of having minimal contact with other people such as family, friends or the wider community is a building definition it is one that should trouble everyone in this chamber and it is our duty in this Parliament to always have an eye on how we can go one step further can we go further than that child in the TV advert well already I think the Equal Opportunities Committee of this Parliament has gone one step further and it is an impressive step and I want to thank my committee colleagues our excellent clerks and all the other participants for contributing to such a useful and powerful report very briefly I hope the member will also recognise that being alone is not necessarily to be lonely for a small minority of people it is a choice that they prefer to make a well made point and one acknowledged in the report but going back to what I think is the significance of this report considered that this committee is the first ever to set up an enquiry into social isolation I think that demonstrates in this Parliament we are taking this issue seriously and together we are attempting to understand it better and sadly social isolation exists all year round it can affect everyone regardless of age, background, mental or physical health it can have a corrosively negative impact in lives particularly amongst older persons and looked after children and those groups that face prejudice because of ethnicity or disability social isolation is this century's new malaise it's a contemporary disease it is usually invisible depressingly widespread and progressively debilitating it is as prejudicial to health and wellbeing as many diagnosable clinical conditions it does not affect just one group it impacts on the lives of many and for those whose lives are so blighted there are multiple consequences in our communities there are now patterns of lifestyle unknown even 20 years ago and individually and collectively these contribute to weaker social engagement and weaker social coherence Deputy Presiding Officer while that may explain why social isolation is a significant social issue it can never be an excuse for social isolation there are positive measures we can develop to help those at risk and we owe it to them to do that urgently and this Parliament must be proactive in 2014, 16% of the Scottish population was aged 65 and over and when we factor in that already 80,000 people aged 65 plus in Scotland describe themselves as often or always feeling lonely then I think we can predict that social isolation will increase in the future unless we act now there are and will be pressure on our NHS and our social services as a consequence of this condition now in this Parliament we've all agreed to the health and social care integration plan and we agree that general practice needs to be reformed to accommodate the changing demographic and these are true vital developments in seeking to identify and combat social isolation but Audit Scotland has repeatedly raised concerns about the progress of the development of an installation of integrating health and social care and I don't think we can ignore that flashing red light having said that I think it would be wrong to suggest that integrated health care and social care is a complete answer the committee found that a holistic approach is needed to tackle social isolation because health housing education transport they can all play a vital part in providing solutions and that's why the committee called for a national approach now the Scottish Government has rejected that and perhaps surprisingly to the government I have some sympathy because a one size fits all approach does have its weaknesses but what I think the Scottish Government must explore is how we deploy a holistic approach maybe you don't want a national strategy or a national advertising campaign but I think we need a holistic approach to assist in finding solutions I think we need to work much more closely with the third sector to help to develop these crucial local services we need to look at transport issues we need to look at the impressive field trials that we were made aware of which could be introduced in general practice that not only identify those we may be socially isolated or at risk of becoming so but also inform and educate these people about the services available to them but of course that assumes A they can get to the GP health centre and the services once they are aware of what they are in conclusion I think a holistic approach is required to tackle social isolation and I'm fairly flexible as to how the Scottish Government wants to interpret that but increasing our understanding of what is effective in this crucial area is of the utmost importance we've taken the first step in holding an inquiry and having a debate I think that will be a positive and fruitful contribution to how we approach this and how we anticipate what we may bring forward in the future to support those who find themselves socially isolated further steps are urgently needed to alleviate this devastating challenge but I detect in the chamber there will be a willing political consensus to support such initiatives many thanks when I move to the open debate the six minute speeches and I call on Christian Allard to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm up to six minutes please Professor I'm delighted to have contributed to the equal opportunity committees inquiry into age and social isolation as a full member of the committee I would also like to add my thanks to all who participated in this inquiry, the clerks, parliament staff and part of the parliament staff who participated in the launch of this inquiry publication and that was a fantastic event and the media were there I thought it was very very important and I'd like to thank of course the organization who made all the role and written submissions to the committee I thank the minister for acknowledging the kind words of Age Cotland and Particle Desirais Young when he said that we have not been able to find another inquiry at any of a parliamentary institution anywhere in the world that are specifically considered a solution and loneliness I think it was right to repeat it just to make sure that we are proud of this and I will go and touch on it he said she was glad that that our the strength of our parliamentary system deliver this kind of proactive inquiry that will in turn strengthen our society and our communities urban and rural communities and that is important sometimes the committees at parliament can be put into questions but I think it's quite important to see that we can do a lot of work but that kind of inquiry to see what kind of society we are and what kind of society we want to be it's important as well so we look at what impacts social isolation and loneliness has on people's lives in modern Scotland today and we acknowledge first how much organizations groups and individuals are doing already to tackle social isolation and loneliness across both our rural and urban communities we met many young and old people in our travels and spent a few days in Islay and I truly fell in love with the place and the welcome we received was tremendous and when the weather stopped as going to Jura so people of Jura came to us reading the report presenting officer you can see how much of the challenge it is to live remotely for young and old people but you can also find how some of our more remote communities deal with that challenge John Richardson told us how the Jura care centre group started in 1996 and what impact it had had and continues to have on helping older people to join in socially to attend clinics and regular intervals to go to the GP surgeries and to mix with people of different energies and I think that's important as well it's now the focus point for the community and if you want to know how to do it I think I will engage you to do a trip to Jura but there's another trip you could do you could do a trip to my hometown of Westill a few miles away from Aberdeen and how there were an idea here who came from Australia that came from Australia and Westill was the first committee in Scotland to follow the Australian model of a man shed and there is no gender balance when it comes to socialisation or illness for older people but women have generally a better cycle of friends outside work and men are better at socialising so best practice is out there and it's replicated right across the UK the example of Westill is now followed everywhere and it's a great concept but maybe more importantly the proof that the people who are suffering from loneliness and isolation are the best people to create and develop solutions to tackle the problem for themselves because from the start the Westill Man Shed was created and delivered by the people who are using it they need support of course and we got it from the community from Aberdeen Shire Council and other organisations that offered it so let me be clear president of this this is about empowering people and this is really the answer to tackle this problem and Westill Man Shed was one of the first community asset transfer in Aberdeen Shire there was the first one to use it to use one of this used building to make it their new home and the ministry is right as well the new community empowerment act is bringing together public authorities and community bodies to work on action to improve local outcomes and reduce inequalities of the outcomes and that's very important to see how it can work in urban settings as well as rural settings so there are very good practices and good ideas out there I'm pleased to say that Aberdeen Shire is leading the way somehow as the chief officer of Aberdeen Shire signposting project an interesting model that provides a link to services and receives a range of referrals including from GPs and we heard it in this debate already about the importance of social prescribing and how important are we with GPs and our referring patients to local services as an alternative to treatment or statutory support used to treat anilnes when they went on treating patients and now they are very much treating people it's very much people centered and that's a progression which will help tremendously changing the attitude around social isolation and loneliness let me conclude by that in my mind our role as politicians as a parliament is tackling social isolation and loneliness must be about how to design the community the society that we live today and I truly believe that the last 50 years we have stopped planning for our villages and towns to be the best place to live instead we have promoters and developers we led them shaping our homes, our streets and our communities so I would like to say to the minister that it's so important that we tackle that particular idea and planning and how planning is the best place to live I'm very proud that this parliament is the only parliament so far in the world that has specifically considered asolation and loneliness I think we all realise there is a very big overlap between the two and the numbers of those who are actually seeking social isolation which was referred to by Stuart Stevenson is surely a very small majority, this is a problem and it is a very big problem if we look at the numbers I was struck by a headline in the Edinburgh evening that more than half of Edinburgh people never had a feeling of loneliness and they were saying that this was better than anywhere else in Scotland but what struck me was that still an awful lot of people in Edinburgh who do have feelings of loneliness and I think we should accept the figures that Margaret McCulloch gave in terms of 10 per cent of over 65 often are always feeling lonely 50 per cent of over 80s and we'll have more and more of them fortunately in the future 50 per cent feeling often are always lonely so it's a big problem we know the emotional and psychological dimension but what struck me recently is its impact on physical health and there have been lots of evidence that impact just yesterday I retweeted a consultant cardiologist who was highlighting this issue in terms of stroke and heart disease but also referring to other illnesses so that's something we have to take account of but just sticking with older people to start with clearly it can be triggered by loss of a loved one it can even be triggered by retirement and the loss of social networks through that so it is a problem that we have to address and what strikes me is important is that we have lots of community initiatives to deal with this problem and I have two very good examples in my own constituents that I want to mention the Pilton equality project which focuses very much on older people for example a great deal of accessible transport to take older people to activities it has a befriending service