I welcome everyone to the 13th meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in 2019. Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Are we all agreed? Before we move on to agenda item 2 I want to pass on my very best wishes to Stephen Fricker who has been our clerk for I think ever since I became convener and I just want to wish him well in his adventures. You know that the Public Petitions Committee with him is very grateful for all the work that he has done in the period of making this committee as open as it is to petitioners and we appreciate everything that is done. I also want to welcome Rosie Douglas, who is here to witness the work of the committee today. On agenda item 2 consideration of a new petition, the first petition for consideration of a petition 1722 on parking charges at island lifeline ferry ports lodged by Dr Shona Ruman on behalf of Iona and Mull community councils and others, including the Mull and Iona community trust, the South West Mull and Iona development and the Mull and Iona ferry committee. I welcome John Finnie to the meeting. I should also indicate that Dave Stewart MSP has expressed an interest in this and indeed Liam McArthur has provided a written note too on the issues around more generally around island communities and the importance of access to parking. The petition is calling for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to island proof transport infrastructure to ensure that public bodies do not charge for parking and car parks at island ferry ports, which are essential lifeline services, and any proposed island parking charges are subject to rigorous impact assessment. Our clerk's note for this petition explains that the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 grants local authorities the power to provide off-street car parks and to charge for their use. As landowners, harbour authorities can levy charges on car parks on their property. Our note also makes reference to the island Scotland Act 2018 and highlights the island community impact assessments and the duty of regard to island communities have yet to be brought into force. Rhoda Grant MSP has hoped to be in attendance with the consideration of the petition, but is unable to be here today, and in her absence she has provided us with her views in relation to the petition as follows. She says that it is clear from the petition that the parking charge is proposed at a level that would cause financial hardship for islanders. Neither has this impact been subject to an economic or island's impact assessment. I hope that the committee can use its influence to prevail on Argyllun Bute Council to reconsider this policy. While I have every sympathy with the council and their struggle to provide services with a diminishing budget, to hit already disadvantaged communities with additional charges is incredibly unfair. It may be that the council would consider providing these living on the islands with free parking while levying charges on visitors as a compromise. Members may wish to note that my Russell MSP was also unable to attend for the consideration of this petition today, but has indicated to support for the petition and the petitioners. I wonder if I could ask John Finnie if he wants to make a few forward comments first. Thank you very much indeed, convener, for allowing me to speak. I would just echo the views of all my colleagues. This is not a party political issue. This is an issue about communities, and communities would rightly look to the local authority to look after their interests. Unfortunately, as my colleague Rhoda Grant said, that is not what has happened here, because had they done any meaningful assessments, particularly the economic impact assessment that Rhoda Grant talked about, it would have shown that this would have a significant detrimental effect on many people in the islands. It is important that they understand the implications of the decisions that they make and the wider implications of the decisions that they make. Hearing from, for instance, Liam McArthur and clearly people in Orkney, Shetland and the West Niles will keep a watchful eye on that. There is reference in the paper, and I am supportive of all the proposals that are in there. The irony, perhaps, is that Argyllun but Council were maintained an interest in the legislation covering the islands, and they had an opportunity notwithstanding it not yet being enacted to have regard to that, so that is extremely disappointing. They have not done so, so I am sure that the communities will be very keen to see that the petitions committee is taking this on board, if they choose to do so. I know the island well very well, being a regular visitor to the island. In fact, I got married there five years ago. I have regularly used all the car parks where charges are proposed to be introduced, particularly at Craig Newer at the ferry terminal and at Tobremory. I have a lot of sympathy for the petition, and I can understand the anger that is felt by islanders and visitors to the island. It strikes me, and it is highlighted in the petitioner's submission, that Argyllun but Council has not paid any heed to the islands bill that was passed last year leading to the islands act, which requires councils and other relevant authorities to carry out the ICIAs or the island communities impact assessments. However, the ICIAs, as we know, are not yet in force. However, as I understand from my briefings and from media coverage that I have been following this closely, I have seen that not even a basic impact assessment was undertaken by the council. In my view, that is simply not good enough. There are economic impacts here, and the car parks, especially the one at Craig Newer and possibly the one at Finiford, are part of the island lifeline services. Of course, there are other issues that have been raised by the petitioners in their submission with regard to displacement in Tobremory, which would create even more difficulties, because it is hard enough to get part in the back streets in Tobremory, so I am very supportive of the petition, and I definitely think that we should take this further. I am happy to hear other members' views. I support everything that my colleagues have already said. It strikes me that the islands are unique in Scotland in terms of how we would expect to travel to an airport. We would have public transport, but we would perhaps be able to go by rail, and we could go by tram. I would be interested to see what limitations there are in terms of other alternatives, because I cannot imagine in the islands that there are many alternatives, so it is a close shop, if you like, and giving the community little options. I definitely think that this is a petition that I have great sympathy for, and I think that we should be taking on. I think that my colleagues have summarised it very nicely. I think that we are all in agreement that—well, I am not sure about David yet, but I am certainly in agreement that there should be some sort of assessment done, some sort of consultation, perhaps to find out the economic impact and the cost, indeed, to those people who rely on that transport, is so important. What are the two things that I would ask? Why is it not being brought into force? It does not seem to me to be a complicated provision of legislation that was passed last year. We want to ask the Scottish Government what is the daily aim. This is the second time that we have been dealing with rural doctors' pay, the GP pay, and it was clear that there had not been an assessment done or an island impact assessment. I do think that there is a question there. I suppose that my other question is whether we can be able to establish this with the council. Working on the assumption that nobody willfully wants to do things that cause people problems, what are the pressures that have been brought on them that they have looked at this? Again, if somebody comes from—a family comes from the islands and I travel to the islands regularly, I know how important it is for people who are going off for hospital appointments, leaving their cars at the pier or whatever. That is something that we can see from the petitioners that they are concerned about. I am interested in what has brought to the council at this point, but any work done around island impact assessment, equality impact assessment, those are important things in terms of understanding the disproportionate impact. There was some reference to the idea that even a solution might be to identify the difference between the local community and the trackfist community, but of course that is an impact on tourism as well. I think that there is quite a lot to explore there, and I think that we would want to forward the opportunity to the council to explain what it was that brought them to that conclusion and to speak to the Scottish Government and ask what is the delay on an island. The bit of legislation that seems to mean the most straightforward is why it has not been brought into force, Rachel. I want to add that my colleague Donald Cameron, MSP, wrote to Brian and myself to put his support behind what he concluded might be a good idea, which is what we have also concluded, which is a consultation. You can consult, but what is the force of that? I suppose that is the question that we are going to be asking as well. There should be legislative underpinning for that, but it does not seem to be there yet. Are we agreed to recognise that there are significant issues in this petition that we would want to explore further, to the Scottish Government and Gail and Bute, any others? I think that, given that at least two of the car parks are right beside two of the ferry services, we should contact CalMac and CMAL to get their views. I wonder if there would be any benefit hearing from the other island authorities how they would deal with a situation like that. There was an islands alliance, I do not know if that still exists. Before the bill, there was a campaigning group around the islands, they had it, so whether they might have a view as well, but the other authorities might be useful to contact. If that is the case, that is quite a lot. We want to thank the petitioners for bringing the petition to their attention. I will suspend briefly until we bring forward the witnesses for the next item. If we can call a meeting back to order, our next agenda item is the consideration of continued petitions. We have a number of petitions before us today, and I hope to have the opportunity to consider each of them fully, but I should flag up at the beginning to the petitioners who may be following this under pressure of time, because we have to stop at a particular time. We may not reach all of the petitions, but I can reassure anyone with the petition that we do not reach that will be dealt with at the first petition in the new session. The first continued petition is petition 1596 by Paul Anderson on in-care survivor service Scotland. The note by the clerk summarises our last consideration of the petition in May 2018 and refers to a recent submission that was received from Wellbeing Scotland. Members also have a copy of a submission that was received early this week from the petitioner. This morning, we will take evidence from representatives from future pathways. I welcome Flora Henderson and Shona McGregor to the meeting, and I thank you for attending this morning. You now have an opportunity to provide a brief opening statement of up to no more than five minutes, after which we will move to questions from the committee. Welcome. Thank you, convener. Thank you very much for the invitation to offer evidence with respect to this petition. I would like to say that it has been a real privilege to be involved in this piece of work, and I am very pleased to be here today. In 2016, an alliance of four organisations was established to deliver a five-year, £13.5 million support fund for people who were abused or neglected as children in Scotland. When future pathways were set up three years ago, no one knew how many in-care abuse survivors were in Scotland, and survivor groups initially suggested that the fact that this was a Government initiative might dissuade people from registering. As of June 2019, almost 1,100 people have registered. Most live in Scotland, but others do live in the rest of the UK and indeed the wider world. The impact of in-care abuse is wide-ranging and needs are diverse. We are learning that no assumptions should be made about who survivors are or what their needs are. The alliance partnership and our wider network of partners recognise that. Future pathways work with each person to identify what will make a difference to them and agree a plan after exploring a range of options. This co-produced support reflects the best of self-directed approaches and offers choice, control and independence. The 70 plus professionals and services that we have contracted with over the three years reflects the needs of the individuals who have registered with future pathways. As a result of future pathways' success in engaging with survivors, demand has outweighed capacity. A waiting list review was carried out in October 2018, identifying and triaging immediate support needs and ensuring that support coordinators were available and assigned to everyone over 70 years old or with aterminal illness. We have worked hard to make sure that everyone who has registered with future pathways has received a service. 