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I think that it is not an either/or situation, but the problem is that, if there is no voice to speak to local authorities or the Scottish Government—at the moment, there is no voice that is really shouting about this—those issues will not be raised and they will not be dealt with. That is the frustration of the disability community. I do not think that it is a perception; it is the reality that people are often just not being heard by those organisations, and nothing will change unless someone is advocating for those issues to be dealt with.

If you had another protected characteristic with a different issue, that voice would be heard. You would have much more coverage in the media and social media and within the doors of local authorities and this Parliament. Because many disabled people cannot do that, that voice is not being heard. Yes, we need to change attitudes in local authorities, but I am not sure that that will happen unless we have a much stronger voice that is holding local authorities and the Government to account for making those changes.

To some degree, yes—I think that there could be—but I am not sure that that will ever happen unless you have a disability commissioner because, once this debate goes away, local authorities will move on and deal with other things. There are also issues beyond that.

There is still a societal issue. When it comes to issues of employability and employment, those who have hidden disabilities in particular have many fewer opportunities to be in employment. The same is true of those with certain physical disabilities. It is not just that we need to change things; there is a societal issue, and somebody should be able to advocate on the perceptions that people still have about disabled people and what such people can do.

I will be absolutely honest. Before I came to this place—having been born disabled—I thought that my experience was the same as that of most people who have a disability. Mine was a very positive and inclusive experience. My eyes were opened when I came here and had the opportunity to speak to far more disability charities and individuals with disabilities. We would not accept their experience for women or LGBT people, but we still seem to accept it for people who have a disability.

The reasons for trying to get all the commissioners into one office are not purely financial. It is an opportunity for them to meet much more regularly. In my thinking—this is only my thinking—there should be some kind of memorandum of understanding between the different commissioners. A child with a disability could walk into the office of the children’s commissioner or the office of the new commissioner for disability. It would not be both commissioners who did the work; there would be some kind of agreement that one or the other would deal with the issue.

The honest answer to your question is that there is plenty of work to go around. I have met the children’s commissioner and other commissioners. They are having to lay aside lots of work because they do not have the time to deal with it. I therefore do not think that any disability commissioner will struggle to find enough to fill their Monday to Friday calendar. I can already list enough issues that are not being picked up on but that such a commissioner could deal with.

There needs to be some kind of understanding that we do not all follow the same issues. I hope that that can be done by sensible people sitting down and discussing it.

As you say, the budget in the financial memorandum is a fair amount of money that would allow the commissioner to do some form of investigation work, but I hope that it would not exceed that budget. For example, a current issue that is clear for many disabled people, whatever their disability, is day services. Post-Covid, we have seen a lot of local authorities not reopening the day services that were there before Covid. No committee of the Parliament has looked at that, and there has been no real debate in Parliament about it. That is perhaps my fault and the fault of others, but it is the reality. Many disabled people, particularly parents, are struggling because they have to do much more hands-on care throughout the day.

That type of investigation would not take a lot of money, but it would be more likely to be picked up on by politicians and by the media if it was done by a disability commissioner than it would be if it was done simply by one charity.

They have a very strong voice, and there are people out there advocating on their behalf on social media. There are champions for women in the Parliament—people around this table have been championing women’s rights for many years. We have to look at the individuals who we are talking about and their lived experience, history and reality. That voice is not being heard in society, compared with those of people of many other protected characteristics.

First, any commissioner doing the job properly will want to engage with third sector charities. When I have been going around, talking to people, what has been made clear is that the first thing that the commissioner needs to do is to get out there and hear what the issues are, hear what people are saying and hear about who is already doing what in this area. The commissioner, whoever he or she is, can be the individual who brings groups together, gets them to work together and helps them to run and focus on their campaigns. They do not necessarily have to do all the work themselves—they can be a facilitator, too.

We have seen that with the children’s commissioner, who has been very good at bringing and binding together children’s charities. I hope that the disability commissioner will have a close working relationship with the third sector and any campaigns; they might be running those campaigns or simply facilitating them and bringing people together to run them.

Clearly, the commissioner must be independent, so we cannot tell them what to do, but they will produce an annual report that will come to the Parliament. That will provide an opportunity for, perhaps, a number of committees to scrutinise the work that the commissioner has done over the previous year.

I suppose that we would all say this, but it would be great if there was no need for a disability commissioner in 10 or 15 years’ time because disability was not seen as an issue and disabled people were getting the services, employment opportunities and everything else that people in the rest of society get. In an ideal world, the commissioner would work themselves out of a job.

We can measure the progress that is made. There are issues relating to transport, health and social care and employability, so, if nothing had changed in four years—the commissioner could be appointed for eight years, but there will be a gap at four years—there would be questions about whether that individual should be reappointed for a second term.

I would be deeply worried if that happened. We absolutely need to set some goals or criteria by which we can measure progress. One of the problems in the public sector in general is that it is very difficult to measure such things.

It is both. I think that, often, it is not being done properly—it is often a tick-box exercise. A lot of what happens in regard to policy is driven by public opinion—we have seen that. That public opinion, for many people, does not involve a disability voice. Part of the role of the commissioner would be to provide that voice, not just to Government and civic society but to address the societal issue. We need to challenge that societal issue.

We should be asking, “Can this person work?” To give a very personal example, when I went for my first job, they were only concerned about whether I could use a photocopier with my disability. That was the deciding factor in whether I got the job. Such societal issues need to be challenged—it is not about what you cannot do but about what you can do.

No, convener; I am content.