five day care cubs in North Edinburgh a weekend resource group for people over 50 who are feeling isolated and a visiting and information service to take the community to older people who are otherwise unable to access community facilities now I emphasise that because of the work they do but also because of the fact that they're facing a 15 per cent cut into next year we don't want to turn into a debate about local government finance but we can't ignore that reality because many of the excellent voluntary sector initiatives that address this issue are funded by local government another one in my constituency is the Leith community connector project based at the Polmeney development project in Leith the community connector is a supervised volunteer who will work with appropriately much socially isolated older people for a time limited period to facilitate social connections and that's a key idea we also heard at the cross party group on health inequalities recently about the community connections project in Glasgow funded by the under the new integration arrangements connecting vulnerable older people to services and of course we've heard about the GP deep end GPs in Glasgow who have linked workers who are linking people to services and initiatives in the community so this is a crucial area of activity for the new health and social care partnerships and as the report from the Equal Opportunities Committee emphasised housing and appropriate housing is an important part of that and that clearly should be part of the work of the integration authorities as well but it's not just older people so let's halfway through the speech go on to children for example loneliness is a major issue for children Childline told the inquiry and one of the saddest comments that I came across when reading some of the material from the report and the evidence was when Margaret McCulloch referred to some children with American accents because they were relating to their computer rather than to anybody in their family environment that was a very sad situation. Prevalent studies tell us that loneliness speaks to adolescents, young people and care are particularly affected so there is a crucial role here for schools clearly obviously addressing issues such as bullying but it's wider and they really have to be sensitive to young people who are socially isolated suffering because of that mentally and physically but I'm sure also having an effect on their education now social media of course is relevant to this and I certainly appreciate the positive elements of that but we must also as the committee reminded us look at the negative aspects as well and in relation to young people I think we're all aware of that including being the extreme example of that but social media we have to look at very carefully from this perspective now of course it's all age groups not just young and old vulnerable first time mothers can experience feelings of loneliness which is why projects like home start are so important migrants can experience in particular perhaps and projects such as living in harmony again in the Pilton area of my constituency are very important in addressing that so this is an issue that can affect everybody potentially and that's why building up social networks and social capital in the community is absolutely crucial the voluntary sector is at the heart of this volunteering is critical to this because volunteers can obviously connect with people who are isolated and they have a very important role to play and again I have to refer to funding because a lot of that work depends on funding particularly local government funding so funding makes very important recommendations on a national strategy which I'm sure everybody supports integrated within all the policy considerations and also of course important recommendations about research and the publicity campaign and I welcome what the minister said about those we look forward to what the research tells us identifying those most at risk and also research on the relationship between social connectedness and the health issues that have been referred to and finally the publicity campaign on the model partly of CB in terms of addressing stigma but also I hope highlighting the contribution that people can make to addressing this problem many thanks I now call John Mason to be followed by Jim Hume thank you and one of the first challenges we had as a committee was to come up with a definition of isolation and you can see in paragraphs 5 and 6 on page 1 some of our thinking round that our caten considers that while it might be possible to measure social isolation the feelings of loneliness are personal and individual and therefore more challenging to measure objectively but we did find that some witnesses used the terms interchangeably and for the purposes of the report we decided really to look at both so one person I think Stuart Stevenson was suggesting one person can enjoy being alone can enjoy their solitude while in very similar circumstances another person can feel very lonely a minor example of that was that when the committee went to Islay most of the committee in the clerks stayed in hotels but I stayed on my own in a tent and that was because I enjoyed that and I do enjoy that and I love being on my own and we did all get together at certain times now in recent years there's obviously been a strong commitment to keeping older people at home and providing them with the care that they need there and most of us in Parliament I think across the party support that concept however I think it's one of the lessons from this study and report that we've been doing that it is not one size fits all and home is not always the best place for someone to be if I just give an example like my mother she is 88 and getting quite frail however she can still get out under her own steam to the hairdresser and some of the shops and friends and family visit regularly so I would agree that in her situation the best place for her to be is still at home however there can come a stage when someone cannot get out at all perhaps there are very few visitors because that person's friends are elderly or no longer with them and family may live at quite a distance and in that case it may well be best for an older person to be in a care home or similar setting where there is more company at hand and care provision is also nearer by I should say I used to work for a group of care homes and it was not unusual to see an older person's health improve when they came into the home and got more company and as a by-product it often took pressure off family members yes absolutely I hear what you say about appropriateness of people staying at home or going into care but do you not agree there's another group who could be sustained in their homes with suitable care and support doesn't have to be a big huge massive care package but there is an issue now being so threadbare that we are driving people towards a care home option and or the other alternative which is entirely about being lonely and uncared for John Mason I think that the member raises a valid point because I think that there may be some people in a care home who should be at home I think that there's also some at home who should be in a care home and I was glad I was going to say I was glad to see in the Government's response under recommendation 2 it talks about supporting people to live well and that's quite a good phrase and way of putting it because I think that the points that have been made I think that Jenny Marra made it that we are very dependent on volunteers family third sector here that is just not possible for the public sector us to provide befriending and care for every single person in this country and the other side perhaps from what we've just heard was when I visited a care home in my constituency a little while ago and I said that effectively they were being used as a hospice by Glasgow City Council with admission only taking place when the older person was really towards the end of their life and was in too poor a state to really benefit from the care home setting now clearly finances are part of this whole equation because being in a care home is not cheap and I will strongly contend that we must live within our means however I think that we are seeing cases where some older residents are being kept financial reasons but as a result they are isolated and they are not in the most appropriate setting one of the visits that the committee carried out was to Easter house in the east end of Glasgow and we also visited the convener and myself with the food train project in both Shettleston and Deniston we met an elderly couple which I think was three stores up the convener reminded me of three stories up and they were struggling a bit with the stairs and walking but they did not want to move so that kind of support like from food train is ideal and essential for keeping people in their homes now as the name suggests food train is primarily about buying and delivering shopping for people but that's absolutely great but I think it struck both the convener and myself that they were able to spend time with people as they delivered the shopping and that was very much appreciated by people and I think we do have to accept that care workers are very much under pressure with multiple visits and maybe cannot spend a lot of time befriending and chatting but things like food train and other befriending services can give more of that time that people need clearly housing has to be part of the answer to all this and I think a range of housing needs to be available I still have too many people in my constituency coming to me for whom everybody agrees that there is no source who cannot manage the stairs yet there are very few ground floor flats sheltered or very sheltered housing just not available the finance committee looked to that a little while ago I think we're going to run out of time so we'll cut out one or two bits but I think we need to support all types of housing and we need to think about are we investing more just in housing generally or should more of the investment be specialised into things like sheltered I think we all learn from this study in one sense we all knew isolation and loneliness existed but I think carrying out this study and reporting as we are today has underlined for me at least that this is not just a minor issue on the side but is a real and serious issue which must remain firmly on our agenda thank you many thanks and I call on Jim Hume to be followed by Roger Campbell thanks Deputy Presiding Officer and I also thank the committee for the hard work and development of the report that we're discussing today I think it's motivating on one hand that the Scottish Parliament is one of the first parliaments in the world to be discussing old age and social isolation but of course it's still concerning that this is allowed to take such a grip on our society but nonetheless by taking this first step into public discussion I hope that we can raise awareness on isolation and loneliness and explore how to reshape our current policies to tackle those issues the main themes emerging from the report is that isolation is not unique or exclusive to one group of people young people, old people, LGBT youth ethnic minorities, rural and urban can experience it the report makes specific reference to the difference between social isolation and loneliness while none is more important than another and social isolation of course could be measured loneliness can be experienced in a very personal way and can of course be more difficult to address this is why community care as will be integrated in just a few months as well as social groups and other channels of socialisation have a crucial role to play in reaching out to people who are at risk of being lonely and socially isolated the report does note that social prescribing can be an invaluable source of ideas that can be taken forward some are already in place and it would be wise and in fact I think recommended that we take the lessons from these projects and develop them further I note that the committee heard the repeated mentions on the importance of GPs and Food Train makes a point that hits the nail on the head in relation to GPs and the importance they play in people's life and I'll quote in many cases all the people won't be in contact with any other service but the one service they will usually have interaction with the GPs and Cod and for older people receiving home care especially in remote and rural areas the RNC notes that physical and virtual connectivity greater support for the role of advanced nurse practitioners and support for independent living can contribute to more information being shared and a better connection