 Felly rydym yn i gwybod i ddwy problèmesol iawn o'r ddwygenol iawn o'r cyfrifer, i ddiwethaf i gydymdei'r system yw mewn sefydlig. Mae ymddai cyfrifer o petiom o'r bobl yn gwlad y bydiannau gwagol i gyd yn criss-gwg i'w ddysgu'r lleidol am y cysylltu, o'i gŷnol o'r hyn ogen i gydon i gyd yn oig, i gyd yn rhan o'r ffordd o'u sefydlig, yn digwydd y chymgol o'r holl. Mae'r ddweud i'r ddegendu yma, i'r ddegendu o'r newid gyda'r petitions. Yn ystafell, mae'r Pee 1591 o'r ddegendu Caterina MacDonald o'r SOS NHS o'r gweithio'r reu'r ddegendu hefyd o'r ddegendu hefyd o'r sgai, lachau i'r SOS Ross. Felly, mae'r ddegendu hefyd o'r clark, y petitions a'r ddegendu hefyd i'r petitions a'r petitions a'r petitions. Welcam Mary Scanlon MSP i ymgawr môedd yr môn yn rymdeg o'r ddegendu hefyd o'r ddegendu hefyd o'r petitions. I welcome the petitioners from SOS NHS o'r ddegendu hefyd, Caterina MacDonald, Malcolm Henry i Alyn MacRae. I invite Mr Henry to speak to the petition. You have five minutes or so and then we'll discuss the issues that you raise with us. Over to you, Mr Henry. Thank you very much. We're here because NHS Highland is proposing to close both hospitals on Sky and replace them with a single central hospital. This is a major service change that has been approved by the cabinet secretary, and we are here today to ask for your help in getting that approval reversed. I think that you have all been issued with a map, is that correct? They are there to help illustrate our argument. If you look at the first map, you will see that the area is divided into three by the dotted lines. There is North Sky and Razi, South Sky and Lake Alsh and South West Ross, and the majority of the population in Sky and Lake Alsh lives north and west of that line. That is more than 7,600 residents. If you add students and workers and visitors, that can easily double the daily population to more than 15,000. Those are significant figures in the West Highlands and Islands. They might not sound very big to people from the central belt, but Fort William only has around 10,000 residents, and Oben has fewer than 9,000, so 7,600 permanent and 15,000 through the day is a lot of people. Port Tree is by far the largest settlement in the area. Broadford is about half the size and then everywhere else is smaller again. The squiggly line between Port Tree and Broadford shows the line of the road, and the geography of the island means that very few people live along that road, so you have two very distinct areas north and south. There are currently two community hospitals, one in Port Tree and one in Broadford, and they serve the whole of Sky and Lake Alsh. The geography of the mainland means that the communities in South West Ross tend to use Dingwall and Inverness hospitals. Typically, only 1 per cent of admissions to the Sky hospitals come from South West Ross. NHS Island is proposing to close both of the existing hospitals and build a new one in Broadford. Port Tree will be left with nothing but a day clinic. The second map on the sheet shows the area that is overlaid onto the central belt to give you a better idea of the distances that are involved in getting to and from the proposed new hospital. Port Tree to Broadford takes the same time as driving from Falkirk to Udingston. For people in the far north and west of Sky, the journey to Broadford is like driving from Kirkcaldy to Udingston, so those are significant distances. The coloured circles on the first map show that almost everyone in North Sky lives more than 30 minutes by car away from Broadford, and about a quarter of those are more than an hour away. These travel times assume immediate access to a car in favour of weather conditions with no tourist traffic. That is the best time that you can make. Public transport between North Sky and Broadford is almost non-existent. Centralising hospital services in Broadford means that the majority of the population will find it much, much harder to use them. Getting to and from hospital for admissions, discharges and visiting would be much more difficult. The certainty of getting medical attention out of hours by turning up at Port Tree hospital will disappear, leaving people to choose between the lottery of the ambulance service, which has response times up to 70 minutes, or driving the extra 30 minutes or more to Broadford. That is again assuming you have access to a car, which is not the case for a lot of people. Every part of North Sky features on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation accounting for about 10 per cent of the population, two data zones of deprivation rates of 15 per cent or more. Many of those people are elderly or they have chronic health conditions that prevent them from earning, and that means that few of them have cars. Bus services are sparse or non-existent. Taxi services are just outrageously expensive for the distances involved. People rely on the goodwill of friends and neighbours to get to and from Port Tree for hospital admissions, discharges and visiting their sick relatives. Comparatively few people in North Sky routinely make the journey to Broadford, so there are far fewer opportunities of getting a lift to and from Broadford hospital. That means that the closure of Port Tree hospital will exacerbate the effects of the inverse care law, those with greatest health needs having worst access to health services. One of the seven project investment objectives of NHS Highlands redesign is to improve access to services and care. What has been proposed will do the exact opposite for more than half of the population of Sky Lagals. That disjunction between what the redesign is supposed to deliver and what is actually going to happen is alarming, but it is just one example of NHS Highlands' astonishing lack of rigor in the management of this project. You would expect that a decision on a major service change would be underpinned by hard evidence. You would expect to see numbers showing the current services, how they are used and the current gaps in provision. You would expect to see forecasts showing how the proposed changes will contribute to meeting the objectives of the project. In this case, there is nothing—there is no hard evidence of any sort—no before or after numbers to support what is being proposed, no comparative metrics whatsoever. Indeed, the only evidence of data gathering that we can find is an informal request that was made at very short notice to NHS statisticians in November of 2013. An email from one of the number crunchers is very disturbing. She says that the timescale for information gathering, and I quote, is incredibly tight and leaves no time for thorough checking or validation and interpretation of the analysis. There will also be gaps in the information, and I have concerns about decisions being made on the basis of quite limited information. This seems a high profile and important piece of work, but with an oddly short timescale for information gathering. One of our colleagues echoes our concerns in two subsequent emails, and after that the bulk of that data request was abandoned. The only data that was used in the local options appraisal and the public consultation document were some raw numbers about populations and drive times, which have been presented in map form that is really quite misleading. The report that was approved by the cabinet secretary a year later had references to some more raw numbers, things like current patient activity, bed occupancy and income deprivation, but this is all dumb data. There are no projections, no before or after analysis, no numerical evidence of the potential consequences of the proposals. The major service change has been decided by any measurable assessment of how it will affect clinical outcomes, access to services or the health of our communities. Despite this glaring lack of evidence in support of the proposals that are being spun by NHS Highlands being wholly positive, misrepresentation is endemic in everything that is coming out from them. Words like modernisation and upgrading improvement are used again and again despite the obvious downgrading of access to services for the majority of the population. The public consultation documents refer throughout to portray hospital being the spoke to the new hub in Broadford. Nowhere do they admit that the proposed spoke is not a hospital at all, it's merely a clinic. There's no beds, it's not a hospital. The report that recommends the proposals to the cabinet secretary emphasises the results of a survey showing 1,900 people in support. Nowhere do they acknowledge that this is an unscientific, self-selecting sample of opinion that wasn't subjected to any independent audit. The options appraisal information in the report implies that the proposals have statistical validity when in reality there has been no attempt at systematic gathering and analysis of evidence. Most bizarre of all, NHS Highland has repeatedly refused to admit that Portree hospital has been providing out-of-hours A&E triage in treatment since 2004 and has repeatedly failed to acknowledge the value of this to the communities of North Sky. So we think that the cabinet secretary has been misled by NHS Highland into believing that the proposed redesign will improve our health services. In terms of access to services, the evidence presented on the maps clearly shows that this isn't the case for more than half the population. That's the obvious flaw. What else is there that they're getting wrong? We don't know. We need to find out. The cabinet secretary has also been misled into believing that the people of North Sky are broadly in favour of those changes. Our petition, with more than 4,900 signatures, suggests that the opposite is true. 4,900 is equivalent to 65 per cent of the population in North West Sky. That's like 300,000 people in Edinburgh putting their names to a petition. We want to be clear that we are not campaigning for the status quo. We recognise that things have to change, you know, the way that healthcare is delivered has to change, but we've got to get it right. If we don't get it right, then if we allow the current proposals to go ahead, then the communities in North Sky are going to suffer. Health inequality will increase. This campaign is about the future health of our communities and not just our health services. The petition asks for the establishment of an independent scrutiny panel. We want it to do what NHS Island has failed to do. We want it to define our medical health and social care needs, define the minimum acceptable levels of access to these services, and we want it to recommend how our local services should be delivered. But first of all, we need the cabinet secretary to reverse the approval of the major service change. We need her to recognise that there's a lack of evidence in support of NHS Island's claims that the changes will improve and upgrade services. So far, she's refused to acknowledge that NHS Island may be guilty of misleading her or that their proposals might be flawed, and we're asking for your help to get her to change her mind. Very much, Mr Henry. I'll come to Mary Scanlon if you want to make some contributions in support of the petition, Mary. Thank you, convener. I also put on record my thanks to Katrina Malcolm and Alan, who have travelled a considerable distance to be with us today. I first met the SOS guy quite a few months ago. He came along to a surgery that I had in Portrait. It was about 15 or 20 people. It's just to