 Rwyf wedi gweld i'n gwaith yn gyffredinol gyda ilog Seeffordd. We have received apologies from Ross Greer MSP. The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether to take agenda item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Our next item of business is to hear evidence from two witness panels on the Children, Caden Justus Scotland Bill at stage 2. The first will cover victims' rights and supports, and the second will look at resourcing and capacity issues in relation to the bill. For our first session on victims' rights, I welcome Fiona McMullen, who is the operations manager from assist, Dr Marcia Scott, who is the chief executive officer from Scottish Women's Aid, and Kate Wallace, chief executive officer, Victim Support Scotland. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are going to move straight to members' questions, and can I bring in firstly the vice convener, Ruth Maguire. Good morning, panel. Thanks for being with us. The committee wanted to turn some more attention to the impact on victims. We highlighted that in stage 1 report, and the Scottish Government response stated that they were working with partners to explore what more could be done, so hopefully we will hear a bit about that. First, I would like to ask Kate Wallace from Victim Support some questions around reporting restrictions. You wrote to the committee on 5 September ahead of the bill on behalf of the mother of a victim of a very serious crime, asking that, as MSPs, we exercised caution when referring to the case and did not use the child's name. Can you, for the record, let committee know the impact that it has when a victim is mentioned in the press, when that coverage is repeated? Once we have heard from that, we can perhaps talk about what we can do about that. I think that there are a few things to say in relation to that. One of them is that, at the moment, you lose your anonymity when you die. In that particular situation, there have been five years past since the crime, and there is constant news coverage and also a significant amount of social media coverage, and self-published stuff on YouTube and TikTok, in particular, around that case. There is a lot of notoriety around the perpetrator, but when he is mentioned, then it automatically results in press coverage about the victim without any regard to the family. It is having a massive impact and a re-traumatising impact on the entire family, including on other children within the family. At a stage where it is really difficult to control or prepare, you are not expecting it. We have written to everybody, and it is fair to say that in that particular case it is recognised that it is with the best of intention, but it conjures up a huge amount of press coverage every single time. That is a re-traumatising and distressing for everybody involved. In terms of the wider point around what to do, we have been having conversations with the Scottish Government and the Children's Commissioner's Office on how to extend or how to look at anonymity within the CCJ bill and what potentially could be done. We are making huge amounts of headway with that. Children's Commissioner's Office has put forward a solution, but it is fair to say that it is perceived as being pretty complex, which, from our perspective, is pretty disappointing. We would really like to hope that something could be done in the bill to prevent what has happened to that particular family from happening to anybody else. It does not seem right that certain people who have harmed can be anonymity and protected, but for their victims there is not the same protection, particularly when they are killed as a result of the criminal act. There is no protection at all. I suppose that when we are looking at the bill, it is about children's rights. When we talk about the families of victims, that will include children. Exactly. Do victim support have an idea of what amendments could be brought forward to this? We have been having conversations about what we would prefer. I know that it is tricky, because you look at some international examples and some of those examples could give us really good learning, because sometimes there has been really good intentions and it perhaps has not worked out. However, our view is that if you had an automatic anonymity that was applied in terms of reporting, families who did decide that they wanted to waive that right to anonymity, because we understand that internationally that has been the concern that some family members have decided to go public with the name of their family member, which is their right. However, if there was some kind of process by which a waiver could be sought, the discussions that we are having are the challenge where that is. It will probably require going to court and asking for a court order, and courts, as we know, are traumatising environments. There will have to be a process of deciding and weighing up whoever it is that is applied for the order and whether that is something that they can ask for. On how that should be granted, I think that from the families that we have spoken to, having that option available is better than the situation that we have at the moment, which is that there is no choice involved. Families also feel that doing it that way around, because obviously doing it the other way around is that you would have to apply for some kind of order for an anonymity to be granted at the start. Families are not in a fit state to be able to do that in that kind of situation. We know that, from other things where it goes round the other way, families are too traumatised at that very—it is really important to get something in place right at the very beginning, because obviously if you have lost anonymity and somebody's name is out there in the public domain, it is too late to get that back. That is why we feel doing it going round that other way. I have asked for suggestions from Government colleagues and others if there is an alternative way around the court process to make sure that there is access to justice and if there is an easier way of doing that, but I think that I have not had any other suggestions. The good thing about that process is that we are obviously living in a society now where you have complex family make-up. If one parent says that you have two parents who are not together and one parent decides that they want to waive the right, there would be at least a process that you could go through rather than just somebody automatically deciding and making the decision for everybody and they may not be the primary carer of that child. There are those things to consider too, but my take on it is that those considerations are not being well progressed and I am concerned that we may end up in a situation where we have no improvement on the current situation and that would be a real, real pity. I realise that we are quite tight for time. I wonder if you would be able to forward that international evidence to those examples to the committee in writing, if that would be helpful. Do other panel members have a view on the section on restricting of reporting and whether that should align with the VWGR bill, perhaps? In terms of being very close to the front line, we see reporting causing issues all the time with victims that we support, including our young victims, which we class as under 21, given the complexities and challenges and barriers that they face. For me, there is something there about the safety planning around that as well, that when that is reported in the press, information is given that allows people to know who that is without much effort. We have certainly had a recent example of a victim that we worked with who had things reported that her family did not know, that nobody knew her friends did not know the detail and the report went into the detail of that. The impact of that, but also how she then safety plans, does that mean that any risk resurfaces for her, whether it is from the person who has caused the harm or from others? Thank you, that is helpful. I don't have anything to add. Okay, I'm fine to ask. Thank you very much, panel. Thanks for those suggestions as well. On that theme, Fiona, in terms of compulsory supervision orders, the committee heard concerns at stage 1 that we're a child on a compulsory supervision order containing a prohibition order at risk of harm. The proposed changes that we're looking at will put the onus on that child to avoid the people and locations that may be harmful to them. The Scottish Government response that we received did not address those concerns. How might those proposals be amended to better ensure the onus to avoid certain people and locations is not put on the child at risk of harm? Are you able to go first, Fiona? I suppose that that makes me think of the non-harassment orders that we've got available to us in criminal court. That's available to young victims just now if the person causing harm is 16 or older. Those are fairly robust. They come with a consequence if they're breached and we need something that replicates that but also takes the onus off the victim. We hear about young victims who we struggle with schools saying that the victims should limit their movement. They should change school, they should change classes, they should come in at a different time, leave at a different time. That doesn't feel right that the onus is on the victim to manage that risk and safety. Something that replicates what we have and the presumption that we have in criminal court. It feels like we're taking away from victims that have protective measures at the moment, whether that be special bail or non-harassment orders and we're not replacing it with anything that's robust. Thank you, Dr Scott. Do you want to come in on this? Certainly. I think that this really gets to the heart of our many concerns about invisibility of young victims and particularly young female victims in the hearing system, which has been a problem for a long time. It's exacerbated by the move that we support to change the age of referral. I think part of our concern—well, first of all, if there hadn't been a gender-blind approach to all of this, this wouldn't have been a problem from the very beginning of creating the children's hearings, but we really can't, as the victims and the offenders get older, the likelihood of harm to young women and girls goes up because of the trajectory of offending. The fact is that at the moment, if they were in a criminal court, our young women would have much more protection. We think it really needs a system-wide response, which is how to move away from this zero-sum thinking that somehow if you protect victims of young offenders that you are taking rights away from the offenders, which is not anybody's intention. We want young people to be protected whether they're offenders or victims, but the reality is at the moment that it's riskier to go through the children's hearing system for young females. Like I said, as we move towards more and more serious domestic abuse and sexual assault cases coming through, the problems of young women chilling the potential of their feeling like they can report, that they can give evidence that they are being protected by a system that actually will not. Fiona Hyslop has a really good case study for us. We work with young victims, as I said, up to the age of 21, given the complexities, challenges and barriers, but Coy was referred to us as a 14-year-old. He was 16, so that met criminal court. As such, he was charged with assault in a section 38, cause and fear of alarm, and was given special bail conditions not to report or contact her. That included social media. She had split up from him and, like many of her adult victims, she tried that several times and then pulled back in. He was going to change and then laterally pulled back in because of the threats that he was making. When we first met her, she's at school with him and sharing classes. She's being threatened by his friends and she's also being ridiculed by her peers. She gets an advocacy worker with herself and we've got those special bail conditions. It was the first time that she had a trusted professional at one point of contact where she could fully discuss the abuse that she'd experienced, which was not represented in the charges. The totality of the risk was not present in those charges. She'd experienced strangulation, physical abuse, constant emotional abuse. He'd threatened to kill himself. He'd even sent photos and videos of himself harming. He had threatened to share intimate images of her and that's something she hadn't reported to the police. That was the first time that she was able to disclose that she had good support from her family but didn't want her mum upset by what she would hear. She had good support from school but did feel that they blamed her for returning to the relationship. The first time that she had an adult she could fully explore that with. That's what she was experiencing as a 15-year-old, not a 25-year-old, not a 45-year-old, a 15-year-old. She felt that the abuse was very much minimised. It's a young relationship. That's what it's like. They'll split up and everything will be okay. As we know, the abuse continues post-separation for young victims as well as our older adult victims. What we were able to offer her was a continual review of her risk and safety, so her robust safety plans put into place. She doesn't meet the threshold for children and families social work. They don't engage with her. We referred it to MARAC, the multi-agency risk assessment conference that's in every local authority in Scotland that allows core agencies to look at the risk and come up with actions to mitigate that risk and also to keep the person causing harm visible in that process. We also did extensive safety planning around social media, around her routines, etc. A lot of advocacy with the school who wanted to minimise her movement in the school, as I said earlier, rather than