to the community providing adequate information is invaluable for those who have limited exposure to services that provide it and the report recommends a national campaign to raise awareness of those who are in need of information on social isolation and loneliness I think is very welcome but before the Scottish Government develops such a campaign I think we need to have more information on the true scale of social isolation in Scotland the Scottish Government is urged to commission research as the report notes as the full extent and prevalence for younger and older people is still unknown these are questions I think we need to answer before engaging in an attitude change in campaign Deputy Presiding Officer social participation and inclusion is one of the areas that affect mental health and promotes good mental health with demand for mental health services growing and supply simply not enough to address everyone's need I think we need to be bolder in our efforts to provide alternative options than medication to people The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations was clear they are concerned and I quote we are heading in the wrong direction the sums of money that are being spent on prescriptions vastly outweighs the sums of money that are available to support the kind of initiatives that would make a difference to people's lives I think it is something that the third sector also brings up how to achieve a more joined up approach in working together to inform GPs and services of their services and their areas of work and that is a matter of concern The approach of social prescribing I think can help people get in touch with other people and become a more active member of society and of course in turn reduced medication can help people gain more self confidence and save money for the NHS In fact the Royal College of GPs is also calling for more information and for social prescribing to be developed further in their practices based on the links practitioner's experience but as I mentioned the problem of social isolation is not exclusive to old age the committee makes it clear that young people particularly from ethnic minorities or LGBT groups can face bullying harming their self confidence and pushing them into isolation the serious long term effects that early discrimination can have on young people is particularly concerning each and every young person has the right to develop his or her own identities inclusion and understanding of differences must become the norm so I would welcome the inclusion of this aim to the campaign against isolation Deputy Presiding Officer by pointing to a very important recommendation by the committee one that Scottish Liberal Democrats have been voicing for some time reducing social isolation and loneliness is not a policy that can be seen in a silo just like good housing is conductive conducive to good health good health also requires that normal social activities are part of an individual's daily life so I think we must look at this as a problem potentially affecting people from many social ethnic and age groups and as a problem that has wide consequences I thank the committee again for their report many thanks and I now call Roger Campbell to be followed by Jean Baxter Thank you Presiding Officer as a non-member of the committee I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate looking at the evidence sessions two points struck me about the cabinet secretary's evidence in June last year firstly his comment that the answers often he said it's about interpersonal relationships and issues that are well outside the control and remit of the government while recognising of course that isolation and loneliness can lead to other problems not least with mental and physical health I entirely agree and secondly when he highlighted the fact that loneliness and isolation can affect anybody of any age and of any social or economic status in any circumstance again I agree clearly not just an affriction of the elderly as Susan Hunter of YouthLink Scotland said in evidence social isolation is an effect on young people's confidence their self-belief, their anxiety levels their ability to know that services are there for them and their ability to meet people for the first time so it's potentially universal but also complex a person's ability to cope with loneliness being a very personal reaction whose long term consequences can be considerable after Christmas and New Year is undoubtedly a good time to highlight this issue and as Marko Biagi, the minister has already referred to there is tomorrow night on BBC TV a programme precisely on the topic of loneliness will be interesting to see the reaction to that programme but of course as the committee's report makes clear the full extent of the prevalence of social isolation for younger and older people in Scotland is not known much reference is made to one set of age UK statistics particularly the reference to the fact that half of all people aged 75 and over live alone and at 17% are in contact with family friends and neighbours less than once a week but as many organisations have pointed out there really is a lack of comprehensive information about the prevalence of isolation and more particularly its health impacts although loneliness for example would seem likely to increase the risk of depression we really don't have much information so more research on the links between social isolation and health needs would be very much welcomed and in relation to just one area of policy housing the link to social isolation is clear sheltered housing and care homes do need a community room and facility and I was encouraged by the evidence given to the committee by the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care partnership that a major refurbishment programme for sheltered housing facilities will incorporate a community hub but as that same evidence session made clear it's not about day centres per se ideally it's not about providing focused activities and with physical mobility it means far more that the community and the wider sense must come to the individual and the need to be facilities available for that interaction to take place for those who are able to get out and about let's not forget the importance of transport particularly public transport in tackling isolation that's why the over 60s free bus pass is so important in assisting older citizens to feel less isolated and alternative models of housing such as that promoted by the Varverium Trust for co-housing one project is in my own constituency in conjunction with Kingdom housing is to be encouraged co-housing at its fundamental as a concept promoted in Denmark where each home is designed for the individual but exists within a community that contains communal facilities based on the preferences and needs of its members so communal facilities are often in the form of a common house that contains areas for leisure socialising office space gardens and workshops and ideally of course we should strive to avoid creating ghettos of old people and let's also recognise for the young single mum for example although she may be glad of housing sometimes that house is a long way from family and friends and too often young mums can feel isolated because of the sheer pressure of time and lack of money speakers already suggested the integration of health and social care provides an opportunity to build tackling social isolation into that change but it cannot all be about integrating budgets it ought also to be an opportunity to ensure that whilst for example prioritising care at home which may well have a profound economic impact that the need for social interaction is not forgotten in helping to build more fulfilled lives and it's clear also that carers may frequently become more isolated because of the very demands of caring itself and isolation that respite care will not necessarily solve and what of the young and minorities are different types I think the committee is right to see the link between the anti-bullying strategy and social isolation schools in particular have a key role to play and while rates of suicide are declining we have to recognise there is a group of young men in particular who's isolation in the widest sense but risk that perhaps brings home that social isolation comes in many forms such that a one size fits all strategy would have clear drawbacks and indeed any comprehensive strategy would have to be very nuanced indeed finally Presiding Officer whilst I was pleased to note that the committee received a lot of submissions on the benefits of social prescribing or signposting people to services that might benefit them all imminently sensible however I do agree with GPs the food train may be right to suggest that for a lot of people the one service they will have some interaction with is their GP but the demands on GPs are already substantial so at the very least it's absolutely vital that clear information about local support services is made available to GPs and that GPs are not required to go out and look for it Presiding Officer I welcome the committee's report and I welcome the debate this report has stimulated many thanks before I call the next speaker can I remind members who wish to contribute that they should press the request to speak buttons please Jane Baxter to be followed by Linda Fabiani thank you I was a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee when it undertook this inquiry and I thought at the time that the work we were doing could point the way to new models of local service delivery and new awareness of the true cost of society in health, social and economic terms, when people feel isolated and lonely this is an issue which takes no concern of age and is not unique to older persons it's prevalent throughout all ages of society with a particular focus on the young and the old misconceptions around social isolation are only part of the picture and we must continue to examine not only the reasons behind its causes but also practical solutions to tackling it where it occurs I'd like to say that I'm proud of the Scottish Parliament and the work that is undertaken to pay specific attention to age and social isolation and I welcome the comments by Derek Young of Age Scotland when he said we've not been able to find another inquiry any other Parliament anywhere in the world that is specifically considered isolation and loneliness while we live in a world that's increasingly interconnected there still exists isolation and loneliness and it's important that the work is undertaken to examine why this is the case and what we as the Parliament can do to address this issue I'd like to thank the numerous charities local authorities, health boards health and social care partnerships and individuals who've been working tirelessly on this campaign it's through their dedication and hard work that we're discussing this today in Parliament I welcome the recommendations of the committee report and hope that we can collectively agree to work together to ensure that tackling isolation and loneliness is given the attention and political will that it requires social isolation is unique to the individual experiencing it it's a complex issue with many subjective elements many people perceive social isolation as pertaining to life in remote communities and whilst that's sometimes a case there's also social isolation for many in some of the biggest cities or indeed in a house with members of their family I recall a young person giving evidence and saying that they've often felt isolated in their bedroom when everyone else was in the house but it was unique to them in their situation amazing work is being undertaken to ensure that people understand the issues across the country but we do also need a national strategy to integrate this issue within all policy considerations in order to both understand and tackle the concerns across the whole of Scotland and in order to achieve this we must work with local communities and existing local networks and build from there we need to understand the individual and often different concerns affecting communities and ensure that those concerns are taken into account at all stages of further policy development at this stage I think I have to make a note of the impact that the cuts to council budgets across the country will have on social isolation the small often community based support services that are often funded by councils should be a paramount concern many older people rely on these services and it's often the case that the return on the investment required to provide them is more than matched by the reduced impact on other services it's not always easy to conduct this kind of cross sector cost benefit analysis but government at