say, convener, that they came from all walks of life. There were all ages and all walks of life and highly representative of the community. I think that you can see that today by the petition that they've put forward with 4,900 signatures in a community like Sky. It really exemplifies and tells you the concern and the worry and the uncertainty that people have there. What we have before us today and with this petition, convener, is a community that cares passionately not just about the services just now, but about what will be there for future generations. That's the responsibility that they feel is for their children and their children's children. There was a consultation over hospital provision on Sky. Those are the two remaining hospitals. Quite a few have been closed over the years since I became an MSP. However, there was a previous consultation that only included the Isle of Sky. It was thrown out and, to be fair, it was very badly handled indeed. It was thrown out and started all over again. Instead of looking at Sky—I know that you've all got maps in front of you—Tagged On was the west coast of Scotland and Kyl of Loch Alsh and South West Ross, which meant that, where Portree was the centre of Sky, it was no longer the centre of this huge area. When Malcolm talks about a major service change—I think that when we hear—I was on the health committee long enough, we presume that it's a great big 800-bed hospital. It needn't be. This is a major service change for people living on the Isle of Sky. That's my concern about this petition. When we say major, we assume that it has to be a huge hospital. However, this is major to Sky. I hope that the members of the committee will appreciate that. I know that we've got our man from the Western Isles today. However, to this community, this is a huge major service change. I do not think that the consultation has been well done. I don't think that it's been done—Malcolm mentioned not having enough information and evidence, but I don't think that it's been done in a respectful or a dignified way of working in partnership with the community. It's not a lot to ask and it doesn't cost a lot of money. It's just a bit of common decency and answering the questions that they're asking. That really hasn't happened. I would have liked to see this one sent to an independent scrutiny panel, which quite rightly was promised by Nicola Sturgeon, where there would be a major service change. I support that. The thing that differs from the central belt of Scotland is that, if we look at a category A call for the ambulance, in an urban area, we expect the ambulance to be there in seven minutes. That's not the case on the sky. I mean, Malcolm mentioned 30 minutes. I can tell you times that are longer than that, and we've had a history of single manned ambulances there as well. That's much better now, but it is a problem. The lack of rigor, no hard evidence, the timescale is very tight, but the thing that really worries me is that this is a community where they're losing their hospital. I think that they're all big enough and wise enough and professional enough to know that health services change, but they don't know what's coming in its place and it's that uncertainty that they're left with. That's where I think that if there'd been a bit more respect, a bit more working together, that would have been better. I would take the opportunity today to highlight what I personally consider to be a very poor service on the sky, and that's mental health services. That's a problem now, and while the petitioners are seeking resolution, looking for certainty, looking for information, I would certainly be looking for what support will be given in mental health services. All I wanted to say was that sustainable communities for future generations depend not only on having a good local school, but they very much depend on where my nearest NHS service is. We all want the Isle of Skye to continue to prosper. It's a wonderful place to live, but I commend the petitioners today. They have not been given the information that they need. They have not been given the assurances that they need. This is a worried community because they have been kept in the dark. When they ask questions, they are not being responded to in a helpful manner that gives them the information that they need. I hope that you will take on board the points that are made today and to say that 65 per cent of any community signing a petition highlights the worry and concern that they have on behalf of others. Angus, do you want to kick off the questions? Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. You have mentioned in your opening statement that you are calling for an ISP or an independent scrutiny panel. As we know in some cases, the Scottish Government can choose to establish an ISP, however it is normally in advance of the final decision. Has anyone from NHS Highland explained to you why an ISP wasn't initiated in the first place? No is the answer. What they have said to us is that it's not their business and it's up to ministers to call for an ISP. However, in the press, I think it was three years ago on the BBC, Kate Earnshaw, who works in the operational team up there, stated that they might well have to get independent scrutiny of any proposals because it was indeed a very controversial decision-making process. It's been on-going. I know that there have been big decisions, controversial decisions in Lanarkshire and Galloway, etc., that had ISPs. The one on Skye goes back 50 years. It's a controversial decision. The notion of going through it without independent scrutiny from the beginning was pretty irresponsible. Although NHS Highland says that it's up to the ministers, it definitely would have a hand in requesting it, if they thought that it was going to help them to bring the public with them through the process. No, it wasn't. I asked Gary Coots directly and he said that we didn't need one and that it's not up to us to establish one. It's up to the Scottish Minister. Just for clarification, you said that there's an official on record accepting that there should be a need for an ISP. It's suggesting that there may well be a need for one. I've got that. It's on a BBC website. It's in the archives. I can show you that. That'll be helpful. I'm just moving on to the transport issues. Clearly, there are issues getting from North Skye down to to Broadford. I'm thinking about the situation in the area that I represent in Falkirk East, where we had a new hospital built within the last 10 years, and NHS Falls Valley provided bus services to feed in to the hospital, which was out of the way. It wasn't near any major or was in a walking distance of any major settlement. Have NHS Highland Offer indicated that it would be willing to provide bus services from North Skye, from South Skye and Lachalsh and from south-west Ross? Has that been on the table? No. NHS Highland has stated, which document I read it in, that it is not in the business of providing transport. When it was pointed out after that became public of what it was proposing, it agreed to set up a transport steering group, which is ostensibly driven by NHS Highland, but it's chaired by one of our local customer councillors. We've had representation at, I think, three of the meetings now. In each case, the lack of rigor that we've seen in the rest of this process is the same thing that's happening in the steering group. Frankly, it's a joke. There's no attempt being made to assess the current requirement for getting from the outlying areas of North Skye to Portree. Never mind what the implications are going to be for moving all those services to Broadford. In answer to your question, no NHS Highland is not going to do that and nobody has any clue how those things are going to work in the future. Okay. It just seems strange to me that NHS Fos Valley is in the business of providing transport whereas NHS Highland is saying that it's not. I'm not sure if we might be able to do that. Again, there are official records of them saying, frequently, that we are not a transport provider. They've made this decision, which clearly has transport implications, and then offloaded the transport side to others, including Highland Council. There are huge funding implications for that but they aren't taking responsibility for that. The transport steering group has been going for a year now and they haven't even assessed current transport far less what future requirements might be. It really is a farcical situation. You would have sought a traffic assessment, would you, in Parliament? Okay, thank you. That's all. Good morning. Malcolm, you've mentioned on several occasions that the cabinet secretary has been misled at my part of town. We call it lying. Could you give me a couple of examples where that has actually happened, as a matter of fact, so that the ISP could be considered as a serious option? We consider that the whole report that the cabinet secretary based her decision on has been prepared in order to justify a decision that was made at least 10 years ago to centralise hospital services in Broadford. The public consultation and the subsequent report that was approved by the board of NHS Highland and the cabinet secretary has all been designed in order to make the decision appear rational. One way that she's been misled is the inclusion of South West Ross into the catchment area for the new hospital in Broadford. As I said in the presentation, typically 1 per cent of admissions to the Sky hospitals come from South West Ross and all of that 1 per cent goes to Broadford. Zero has been going to Portree. There have been a few referrals to Broadford for outpatient stuff, which in some places, like Lacharren, is closer to Broadford than is to Dingwall. In those cases, there is some support in South West Ross for the proposals, but if anybody is going to be an inpatient, they don't want to be in Broadford, they want to be in Dingwall or Inverness for lots of reasons. If anybody is in need of acute emergency care, there is no way that they are going to go from anywhere in South West Ross to Broadford for that. They will either call an ambulance, which will take them to Righmore, or they will get in the car and they will go to Dingwall or Righmore. That's just the way that the geography works. That's just one example of how she's been misled, but that's probably a good word. I'd like to point you towards the end of the spice briefing. In the last paragraph, Shona Robison said that it made a decision based on what it thought was the best available evidence. I think that the Scottish Government approved that in good faith, and I'm not questioning their good faith in that, but I think that this is from a freedom of information request. I don't think that anyone here will have seen this yet. I'm welcome to quote it. To say that, due to the tight timescale, there would also be gaps in the information, and I have concerns about decisions being made on the basis of quite limited information. This is from the public health department in NHS Highland. Those are the guys who provide the statistics. This is not even at somebody external who's got a beef with NHS Highland. It's their own people saying that they don't have confidence in the statistics that they have provided because it was done on such a tight timescale. It was done for the options appraisal where the very specific decision was made. There's a perfect example. Did NHS Highland know about this? Yes, it did, because I've got email confirmation. NHS Highland knew that their public health department had said, no, we don't have that, that, that and that because you're only giving me a few days, but I can get you some of it, but I won't be able to verify it or look at it rigorously. It's in written confirmation and emails, absolutely. I wonder if those emails could be shared by our committee staff so that we can let the cabinet secretary know as part of our findings at the end. It's important that if the cabinet secretary has been lied to or misled or whatever polite language one wants to use, it's not on. Absolutely. We will make everything available. We just don't want to load you with information prior to this, but anything specific will furnish you with that. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Can I take you to a consultation by NHS Highland? I just quoted you here. It says, overall, the Scottish Health Council was satisfied that NHS Highland had followed the guidance on involving local people in its consultation. Could you expand on why you feel that the consultation was flawed? I wouldn't mind, but I've said it a lot. To be honest, I think that there is a problem with the way that the Scottish Health Council oversees those matters. This is quite fundamental. We're not trying to take on the Scottish Health Council, but the fact of the matter is that the Scottish Health Council goes through the consultation on a parallel path, so it becomes part of what's happening at the consultation. There are elements of the Scottish Health Council's report. For example, it says in black and white that we believe that the spread of meetings was equitable—in other words, that it was equally throughout the place—which is simply factually incorrect. Again, I think that this is from a situation where the Scottish Health Council have said to NHS Highland what's the situation, and they said that that's the situation, but it's simply in black and white incorrect. I'm not saying that I don't value the Scottish Health Council's input, but I think that there are major flaws. For example, the actual returns to the consultation was £2,500 altogether, which is half the amount of signatures—we have, by the way—and we haven't had the resources to boot them through every letter box in the entire area. Almost 20 per cent of those responses had no address on them. Now, that's statistically bunkers that you take them into account, because you can have somebody sitting in a house ticking boxes, putting them through, and that's on their own records. Secondly, what you find is that there's a 10 per cent greater return from the area in which the new hospital is going to be sighted than there is from the north of the island. That's 10 per cent, and that's statistically very significant. It's double, essentially, because one was 10 and one was 20 per cent. That's a major difference in how many people were returning the consultation documents. We're not suggesting that we know where any new hospital should go, whether there should be one new or whatever, but we are suggesting that there are flaws and that there is enough reasonable doubt in the process and the information and the clinical consensus that an ISP would be the best way forward. I don't understand how technical deciding how the health services are going to be delivered in an area like Scotland or Scotland, in fact, anywhere, can be largely informed by a public consultation. We're ignorant of what should be there, of the clinical need, the transport needs, that we've got ideas but we don't know. There's no hard evidence behind this. The consultation process didn't provide any before and after figures, anything that says, this is what you've got just now, these are the gaps in provision, this is what we're proposing and this is how what we're proposing will affect the services. There's none of that. All it is is do you think the hospital, do you think the single hospital should be in Broadford or Portree or somewhere else? That's it, basically. There's a lot of waffle and there's no evidence, so that's our main objection to such weight being given to the consultation. I think you can welcome me to the consultation. One was that the majority of people particularly in the north of Skye believed that the decision had already been made and indeed that was reported in the local press, that the decision was made before the questionnaire went out. The second thing about the questionnaire is that it was biased. If you went through that questionnaire, you got to a point where you were given the choice about the preferred site for the hospital and there were several sites in the Broadford area. The design of the questionnaire was such that it was answered particularly by the majority of people in the Broadford area, which was that you would get this overwhelming majority appearing to support Broadford as the preferred site. I've got something else that I'm afraid to add, because I know that written evidence is really important in that. As part of the freedom of information request that exposed the fact that they didn't have enough evidence to even base the decision on, I put in a freedom of information request regarding the concurrent proposal that's happening in Bainoch and Strathspae. What should happen is that the operational team put in a formal request to the public health team asking for statistics that will support their decision-making process. One of the things, as you well know, is that public consultation shouldn't be second guessed. There's a suspicion on Skye that, obviously, they'd made their decision up to a decade ago on that whole thing, and the statistics have all been moving towards proving that. That is from the Bainoch and Strathspae team. They were trying to make a similar decision on where to site a new hospital. That is prior to the decision being made. That is very key, prior to the decision being made. Either as part or one of those matters separately, would it be possible to somehow show the population centre as a percentage of the overall BNS population that we are wanting to show that Avimor is the fairest place to have the new facility? Avimor may well be the fairest place to have the new facility. I don't know—I'm certainly no expert on that one—but the fact that they've asked for this information to prove a decision that they want is scandalous. Good morning. It's just to go back to the report that I referred to the Scottish Health Council. My colleague said that they were overall satisfied with the work that they've been done. I also, according to the SPICE report, make reference to the identify some areas of good practice, but they then use a phrase that, together with some learning points, would you like to give any indication of what you think those learning points might have been in relation to the work that was carried out? I'm really concerned that Mr Henry and Mr McRae have both said that you are under the impression that the decision to cite the hospital in Rodford was made 10 years ago or a decade ago. What we're now saying is that the health board is trying to get the facts to fit the decision, rather than the decision to fit the facts. I don't know what things we're missing from NHS's consultation that the Scottish Health Council found. I don't know the answer to that, but a lot of information is what I would suggest, and a lot of statistics. I don't know what the Scottish Health Council's findings on that were. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what they felt that NHS Ireland could learn from. Clearly, if you ask us, it's an awful lot. Similarly, I can't comment on what the learning points were. I know that that was part of the report. With respect, the Scottish Health Council are there as observers. We were all part of those consultations. You're given a questionnaire to say was there a presentation of the facts? Did you get a chance to ask questions? Was the meeting conducted well? It's very easy. If you tick all those boxes and say, yes, I did get a chance to ask questions, it sounds as if the consultation has been carried out in the right way. However, when you look at some of the detail, there's a list in the consultation report of a number of the issues that were raised by local people. For example, that concern that Mary expressed so clearly about the reduction in service provision. The kind of answer—indeed, NHS Ireland wrote down all those issues that were raised, and they have given responses. Again, the Scottish Health Council could say, yes, tick, that's been done very well. However, when you look at the responses, you get a response, for example, in relation to the issue about our concern about services for older people with our increasingly aged population, increasingly frail population. Services are already extremely stretched locally. When we raise that concern, you then get a response, but we're going to improve community services and care at home. That will lead to a reduction in the need for inpatient beds, and it will mean that people will be in hospital for a shorter period of time. That's the answer. I don't know if you find that a reassuring answer, but we find that to be glossing over the truth. To the issue about the presentation of the facts, no facts can be presented, but not all the facts need to be on the table. Clearly, what I'm picking up from this morning is that the situation that you feel is that all the facts—the questionnaire or survey that was carried out—only alluded to where the hospital could be cited in one particular area in the areas of Broadford, rather than looking at the whole of the service that's provided in the area and looking at what exactly would best suit the residents of the whole area rather than looking at, right, we've made a decision, we want to have one major centre and then we'll have a clinic elsewhere. It's whether or not all the facts were presented and part of what we've got to do as a committee is assess whether we feel all the facts were presented to allow people to make a meaningful contribution to any consultation process that was carried out by the health board. Yes, I think that one point about the consultation is what was happening in Portree was always described as an upgrade on documentation. Now, it's many things, but closing a hospital is not an upgrade of facilities. In response to what you're saying and also Mr Malick, one of the key areas in which everybody has been misled and the consultation process was very much at fault here is the closure of Portree hospital. What that means is that there will be no medical personnel in Portree on duty 24-7, 365 days a year, which is what it's been the last 50 years in Portree. And what NHS Highland will tell you is that this isn't a change. They will say that our out-of-hours care is exactly the same as it's been since 2004. Now, we've all used the out-of-hours service in the last 10 years and we can tell you categorically that this is a change because there are three routes to out-of-hours care. You can dial NHS 24, which means you typically wait for two hours before you get to talk to a nurse who will then do their best to do some diagnosis blind on the testimony of somebody on the end of the phone who has got no medical expertise, or you can dial 999 and our ambulance service, the range of response times is zero minutes to 70 minutes in North Sky. Now, zero minutes is somebody in Portree with the ambulance that's based in Portree being there. 