put the onus on the person causing the harm, so those special bail conditions allowed us to do that. We continue to work with her and the court case isn't concluded, but outside the incident that's being discussed at court, there's a whole additional picture of risk that we're safety planning against. We're able to share information with PFs, procurator ffiscals around that. We're able to understand what the court outcomes are and review that safety plan and understand if risk is going to escalate. We're managing the persistence of her ex-partner and also his friends and encouraging her to regain support from her family, her friends, etc. She's been isolated and graded all the way through this. Conversely, we're supporting a 14-year-old and the person causing the harm is going through scraw. We have no protective measures in place. We have no information that we receive to know what's happening next and what's being addressed with that person causing harm. We're struggling to provide information to that system and process. The victim is struggling to engage with us. She feels the abuse has been minimised. It's not been taken seriously. The messaging that we're giving to young victims is really significant here. She's involved in risk-taking behaviour. She stopped attending school and she's struggling to engage with us and we don't know how much longer she will. That shows us that. I hope that that amplifies the difference of what someone is receiving within a criminal justice process and what we really have to consider replicating absolutely in any new processes that we introduce. One of the things that we're keen to see is that if we can get the system to move to create responses that provide safety, do risk assessment, provide her and the people who are advocating for her with appropriate information. We also must be really clear what is going to happen should non-compliance. What are the robust responses in terms of non-compliance with any similar non-harassment orders or protective orders that might be put in place? We're really familiar with a system that doesn't take those very seriously until somebody is seriously harmed. Kate, do you want to come in on this? Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. I think that the example just illustrates exactly what we've been saying. That's very clear. Ruth, are you wanting to pick up on the next theme? Sure. I think that was such a stark example. Sorry, I'm a bit speechless. Okay, so in terms of movement restriction conditions, which I suppose is kind of carrying on this theme, I want to acknowledge the response from your organisations to our committee report in terms of it perhaps not being trauma informed, looking at physical and psychological harm, our concerns around that. With that in mind, could you talk a bit to perhaps what further clarity is required around the test for MRCs? I think that the reality for us is that we need a sort of, Fiona was talking about this when she was talking about the arrangements that are in place for adult victims of domestic abuse, which is that we really need a sort of system multi-agency view on looking at MRCs. I think that the biggest concern for us at the moment is a lack of information, but the other thing would be that the system, and this comes back to being trauma informed, it also needs to be competent on course of control and the kinds of dynamics of those crimes so that a risk assessment is properly crafted to indicate all of the things that Fiona was referencing that go on outside the hearing room or the courtroom. We're pretty horrified to see that there's just no evidence of this so far. We need to be involving young people in the crafting of this. Just to come in on that, we know our issue, as you'd probably know from what we submitted around MRCs is that at the moment there's not really any detail at all around how they'll be monitored, how they'll be governed. As Marcia said, there's no very little information about how non-compliance with the MRC will be dealt with. At the moment there's no information at all about an MRC will be shared with victims so they're not even going to know that a person who's harmed them is subject to an MRC. We know from the adult system that that's really difficult if there's no information. There's no such thing as a breach, technically, because of the process so that's a concern. There's mention of intensive packages of support being in place around an MRC but also those being dependent on a case-by-case basis and it's very vague about what that would look like. We do not believe them to be an effective tool to safeguard women and girls against harm without clear guidance and without a means of them being enforceable. There's lots and lots of concerns around MRCs, particularly in this context. I was just going to say that I know colleagues will come on to talk a bit more about information sharing specifically and you have covered in somebody's answer there how they might be implemented and monitored effectively so I don't know if you want to please do come out. It was just to add to that to say that victims and our young victims are no different. They say repeatedly that we're not looking for punishment, we're looking for protection and by reporting we've tried to manage this abuse for often for a long time ourselves and when we've exhausted that we've reported and we've increased our risk by reporting and actually we're not always being protected. I'm not sure if you've got any idea of what sort of amendments might look like to help that in terms of some of the concerns you've raised and if you don't have any suggestions or thoughts right now on that could you always feed back in as well? It's complex really and I mean at heart it's part of the issue is around the hearing and only taking into account the needs of the child who's being referred and obviously the child or person who's been harmed their needs are not taken into account the hearing and I think that this plays out exactly in the MRC issue you see it really in a kind of microcosm. Thank you. Liam Kerr, can I come to questions from yourself now? Yes thank you convener and good morning panel. Actually following on from that last question Kate Wallace I'll stay with you initially. I want to know about the provision of information to people affected by the child's behaviour because Victim Support Scotland in your submission and the Scottish Women's Aid state that the information sharing proposals in the bill don't strike the right balance between the rights of victims and witnesses and the rights of the child that has caused the harm so that then begs the question what amendments do you want to see to the bill to satisfy that? So what we see is that the interpretation of the bill is that the child who's harmed is right to privacy as seen as an absolute right and that is not the case it's a relative right and it's about balancing the rights as you say of the child who's been harmed or the person who's been harmed and the child who's harmed so what we're proposing is a proportion a risk based approach to sharing information proportionately based on risk so we're proposing a three tier model and that the because at the moment victims under the victims code are entitled in Scotland information about their particular case that does not translate into the hearing system so they don't get any information about the case in the hearing system usually what they get is genetic if they ask for it is generic information about the hearing system but not about what's actually happened in the situation with the person who's harmed them that is Fiona and Marcia have alluded to earlier this morning that causes real problems in terms of this is not about sharing information for information sake it's actually about safety planning how can you properly safety plan for yourself if you don't know what's happened it makes a huge difference known if somebody's for example in your immediate vicinity or they're not that will have a massive impact on how you how you safety plan so that's why we're proposing a three tier model where at the kind of basic tier you would be just given information about the outcome of the case but depending on the level of risk the amount of information you get would increase the top tier would be information for example around if a child was ended up in secure accommodation so we've had examples for example of a serious sexual assault and that the child ended up in secure in the adult process if someone ended up in custody there is a victim notification scheme and the victim would be told when they would be released to avoid victims walking slap bang into the person for example who's raped them we feel that that should be there should be an equivalent measure within and that's the top tier information now I appreciate that for some is really challenging some who are coming at it from the kind of absolute thinking that the right to privacy for those who've harmed is an absolute right but it's not for us we see it as a way through balancing those rights and you know we think that proportionate response is the right one for me it's about also who's who's looking at that risk who's risk assessing because that has to be domestic abuse competent we have to understand the complexities of coercive control in young people's relationships and if we're not doing that and only looking at the incident that the hearing has in front of them then we're missing the totality of that risk so that needs to be in place to make the rest of it meaningful it's extremely helpful dr Scott you may want to to add to that but I'll ask you a question then if you could deal with both of you in mind your Scottish Women's Aid submission to us states that the bill doesn't currently demonstrate how it aligns with wider work to tackle gender-based violence so similar question to my last one how can we as a committee amend this bill to deal with that well give us the red pen no that would be one way um I think um I think we're struggling to give you specific um sticking plasters because it's it's really a problem a sort of a really critical building block foundational problem which is that the hearing system was set up without view to the to the impact of its establishment on child victims so I think that the the first thing that that needs to be done is to go through the entire bill with that lens and say well if we had rewrite you know if we were rewriting the system rebuilding the system then how what what would it look like and we we certainly all can help with that and certainly some of the nuts and bolts things would be about guidance either amending existing guidance or creating new guidance to say um at every step for instance of decision making around compulsory supervision orders and movement restriction conditions that these are the ways that you risk assess and and also make it offense specific so you know one of the things absolutely if you don't understand um chorus of control um and we run into this throughout the system um then then you minimize the harm you you increase the harm for the victim but you also you know increase the possibility that they'll they'll be a murder so I think that um uh from our perspective the whole system needs to be rejigged um but that would start with looking at this bill and just going through every mechanism and just saying so if you know if we had if we were looking at a victim from a equally safe perspective what would be the who was an adult what would be the protections we would expect for that adult to be have in place and and to make sure they're available to young victims understand very grateful final may I have one more yes it's just Michelle's got a supplement I don't know if it's on the same yet on there and then you come back in Dr Scott I mean obviously you were joking when you said we'll take a red pen to it but what I'm hearing from what you're describing is perhaps and I don't want to put words in your mouth you're concerned that in talking about what what amendments are possible that there's a risk that they may be too superficial given that what I'm hearing and I am new to this committee that it's almost as though the rights of the victims have been completely removed in this process so my question to you is really does the bill almost need to be completely turned in its head with a rapier focus on victims throughout and that is indeed much more substantive than potentially some gentle amendments at stage 2 so I'm just fleshing out your statement about a red pen a bit more well I think it's probably not a binary okay I don't I don't think it's whether you know it's probably not a oh it can't be fixed or it can't be fixed I do think it's how you fix it and given the the the pace the new government's favourite word given the pace of legislation and system change I would I would be horrified at the idea that we abandon an opportunity to improve the situation but I do think that you all know that we will probably not think what you've done is adequate but we'll very much be happy to help with it but I do think we will fail from the beginning if we don't understand how flawed the existing creation is I've ducted a little bit but I didn't mean to I just think that um uh when I when I think about the women and children that we serve this is an opportunity to help them be safer and one of the things that I keep hearing us all talk about because of the nature of the work that we do is about risk and and assessing risk and minimizing risk but you know really when I when I think about what adult um and child victims of course of control and domestic abuse health they they work so hard to create islands of safety in their lives um and when we talk about not telling them about movement restriction orders conditions um uh it's we take all possibility away from them that they can they can create some oasis of space of safety and still have access to something like a normal life um and maybe what we need to do