Chamber and committees

I will give a further example of targeted support from my portfolio interests. The eligibility of two-year-olds to access the 1,140 hours was expanded to include the children of care-experienced parents in order to provide them with the opportunity to work, train, or continue or restart their education. That recognises that they might not have the family support around them that other people will have in terms of childcare, and it enables them to get some time away while their children are in a safe place, so that they can access other services. That is another example of where we have targeted the support in a way that is tangible.

May I add something before Ms Mackay gets to her questions?

We are working closely with The Promise Scotland and partners across local government, social justice, health and the third sector to design and deliver the funding. We are expanding our engagement to test ideas about where the funding will have the most sustained impact. We spoke earlier about having the voice of lived experience at the absolute heart of that. We need to understand and reflect the opinions of families—that is absolutely crucial—and the experiences of those who help us to deliver family support, to ensure that it has the impact that we want it to have.

We want an on-going process of learning and development over the course of the funding. The intention is not to set in stone the profile of the spending for the next four years; rather, we want to listen and learn about what can best support transformation and have the greatest impacts for families, and to allocate the funding accordingly.

It might be helpful to ask one of the officials who are with us to give a bit more policy detail on how we anticipate measuring the impact of the funding. I ask Gavin Henderson, who is deputy director of keeping the Promise, to expand on the answers that the cabinet secretary and I have given.

The independent evaluation of Scotland’s baby box, which was published on 13 August last year, highlighted the scheme’s positive impact on families, particularly first-time younger and low-income parents, with a 97 per cent satisfaction rate for the box and its contents and 91 per cent of families reporting financial savings, which is obviously very relevant to the committee’s inquiry.

The evaluation also highlighted key impacts, including saving money on essential items that are needed for the baby and learning about positive parenting behaviour, such as bonding with the baby through playing, talking and reading. Indeed, more than half the families reported reading to their baby earlier as a result of the baby box, which is obviously good for promoting attachment and positive parenting and for child development, particularly in speech and language. As we know, reading to younger children can help them to develop those important skills. I think that we have demonstrated through both the research and parental uptake of the baby box how valued it is.

I want to go back to the cabinet secretary’s point about our having to mitigate some of the impacts of decisions that have been made elsewhere on reserved benefits. In the past couple of weeks, we saw statistics about the number of children who have been affected by the benefit cap that the Westminster Government introduced a few years ago. In essence, their families do not receive benefits for more than two children. In my constituency, at least 215 children have been affected by that. The impact of it on family incomes is huge in one constituency in Scotland.

We must consider the effects of child poverty and what the Scottish Government can do. We are not powerless; we can do things to alleviate child poverty but, at times, it feels like we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

Yes, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee, convener. Overall, the work of the Scottish Government, with our partner agencies in health, happens through pre-conception care, antenatal care, perinatal care, the baby box, and the best start grants that are available. Those give our children and families the best start in life with the tools and opportunities to have healthy babies and to supported people when they become a family—when someone gives birth to a child.

One of the most obvious examples is the baby box, which the Scottish Government introduced in our programme for government in 2016. That is a universal measure. As of January this year, more than 200,000 baby boxes have been delivered across Scotland and have had an impact on 98 per cent of expectant parents, who took up that offer of support, clothing and information. That demonstrates how valued that particular intervention and offering is.

I move on to the expansion of early learning and childcare. In August last year, all local authorities across Scotland were offering 1,140 hours of free early learning and childcare. As the cabinet secretary mentioned, that offer is also made for eligible two-year-olds.

The Government is looking to expand that offer, which we hope will mitigate some of the effects of poverty on families, which the cabinet secretary also mentioned, including the ability to access work, training and education. In addition, our manifesto commitments include expanding the childcare offer by considering wraparound childcare, out-of-school childcare and holiday childcare. That will provide families with some of the support that is necessary to enable them to access services, education and work opportunities that will alleviate the poverty in which they find themselves.

Yes, I can also confirm that.

Lynne McMinn can give some information about the process of automatic listing.

Anyone who is mentally ill or who lacks capacity at the time of their conviction would also automatically be added to that list.

The regulations will amend the prescribed period that must pass before a person has the right to make an application. They will increase the age threshold for what is referred to in the principal regulations as the shorter prescribed period from under 18 to 25 and under . That means that an individual who is included in the barred list when they are aged between 18 and 25 will be able to apply to be removed after five, rather than 10, years have passed since the date of inclusion.

I make it absolutely clear that the amendment regulations will not lead to individuals being removed automatically from the barred list; they will simply amend the circumstances in which an application for removal will be competent. As I said in my opening remarks, the proposed changes are consistent with the approach that is taken in the rest of the United Kingdom to when individuals can ask for a review of the Disclosure and Barring Service’s decision.

Yes.