832 people have access to support in various forms from future pathways. 706 people have had individual support from a support coordinator. A proposal was made to scale up the service in line with demand and to implement improvements. That was considered and approved by Scottish ministers in December 2018. That allowed us to reconfigure our model of support coordination into teams with increased numbers of front-line staff and increased direct support available to survivors. We made a concerted effort to contact more than 200 people, which enabled the immediate identification of needs and for everyone to be allocated to a support coordination team. Those efforts have driven down the waiting list for a named support coordinator to 44 people. That is in context of continued registrations at approximately 40 new people per month. Now, when someone contacts future pathways to register, they speak to a coordinator, support coordinator, and that usually happens in a week and often immediately. That enables immediate identification of needs, risk and prioritisation. Going forward, we expect that no one will wait more than one month for a service and work is under way to implement further improvements around the framework for discretionary fund purchases, engagement activity and other processes. Thank you very much. I wonder if I can start and you talked about waiting lists. In its recent submission of 21 June, wellbeing Scotland refers to the current future pathways waiting list as being dangerously long. How would you respond to that comment? I hear what you are saying round figures, but I wonder if you can indicate once somebody said their first contact, how long is it before they have a meaningful contact that identifies needs? If we are able to contact someone immediately, that conversation would begin immediately. We have struggled sometimes to contact people and if we cannot get in touch with someone, it is difficult to assess their needs and respond. Right. Do you accept that the waiting list is dangerously long? That is not how future pathways, it does not match our experience or the improvements that we have done in the past six months. On 21 June, wellbeing Scotland said that that was their view. What do you think that is informed by? It is a subjective experience based on people that they may be talking to, but it is not borne out by our evidence and experience of offering the service. It is the first contact that is simply identifying the person. How might you have to wait till there is a meaningful outcome from that? For most people. You can have a waiting list where you have made initial contact and then nothing happens for months and months. I wonder if you have looked at that. The first contact is when that detailed, structured conversation is offered, and the only reason that would not happen is if the person chose not to have that conversation at that time or wished to reschedule it for a different time. A support co-ordinator, in terms of training, are they trauma-informed? I would like to highlight that all our teams are recruited from a wide range of backgrounds, including social work, health and counselling. We have a robust introduction period, which includes training around trauma-informed practices. I think that we would suggest that our team is very experienced in dealing with people who have had that experience. I think that it is also just to point out about the contact that people make. When people first make contact with ourselves, as Floorock commented, we have now changed our processes with the people having the meaningful conversations right from the beginning. That helps us to be able to identify and provide support when it is required very quickly. In fact, it can be in the same day if that means that fair rules are support to put in place from other providers and supports. WellbeingScotland claims that it has offered to support clients on the waiting list, but that has not happened. What would be your response to that? We would be saying that the needs of survivors cannot be assumed and that the needs are diverse. I guess that the implicit in that statement is an assumption that we are offering something similar. What Future Pathways does is look into what someone needs in response to those. Specialist support and support around psychological problems and services does not apply to everyone who chooses to register with Future Pathways, but there may be people that they could help with in order to address the waiting list, but that is not offered. You do not direct people towards WellbeingScotland. We have worked very hard with WellbeingScotland to make sure that support to survivors is not disrupted. Our relationship with WellbeingScotland began, based on ensuring that the support to 134 people was maintained. I would like the committee to know that Future Pathways has funded WellbeingScotland a total of £819,000 to ensure that continued support is available and that, under that arrangement, support has been made available to at least 326 people, which is over and above the original number that is identified to us. Okay, thank you, Angus. I think that Flores answered part of my question by looking at some of the figures. Can you tell the committee how many referrals for counselling, advocacy and formal support groups and access to records, excluding the redress scheme, have been made to WellbeingScotland since Future Pathways was created in 2016? Future Pathways is making referrals to WellbeingScotland, however the referrals may or may not be in line with expectations. Twenty-eight referrals have been made for record searches and, as the committee will know from the previous submission, WellbeingScotland has not been felt able to sign up to our current contractual arrangements with providers. We are anticipating that we will have an opportunity to meet with the board of WellbeingScotland to work through these difficulties, and we are very keen to ensure that a way opens up to a more normalised working arrangement that is good for both of us. Is there a meeting plan soon? Yes. How soon? August. So, just following on from your previous answer, how many referrals have been made to other service providers in that time? We have worked with over 70 professionals and organisations and in total there would have been 326 people supported. Okay, thank you. David Torrance. How many Future Pathway clients are, where also clients of WellbeingScotland, with WellbeingScotland making the referrals to Future Pathways? Ninety-five. We would ask the committee to bear in mind that not everyone chooses to disclose where they found out about Future Pathways. Brian Whittle. Good morning. Just following on from those questions, WellbeingScotland suggests that it is being excluded by Future Pathways when recommending counselling services to clients and also suggesting that this exclusion is in order to promote a private counselling service without an evidence base. I am talking about an opportunity to respond to that. Thank you. We would not recognise that. What we would say is that when any referral to counselling is made, it is always based on the preferences of individuals who may already be in an existing therapeutic relationship. It is also based on geography, what services are available locally, and critically, evidence of appropriate quality standards such as accreditation or membership with the appropriate governing body. We have had difficulties agreeing a contractual basis, and we would like to resolve those so that referrals could be smoother going forward. You would recognise that their assertion would lead us to believe and you have confirmed yourself that the relationship between Future Pathways and WellbeingScotland is not all that it could be. In their submission in April 2018, WellbeingScotland described the funding arrangements as, and I am quoting here, an on-going unstable situation. They are going to say that they felt a subservient power dynamic with Future Pathways. There is obviously an issue between the two bodies at the moment. I think that my question might be, how is that going to be resolved at the end of the day? I think that it needs to be resolved through collaboration, dialogue and Future Pathways is absolutely committed to that. I would like to suggest that the special arrangements that we have made to ensure that funding is not disruptive indicates a certain amount of goodwill to try our very best to resolve the issue. I am hopeful that continued conversation between the board of WellbeingScotland and our own Alliance leadership team will provide a way of unlocking the issue. They have referenced a bureaucratic approach and excessive reporting, and work is under way to make sure that an alternative way forward can be found that is both in line with good practice and meeting our needs to be able to evidence use of public funds and the purchase of services. If that process is now in train, what is WellbeingScotland's involvement in that? Obviously, there are two parties involved here. It would be as equal partners, because our board and their board are meeting together with the intent of resolving those issues. I am sure that we all hope that a way forward can be found. However, WellbeingScotland has raised a number of serious concerns about future pathways and the risk to survivors with the Scottish Government. Future pathways responded to those serious concerns by saying that the block of referrals was due to practice issues with WellbeingScotland. Can you expand on what practice issues mean and give us some more detail? The impediment to making referrals really has to do with information sharing and making sure that we can effectively coordinate a range of resources around individual needs. As I mentioned before, we are absolutely committed to working through these issues in detail, so that a good way forward can be found. There has certainly been a level of discomfort about how information is shared individually and publicly that has made the special arrangements about agreeing funding quite uncomfortable at times. We are just dead keen to get a contract in place so that our relationship can be put on a more stable contractual footing. It is not a situation that future pathways is comfortable with either. We have been told that there are less than 10 referrals to WellbeingScotland since it started in September 2016. Is that right? We have made 36 referrals to WellbeingScotland specifically for record searches. We have funded the support of 192 people in addition to the 134 that were originally identified by WellbeingScotland. Why would they say that there are less than 10 referrals since it started in September 2016? I think that the way forward for the mismatch in numbers is a better relationship that enables us to share information more freely. It feels a bit bureaucratic to me that this is an organisation that has a proven record of working on a trauma-informed holistic way with survivors, and I have been privileged to meet some of them. That feels much more bureaucratic. Do you think that there has been an issue around the model that you have, which is a broken model? There are things that you can get through the service, which might not