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I am interested in getting a better understanding of some of the issues around transport. Claire Lunday and Kevin Northcott, when it comes to transporting young people to and from your facilities, who organises that? Do you provide any of your own transport services or do you contract third-party providers for transport?

Thank you. That is powerful evidence, and I am glad that you shared it with us.

On the specific recommendation about mandatory reporting of any incidents of restraint, I would be interested to hear thoughts on what route that mandatory reporting should take. Should it go from the provider to the local authority? Should the provider be mandated to report not just to the local authority but to the Care Inspectorate? Should there be mandatory reporting to the secure accommodation centre? Where should that sit? Should it rest with the individual institution concerned—in other words, the secure accommodation provider—or should it be at local authority or national level, or somewhere else that I have not thought of?

If anybody else on the panel wants to come in at any point, they should feel free to do so.

I am interested in your thoughts on the proposals that have been made by the hope instead of handcuffs campaign. One of its proposals is for mandatory reporting of any instance of the use of restraint by a transport provider. Claire Lunday and Kevin Northcott—Claire in particular—both said that they try to use providers who take a trauma-informed approach. At the moment, are there any formalised arrangements with the providers that any of you use such that you are confident that, in any instance in which they have had to use restraint, you will be informed upon the young person’s arrival or return to you?

Are the witnesses confident that, at the moment, transport providers will inform them of any incident in which they have used restraint? On the wider point, if we move to a system of more formalised reporting, should the information be reported just to the local authority, or is there a need for it to be collated and reported nationally? That is, should the Care Inspectorate have to be informed of every instance of restraint being used by a transport provider?

I have one brief question for the whole panel, following on from what Laura Pasternak just said about the bill. There are several options: the group that is being led by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities might create guidance to put into the bill; there might be ministerial powers in the bill to create regulation through secondary legislation; or there might be primary legislation in the future. Does anyone have any particularly strong views on how we should address that? The evidence that we have received shows that there is a broad consensus about the need to address it. There are multiple options and we do not have to choose just one. Does anyone have a strong view on an option or options?

Kevin Northcott, is your experience at Rossie Young People’s Trust similar?

Before we come to Kevin Northcott, I want to ask about the example that you gave of waiting on a transport provider to come from Portsmouth to move somebody from one end of Glasgow to the other. Is that because there are very specific providers that you think provide the right quality of service, or is there just an absolute lack of service providers elsewhere in Scotland, which is why you need to go so far to find someone?

I am interested in hearing the witnesses’ thoughts on transport to and from secure accommodation, in particular, for all the young people we are talking about. You may not have direct experience of that, but, if you do, I would be interested in hearing about it.

The hope instead of handcuffs campaign made the point that, while we have been on a journey of gradually increasing standards, regulations and inspections of secure accommodation itself, transport has been missed out. There have been instances of what the campaign believes to have been inappropriate use of restraint. It proposes, among other things, a mandatory system of reporting of every incident of restraint and seclusion.

In the first instance, I am interested in hearing whether anybody has any reflections on the current state of play on transport provision to and from secure accommodation. We heard from the previous panel about the basic logistical challenge of even trying to get a transport provider at all and about having to get people from the south of England to come up to Montrose to collect a young person and go to Ninewells hospital, which is 30 minutes away. If anybody has any initial thoughts on that, it would be very helpful to hear them.

Thanks very much. That is all from me, convener.

Absolutely. Thanks very much.