all levels must get better at this if we are to echo the minister's comments in the spirit of the Christy report to deliver services which deliver the maximum outcomes many voluntary organisations are trying their best to continue through this difficult period and I was privileged to have some contact with one of them one that gave evidence at the committee last year when I opened an art exhibition published by the impact arts craft café the craft café is a creative workshop programme with support from an artist and residents and it supports residents of sheltered housing someone from my met when it opened their exhibition I met many of them and found out about the work that is undertaken by impact arts the craft café is a place where they can learn new skills, new social networks and reconnect with their communities and that's the kind of work that challenges the stigma of loneliness and highlights the importance of contact for everyone no matter their age I agree with the committee report recommendations that the issues of social isolation and loneliness should be built into the plans and strategies of health and social care partnerships across Scotland we must understand that health concerns change over time and increasingly isolation is becoming an established health concern for the people of Scotland we must tackle this as we would any other health or social concern that impacts daily on the lives of citizens understanding the root causes of social isolation and loneliness is a difficult process due to the subjectivity of the problem however there are some things that come up consistently when discussing the issue one of which is access to appropriate and affordable transport this comes up time and time again in both urban and rural settings and for people of all ages I used to work as a policy officer in the accessible transport team in Fife and I spent a lot of time talking to people who used public transport and people who didn't know how to improve our services too often older people would tell me that they did not have a transport problem it's okay hen, I never go out but when you asked them where they would go if they could, you soon got different answers all the places that people would good access to transport and good mobility take for granted shopping, social visiting, leisure, health work the lack of access to appropriate transport is one of the factors that contributes to social isolation and it's one which requires co-ordinated partnership effort and action by providers of transport services local government and the voluntary sector the need for such partnership working underpins any progress that we are going to make on addressing social isolation it's the connections between services that make the difference and I believe that this is most effectively managed and encouraged at a local level I look forward to seeing the committee's report having an influence on this on-going area of work thank you many thanks and I now call Linda Fabiani to be followed by Joanne Lamont thank you very much I found this a really really interesting report and I found it an interesting response from the Government as well and indeed listening to colleagues today I think shows just how wide ranging this report actually is I do think though that it's quite important that we bear in mind when we move forward in this as we all appear to wish to do is that there is clearly a difference between loneliness and social isolation and I worry that if we use the terms interchangeably we might take away from the importance of tackling social isolation and what we can actually do about it I do understand though the committee's decision to use the links between the two to inform the recommendations but I think we have to recognise that personal loneliness cannot always be addressed by strategies or by public service practices I do firmly believe though that there is a role for public services to play in helping alleviate some forms of loneliness but much more so with social isolation after all as pointed out by the cabinet secretary in his response letter to the committee report evidence shows that where people have strong support on social networks benefits are high on a range of socio-economic and health inequalities measure and he mentions that word that I feel so strongly about that we should always strive for with everyone and all the public services we do which is wellbeing I note the committee's recommendation for a national strategy I'm not convinced yet that this would be in fact the best way forward but I do remain to be convinced but after all other recommendations are for much further research to be carried out and I note that Alex Neil, the cabinet secretary, has committed to reviewing existing data with a report due by summer this year and particularly pleased to see that research on what we refer to as social prescribing and linking systems will form part of this report because I do think it's incredibly important that we have joined up approaches here and others have mentioned that I think the integration of health and social care is a start and we should recognise it's a bit more than home care and freeing up hospital beds it's about the promotion of wellbeing and the associated benefits to the individual and the community as a whole another national campaign recommended by the committee is on publicity to tackle stigma on loneliness, tied in with anti-bullying etc I can see that and I think we should link it with training on good practice in terms of joined up approaches and good practice in public services I think too often people can feel stigmatised by those agencies and organisations which are actually there to help I believe we are all guilty I certainly am of judgmentalism to some degree but I am afraid that too often those who are socially isolated already can be made to feel more so by attitudes encountered when they come up against what they perceive as authority there's an awful lot more that can be said about that but there's also more that can be said in the committee report and the interesting subject the availability of community transport and Jane Baxter just talked about that incredibly important to allow people to have links and I think it ties in too with the greatest scheme we have in East Kilbride which is shop mobility and again I know that Jane Baxter was very involved in shop mobility in her own area the ability for people to meet in their local town centre with new towns in particular like East Kilbride and be able to pass time with friends housing development, design taking note of the importance of landscaping, environment and the sense of place as well as models of occupancy and housing allocation policy I think is something else that we should be looking at as we move towards the future voluntary sector I'd like to finish talking a wee bit about volunteering in the voluntary sector because in terms of loneliness and social isolation the amount of work that volunteers in the voluntary sector in general do to counter that is fantastic they don't always get the credit for it I'd like to in my last moments mention Calder Glen High School in East Kilbride and what they do in terms of this very issue their befriending scheme and what I think is wonderful about it is that the whole of the six here tie in with the befriending scheme and what they do is meet up with elderly people in their own area who do feel lonely, who do feel isolated and they visit them in their own homes as well as invite them along to Caffe Claire to be able again to interact in that way and I think what's really important about that scheme is that it works in both sides it's not just about young people turning up to do their duty and tick off the volunteering box what I'm finding is that there's real friendships across generations being made through this scheme and I think what's important about that too is it's not just about the elderly person feeling that the young people are paying them a visit and they're having a visitor they feel useful too because they are imparting knowledge and they're imparting experience and the friendship is working and I think if people feel useful that goes a long way to the sense of wellbeing that can avoid social isolation and loneliness so I look forward to further discussions about this subject as we move on many thanks I now call on to be followed by Stuart Stevenson thank you very much Deputy Presiding Officer and I thank the committee for the report and particularly congratulate Margaret McCulloch on her outlining in her speech the detail with which the committee addressed these questions and also welcome that across the chamber clearly people are interested in addressing these questions but I would say to the minister that I do think that while his own contribution was very thoughtful I do think it's a mistake to exclude the possibility of a national strategy at this stage I think that Alec Neill described it as a bolt-on solution that's not how I perceive it how do we address the question of social isolation but also in this policy are we doing things that make that question worse and it's really mainstreaming thinking round the consequence of government decisions as well as active policy around this area and it's been clear already that I wasn't the only one that was touched by the John Lewis Christmas advert symbolising the sense of isolation and loneliness felt by some older people by placing an elderly man on the moon a world away from the happy celebrations of families on earth but the John Lewis message cannot just be for Christmas to be discarded along with the wacky and usually ill-advised jumpers the reality for many looking towards old age is a fear of two things in particular the first I think is the fear of dementia a fear of lost capacity and loss of self the second is a dread of loneliness outliving your contemporaries and with families far away left with little to do few to see and with rare opportunities to be involved in the events and occasions that enrich our lives healthcare improved detection of dementia effective care services and support for those looking after their loved ones must continue to improve shaped by the experience and understanding of those who know best the impact of dementia and its consequences but loneliness and isolation tackling these is important because they have such an impact on health and wellbeing but also surely because their cruelty ought to speak to a sense of compassion for those who suffer and we know that loneliness and isolation is no respecter of person or class although living in poverty does meet the challenge of isolation I believe more difficult still we will all know of elderly people who have retired have lost their routine and the camaraderie of their workplace and fall into a lonely life we will know of elderly people widowed left after many years of caring and because of their caring which has excluded them from maintaining friendships and connections very isolated too and I would commend the care centre in my own constituency south west care centre who not only support people in a caring role but keep the doors open and welcome them when they are bereaved as they cope with the loss where the caring before was so we all will know and Jenny Marra and indeed the government is right to say that this is not just about the role of the state in spending money but there are choices we can make and decisions to take which will make lives better and will address the blight on too many lives because of course the job of government and it's been acknowledged is not simply to ring its hands in this question if one to address isolation I would suggest that we do something basic start with a person and then follow with action but for government there is a simple question we don't expect you to do everything but in what you do are you making things better or worse how many elderly people in some of our poorest communities rely on GPs who are busier more under pressure and with access to fewer resources than their peers in better off areas as doctors in my own constituency have told me by what they need is time from their GP the funding settlement allows doctors to spend huge amounts on drug prescriptions while denying them the means to tackle the underlying problem which is often not a medical one at all it is ironic that an elderly person from a more affluent area suffering from loneliness and isolation is more likely to be able to be given time by their GP than someone coming from a poorer area that simply cannot be just this is not a theoretical argument about funding formula we must address the fundamental injustice in the division of spending for GPs because it not only fails to tackle health inequality but exacerbates it and again in transport