recognise as a petitioner that is highlighted as the importance of long-term support, the importance of counselling, the importance of group work and an on-going support for somebody that your model does not allow. On-going support is permitted by our model. There are many people who would be with you for more than, what, 12 weeks? Quite a few. I would say that out of the 1100 people who are currently registered with us, many of them have been registered from the start of the project and have remained registered with us. One of the things that has been suggested to us is that you get a block of CBT counselling or you get various variety of things except what there is an end point. I think that that has been misperceived. What we do is agree support and review it periodically, and that is not intended to limit or stop the provision of support at all. It is intended to check in with people to make sure that whatever is being provided still works for them and that, if it isn't, changes can be made or, if more of that support is needed, that can be arranged. It is absolutely not intended to reduce or get in the way of having extended support. So it is possible to be supported over a long, long period of time with individual counselling and group counselling. Yes, so how many folk have you got there in that position just now? Same most. I mean, there are 91 people currently receiving counselling support and most do require much more than 12 weeks of support. It's more usual for that to be one year, two years or even longer. It would be very useful to have that information and writing if it was possible. I am going to call Brian then. I am conscious that I haven't asked Rachel. Thank you. I just have a quick supplementary to the line of question that Angus MacDonald was going down. I just wanted to clarify here. Do you think that there is an issue here around the difference between the two organisations in data sharing and data ownership? This is an issue that we need to work through with their board and our board in detail. As I am asking, do you think that the number of issues here is around the sharing of data or ownership of data? I would say that sharing is not ownership. The issues around the data? It's one of the issues, but as I said, our plan is to meet with the board of wellbeing Scotland so that any concerns that wellbeing Scotland might have can be worked through in detail. Okay, Rachel. Thank you, convener. Welcome. According to the petition, there seems to be an inconsistent approach with regard to personal outcome conversations and the survivor support fund. First of all, can you explain what the personal outcome conversation involves? Secondly, can you give us a bit more background on what the survivor support fund does and how that is allocated? The personal outcome conversations is quite widely recognised as an evidence-based support for people. It's about having a meaningful conversation about what matters to the individual and what would make the difference, what difference does people want to see in their lives and what would help to make that difference. Our support coordinators would get to know people, speak to people and find out what it is that they would like to change and what they would like to make a difference with. I suppose that what I would say is that that can take a number of different avenues. Some people take a long time to recognise what it is that's important to them and what difference and what change they would like to see in their lives. Other people are very clear. I suppose that the concern might be that everybody's personal outcomes should be unique to them. No one person should have the same outcome and the same goal in life, and that means that no one solution is necessarily available for individuals. That is maybe why it's difficult for some people to recognise that it's not inconsistency, but it's based around the support that's put around the person and it's very much around what works for them, so that might work for one person, not another. The support fund, we have real flexibility and opportunity to access the discretionary fund when people recognise a support or resource that would make a significant difference in their lives and we've been able to facilitate a number of examples around that. I suppose what I would highlight is that we get examples where people wish to reconnect to education because their previous experiences have impacted their opportunity to complete their education and we've been able to offer some resource around getting people back into education and see people through university for one example of that. Other examples may be including somebody recognising their need to increase their health and wellbeing, physical exercise, and examples of being able to support people to purchase items that would help to make a difference in those circumstances. That's unique to the person, so it's about sitting down with the person and talking through what would be important. I suppose that we're looking at all the resources available. It's not just about resources from future pathways, it's about what other resources we can draw on within people's assets and community assets. Mr Greger, just to clarify that, you're saying that it's not only monetary support you're giving, it's other resources that you find that are going to be beneficial to that individual in a bespoke way. However, the petitioner highlights that I suppose he's looking at how that's been evaluated in the sense that is there a process other than what you've just described, which is listening and evaluating those survivor personal outcomes. Do you believe that your process is fair and that some people can be allocated a lot of resource and a lot of financial help and some people aren't? Do you support people who aren't successful in getting that resource and help to understand why perhaps they haven't been able to achieve that? I think that understanding the experience of people registered with us is vitally important and we are working to understand that through dedicated research and evaluation resource. In order to give confidence about how those decisions are made, there is a quality framework that has been prepared to ensure that there are standards in how our work is approached and that regular monitoring and evaluation data is provided to the Lions leadership team so that that can be considered and scrutinised. That has enabled the maintenance of quality and governance as well as meeting the increased needs and some of the evidence that I've given previously. The work is fundamentally bespoke, so that means that there is a difficulty in determining equivalence because what is needed for one person will be very different for someone else. However, by using a quality framework where we look at how we deliver support, that allows us to be assured that the process is applied consistently across the service. One more question if I may convener. Ms Anderson, if you have a quality framework in place, am I right in saying that you've been operational for seven years? No. How long is it? Three and a half years? Two and a half years. When was that implemented? How can you look retrospectively on how the outcome was for survivors before you had that quality framework in place? We can provide a more detailed response to that question post this meeting, if you would like. Let's go back to data sharing. Should you accept that organisations like Wellbeing Scotland have people with their support who are reluctant through their experience, lack of trust to provide the level of information that they are requiring, but if they don't provide that information, they can't access the services that they've accessed before and that, effectively, they are operating as a gatekeeper on the basis of not getting information that clients themselves don't want to provide to them? Future Pathways has sustained a funding relationship and ensured that support is available through Wellbeing Scotland as requested by people, so I don't understand why that's being presented as a gateway issue. Do people have to register with future pathways to access counselling services? People need to be registered with future pathways for us to deliver support. In the past, what would have happened was that there was a fund that would have supported people to access services and they accessed them. Now they have to go through future pathways, is that right? If they don't register with future pathways, they can't access the funding. The issue in the petition, if we go back to the petitioner, the petitioner is saying that as a consequence of a decision to establish future pathways, he cannot get the support that he got before, in the form that he wanted it, as it happened by Wellbeing Scotland. Is that right? Funding to Wellbeing Scotland has been consistently sustained throughout the period, despite some of the difficulties— With respect, that's not the question that I ask you. I'm asking the petitioner contains that future pathways would not allow support for the kind of support that he had before. Is that right? I wouldn't have thought so, because support to Wellbeing Scotland has been maintained and their service is available. That financial support is not at level to ensure that support to survivors is not disrupted. It seems very odd that we have a petitioner at all then, or that Wellbeing Scotland is pressing concerns if nothing has changed. I think that this is a piece of work that's been really complex from the start, and there are different perspectives about what should be offered and how it should be offered. I suppose that the test is whether, if you change a process and you reduce the service, was that change in the process correct or not? That's what we're trying to establish. Of course, you're in the organisation, and you're going to say that you're going to defend your organisation. I'm asking you if you're under—do you recognise that the change of model to the broker model with you as the brokers in this has actually created disruption in services that were offered previously to survivors? Our evidence would suggest that there's a very real need to help people get the support that they need from a variety of resources. Our experience at Future Pathways is that when people do contact Future Pathways, they can be worried about what to expect. I'd like to share a case study about Maria, not her real name, who's retired and has been registered with Future Pathways for about 18 months. She was initially very worried about being told what to do and meeting in her own home, which Future Pathways can facilitate, put her at ease. She was able to have a unique partnership with her support coordinator, which she felt was fundamental in being able to introduce a trauma support worker. Her perspective was that she felt scared about sharing elements of her life because she didn't know what the reaction to that would be. Feeling that she was in a safe space and that she had choice helped Maria to feel that making a difference in her life was possible. Her experience of always being told rather than being asked meant that the personalised approach taken by the support coordinator was a surprise. Another implication of respecting and understanding her past experience and the effects on her life was that she sometimes at points felt undeserving of Future Pathways' help. The theme of collaboration comes through her experiences as she references both her trauma supporter and her support coordinator as being two very distinct avenues of support that work in tandem with each other. Additional supports provided a new skill, which was about pottery and creative approaches. That was made possible through support from a bit friender. Now, she confidently plans her trips to and from classes on her own as an attending a new class. The impact of the holistic approach is that she now feels more enthusiastic about the direction that her life is going. I am sharing this example as something that is more indicative of our experience of working with people. We are always, at all times, trying to maximise what is available to an individual, according to their own circumstances and help navigating that. I thank you for that, and I have a direct experience of people who have had a good service from Future Pathways, so we recognise that. I am very conscious of time. I do not know, Angus, if you have one last question. I have just one small point on the finances and costs. Previous statistics from Future Pathways indicate a unit cost of £292 per hour, whereas the ICSS unit cost is £43 per hour. Can you explain that massive difference and is that discrepancy in figures sustainable? I do not recognise that analysis and I would be happy to respond to the committee in writing regarding that. That is the information that we have received, but we would be good to get a detailed response. The other thing that you have already indicated is that you would provide some information on some of the details of other stuff, but I wonder if you also give us a sense of how you evaluate your outcomes. You said that our x-outcomes would be useful to see that process as well. David, you were wanting to come in. Thank you, convener. