Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, Rosemary and colleagues. I will share with you a couple of pieces of evidence from our session two weeks ago.

The first is on social care provision. Age Scotland told us that it feels that people are being denied access to social care at certain times of the year. The committee is wondering whether you are aware of that and what action has been taken. Could you share with us any recommendations that have been taken up to address the issues that were raised with us?

Thank you for that.

Good morning, again. The standards document tells us that all the single building assessments that have been carried out to date have to be done again. Why is that?

Thank you for that further detail.

You will be well aware that, during the committee’s consideration of this issue, we were interested in whether there are sufficient skills to enable the assessments to take place. That was quite a concern and probably still is. Could you give the committee a bit more confidence about whether we have enough surveyors, fire engineers and so on to carry out the assessments that will be required to take us forward at the pace that you say?

That is an interesting answer. I understand the difficulties that you probably face with that crossover of responsibilities. Looking forward, what should we try to do, or what could we recommend, to resolve that issue? My colleagues will in a wee minute ask questions about the national health service and the responses that you get from that sector, but just in general terms, how can you make the process easier? People might complain about an issue that you decide transcends a number of areas, departments and functions. Can you still carry out a full investigation, or do you need the additional powers that we talked about earlier to strengthen your ability to inquire?

Thank you very much for answering those questions.

Is that access available for people now?

I have two brief questions. One is on the overall review of the SPSO. As you will be aware, the Parliament has agreed to hold a root and branch review of all the commissioner services and so on. What are your views on that? Who should review the SPSO? What should a review of the commissioner service look like?

My final question is about own-initiative powers. You have answered that, so I will ask the question in a different way. You agree that it would be handy to have those powers. What do you do currently if issues arise that are of a wider and more systemic nature? Do you have no powers whatsoever to widen your scope of inquiry? For example, we heard that female prisoners never complain about issues and you will probably never see a complaint from a woman or young girl in prison. What is preventing you from writing to the Scottish Prison Service when an issue arises to ask for feedback and so on? Why do you need the own-initiative powers to solve that?

Thank you.

On the expertise that you have with which to conduct an inquiry and investigation, do you have the breadth of experience that is needed to look at healthcare? We have talked about that this morning. From where do you draw expertise to conduct a thorough, proper and balanced investigation? We know that public bodies will have all the expertise to hand to answer you, but often the complainer will not have that same depth and breadth of awareness, so how do you make sure the process is balanced? How do you make sure that you have the expertise that you need to conduct an investigation?