too how many I I thank the member for taking intervention in that point would the member agree with me that more deep end practice link workers and social prescribing which is obviously recommendation from the committee would be one way of tackling what you see as people being from deprived areas being disproportionately treated I recognise the particular work of link workers but that is a fundamental question of why GP practices with more people, with more problems with more need for a GP are given less money than in GP practices in more well off areas no matter the size of the cake we need to look at how that money is currently being distributed because it does mean that in poorer communities people who need to look to somebody are less likely to get that than in a better off area and in transport too how many isolated older people have a bus pass but no bus to take them safely and easily to the shops in my own constituency for example many routes have changed involving two buses but in the past there would have been one faced with this some have chosen to go out less with increased isolation being the consequence one small step and it's been referred to already would be for community transport access to the bus pass scheme on a fair basis and for a direction of funding to those communities which would most benefit from effective bus services and of course in bus route planning understand the need for older people and particularly women to feel safe and that is more direct routes to key areas rather than routes that take the two or more buses and if we understand opportunities to meet with others to go to lunch clubs to be supported to go to the library and research can be the difference between thriving and simply surviving in our homes what then follows if we understand that connection how do we support volunteers who are often the bridge into an active life when voluntary sector organisations are facing cuts why disproportionately cut local government with the consequence that those support services which are not statutory but can be life enhancing disappear and the lifeline is withdrawn I would conclude by saying that if we all respond to the man in the moon because it hits a nerve we must all individually look at what we can do but those with a privilege and responsibility of power can do much more let the money follow need and if we have that conversation people on this side of the chamber will support the government otherwise I fear we continue to isolate politics from the real world in the bleak future for all in Scotland and particularly those who live with loneliness in isolation just now Thank you Stevenson to be followed by John Finnie Thank you very much Presiding Officer I think in her contribution Joanne Lamont said something very important indeed which I would want to anchor my remarks on and that is start with the individual The Government in its response to the committee's report says the report usefully acknowledges the responsibility of citizens public services in the Scottish Government in taking action forward and of course that is pretty much self-evident I'm going to say one of two things about perhaps the approach the committee has taken but before I do that let me say this being the very first parliamentary report on this kind of subject we have no point of comparison to make with other prejudice as a report clearly is an excellent piece of work it is thorough in its scope its analysis and in its drawing conclusions but for next time there are one or two things we might think of doing looking at those who provided evidence to the committee yes of course Mr Stevenson when does he think the next time will occur as Winston Churchill and others said predicting the future is particularly difficult so I will not try to do that that's a matter for committees but quite seriously I think what we have is in many ways a first-last report but let's look at who gave evidence of the written evidence that was given only 10% slightly under 10% came from individuals and of the oral evidence that was taken by the committee every single person who appeared in front of the committee somebody had a job title now in going out and engaging communities I absolutely recognise the committee what I might almost patronising but not intended to be taught to real people which is always a fundamental challenge for us in Parliament and in committees to actually get beyond the institutions and talk to the people who are involved and I want to just talk a little bit about that looking at the 13 recommendations that the committee has made the word people only occurs twice it occurs properly where it occurs I'll come back to you if I may because I want to just develop the point a little bit that the Scottish Government should identify the typical profile of people who are at risk and I think that's entirely right and the very last thing talks about technology and people now the reason I anchor it on people are the older participants in the debate I will be 70 in the later this year and I see a number of my friends perhaps from quite a long time ago who are now affected by the very issues of this report and how perhaps this report which is great it will equip the corporate Scotland the third sector, the Government the councils to respond to the problem even better but I'm not sure that it perhaps goes to the point of empowering individuals who have no status other than being for example the friend of someone whose mental capacity is now diminishing one of the things that is absolutely necessary when you're interacting with someone who is still able to communicate but is suffering from the early stages of dementia is how to interact how to give them something out of that experience if you're visiting them I have a small circle of friends who have some degree of mental incapacity whom I visit and one of the key things for example to do is always to talk about things that happened 30 and 40 years ago because generally that memory will endure in the way that short-term memory is almost the first part to decay so I think we need to be sure that in our responses we're equipping people I'm privileged because I come from a medical background my father and so on so I don't understand others and I think we should look at doing some of that thing now I did intervene on a previous speaker on the matter of isolation versus social isolation versus being alone and I think people find it more difficult to make friends as they get older it's easier to keep or refresh the friends that you have one of the ways of doing that of course is technology and some of the technologies can be quite good and old technologies this year I took the decision I wouldn't send Christmas cards I instead sent letters and each letter was personalised and I found quite a few people of my age whom I've been sending Christmas cards and we've been exchanging Christmas cards for the last 25 years without necessarily meeting and it was a pretty purposeless interaction to be blunt and I've been amazed at how I've suddenly got responses by writing just quite a couple of sentences on the back of a sort of circular letter so I think there are things we as individuals can be doing and as Corporate Scotland we can be helping others to understand these sort of things that we could be doing and of course as our mental faculties decline too and our memory is becoming less effective we need to also focus on the people who are the partners of these people because they're socially isolated in their own homes they're often finding it difficult to live with all the time the person that they've been married to or lived with for decades and that person also needs support and I think that's again another thing we might look at Social interaction I've previously talked about reducing taxation on bingo I make a further plea to the Government because there is medical evidence that bingo is one of the ways of keeping people mentally alert and finally, Presiding Officer in rural Aberdeenshire and I believe in Dumfries and Galloway as well we have a particular problem in getting high speed broadband to individual homes because the technology that phones use to connect to exchanges which is called exchange only lines much bigger proportional homes that cannot get connected to fibre directly by the technologies being used perhaps social inclusion using Skype being connected electronically is something that would help is another little thing excellent report, commend the committee again but next time we perhaps move on to look at individuals rather than the corporate response Presiding Officer I'm afraid all the extra time the debate has now gone can I ask our next two speakers to keep to six minutes joined Finlay to be followed by Hans Alan Malick Thank you Presiding Officer I call the contributors to the report and the staff who were involved with it those contributors were very real people this is what I wanted to say to Mr Stevens I know that slight was intended but it was very real people I had a coffee with an Easter house it was very real young people, a sog of Christian Allard, a hammering at pool at the youth centre in Islay and I understand the point you make and it is about the nature of people who come to this building generally to give evidence but I do feel in it and the good news is that I didn't dance we did meet very real people we sat in her cup city and I understand and if I can touch on something that a few members have mentioned that is about the definition and that might seem like a very very dry start to talk about the definition actually it was extremely helpful and it was important that we understood that people said what they understood it to mean but we were wanting this to have some form of evidential basis and the definition that we had was about what was measurable and what was very personal it wasn't that one was more important than the other but it was to very much contrast these and also the issue of contrast applies to the locations we went to Easter house we went to Islay we saw an Easter house and we heard from the food train and the wider role that they undertook and of course this is very much the extra value that they do get from the third sector and that was very compelling to hear we had a planned visit to go to Jura to the Jura care centre group and because of the weather we were unable to do that that also gives you a flavour of isolation the community isolation and Islay and Jura particularly in recent months have had significant issues with that I had the good fortune to visit during summer recess and it's an excellent model it's a model that people who are aware of social care it's quite often held up that it's about sustaining people in their houses in the community and as people get older and perhaps frailer they graduate towards the centre and there's a respite facility there it's excellent to commend it of course there was a commonality of issues between the two communities and they did relate to things like housing and transport so I hear what Johann Lamont says about buses that was an issue that came up about the challenges of transport within urban setting I know nothing negative it was inferred by that but the challenge of getting about at all in some of these rural areas not least because of the earth of that they were very real people we met and I'm grateful to all of them for their contribution some of them it was very soul searching we dealt with some very sensitive issues we dealt with the legacy of a gangland culture came up in our Easter house and the issue of the challenges of dealing with school bullying and an isolated community with all the various relationships that went with that now we also heard in the response from the Scottish Government and I will comment on that about what they saw as the challenges and they saw the challenges as rising expectations well I think of our communities of rising expectations that's good and I know that wasn't entirely meant as a negative by the Government the pressure on resources and living standards public health issues an ageing population statistics about how long we're all going to live much longer and the impacts of multiple deprivation could add to that the impacts of rural deprivation particularly fuel poverty which is a significant issue and the Scottish Government told us they have a very clear view on what works in public service design I think the public do too and they assure us that performing public services takes the needs and aspirations of people at the centre of what we do well that's very reassuring very reassuring indeed but we also hear in the response of plans to take forward the alignment of the realignment of services to meet these new challenges and the responses allude to a number of