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in your early evidence, you said that 91 individuals were receiving counselling services. Of that 91, how many are from health in mind? At the present time, since the start of the project, 268 people have received counselling, not all of those will be still in receipt of services. Referals to health in mind have been in the order of less than 100 people. Again, I will be happy to provide written evidence to the committee regarding that. I think that it would be very useful if you were able to do that and other issues. The question of funding, because I think that there is a concern that perhaps a new organisation has been established, which in itself creates money that is simple to run in terms of how the figures that we have would suggest about whether it is good value for money as opposed to processes before. We recognise a lot of issues here and a lot of important work has also been done with survivors and we appreciate that. We have to think about what we do next. We will be hearing from Wellbeing Scotland after the parliamentary recess. Are there other suggestions? To me, we have two organisations here whose remit is to help some of the most vulnerable people in society. I think that to have conflict between the two, as there obviously is, to end up in a petition to get to this level, there obviously is some serious conflict that can only impact on the survivors. What has been indicated here is that there is on-going dialogue happening. By the time we get to the end of recess and we hear evidence from Wellbeing Scotland, we would hope that that dialogue is starting to bear fruit. I think that the other thing that we could do is invite the petitioner to respond to the evidence that we have heard today. I think that, for me, the danger would be that this is presented. It seems to be between two organisations. Of course, those organisations are not equal, since one is the funding and one does not. However, the fact that the petitioner has highlighted his concerns and the consequence of that is that the people will not get the services that they could have got before. I think that that is really what we want to focus on. However, I thank you very much for your attendance today. Obviously, at the point where Wellbeing Scotland, if you want further information, we are very welcome. We will also have the opportunity to respond to Wellbeing Scotland's evidence when they come before us, probably in September. Thank you very much. I will suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to leave. I call the meeting back to order. Our next petition for consideration is petition 1548 by Beth Morrison, where national guidance on restraint and seclusion in schools. The petition was last considered in May 2018. In December 2018, the Children and Young People's Commissioner published its report, No Save Place, Restaint and Seclusion in Scotland Schools. The clerk's note summarises the most recent submissions from the petitioner and the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. The petition indicates her agreement with the Children's Commissioner's report and refers to the Government's initial response to this report as weak. In his submission to the committee, the Deputy First Minister provides a copy of the initial response to the Children's Commissioner, a copy of the final response issued in 17 June, and a report of the Government's engagement with education authorities on the use of physical intervention and seclusion in schools. The Deputy First Minister's submission centres principally on the engagement activity and actions that have been identified from that, highlighted in paragraph 13 of the clerk's note. A short-life working group will be established to take forward those actions, and I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I would quite like to hear the response of the Children's Commissioner or the Children's Commissioner if you use anyone on the recommended actions that the Deputy First Minister submitted. That would be quite appropriate. I think that we may think about whether we want to bring forward the Cabinet Secretary for Education. I am very struck by the amount of information that is already given us, so whether that is the best use of his time and the time of the committee that we might want to reflect on, but it may be that we get initially a response from the petitioner and the Children's Commissioner. There was a report that was highlighted in the issue that was looked at in England. It was a television report, perhaps yesterday. That is clearly a broader issue across our communities, but we know that the petitioner has felt that people have engaged with it, but we have given her an opportunity to respond to the final amount of information. I welcome hearing from the Deputy First Minister particularly about what they expect to achieve in the short working life group. However, I also noted that the Deputy First Minister supports a refresh of the guidance and that CODSA has already been contacted, so something that would have more of a consistent approach across all local authorities. Let's see what the petitioner says and we can look at how we take it forward, but we recognise that it is a big issue. It is an issue alive across a lot of places, and we need to think about whether another evidence session is the best thing to do, but we can at least reflect on those responses. If that is agreed, we can then move on to the next two petitions for consideration of petition 1610 on upgrade to A75 lodged by Matt Halliday and petition 1657 on the A77 upgrade lodged by Donald McCarrie. Can I welcome Finlay Carson MSP for the consideration of this item? We will ask consider this petition in June 2018 when we agreed to hold a round table discussion with relevant stakeholders at a future meeting. Seeking to set this meeting up, it was drawn to the clerk's attention that the Scotland's Future Forum is holding a public debate in Dumfries with the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the afternoon of Friday 20 September. This meeting will provide an opportunity for people to discuss their hopes and aspirations for the future with a focus on Dumfries and the south-west of Scotland area more widely. A written report will be available after this event has taken place. I suppose what we want to think about is what we want to do next. I think that we are still committed to the round table, but I think that it might be useful to do that after this meeting has taken place on the 20 September. I might ask Finlay if he wants to make some comments. I think that the most disappointing thing is that some of the actions that were raised, or some of the issues that were raised back in 28 June last year, have failed to be addressed. Urgent action, I think, is needed. I have read the paper and looked at the remit of our future Scotland. I do not know that the themes that are going to be discussed—technology, environment, wellbeing and education—necessarily will cater for pushing forward on infrastructure improvements. We have the south of Scotland enterprise agency that is set to start running in February. We also have heads of terms for the borderlands being signed on Monday. However, both projects have said that they are not there for funding large infrastructure projects. Although those are to be welcomed, we still need some action on the two roads. As I stated last year about not only the surface condition, which was deteriorating that point was stressed by P&O and Stenna as well. The vegetation in the A75, despite driving it with TransServe and Transport Scotland officers, the maintenance on the side of the road is appalling. You cannot see emergency signs to warn you of a roundabout coming up. You cannot see brown tourist signs, you cannot see direction signs because the trees are now growing over these and they are fully worse than when I raised it this time last year. There were two areas on the road that were cut back, but that situation is almost critical. The other thing that I would like to raise is that we had the previous transport minister offering the bringing forward of the strategic transport review. That should have been published at the beginning of this year and we are still waiting. I do have my suspicions that it will be published at 5 o'clock tomorrow night prior to recess, but that should also come into the discussions in the roundtable. I agree that a roundtable is still the way forward. I think that the timing for recess will be whatever we can probably wait until after the future Scotland forum, which I doubt will have much of a role in pushing for improvements, but it would allow any of the petitioners to appear at that and give their contributions. I still hope that the petition could get to open. We could have a roundtable sometime at the end of September, October following recess. As you know, Fyrnodd, Carstyn and I are working specifically on that because they are in our area. A lot has happened since the last time we raised the issue. I went to Belfast to see how there is an impact on their economy in the south-west of Scotland, and the response was overwhelming. In fact, we had all political parties right to the Scottish Government. I think that my concern is similar to the Carstyn's on the transport review. It was supposed to be published last November. In separate meetings, we were given a preview in March. What was interesting was that they did not expect Fyrnodd Carstyn and I to speak to each other, because what was said to Fyrnodd Carstyn was different from what it was said in the meeting that I was in. I am really concerned that the issue has been kicked into the long grass. The state of the A77, which is the one that I travel on, is absolutely horrendous. The transport minister was warned about the number of motorbikes that are now going up and down there during the summer and the risk to them. We had one going over the handlebars having hit one of those potholes a couple of weeks ago. The transport review will probably come out tomorrow afternoon, but it only then feeds into the STPR2 report, which is a further two years down the line. Those roads cannot wait that long from a safety perspective, from an economic perspective. The fact of the matter is that we have been talking about this since all the time that I have been in this Parliament and nothing as far as I can see is actually happening. Somehow or other, we have got to leverage this because nothing is happening. One of the things is that the future forums event is open, and we would encourage petitioners to attend and to let members attend. It is possible to feed in ideas for what would be part of that debate. It feels to me that if we have established a South Scotland enterprise board and we think that one of the economic inhibitors for the south-west is the roads, that should be part of their responsibility, and that is something else that can be flagged up. There are other things to say. We will definitely have a round-table event, but it might be in conjunction with ourselves. We can think about what that should look like, so we would be happy to liaise with you on that very briefly. I also want to highlight the real concern that there is right across Galloway and Western Fries. I started a petition that was just to demonstrate the feeling across the community. We have already raised or attracted over 3,000 signatures demanding that there is urgent action