 Maen nhw'n mynd. Y Deputy Presiding Officer ffans yma yng nghymru i'r gwleidio ar ffordd, o'r feaniau cael ei wentlynyddiant mewn gweld awt yng Nghymru i chi'r ffans hwn yn y cyffredin, ond y fawr iawn i'r iawn i chi'r ffans hwn am email yma? Felly, ni'n gyfnod yr aelod, ac y fawr iawn i'r gweld'r cyffredin i chi ei clwn o'r awt. Aelod i chi i chi gwybod iddyn nhw, i mi pwng i chi'r gwiedzwn nhw, ac i chi'n gwybod credu i chi i chi i chi i chi'r gweld arwain. Ie dd—oed. First I would like to thank members from across the Chamber for supporting my motion and allowing this important debate to go ahead. For many my constituents this is a hugely important issue and I'm so pleased that staff, volunteers, trainees and family members are with us in the public gallery this evening to hear our debate. For almost 25 years the engine engine shed has provided work-based training placements for young adults with learning disabilities. Although the engine shed is a member of the Scottish Union of Supported Employment, its approach is slightly different. It offers transitional support, providing young people with the opportunity to access training and work experience in an integrated setting, and they currently operate a cafe, a bakery, a tofu production line and outside catering services. Trainings are taken on for up to three years, initially working full-time in the engine shed's place. They then move on to a mixture of work placements with mainstream employers and further training within the engine shed before moving into paid employment with a variety of workplaces. As an MSP, I have been a strong supporter of the engine shed's work. I have attended graduation ceremonies and heard first hand from trainees the skills and the confidence that they have gained from being part of the organisation. I have also heard from many family members who have spoken powerfully about the difference that the engine shed has made to their loved ones and the opportunities that it has allowed them to pursue. Unfortunately, in recent times, the organisation in common with other voluntary organisations has faced a yearly battle to secure funding. Funding from the council contributes around 40 per cent of the engine shed's total income, with the remainder coming from its social enterprise operations. The value of the engine shed's grant from the council has dropped from less now than it did receive in 2003. It has quite a significant drop in the last decade. The organisation has been looking for ways to maximise its income from social enterprise projects, but as the Scottish Government has acknowledged before, many social enterprises struggle in today's harsh economic climate. I understand that the Scottish Government's third sector unit has been considering this issue, so I hope that the minister might have some positive news for us when he responds to the debate tonight. Earlier this year, following the failure to secure funding beyond March 2015, the engine shed's management team took the very difficult decision to wind down the operation. The current situation has its roots in the review of the employability services in Edinburgh, and as part of that work, the review undertook to consider investment in services for job-seeking disabled clients. It found a demand for an integrated employability service that would serve people of all disabilities, one-to-one services, greater involvement in the development and delivery of engagement with employers and a clear desire for the service to ensure paid work opportunities with progression. The council is now moving from next year to a supported employment model consistent with the Scottish Government's supported employment framework. Therefore, it is a single contract for the existing providers of employment services for disabled clients that are now working together to take forward a consortium for the contract. While not part of the consortium, the engine shed has attempted to engage consistently with those involved to see if there is an opportunity to retain the unique contribution to supporting unaggleths in learning employment skills that the engine shed has provided. The management team has been looking at alternative funding options and has worked hard to try and make the operation more self-sustaining. I was concerned at the characterisation that I received from the council that the engine shed had somehow rejected the offer to be part of that process. We are left with a difficult situation, with the engine shed's work simply not being able to fit in with the council's place and support-based model, and therefore the engine shed has now become no longer financially viable. I have spoken before in the chamber about the value and importance of supported employment opportunities. The Scottish Government urgently needs to address the fact that 46 per cent of working-age disabled people are employed, compared with 76 per cent of the general working-age population. As inclusion Scotland notes, only 13 per cent of adults with learning disabilities of working-age are in employment, only 13 per cent. Disabled people are more than three times likely to have been out of work for five years or more compared with their non-disabled counterparts. There is a real issue here that needs to be addressed. I campaigned against the closure of Edinburgh's blind craft and re-employ supported workplaces because I did not want to see the experience that they offered people with disabilities to go. The Scottish Government currently encourages all