positive initiatives I'm not least the recently commissioned research into design for ageing age Scotland in the briefing for which I'm grateful and they were significant contributors to our enquiry they talk about the Government's response about a national strategy and express disappointment that the Government's view that it might lack impact not least because they say there are 34 specific strategies the Government either has adopted or is developing with 12 of those in the field of health alone so cluttered landscape it may be but the issues of isolation are not going to go away the other thing from that briefing I want to talk on and it was alluded to like Jenny Marra was the phrase though the state is not primarily responsible for the quality of people's personal relationship it does have to deal with the consequences where these breakdowns are absent that's very true but it is also statutorily responsible for the provision of education, health and care and I think we forget that at our peril I'm concerned about the issue of how profit motive is in social care and housing and transport affect issues of isolation housing has been mentioned I want to also mention something that was in the Scottish Government letter and it was what Dr Harry Buns the chief medical officer had said and it was clear that the fundamentals of human wellbeing that underpin health and fulfilment lie in attachment in the lives with a sense of coherence and purpose and clearly that's what we all want to see I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in this report there's talk of additional research I think that would be helpful and I'm sure that this Parliament will revisit it at some future date many thanks and to now call Han Salam Alec maximum six minutes please thank you very much and good afternoon I'm delighted to take part in today's debate on equal opportunities committee inquiry into the age and social exclusion exclusion people this discussion on equality is an area which I believe the Scottish Government has a lot to do people living with a terminal illness their carers and families can often experience social isolation and I think that I believe the conduct of I have been contacted by several constituents and committee groups who are suffering from local authority cuts and a huge increase of attending day centres for the elderly the cuts faced by our elderly are critical and they are creating a real hardship for many elderly people voluntary organisations and voluntary groups are being shuffled around to try and accommodate them in terms of groups and their expenditure and that seems to have totally failed as well particularly in Glasgow to the equal opportunities committee Glasgow city council submission states Glasgow is the largest city outside London Glasgow is one of the largest contributors to the economy activity in Scotland and its surrounding areas Glasgow and Clyde valley makes a significant contribution to Scotland's economy Glasgow has the highest level of citizens living in single occupant houses in Scotland I appreciate that not everyone in these of these people will feel themselves socially isolated but living alone is considered a large factor in isolation and loneliness over 30% of households they are nearly 70 87,000 in Glasgow have one single occupant under the age of 64 and nearly 13% of households that's over 36,000 have one single occupant aged 65 and over 14.5% of households that's over 41,000 have an occupant who is a lone parent after our citizens is vital people must be prioritised and looked after also regular visits from further elderly by professionals is crucial which includes equality and cultural awareness issues the best places to attract and raise awareness of opportunities and support available to people who are experiencing social isolation is in those places where people tend to go most frequently and often for example GP surgeries community nursing community groups health centres etc there is we require a national awareness raising campaign backed up by local information provision through the examples of GP surgeries and the organisations suggested cultural recognition cannot be ignored and many within our communities must be reassured by this government of its commitment and determination in providing the best of services available but actually monitor its delivery record so that it is clear which is evidence based that the services being delivered are in fact fit for purpose there is no point in having services and not actually recording what people are doing or monitoring what they are doing Presiding Officer aged when we give our pensioners free bus buses we like to say to ourselves that the job well done I am sorry I don't agree with that I think there is a lot more we can do for our elderly I think we can do a lot more for our vulnerable and I think for example our pensioners who get free bus buses should also get off-peak cinema tickets they should also be allowed to use our sports centres which lie empty all day they should be able to use golf courses they should be able to use all the facilities that are out there I don't think that the businesses should get a free ride anymore I think they need to demonstrate elderly in this country and they need to make a meaningful contribution I also believe that local authorities and the government shouldn't actually have to pay bus companies for the free passes I think if they want a licence to operate in Scotland that should be part and parcel of a condition that they allow our elderly to travel free I think these are some of the things that will help reduce isolation and it will help improve the health and wellbeing of our communities out there there are many examples of good work that is being done but also what we need to examine is the services that we are currently providing and ensure that there is no duplication warranty organisation that get funding and grants I don't know who is monitoring them there is no record of how they are being monitored and assessed and whether they are actually giving value for money I think to end I would really want the minister to take on board that we need proper monitoring in place so that they can be evidence based and we can ensure that people get appropriate services thank you very much for that many thanks we now turn to the closing speeches and I call on Nanette Mellon six minutes please not being a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee myself I'd like to begin by congratulating committee members on an excellent report following their extensive and detailed exploratory work on the important issue of age and social isolation I confess that when I heard the subject of today's debate I assumed it would be dealing exclusively with problems of social isolation in the elderly but having read the report I'd been forcibly reminded that any age group can be adversely affected by a sense of isolation and loneliness and social isolation also affects people from all backgrounds including the full range of protected characteristics as defined in the 2010 Equalities Act people with disabilities people with a range of long-term conditions people restricted physically psychologically and socially by coming to terms and dealing with terminal illness even when surrounded by family and friends and unpaid carers not least those whose caring role has ceased following bereavement may all experience isolation and loneliness which may and often does go unrecognised because its possibility is not thought about by people preoccupied with their own lives and personal experience of social isolation which nowadays would be called bullying as an only child growing up in the early 1950s when I was roughed up and called names because I didn't speak in the broad Aberdeen dialect of my schoolmates most likely because my father had been brought up south of the border I remember my mum telling me to put a brave face on it and try to ignore the jibes and I eventually learned to cope by developing one language for home and another language for the playground however I do remember that this experience was very difficult at the time and without parental support I think it could have been devastating I think that what stands out for me in the committee report is the importance of communication because if we fail to communicate and make proper contact with people we'll never fully understand the needs of the individuals in our communities and the sort of help and support they may need to live a full inclusive life whatever their age and physical status and whether they live alone is telling that in an age when so many channels of communication are available to people there's still a significant problem with social isolation and loneliness in Scotland today and the report gives us a timely reminder that this is everybody's problem which should not be ignored or tolerated and that a change in attitude is required in our society if its impact is to be reduced it seems strange given the widespread nature of this problem in the modern world that nowhere else has the issue of social isolation in a parliamentary institution and the Equal Opportunities Committee is to be congratulated on leading the way I hope that its recommendations will have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of many people not just in Scotland but further afield as well The 16 recommendations in the report are too numerous to deal with in detail but the first two are I think particularly important that the Scottish Government should develop a national strategy on social isolation to ensure the issue in all policy considerations so that its impact is understood and tackled across Scotland and that the issues of social isolation and loneliness are built into the plans and strategies of health and social care partnerships across the country so I therefore welcome the Government's overall positive response to the report outlined by the minister this afternoon We are at a really crucial stage just now in the development of integrating health and social care and if the integration joint partnerships are on board they need to prevent and deal with social isolation then they could go a long way to improving the health and wellbeing of many people in both urban and rural Scotland who are currently disadvantaged Communities need to be aware to be made aware that they have a major role to play in highlighting the importance of social contact for everyone in their area regardless of age and background and that local action can be taken to improve communication and contact local services which can help to improve the lives of people at risk of social isolation We have seen an excellent example of such community spirit this week in Balotar and Brimar in my region in the aftermath of December's devastating floods and this spirit of caring for neighbours is typical of these small communities The highlighting by the report of the importance of community and public transport and the need for health and social care partnerships to incorporate housing issues and links with housing professionals into service planning are important aspects of this committee inquiry as is the recommendation that the outcome of the deep end projects work should be shared across Scotland and it is clear too that research is needed to assess what is required to prevent and deal with social isolation issues across all age groups A large number of excellent projects in community activities are already in place in many parts of Scotland to identify and tackle the widespread issue of social isolation and loneliness and I feel I should mention one within my own region already mentioned in the report and by Christian Allard this afternoon The Aberdeenshire signposting project works with people affected by or at risk of developing low to moderate mental health problems to increase their level of social contact and increase their usage of locally available leisure and educational facilities by putting people referred to the project by GPs and others in touch with sources of appropriate support help and advice Such so-called social prescribing has been found beneficial by witnesses to the committee and we have heard about a number of such innovative projects from members today and what I think has been an excellent and far-reaching debate but the recognition of the need for such activity and its availability is piecemeal and it is clear that there needs to be a co-ordinated effort and best practice across the country and that this can only be achieved by government involvement in developing a national commitment to mainstream the issues within all policy considerations The excellent report by the Equal Opportunities Committee shows the way and once again I congratulate everyone involved in a pioneering