Chamber and committees

That is an excellent question, which leads on from my response to the earlier questions about the new model that HES is developing.

Officials from the Scottish Government, as the sponsorship body, are working with HES on that and supporting it to do that. They are in the throes of redeveloping that business model as we speak, and they want to ensure that it delivers a high-quality, sustainable and equitable service for the people of Scotland. Sustainability now becomes even more important, particularly in this financial environment, where everyone is feeling it tough when it comes to budget.

The Built Environment Forum Scotland has created a sustainable investment toolkit, which any of our heritage organisations can use. That was created as a result of the predecessor strategy, “Our Place in Time”. That toolkit has been designed to assess societal and economic opportunities and the environmental potential of our built heritage.

As I explained earlier, the way in which HES is set up creates some challenges. If it raises additional revenue, that has an impact on the grant that it gets from Government. That is the legal framework, which is a result of how it was set up.

As I said, we are working closely with and supporting HES in this work. It is looking at income forecasts and how income can be increased, without the impact on its grant aid from the Scottish Government, which can be a disincentive. Therefore, I am not surprised that HES was not that forthcoming, because the current business model does not allow it to take full advantage of those opportunities. We are working with HES and finance and exchequer colleagues to look at ways to create flexibilities. In a very tough financial environment, opportunities for revenue raising become very important, particularly for sustainability but also for investment in those assets and the ability for HES to hold reserves. Those things are all in play in that work.

HES is also leading the way on public sector and public services reform, particularly as a public body in that landscape. Therefore, we are looking at ways in which it can become an exemplar for other public bodies. We are looking at new, innovative and flexible ways in which it can raise more revenue and raise its profile and the understanding of some of the amazing heritage that we have and how it can invest that revenue back into the work that it is doing, particularly on preserving, sustaining and maintaining cultural assets for the future.

We are working on that information as we speak. On 13 November, Historic Environment Scotland engaged a new programme management team, which includes a data analyst, whose job is to look at all those issues and at how the skills gaps emerge for Historic Environment Scotland.

The other piece of work that you are looking for is within the skills sector. Rather than trying to pull out of the back of my head what Mr Dey is doing about that, I will endeavour to get that information and send it on to the committee.

For our purposes and the purpose of the strategy, we recognise that traditional skills gaps exist and that we need those traditional skills to be built into what we do. There are 2 million stone-built structures in Scotland, which means that, in the next few years, particularly with the acceleration of climate change, we will need more people with those skills areas to protect, repair and improve our structures. There is currently no training provision in Scotland for repair and maintenance skills in those key areas, which is one of the issues that Mr Dey and I discussed yesterday. We discussed how we create the circumstances in which we can create training for those skills. That will involve a shared apprenticeship model and continuous professional development for people who are already qualified in those areas. We are looking closely at all that.

The new data analyst for HES started his work on 13 November. We will give him until the new year, and then we will start to ask him about what analysis he is pulling out and what that is telling him. That data will then inform our next steps. We are well aware that there is an issue there, which HES is starting to address with the new engagement that I mentioned.

Again, that is a difficult, although very relevant, point. That is where some of the partnership work with those organisations is key. Some young people disappear off into their lives and do not want to be tracked or monitored. When we work closely with those organisations, we are able to do some monitoring and ensure that the young person is getting the opportunities that they want to access, but within a protective environment.

Out in the world of employment, there is great support available, but it is difficult to track. If a young person is being supported by their trade union, for instance, or by a trade union learning programme or another agency that provides support, it is really difficult to track their progress. Some of them do not want to come back to tell us, either. It is about the element of choice and getting the balance right between having the information and data that we need in order to do that monitoring and not overly intruding in somebody’s life as they move into the big world.

I can give you some of the information. We have said that it will be in this parliamentary term.

That is our PFG commitment. As you have heard this morning, a huge amount of progress is happening.

The pathfinder work will come to a conclusion in March, which is just a few short weeks away. We have the literature review across other nations being published very soon as well. As far as a timeline goes, those are the next steps, which are pretty imminent.