public bodies to have at least one contract with a supported business. Earlier this year, when we debated the procurement bill, Labour MSPs highlighted a freedom of information request, which indicated that 44 public authorities, including NHS boards, local authorities and central government organisations, do not currently meet the policy aim. There is a real gap between policy objectives and policy delivery. I wholeheartedly support the ambition of supporting people into mainstream work, where it is appropriate, but we need to recognise that some people will need more support than others. The client groups who benefit most from the work of the engine shed would not be easily served by the supported employment model that is currently being advocated. Many have profound learning disabilities and, at the point at which they are referred, do not have the skills needed to get an immediate placement of an employer irrespective of the support that was offered. I want to suggest to the minister that now that we have the proposal to devolve work choice to the Scottish Government from the Smith commission, will the minister look to ensuring that this new funding stream could be devolved to local government? As Eldas pointed out, supported employment for adults with learning disabilities has never had a clear source of funding, and that is something that needs to be urgently addressed. In particular, I know constituents who have no longer been able to work since the closure of the engine shed, when it takes place, and blind craft and employ, particularly no people who have not been able to get work since their employ closure. The engine shed has been a really important bridge of support towards the more traditional supported employment opportunities for people with learning disabilities. There is a real danger that they will lose out, that they will fall through the cracks in the system, without the dignity and intense support that the engine shed has been able to offer them. Let us look at what a solution might be. From the Scottish Government's perspective, we urgently need a review to look at what the position is now in the absence of employ opportunities, blind craft opportunities and now the engine shed. There is an urgent need for some sort of review to look at the funding opportunities both at a Scottish level and with the pressure on local authorities. There is a real need to review the situation and come up with an outcomes-based approach, not just to look at our policy ambitions. We can all sign up to good policy ambitions, but the reality is for disabled people, particularly for those with learning disabilities, this is an incredibly hard employment time for them. We need to be doing more in the Scottish Parliament to support them. I very much look forward to the minister in his summation today, hopefully coming up with some new opportunities and new ideas and possibly a review to just see where we are and to give new hope and new opportunities for people who, in the aftermath of the closure of the engine shed, will not have opportunities. I congratulate Sarah Boyack on securing this debate on the engine shed and supported employment, for what I thought was a very thoughtful and constructive contribution. That is an issue of concern to many people in Edinburgh, and it is close to my heart as the vice convener of the cross-party group on learning disability. I would also like to put on record the proactive work of the constituency member for the engine shed, Marko Biaje, who last year had separate meetings with the Scottish Government, council employability staff and the engine shed's founder and CEO, Marion MacDonald. Parliamentary protocol prevents Mr Biaje from speaking in this debate as a Government minister, although I see that he has joined us for the debate this evening. Like Sarah Boyack, I pay tribute to the engine shed and to Marion MacDonald in establishing the operation, which has, for over 25 years, successfully provided a route into employment for thousands of young adults with learning disabilities by offering training programmes that lead to placements with employers and, eventually, to paid employment. The skill, expertise and experience of the engine shed's workforce has provided a shining example of the strength of supported businesses in Scotland. It was the general secretary of the STUC, Graham Smith, who rightly highlighted the importance of supported businesses like the engine shed when he said, and I quote, the value of on-going training, social interaction and mentoring offered to people with disabilities to become more independent and play an active part in the workplace and their communities cannot be underestimated. It has been noted that the City of Edinburgh council is moving to a new city-wide support service. However, a move to only one model of support surely raises the question of how much choice will people with a learning disability now have if there is only one model available to them? If that model is so-called results-based so the provider will be paid for each person that they support into employment, how do we ensure that people being placed into jobs are supported to sustain that employment over time? Maureen Hope of Edinburgh, who wrote to my colleague Gordon MacDonald MSP, has highlighted the importance of choice in supported employment. She stated, and I quote, choice is vital and the council's policy simply will not be suitable for the engine shed trainees. They need much more help to get to the point