taken on the potholes in the A75 and the vegetation. That is more than the response that the strategic transport review attracted. It is not just a few people back in the A77 petition, the A75 petition. It is a feeling of anger right across the region. We will have a round-table event, and we will open to suggestions on what that will look like. We would suggest that we encourage people to go to the futures forum and we will make sure that they have that information. I wonder whether we might want to at least flag up to the transport secretary concerns about the transport review and the long time that it might take in contrast with what seems to be urgent issues. I do not know how the transport minister engages with those issues, but we might have just flagged that up to them. That would inform our work around the round-table. We would hope that somebody from the Scottish Government would be able to attend the round-table as well. Anything else in that case? No, in that case, I thank you. Finlay Carson for your attendance, and there are a number of things that we want to pursue there. Our next petition is the 161 on child welfare hearings, lodged by Maureen McVeigh. At our last consideration of this petition in November 2018, we discussed two relevant pieces of work that were on-going, including a consultation on the case management of family and civil partnership actions in the share of court by the Scottish Civil Justice Council, and a review of the Children's Scotland Act 1995 by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government's submission explains that following its review, it intends to introduce a family law bill, which will include the development of a family justice modernisation strategy. Following the Civil Justice Council's consultation, its family law committee has agreed to reconvene its case management subgroup. The petitioner's written submission indicates that she is supportive of the action that has been taken by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Civil Justice Council. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Given that we will definitely see a family law bill come through Parliament this session, and given that the Scottish Government has made a commitment to publish a family justice modernisation strategy when the bill is introduced, it is fair to say that the petition has done its job. I think that there may be some merit in closing the petition on that basis. The petitioner can come back off to the family law bill if her points are not addressed. Perhaps we can at least flag up the petition and how it might engage with the process of the legislation as it goes through as well. We are agreeing to close the petition in understanding order rule 157 on the grounds that work has been progressed by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Civil Justice Council relevant to the action called for on the petition, and of which the petitioner is supportive. I would like to record a thanks to the petitioner and encourage engagement with the family law bill as it has progressed. We can now move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1635 by Emma MacDonald on the review of section 11 of the Children's Scotland Act 1995. Neil Findlay, MSP, who has been involved with the petition, had hoped to be in attendance, but he has sent his apologies. The petition, which we last considered in April 2018, calls for a review of the current system and operation of child contact centres and the procedure under section 11 of the act, so that the right safety and welfare of children are paramount in relation to child contact arrangements where domestic abuse is an issue. We received a submission from the Minister for Community Safety on 7 June, in which she outlines the findings of the Government's consultation on the review of the act. She highlights that there was strong support for the regulation of contact centres. The minister also reiterates the Government's commitment to bring forward a family law bill, which was set out in its programme for government in 2018-19. She will provide an update to the committee once the bill is introduced. Do you have any comments or suggestions for action? Again, convener, similar to the previous petition, I think that the commitment from the Scottish Government to introduce a family law bill in this session is expected to address the issues raised in the petition. The petition has, hopefully, done its job. I move that we close the petition on that basis. In that case, we are agreeing to close the petition on the basis that the issues highlighted by the petitioner have been recognised. That has been quite an interesting journey. Identifying a problem, I do not think that many of us were aware of, and it is good that that is going to be responded to through the family law bill. Of course, we can remind the petitioner that, in closing this petition, if at a later date they want to reintroduce a petition that they are able to do so. We would like to thank them for engaging with the Public Petitions Committee in the way that they did. In that case, we can now move on to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1637 on chiptorship oil transfers and trust port accountability, lodged by Greg Fullerton on behalf of Crometerising. I know that John Finnie MSP is here because he was interested in this petition, too. We will consider this petition in June 2017, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government on a number of issues, including the role of agencies such as SEPA, SNH and Marine Scotland in relation to chiptorship transfer licence applications, the process involved for chiptorship transfer licence applications and concerns raised by the petitioner in relation to accountability of trust ports. Responses to those questions are included in our meetings papers. The committee has also received a recent written submission from the petitioner, which continues to raise a number of concerns, including accountability and governance arrangements in relation to trust ports, as well as questioning whether maritime and coastguard agency awarded chiptorship licences for oil transfer in Scotland have undergone the proper environmental scrutiny required by the regulations. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action? John Finnie, if you want to make a comment and then we can have a broader discussion. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak, convener. As you say, this is a long-standing issue. Fundamentally, it is about the frustration communities feel about their ability to address what is perceived to be a public body with no accountability. Particularly commenting on the submission that you have from the petitioners, which I am sited on dated this month, should be self-evident that there is no point in doing assessments and providing assessments if there is not the wherewithal to understand what the assessments mean and have regard to them. The quote that is in that submission is, this is an outrageous process failure and it is about the capacity within the marine and coastguard agencies to address information that is sent to them. I do not know if, in terms of capacity, we are referring to, for instance, knowledge or capability, as the term is used, and whether we are referring to knowledge within the organisation or indeed capacity. Two other brief points, if I may please. That is that it continues to be the case that communities around the community feel that the authority does things to them rather than for them and recent events regarding the sighting of a rig there. Again, I quote from the submission from the petitioners, no one knows whose responsibility it is. It is very clear that it is quite a cluttered landscape. Some of the responses from the Scottish Government suggest that, if certain powers were vested in the Scottish Government rather than the UK Government, things would be different. I do not think that that is the case quite frankly. It is immaterial where those powers lie at the moment. People would understand that I would want them vested in the Scottish Government, but that does not mean that issues that should be addressed are not being addressed. On the specifics of accountability of trust supports, over the years, I have asked a series of questions of the Scottish Government. I am none the wiser as to how things stand. The situation that the petitioner talks about is different in England, where there is an avenue of address to the Department of Transport. The only avenue of address for someone dissatisfied with responses to complain trees with a Scottish trust support is to take legal action. It seems to me that that is not a proportionate response from citizens. I urge the committee to continue their good work on the petition and to keep the issues involved and make the necessary inquiries, because there is, to my mind, a distinct lack of clarity about a number of factors. I have a lot of sympathy for this particular petitioner, especially around what John Finnie says, which is the line of responsibility and whose responsibility it is to act. I think that, with my own experiences working with CEPA in my own area, there seems to be blurred lines around what actions they can take and whose responsibility it is to fund those actions. For me, it would definitely be interesting to try to get that line established about who is ultimately responsible and who can the public speak to to that responsibility. I would ask the minister to give us some clarity around that. I just wanted to highlight that the petitioner says that there is a complete regulatory vacuum. The petitioner also calls for a review of the Scottish trust support's governance, but I would like to ask the minister why Scottish ministers' guidelines are not enforceable by Scottish ministers, because there is a severe lack of ministerial accountability over that. To me, it seems like it is passing the buck. To paraphrase John Finnie, I think that we are all none the wiser on this one. The petitioner has highlighted a number of anomalies with regard to responsibilities and has obviously highlighted previously the strange situation that we find ourselves in where there is no independent oversight or accountability of trust ports to Scottish ministers or any other public authority. The petitioner goes on to state that the Scottish Government's guidelines for modern trust ports are not enforceable in law by bringing a lack of governance and ministerial accountability. It is an absolutely strange position for us all to be in. I have to say that part of it is partly due to the privatisation of port authorities by the Conservative Government way back in 1992, and there have been on-going issues ever since then. However, we are where we are, and it would be good to get some clarity from the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy on exactly where they are and what they are prepared to do to sort it. However, I would agree with John Finnie that the easiest solution is to transfer the powers back to Scotland. I think that there is an issue about where the powers lie, but even where what the petitioner is suggesting is that the Scottish Government does have powers and it is not enough to say that we do not have them all, there are things that they could be doing now. I am quite interested in the capacity and lack of sense that they should have a responsibility and lack of being proactive around that, because even if all the powers were there and you did not exercise them, there would be an issue. I think that that thing about it just feels to me like some kind of black hole and everybody says that it is everybody else's responsibility, but the fundamental issue has not been addressed and it may be because of historic decisions. I suspect that if the port authorities are no longer accountable, it would be interesting to what extent they feel they are accountable and who has oversight of that. However, I think that the point that Rachel makes about the fact that the Scottish Government ministers cannot enforce their own guideline seems to me to be curious and I would be interested to know why that is. In terms of what we do, we have two options. We can try to write to the minister for business and ask him to respond to the concerns of the petitioner, which are very substantial and laid out