Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay.

We will probably be pretty aligned on most of what I am about to ask regarding the impact of physical activity on both physical and mental health. It is obvious that there is a decline in the nation’s physical and mental health and, at the same time, we have a decline in physical literacy.

I am also concerned about socioeconomic inequality and access to sport. Participation in sport, especially at a higher level, is becoming much more middle class and is happening more in private education. How do we tackle that? After all, it is part of Sportscotland’s remit to focus on the health of the nation.

It strikes me that we have delivery mechanisms that provide opportunities, such as the 1,140 hours of free childcare. As you know, physical literacy happens pre-school—children’s cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems, as well as their bone density, are pretty much developed by the time that they get to school. We have spoken about gender inequality, but that tends not to be prevalent in younger age groups, which are much more open.

In the past 10 years, there has been a 43 per cent reduction in PE specialists at primary schools, extracurricular activity at secondary schools has been decimated and there is a lack of connection with community sport. What is sportscotland doing to try to get the Government to see the pieces of the jigsaw and what we are trying to achieve? In my view, we have all the pieces of the jigsaw but we are not putting them together.

Good morning. I must declare an interest, in that I have two grandsons in the academy—who, it has to be said, are having a great time.

I was involved in last session’s Health and Sport Committee, when the SPFL and the SFA were brought in to speak to that committee and the Public Petitions Committee about the treatment of those in the academy—you have said that it is not a big number, but it is about 3,000, so I think that it is a reasonable number. Of those 3,000, only 0.7 per cent will ever end up in football, which is fine—the problem is the way in which the other 99.3 per cent are treated. When they are cut, they are cut adrift.

Surely, there should be a link between the academy, the cut, and community football, which should be a destination for 100 per cent of those footballers. That disconnect is where I have a concern. We brought in the SPFL and the SFA, and they certainly did not take enough care of those who were being cut.

I urge sportscotland to consider what happens to those children who are, in some cases, quite brutally cut from the academy—surely, sportscotland has a responsibility to ensure that there is a sports destination for them.

Thank you for letting me come back in, convener.

I want to ask about the legacy issue. It is clear from looking back at the 2014 games that a successful legacy of that was the club together programme that was run by Scottish Athletics. Consideration was given to mirroring that in swimming and cycling. That involved investment in the provision of 15 hours of professional help in a club, which was paid for by the sponsor club and the local council. It was their job to look at how we recruit. The results of that programme were measurable. Over that period, an extra 3,000 people were involved in all aspects of it.

Do you think that it would be worth revisiting that model and looking at how we could expand it?

I agree with you, but if everybody is in agreement with that, why do we keep cutting the budget? Yesterday, when I spoke to the users of that climbing facility, who are recovering from all sorts of addictions and whatnot, it was clear that the cost of treatment would be exponentially more than the cost of that facility. That is the point that is not getting picked up. Is sport an easy option when it comes to cutting funding?

That was a good plug for the SAMH event tomorrow night, which I am hosting.

I come back to this point, though: the active schools network, although quite patchy at the moment, is a really good delivery mechanism. One of the big problems with it was the extracurricular angle and the issue of how kids got home afterwards, but now that there is free bus travel, that problem has been taken away.

Now the question is: how do we connect what is taught through active schools to the community? How do we ensure a pathway in that respect? As I said, despite all the good work that you are trying to do, the reality is that physical literacy in the country is significantly declining, and I say that as a coach of 30 years, watching the kids who come to me. We are having to go further and further back in their literacy journey to get them ready to participate in sport, so how do we connect active schools to community sport—that is a massively important question. Indeed, how do we utilise delivery mechanisms such as the 1,140 hours of free childcare so that we have active play and start to teach our kids physical literacy again? You are right that local facilities are closing all over the place and are under extreme pressure. In this instance, though, we potentially have a delivery mechanism that is not being fully utilised.

On top of that, I have a question about utilising the school estate. Has there been an audit of all the facilities that could be available but which are currently not being fully utilised?

I appreciate that your angle with active schools is that it should support PE, but as an aside, I think that PE should align itself with the community, too. I do not see the point of doing six weeks of basketball and getting kids really enthusiastic about it, and then moving on to something else if there is no outlet for them to move on to. I think that there is a disconnect in that respect.

I was at an event at a social enterprise yesterday that is phenomenal. It uses a big climbing wall in a former church in Kilmarnock, and it has moved into outdoor canoeing and all sorts of stuff. Those activities are for people in recovery. They are not about teaching people sport but about teaching people through sport and bringing people together and creating confidence, resilience and aspiration through group activity. To me, that is investing in health and not just things like recovery beds, needle exchange and so on. What it is doing is giving people a different direction. I think that that is not understood particularly well. Like many other similar sports organisations—including your organisation—that social enterprise is under extreme financial pressure. Do you think that the Government understands the impact that sport can have in the community, not just for the sake of sport, but for education through sport? Are we doing enough to promote that impact?

Although your budget is now £10 million less than when I came into the Parliament.

On the basis of last week’s discussion and debate, I will not move it.

Amendment 134 not moved.

Section 38, as amended, agreed to.

After section 38

Amendment 145, again, follows a recommendation in the stage 1 report, which says:

“Irrespective of the model of accountability, the Committee believes proposals for the creation of a National Care Service need to be accompanied by a reinforced role for the Scottish Parliament in undertaking regular, structured scrutiny of its implementation and the extent to which it is achieving its defined objectives ... In particular, an assessment of the extent to which this is contributing to improved outcomes for those in receipt of social care.”

I think that that is central to discussion of the bill and to the issue of delayed discharge. Amendment 145 seeks to place a statutory duty on ministers to eradicate delayed discharge. They have already pledged to do so, so why should that target not be binding?

The amendment is intended to force the Government to consider all options when tackling delayed discharge, because its current approach is clearly not working. In December 2024, 61,760 days were spent in hospital by people whose discharge had been delayed, and that figure is a 6 per cent increase on the number of days of delay in December 2023. Those statistics come from the monthly figures on delayed discharges in NHS Scotland that were published by Public Health Scotland on 4 February 2025.

I move amendment 145.