is not just think about proper domestic abuse competent risk assessment and sexual assault competent risk assessment but also um how do we how do we be a positive impact how do we help victims with their recovery and creating system you know air spaces of safety while absolutely protecting the you know the the way that the system was designed to operate with young offenders I mean I've got a slightly stronger position I do think we need to go right I hinted at this when I gave evidence at the first stage um I think this bill has been conceived from a good place of thinking that how you help prevent um children who've harmed becoming um adults who harm that you put the right support mechanisms in place for them and I do agree with that but I think the the issue is that we've done that in complete isolation and away from thinking about um the impact and at the same time the support information and rights of victims it's somewhere along the line those two things have become completely separated in Scotland and I'm not really quite sure how and how that's happened and that's I think why we've ended up with what we've got there are other countries who have the same ethos but do it in a completely different way and who understand it bring given victims information support and power in them helps me helps move away from that polarisation and helps victims to recover as well as knowing what the impact is on victims and having them as part and parcel of the process helps those who've harmed understand the impact of their harm on other people and therefore helps them take responsibility and helps them engage in support and all the rest yet so I think for me I do think and I said that before I do think the timescales need to be looked at people are aware of that because I do think there's a fundamental and there's some fundamental conversations to be had I think and and gone through properly which is you know how do you retain the ethos of the hearing system and retain that without having victims lose their rights and in a way you know kind of what we're saying to them is you're not you were kind of dismissing the harm that's been caused to them by by by approaching it in this way and I think that's just going to store up and build other problems so I do think there's a this is so important and the impact could be huge if we got it right but I do think that we need to take the time to get it right and it's not you know we've we've proposed a number of amendments behind the scenes that they're not gaining much traction I have to say is my feeling at the moment and I think that that there there has to be a radical rethink around all of that otherwise we're going to end up with another piece of legislation that's going to cause more harm than it's going to do good and that's my big concern about this as I said in my first session supporting three victims just now that are the victims of one perpetrator who's 17 we're struggling to manage his persistence and remembering that this is a unique and you know distinct crime repeating nature when we talk about domestic abuse we're struggling to manage that within the criminal justice process where we have nhos bail conditions breaches of bail et cetera when I look at what we've got here it's not absolutely not going to going to impact on his behaviour and increase the safety of those three victims okay thank you Liam Kerr come back to you and it's very finally from me I'll stick with you on that Fiona McMillan FMA because there's been a recent independent review of the victim notification scheme and the Scottish government's currently considering that so given what you've just said what would you like to see coming out from that consideration on the victim notification scheme we've spoken quite a bit to that review and victim notifications one thing that's when someone gets a custodial sentence which we know is fairly rare and potentially even rarer when we're talking about young people that cause harm but for me that scheme needs to be much more than an administrative it needs to be a way to link in with the victim and provide them again with the risk and safety management of that release can the clerks have made me aware of some evidence that came into us later after the briefing from the children's commissioner's office that spoke about confidentiality in terms of sharing information with the victims confidentially and I wonder what just one of you can maybe respond quickly to if you think that might be helpful there's international examples of that I think it's Croatia where information is shared with victims of young offenders but they are told explicitly that that's that information is secret is how it's termed so there are there are examples of that from from around the world and yeah I mean I think you know my view about information sharing I think it's absolutely essential and essential for safety planning so so yeah Pam Duncan Glancy has a wee supplementary and then we'll move to Willie Rennie. Okay thanks guys thank you thank you um I appreciate that and thank you for the evidence you've given us so so far the government have proposed the victim contact team could be part of the solution to various different issues including this bill do you think that would be part of the answer or would it be inadequate? We in terms of a single point of contact think that that would be helpful yeah I mean our this conversation that we're having about how to share proportionate information how to make that assessment that really needs to be done on a case by case basis and having a having a team that would do that it would be more than just a contact team though I think there is quite a lot of support would be required as well so yeah we've been involved in discussing proposals around a single point of contact with government and as supportive and I believe others are on that too so yeah Victims tell us repeatedly that what's worked for them and that came out of the DACE research as well is that trusted professional that can help navigate this system that understands the dynamics of coercive control in young relationships so that needs to be there it's not about providing information it's about what you do with that information how it impacts on risk safety planning and belief in validation for the victim okay thank you it would be um deeply helpful if the elements of the Children's Collin Act were implemented that included children's advocacy so children would have advocacy services that would help provide the trusted professional who would hopefully be you know domestic abuse competent and able to engage with the system on the child's behalf or facilitate the child's engagement with it I mean I think absolutely making contact easier and and um less complicated and and more responsive will help but it won't it won't change the basic flaws in the system okay willy reyny do you want to come in on this and then follow on with your yeah I can do yeah and just just following on from what you were saying Kate that you were finding your arguments I presume with government we're gaining much traction can you give us a little bit of an indication as to what the arguments are as to why it's not getting traction Kate so we know that we've been proposing the three-tier model around information sharing and a proportionate and risk-based approach to that and we understand that that is particularly the third tier in terms of secure accommodation is um causing some anxiety it's how we put it um particularly for children who well well they will all have had other things going on it won't just be the harm that will mean that they've ended up insecure I think there's there's a concern that those things need to be separated out it's how it's been put to me I'm not sure I agree with that I think you know victims should still have information shared with them because they are still victims so so that's one certainly the anonymity discussion that we've been having where is the state children's commissioner had proposed some amendments I understand that's um causing some concern and I don't you know I appreciate it's very very complex but I would have thought in Scotland we could do better um and I think yeah so that that's the kind of two main ones we had been asked to put together some proposals for a single point of contact um that there was a lot of activity around the stage one process around the stage one report but it's quiet and down quite a bit I would say is my take on it um so so that it's all gone a bit quiet on that that front too so so yeah at this point in time given the deadline that Parliament has set around um this bill in particular I am from my perspective not feeling that confident in terms of where we've got to with with the discussion around amendments so that's that's fine thank you okay I just want to ask about um security issue um and the the arrangements for those who are in their own welfare grounds and those who are there on uh offence grounds being convicted um what needs to be done to bring confidence that those arrangements are safe and secure for those particularly on the welfare grounds I don't know if anybody would like to as you probably know um there'd be a number of children who are in secure accommodation and are there on welfare grounds have expressed real concern around the proposed changes for 16 and 17 year olds um to be coming to secure accommodation as opposed to um going to a young offenders institution their concerns are yes absolutely about their own safety um they're also concerned that and we share those concerns and again I said that at stage one that the issues around young offenders institutions were not just about buildings um and that potentially if you move children who have who have committed more serious offences into um secure accommodation that that mix um of of children and young people will in a way replicate some of the problems that you had in young offenders institutions if that's not been managed um well and obviously you took evidence from secure accommodation providers um around what and there was follow-up done with them about what they would have to do um to to make sure those arrangements were were safe and secure um but yeah we we we remain concerned about that and concerned that in a few years time what we're going to realise is we have just replicated the yoy model but on a smaller scale within secure facilities so would your concerns be so significant that you wouldn't be in favour of that transfer do you think separate provision needs to be made or do you think it can be managed we we would want to see more detail in terms of how that was going to be managed um and have discussion with the children who are in secure on welfare grounds um in terms of their their perspective on it um because i think you know they know best really in terms of what what's going on for them but yeah we would be um where you remain to be convinced that's fine marcia do you want to come in and notice you were nodding i think it comes back to my point about our you know horror at the lack of any participation with children and young people and the the across the the peace on the the development of some of the less child friendly elements of it and certainly less girl friendly i do think that we need to speak to young women especially in in secure my experiences which are getting older now when i worked in a local authority were that young women were more likely to be in secure care for for welfare reasons which were highly gendered and often about controlling their sexual behavior rather than than actually protecting them from harm so um i think that uh it's a it as kate says it's a pretty complex question about them what do you do when you add another set of um uh uh risks involved but we we need to ask them we need to involve them in the in the potential you know sort of solution finding um in all of this and like and like fionna says you know that the young women we work with are not interested in punishment particularly they're interested mostly in being believed and being helped to be safe um and then to see justice that's great thank you very much um and i want to thank the panel for their time this morning a very useful session indeed and we'll have a brief suspension to allow for a change of witnesses thank you very much welcome back to our committee this morning our second panel will be looking at how the changes proposed by this bill will be resourced and what will mean for the key organisations delivering these changes so with that can i welcome steven birmingham head of practice and policy from children's hearing scotland good morning jillian gibson policy manager children and young people team and joanne anderson policy manager local government finance team both from cosla allister hog head of practice and policy scottish children's reporter system scrab so we even know if we hear that later on and ben furugia director of social work scotland good morning we will move straight to questions from members and can i bring in firstly stephanie callhan please thank you convener and good morning panel thanks for being along today so we now have updated financial information for the bill from the scottish government so i'm wondering what assessment you've made of the updated information and any areas of concern that you have regarding this so i'm not sure who wants to go first thank you so the committee will be aware that causal's response to the financial memorandum set out some key concerns around the inadequacy of the critical cost implications that have been provided and the scottish government officials had since followed up with causal officers and social work scotland to gather some more detailed information and costings and we did welcome this input we don't have a causal position per se on the updated financial information it's not going through our governance however our response to the financial memorandum originally did clearly set out the areas that we thought