Chamber and committees

This is a good opportunity to bring in Claire Burden from NHS Ayrshire and Arran. We have talked about financial sustainability, and it is only fair to ask for your assessment of how your health board is managing its finances and balancing its budget, given the current strains on its finances.

Agenda item 4 is consideration of an affirmative Scottish statutory instrument. The purpose of the draft regulations is to make ancillary provision to correct some technical errors in the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 that arose due to amendments that were made to the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Bill during its parliamentary passage. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the draft regulations at its meeting on 28 February and made no recommendation.

We will take evidence on the draft regulations from the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport and her supporting officials. Once we have had all our questions answered, we will have a formal debate on the motion.

I welcome Maree Todd, the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport, and her officials. Sarah Cartwright is policy officer in the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act implementation team and Cecilia McCullough, who joins us remotely, is a solicitor for the Scottish Government.

I thank you all for joining us today. I invite the minister to make an opening statement.

Thank you for that. I apologise because I cannot bring you back in, Evelyn.

Two more members—Stephanie Callaghan first, then Sandesh Gulhane—wish to ask questions on reform. I ask for succinct questions. Please direct your questions to specific witnesses, as much as possible.

That certainly chimes with me, as a rural person. The idea of a radial journey into the centre of town does not take into account the fact that you might have to go elsewhere before you even get to your work.

As you were speaking, I was reminded that I asked a teenage person in my life why girls do not do as much physical activity, and she said, “It’s because your pals don’t.” There is that peer pressure. The kind of thing that you are talking about, in which it is seen to be okay to take your bike to school or whatever, might mean that more girls will do that.

I will go online and speak to Kirsty Garrett.

That is why we invited you. [Laughter.]

Euan wants to come back in.

It sounds like it.

Our most heavily subscribed theme is next—oh, I am sorry; the clerk has just reminded me that I ignored Euan Lowe, who wanted to come in before we move on to the next theme. My apologies, Euan.

This is the second evidence session in our inquiry into female participation in sport and physical activity. The session will focus on community sport and physical activity.

I welcome to the committee Kate Joester, who is policy and influencing co-ordinator for Scotland, at Living Streets Scotland; Patrick Murphy is a senior manager at South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture; and Cecilia Oram is head of behaviour change at Sustrans Scotland. We also have two panel members online: Kirsty Garrett is sports development and physical activity manager at Glasgow Life, and Euan Lowe is chief executive officer of Scottish Swimming.

We have a number of themes to cover, so members might want to direct their questions. Some questions might be more general, in which case we can go round the panel. However, with five panel members, not every panel member will be able to answer every question—we would be here until next week.

I will kick things off. A number of you pointed in your submissions to a lack of female role models in sport and physical activity. It struck me that there are lots of females in sport and various physical activities who are probably a role model within that sport. However, it is not so much about that; it is about cutting through to people outwith that sport and people seeing them as role models in the media and so on. It is also about a lack of women in leadership roles in sport.

Being completely hypocritical after what I said about focusing questions, I would like to go round everyone and ask what could be done to encourage more women into leadership roles in sport and how we promote those female role models, which would make all the difference.