Chamber and committees

You indicated that most young people will be easily identifiable. However, do you think that the bill sufficiently recognises people who have mild to moderate mental health conditions or people who are going through mental health crises? We have also alluded to people who have fluctuating support systems, and I am mindful that not everything is visible in that sense.

Based on the definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010, who should determine eligibility in the first instance? If there are disputes, which will inevitably happen, how would they be resolved?

Rebecca, I will go to you first. Feel free to comment on the previous topic. I am also happy for you to respond to my most recent question.

Thanks, Rebecca.

I will ask a final question, which relates to the scope of the bill. The financial memorandum to the bill suggests that around 4,000 school leavers a year would meet the current definition of “disabled”, which is around 8 per cent of school leavers from state schools. Is that a reasonable estimate?

I suppose that I am looking to find out whether that is a reasonable number. Do you think that there will be a lot more people? Do you agree with that estimate?

Andy Miller, do you have anything to add? Feel free to shake your head.

You have had a good stab at it. Let us go to Andy Miller.

I have listened with great interest to the perspectives of the witnesses. They have been very informative.

I will ask questions about whom the bill should cover and how young people should be identified. The bill bases whom it should cover on age and the definition of disability as stated in the Equality Act 2010. Do you think that that is proper? Will that cover everybody? Will that allow all young people to be identified, considering that not all of them will be in a system already? People can have a variety of needs, and some might not be in a system, if you know what I mean. There are challenges around that. I am interested in hearing how local authorities can identify children and young people who would be eligible without anybody falling through the net. I will start with Jenny Miller.

Moving on to what you said about being held to account, obviously, in light of the report, trust was at an all-time low, so a lot of the process is about not only rebuilding trust but enhancing it so that we can have truly transformational change. None of us wants to be here in five or 10 years’ time thinking that we did all that work with all these resources but nothing changed. I am interested in all the sporting bodies, so I would like to hear from Forbes Dunlop and from Cricket Scotland on this. Do you think that sporting bodies have, or will have, sufficiently robust and effective safeguarding procedures in place that mean that what occurred in Cricket Scotland will not repeat itself and we will not lose another generation of ambitious young sporting people?

If anybody wants to add to that, feel free. You mentioned Sporting Equals. I appreciate and value its expertise. What work has it done to understand the Scottish context and build trust in that process?

Thank you very much to the committee for allowing me the opportunity to come along today. As you know, I have an interest in this area.

Fortunately, a lot of the points that I was going to raise have been raised already. I want to ask about two areas: the first is sportscotland’s communications with the Scottish Government, and the second is safeguarding.

The first question is probably for Forbes Dunlop. Will you give us a wee outline of what support and scrutiny you have been getting from the Scottish Government, given that, obviously, commitments were made on the back of the motion that I brought to the chamber for debate?

Good morning, everyone. I am going to ask about two areas. First, I will ask about the attainment challenge and the budget that will support that. I will then ask about Gaelic education.

On the attainment challenge, you would expect me to be fully aware of how stubborn the poverty-related attainment gap is and the fact that many portfolio areas cover it. Education gets the focus for closing that gap. I am aware of that context. While so many portfolio areas cover the poverty-related attainment gap, funding the work is a challenge—I understand that.

I heard the cabinet secretary talk about the £100 million to support closing the gap, and I was pleased to see that there has been a wee bit of a recovery, especially in primary schools, in going back to pre-pandemic levels, but we know that progress could be better. We understand that, and we know why the issue is so difficult.

How will the budget support the continued attempts to close the very stubborn poverty-related attainment gap? How will the public be assured that, with all the money that the Government is quite rightly spending, they are getting value for money? How will that be monitored and tracked?

It might be helpful for people who are listening to know about the tracking of that. Obviously, there will be stuff that can impact straight away, and then there will be medium and longer-term outcomes. How regularly do those check-ins happen with the appropriate body? I do not expect you to be involved at that level, cabinet secretary, but what is the process? Will you expand further on the measuring and tracking of that?