70 minutes is probably the ambulance on its way back from Inverness. The average is 16 minutes, and we couldn't get an answer for the median, but it must be just around about the 35 minutes. Now, if you're having to wait 35 minutes to get somebody who can diagnose, who can tell you what's wrong with your person who's ill, then that's quite scary. We've got a third route. Up until recently, we have a third route and that's you drive whoever it is to Portree hospital any time of day or night, and at the very least a nurse says, oh, this is serious, gets on the phone directly to the rural practitioner in Broadford who then deals with it appropriately. That's the most certain and also the quickest way of getting help. That's been taken away from us. In fact, it's already been taken away from us. They've actually disciplined anybody, but they have demanded that the nurses in the hospital lock the doors at night and that people are being turned away. I actually worked it out. This removal of this route to care is a 73 per cent reduction in what we've had up to date. By only having the service available in hours between eight in the morning and six at night, that's been reduced by 73 per cent. How anybody can call that a modernisation and improvement or an upgrade, I really don't know. If you're looking for examples of misrepresentation, then that's a fundamental one. NHS Highland have sat in meetings with us and we have been shouted down by the managers of NHS Highland and said, that's not the case, that's not how it works, that's not how it works. We all know exactly how it works because that's how we use it. I want to say that I share the concerns about the Scottish Health Council. To be honest, I've been very disappointed at their approach here. I feel that they go through a tick box exercise without any real understanding of what's happening locally. When you were asking the petitioners, I think it was Katrina that said, you get asked, can you ask a question? Well, yes, they've been asking questions for years. The problem is that they haven't had answers. The health council is very good at saying, can you ask a question? Has there been a public display? Yes, but asking questions is great, but if you're not getting the answers to help you to understand what health services you're going to have in the future, it is difficult. Alan mentioned that there was a similar parallel consultation done in Badenoch and Strathe's because there's a hospital in Granton on Spay and St Vincent's in King UC. In that case, I would say that the consultation was done so much better than it was done on Skye, and to be fair, all credit goes to a local GP, Boyd Peters, who led the consultation. This was a local health practitioner who went out to the communities and people had trust in him. They knew what he was saying would happen, actually would happen. Now it's my understanding, and the petitioners may want to confirm this, but it's my understanding that no GP in the north of Skye was willing to take that lead that was taken in Badenoch and Strathe's Bay, which was unfortunate, so that's why it's been left to the petitioners. I think that it's a really good point about the involvement of doctors, because I think one of our main points here is that there is a lack of clinical consensus on the way forward here. Now we've got reams of evidence, again I can give it to you after that show that the doctors within Skye disagree really quite intensely about the process going forward and where it should be, and I've got it all in writing, but even more than that there's people from out with the process, and I think that this is a very key point, because if you don't have clinical consensus, then it's very difficult to take something forward without some sort of independent scrutiny. I mean it, if I can just make a couple of quotes from senior physicians, this is a doctor, Calmy Crey, his associate professor of cardiology at Harvard. I'm sure any physician would fully support efforts to move care at the community, but there are some emergencies that can only be dealt with in an appropriately staffed inpatient unit. Without such a unit, key optimally located, acute care in Skye and McAlish will be a source of substantial liability and long term economic disadvantage. Professor Derek Bell of the Royal College in Edinburgh, president of the Royal College, says that concerning the outcome of this process going forward, obvious patient safety issues and the lack of conformity to basic clinical standards, that's how he considers this process. They're very serious people and they're having a major issue with the clinical side of this. Professor Bell is one of the world's foremost experts on acute medicine. He really is a very accomplished man and he's got a problem with the way that services are being designed in this specific case. I was going to pull things to a conclusion, but before doing that, the reference to the clinicians that I was going to comment on, because in your opening statement there was very little mention of the support from clinicians for this decision. Mr McRae referenced the decision that was taken in Lanarkshire some time ago and my mind was already being cast back to that discussion around the service changes in Lanarkshire. Again, based on what you've said this morning about a decision having been made and then trying to get the facts and figures to justify making that decision, that was all very reminiscent of what transpired in Lanarkshire 10 years ago, but there are one or two major differences. In Lanarkshire, there had already been a problem identified by the health board and by clinicians, which was an inability of the health board to retain clinicians. There was an expectation that unless change was brought about, they weren't going to be able to retain the levels of consultants and staff in accident emergency units unless a transformational change was made. Over 80 per cent of staff and clinicians at that time supported that position and yet it was overturned when the decision that was ratified eventually to try and address that problem was overturned. Here we are 10 years on in Lanarkshire and the predicted problem has transpired and we've actually got a worse problem than had been predicted. The vacancies and consultants are greater than had been predicted 10 years ago. Although the decision was based on arriving at an identification of a problem and then trying to find a solution to that problem, what appears to be different with yours is that there's no evidence that clinicians have identified that problem when they're seeking a solution? That's wholly correct. There has been a desire among some of the clinicians in Skye to have a central hospital for quite some time because they believe that it will be easier to provide care, but at the same time, I haven't heard a single one say that, for example, if the central hospital is in Broadford, they all say that there is a need for nursing care beds at the other end of the island and it would be the same if the decision was to put the central hospital in Portree. There is also the out-of-hours acute care. All of them, if you got them in a room on their own, would agree that they have concerns about the model of only having an HS-24 or 999 to get acute care out of hours because the population is used to driving to the hospital because they know that's the way to get help. There is some support for the central hospital concept among clinicians, but they have concerns about how the services fit around that. As I said, I'm trying to bring this to a conclusion. What I'm trying to do is to identify what it is that we're asking for here. Obviously, the first thing is to ask the Scottish Government if they're going to halt the decision or look again at the decision. From what you've said, we also need to look at the operational decisions of NHS Highland. How did they arrive at that conclusion? Exactly how they arrived at that conclusion. They are in serious financial trouble. If you ask Mary Scanlon and she'll tell you all about it, you'll only need to look at the audit committee proceedings to find that. They are looking for ways of reducing operating costs. As far as I can see, that is the main driving force. That's the problem that they've identified and they're trying to solve. They haven't identified a clinical problem or a service provision problem. They've identified a financial problem and this is one of the ways of doing so. That was the point that I was making earlier. In your opening statement, you made a lot of reference to statistics and analysis of figures and what have you. There was very little mention of clinical imperatives in the decision. It seemed to be about number crunching. I think that we have to ask and investigate whether that is what has driven this. That's the point that I'm making. That's why I was referencing Lanarkshire. The driving force behind the proposed change in Lanarkshire was clinician-led. It was staff and clinicians saying that there was a problem that needed to be addressed. Ultimately, the Scottish Government reversed that decision and here we've got one that's based on finance. There is also the fact that Broadford hospital is 100 years old and, by all accounts, it's no longer fit for purpose. It's really hard to make it work for modern medicine, so they have to replace Broadford hospital anyway. That's got to the stage where it needs to be replaced. It's an interesting history of hospitals on the sky. There were five hospitals. All of them were paid for with benevolent funding. The first time there's ever been a hospital that was paid with public money and optimally located was Portree hospital, which is in Portree, obviously. That's 50 years ago because that's the main demographic centre and there was a real gap. There used to have one in Uig in the maternity hospital right up the north, which obviously wasn't cited for any optimal reasons. It was just put there because so-and-so said, here's some money, build a hospital there. That's the way it used to be done. It's very important here that public money is used optimally. That's one of the reasons that statistics are very important because we have to look going forward where is the best place to offer services. I don't want to second-guess anything, but it's quite unusual the way that they seem to have done it. They've chosen quite a spurious geographical area, and they've gone, right, there's a geographic, but it's quite central. We have to ask the cabinet secretary if she's prepared to review the decision, but secondly, we need to ask questions about the decision-making process within NHS Highlands. Members agree that we can ask questions based on that. The ISP is on the cards. Clearly, the amount of misrepresentation is trying to stay politically correct. That's being coming and going from what the petitioners are clearly claiming. I think that an ISP would be a very positive way forward that could address some of the issues that are being brought. Nicola Sturgeon and the First Minister, if she's made commitments, I'm sure that she will want to honour them. I think that she needs to get the right information, and an ISP would be a good source for that information, I believe. David, you want to test? I would just like to see a question here. It was sent out if we could get a copy of that from NHS Highland. David, we get a copy of that from the petitioners themselves, because no doubt you have one. You did offer to send us other information. That's