Chamber and committees

A design such as Social Security Scotland’s has made for a much better system.

Thank you. I will be brief, convener. Ms Hynd and Ms McCrossan, I am pleased to hear you use the term “citizens” rather than “customers” because it annoys me when councils refer to citizens as customers.

My question is about front-line staff, who are immensely important in terms of picking up difficulties. Are your front-line staff in Edinburgh trauma informed? Have they had trauma-informed practice training? That can often be immensely useful for picking up mental health difficulties that folks may have.

I have a brief question about the green skills aspect, which we have touched on already. Many of the jobs and courses that we have fit well with the green skills agenda. From talking to an oil and gas company last night at Scottish Renewables, I know that a direct move could be made from the work that they do now in oil and gas to the work in renewables.

Does the skills sector—whether that be SDS, the colleges or the universities—recognise that that is the case and that some of the adaptation that needs to be undertaken is pretty small indeed?

You mentioned the Glasgow aspect of data gathering. In my own patch in the north-east of Scotland, Opportunity North East does similar things.

The intelligence and the data are good, but are some of our institutions talking enough and—this is probably more important—are they listening to businesses about their future needs?

Thank you for your indulgence, convener. I will have to leave the committee soon, I am afraid.

You make some great points. You mentioned the Scottish Mental Health Law Review and Lord Scott’s report, which is huge. I am probably one of very few folks to have read it cover to cover more than once—that was because of a previous role that I held. There will be legislative changes as a result of that, which will bring about a lot of good. If we were to put too much into primary legislation, that might lead to a lot of bad.

As a former money adviser, do you think that you and your colleagues are listened to enough when it comes to the formation of legislation? Do you think that you guys should play a part in creating secondary legislation that is flexible enough to deal with the challenges and changes that we have seen in recent times?

I am interested to find out more about the discussions with the SNIB; maybe Mike Ferguson and others can forward the details to us.

In relation to the joint public-private investment that Mike spoke about, has there been any discussion with any organisation—SNIB, Scottish Enterprise or maybe even some of the regional economic bodies, such as Opportunity North East, because you hinted at the work that it was doing—about establishing an evergreen fund, whereby investment is made, possibly by public investors and also by private ones, that would eventually get a return that can be recycled so that we have a constant recycling process and constant growth of investment? If there has been a discussion about that, could you give us an indication of how it went?

Thank you.

Convener, I have a very brief supplementary question, if you do not mind, given Sarah-Jayne Dunn’s comments.

You mentioned the council tax scenario and how often that puts a great deal of grief on to clients. Do you have examples of councils that do this better than others? Would it be wise, in your opinion, to export that good practice across the board?