Chamber and committees

We heard last week that the multidisciplinary team approach to supporting people in the community is absolutely vital, and a national social work agency could help to engage and support the wider multidisciplinary team, as well as set standards for future social workers. Could such an agency be part of delivering a graduate apprenticeship model to bring social workers into the profession?

I have a couple of questions about the establishment of a national social work agency and the role of chief social work adviser. I am interested in hearing your opinions on that. For instance, how should a national social work agency complement the work of current social work regulators? I see that Maree Allison has her hand up.

Good morning. I am thinking about the aims of the national care service, including improving the prevention of admissions to hospital, supporting reablement to improve delayed discharge and so on, and I am thinking about how integration is supposed to work. For example, East Ayrshire Council, South Ayrshire Council and North Ayrshire Council are all under one health board but they are three different local authorities. One of them—East Ayrshire Council—is absolutely amazing at reducing the level of delayed discharge, but the others are not so good at that. Would the aims of the bill help us to look at, for example, how East Ayrshire is doing really well and the others are not doing so well or could do better, so that we can learn from other areas? Is that part of the intention behind the bill?

The “Standards in Social Work Education in Scotland” document talks about the principles of innovation, co-production, taking a person-centred approach and empowering people. There are standards for ethical principles such as partnership and participation, and for

“promoting the full involvement ... of people receiving the services”.

Would the creation of a national social work agency with an adviser in the lead role enable the creation of a Scotland-wide standard for education, which would create parity of esteem and provide support, as Julie Murray said?

Would you like a social work agency to help to support allied health professionals, and would you like those services to work together?

I forgot to say that I am a former clinical nurse educator for NHS Dumfries and Galloway, so I am interested in the standards of education that would be delivered across the whole of Scotland.

Thank you.

I want to clarify something. You said that there is potential flexibility with regard to retargeting or choosing to support new entrants. You have already said that that is part of the potential future plan, so that the matter is not just pigeonholed—so that the issue of rebasing is not just kicked into the long grass.

Thank you.

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and the other witnesses. I am interested in finding out a wee bit about leveraging additional funding. Given the current fiscal constraints, cabinet secretary, are you considering any options for raising additional revenue to support the delivery of the policy ambitions for fisheries? We heard evidence about considering a review of landing levies, or exploring options for leveraging private investment from offshore renewables. Are you considering those?