in a lot of detail and very useful. We could try to identify what conversation that the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government on this, or we could refer it to the Environment Committee. I think that the committee should delve a bit deeper into this. Is that agreed by the committee then? I wonder if you want to say anything finally. If I may convene, I thank you for letting me back in again. I think that there are two issues here. If you like, there is an academic issue who is responsible for what the relationship between his various bodies is. However, for the community, there is something that is very tangible and very present. I am not going to try to describe the photograph, but you have had a photograph sent you of the implications for the community and simply no-one knows who is responsible for that pollution that has been pumped out. While a company is a private company or a public company, it has to work within rules and regulations. To me, what the petition is highlighting is that there is a vacuum in there that nobody is taking responsibility. It is the polluter's responsibility, but nobody seems to be able to identify who that is. For me, we have to have a clarity on lines of responsibility. It does not matter whether it is a public company or a private company, we need lines of responsibility. The Scottish Government has already responded, and I am just hoping that the minister will see our frustration that the petition is highlighting and not give us the answer that was given last time, which is the responsibility of the port. It is to take it up with the port. If they are not content with that, they can take it through a court. That is not what the petition is about. I hope that the minister sees the frustration of what we are trying to achieve. We will certainly make sure that, in the correspondence, we provide a link to official report and reflect the concerns that people have. We ask them to look at that and understand what the issue is, which is not about where individual powers lie but where there is a vacuum that has been identified and what they want to do about that. In that case, we are agreeing to write to the minister for business in those terms. Once we have a response, we can consider it further. I thank John Finnie for his attendance. If we can move on to the next petition, which is petition 1645 by James Ward on the review of legal aid in Scotland. The petition calls for a review of the legislation relating to access to legal aid in Scotland, particularly in relation to clarity about discretionary powers. The clerk's note summarises recent correspondence from the minister for community safety, in which he highlights commitments made by the Government following the independent strategic review of legal aid. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? Given the position that we are in, there is merit in closing the petition under standing order 15.7. On the basis that the Scottish Government has met the action, called for in the petition was the establishment of a panel to review legislation relating to legal aid and intends to consult publicly to help to inform future reforms. Would that be agreed by the committee? I am satisfied with the one who has asked for something and they have got it. We also want to thank the petitioner for the engagement with the committee and, of course, in future, if they feel that the commitment has not been carried through in a way that they would be happy with it, they can submit a further petition. However, we are agreeing to close the petition, as has been said, and we thank the petitioner for that. If we can then move on to the petition on improving literacy standards in schools through research-informed reading instruction. The next petition is petition 1668 by Anne Glenny on improving literacy standards in schools through research-informed reading instruction. The clutch note summarises submissions that were received from Dr Sarah McGewin, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, and the petitioner. The petitioner and Dr McGewin maintain the position that the level of training of teachers in reading instruction is not to the required level and argues that there needs to be, quote, an urgent and specific review of initial teacher education provision with regard to literacy and beginning reading instruction. The Deputy First Minister maintains the position that the Government has been consistent in this issue in acknowledging that there is a role for systematic synthetic phonics in reading instruction, but it is part of a wider literacy strategy. There is no indication within the Deputy First Minister's submission that the Government is considering changing its position in this matter, and I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. One of the things that might be an option for us, because I do not know if we are capable, we do not have the capacity to know where the balance is right here, but I think that there is a question about to what extent does initial teacher education provide training on how you teach reading, and I think that it would be one of the things that perhaps as part of its broader work that the education community does, looking at initial teacher education and so on, it might be something that we want to flag up to them to look at. I do not think that we can, we cannot have the capacity to make the decision on the professional arguments or the educational arguments, but I do see that there may be an issue of whether we are getting the balance right in giving teachers the confidence to teach reading. In relation to phonics, and I wonder whether I have interest in people's views, but whether we might want to refer it to the education skills committee. You may then, at least, have it sitting there at the point where we have Education Scotland in front of us, the colleges and universities in front of us at various times in a year, and it could be flagged up then. Brian Watt I think that this looks like a chunky piece of work in terms of it is all very well saying that this is a direction of travel that we should be going on, but practically what does that mean in terms of the education of an educator? What does that mean in terms of teaching in the classroom? I do not think that that is for this committee. If we are going to keep this alive, I certainly would think that the education skills committee would perhaps use it as part of there. My sense is that it is almost having separate conversations. Both the Cabinet Secretary and the Scottish Government are agreeing that there is a role for phonics, for synthetic phonics, and the petitioner is agreeing that it should be in a broader context, but I think that there is an unease about how much place it is given inside the system, and we are not in a place that I do not think to know whether it has got the proper place or not. I do not know if there are other views, Rachel. My gut instinct tells me that synthetic phonics is part of the wider literature strategy. However, why is the Deputy First Minister not acknowledging that, if there was more research that it could be delivered as part of that and that teachers could then choose what suited their pupils best? I do think that the education committee could look at that in a wider sense, as part of perhaps some of the work that they are doing. I support the question. I would ask if it was evident that those developing and delivering training to teachers thought that it was—I do not think that there was any suggestion that a silver bullet—if they thought that it was a silver bullet, they would not be resisting it. I suppose that that is where I am. I think that some of that is just about what the balance of its importance is. In my own sense, it would be that this would be a useful bit of information that the education committee is not doing a huge piece of work on it. However, while they are asking questions about education, it is something that could perhaps inform some of their work. I am saying that as a deputy convener of the Education, Skills Committee. I will take the responsibility when it comes before us. I do not want to misrepresent how big a role that would be or an area of work for the education committee. It feels to me that we have gone as far as we can with it. That broader professional educational judgment is not going to be—we cannot sit in judgment on that, but we do not have the expertise. I do not know your programme of works just now in the education committee, but are you likely to be doing some work on the literacy strategy or anything surrounding? I could not commit them because I have not got the programme. I would say that we do look at the effectiveness of what is happening in our schools. We have responsibility for that. We have the right number of teachers and the right number of places to have inquiries around those things. I do not want to mislead the petitioner saying that we would do a bit of work on this, but it is something that if we referred it to the Education, Skills Committee that they could in the process of dealing with those things, it might be something that we might want to look at. As I said, I do not want to misrepresent what the education committee could do, but I feel that our choice here is either simply to close it or at least put that argument in debate over to the Education Committee where they might at some point want to pick it up. Does that make sense? I think that from the practicality sense, what would be the ability to deploy it? What is teacher training now? Do the teachers have the choice if they want to deploy this? It is all very well as the petitioners and us saying that this is such a great idea, but if there is no capacity to pull it out? We did do some work before on initial teacher education, and there were some concerns by students about the level of training that they got around numeracy and literacy full stop, but simply even just flagging it up. This is an area of work. We are not capable of coming down one side or the other, because this is basically a professional educational expert judgment. However, in referring it to the Education Committee, at least at the point where, in the future, they are looking at it, it is something that they could raise with those who come before them. Is that great? In that case, can we close the petition on the basis that the Scottish Government maintains its consistent position? The systematic synthetic phonics does have a wider part to play in reading the instruction. We are referring it to the Education and Skills Committee and highlighting to them the fact that this is a debate about the balance of where that commitment to systematic synthetic phonics lies. Obviously, it will be then for the Education Committee to deal with the petition as it sees fit, but I would like to thank the petitioner before bringing it before the committee. Of course, if there are concerns in the future, the petitioner is able to resubmit a petition at a later date. If we can now move on to the next petition, which is petition 1682 by James Jameson on access to specialist support for hydrodinitis superativa HS sufferers in Scotland. The petition calls for a specialist clinic to be established in Scotland, as currently the only access to specialist support is through a referral to a clinic in England. When we first considered this petition in May 2018, we noted the concerns about a lack of awareness among GPs about the condition. The submissions from ABIV Limited and the HS Trust agree that more needs to be done on this issue. ABIV also considers that the development of a sign guideline would improve referral pathways and ensure that patients can access the right care and treatment. The Scottish Government advises that anyone can suggest a guideline topic and sets out its process in its submission. The core of the petition is about the provision of specialist services. ABIV and the HS Trust consider that having a dedicated service for patients to access in Scotland would reduce stress and delays. The Scottish Government appears to suggest that the prevalence of HS is equivalent to more than 500 patients in a one-year period and therefore it is not sufficiently rare or unpredictable to require the establishment of a specialist service. I am not quite sure what the actual point is being made