had been underestimated and the areas that we're missing so we can look compare that against what's being provided in the updated financial information can see what has and has not been included i think there are some positives of the areas that we've flagged have been picked up for example the updated social work salary cost that we've provided although we'd maybe want to come back on that point the updated estimated additional social work hours required that social work scotland has provided have been incorporated i think there's some areas that we feel are still missing so some of the areas that we have flagged that should be considered are around family support secure transport costs and the additional administration and managerial time required to support the hearings process those haven't been recognised or reflected in the updated financial information there is some costs recognised around training and aftercare that we had flagged our vital kind of implications for local government that need to be fully funded but these haven't been included in the actual updated costings they've just been kind of included to note so we would be keen that there's more work done to look at what those costs would look like kind of aware that these are some areas that are maybe difficult to quantify at this point but that commitment to review and fund these areas would be welcome so i think that's initial reflections just based on what we've raised before anyone else what ben very happy good morning everyone um really echo Joanna's comments i think we're very positive about the work scotland's done to update those figures it's very welcome we contributed to that as Joanna said um and was grateful for the opportunity the extra time when i was here last time that's what we were asking for the opportunity to have the time to fully understand what some of the implications are so i think really really welcome scotland's government's effort to do that of course also concerned about what remains unspecified in there a few references still to costs being absorbed because of small numbers i think our reality for instance around aftercare is that we could be talking about some quite significant costs around albeit a small number but some complex cases and i think wanting to ensure that we're providing a great package of support around them and of course i suppose our key concern at social work scotland has been ensuring that we are putting a right bill to these changes money is essential but money is not sufficient and the question remains for us do we have the people and capacity to deliver these changes and that's as much a question about sequencing and implementation as it is because of course we can do these things it's just about when we turn these provisions on will we be ready will we be able to do it Stephen are you wanting to come in you look caught my eye there do a better watch you know i'm happy to come in i mean i would say that the bill team have been very receptive to the changes essentially what they've done is extended the existing cost things that we did previously by about 42% based on the new modelling but i mean for us that's that it's based on a volunteer model and we do have additional capacity concerns in relation to in relation to the bill but the actual financial modelling process and the financial memo reflects what we discussed and collaborated with in terms of the bill team so 42% is a quite a large differential and i think that's made us sit up and take notes thanks for making the harsh start. Stephanie do you have anything else to follow up here so i suppose just picking up on that point that you made Ben about saying you know do we have the people and capacity to deliver these changes and i'm just wondering if Joanna would want to comment on on that. I would maybe hand over to Gillian if that's okay on the policy side. Yeah absolutely I guess echoing what we had put in our original call for views in March there is there are a lot of additional pressures and a lot of asks on the current social work system a lot of changes being recognised need to happen and as social work teams and supportive teams work at the moment they are under enormous resourcing capacities i think Ben and social work scotland referenced that as well working at 60 and 70 capacity so there is absolute anxiety and challenge around adding more and additional hours pressure to a system that is already under pressure. Okay thanks Michelle yeah just a quick supplementary i mean i probably not unsurprisingly as a member of the finance committee are incredibly struck by an increase of 42 per cent provision from the original FM which then obviously leads me to consider confidence going forward particularly around the unknown unknowns i've also got questions about confidence in the the kind of known things as more detail emerges so my question to you then is if you had to put a number where zero is no confidence and 10 is absolute confidence how confident are you that the remaining process will flesh out the unknown unknowns and that the financial provisioning can then be put in place because my sort of we worry from previous experience is that as the bill becomes more embedded it's going to happen as it goes through the stages but by that point you run out of money and you've got to squeeze it in to whatever processes within your organisations so i'm trying to flesh that out a wee bit your level of confidence because that is a startling increase of 42 percent that really is unbelievable so i'm not necessarily asking you all to comment but just if you've got any reflections on a confidence basis in other words is there going to be enough money available I'll try and answer it directly as well i think on the basis of experience probably a four if you're asking us to do a zero is no confidence and 10 is complete confidence i think in respect of this current bill team and their effort to try and make sure this is done right it's possibly a bit higher just on experience it tends to not be done so well i think the fact that we're here with a 40 plus percent increase is evidence of that commitment to try and do it but i think i completely agree with your analysis once this moves into stage two and we're getting momentum i don't i don't think those conversations will stop but i think everybody knows then that we're we're on the way to this being reality and money is extremely tight you know i'm not clear where the additional money is going to come for some of these things from a government point of view or in local government budgets at the same time is needing to find money to implement widespread systematic reform of the children's hearing system the roll out of bens hoose the reimagining of secure care uncosted elements across this which are tens possibly hundreds of millions of pounds so i sit with concern i want to see these provisions realised but i'm i sit with a low level of confidence about again the money being perhaps less important than whether we haven't anything to spend the money on social work posts are vacant the money is there to pay for them it's not the absence of the money it's the absence of the people and so again even if the government could find all the money we're still asking a system to deliver something that's probably not capable of doing okay jillian i can see you nodding do you want to come in as well i'm nodding an agreement with ben i think joanna is as that are my finance colleague is far better placed i think just echo a completely agree with ben's points about the uncosted elements of the linked areas to this bill the hearings for scotland report that was published in march the reimagining secure care are all uncosted but completely connected and related to this bill and the sequencing of what happens as we work through this bill but the success of it is completely linked to those and there are just two examples that are also uncosted so the the deep uncertainty around not just the financial memorandum for the bill but the these other two areas where the financial analysis has not happened yet but joanna can ensure comment would joanna come in and then i know alistar hog is keen to comment as well thanks yeah just really to agree with what colleagues have said they've set out that there's a lot going on in this space there are a lot of areas that will require funding we all know that the difficult financial position scotch government is in local governments in that's a kind of a lot of change to fund from not a very big pot of money and so it's how far that will stretch and what can be done with that is a concern and just obviously as well the tough financial challenges that local government facing none of those costs can really be picked up and absorbed we're already stretched at full capacity as it is alistar thank you so i think first of all we just to say that you know there has to be an honesty about this because this is a very proactive policy and and is supported by everyone on this panel it's the right thing to do but if it doesn't have the proper investment if it doesn't have the proper resources then you know it will fail because the system requires all the resources in place what i am encouraged by is the fact that we were invited to and encouraged to take a maximalist approach in terms of analysing the data and presenting the numbers and doing the analysis that analysis is our is our best estimate in terms of the impact of the bill in terms of referrals in terms of hearings in terms of court there are wider implications of the building that you're hearing about from other colleagues on the panel and that 42 percent increase is is kind of eye opening but that's because of the different approach that was taken to calculating the numbers committee members will remember that previous numbers were based on a cut off of 17 and a half which wasn't intended to be a cut off it was just a realistic assessment that in some situations for children approaching 18 the meaningfulness of intervention might be less at that stage and there might be a different approach so stretching it right to 18 has the biggest impact and also using different years not Covid years to calculate numbers that's why we end up but i'm very encouraged by the fact that we were invited to do that and those numbers have been accepted and also you'll see that the numbers have a range so best estimate it could be this or it could could actually stretch to that and we've been encouraged to go to the top of that range i think that's the right approach because if it could be that that's what you need to plan for but it but it does come with challenges and it does require investment but if the you know if there is a belief in the policy then that has to be an honest discussion okay my questions are going to relate specifically about social work so i think maybe we'll come to yourself ben and you have already alluded to the fact that you have the money there for the social workers but you've not got the social workers there if that makes any sense to you so in terms of if we've not what resources are going to be needed to enable the social work teams to implement the bill changes given the restrictions with well when i say restrictions the challenges you have on recruitment and then perhaps we can look at some of the recruitment solutions if you don't mind and we come to yourself first then ben thank you convener for me i tend to meetings at the moment try and shift the focus away from recruitment to retention i think our critical challenge at the moment is retaining experience staff and we do have absolutely a problem with recruitment that's absolutely true but i think in an area like this where we're talking you know we're talking about a population of children young people where we want to ensure that we're providing both for them and for those who may have been harmed you know we're wanting to ensure we're providing them with skilled competent experienced professionals who can who can manage these cases and we are in a situation where the workload as my colleagues have meant and the situation of the environment of delivering social work is as we've seen leading to high levels of moral distress and people leaving before their time moving to other professions entirely so to to try and address your question i think our issue is retention and although there are conversations underway and conversations in earnest about how we address that problem of retention and recruitment in social work they are just conversations still there is not a systematic plan in place to address the problem it's not a decline but it is a decline in practice we have had a stable no change number of workforce for over a decade now in social work and yet the number of responsibilities in social work has increased dramatically in that period and rightly so they're good they're good duties and things we want to be doing but there has been no equivalent increase in the size of the profession and actually we have seen small dips in our justice and children and families workforces and an increase in adults and that's actually linked to obviously investment in adults and increases in pay so we can see that so there's that aspect and once we have the people we need to ensure in this work that they are skilled and again aspects that haven't been properly costed are around learning and development and they are difficult to cost but again like i said previously they're not impossible to cost if we spend the time and really understand out of my organisation i deliver a piece of complex learning and development for social workers and i'm able to cost that and it's expensive unfortunately and it takes time so again with time and with the money we can get there but again i always get a feeling with the legislation as the as the previous question implied once we start moving through this the expectation is that commencement will be quick these these provisions will be in place things that i want to be