where even contemplating employment becomes appropriate. That being said, they have placed 80 per cent of their trainees into employment before the recession and even now over 60 per cent go into paid jobs, my own son being one of them. The point here is that this good record of placing people into sustainable employment would not have been possible without the unique support that the engine shed is able to provide. Ian Hood of the Learning Disability Alliance Scotland has captured the widespread concern that is felt about the council's proposals and what that could mean for the young adults currently working at the engine shed. He stated, and I quote, what the council wants to do is help young people move straight to work with some support, but not all young people are ready for the workplace. The engine shed was helpful for them. They were able to work in a real environment with other people and a lot went on to get jobs afterwards. It is important to note that by withdrawing funding for services such as the engine shed in favour of one model of support, there are real concerns that that will simply limit the opportunities available to some of the most vulnerable and marginalised members of our society. Frankly, I am not comfortable with that situation and nor should any other member of this Parliament. In the past year, more than 10,000 people in Edinburgh have signed an online petition and a further 3,000 have signed a paper petition to keep the engine shed open. So where does the consultation that the council is committed to equate with that level of public concern expressed through those petitions? The model in place for the engine shed clearly has much to commend it. I would have hoped this evening's debate would have been about how we make the model of supported employment in place at the engine shed sustainable rather than casting it aside. In conclusion, while I deeply regret that the engine shed is to close, I hope that the expertise and knowledge built up during the time it has been open may eventually form the basis for another scheme of a similar nature, and the engine shed board is to be commended for seeking new ways of providing vital support for young people with learning disabilities, not just in my colleague Marco Biagi's constituency, but from all across Edinburgh and Lothian to gain the skills that they need for a lifetime of work. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you. No, Colin. Cameron Buchanan, after which we move to closing speech to the minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The news at the Edinburgh-based training organisation, the engine shed, is to cease operation, is sad news indeed, and I would like others to commend Ms Boyack for bringing the issue to debate in Parliament. As I've said before, supported businesses that provide training play a valuable role in tackling unemployment among the disabled people, and their role should be enthusiastically supported and applauded. I would also like to highlight that if the Government is to make as much of a contribution to sustainable employment for disabled people as possible, there must be a greater focus on supporting training programmes to help the transition to the mainstream workforce. However, this must also be recognised that for long-term sustainability, training organisations themselves need to develop sources of funding independent of the Government. I'd first like to draw attention to the fact that supported businesses in Scotland offer training opportunities for more than 400 individuals every year. It's a crucial role, but it seems that this figure should be increasing, as this approach is widely recognised as the best means by which disabled people can earn employment and start living independently with a good standard of living. The chief executive of Remploy, Bob Warner, said himself that there is now an acceptance that disabled people would prefer to work in mainstream employment alongside non-disabled people rather than sheltered workshops. The closure of the engine shed is a terrible setback in this regard. I'm sure we would all rather that such an event does not happen again. Add to this the reality that recent figures put the employment rate for disabled people in Scotland at just 44.3 per cent. It's clear that much more needs to be done. The point that I would like to make is that the Government should focus its attention on supporting training programmes to help disabled people learn the skills needed in the mainstream workforce, rather than propping up sheltered employment schemes. Ms Boyack is right to point out that the Government has failed by some margin to meet its own target of every public body having at least one contract with a supported factory or business, with almost 40 per cent failing to comply. But this must not be the only point to make. The direction not just of the implementation of policy needs to be reviewed and much improved. Indeed, the safe review concluded that Government funding should be invested in effective support for individuals rather than subsidising factory businesses. This is precisely what the UK Government is doing. I hope that Parliament can welcome this. Yet in order to effectively support the training model of businesses such as the engine shed, we must first recognise the challenges that they and many supported businesses face. As I have said many times before, commercial viability should be welcomed where it is genuinely achieved. It is apparent that preferential