Chamber and committees

As a precursor to the family wellbeing fund, which we might come to later in the meeting, the Deputy First Minister announced at the weekend £3 million for local authorities and £255,000 for a small number of third sector organisations, to provide cash support to families who are currently in need. There is an on-going commitment from the Government to do what we can when we can to mitigate—

Absolutely. We are looking at targeting what families need at that point in time, whether that is help with utilities, clothing or food.

No—I am happy to answer as the minister.

I talked earlier about our cross-sectoral work in the children and families collective leadership group on the impact of the pandemic on children and young people. We looked at the real-time data and how, for example, services were responding to children, young people and families. It is important to remember—I am sure that you will be aware of this—that the early years workforce, including ELC staff, health visitors and allied health professionals, has continued to support parents and carers over the course of the pandemic, although people might have been working in different ways.

That said, we know that there has been an impact on social and emotional development with the pandemic, and we will continue to look at the controls and measures that are in place to contain it and whether they need to be adjusted further to minimise any developmental harm to our young people. Many children in Scotland have had a significant part of their nursery experience cut short due to Covid. A key part of early learning for children is learning how to socialise with others and about group dynamics. Lots of our wee ones will have missed out on that and, as you have suggested, the evidence is beginning to show the pandemic’s impact on a range of children’s outcomes, including speech and language development. Indeed, that is why I highlighted the issue when I talked about the books in the baby box and our encouraging parents to read to their children, which is something that they can do at home and which is so vital in stimulating children’s imaginations and encouraging speech and language development.

It is for all those reasons that we prioritised keeping ELC and other vital services open, with appropriate safety measures in place, and the delivery of 1,140 hours of free childcare, although I should say that a lot of the planning and development work was going on during the pandemic.

We will continue to work with partners to support nurseries, primary schools and other services and help our young people and children to recover from the impacts of Covid. I know that the committee has heard evidence on the importance of play in children’s health and wellbeing as the recovery from Covid goes on. That was, of course, vital in pre-Covid times, too.

We have made a number of commitments on play, including the £60 million investment in renewing play parks. We invested heavily in outdoor play, as it was safer for children to play in the outside environment. We know that that helps to maintain children’s physical health and to stimulate their imaginations, and that they get lots of other physical and mental health benefits from being outside. Last year, we supplied nurseries with funding so that they could provide outdoor clothing for children who might not have it. That enabled them to get outside, too.

We have invested in training for our ELC staff so that they can develop their skills in outside play. There has been a huge expansion in outdoor nursery provision, including among local authority nurseries. I have been to some of those facilities and have seen the impact that they have on children in stimulating their imaginations and helping them to develop the skills and social interaction that they might not have had the opportunity to develop during the Covid pandemic.

We will look at all suggestions that are made by our third sector stakeholders, and we will look to embed social and emotional recovery in all our Covid recovery plans. I am certainly happy to look at the evidence that Mary Glasgow gave. Children 1st is a key stakeholder, and it gives the Scottish Government lots of advice and help in developing policies. We will look at all the evidence that the committee receives and at the recommendations in the committee’s report when responding to its inquiry.

As I have said, the Scottish Government is absolutely committed to keeping the Promise to care-experienced children and young people. It is also committed to supporting young people who are in care or leaving care; that is enshrined in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and in the measures that we have outlined in previous answers.

On collecting data, one thing that we spoke about often during my time as a member of the Health and Sport Committee was the collating of accurate and relevant data and ensuring that we have data that shows us the outcomes for children and young people who are leaving care, so that we can target interventions towards them. Having such data is key to driving forward the improvements that we want in the care service.

We have talked today about the whole-family wellbeing fund providing support and a wraparound service. Providing the individual support that a person needs is key to ensuring that transitions occur as seamlessly as we want. We want the flow between services to be as easy as it can be for a child or a young person and their family. It is certainly our ambition to work towards keeping the Promise, as the Scottish Government has committed to doing.