what I was going to say if you want to give us, because we've got a lot of written evidence, because I know that there's hearsay and there's stuff that we've got in hard writing that you'll want to see, obviously. If you can provide the class with that, that would be helpful, but I think that we also need to consider writing to the Scottish Health Council just to get their take on what you've said this morning, because clearly there's been issues raised about their scrutiny of the process. I think that we need to ask them about that. Yes, I'm certainly a Greek and we know that we should write to both the Scottish Health Council, the Scottish Government and NHS Highland, but also if I were writing to NHS Highland, can we specifically ask him why they've not offered to provide transport from North Skye? You could perhaps use the example of NHS Forth Valley, where a precedent has been set. We'll take the petition forward in that way to start with. We'll wait to see what responses we get and, obviously, we'll furnish you with the outcome of the correspondence that we have and we can communicate with you at that point, and we'll take the petition forward until... John, do you want to? Sorry, just one thing I was wanting to raise is that if we are writing to the Scottish Health Council, could we get a definition of what learning points are and what in particular... We have actually... But in terms of the findings in relation to the work that was done by Highland Health Board in relation to the consultation, because it would be useful to find out if those learning points related to the way the consultation was carried out, because Mary Scanlon made reference to the Baddanoch Strath's Bay consultation exercise, and it would be interesting to find out if some of the learning points actually then were translated into the consultation methods that were being used in Baddanoch and Strath's Bay that weren't being applied in the relationship to the Skye situation, because clearly, if there are learning points there, then if it related to the way consultation was being carried out, then clearly, the consultation process may have been deemed to have been flawed. We do have access to the learning points, we have them here, but what we can do, John, is to ask in comparison to the other consultation whether those learning points were put in place, so we can establish that, but I don't think that we have to establish what the learning points were, we already know them. So, as I said, we'll be in touch with you obviously when we get the responses, but thank you very much for travelling so far this morning to speak to us. I'll suspend for a couple of minutes until we change witnesses. Morning is PE1583 by Lisa Willis on primary school playground supervision. Members have a note by the clerk, the petition itself, the space briefing and a submission from the petitioner. So, I welcome the petitioner, Lisa Willis, to the meeting. She's a company today by Wendy Palmer, who's also been involved with the petitioner in her campaign. So, I invite Ms Willis to make some introductory comments and then we'll discuss the issue that you raised with us. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for inviting us to attend the meeting today. The campaign, Keeping Our Children Safe in Scotland at primary schools in Scotland, was born out of concern for the safety of my son, then aged five, who was arriving on school transport to a playground with no adult supervision. After addressing concerns with the head teacher of the school and latterly with Aberdeenshire Council, I began to explore the views of other parents and uncovered an issue of nationwide concern, evolving into the petition in front of you all today. The Scottish Government acknowledges through guidance and led and endorsement a duty on the part of local authorities to take reasonable care for the pupils in their charge, which extends to pupils travelling on school transport. This duty of care is echoed in various legislation and guidance. However, the word reasonable leaves fulfilment of this duty open to considerable variation in practice. The law expects school staff to take reasonable measures to ensure that children under their control are not exposed to unacceptable risks, at least those which can be foreseen. The head teacher must see that procedures are in place to identify such risks and control them, as evidenced by North Ayrshire Council, who, having conducted a thorough risk analysis, require all primary school playgrounds to be supervised for 15 minutes before school starts. Similarly, teachers have a duty of care since 1893 in Loco-Parentis. This means that the teacher stands in place of the parent and is expected to exercise the same standard of care as a reasonably careful parent would. In 1893, the teacher's working environment was not very different from the domestic environment, and a teacher would work with a small number of children. Now, however, things are very different and teachers are responsible for a large number of children. However, while existing legislation stipulates that most primary schools must have playground supervision at break and lunchtime, there is no mention of the period before school, where children can arrive up to 20 minutes early many on dedicated school transport. Data collated from Freedom of Information Requests highlights that, in fact, only 17% of the 29 councils that we have contacted have a formal policy in place for supervising pupils in the playground at this time of day, whilst 43% have a form of recognised practice in place in some but not all of their schools. Others argue that they are adequately fulfilling their duty of care towards safety of pupils by having a member of staff on premises inside the building for these 20 minutes. While some have stated that the responsibility for children lies in fact with parents until the school bell rings, for parents who utilise school transport, this lack of legislation highlights a definite gap in the Government's recognition of risk and duty at this particular time of day. Comments received from signatories and through our Facebook page demonstrate many parents and carers are not satisfied with the current situation at this time of day, and they have shared with us their concerns quoting a catalogue of incidents, the majority with regards to bullying and stranger danger. Similarly, incidents recorded by councils as evidenced prior to the meeting include fractures, road traffic accidents, bites and other forms of bullying and aggression, as well as children wandering off premises. Only 55% of councils responded to that particular request. Because of the lack of supervision, many parents who do not utilise transport wait with their children or arrive at the school bell, exacerbating congestion and missing out on valuable playtime. Discussion has in fact further revealed that supervision is often assumed by these parents who are choosing to remain with their children and also by older P7 pupils. We believe that this is neither adequate nor consistent form of support. Supervision will of course not prevent all incidents. However, the benefits of supervision go further than safety alone. Recommendation 12 of Better Behaviour Better Learning, the report of the discipline task group 2006, encourages authorities and schools to consider promotion of positive behaviour outside the classroom on the basis that it can contribute to better concentration and behaviour in class. Research also suggests that the provision of supervision within the playground in the period before school starts can result in less traffic congestion and an increase in school transport utilisation, which marries well with the aims of the Scottish Government's road safety framework to 2020, which aims to reduce the utilisation of cars from home to school and promote more active travel. Evidence further suggests that reducing parent congestion at this time of day will allow children more opportunity for independent play. To enable all of this to happen, the law on which local policy is based, namely the school's safety and supervision of pupil Scotland regulations 1990, needs to be updated to include provision for formal supervision during the 20-minute period before school starts as well as at break times. Councils may be unreceptive to this, indeed while already citing lack of resources as a barrier. However, five of the 29 contacted have assessed the risk factors already and acted on these by implementing formal policy, managing mostly to do so within existing budgets. Other schools have not because their local authority and ultimately legislation does not require them to do so. In summary, existing legislation recognises the safety risks at break and lunch time within primary school playgrounds and requires appropriate supervision to be in place at these times. It is therefore reasonable, we believe, to suggest that a similar level of support be implemented nationally in the period before the school bell goes, especially for those children arriving via school transport. Local authorities are currently given too much freedom to define their own policy, thereby allowing schools to prevent inconsistent and often inadequate levels of care for pupils in their charge at this time of day. In terms of fulfilling their duty to provide reasonable care for children in local parentice, many parents in carers throughout Scotland do not consider it adequate for schools to provide support from inside the building. We ask you to consider whether it would be deemed reasonably careful to leave a four-year-old alone at a park or standing alone outside a shop whilst you go inside to shop alongside a busy road at risk of injury, bullying, abduction or wandering off. In consideration of the evidence put before you today, we urge you to ensure that legislation recognises equal risk in the 20 minutes prior to the school bell, as it does at break and lunch times, and place a duty upon local authorities to make adequate provision for safety of pupils in their charge by providing formal playground supervision. In the words of a headmaster responding to the petition, pupil safety should be a top priority for all staff and schools. It is time it was made more of a slogan. Thank you very much. It is very much for bringing a very interesting petition to us. The members have any views that they have set on this? John. Thank you for the presentation. In your submission you have referenced Glasgow City Council who do not use teaching staff for that 20-minute period in the morning. They use janitorial staff. You have made reference to teaching staff all the way through your verbal presentation. Would you be content if the education authority used janitorial staff rather than teaching staff for the supervision and the playground for that 20 minutes? I do see local authorities having concerns about additional teachers' time being used for that extra 20 minutes in the supervision. The evidence that has been presented to us through replies to freedom of information requests is clear that those counties that currently make provision at that time of day are using a number of different resources. Janitorial staff support teachers as well as teaching staff and head teachers. I would not have a problem at all if that were to be implemented by janitorial staff. I believe that there is remit within a head teacher to provide training for those janitors so that they could deal with any eventualities in the