Chamber and committees

I come back to one of John Mason’s latter points, on transparency. I will set the scene with an example. You might have seen that, a couple of months ago, there was a leak from a private conversation in which a senior NHS official suggested that in order to ease pressure on the health service we needed a two-tier service, with the wealthiest people paying for it, so that for some people it would no longer be free at the point of use.

The then health secretary, who is now the First Minister, had to immediately come out and say that there was no chance of that happening under this Government. However, there is a strong enough argument there to say that, given the pressure on the health service, senior officials should feel free—at least in a private space—to come up with whichever ideas they want, as long as there is sufficient accountability, and that, ultimately, it is for ministers to decide on them. In that case, that idea should never have flown.

My understanding of the argument on transparency that both of you propose is that whatever decision has been made needs to be correctly minuted and documented—the evidence base for it needs to be presented—but that we should not necessarily compel the civil service or our Government to publish what the alternative options were in each particular case. Every idea that is floated should not necessarily make its way into the public domain, because that would have a chilling effect. Is that a correct paraphrasing of your positions, or is a level of transparency required around proposals alternative to whichever one the Government eventually lands on?

Convener, I am substituting on the Parliamentary Bureau this morning, so I will have to leave in five minutes. It would be rude of me to get up and leave while people are answering my questions, so I am happy to let another colleague in at this point.

Thanks very much.

In the interests of time, I will roll a couple of questions into one. I am interested in your point that part of the role of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales is to foster bipartisanship in order to allow long-term thinking. You got the ball rolling on that agenda under a centre-right Government, but, for most of the time that the role has been bedding in, that has been under a centre-left Government and there might be a change of Government later this year. How durable is that agenda? Can it survive a change of Government? Has it become an established and agreed culture across the political spectrum in New Zealand, or is it ultimately dependent on the desires of a particular Prime Minister or Cabinet?

Secondly, you are trying to break down silos and take a more holistic approach to Government decision making. How well does that work with multiparty Government? I am somewhat familiar with your situation. It is a kind of multiparty Government, but your two Green ministers are in a bit of a silo, away from the Labour Cabinet. Does the breaking down of silos work when it involves crossing between the responsibilities of ministers who come from different parties and where trust might be more of an issue than it would be between ministers of the same party?

My second question was about multiparty Government. Your climate minister is a Green colleague of mine. I am aware that he is frustrated by trying to do the required cross-portfolio work on climate, because he sits in something of a silo compared to colleagues who have responsibility for agriculture or other matters. How does that approach fit with multiparty Government?

I am interested in getting a better understanding of some of the issues around transport. Claire Lunday and Kevin Northcott, when it comes to transporting young people to and from your facilities, who organises that? Do you provide any of your own transport services or do you contract third-party providers for transport?

Thank you. That is powerful evidence, and I am glad that you shared it with us.

On the specific recommendation about mandatory reporting of any incidents of restraint, I would be interested to hear thoughts on what route that mandatory reporting should take. Should it go from the provider to the local authority? Should the provider be mandated to report not just to the local authority but to the Care Inspectorate? Should there be mandatory reporting to the secure accommodation centre? Where should that sit? Should it rest with the individual institution concerned—in other words, the secure accommodation provider—or should it be at local authority or national level, or somewhere else that I have not thought of?

If anybody else on the panel wants to come in at any point, they should feel free to do so.

I am interested in your thoughts on the proposals that have been made by the hope instead of handcuffs campaign. One of its proposals is for mandatory reporting of any instance of the use of restraint by a transport provider. Claire Lunday and Kevin Northcott—Claire in particular—both said that they try to use providers who take a trauma-informed approach. At the moment, are there any formalised arrangements with the providers that any of you use such that you are confident that, in any instance in which they have had to use restraint, you will be informed upon the young person’s arrival or return to you?

Are the witnesses confident that, at the moment, transport providers will inform them of any incident in which they have used restraint? On the wider point, if we move to a system of more formalised reporting, should the information be reported just to the local authority, or is there a need for it to be collated and reported nationally? That is, should the Care Inspectorate have to be informed of every instance of restraint being used by a transport provider?

I have one brief question for the whole panel, following on from what Laura Pasternak just said about the bill. There are several options: the group that is being led by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities might create guidance to put into the bill; there might be ministerial powers in the bill to create regulation through secondary legislation; or there might be primary legislation in the future. Does anyone have any particularly strong views on how we should address that? The evidence that we have received shows that there is a broad consensus about the need to address it. There are multiple options and we do not have to choose just one. Does anyone have a strong view on an option or options?