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My substantive question is on palliative care, but I have a comment about specialist facilities and the commissioning of complex services and trauma-informed care for young people in kinship environments, who are quite often very vulnerable. A specialist facility in my constituency is looking for money from the integration joint board, the local authority and the NHS. A number of local authorities are a bit uncertain about long-term funding for specialist facilities in those situations. I hope that the national care service will improve that kind of situation. That is not my substantive question, but I wanted to put that on the record.

I chair the cross-party group on palliative care in the Scottish Parliament, and I have to say that the engagement with the Government has been fantastic. I know that palliative and end-of-life care will form part of the new national care service. There is also a new national palliative care strategy pending. Based on 2020 figures, 16,700 babies, children and young people would benefit from palliative and end-of-life care because of life-shortening conditions. Tragically, three die every week. There is good support out there, but it is sometimes inconsistent. I know that there has been good investment in the children’s hospice network, but there is a feeling that integration joint boards and others perhaps still do not have a coherent strategy across the country to provide meaningful access to palliative care for babies, children and young people.

Can either minister say anything about how you will work with the sector to make that happen and ensure that the national care board drives forward improvements in that area?

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities would probably say that there will be negotiations between local authorities and the national care board about who picks up the tab. If a local authority is paying £100 a week and the national figure is £200 a week, there is a financial consequence to that. It would be helpful if you could say more about that.

There are 32 different local authorities. I think that Social Work Scotland has said that there is a lack of clarity. I know that there is clarity in law, but there is a lack of clarity about the criteria for kinship care and about when financial assistance is given. I have consistently given the committee the example of a grandmum who takes a child into her home after the death of the child’s mum. Quite often, kinship care allowance is not granted in that situation but, if social workers turned up at the door with that child and said, “I’m really sorry your daughter has been lost—will you look after the grandchildren?”, kinship care payments would be paid.

That is deeply unfair. There are 32 ways in which that is interpreted across Scotland and, at local level, different social work service officers may interpret it differently on the ground. Will that be addressed by the national care service? I am trying to get to the reality of what that will look like on the ground, rather than looking at the abstract in a framework bill.

I want to mention palliative care. Do I have time to do that?

I just want to follow up on that exchange with Mr Marra about funding. I get the impression that we cannot quite decide whether, if the national care service happens and children’s services are part of it, it will be launched with a big bang and we will have a big shiny new service overnight or whether there will be a strategic evolution of the service over a number of years.

As for kinship care and the costings in that regard, is it the expectation that, in the first instance, there will be a standardised national kinship care allowance across 32 local care boards, or will the national commitment to that, which will be implemented over a number of years, have specific budgetary implications, both nationally and locally, on which there will have to be negotiations involving COSLA and the Scottish Government?

Having listened to today’s discussion, I feel as though people are talking about a big bang, whereby—if it happens—we will have a national care service and everything will be fixed. However, it is clear that that is not going to happen. Minister, can you say a bit more about how resourcing will be allocated so that we do not oversell what we are trying to do and can get a better understanding of that process?

That was quite concise, convener.

Perhaps I could ask you about that. I apologise for interrupting, but it is difficult not to do so in an online session.

I commend the really good work that is happening locally. My point is that the local work in Glasgow will be different from the work in Galashiels, which will be different from the work in Aberdeen and Aviemore. It is about ensuring that we have more national consistency. We have heard for many years about benchmarking and sharing best practice, but, decades later, that has not necessarily happened. Will the proposals help to address the variability?

So, there is more than one way to achieve that. A national care service might be one way, but it is not the only way.

My final question is for Ross McGuffie, and it widens out Fiona Duncan’s point. The issue is not only the allowances that are paid to support children in kinship care and their families, but also access to wider services, in which there is significant variability across the country.

Ross McGuffie talked about trauma-informed care and support, which he was right to do. I have a centre of excellence for trauma-informed care for kinship carers in my constituency. It is funded on a commissioning basis, sometimes from integration joint boards, sometimes from local authorities and sometimes directly from the NHS across a number of local authorities. It is a mishmash of funding, which makes that centre really struggle with sustainability.

Could a national care service have an advantage in enabling better commissioning of specialist, trauma-informed services for vulnerable children and young people?

Given that Nicky Connor spoke about variation across the country, perhaps she would be the ideal person to talk about how, through a national care service, we could better deliver for kinship carers, looked-after children and their families.

The evidence session has been interesting so far. Both my questions are about what opportunities a national care service could bring. I note that concerns have been raised, but this change might happen, so we should explore the potential opportunities.

My first question is about the national care service charter that is contained in the bill. Some concerns have been raised about whether the care service focuses too much on adult care and not enough on children, young people, families, child protection and so on. Would anyone like to comment on what the opportunities could be to shape the charter in order to set out our ambitions and aspirations for wider childcare services in Scotland? Those services will be designed nationally but delivered with flexibility locally. Has anyone given any thought to what the benefits of the national care service charter could be?

That is helpful. I asked a similar question at last week’s meeting, and the witnesses took a similar approach to the one that this week’s witnesses have taken, which is understandable. Everybody is focusing on what structural change might look like instead of on the potential opportunities from the change. The national care service charter provides the opportunity to draw into one place a summary of the rights and responsibilities that we all have in relation to the national care service, children and families. The witnesses might not be able to answer this today, but, if any of them think that there are opportunities in that regard, perhaps they could pass that information to the committee through an email to the clerks. What is proposed might happen, so we want to ensure that the opportunities are realised.

My second line of questioning relates to kinship care. In May, a national kinship care protocol was introduced for all local authorities, but it was cluttered, complex and difficult. Similar accusations about a potential new national care service have been made by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Society of Local Authority Lawyers and Administrators in Scotland, Social Work Scotland, the chief social work officer committee’s working group and the national kinship care collaborative. The protocol was an attempt to have national co-ordination for kinship care, which I absolutely welcome, because Nicky Connor spoke about the variability across Scotland in relation to various services. Kinship care allowances, access to trauma-informed care for young people and placements relating to bereavement still vary across the 32 local authorities. Whether a kinship carer volunteers to take a child or whether a child is given a placement by social work can determine whether someone gets the allowance. There is significant national variation.

Are there opportunities to address national variation through a national care service that is delivered locally? I would welcome any comments in relation to children, including looked-after children.