Chamber and committees

If that question is not appropriate, I will withdraw it.

Thank you all.

Please do.

I have a few questions, so please bear with me. First, thank you for all that you do, for being with us today and for your submissions.

I absolutely appreciate that, as one of you said, no one size fits all and that the needs of every individual student or young person are important. You have already covered many areas, including staff training, specification, continuing professional development, facilities in the school estate and the support that third parties give.

With regard to the reconsideration of the action plan and how we go from identifying the problems and the challenges to finding solutions and improvement, what change could we make that is deliverable and that would improve things on a consistent basis? What I am getting from all of you is that consistency of support is a real challenge in different parts of Scotland, and that it depends on how empowered different families feel and what information they have. How do we get to a better position with regard to the provision of consistent support, while appreciating that every individual child has their own needs?

That involves training and continuous professional development.

I am sorry to cut you off, Suzi, but I want to feed that to Glenn Carter, who argued that there is not enough capacity in the system and that we do not have enough trained people to provide that specialism in every setting in which it is required. Is increasing the capacity a priority for you?

I am trying to consolidate them, so I will do. Thank you, convener.

Deborah Best talked about the average patient not being aware of the plan. Is that a key takeaway?

I do not know whether our other two witnesses want to add anything on consistency, but I am happy to ask my other questions later, if there is time, convener.

I have two final questions on areas that we have not covered already.

We have talked about schools today. Do you want to emphasise anything about the experiences of young people in further and higher education or in apprenticeship programmes? Also, and relating to what we have discussed already, a lot of my case work is about the housing crisis, and many of the constituents I try to assist are in temporary accommodation and have children with additional support needs. Do you want to emphasise anything about the effects of the housing crisis on the young people you support?

So, universities do not provide their own support.