playground. That is what I believe that Glasgow City Council has done. Just that clarification. Many of the education authorities will claim that it would be down to—and they have claimed—that it is down to expense that they do not provide that service in the morning, but clearly if we can shift the debate slightly to say that there should be supervision in the playground for that 20 minutes, how that supervision is delivered would be up to the local head teacher. I think that the key is the physical supervision, as you say. I think that it is also important to make sure that the staff are appropriately trained to take on that responsibility. What is your definition of supervision? We have playgrounds that can be L-shaped. Does it have to be visual at all occasions? Given that schools vary in size, vary in their layout and geography, what do you mean by supervision? Does there have to be somebody there eyeballing, or is it wider? I think that the key is recognising that there really is very little difference between what exists now in relation to break and lunch times, where at least one member of staff must be physically in the playground at those times of day. Evidently, the risks at those times of day are just as important, if not greater, in the period before school when traffic is far greater. Whatever is deemed acceptable currently at break and lunch times would be acceptable to us prior to school starting. Clearly, even in the situation at break and lunch time where there are 90 children scattered here, there and there, one person on their own is going to find it very hard to monitor every single one of them. Of course, it acts as a deterrent and it hopefully prevents some incidents, at least from occurring. That seems quite odd to me. When the bell rings, it becomes an imperative that something happens, but prior to that, it really is down to local decision making and the judgment of the school. What is needed to be asked here is why is that the case and what does the Scottish Government intend to do to create that safe environment from the minute that the child gets there until, but when would that start then, is a question I would have. Some children might turn up at school 30 minutes early, but some might be even earlier than that, depending on when parents have got to get that child dropped off and then head off to whatever they have got to do. When would an appropriate period be? How do you determine that? That is not for us to decide here today. However, at the moment, children are arriving at various times of day depending on whether they walk, take the bus or are driven. It might be arguable to say that formal playground supervision was put in place from the moment that the school transport bus arrived. There is going to be variation from school to school as to when the bus physically pulls up in the playground. At the moment, we have been led to believe, and we do not know where this comes from, that some councils are fulfilling their duty by having a member of staff inside the building for 20 minutes prior. We do not know where that reference to 20 minutes comes from. We have not been able to find that, but it has nonetheless been quoted to me by councils in their responses. It would be interesting to know where that comes from. Perhaps that could be identified by somebody. Councils such as North Ayrshire have obviously done the risk assessment and deemed that the period that they suggest is appropriate. There must have been some sort of risk assessment done when producing that policy. It is something that the Scottish Government could investigate as a guideline for all local authorities. On the level of training that you anticipate is necessary, given that we do not appear to have a consistent level of training for lollipop ladies or lollipop men, what level of training and what actions do you expect to take other than simply an adult presence? I think that there is already a level of expectation at break and lunch times, and I think that that level of expectation could be adopted in the time before school. I do not think that that is unreasonable when the same risks are basically present, and as Lisa has said, perhaps more in the way of traffic congestion. I think that if we adopt whatever is regarded as the norm for break and lunch, I think that that is not unreasonable. Presumably it would depend on who was providing the resource. If it was a member of staff, I have no doubt that issues concerning child safety are probably quite fundamental in their training as a teacher. Whereas if the solution were to use utilised janitorial staff, that might not necessarily be the case, so they might then need extra training, but that would not be for us to decide perhaps here today. Good morning. Actually, your petition is a very good one. I agree with you that there should be supervision in the morning as well, and I know of schools as a prior councillor that schools do take steps to have their playgrounds covered by members of staff, either classroom assistants or others. So the training is already there. I do not think that that is an issue. The issue really is about the resourcing in the morning, which currently does not happen, and I am sure that, given the challenge that the headteachers are very good people, I am sure that they could find ways of dealing with this issue. I am very supportive of the petition. I am surprised that it is missing. I think that that needs to be part and parcel of our schooling. We are living in very troubled times, and I think that it is absolutely critical that our younger looked over before school starts, as well as lunch times and break times. I am very interested to see how the Government is going to try and roll this out nationally. I think that we do need a policy that the authorities are, in fact, encouraged to make sure that the appropriate cover is there. I have a great deal of sympathy for what you are asking as well. Some of the detail needs to be clarified, but, as you said, that is something that can be looked at in some analysis done. It is certainly the principle of asking for that type of supervision prior to the school day start, and it seems to me to be very logical. The colleagues should ask various organisations to comment on that. The Scottish Government is certainly in Coesla, and it must be. The Health and Safety Executive in Scotland is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in Scotland, and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland are suggestions that we have. A couple of suggestions, convener. The EIS, given that we are talking about teaching staff, and the GMB, the General Municipal Biological Union, and the UNISN, because those two unions cover the janitorial and the classroom assistant staff, auxiliary staff and schools. It would be useful just to get the air views on it, because the additional responsibilities that have been mentioned that we may be placing on those staff may require appropriate training for those staff to be able to carry out the supervision to the level that would be expected. There are also potential amendments to terms and conditions. There are aspects that have to be considered, but we can certainly ask for those things to be considered and see what the responses are. Thank you very much for bringing your petition to us this morning. We will get back to you with the responses that we get, and we will continue to look at the petition once you have had a chance to respond to the responses that we get. Thank you very much for coming this morning. I will suspend again for a couple of minutes to change over what that is. The petition this morning is PE1585 by Isabel Lennox on behalf of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica on Scottish Jamaican relations. Members have a note from the clerk, the petition itself, the spice briefing and the presentation from the petitioner. I welcome the petitioners this morning from Flag Up Scotland Jamaica to the meeting. They are Isabel Lennox, Graham Campbell and David Pot. Mr Pot, you are going to make some comments to us first and then we will open up to a discussion. Over to you. The three of us, just to introduce everybody, Isabel Lennox, who was born in bread in Scotland, which I was not, is one of the reasons why it is very important to have, with the Scotland Jamaica project, to have both Isabel and Graham Campbell, who is a Jamaican who has lived in Scotland for 14 years. I am the founder and the project leader of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica. I would like to begin by quoting Sir Jeff Palmer, who is the Jamaican professor emeritus at Herriot-Watt University. He has been a great encouragement to us and indeed he paved the way for Flag Up Scotland Jamaica to begin. In regard to that initiative, he has said this. The establishment of political, economic, cultural, educational and religious partnerships between the Governments and Institutions of Scotland and those of Jamaica would help both countries which share a common history to flourish as friends. Yesterday I also received from Anne McLaughlin MP for Glasgow North East this. She says, I fully support the aims of this petition in the name of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica on whose board I serve. It does not call for financial reparations, which it would be perfectly entitled to do. Instead, it sensibly calls for a change in focus in the relationship between our two countries. In 2014 I co-produced Emancipation Acts, a play that explored the involvement of Scotland in the slave trade and the legacy for both countries. From the audience's reactions, I discovered two things. First, that they, like me, had been largely unaware of the extent of our role in slavery and secondly and perhaps most pleasing that they wanted to know and they wanted to put it right. The people of Scotland seemed to be very open to acknowledging that slavery did indeed benefit Scotland and damaged Jamaica. We are fortunate in Scotland that there appears to be little resentment from Jamaicans and the bond between our countries remains strong. The cost to Scotland of doing, as the petitioners ask, is very little but the value to us and to Jamaica would be immeasurable. So, with regard to Flag Up Scotland Jamaica, we are still very much at a formative stage but we have been very encouraged by what has taken place in the only 16 months since we started during the Commonwealth Games on August 1 last year with an opening that took place at the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. There seems to be some momentum, which has been evidenced by things like continuing over the past year, schools, partnerships and things like that, and our involvement in the Mella festival earlier this year. Just this last week, I received a very encouraging report from our representative in Jamaica, Barry Warwick, and he has had a very good meeting with staff from the Ministry of Education in Jamaica, who are very keen indeed to set up schools' partnerships. Also this last week, Billy Kay, the writer and broadcaster, has let me know that he is planning a documentary with BBC about Flag Up Scotland Jamaica for Black History Month in October this next year. It is important, again, for us to emphasise that Scotland's ties with Jamaica are older and run deeper than those that are much better known, the links with Canada and New Zealand and Malawi. We believe that, on grounds of consanguinity, like of course Graham, is a Campbell, which