contracting can shelter some businesses from the genuine market forces. This may detract attention from operations such as marketing, product development and, indeed, innovation, which they will need in order to increase revenue from product and service-scale sales. Therefore, I would like to repeat what I have said before, but I hope that the operation of all supported businesses will evolve to increasingly include working within market incentives. Accordingly, Presiding Officer, I hope that we are not faced with the sad news of the closure of a training business like the engine shed again. It does a great work to bring disabled people closer to full-time employment, which is the object and which can have an invaluable contribution to their wellbeing. Furthermore, I hope that this debate will focus the Government's attention on facilitating the training-based model of supported employment rather than the sheltered model. Those businesses and, most importantly, their employees or trainees need stability going forward, which operating in a sustainable and commercial manner with focused Government support should deliver. I thank the minister for pursuing to close the debate on behalf of the Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I could begin by thanking Sarah Boyack for bringing this extremely important debate to Parliament and to commend her on the speech that she made. The Scottish Government firmly believes that all people of working age are encouraged and supported to work when they wish. That especially applies to people who have a disability in respect of the obligations that we have to do everything that we can to facilitate them to find employment, whether it be in supported employment, in supported businesses or elsewhere. The benefits of having a job, the respect and the sense of wellbeing that comes from being in work, are widely accepted by everyone. Many people with disabilities, even with severe disabilities, can and do choose to work and work very well indeed. I have had the opportunity to visit a large number of supported businesses. The engine shed is supported employment rather than a supported business. I have said before in numerous debates on supported business that what has struck me—and I did not know that until I saw it for myself—was that the commitment, the effort and the determination to the workplace to the work colleagues was immense and quite forcibly striking. Perhaps a greater level of commitment than many people without disabilities display towards the conduct and pursuit of the duties of their work. In some cases, the absentee rate was lower with people even with severe disabilities than people who do not have disabilities. Perhaps that was because of a sense of overcoming those difficulties to show that they were able to contribute to society just the same as the rest of us and perhaps, as I say, better. It is quite shocking that the level of employment in Scotland with those who have disabilities is at 42 per cent, but it is even more shocking, as I think Sarah Boyack alluded to, and Ian Hood, who has already been referred to, certainly commented in an email exchange with myself, that the level of employment among those who have learning disabilities is shockingly low in Scotland. In fact, it is my own observation from being a constituency MSP for 15 years that the group in society, as a whole, is not just considering matters of employment but matters of training, of getting proper training and education at school, in the college and university. Those problems are most acute for those children and young adults and adults who have learning disabilities. The fight that their families have to engage in to obtain access to what others receive as of right has often been of enormous proportions, at great cost, often to parents and family and others who are engaged in this. This has been a characteristic, a uniform characteristic of every single one of the 15 years that I have had as an MSP for individual constituents whose stories I probably can't or shouldn't tell, but I am sure that I would be familiar territory to others in the chamber who have represented people for several years. The difference is frankly shocking. Perhaps the most important thing that we can do is say collectively, whatever party we are in, that we must address this more effectively, that, although good things are done, we have together to do far better, far better in Scotland. We recognise, as Jim Eadie has said, that one size more certainly doesn't fit all, that we have to consider that every disabled person is different and that a range of support needs must be in place. That is evident. We also recognise that supported employment is a successful model. As Mr Buchanan has said, it provides a good environment for many people to flourish. As Sarah Boyack has said, in some cases, it is to move on into mainstream employment after a period of time. The same I have seen with supported business. The rate that I heard when I was visiting Haven premises in my constituency in Vernes was around about 15 per cent of people who move on from supported business into mainstream employment after having received the training and support, the confidence that they need to make that journey at the time that they need. One size does not fit all by any means. I am a passionate supporter of supported businesses and have visited a great many of them in Scotland. There are also other services such as project search, which is a six-month work placement and