want to happen but i do not want a situation where the social work professions feels yet again overburdened overwhelmed and encourages more social workers to think actually i'd be better jumping across the ship to that profession which will mean that we can't deliver this at all thank you ben that's quite stark but in addition you spoke a lot there about the training and the investment in in those people so is there anything else that local authority social work teams might require to support that that's not yet been addressed in the bill in addition to the training that would really help with the implementation or just i mean so for us if we're sort of in our in our list of things much of what social work wants sits in other services so if i if i answer your question in the context of provision around young people who end up in secure care i think i mentioned this last time i came the absence of or and again a complete sympathy for why but the the absence of comprehensive complex diverse mental health support for children young people in scotland is a big driver why we end up having to take children young people into secure care and why we keep them in secure care because we don't have alternatives if we if we bring them out into the community that change sitting outside of social work a key partner but there being the breadth of provision the complexity of provision that we need to meet this population's needs would make a huge difference to us so that's just one example again there are plans in place there is money that has been committed which is all welcome is it sufficient is our is our question and i'm primed in answering this question just being exposed to a current case that's that's you know a current young person in in secure care and the the actual complexity of that young person's needs leading to a situation where the secure care provider can no longer continue to provide that care and so we're having to have conversations nationally about what do we do you know we're in a situation there's no mental health provision for him you know and that's that's stark it's stark you know and it's likely that the individual may spend a life in secure care a young life in secure care and then move to the state hospital when they're 18 i'm confident we can do better than that if we focused on those kind of examples no thank you for sharing and we do appreciate the use of that example there to flesh things out can i move now to Liam Kerr please thank you convener good morning panel Stephen Birmingham good morning you've started a recruitment campaign in September to recruit i think between 500 and 800 additional volunteers how's that going and will 500 to 800 be enough if there is an increase in caseload so the recruitment campaign ended two weeks ago we didn't get the response that we had hoped for and i think we ended up with about 650 applications so to recruit 500 to 800 is going to be particularly challenging so we have capacity issues in relation to that generally we find that in terms of applications that the transfer from applications to actually appointment is around about 50 so we're anticipating around 325 you know applicants which is which is not enough but we do we do have a sort of strategy to address that i'll come back to that in a second if i may Joanna Anderson there was a proposal in the hearing system working group to pay members so to pay the chair a salary and pay panel members a day rate am i right that that's not being picked up in the financial memoranda the revised financial memorandum and if not given i think that there's a 42 projected caseload increase does that concern you and does it give you any idea of how much this might cost if they were paid i'll maybe just come in quickly and pass on to jillian but just in terms of whether it's been picked up or not as my understanding is that it's not in there in terms of the kind of concerns around that would be hand over to no it's not yeah hasn't been picked up yet the here is for children report that was published sorry i'm full of the cold so sorry for that the here is for children report so coslas response to that will be published today it'll be on our website and i believe scottish government are responding towards the end of the year so that's part of i think everybody on the panel's concern is the sequencing of the here is for children report published the not costed and we haven't there is 97 plus recommendations in that report so it's taken us a lot of time so paying panel members paying the chair those kind of things need a lot of further explanation to cost them and the reality and is that the right thing to do so there's a lot of work that is happening and will require to happen across the system to not just cost those but are they the right thing to do so there's the bit there is the concern about separate work happening in isolation that is connected to the bill but it but it isn't being connected at this point in time and that we would imagine will happen in future but it hasn't been costed because it kind of sits in isolation published by the promise scottland and steven burriam do you have any idea of what that cost might be obviously with your oversight of the area but also jillian gibson i think they're asked a very interesting question is that the right thing to do because some may feel that paying a chair paying volunteers would increase the ability to recruit but others may feel actually it might discourage recruitment what's your take steven burriam yes a tricky one and it's a recommendation that came out with the hearings for children report that's currently being considered by government so i think at the early weeks in december they're going to make a response in terms of the recommendations in that my view steven burriam as opposed to my corporate view is there is some significant advantages in terms of looking at a remuneration model particularly around consistency so one of the recommendations from the hearings for children's report was about continuity of panel members so about not retelling not asking children and families to retell their story every time they turn up a panel so in order to get continuity that's very tricky when we're working with a volunteer model where on average panel members will volunteer one one and a half mornings or afternoons a month so that's one of the compelling things however it does it's a complex issue and it's one that's been discussed at length through the hearings system working group and it's a one the decision that essentially will sit with the Scottish government and a ministerial decision in relation to that and in terms of the cost it will be understandably expensive i'm very grateful thank you Pam Duncan-Clancy you have a supplementary in this before you move to your own line of questioning is that okay thank you i'll run them in together if that's okay thank you convener thank you very much for the evidence you've given us in advance but also the questions you've asked so far you've answered so far i want to just pick up on the the point that we were discussing there around the panel members and you said that you've not it looks like you're not going to get the target what is your strategy and what's the backup plan if you don't okay so maybe that i mean there's been since i get evidence at stage one there's been sort of five material changes that make the outlook in terms of capacity more challenging if it's okay can i quickly run through those challenges and then tell you a little bit about what our strategy is to address some of those challenges so the first one that we've spoken about already this morning is the recalibration of the figures so 42 increase makes it extremely challenging across the sector not just within children's living in scotland so 42 increase that's one that the second one it's harder to recruit volunteers so i talked about the 650 applicants that's not as many as we hope for and i think that some message that's been reflected across the voluntary sector in particular is about the recruitment of volunteers in in the context of a squeeze on living costs and i suppose they're sort of competing demands that that people have in order to give up their time panel members are volunteering slightly less also than pre-pandemic so looking at the figures before the pandemic it is about 1.25 on average across our 2100 volunteers so 1.25 sessions that's a morning or an afternoon a month that's now dropped down to 1.17 so aggregated across over 2000 panel members has this impact in terms of our capacity similarly with in terms of retention length of service is slightly dipped so the average length length of service is now 5.37 as opposed to 5.61 in 2020 so again aggregated across it adds the additional capacity pressures to the system and with i suppose a new cohort of volunteers coming on board we have issues in terms of the number of chairs so each panel is made up of two panel members and a chair a chairing panel member and it takes 15 to 18 months to train a panel member to become a chair so that adds additional pressures so those are the sort of five issues that's around the recalibration it's the recruitment it's the retention and it's the kind of length of service and the capacity issues that has so it's coming to your question i think it's important that i outline the committee those pressures so just coming to your question in terms of our strategy we do have a capacity building strategy so one of them i think other panel other committee panel members have mentioned it would be in in relation to the commencement date and it's a discussion we've been having with the Scottish Government and the bill team in terms of allowing we've asked for for at least 12 to 18 months once the bill gets wore if the bill gets wore a scent to make sure that there's capacity and that's capacity within children's hearing scotland but also across the system particularly with our social work partners to make sure those support packages are in place so the recruitment is the challenge and it's the challenge that Liam spoke about earlier we at the moment we work on an annual recruitment campaign so once a year we run quite a high profile national campaign to recruit panel members and our target to historically we've averaged about 450 500 panel members we recruited and going forward we're going to need to recruit about 650 we think between now and the commencement of the bill last year for the first time we run two recruitment campaigns which carried additional cost pressures we managed to find that money and and the response was actually quite positive so we got 410 panel members in the first recruitment campaign and 319 in the second recruitment campaign so 729 in total so one of the issues that we will discuss with the Scottish Government in terms of addressing some of the capacity issues is looking at the budget for for a recruitment and potentially running it more than once a year that decision hasn't hasn't been made we've also made significant investment locally so particularly in wellbeing and partial support for volunteers through paid staff so historically we've run the children's hearing system with volunteer panel members and volunteer roles supporting those panel members what we're doing to create a better and more robust and consistent system as we're replacing a number of those volunteer kind of management roles with paid staff so hopefully we're in terms of particularly the wellbeing posts we'll be able to provide a a higher level of a partial support which will help with recruitment and retention scheduling of hearings has been an issue that's been raised by young people a number of people across the piece and it relates to volunteering at the moment hearings pretty much what run Monday to Friday nine to five probably nine to three on a Friday but you know children and families have told us that you know sometimes thinking about availability in evenings weekends that would certainly help with in terms of volunteer availability at the moment essentially the volunteer offer restricts anyone that needs to be in work Monday to Friday but that's a bit of work that needs to happen across the system because social work colleagues in scra and education and other professionals need to be available during those times so that's that's that's one thing another another strategy we're looking at is about expediting speeding up the training so currently we have a sort of a pre-service training it takes eight to ten weeks we could potentially speed that up and similarly with in terms of our chairs 15 to 18 months there may be some panel members that come through with the competencies to be able to chair before that so potentially speeding that up and finally is is thinking about the financial allowances and provisions so we know that volunteer expenses are significantly underclaimed we have provisions for loss of earnings and we think there's potential to promote that more so people who are giving up paid work to volunteer of us could actually get renewment we have that provision but they're just the uptakes quite poor and we'd also look at other kind of financial allowances and potentially incentives in order to encourage more people to be able to volunteer so so quite a long question but i thought it was important that the committee understood the capacity constraints and i suppose are children hearing scolins response to that thank you and it sounds like there's quite quite a bit of work to be done there to to get to the capacity that's required i have one other question on timing and it's for for ben actually and then a question on training do you want me to do that training question now too thank you can be enough that we've just heard from steven birmingham that about 12 to 18 months post commencement would be required to get the panel members in position what sort of timescale would you be looking at for the number of social workers that are required so number of social workers i