Seòmar agus comataidhean

You could have cited the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 as another example of local delivery not living up to the expectations of the legislation. As I read it, this proposal has the potential to address that and give carers a better deal.

To be more charitable, perhaps, than I was in the tone of my original question, I will come at the topic from a different direction. From a number of things that have been said today, there is sense of recognition on all your parts that we can do this better. If the proposals for including children’s services in a national care service involved an opportunity for you all to bring to bear your experience of the past 10 years or so—to look at what has and has not worked well, what cultural changes are required to be made and how the barriers that you identified could be overcome—so that you could bring your experience as front-line professionals to the table to develop a national system that reflected that experience, would that present an opportunity to make genuine and worthwhile improvement?

Looking at it from the other side, however, do you have confidence that what is in place now, as it is currently structured, and given the approach that is deployed in multiple locations, will address those issues?

I will pick up on Martin Crewe’s earlier comments. I attended an event in Parliament last night in relation to the proposed Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill. The member in charge of that bill has taken the approach of having a panel of highly experienced medical professionals put together a set of proposals that they believe would ensure that the legislation would work in practice.

I cannot help but draw a parallel between that approach and the approach that could be taken to this framework legislation, accepting the reservations that you have about it. I do not think that it is in anyone’s interest to have some sort of bolt-on to a national care system further down the line. If we are going to do this, there is a logic to having young people’s services included. If, during the period of research and consultation, there was very full and genuine engagement with the sector—which included listening to people who can highlight what has and has not worked and what the barriers are, and asking them, if they had a blank sheet of paper, how they would design a care system—would there, on that basis, be merit in the proposal?

With respect, though, their lived reality in too many places is that a locally delivered, designed and constructed system—however we want to frame it—does not work for them. I fully accept that there will be good examples, but what we currently have does not work for everyone.

We heard earlier that, after 10 years of effort, we are still nowhere near where we would all want to be. Is this not the one opportunity that we have to get there? Whatever your reservations about the approach, if the service is taken forward from this point in the way that I have articulated, is that not the best chance that we have to get this right for children and young people in the future?

I listened to the views that were expressed earlier, and I thank you for your candour. One could not help but conclude that the sector is undergoing great change, either culturally or practically. After 10 years of integration joint boards, we are still not there yet—at least in some localities. Is that not an indictment of the existing approach, at least in some parts of the country, and a reason to make the proposed changes, because they are the only way to deliver a system that is consistent for young people, wherever they live in Scotland?

On the subject of transition, is it not the case that better co-ordination, planning and co-operation can be achieved only through the sort of approach that is being proposed? Does it not offer the best chance to have better integration of whole-family support?

In responding to those questions, could you reflect not only on your own local experience but on the situation as you know it to be in other parts of the country? I am trying to get a feel for the overall picture. I appreciate that your experience is based on your locality, but you will also know other people and what the position is in the rest of the country.

Perhaps Vicky Irons can start us off.

Is a change of structure required to facilitate the culture change that is needed in some places and to ensure that that highest standard and those best examples become the norm?

My point is that we are six years on and progress has been glacial.

Absolutely, and you articulate that very well.

Just to go back to my earlier exchange with Councillor Buchanan, I have to say that delivering local is not working in that regard, is it?

I want you to assess the merits and risks of the frameworky—as Fraser McKinlay termed it—nature of the proposal, set against the merits and risks of coming at the matter from a different direction. That would mean not including children’s services in the framework bill, doing the research and consultation, and then, at a future date, if we decided to bring children’s services into the equation, we would have to dovetail that with what I presume will be the national adult care service. What are the merits and risks of those two approaches, set against each other?