Chamber and committees

Ashley Ryan, you talked about the different structure that you have in Dundee and how that seems to work better than elsewhere. Are there opportunities for sharing models or systems or examples of good practice that you know work? Are people willing to say, “Yes, we can learn from that. How can we do something differently over here?” Are there enough opportunities to share good practice?

You would say that it is primarily a resourcing issue rather than anything to do with structures or anything like that.

It sounds as though you have a good tracking mechanism and good processes, which means that if somebody drops out or has a wobble, you can come in with an offer. How does somebody get into that? To what extent does that require proactive searching by the individual—the young person themselves, their family or support worker, or whoever? Last week, we spoke to folk who did not know what support was out there and who fell into support by accident or by chance. That is not the situation that we want to be in.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us, and thank you for what you have said so far.

I want to drill down to get a better understanding of the issue. You all do phenomenal work. There are clearly good examples of success in getting people into work and sustaining and supporting them in that employment. I have heard comments about the need for sustained and sustainable funding, and we have talked about data.

Despite all that, the disability employment gap remains stubbornly high. My question links to Claire Baker’s question about whether we are measuring the right things. How are we missing people who should be getting support? Essentially, I am asking how we make sure that we reach more people. Philip, do you want to kick things off?

Okay. I put the same question to Alasdair Scott.

My final question is open to any of you. It is clear that good things are happening in your different areas and your different work, but how do you learn from one another? If something is working well, how do you share that? How do you say, “This is working really well. Hey, over there, have you tried this? It might help.”? Do the LEPs share good practice through Dave McCallum? How can we learn across the country?

Elizabeth Baird wants to come in on this point, too.

That is interesting, and it leads me on to my next question. Earlier, we heard about the desire to have an open-for-all come-one, come-all service that can be made bespoke or tailored to the individual’s needs. Are you saying that we might need to think about the needs of different groups of disabled people, or is it a case of ensuring that we have flexibility and agility within that?

Last week, we heard a clear example involving a young person with vision impairment and what screen readers can and cannot read. That comes back to one of Ashley Ryan’s earlier points about what people are doing.

Oxana MacGregor-Gunn or Ashley Ryan, do you have any comments about the tension between an inclusive-for-all disabled people employability service and the need for the bespoke tailoring of support?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on work undertaken to resolve any public sector equal pay disputes. (S6O-03365)