i probably can't answer directly because i'm i mean we've given we've given estimates that have been featured in about what we think the the children's hearings work increase will will demand so i'll maybe side step the question about numbers and just in terms of the the time we think that the system needs to be to be prepared for this i mean a lot i mean a lot of what steven was referring to is business as usual we are we are potentially bringing in with the increase in age a slightly different cohort of cases i think not entirely different but i hope sort of steven and alistair would concur with that and so the nature of the social work task will change a little bit with that too 12 to 18 months does not seem unreasonable as a as a time frame but to echo what i was saying earlier i think it is likely that 12 to 18 months would be sufficient for us to identify people that we're probably pulling from other things to attend to this and so that will be the reality it's not newly minted and cut social workers that we are able to bring in to do to do this task we are we are talking about existing members of staff who will now have additional cases or we are talking about other staff that we're trying to orientate into this space and actually again to sort of echo something again i said earlier we do know that for a number of social workers their experience in the children's hearing system is one reason why they are deciding to leave and we're we're hearing that feedback pretty consistently i think i occurred at last time it's something that we offered to sheriff mackey leading the review of the children's hearing system and has featured in the in the final conclusions about why there is a need to change the system but i mean effectively we are putting more pressure throughout the entire system with good reason with with with good objective but 12 to 18 months we will do it we always do it's one of the costs that will be that will be impacting elsewhere in us doing it i'll also hug do you want to come in on that timeline thread as well thanks yeah happy to do that um we from an sra perspective i'm very confident that we would be prepared but we're only one part of the hearing system and for us to be ready and prepared you know we can increase capacity we will increase capacity we'll we'll have a learning and development plan we'll have practice direction prepared we will be ready for this and we've got lots of experience we've got the skills we've got the leadership to do that but if we if we're ready and we can provide the best service possible but it's not going to be enough if our partners aren't ready and and if the services are not there to provide for the children because what we do is is you know make the decision about whether the hearing system is engaged and once that happens the real work is when the child is on a compulsory supervision order and the services are then put wrapped around that child to support them those services need to be there i've consistently said through many discussions in relation prior to the bill even being drafted that the timing has to appropriate to when those resources and services are available largely obviously statutory services but also third party sector third sector as well who provide a crucial role in terms of providing services particularly for this age group of children so in terms of a timescale it has to be to me it has to be flexible to land when the system is ready to take that extra to absorb that extra expectation upon it 12 to 18 months does sound reasonable i'm not sure if when steven said 12 to 18 months if he meant 12 to 18 months from today or from commencement that's not what i understand that's fine that's fine just clarifying that so that i mean that can be built in in terms of a provision in the act around commencement i'll just put on record because your microphone wasn't on steven that he was 12 to 18 months after royal assent and i did pick that up from your previous is that correct that's correct pan if you don't mind stefanie callahan is a small supplementary in this team if we can go there first yeah just a short question for yourself steven you've spoken about recruiting volunteers once a year and possibly increasing that to twice a year and i'm just wondering why it is that you wouldn't have a rolling on going programme what the thinking is behind that i know certainly many years ago actually i had actually looked at it myself and thought about applying but when i looked online it was closed at that point in time so i'm just wondering you know obviously i won't be the only one like that i'm just wondering what the thinking is it's a good question actually it is one that we've been looking at in terms of i suppose when we're running a national recruitment campaign there's costs associated that particularly advertising costs but what we are finding increasingly is that the pressures vary from area to area so we know for example historically in edinburgh we haven't struggled to recruit panel members in the Clyde we have so having more localised targeted ones i think is probably something that we will have to explore in the future particularly as we sort of build our staffing capacity in those areas to respond to needs it is i mean the volunteer model is it's an inherent fragility in terms of running a statutory service on the goodwill of volunteers so we have to make sure that that volunteering experience is really positive and responsive to local needs and recruit people when they're available we don't have the levers of salaries that other organisations have so it's a constant challenge for us Pam thank you for your patience Pam back to yourself no problem thank you it's just to pick up continue the conversation on the volunteers but also to pick up on your point ben about the change in profile of people who will be coming through the system so police scotland figures on domestic abuse suggest that it could be it could see an increase in those type of cases coming through the system almost three or four times more so i'm just interested steven in what kind of training do your panel members currently get on domestic abuse trauma informed approach and coercive control and what do you think they might need going forward it's a good question and it's a theme that we hear more of from a practice and policy perspective so at the moment trauma informed practice is one of the few mandatory courses that all panel members have to do so they all complete the trauma informed training which is a standalone training module provided by our learning academy and in the pre-service training all panel members have to learn about trauma informed practice and domestic violence coercion control domestic abuse but i think there's probably an opportunity to work across the sector in terms of looking at the training that we offer because it is a theme that is increasing and something that is a real concern in relation to how we respond as a hearing system not just John's hearing Scotland but as a hearing system how we respond to issues domestic violence abuse and control. I'll just add to that children reporters all receive mandatory training in relation to domestic abuse that training is delivered by Scottish Women's Aid and it's constantly been reviewed and updated and will be so again because of the potential change of the dynamic so within children's reporters and children's hearings we're very familiar and aware of dealing with issues related to domestic abuse but it's most commonly through the lens of the children who are within the household who may be directly or indirectly exposed to the behaviours that occur and what's being observed or anticipated is that dynamic may change because of course if you increase the age of referral and make the system available to all 16 and 17 year olds then there is more likelihood or more chance of a greater number who may be in relationships, who may actually be married, who may be the perpetrators of the abuse and also may be the victims of that abuse as well who may be referred to the children's reporter and potentially to a children's hearing so we recognise that changing dynamic and we need to be prepared for that in terms of our learning and development and our approach and our understanding as was highlighted in the earlier panel about coercive control and all the issues in relation to that but I would say that in terms of what we are likely to see in terms of that change of dynamic and those numbers it's difficult to be very clear on that because it's so related to what may become come through from a consideration by the Lord Advocate in terms of our guidelines because at the moment the position is that the Lord Advocate stipulates that children will not be prosecuted except in certain circumstances and those guidelines stipulate what those circumstances are and undoubtedly there will be consideration on going and it's not for me to obviously speak for the Lord Advocate who's totally independent in its hard decision but I would imagine that there will be consideration around those situations about whether those are the types of incidents which will require to be jointly reported and therefore a discussion will need to take place about which system is the appropriate one to deal with the circumstances that are presented there so it's difficult to estimate how many will come to the hearing system and how many may actually still be retained within the criminal justice system. Stephen, do you want to come back to the original question? One thing that is important that I forgot to mention is that we're working with the Children and Young People Centre for Justice in terms of developing a training resource for panel members which will become mandatory once the bill passes through this parliamentary process which is about supporting the needs of older children in the hearing system and that will cover things around domestic abuse, coercion control, trauma-informed practice, homelessness, other issues that have been identified by panel members affecting the older cohort of children more than the younger ones so we are working on that bit of work. I move now to my vice convener Ruth Maguire for some questions please. Thank you convener, good morning panel. I'd like to ask a question around movement restriction conditions. Firstly, just to hear your reflections on the updated costings for the intensive support that's accompanying MRCs. I think it's welcome that those costings have been included in the updated financial information. It's a difficult one because they're so rarely used at the moment so it's difficult to put a cost estimate to that. Social Work Scotland I know did provide some estimated costings which have been reflected. I would say that it's something that needs to be kept under review. It's a bit of an unknown at the moment so we would want that commitment there to keep it under review and to make sure that it is fully funded because I think it's in terms of the costing and the readiness of the sector to be able to make use of those as well. I'm not sure if Gillian would want to add anything in the terms of those. I just agree with Joanna that it's difficult to cost because they're so individualised. It's difficult to put a cost that the support package around an MRC would cost X for every single young person. That would be different depending on different circumstances. I think that the costings that are in the revised financial memorandum is one of the known unknowns because they're so rarely used because of the conditions around the bill that allows for those to be decoupled from secure care. We would expect an increase in them but it's difficult. That quantification of what support would look like is challenging. While we're taking stage 1 evidence, the Children and Young Persons commissioner commented on them as the Two Care Scotland. The commissioner said that intensive support for MRCs, and I'll quote, had fallen away in many cases, in whose care Scotland said support was patchy. Bearing in mind what you've just said about the difficulty in quantifying what's required, will the resources allocated in the updated document ensure that that's not the case and that intensive support is provided to everyone who has an MRC? I'm happy to try to take that and try to answer it plainly. No, there's no costing that will do that. We're talking about parts of the country where there is not the provision of third sector providers who are critical in this space who are able to provide that package of support. My expectation, based on an understanding about how community justice has worked in adults, is that hearings over time will not lean towards, panels will not lean towards, setting those conditions as an option because of lack of confidence that there will be a package of support. Similar to the current situation, we have now probably an explanation for why they're rarely used. It's a more systematic over time investment to ensure that every part of Scotland has the providers of this. Our costs that we provided probably relate to the social work element of supervising such an order. The actual package of care will be much more expensive, I suspect, as is evident now in how we support complex cases in the community. That's helpful. I may stick with you for a second, Ben. In stage 1, she gave us a lot of rich evidence from Social Work Scotland on the impact on children who are involved in the justice system and are causing harm. We asked a question about Social Work Scotland's view on safety planning for victims. At that point, there wasn't information that you had from your membership. Are you able to give us your reflections on that now? Our organisations and our members have followed the debates that have taken place in this place and elsewhere. I think that our conversations have a similar resonance as they did earlier. I think that we are aware of the complexity of balancing rights. I think that the contributions you had from the