piece of work which I hope will bear fruit in many places in the months and years ahead and help to overcome the problems of the many people who are at risk in communities Thank you I am grateful for the opportunity to close this debate on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party and in doing so I reiterate our thanks to my fellow committee members for the report in particular to my colleague the committee's convener Margaret McCulloch I was not a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee at the time that it conducted this inquiry but I did enjoy hearing the perspective of fellow members as the report was prepared for publication The subject was broad and the issues raised are undoubtedly complex but they are also very human The chances are that all of us will have experienced loneliness in some form and for whatever length of time at some point in our lives although perhaps John Mason is slightly less vulnerable to it with the benefit of his tent In my view the power of the personal stories that the committee has collected together in this report is what has given such importance to the debate this afternoon and indeed to the coverage that existed in the media at the time of publication The committee has achieved an understanding of the public policy issues raised by loneliness of some of our citizens through the recognition of factors such as age, equality and social isolation in its most comprehensive sense and as was said throughout the debate and I think made clear in the committee's report loneliness can be a consequence of social isolation but not all socially isolated people are lonely and not all lonely people are socially isolated Social isolation can obviously be a risk of a virality but it's not exclusively so isolation for those of us living in our biggest towns and cities similarly, while the committee was specifically interested in specific vulnerabilities impacted upon by age, notably amongst our older and younger citizens it also recognised that these were risk factors and not causes and that generalisation therefore is unlikely to be the best aid to an improved response from public services on indeed perhaps even more importantly from society more generally in recognising that we live in an era of technology the report highlights that this can be both an assistance to communication which can sustain valuable networks but it also carries the risk of minimising or competing with face-to-face contact and this can be evidenced by perhaps the dangers of addiction or unhealthy usage of technology but also by the risk of technological solutions being pursued for costs or indeed other good reasons such as improving the coverage or accessibility of a particular service but in reality this might have the individual impact of reducing an isolated person's contact with a previously perhaps imperfect but potentially more human form of interaction as I said I think the great strength of the report we've heard in the debate this afternoon is the human stories that it's unearthed I think from diverse witnesses living in varied circumstances right around the country and many members have made reference to those examples in their speeches this afternoon and indeed from their own knowledge of the areas that they represent so I think in the time remaining I just wanted to touch briefly on a couple of the recommendations from the committee first of all I think it's important to say that on behalf of my party we fully support the committee's conclusion that loneliness is recognised as a public health challenge and that it is a circumstance which has the potential to be life limiting and therefore that mitigating against it will have beneficial effects upon other aspects of a person's health and indeed reduce the need for more costly or invasive interventions later on I know from my own work previously in the field of promoting health enhancing physicality TV that combatting loneliness is already taken seriously by a range of projects which seek to make a comprehensive difference to our lives in the roundest sense I know that in the past the term wellness is sometimes used to describe that some people like it, some people don't I think that Linda Fabani was correct to use the term well-being which I think is probably a better one and I think that there is no doubt that across certainly the political parties there's no divergence between us on the better lives that we all want to see for all of our citizens indeed the reference that the Cabinet Secretary made in his letter to Ms McCulloch pointed to the Government's national purpose and broad indicators relating to quality of life and I think that is very much to be welcomed and certainly has welcomed on this side the committee specifically also makes the case for a national campaign against the stigma of loneliness and while the Government hasn't endorsed that call I do think that there is merit in examining that idea further it's also a hardly perennial of those of us who serve in committees particularly when the committee has an open inquiry in such a complex, broad social issue that there's a call for more data to be collected and I have to confess personally that I can't find that a bit frustrating because there will always be no end of experts who could examine an issue further for us but at some point a political choice does need to be made about whether a challenge is taken sufficiently seriously for action to be taken rather than just for more data to be collected I'm sure is a tension that the Government recognises and it was certainly put this afternoon by my colleague Joanne Lamont the Government's response to the committee quite rightly tries to set the issue in the wider context of public service reform and I think Jerry Marra was right to say we shouldn't become too preoccupied with the role of social or other public services as the only means to improve lives versus the other societal changes and indeed individual actions that we can all take I just want to end by highlighting the particular circumstance of loneliness in the care environment which a number of people spoke about particularly for older people or people suffering a range of conditions I will do so very quickly just to say that it is in my view the biggest challenge of the next Scottish Parliament to address some of those issues and I think this report will be of great benefit and assistance to them in so doing and I'm happy to commend the report this afternoon and I'll be happy to thank you very much and there is something that's often said but not as often meant in this chamber and I want to both say it and mean it here this has been a really valuable debate a committee of this Parliament has identified a social problem has explored it, made recommendations the government has weighed them taken many of them on board now we're debating it in an informed way as a weighty issue recognising the substance and perspectives analysing the choices in the trade office in a grown-up way and largely setting aside any synthetic partisan ranker every single contribution today has been creditable this is the Holyrood the outside world never sees and in truth we don't often enough see it ourselves and Presiding Officer this soon to be former MSP really wishes we did but let me go back to the very first one that came from Jenny Marra her vignette about the canvassers at the door and the conversations was one of the many that I heard in the debate that really struck a chord with me because of personal experience it really illustrated in a very evocative way the effect of loneliness that we've all I presume seen firsthand she also asked whether we think things are different in Scotland and my answer is a complicated one I have no evidence that the problem is any greater or lesser in Scotland compared to other countries that are experiencing the same changes in age structure, employment, household type communication methods and so on though my intuition is that those countries that we are seeking to emulate and having better support for the elderly more stable working patterns and stronger local communities might also have better performance on social connectedness no I am arguing that we are distinctive because Scotland's approach to public services the role of what we should be doing as a Scottish Government and as a public sector puts connectedness at the heart of what we do from throw open the doors to co-production and national standards for community engagement we recognise as a matter of practice that connectedness means better Government and in the recognition of the work of Harry Burns which John Finnie has already quoted well that the fundamentals of human wellbeing, the underpin health and fulfilment line attachment to others in society and in lives with a sense of coherence and purpose well we recognise that connectedness means better society as well we can argue about the difference between strategy and a strategy that has a glossy cover and can sit on a shelf but what we are doing and what I do as a community empowerment minister day in day out puts community connectedness at the heart of this Government's approach to creating a fairer country and being a community empowerment minister in the overarching portfolio of social justice I would hope would show that our understanding of how community has to be at the heart of how we make Scotland a fairer better place and improve the all round wellbeing of our citizens the Harry Burns perspective is also our perspective it's not that the state should say goodbye or that the state should do everything but the state should ensure there is a space for discussion deliberation, connection and then respond to the priorities coming from that process as a democratic body and in community empowerment that means at the local level if a community wants to take over something and deliver it itself it can do it through an asset transfer request it wants to guide the public sector and request that is the philosophy and that is the philosophy that will be embodied in the social justice action plan both in terms of how we brought it about from the fairer Scotland work and also in how we see our solutions coming forward for the country when I was in Cooper I visited an aged Scotland group as part of this and everyone there talked about how valuable the group was how it got them out of the house and all heard about it through word of mouth but all were clear that there would be more people out there who weren't taking up the service those kinds of experiences were very effective in connecting key decision makers with the people directly experiencing the challenges that we want to solve and it created a richer contribution in simply receiving something on paper from a representative group when I launched our support for the big lunch and when I did, well I didn't I observed the line dancing at my local constituency big lunch I didn't take part there are no photos I have made sure any are burned I was asked by somebody what is this to do with community empowerment and I said well you have to be a community you have to have a community before it can be empowered my own first encounter with this concept was Robert Putnam's bowling alone who observed that in America 20 years ago the number of people bowling had been going up but the number of leagues had been going down people were becoming more disconnected and he allocated a lot of problems to that it's fair to say more people are living on their own in 1961 the one person household in the census was the least common type at 14 per cent by 2011 it was the most common type 35 per cent of households and we have to accept that we need to have creative solutions on that I saw a guardian piece about purpose built housing for young people with communal space that was very shoreditch in Islington but it seemed to be an interesting idea and it certainly had a demand the correspond yes I'm very grateful for the minister accepting the intervention with minister acknowledge that we need to re-value public space because public space has been vilified in many quarters and we need public space for communities to operate in I will always value public space and I very much value where communities themselves take over the management of that public space that is a far cry from attempts to privatise it fence it off that we see in other parts of the world going back to John Mason's point on the subject of choice here the last time I saw the inside of a tent it was on a film screen and Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were in there so I completely respect his ability to be able to face up to the island environment that way but the key here is the choice that was his choice we choose the difference between