Chamber and committees

Convener, can you hear me?

I want to ask about making spaces for women and girls. We know that parks, play equipment and public spaces for older kids, teens and adults are currently designed around the default male. It is interesting to know about Glasgow’s feminist town approach. There was also a great motion in South Lanarkshire that was about recognising that unstructured play is for older children rather than just an activity for younger children.

My question is for Kate Joester, Kirsty Garrett or Patrick Murphy. Do you have any examples of older girls, teenagers and women successfully co-designing public spaces where that has increased use by women and girls? Feel free to send in any further examples you might come across, as well.

I should mention that I was a member of the sports council at South Lanarkshire, and that I have known Patrick Murphy for too many years to mention.

I would like to look more specifically at the issue of data analytics. The chief of staff to the Patient Safety Commissioner for England highlighted the importance of the team having the capacity to provide data analytics. You have already said that you will look at the data that comes from other organisations that carry out investigations, but surely there is a need to pull all that together and look underneath it. Where does that role sit at the moment?

That is interesting.

We focused on play earlier, and it is important to note that play is not just for little kids. It is for teenagers and older children, and it is also for adults.

However, when the general public sees play, especially among older teenagers at secondary school, people are quite negative about it. They worry about antisocial behaviour when MUGAs are opened. Some areas in South Lanarkshire have been padlocked by neighbours who live nearby. Do we need to change that attitude and thinking and put play out there as being important right across the board?

I thank the witnesses for being here.

Yesterday, when we were out having a chat, we heard that women and girls want agency and choice. Rudi Urbach—I hope that I have pronounced that correctly—from Scottish Rugby spoke about being flexible by, for example, changing the rules of rugby, and making it about fun and enjoyment. However, we heard that many girls drop out during the early years of secondary school, and that has also been mentioned today. There seems to be too much focus on organised sport rather than on healthy activity. Are there examples of teenage girls helping to co-design what happens in physical education in school for girls? Should we be thinking about that?

I go back to conversations that I had when speaking to people at judo last night. I spoke to an amazing mum who is a teacher and plays competitive rugby. She was talking about Stuart Hogg getting his 100th cap for Scotland. When it is being highlighted that only five people have reached that number, the other three guys, who have between 105 and 110 caps, are mentioned first in any news articles. However, she told me about Donna Kennedy, who, with 115 caps, has more than any of the men. From 2004 to 2016—for more than 10 years—she was the world’s most capped woman player. That is an amazing achievement. I guess that what I am about to ask is a rhetorical question. Do you agree that we should be highlighting such things? It would be amazing to hear Stuart Hogg and others in the media talk about how amazing Donna Kennedy’s achievement is.

Can I just pause you there? My biggest concern is about the fact that it often takes a long time to get diagnosed with endometriosis or heavy periods—I know that there is a correct name for that, but I do not know it off pat—and there is a big issue about women and girls being trusted if they do not have a diagnosis. For example, they might go and speak to a teacher—it can take a huge amount of courage to have that conversation—and be fobbed off by the teacher saying, “Stop trying to get out of PE and get on with it.” That is the issue that I want to get at.

So we will be evaluating and monitoring what is going on and seeing what the needs are as we move forward. Is that right?

Maybe we need to collect richer data on that.