first panel are really appropriate here. I think that what I have resonated with me in terms of corresponding to the conversation with our membership around this is what the Children's Commissioner has provided you with in supplementary written evidence in advance of today, a belief that it is possible to find a way through this. It is highly complex, as Kate said earlier, sitting in this seat. I hope that I have implied that this is about people. There is no process that is going to get this complex area of practice right. There is no system that we can set in law or process that we can write on a document. Success will depend on there being the skilled and competent people to manage the complexity of this situation. I sit here in the confidence that those people exist. Will we have them in place where we need them at all times to ensure that we can deliver this legislation? It is the outstanding question. It is definitely not a no from me, but that is the focus of our conversation, ensuring our focus of our conversation with Scottish Government colleagues when we were thinking about this bill. Can we ensure that everywhere in Scotland has the public sector and voluntary sector staff to be able to make real something like balancing the rights of children who harm and children who have been harmed? I guess that acknowledgement that there is a balance to be had is crucial, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. It is a balance to be had. Bill Kidd, can we come to you now, please? Yes, thank you very much, convener. I thank you very much to the panel for really useful information. I hope that it is going forward. Obviously, the work that you all do is to help in the development of the young people going forward so that they can become better and stronger adults. On the terms of supervision or guidance post-18, the committee heard at stage 1 that there is a need to ensure that young people do not face a cliff edge of support at the age of 18. To what extent can the updated costings to come back to those again enable that issue to be addressed, please? Joanna, is that okay? I think that it is an important point that was made before. A key thing here is that, after care costs, we had flagged that those should be included and they have been noted in the addendum. I think that where the challenges and the updated financial information are set out that the numbers will be so low that local authorities should be able to absorb the costs for that. We would not agree with that. I think that the numbers may be low, but the needs of the young person will be very specific to that young person and could be significant. The support required could be significant, which would come at a cost as well. The assumption that the cost could be absorbed within existing overstretched social work budgets would not be acceptable. To add, I think that one of the aspects of a cliff edge that young people currently experience is not necessarily the absence of local authority support, but it is the cliff edge that is presented by adult and children services in other areas, whether that is education or health primarily and obviously. I think that none of the costings in the bill, perhaps understandably, address that, but that is where a lot of the cliff edge is experienced. You go from, in the best cases and scenarios, having a really good wraparound package of support from your child and adult mess in the health service to moving it to adult services, which is a completely different experience, and that can be really felt to be a withdrawal of support. I think that we need to ensure that that is where we are paying attention as much as to the local authority social work reality as well. Although I strongly echo what Joanna said, there is a sense here that we have of local authority social work having to absorb aftercare costs when we know that those have been systematically underfunded since the introduction of those provisions for children and young people here in Scotland. That is extremely useful because the updated financial information, as you will know, estimates the cost of around £200,000 a year providing aftercare support for children and adults over the age of 16 when they are leaving secure care. That is being suggested, as you have already addressed, that that could be absorbed into existing aftercare services. Has it been thought about as to how much would really be required going forward? If that money cannot be absorbed into the existing budget, that is quite a considerable sum of money, considering the number of children or young people that we are talking about. Has there been talks on going in terms of addressing that type of approach? My memory goes back to the 2014 act of discussions for children and young people, and the introduction of continuing care and the extension of aftercare. We did find it difficult to cost what our individual packages of support from one young person very light touch to another something much more complex and by virtue of that expensive. We did find it difficult to plumb a line down the middle. That has always been my full sympathy with Scottish Government officials in trying to find a way to cost that. The numbers that are included here are in part from us. I think that they are at this stage our best estimate of what an average cost would be. Our concern is primarily the idea that additional numbers being low, that we can just purely absorb those, because there will be situations. Again, stressing my point from earlier, particularly the costs for other public services that is not included in scope here might be considerably more than this. Are we sure that they can just be absorbed into current budgets? If that is the approach, it means that that money won't be used on something else, whether that's a greater package of support for another young person, or local authorities lead into overspend, and that means savings and cuts elsewhere. In children and young people's services it's not a universal experience across all local authorities, but many do experience overspends in their looked-after children services because they need to provide the package of support. It's a statutory duty and they want to do the best, so they do. The local authorities have to find a way, or social workers have to find a way, to balance that book at some point. On that basis, is there an increase or a decrease, or is it standing still, roughly, the numbers of young people coming through this age group, 16-18-year-olds, in terms of how do you plan for what's going to be required going forward? I don't know if that's been thought about. That's been thought about. I actually don't have numbers in front of me, but that's part of the planning. We do know that it's been a great improvement. Again, thanks to policy changes over the policy changes driving culture change over the past decade, we have moved to a different cultural position of not actually pushing children out of our system before they're entitled and eligible to these services. We have grown the number who are both eligible and who are receiving, which is a really welcome change. Numbers coming into care in general have been a focus over the past decade again to bring them down, so perhaps over time we will see less, but we still have a large population of children who are eligible to aftercare and continuing care support. Our expectation is that numbers for a period of time will be reasonably high and grow at times, as we encourage people to take up the support that they're eligible to. You were nodding away there and I've been trying to catch your eye. Would you like to come in? I think that Joanna has made the point that local authority budgets cannot absorb any more pressure in the system. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't and can't do that additional support. I think that the change with the bill bringing 16 and 17-year-olds who are not currently on a compulsory supervision order coming through the heating system and then allowing them the access to aftercare support that they've not had before, that's difficult to quantify because they maybe have not had support through the heating system before, but they will then become eligible for aftercare support. We've had that conversation with Social Work Scotland, with the bill team around that support maybe light touch, it may be really, really intensive because they've never accessed it before. The absorption and understanding that that could be stretched, Joanna has made that point, and Ben, local authority budgets. I think that there is further work that needs to be done to quantify and understand the appropriate aftercare support that needs to be available, and that's from statutory services as well as the crucial third sector across the country. Those costs will be different, depending on where you are in the country. I welcome the provision in the bill that essentially gives automatic entitlement or status for those young people in secure care to get aftercare status, looked after status, which gives them an entitlement to the pathway support and those provisions, but that's a drop in the ocean, that's 30 children. When you looked at the system generally in terms of the numbers, it's been underfunded for years. There's not the level of support for those young people even care that they should be in my view, but the 200,000 figure is a very, very small percentage of the overall number of children coming through the hearing system. Thank you very much. You've been very clear that absorbing this into budgets is not going to be easy. You've been very clear that staffing can't just be magicked up, that it takes time to develop, that there may be consequences elsewhere. I get all that. You've said 42 per cent, although I think it's maybe 50 per cent overall in terms of increased costs from the original financial memorandum. The total budget is still only £18 million, and out of a £10 billion whole-government budget alone, it should be able to be absorbed. This is not impossible, and the longer-term benefits in terms of spending to save should be quite significant, although sometimes we never quite realise those, because we never disinvest from other areas. I get all that, but what I'm not clear about is what you really want done, because you're in favour of the bill, but you're saying that you're worried that once we get to stage 2, there will be a momentum and it will just happen. What precisely do you want Government and this committee to do about that? I'm not clear about it. You've put up the warning signs, but if we're not going to end up with a problem later on, what precisely is it that we need to do? I don't know who wants it, but I don't know whether Ben maybe starts or maybe Gillian. That's a really good question. You're right to put that challenge out there. I'll own that we probably avoid the question in the main because of the implication that it might be inferred that we don't want these things to happen. That does happen. I have myself and the organisation being criticised as not being supportive of things because we're just trying to articulate the actual difficulty of realising them. That said, what do we really want? We want to realise these provisions. We want to realise the changes to the children's hearing system. We want to realise the promise, but we want it to be done with an honesty to the discussion about what the costs are in a financial sense and what we need in terms of delivering it in terms of people to do it. We do sometimes feel that that is absent. There is a sense that we can continue to legislate and guidance our way to achieving these cultural structural revolutions. Our position is that it's just not possible. We need to have a much more honest conversation with the public and ourselves about saying that 10,000 of which 6,000 children and family social workers is not sufficient to deliver the aspirations in this bill that alone the promise. What is our plan for substantively increasing that? I'm not going to put a number on it, but putting ourselves in a position where we can give every child and young person that consistency of relationship that the care inspectorate recently observed in terms of secure care in their study and that every report for the past hundreds of years has found that that's what people want. How do we get to that place? It's with that kind of structural, forget the specific provisions in this bill or anything else, but that is still absent and I understand because it's difficult to grow that workforce. There's commitments to it, rhetorical and so forth, but there is still not a plan that we as an organisation can put our hands up and say we're confident this is going to deliver that enlarged local government and voluntary sector workforce that can deliver this whole suite of change. So I suppose it's that conversation that we want to get into. It's the fundamental conversation rather than about the detailed changes in practice and systems that we find ourselves usually talking about. I hope that answers your questions. I'd like to hear those. So agreeing with everything that Ben has said, I think we've said it in our response to the call for views and the consultation on no social work that Scotland did, it can be underestimated the need for sequencing of any implementation. So we're talking about the children's care and justice bill at the moment. I've referenced the hearings for Scotland report and the reimagining secure care. That all happens in the context of all of the other work that is going on in a children's services social work department and with the third sector and all of the change structurally, organisationally, operationally to implement all of the elements of the promise. That's all on the same people and that's all on the same system. So the investment from the whole family wellbeing fund completely accepted and welcomed is still the same number of staff working with the same children and families. There's the brothers