training programme, which has had success in helping young people with learning disabilities into work in Scotland. It is now operating in a number of areas, including Edinburgh. I want to turn to the engine shed. As we have heard today from moving and eloquent and passionate speeches from all contributors around the chamber, it is sad that, incidentally, I should say—I do not often say this, Presiding Officer—that there are so few members here in this debate tonight. I have to say that. Be that as it may, we have heard from all of those who have contributed to the debate that the engine shed is a social enterprise that has helped many, many young people with learning disabilities to gain skills in a real work environment and to support them on to mainstream paid employment. Sarah Boyack and Jamedie described some of the work that has been done in more detail. However, partly because of changing in funding or because of the city of Edinburgh council, the company has decided that it will no longer be financially viable and has taken the decision to cease its operation in 2015. I understand that the current position has arisen in part by Edinburgh council's adoption of the supported employment model, and, indeed, that has been alluded to by Sarah Boyack and Jim Eadie. We, of course, support the development of supported employment services. We recognise that local government is best placed to implement this locally on the ground. We are told that the move will enable funding to help around twice the number of disabled people in the city. That is what the council has said, as members will be familiar with. With employment rates for disabled people so very low, as I have said, any increase in that number is, of course, in itself a change to be welcomed. However, as has been said, there have been strenuous attempts, and I have had this confirmed from Mr Hood of the Ancient Shed to seek to join the said consortium. I think that Sarah Boyack alluded to this. Those attempts have thus far been unsuccessful, but I hope that this matter can be further considered by Edinburgh council, and I will ensure that a copy of the official report from this debate is conveyed by myself to the chief executive of Edinburgh council, convening the clearly expressed views of members from across the chamber that this is something that should be looked at further, if at all possible. On business support, of course, there are available a range of potential support from Scottish Enterprise or Just Enterprise, and Just Enterprise is the Scottish Government's business development service for third sector bodies, for voluntary bodies and for charities. That is Just Enterprise's role. In addition to that, we invest £320,000 per annum to the Scottish Social Enterprise Alliance that sends social from Scotland and Social Enterprise Scotland, and that is again an intermediary group funded to support the development and growth of social enterprises. We have recognised the difficulties that those bodies face to remain viable. I understand that the Ancient Shed has 13 employees at risk of redundancy, and 28 February next year is the expected redundancy date. The partnership action for continuing employment, known as PACE, is the Scottish Government's initiative dedicated to helping individuals and employers with the advice and support that they need faced with redundancy. PACE services have been offered, and I understand that the delivery of support activities by PACE commences this month. A PACE presentation will be delivered on-site by Skills Development Scotland and Jobcentre Plus advisers on 8 December. Other PACE support services will be an offer. Those include one-to-one interviews and workshops at the request of the affected employees. Certainly. I am grateful for making the services of PACE available to the Ancient Shed. Will he ensure that PACE speak to Remploy, who has a very good record in preparing people with a learning disability for job interviews and to give them the confidence and the skills that they need when they are seeking to gain employment in the marketplace? I certainly will take up Mr Eady's suggestion. PACE probably would be planning to do so in any event. I myself have met Remploy and I am aware of the excellent services that they can provide. I should say that, in relation to the brinecraft of the 26 disabled people who left and sought new jobs, 17 have entered work or education. Not enough, but a significant number. In Remploy, the closure had a huge impact, with only 11 of the 27 who lost their jobs being in work today. In conclusion, we can all agree that we need to do more in Scotland to assist disabled people in general in relation to employment, whether in supported employment or supported businesses. It is one of the most serious challenges in Scotland today. Indeed, that was the sentiment that I expressed at the count when I was declared re-elected, because I felt that it is a matter of such importance. I pledged to do everything that I possibly can, working with Sarah Boyack, Jim Eady and my ministerial colleague, Marko Biazio, who stayed for this debate, with Cameron Buchanan. The political party is entirely irrelevant in this matter. It is doing the right thing by disabled people. It is using the vast resources of Scotland to do far better. I feel ashamed that we have not been able to do more to get a better outcome. We must do better in the future. Many thanks. I thank you all for taking part in this debate. I now close this meeting of Parliament.