Chamber and committees

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow a changeover of officials.

Thank you very much. We have no further questions, minister, but we look forward to hearing updates on the work of the kinship care collaborative and on how the guidance is being shaped to ensure that learning and best practice are passported across all 32 local authorities and that the allowance is set at the level at which we want it to be set. Again, I thank you for coming along this morning.

That concludes the public part of this morning’s meeting. Because Parliament is in recess next week, the committee’s next meeting will be on Thursday 21 April. I invite members who are joining us remotely to leave the meeting and to join us on Teams.

Thank you very much, minister. We will now move to questions from members. We have two themes: the first is on uprating for inflation, and the second is on increases not related to uprating.

Pam Duncan-Glancy, who is joining us remotely, will start us off on theme 1, and she will be followed by Marie McNair, who is also joining us remotely.

If you could just go for it now, Pam, as we are so tight for time, that would be very helpful.

All right. Everybody’s else’s questions have been answered, so we will have Marie McNair’s question.

Is that okay with you, Pam?

Welcome back, everybody. Under item 5, we will consider kinship care. This morning, we are taking evidence from the Minister for Children and Young People and discussing issues arising from our recent evidence sessions on kinship care. The committee heard evidence from stakeholder organisations on 24 February and had an informal session with kinship carers on 21 March.

I welcome to the meeting Clare Haughey, the Minister for Children and Young People. The minister is joined by Scottish Government officials from the improving lives for people with care experience unit, who are in the room with us: Gwen Davidson is unit head, and Louisa Brown is family care team leader.

I invite the minister to make an opening statement.

Thank you very much, minister.

Marie McNair joins us remotely. She will be followed by Emma Roddick, who joins us in the room.

I have one final question for you, minister. In our informal session with kinship carers, we heard that there is no provision for family leave for people who are in that situation and who can, indeed, find that their whole world is turned upside down overnight. That sort of thing depends very much on the good will of employers; we heard some good examples of where such provision has worked well and another example of there being no provision at all. Can the Scottish Government do anything to help with that and move things forward for those who find themselves in such situations?

Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in 2022. Our first item of business is a decision to take items 6 to 8 in private. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.