and sisters legislation that is really, really challenging to implement. So the sequencing and just not looking at the bill and the elements of this bill in complete isolation and that the promise was the challenge to all of us to look completely holistically at how we look after our most vulnerable children and families. And this bill quite rightly and we all agree with the intention of the bill looks at one part of care. What we really need to take a real holistic view is of how we look after our children and our families in a holistic way and sequence and have that conversation together rather than looking at different parts in isolation. So the fact that the bill has been introduced at the same time as the heating system working group report and that that finished while stage 1 was happening and then the reimagining secure care work won't finish until March. So even if we just look at the connected parts of here, we have to sequence what happens so that we have the staff that are well trained, that are paid on otherwise, but also that the entire system that supports children and families is also ready for that. So that's not to take away from the resourcing and the staffing. That's absolutely true, but holistic view of how we look after our children that require the most intensive support, I think, is all of our moral obligation and duty to be able to do that and not look at everything in isolation. There is a lot of change in the system all at once that perhaps doesn't look up and across. It looks very narrowly down at the one thing that needs to change. Alasdair Hogg is wanting to comment on this as well, Willie. Thank you. I really welcome the question and I also really welcome the way that you presented that question because it's the correct way to look at it, which is to say that this is something that is proper, valid to be done. This is something that we all believe in, that is a progressive policy. So what's getting in the way, and that's what you're asking. So I agree with all that's been said. Sequencing, as Gillian Eilack put there, is absolutely crucial. We've talked about timing of commencement when we're ready for this, when everything is in place, all the building blocks. And it's those building blocks, it's that foundation that's crucial for me. So what you're hearing in terms of a lot of the concerns and challenges is because the foundation is currently quite wobbly, so that the current resources that are in place. I can only speak on behalf of my own organisation in terms of where we are, and, like most public services, we operate year to year with our budget. We don't know what the budget is going to be next year, we can't plan ahead, and also we're operating with budget deficits year to year, so we get money at the beginning of the year and discussions about in-year funding to support us, which our sponsor team are fantastic in securing for us to allow the service to continue, but what we really need is what our stated needs are, that we need those to be met and to know that they're going to be met, and when you have that solid foundation, that's when you have the ability to build and put in the extra resources that's identified in the financial memorandum to build that capacity to be able to absorb what's presented in the bill. I have some rather more detailed minutiae questions, which I would just quite like to follow up on. It's about the cost things around about solicitors for children arrested and taken to police custody. Do we think that the cost things are around that are reasonably accurate? Anybody want to come in on that? No, nobody. Right, that's fine. The secure accommodation aspect as well, the costings around that, do we think that those are reasonably well worked out, any comments? Again, can anyone respond to those? A bit more detail on your detail, which aspect of the costings were you looking at? So, really, it's just about the updated costings in the bill now place, the cost of funding, secure accommodation place of our children on demand with central government rather than local authorities. So, it's really just what assessment's been done of that and whether we think it's hiking it enough. That particular policy change is one that we supported, we felt that was the right decision to make and something we had been pushing for. We would have contributed to costing in terms of the cost of secure care. As I'm sure our local government colleagues have to, dare I say, it's a relatively easy cost to extract in that we have a national framework for secure care contract, which enables us to understand what most of the placements cost. Is that a fair description, Joanna? Do you think of a situation with that costing? Yeah, I agree with that one. Not much to add to that, really. My second lot of questions have been rather less enthusiastically great, so I will stop that. You stop that. I was wondering in terms of the sequencing that Gillian Giveson was, as he said, eloquently explained the challenges with the complex things that are going on. What are you going to be looking at to do right now to ensure that those things are obviously coming in the future, but you'll obviously have some idea of what may come. So, what are the key improvements that you're working on or could be made in the meantime while we're waiting on all of this falling into place? Does anyone want to? Alasdair? It's a very vibrant policy world at the moment for us, but it's really positive, very encouraging. From the perspective of SCRA, we are fully invested in all of what Gillian Giveson described. In terms of what are we doing now, there's lots of engagement, obviously, in terms of the progress of this bill. There's lots of engagement in terms of providing analysis, which has obviously been spoken about quite a lot today. There's lots of preparation on going, in terms of anticipating what's coming and putting in place the building blocks to be ready for that. In terms of the huge other policy area, it's obviously the hearings for children report. Although we're waiting until December for the Scottish Government formal response to that, we're fully involved in discussions around that with the Scottish Government and with other partners. Also, our improvement work continues. We've got lots of improvement projects on the go to bring about improvements now, in real time, rather than waiting. Some are obvious that we can anticipate that they're not going to be rejected in any way because they're the right thing to do. We continue with that work, and we invest in a structure for the transformational change that we see coming, and we've done that. We've put in place the investment that comes from our greatest resource, which is our people, and we've put those in place. There's a couple of things to highlight that we're doing right now. I think that Alistair has really eloquently put it. We all work in a way that we want to get better from now, not wait until something comes in to make those improvements. The Scottish Government has convened a bill implementation group that has a lot of people, but a lot of the right people have in the conversations about how we implement parts of the bill. What can we do right now, and what should we do right now? That's in its infancy. As Alistair has alluded to, the Heads for Children report that was published by the Scottish Government, as I mentioned, won't publish its response to the end of the year. However, we have agreed between the Scottish Government and COSLA to co-chair a governance board around the Heads for Children work and the recommendations that we co-chaired at officer level between COSLA and the Scottish Government. It's obviously completely interlinked with the bill. Those 97 recommendations are about 110 recommendations. What do we need to wait for the bill? What do we need to do right now? What change can we make? We look at that holistically with the bill and the Heads for Children, so both Chelsea and Scotland Scra and Social Work Scotland are involved in that planning around the Heads for Children and the bill implementation group. We are very much looking at what we can do right now, but that is what we can do right now with what we have in that really complex policy landscape that I have mentioned and that Alistair has mentioned. We are also part of those structures that have been referenced by colleagues. I think that it probably is the best way to go about trying to properly sequence and manage all of this busy policy environment, I think, as was acknowledged, but I'm struck having listened to your evidence sessions, having read this particular bill a few times and understanding those changes that are planned for the children's hearing system and the linked changes for social work. I'm just struck by how the system envisaged in terms of the children's hearing system is possibly the system that is necessary to deliver this legislation and in such a way that it addresses many of the concerns that have been profiled to you by our previous panel and others. I'm sat with that challenge that much of what we're discussing here in some sense would be much lower-order concerns if we had the kind of systems that the children's hearings review group had suggested with the enhanced level of training, the greater connection through to cases that the children's hearing might have. Your question prompted me to tease that out in my own head, that we have a situation where we're asking the current system to do things when actually the system that we've envisaged and we'll try and build simultaneously might be in a better place to do them if we perhaps wait it, but I appreciate that we're holding back rights for children and young people for a longer time. Stephen, do you want to come in on that? Very briefly, our priority is just about building capacity, recruitment, retention, improving the way in which we do stuff, so that's going to be our immediate priority. I agree with what the panel said, but we do need a whole system approach to it. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I have a supplementary from my colleague Pam Duncan Glancy that I hadn't spotted. Sorry, convener. It was just one small question on the numbers of people who take up the opportunity to get information on victims who get information. I know, Alistair, that in the work that you've done, there's only about 13 to 14 per cent of people who do. Do you know why that is and what have you done to investigate it? The answer is we don't know. We can speculate for a variety of different reasons, but it is in our research plans. It's not something that we can do instantly. To do proper research takes 12 to 18 months minimum to do that, coincidentally and unfortunately, although for positive reasons, we lost two thirds of our research team since the last time I gave evidence to the committee. It is in our research plan to do, and that is a piece of work that we think will greatly inform us in terms of the approach to take. That is a very small uptake, but the other thing that we have done or are about to do is to introduce a further mechanism whereby people can opt into the service to make it as easy as possible so that the people who really want the information is very easy for them to get it. At the moment, they can do so in a variety of ways, but we're also opening up the ability to send a text message to make it even easier to do that. That research will be done and, obviously, will be shared, but it won't be in time for the commencement of the bill, I wouldn't imagine. Ben Macpherson wants to come in as well. To summarise what you have relayed to us this morning, all of which has been really helpful, I reflect on what Mr Hogg said about making sure that partners are already across the board for implementation. I think about what you said about the challenges in terms of capacity and human resources within the social work sector and profession here in Scotland. I was interested in Ms Gibson on the challenges on resources at a local government level. Mr Brummingham, on the need to enhance your capacity within the hearing system, to me, pulling all of that together, it takes me to the point that you said, Mr Brummingham, on the timescale between royal assent and implementation. Is your overarching point collectively today that there needs to be that flexibility and agility following royal assent when it comes to implementation, in a realistic manner and taking account of all the practical considerations that you have relayed to us today, and that, while we share that collective ambition to keep the promise, we will keep it better if we take the adequate time and work collectively to make sure that the bill is implemented as effectively as possible. Lots of nodding heads for there. I do not think that it would be right for us to determine, for instance, when things get switched on or off. Obviously, I think that what we would write, and I think that I am echoing something that I was to say from earlier, is that provision should be switched on as it were commenced or whatever the right phrasology would be in this context when the system is ready to do them well. As advocates for the system here, I think that needs to be a continuous conversation between ourselves and the Scottish Government about when that is. My fear is that, as I mentioned earlier, once momentum gains and once there is an idea that this is the date when it is going to happen, be ready. That is the thing. We will be ready because the statutory duty is coming. However, I would rather that the conversation is when you are ready, then we will switch it on. That shift in tone and emphasis would be really welcome. Lots of nodding heads. We will finish on that note. Thank you very much, Ben. Once again, I would like to thank you and the panel for their time and contributions this morning. It has been extremely helpful. The public part of our meeting has now concluded and we will consider our final agenda item in private. Thank you very much.