solitude and choice and choices can lead to unforeseen consequences there was one rural local authority that once highlighted to me a phenomenon they were encountering of old people who retire to the country leaving behind family and support only to then find that leading to difficulties down the line perhaps that's a higher income example because not everybody can retire to a wee house in the country but it also shows that isolation cuts across class and when stigma is a big issue we have to be careful about how we characterise it Malcolm Chisholm also referred to online issues and I think again we have to be quite sensitive on our characterisations it may in some ways be shallower interaction but for the person suffering identity based isolation in a physical community it can be an absolute lifeline to connect with other people of that same identity online and to know that they are not alone poor characterisations of behaviours can be isolating itself so to conclude I would simply say to go back to some of the language we had before that we should recognise social isolation but never accept it it is a scourge to our society as a whole and indeed taken to the maximum it threatens the existence of anything worthy of that word but every person locked in alone for weeks in their home or person locked out from their surroundings more metaphorically because of a fear of harassment isolated through any other way from the warmth of human connection is a tragedy and we are right to debate this issue and we will have to work together now to ensure that all our individuals and communities in this country flourish Many thanks minister and I now call in Sandra White to wind up the debate on behalf of the Equal Opportunities Committee 10 minutes maximum please Thank you very much I can just say I think I do speak for the whole committee certainly for myself and I embarked on this investigation I think we were a little bit to reputation in that respect because we didn't quite understand loneliness social isolation and we had to look at it very very carefully one of the other things obviously is we didn't realise that we would be in Islay and worrying very very much about John Mason and his tent when it was so windy and rainy and I'm sure we all agreed on that particular point that we did worry but John was absolutely fine and so were we as well I do want to begin my contribution by thanking my fellow committee members both past and present who have taken forward this inquiry also the many groups and individuals who took part in the clars and the staff of the Equal Opportunities Committee whose sterling work it basically enabled us to bring forward and produce this report we did absolutely fantastic work and I'm sure if thanks go out to all of the staff we moved on to other committees but some who have stayed with us as well Presiding Officer we have heard from evidence and members contributions loneliness, social isolation crosses all age groups and whilst and I'm sure it's been mentioned here already whilst the common perception was that basically it would be older people would be more likely to be affected we can see by the evidence we've received from speaking to people and evidence contributed to the committee not always the case indeed as we found out from our evidence taking visits to Islay and Easter house which members have already mentioned younger people or anyone basically depending on their circumstances can also experience loneliness and isolation and I know Malcolm Chisholm touched on the young family and the evidence there from Easter house where we were quite shocked that actually because of culture in certain parts of Easter house we were frightened to let their young kids out and these young kids did indeed speak with American accents because all they had did was play video games we also heard from the many volunteers there who were frightened to cross the road from one side to another because of prevalence unfortunately of a gang culture which still was there in Easter house which particularly shocked a lot of us and knowing the area myself I was quite shocked at that respect but the work that was going on there with the young people was absolutely phenomenal and certainly we praise them for the work that they carried out there so to say it can touch everybody's lives not just older people now the convener in her opening remarks with into great detail as to why the committee recommended that a national strategy be developed citing evidence in particular from Jane Kellogg of West Lothian council amongst others is that all agencies in health and social care partnerships consider the structures of how they deliver services and I think in my opinion I've heard the minister's reply to that particular issue as well that is probably one of the key areas that we need to tackle if we're to tackle loneliness and isolation as I've already said I do welcome yes for taking intervention thank you very much for that thank you for doing all the good work that you are doing at committee I just wanted to try and re-emphasise the point that I made in terms of monitoring and measuring the level of success and I'm wondering whether the committee will actually take that on board with the continuation of its evidence gathering that that actually takes place and how we can truly measure the scale of the success or failure Thank you Mr Malik Thank you Mr Malik I'm going to come on to that particular part about monitoring because it was one of the recommendations and then in summing up I'll mention the fact about monitoring and looking forward in that respect as I said earlier I do welcome the minister's comments today regarding to look at the structures and how we deliver services as well the convener also mentioned the committee did take and does take reassurance from the Scottish Government's reply the commitment to take more evidence regarding this particular issue with the involvement of Community Empowerment of the Scotland Act 2014 community planning partnerships and along with health and social care partnerships as well and these are all designed to work with the services to support vulnerable people and that's the issue I was trying to raise Mr Malik in regards to that that we have to work together in this particular social integration however I do reiterate that the Parliament should monitor how effective this will actually be and I think that's very important in the monitoring aspect of it I do welcome the Scottish Government's assurances on this particular issue but we still look to monitoring how effective the approach is regarding inclusion priorities and strategic plans we can put forward strategic plans as we have said in our recommendations but we need to know how that is prioritised and how it turns out I hope that answers Mr Malik and I would like to think that that would be put forward in the legacy document from the Equal Opportunities Committee in the next parliamentary session if I may touch on the recommendations committee for a national publicity campaign I do welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to work with stakeholders on this issue perhaps a medium campaign on the committee along the lines of the CME highlighting the social isolation that might be something the Scottish Government would consider and to pick up on the issue that Jenny Marra mentioned and others as well I know we mentioned the John Lewis campaign and Age Scotland as well but perhaps this is one of the areas that we should be looking at I would also thank a number of newspapers particularly The Herald and The Evening Times who actually published articles about the issue and helped to raise a profile of isolation and loneliness as well we did carry out evidence which was looking at gathering evidence for strategic plans which I've already mentioned and publicity campaign I think they've got to be looked at but the minister certainly mentioned the third sector and I really would like to reiterate that fact we need to make sure the third sector is involved they play a fantastic role in the delivery of services and I do take on board the comments the minister mentioned about the third sector being very much involved in this particular issue I would like to touch on some of the anti-bullying guidance and in the response to the committee's report the Scottish Government supported the committee's view that young people and discrimination anti-bullying work is vital to tackle social isolation and revised anti-bullying guidance published by the Scottish Government in 2016 and I do know that the Scottish Government has given an undertaking to consider how it might enable greater use of peer education I think it's an important point peer education to tackle social isolation in both schools and youth settings and like others here and the committee also I do look forward to that publication but I would also look forward to the greater use of the peer education to tackle social isolation and how it can be monitored and looked at I think that if we get there in the schools curriculum for excellence peer monitoring, peer education really important if they can recognise loneliness and social isolation in young people because some of the young people we spoke to had great difficulty to be able to speak to others in regard to there I don't know whether it was a factor where embarrassed but they didn't like to mention that fact perhaps a stigma factor as well in that particular issue so I think that's something we really need to look at as well Depend link workers and social prescribing was mentioned by a number of A members indeed a recommendation 6, 7 and 8 all references the link workers system and the national strategy which has to be involved within that as well I do welcome the Scottish Government's response to these recommendations and I look forward to the report from 2016 Transport was raised by many members many people also in the committee who were giving evidence and as Jane Baxter mentioned in her contribution it does cover all areas and all ages as well so it's not just older people we heard evidence and I think that Joanne Lamont raised this particular issue as well it's all right if you've got a bus pass or anything else but if you can't get a bus then there's no point in having it at all you have a concessory for older people disabled and younger people but if the transport is not there Linda Fabiani mentioned a local transport initiative in her constituency and perhaps we could look at this and see how it works there if it can be rolled out through other parts of the country as well but I do however reiterate the committee's recommendations 11 in 12 on community transport for the Scottish Government to work with local authorities to improve availability of community and public transport and to include transport policy as a strand in any isolation strategy in conclusion I want to thank very much the members for the contributions like the minister and others here I think that this has been a very good debate a very important debate on a subject that can affect any one of us at any time certainly any of our constituents I want to raise the issue I think that the committee has done a fantastic job a very very important issue has been raised by the equal opportunities and they have carried out a very valuable piece of work one that I would hope would be a legacy to carry forward in the next term of this parliament thank you very much that concludes the debate on the equal opportunity committee's report on age and social isolation the next item of business is consideration of business motion number in the name of Jofix Patrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting a business programme any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request speak button now and I call on Jofix Patrick to move motion number 15251 formally moved no member has asked to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber the question is the motion number 15251 in the name of Jofix Patrick be agreed to are we all agreed the next item of business is consideration of Parliamentary Bureau motion I would ask Jofix Patrick to move motion number 15252 on approval of an SSI moved the motion will be put a decision time to which we now come there are two questions to be put as a result of today's business the first question is at motion number 15198 in the name of Margaret McCulloch on age of social isolation be agreed to are we all agreed the motion is there for agreed to the next question is the motion number 15252 in the name of Jofix Patrick on approval of an SSI be agreed to are we all agreed the motion is there for agreed to that concludes the decision time we have now moved members business members to leave the chamber should do so quickly and quiet