We are acutely aware of the impact that the pandemic has had on us all, particularly children and families. The Covid-19 children and families collective leadership group, which was jointly chaired by the Scottish Government and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executive and Senior Managers, was established in May 2020 to bring together local and national Government and other partners across children’s and family services, including included health, education, justice and the third sector, to review concerns for children, young people and families with vulnerabilities during the pandemic and the longer-term support for recovery and renewal.

As part of its work during the pandemic, the CLG developed an action plan that was focused on 10 priorities, including access to services, child protection, drugs and alcohol, care leavers, respite care and workforce resilience. Using near real-time data rather than historical data, the CLG was able to get a better sense of the early impact on vulnerable children, including by commissioning deep dives through the centre for excellence for children’s care and protection—I believe that the committee has had some contact with the centre and received some information and evidence from it—as well as other partners to understand the collective impact and any emerging trends, particularly in relation to service response to the need.

During the pandemic, we have learned to work in a more agile way between local and national Government organisations and agencies. We also need to continue to include our third sector partners. That has largely been driven by better access to timely routine data and use of local intelligence, which was not previously available in the same way.

We have seen some good examples of how services have adapted to the pandemic to ensure that they were able to deliver to vulnerable children and families in particular. We have heard examples of social workers donning personal protective equipment to do home visits and meeting children and families outside to go for a walk at times when that was the most appropriate and safest approach because of the mitigations that were in place for Covid-19. Of course, health services remained operational during even the most restrictive of measures and during lockdown. For instance, maternity services were prioritised and health visitors and school nurses continued to work.

There are certainly lessons to be learned and we will learn from them. If services need to respond to tighter restrictions that need to be put in place in the future, we will be able to learn from the work and research that has already been done.

In recent years, we have made significant progress on delivering a major expansion of funded early learning and childcare. We work closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, with our local authority colleagues, and with the private, voluntary and independent sectors on expanding that offer of free childcare. There has been significant investment in infrastructure—some expansion of nurseries and some building of new nurseries—to ensure that we can make that offer to local communities.

We have proved that, when we set targets for provision of early learning and childcare, we can meet them. Obviously, we have provider neutrality for funding, which takes account of the fact that, outwith the nursery infrastructure, the childminding industry represents a huge offer to children and young people at the pre-school stage and in the early years of school, as well as in wraparound school care. Obviously, there is always work to do to support that infrastructure and industry to ensure that there are places for children, as we expand that childcare offer.

You have covered most of what we are doing, with the exception of the care-experienced young people’s grant, which is an annual £200 grant that will benefit about 50,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 26 who do not have access to the family support networks that some of their non-care-experienced peers can access.

I can understand why care-experienced people feel frustrated that progress is not as visible as it should be. The past two years have been very difficult and challenging for all of us, and many people’s situations have changed as a result. As we recover from the impact of Covid-19, our commitment to keep the Promise remains central to the Government’s actions, as I said in my answer to Gillian Mackay. Our ambition to create the conditions that enable wellbeing to flourish is set out in our Covid recovery strategy. That includes driving forward the changes that we need to keep the Promise.

It sounds as though the voice of that young woman has resonated with you and, I am sure, the rest of the committee. It is vital that we listen to those voices and that such voices and experience are at the heart of the work that we do. As we develop policy and work to fulfil the Promise, it is vital that we take account of the voice of lived experience.

We absolutely recognise the vital role of positive and well-planned transitions, and we recognise that planning can improve outcomes for young people who are in care and leaving care. We are committed to supporting care-experienced young people. That is enshrined in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and the measures that we are taking to keep the Promise.

We are working with partners to explore how to link existing data collections in order to provide a clearer picture of health and wellbeing outcomes for care-experienced young people so that we can make targeted interventions. For example, over the next six to 12 months, we will be working with four local authorities on a pilot programme to link community health index numbers with existing data on looked-after children in order to get a better understanding of outcomes and information for the next steps of a national roll-out. That will mean that, ultimately, we will have a better understanding of long-term outcomes. The aim is also to measure improvements in the care system as we work together to keep the Promise and improve the lives of children and young people.

Through that on-going work, there has to be a golden thread of lived experience—people’s experience, good and bad, of being in looked-after situations or in the care system. What we can take from that includes what they felt was good and what we need to improve on. We are absolutely determined to do that work.