Chamber and committees

I think that members of the committee would find that agreeable. I am just seeking some affirmation about the safety aspects of the regulations and the discrepancy between 1.6g per day being allowed in the EU and 2.1g being allowed in Great Britain.

I will be brief. Last week, Professor Simon MacKenzie told us that there are no research cage facilities in Scotland, so, when you are doing research, you are comparing sites A, B and C, which have different environments and conditions. He felt that that made it difficult to make research conclusions. Do you have a comment about why we do not have research cage facilities in Scotland? Should we have some?

Good morning. I will pick up on what Beatrice Wishart was asking about: the enforcement regime and how the REC Committee’s report recommended changes and moving away from the self-assessment culture to an independent approach to assessment and enforcement. What efforts have been made to move to a more independent monitoring process?

I am conscious of the time, convener, so I am happy to pass on to colleagues.

So, it could run in tandem with the national aquaculture technology hub in Stirling.

Good morning. I wanted to pick up Stephen Morgan’s point about the difficulty in becoming an employer and people being put off as a result. Why is it difficult and what would make it easier?

David Aitken, you talked about innovation and allowing social workers to have good ideas, and you used the example of dog grooming. How do we ensure that social workers who are making assessments can choose to be innovative?

I have a question for David Aitken, who is online. You talked about video learning as a method of teaching people. Is that delivered in multiple languages, including British Sign Language, in Scotland? During Covid, a lot of the instructions on hand washing and wearing face protection were provided in eight or nine different languages. Is education delivered multiculturally and in multiple languages?

When you google “self-directed support”, loads of information comes up from Alzheimer Scotland and In Control, for example. We now have a toolkit that people can use to help them to understand what self-directed support is. How do you deliver the education then? You said that you bring in groups, so is that done online? How do nurses know that self-directed support exists? In the cases that I have worked with, the people do not know that they are getting self-directed support, because if they get it through option 3, a local authority delivers it. Does that matter? They know that they are getting care so does it matter whether they know the technological language?

We have heard lots this morning already but I am interested in how we look at training for all different types of staff, whether it is the people who are auditing the finances or social workers, and at everybody who is involved in training and education.

I am very familiar with Dumfries and Galloway, Stephen, and my background is that I am a registered nurse. How do you ensure that staff in all the different parts of Dumfries and Galloway—the local authority or the national health service—get education on the self-directed support legislation? I am looking directly at you, Stephen, so go ahead first, please.