Seòmar agus comataidhean

Certainly, at that community level, it is difficult to gather data and I appreciate that. However, when an organisation is putting on organised events, I feel that it needs to think about data—it needs to think about what it has got. The reason why I asked the question is that if you do not have good data and you have a huge drop-off in participation in relation to ethnicity, you will not know why there has been that drop-off. If you do not know why, how can you possibly fix it?

You spoke about the household survey and other ways that you are gathering data—also, the organisations that we have spoken to have all said that they are looking to improve that data. Once we get the data, will you centralise it? There is no point in having the data if it does not undergo some form of research, so what research will you put in place to really try to drill down and find out why people of different ethnicities are not participating further, as we would have hoped that they would?

Can we have the figure for both medical and nursing staff, please?

To be clear, are you saying that you feel as though you have identified everyone who has been affected?

You have increased your resources in speech and language and audiology services, and you do not feel that there is a lack of access to BSL tutors for those who want that.

Thank you.

Thank you, convener. I want to drill into that a bit further. How much did you pay for the locum agency fee? I am not asking about the proportion that then went to the medical staff or the nursing staff. How much money went to the agency itself?

A lot of sports governing bodies that appeared in front of the committee do not have the data and said that they are looking for it, so once we have that data, will it be centralised or, if you will not have an entire database, will you at least be able to access it in order to do research on it?

I am sorry—I will just pause you there. I am asking specific questions.

I will stay with Kim Atkinson when I ask my next question. David Ferguson spoke about how women and girls want to participate in sport. In your submission, Kim, you said that there is a gender gap by the age of 17 and 18, which is widening. By the time that girls reach that age, about 30 per cent

“describe themselves as ‘sporty’, compared with 58% of boys”.

You then say that the gap continues to widen into people’s 30s and 40s. What can be done about that? How can we address that gap? How can we get more participation?

We all talk about sport, but, as a general practitioner, I just want people to be more active. David Ferguson made the same point earlier. That is the first step and then, if a person becomes more active, they might do sport. The issue for me is that people become more active. How can we do that?

In one of your previous answers, you said that you have data that shows that 100,000 women participate in sport. What is the ethnic breakdown of that data?

I thank Robin McNaught for joining us. My first question is about translators. When it comes to mental health, being able to talk to a doctor, a psychiatrist or a nurse is obviously vital, but if someone does not speak the language, that is almost impossible. The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland has said that access to translators might not be as good as we hope for. How are you addressing that issue?