is very typical of one of the Communist surnames in Scotland. It is thought that John Campbell, who was involved with the failed Daryon experiment and decided not to come back to Scotland but to stay in Jamaica, is the father of the many, many Campbell's of Jamaica. Even on grounds of consanguinity and on grounds of the past economic benefit to Scotland, as well as the many historical and cultural links, like, of course, the involvement of a Scotsman in the Saltire being a key element in the Jamaican flag. We think that we have very strong grounds for establishing a very creative, interesting and beneficial bilateral partnership between the two nations. There have already been some pointers in this direction, such as the memorandum of understanding, which took place between Jam Pro—the Jamaica Promotions Corporation—and Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in March 2013. There is a desire to make progress, however, in order for us to make progress, we need the employment of at least one person in each nation, both in Scotland and Jamaica, to really start making things happen. Quite recently, we have had a very helpful and inspiring meeting with David Hope-Jones at the Scotland-Malawi partnership. What we came away from that was just a whole emphasis on positivity. There is not a lot about all the difficulties in Malawi. It is more this sense of equality and of sharing that, in fact, Malawi can contribute to Scotland and Scotland can contribute to Malawi. So many Scottish people have benefited from the Scotland-Malawi partnership. We perceive a great interest in Jamaica by all the Scottish people that we have been talking about in this unusual partnership. A lot of people had no idea of the close links of all the Scottish names in the island, etc. We believe that Scottish people could benefit hugely from engagement with Jamaica. It is certainly not just a one-way partnership. We believe that flag-up Scotland-Jamaica has the potential, with the support of the Scottish Government, alongside other partnerships, to deliver similar positive outcomes for both nations. That is what we are here for. We would be grateful if we could explore ways forward with you now. Thank you very much for an interesting introduction. I had become aware of the connections some time ago. I listened to a radio Scotland article on the issue, and it struck a chord that we do have good relations with a number of nations, but I was not quite as familiar. I probably should have been with the cultural and historical links, particularly with Jamaica. Your petition certainly chimes with the perspective that I gained, which was that there were certainly good reasons why we should form stronger links with a nation that we already have historical links with. I am happy to open up to committee members to ask any questions. We should be asking questions as to how we can deepen and strengthen what you have already started to take forward. If members have any specific issues or questions that they want to raise. Good morning to the panel. I am not sure whether I should be supporting a petition. Claims that there are more camos per square acre in Jamaica than in Scotland. I am just looking at the briefing that we have this morning. It details HMRC figures, which show that Scottish exports to Jamaica were around £1.5 million per annum over the past five years. Clearly, there is scope and room for improvement. Would it be your hope that if the petition was successful that we could increase international trade between the two countries? I think that one is for me. Basically, Scotland's proportion is £1.5 million, but it is about a third of UK exports, if you like, abroad. Jamaica actually comes 52nd in the table of HMRC receipts from countries that we export to. That ranks it above Israel, Cyprus, Serbia and Bulgaria. Jamaica is actually quite an important export market for Britain, and Scotland makes up about a third of what Britain sent. It is important, but it could massively be increased. Scotland has resources, particularly in areas where Jamaica really needs it, such as construction, engineering, drilling and oil technology. There is a big plan to expand the Kingston harbour into a regional super hub for the region between Latin America and North America. The Chinese are involved quite exponentially in the development of the oil exploration and expansion of the harbour. Scottish companies should and could be involved in that. However, it is not seen as a priority area in the region in the Caribbean, and that is wrong. It could be a big place for expansion of Scottish and Jamaican businesses in both directions. There is not a lack of interest in this. There is a consensus and agreement among members that you have struck a chord. We should be pursuing that further. We should be asking the Scottish Government to give us its views on the petition and whether it wants to try and take it forward. I cannot remember if I have talked about it. Do we still have a cross-party group in the Caribbean? Should we contact them? If it still exists, we could ask them what ties they have that we could use. We certainly have news that are worth pursuing. You have made the argument quite strongly. Could I make a suggestion to see what councils in Scotland have links with Jamaica currently? They may be MOUs or to any agreements that we are not aware of. Sometimes what happens is that councils do make agreements. Unfortunately, sometimes, with the lack of interest, they fall to one side. However, if they are already there, they just need to reactivate those. That becomes a good vehicle to move forward. That is something that is worth considering. We could maybe ask COSLA to make that on our behalf. I am aware that Renfrewshire Council was one of the twin countries when we had Commonwealth teams being twinned with our local authorities. Renfrewshire got to Jamaica and I am aware that they did do some work with them. I think that that might be well still being in play. That is something that we can certainly explore. If there are hidden connections there that we have not established yet, it might be. Last year, I discovered that there was a person called James Johnson who was born in Huntley. He went to Jamaica and he was a doctor. He lived all his life in a place called Brownsville in Jamaica. He was also a keen photographer. He is the 19th century, a very early photographer. Some of the first photographs in Jamaica are by him. He wrote the first tourist guide called The Jamaican Revere, a wonderful book. He also had the idea that Jamaicans would make much better missionaries to Africans. He went with a bunch of Jamaicans and crossed the continent and wrote a book about that, his trip with Jamaicans across Africa. He is an outstanding figure. I think that Huntley and Brownsville are fairly similar sized towns. They both got secondary schools. That is the natural fit here. It is that kind of thing to try to make places aware of that. Bathgate is another very interesting one because a person called John Newlands owned plantations in what is now Western Kingston. Through the benefits and finances from those plantations, he established Bathgate Academy and I think some arms houses and other things in Bathgate. Every year they have the Newlands festival. Most people are not aware that this patron of the town made his money out of the sugar plantations. What we would like to do is to try to get a Newlands from Jamaica over because there are many Jamaicans with the surname Newlands. It would be fascinating to have a Jamaican Newlands there for this festival and see if we can get links between those two countries. My colleague is working in Kingston. He has found a school, a high school in the same area where Newlands had his plantation and we are exploring possibilities of a link with Bathgate. There are all those possibilities and exciting potential for creative and unusual partnerships. We would really like to see them develop but we are very small. We are really looking for funding opportunities and to try to employ at least two people in both nations who could give it plenty of focus. That is the kind of thing that you need to get it starting to really work well. Thanks, convener. I wish to put on record that, just on the back of that information that we are receiving, I found a briefing that we received in advance of the petition and the submission from the petitioners was fascinating. I knew of the links with Jamaica, but to get some more detail was really helpful. I would like to thank the petitioners for enlightening me on the historical links between Scotland and Jamaica. I think that there is the country in the whole benefit. I certainly know from my own local area close to Blantyre how beneficial it has been the connection with Malawi all the local schools in my area who have now got direct links with schools of similar sizes or have made contact with organisations in Malawi and Blantyre there because of that historical connection. I think that it could be replicated given the information that you have brought to us and I think that it is a very worthwhile petition. As you know, Paisley is at the process of going through applying to be city of culture 2020. Paisley became enormously wealthy through its fabric production that was used in Jamaica. It is a really exciting initiative, not just for supporting this across Scotland, but for raising the profile as Paisley goes forward for this bid. It is a really exciting thing and we really recognise that things like the Malawi partnership, many many Scots have benefited from that and we would love to see that happen for the Jamaica project too. I absolutely agree with you. I have a lot of support around the table for it. We will obviously write to the organisations that we mentioned and we will let you know what they tell us and we can discuss it further at some point. Thank you very much for coming before us this morning to give you a petition. Thank you. I will suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes before we go to the next item. This morning is PE1588 by Daisy Harris on scanning all pets found on Scottish roads. Members have a note from the clerk, the petition and the spice briefing. I will also welcome Jackie Baillie MSP to the meeting as a constituency interest in the petition, but first I will ask Daisy Harris to make some opening remarks and then I will give Jackie Baillie the opportunity to comment in addition to what you have got to say, but over to you, Ms Harris. Good morning and thank you for inviting me to attend. Today I will be talking about my petition to make microchip scanning of domestic animals recovered from Scottish roads compulsory. I will be covering why I feel this law is important to the public and how it would improve current practice. In April 2016, it will be compulsory to microchip dogs in Scotland. However, were a dog to go missing and be found dead, they would likely only be scanned for a microchip if the person who receives the body, highway's worker, sanitation worker or police officer is an animal lover. Many of these individuals do not even have access to the equipment necessary to carry out the procedure. A simple, handheld scanner that can be purchased for as little as £40. On the Scottish Government website, it quotes MSP Richard Lochhead as saying, in 2014, over 10,000 dogs were reunited with their owners as a result of a microchip. This is an impressive figure, but it could be improved on dramatically