As far as a longer-term timeline goes, that is a bit more difficult to pin down, but we are happy to come back to committee when we have those next two steps past us, over the next few weeks, to talk to you more about the timeline.

Essentially, it is being driven by the children and young people and the stakeholders who will take forward that next piece of work. We do not want to create too tough a timeline such that they feel as though they cannot access the work on their terms. We want to ensure that we have the broadest range of young people, their parents and carers and organisations in there. For people who have communication difficulties and other challenges, we want to give them the time and space and, more important, the opportunity to have their voice heard.

I am sorry that I cannot give you definitive dates and times, but March is a key point for both those other pieces of work and those two next steps.

One of the things that we are often accused of in Government is sitting in our silos and not working across Government when it comes to issues such as the one that we are discussing. One of the great benefits of the role that I have is that I get to work across the whole of Government. It makes sense to address transitions in a joint approach, because the bill is not the only piece of work that is going on to support people with disabilities.

We have an on-going refresh of our work on a fairer Scotland for disabled people, as well as the proposals to incorporate the UNCRPD into Scots law. There are a number of areas of work, including the review of the public sector equality duty, which places specific duties on local authorities and other public authorities to ensure that people’s rights are respected. There are other key pieces of work alongside the work on transitions to underpin the rights when it comes to good transition. That is why it is important that both of us are with you today.

I can come in on that particular point.

You heard Ms Haughey say in her opening remarks that there are two areas of the bill that we are currently working with. We absolutely welcome the intention. I think that we are all on the same page in that we want to make life better.

There is already a bit of a cluttered landscape when it comes to other pieces of legislation. We have the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 and the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 as well as the refreshed GIRFEC. We have a bit of a cluttered landscape. The bill has allowed us to step back, look at that landscape and see the areas where we need to do some work to pull everything together into one tangible process. I think that a plan would be too siloed, if I can use that term.

We were already working on two areas of the bill that we picked up on. We can see the merit of all that, but the landscape is a bit cluttered, and we need to tidy it up.

That point is spot on. We know of a lot of things that are available across the whole of Scotland, but we will always talk to somebody who will say, “I didn’t know about that.” The pathfinder work that we are doing, and the work that we and this committee—and, indeed, the bill—are doing to raise awareness, is really important in all this.

Your own work in that regard is also important, because you have just raised the issue of independent living fund grants on the public record, so a lot of folk will now realise that those are available. There is obviously a role for Government as well in ensuring that people know that the fund is available and what types of things they can use it for, which can be diverse and exciting. That can add extra diversity to someone’s life, which may have previously been more prescripted because of their disability. It can give them a bit of freedom.

I will take that point away and have a look at how we can incorporate raising awareness of funds and other such support as part of the next steps.

I have a quick update on the work around the Equality Act 2010, which presents nine protected characteristics. I work closely on the intersections of all those characteristics, because people generally have not one defined characteristic but a collection of them. It is about where those characteristics intersect and where we find the deepest inequalities. That is one aspect of the act’s provisions that we are considering as we move the work forward.

One of the issues that we are tackling is that the definition of disabilities in the 2010 act is pretty wide, and it is pretty wide in the transitions bill as well. Some people will be happy to self-identify in the characteristic that they have, but others will not—young people sometimes do not want to do that. Pam Duncan-Glancy has a bit of work to do in the bill to define a bit more closely who would be accessing the plans, services and so on.

You will know from your professional background, Ms Stewart, that teachers generally do not wait for a diagnosis or a self-declaration to understand that a young person is struggling and therefore to put support measures in place—that excellent work is already going on in schools—but we need to ensure that there is a better definition that is understandable to all professionals.

It comes back to the point that I made to Ross Greer earlier about how important the plan is. It can be used across multiple sectors, and the young person is then supported through their whole journey instead of just through one part of it.

The definition of disabilities in the Equality Act 2010 is pretty wide.

Yes. We have seen the issue of a professional in one local authority saying, “Well, I’ve got this”, and another in another local authority or in an organisation saying, “Well, I’ve got something different.” It was really important to fund the development work so that the passport could go on to the resources hub because that standardises it, in a way; in particular, it makes it available to all professionals in educational settings, so that it can address some of those needs.