Seòmar agus comataidhean

If you have the time, you can write to us more fully, but, as far as I can see, the new charter does not give new rights. Are there any particular new rights that you think should be in the charter to give the legal basis that Adam Stachura and others have spoken about, in relation to issues that people are facing day in, day out? Should there be anything more specific that is not there at the moment?

You will be glad to hear that all my questions have been covered, so I am happy to rest, convener.

Good morning to you all. I will start with a question for Alison White. An area that we have not covered yet is that of children’s services and criminal justice, which another working group is looking at. From your perspective as a social worker and someone who represents social workers across Scotland, do you think that criminal justice and children’s services should be included in the bill? I appreciate that that is a very big question, but could you give us a high-level overview of that?

Yes—one day, you will make a good politician.

My second question is about the good practice that we share across Scotland. We do not want to lose the local, hands-on knowledge. I appreciate that a lot of this will come out of the working groups and the regulations, but do you have concerns that we will lose the good local knowledge that people have in, say, Stornoway, Edinburgh and Dumfries, as a result of it becoming a national service?

Last but not least, I call online Sara.

I am conscious of the time, so let me ask a yes/no question, which might save us a bit of time. When we were debating the social security charter a number of years ago, one of the things that we debated was whether it should have a legal basis and be able to be challenged or reviewed in court. The Scottish Government came to the view that that should not be the case and it did not happen. Should the new charter have a legal status that would allow people to seek, if appropriate, legal judicial review?

As a quick final question, has there been any meaningful engagement on this between the third sector and the Scottish Government, either at ministerial or civil service level?

On a more general point, if I read the regulations right, this is a suspension rather than a removal. Why have you gone down that road, and how long do you intend the suspension to last? Are you doing it because you want to do a further review, or is it a suspension that will go on for 20 years because everyone has forgotten that it was supposed to be a suspension?

That is helpful.

I have a final question. The committee has been grappling with the issue of data collection around all areas. I think that the cabinet secretary referred to it in her opening statement, but will she expand on how the data is collected and monitored and whether it will be published in a public way so that we can see how the change is working over a three-year or five-year period?

If I lived in Blackpool, or wherever, down in England and I had a local connection with Inverness, would this not apply to me? Is it not correct to say that, if I lived outwith a Scottish local authority area, I could not use this even if I had a very strong connection with an area in Scotland?