by ensuring that all dogs are microchipped. What I and my supporters would like to ask is how the Government plans to, as MSL Lochhead said, dramatically improve numbers of reunited dogs if scanning is not a set policy but a best practice. I received word from a lady who had made an inquiry to West Lothian Council pertaining to the scanning of cats recovered from roads. They replied by saying that they had one microchip scanner, which was usually kept in an office, and that most cats were not scanned and were instead put in landfill. Depending on who found the cats, some were stored in a depot for seven days, but that seems random and unfair. I know from personal experience how horribly worrying and heart-rending the unexplained disappearance of a pet can be, and I know I speak for many people when I say that the few seconds it takes to scan an animal and the closure it could give to the pet's owners could mean the difference between moving on with your life or being left forever wandering. Owners of missing pets have been known to spend hours searching for their animals and hundreds of pounds on elaborate campaigns for their safe return. In November 2013, a pensioner searching for missing Border Collie Skye in Dumfries fell into a river and was hospitalised, and Skye's owners have camped out for weeks at a time in the hope of catching her and bringing her home. Yet they still do not know if Skye is still out there. If Skye had been killed on a road, her microchip is unlikely to have been scanned. On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of pet owners in Scotland today, I would like to ask for microchip scanning to be made compulsory. If pets are not scanned, they are not reunited. I think that Daisy has covered it all, but you never find a politician that can resist an opportunity to say something. I met Daisy at a roving surgery in the time that she lives in. She had already started a petition, clearly passionate and committed to the subject, and I suggested that she bring the petition to this Parliament. I suppose that I should declare for the record that I have a cat. She is called Smudge. If anything happened to her, I would feel devastated by it, and to not know strikes me as something that is even more difficult if you are that pet owner. It is inconsistent that we ask for pets to be microchipped, dogs in particular, but we do not use that microchip in a positive way to reunite all pets with their families. In England, scanning is compulsory. In Scotland, it is not. I do not believe that there is a difference in compassion north and south of the border. I think that this is something that could be fixed quite easily. As you have heard from Daisy, it is cheap and effective to do, so I would hope that the Public Petitions Committee will very strongly encourage the cabinet secretary to do exactly as Daisy's petition requests. We refer to the Scottish Government and the work that can be done. Your petition specifically talks about animals that are found dead or alive. Do you know what the current position is with the SSPCA or the dog stress? I am assuming that animals that are found alive will not be either captured by local authority, workers or the police and will then be transferred into the care of other organisations such as the SSPCA and the dog stress or some other similar animal welfare organisations. Do you know if those organisations carry out regular scanning of the animals that are put in their care by local authorities or the place? I heard a recent case study just yesterday about a Yorkshire terrier that was put in the care of the dog stress. It was in their care for seven years and it was not scanned in that time, so I do not believe that they have that policy either. After it was scanned it was reunited with its owners, but that was seven years after it was picked up. That is just to get that clarification, because as I said, particularly the animals that are found alive. That is a very good example of how seven years later somebody finally decides to scan the animal to find out that there is a registered owner and the owner can be reunited with their pet. It means that we can extend the number of organisations that we can write to conveners to get clarification on what the current practice is in Scotland. That is a good idea, John. We should get as much information as possible, because I think that there is a lot of merit in the petition that you have brought forward. If it is doable in other parts of the island, it should be possible to do it here. I can see why the benefits would be there in the way that you have explained the loss that people would feel unnecessarily, just because they cannot trace their pet. There is strong merit in investigating why it is not happening here. We can ask COSLA what the local authority position is, if they have guidance on this, but if Richard Lochhead has identified it as an issue, then we should certainly be asking the Scottish Government why they have not taken it forward. There may be an explanation, but it would be interesting to know why they have identified the issue, but not actually done anything with it. It looks as though you have got agreement to take the petition forward in that way. We will get those responses and send them back to you. We can look to see what the view of the organisations is and look forward to your comments on those responses before we take it forward after that. Thank you very much for bringing in your petition this morning. Thank you. I will suspend again for a couple of minutes. PE1586 by James A. Mackey on behalf of Inners Community Council on statutory control measures for invasive non-native species. Members have had the briefing documents. Are there any comments on the petition? Can I declare that this is an issue that I have got a particular interest in? I have raised questions in the Parliament in the past regarding the enforcement in terms of the invasive non-native species issue. The petitioner quite rightly identifies that we have legislation there, which I am not sure if the legislation is being used against landowners to ensure that they carry out their duties under the legislation. I know that in my dealings with Network Rail, which I have had several dealings with Network Rail regarding particularly Japanese knotweeds and the constituency in the region, Network Rail has been quite good to act. However, the difficulty is that we have other private landowners who fail to act or developers who decide to go into areas where there is Japanese knotweed and do not take the appropriate action. I note from some of the examples in terms of the spice briefing in relation to costs, that it might be that some landowners, when they are going to develop the site, realise that it is more expensive to clean up the site than it would be to develop on it. In some cases, they just go ahead and develop without doing the appropriate environmental cleanup, including eradicating the Japanese knotweed on the sites. I would be quite keen to write to the Scottish Government to ask its views on that. The number of questions that I would like to suggest would be to SNH, SIPA, because I think that in one incident where I knew that a developer was trying to remove Japanese knotweed from a site or that it had not applied for the appropriate environmental licences to remove the site, there was no guarantee that the materials were being removed to a supervised and authorised site for that material to be dumped. It would be useful to write to those organisations, because when I did contact SIPA regarding the issue, they referred me to SNH. When I contacted them, they referred me to the environmental services, and the environmental services then sent me to the police, because they said that it is the police that should be enforcing that. There clearly seems to be an issue about who has the duty to enforce the actions that are there in legislation. I could also suggest that we write to RSPB and SWT, because I know that there are two organisations that have recently visited Barnes-Hawk in Motherwell, where they carry out clean-up of Japanese knotweed, and staff are trained to deal with that. It would be useful to find out how they deal with it. I would also like to ask the Scottish Government how many landowners have been prosecuted or have been reported under the current Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for the failure to treat Japanese or any other invasive non-native species and what the level of the prosecution fines have been. My suspicion is that there will not be many and the fines will be very low, but it is up to us all to make sure that we get the message that is up to landowners to deal with the issue and local authorities. To reinforce that message, the issue of Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed can be very dangerous and very costly, because I know that Japanese knotweed can come up through cement, and there have been some housing sites where it has been reported that Japanese knotweed is now coming up through people's houses. It is really just one of those areas where we need to try to ensure that we have the legislation in place. Let's find out how the Government is ensuring that legislation has been applied to landowners throughout Scotland to try to ensure that we get normally the curtail, the spread of these non-native species, but to deal with them and eradicate them wherever possible. That is an extensive list of suggestions, which I am pretty sure will help to investigate the petition quite fully. Do members agree that we are going to do that? Our next petition is PE1587 by Arthur MacFarlane on the Scottish Civic Forum. Members have a note by the clerk and the petition and a spy briefing. Members have views on the petition? I have to say I think I can probably anticipate the reply, but I think we should at least do that in the terms that the petitioners ask. We should ask the Government to comment. Members agree? Sorry, for this, could I suggest that we also write to SCVO as well? Although it is not the Civic Forum, it brings together a number of civic organisations and voluntary sector organisations. It might be useful to ask SCVO what their view on that is. I know that the Civic Forum was a concept that was developed in 1998 to try and mirror what was happening within the Scottish Parliament, but given the growth of the voluntary sector and civic society, it is much wider than the Civic Forum. It would be useful to get its views on the petition itself. I am happy to do that. I think that the members have agreed to do that as well. Our final petition this morning is PE1590 by Nick Powell on behalf of the British Acupuncture Council on Licences for Acupuncturists. Members have a note from the clerk, the petitioner, a spy briefing and a submission from the petitioner. Members have any views on recommendations? It is the same, having had acupuncture, but that was more through physiotherapy. It does seem to me surprising that that is why I would welcome writing to both the Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to try and get to the bottom of it. They do not appear to me to be apples and pears, but they are distinct services. I am interested to see what the Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities take us on it. Members have agreed to do that. So that completes our consideration of petitions this morning. We have agreed to take our next item in private, so I will close the meeting to the public.