there, because it feels as if it has been caught both ways, that there are more than 500 there, for it is too many for a specialist service, while what the petitioner is saying is that they do not have a specialist service because there are fewer of them. You will recall that Rona Mackay, a previous member, and I met with the petitioner and the frustration about the condition not being understood, not being diagnosed early and the consequence for those who had that condition was greater. I am not actually clear, as if it is saying, well, you can have fallen between two stools. I was quite confused about what that point was, but I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Regardless of the numbers here, the petitioner makes the point that the prognosis for suffereces is very poor and it can severely impact on the lives not just of their physical pain but also their well-being. I was really struck by the submission from Abvy, which has been highlighted that we should raise the digital resource and how that could be included within the inclusion of HS, which would then raise awareness. I think that that is a really important step and I wonder if we can bring that to the attention of the Scottish Government. I think that that would be a greatest in action. Any other comments or comments about what we should do? Do you want some response from the petitioner to the Government's response in this instance? We should do that. I think that it was possible that, while writing to the NHS boards, we should see how they deliver services, how they identify the services that they provide for NHS patients. It just feels to me that we were not really getting to the heart of the concern of the petitioner, that the condition is really not understood. That kind of case is not very many. It is the extent to which—well, it is this whole argument about prevalence and at what point—we provide special service, but that kind of awareness raising thing is really important. Anything else that we could be doing? Angus? There is some reference in our briefing to the North's clinic in the Midlands, so I think that it might be helpful to write to the North's clinic to get its views on the action called for in the petition in relation to the fair off pathways. I think that all of those suggestions are very useful. Of course, we would encourage the petitioner, if he feels able to do so, to respond to submissions received to date. We would be interested in hearing that. We have obviously come back to this issue once we have got responses. Again, I thank the petitioner for bringing it to her attention. Our next petition for consideration is petition 1698 on medical care in rural areas, lodged by Karen Murphy, Jane Rental, David Wilkie, Louisa Rogers and Jennifer Jane Leigh. At our meeting on 9 May 2019, the committee heard evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Salewis Ritchey, chair of the remote and rural working group, and Richard Foggo, director of population health in the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government in the submission from 7 June 2019 has provided further information on the development of the Scottish workload formula and associated additional funding, as well as the role of the technical advisory group on resource allocation. The Scottish Government also provided further information to Rhoda Grant MSP, which was copied to the Public Petitions Committee, providing further explanation about the costs of providing rural general practice, as well as immunisation rate figures. Rhoda Grant MSP had also hoped to be in attendance for the consideration of the petition, but she has passed on the following comments. She said that Richard Foggo forwarded me to the cabinet secretary's response to the committee. I did not find it enlightening. I also shared it with my constituents, who still have concerns. They believe that the delight analysis of workload is based on incorrect assumptions and meaningless data, and therefore it is not an improvement on SAF. You cannot equate numbers of appointments available or given with need. Practices under pressure will inevitably have fewer appointments to offer per patient than practices that are coping well. Need is not in any way proportional to provision. This is the whole problem highlighted by the inverse care law. Those who most need healthcare are least likely to get it, and SAF simply reinforces existing inequalities. The data set on which the analysis was based was out of date. The definition of rurality was binary, so real remoteness was not taken into consideration. The end result was a net £10,000 annual gain per average urban GP in a central belt practice, with no gain for rural practices and little for those in the most deprived areas. Even if rural GP incomes are protected at current levels, the position will be worse, because it will find even more difficult to recruit from a limited pool of GPs. The statements about practice SIMD appear wrong when you look at the winner-loser map. Gorbls and Possil get no extra funds, while Milgae gains. The statements about the exclusion of TACRA are disingenuous. To say that they cannot play a part in discussions about GP practice remuneration does not make sense. Some are paid to practices that are used to pay GPs or practice staff and are also to provide components of care for patients, including equipment and consumables. GPs themselves make decisions about how much is spent on service provision, how much is staffing and how much is on their own incomes. Awards of funding to practices are not conceptually different from the considerations needed in awarding funding to individual health boards in which TACRA is very much involved. The letter about immunisation does not add anything. The vaccine transformation process has not really started in any rural area, and practices are still being paid for offering the immunisation programme. It would not be expected to see any damage until the contracts were fully implemented. Based on this information, I would hope that the petition would be kept alive until at least a working group report. It may also be the case that the Health and Support Committee could look at this as part of their wider inquiry, but it would need to be given a degree of prominence in order to get to grips with those complex issues. I think that that is the end of Rhoda Grant's comments. In considering the suggestion, members will note that our papers confirm that the issues raised in the petition will be addressed as part of the inquiry, but it is dedicated remit of looking at the future of primary care in Scotland. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. My main comment is that, as Rhoda Grant has said, I do not think that we have got an answer to the question, why do you create a new funding formula that takes money out of rural areas and from out of poorer urban areas into better off urban areas? I think that there remains an issue there. I think that what we need to think about is who is best placed to take forward those concerns. Thank you, convener. Both myself and Brian are on the Health and Support Committee and there is a substantial amount of work that is going to be done in primary care, so I would be quite happy for the petition to be referred to health and support. As you said, our work for planning is confirmed on Tuesday.  If we pass it over to the Health and Support Committee, what we have to highlight is the specific ask of the petitioner to ensure that that is answered within that inquiry. However, the size of the inquiry that we are going to do around primary care or involvement in primary care will go a long way to answering the petitioner's questions. We will, without question, be crossing the cabinet secretary on that. Because David and I are both on that committee, we can probably make sure that there is a degree of prominence of this petition, so I would be inclined to pass it to the Health and Support Committee. I first saw that we were looking at this petition again. The evidence that we heard was so powerful to suggest that it is not a subject that we can ignore. I am reluctant to let it go from this committee because of those reasons, but hearing from both Brian Whittle and David Torrance that they are doing this work in the Health and Support Committee on primary care will give significant importance to it. I am reassured, but I would not want the petitioner to think that this is something that we would be letting go on a whim. It elevates the petition to allow the Health and Support Committee to incorporate into a much bigger piece of work. It is specifically looking at the GP contract in primary care, so I would impress upon the petitioner that, by allowing it to go from here to the Health and Support Committee, we are elevating that in our investigation. I agree with all the comments. I am certainly happy for it to be referred to health and sport with the provider that it is, given the attention that it deserves. We are agreed to refer the petition to the Health and Sports Committee. I share Rachel's reluctance to let it go, because I think that it is such an important issue, and I recognise that there is going to be a broader inquiry by the Health and Support Committee. I think that we would be hoping that there would still be a spotlight on the very specific processes around us, because it is not just in general terms that we fund in GPs properly, but that there are active decisions made in government that seem to have a perverse effect. We talked earlier about the island impact assessment, which clearly was not done in this regard either, and I think that that would be something that we would hope that we would be able to pursue. Come in and give evidence, convener.  I would have to chain myself. In that case, I think that we do recognise that it is really an important and interesting issue here, and how processy things are actually ending up wise, tiger or not there, and all those are things of exercise. People will look like just process, then have very significant consequences for the outcomes. The outcome is a very serious one, which is the provision of GP practices and practices that are really under pressure in urban areas, and there are different kinds of particular pressures for remote and rural areas, so we are agreeing to refer the petition to health and sports committee on the basis of its inquiry into primary health. I want to thank the petitioners for bringing this before us and providing so much detailed information. Of course, if there is a sense that the matter is not being dealt with resolved properly, they have the opportunity to bring back the petitioner later stage. In that case, if we can thank the petitioners and we can move on now to the next petition for consideration, which is petition 1699, on the release of murder victim bodies for funeral arrangements, lodged by Amanda Digby. At our last consideration of this petition in September 2018, the committee agreed to seek views from a range of stakeholders as outlined in our papers in relation to the action called for in the petition. The committee was particularly interested to gain more information on the timeframe for the review into post mortem examination protocols. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal's written submission confirms that, following consultation with the Law Society of Scotland, the faculty of advocates and forensic pathologists has reviewed the post mortem examination protocols. The review concluded that a complementary consultation protocol supporting effective consultation between pathologists instructed by the Crown in defence may deliver further improvements, and that protocol was published in October last year. The petitioner has indicated that she met with the Lord Advocate and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice late last year, and indeed I was privileged to be able to be at that meeting, too. She is taking comfort from this new protocol, which will lead to a more balanced protocol for procurator fiscal and forensic pathologists to work from. She does, however, raise concerns that the protocol will result in more homicide victims becoming special cases and that bodies may not be released any sooner than they would have been before the protocol. On the issue of whether the protocol used in England and Wales could be adopted in Scotland, there was limited support for the suggestion by the Scottish Government, the COPS and the Law Society of Scotland, due to the fundamental differences between the two legal systems, and they are not being equivalent to procurator fiscal in England and Wales. In its written submission, the Law Society of Scotland suggested that there was scope for improvements to be made to public information available in relation to postmortems, as well as scope to explore the role of new technology in relation to holding of postmortems in the future in order to speed up the process. What I was struck by from having met with the petitioner and their family, just that their courage in taking this forward and the level of distress that they felt families had experienced because bodies were retained in a way that would not have happened elsewhere. I still think that there is an issue about whether this is about availability of people to do post-mortem speedily. I think that the protocol should help, but I think that the petitioner makes in her submission that how is this monitored. I think that it is quite important. I think that we should be asking that. Her concern is simply what you do as you shift the label and then your most special cases, and you actually have the same problems, but you have done it in a slightly different way. I think that that is something that we want maybe just to press a little further. I would agree. I think that what interested me was around the Law Society's response in terms of the fact that it could be tightened up somewhat. I would be quite interested to see what the Scottish Government's response would be to the Law Society's suggestions in that respect. I would be inclined to let this petition go at the moment. I agree with Brian Whittle that the Law Society made some—the evidence that was written in evidence—compelling about the improvements that could be made, particularly as Brian Whittle suggested, and the use of digital technology to gather evidence to speed up a process. It is a really sensitive matter. I would be very reluctant to not see this through because the petitioner, as you say, has been so brave to bring this forward. In fact, it highlights the differences between England and Wales in Scotland and what we can do better here. I think that there is no doubt that the Scottish Government and, indeed, the Crown Service recognise the issue and that it was a very constructive meeting with the Lord Advocate and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, which in itself is an achievement to have got people round a meeting. I think that we would want to recognise that there has been that compassion too by the system in trying to really look at what there is here. However, I think that if we could write to the Scottish Government to seek its views in relation to the suggestions that are outlined in the Law Society of Scotland's written submission and perhaps the reflection on the concerns that the petitioner has highlighted around monitoring and just simply, you know, would there be this consequence of simply deciding more cases or special cases, it would be useful to get the response to that. However, we are recognising that there has already been significant movement by the Scottish Government and the Crown Service in relation to those concerns. Would that be agreed? That's agreed. Again, we can thank the petitioner for providing a further submission to us in the course that will come back to the committee at a later stage. The next, our final continued petition is petition 1703 on access to broadband in rural Scotland, lodged by Hugh McClellan on behalf of Laid Grazings and Community Committee. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to utter to the Scottish Government to deliver superfast broadband internet access to every household and business in Scotland, particularly in rural areas before 2021. In response to questions about the R100 programme, the Scottish Government's submission states that, despite the complexity involved, it remains committed to the timescale of 100 per cent superfast broadband by 2021. The submission confirms that £600 million of investment as part of the programme will be focused on rural areas, as urban premises have been excluded from the initial R100 procurement process. However, a submission from the Scottish Enterprise highlights the extent of the challenge ahead. As we have already heard, Rhoda Grant hoped to be here if we consider that petition too, but as instead provided her comments as follows. She says, I have an interest in this petition, having worked previously with a petitioner who is a constituent and the issue raised is one that affects much of the Highlands and Islands. There has now been a delay in the tendering of R100. The minister was questioned in this topical questions two weeks ago, but in my view failed to provide an assurance that R100 would be delivered by 2021. It would appear from speaking to interested parties that there is now little hope that R100 being completed in that timescale could ask the committee to pursue the likelihood timeframe for R100 being delivered both to Laid and to the whole of Scotland. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. Thanks, convener. I have to take exception to Rhoda Grant's comment that there is little hope of R100 being delivered by 2021. The Government remains committed to the 2021 target for the reaching of 100 per cent. Granted, there has been a slight delay with the procurement process and the procurement timeline has been extended. However, the minister did state in the chamber that the appointment of a preferred bidder is expected by the end of September and the minister for connectivity is committed to update Parliament once the procurement process has been completed. Obviously, there has always been a challenge to deliver R100 by 2021. R100 is still the target, so I see no reason to keep the petition open, given that that is a stated commitment of the Scottish Government. Rachael Y Llywydd. I completely disagree with Angus MacDonald. I will go on doing so well. I have never felt so strongly about something. I know the constituency work that I get about that. We know that the Scottish Government has admitted that it is running late. That written answer from Stuart Stevenson, Paul Wheelhouse admitted that the R100 programme will not be signed until the end of the year. Angus MacDonald stated that it is not signed until the end of the year, and that the Government has quietly announced that it will be late. How can we realistically believe that that will be delivered on time? Therefore, I feel as though we should not, absolutely, not close this petition. I will let everybody have their go and then we will try to find an answer that we will agree with. I will go in the middle ground. I was talking specifically about tourism in the south west. I was talking about the deployment of technology in tourism opportunities in the south west, just yesterday in my office, and what is highlighted is exactly the same as what Michelle Hamilton just said. The reality of my area is that what is holding everything back is a lack of connectivity and digital connectivity in that respect. Much as I welcome the Government's maintained commitment to delivering this by 2021, I am sceptical as to whether I will be able to do that. I do not want to let this petition particularly go in this one because we have to maintain pressure on the Government to ensure that it does lead to its commitment and that it does that fantastic. That petition is going to be maintained by Rhoda Grant, Rachel Hamilton and all the parties who are engaged. I am reflecting the fact that I have had a month and a half of problems with a broad band in my house and I live in an urban area. The question for the committee is not whether an important issue is that there is a real problem with it and there is a desire to hold the Government to account on it. It is whether we holding on to the petition makes any difference to that. Even if we decide to close it, I would not be signalling that I think that they have got it right or that the matter has been dealt with or that it cannot be revisited. It is a question of whether us holding the petition makes that debate happen or whether the debate will happen anyway. We know that, across the parties, people are really concerned. Indeed, if it looks as if it is not going to be delivered by the end of 2021, the petitioner can come back. I do not want to think this through. There are some issues that will not get the attention of the Government or the Parliament without the work of the committee. I am quite clear about that because we bring forward issues that are not politically alive. That is why we have not spent a lot of time in this committee, frankly, debating whether we should have an independent referendum or not, for example, because we know that the debate is going to continue. I am also conscious that there is a lot of pressure in our time. What I am asking the committee to think about is that it is possible for us to make a decision about closing the petition. We are assured that the debate will continue and that the pressure will continue on Government and that there are other opportunities for it to be brought back. What is the added value of the committee holding on to it? That is the question that I am asking. In what the petitioner is requiring, that timeline is kept to. If we do not see it through until 2021, we could ask the petitioner to respond in the light of the recent admission that it will be delayed and find out whether the petitioner wants to leave it to putting the trust in that everyone is holding the Government to account on the promise. At that point, we decide whether or whether the petitioner wants to close it. I suppose that the point that I would make in return is that the petition actually asks for it to be delivered before 2021. We are having an argument and we have now accepted that if it is going to be delivered in 2021, it is either going to be early, middle or late 2021. That is not what the petitioner asked for. I suppose that the message to the Government is that no matter what strategy you have, the petitioner is saying that we are being failed already. We will hold the petition open to see whether it gets to a date that is beyond what the petitioner asks for. My issue is not about the fact that the issue will remain live and at the forefront of many MSPs across the chamber. The importance and delivery of this is hugely important. It might issue lies around our ability to question the cabinet secretary effectively, because every time I have seen this, every time I have asked a question, it just gets batted off and then you do a supplementary and it is finished. We never get anywhere and the one thing that the committees have the ability to do is to properly cross-examine the Scottish Government. I feel that the cabinet secretary is very adept at defending himself in the Scottish Government within the chamber, but I just do not think that we get it. If we get the cabinet secretary along here and the petitioner has asked not to be done before 2021, we are going to have an argument about what point in 2021 it is going to get done, if we are being honest. The other thing is that it is not in any way to diminish the importance of the petition. The petitioner himself has had a number of opportunities to engage recently and has not. It might be that they feel that, regardless of whether we are dealing with it, this is an on-going area where there is pressure. I am very reluctant for us to divide in this, because we are not ever dividing anything. I do not think that we are actually dividing on the matter of substance. We are agreeing that there is an issue here. It is whether we, given the pressures on our time, in terms of giving an adequate service to all our petitioners, we want to hold on to this, because it would not just be holding on to it, but suggesting that we would be doing more work on it when we need to think about that. I am quite happy to close the petition, because the Scottish Government is guaranteed for every meter or not that it will be there by 2021. I believe that there is ample opportunity for MSPs in the chamber to keep the topic to the forefront and other committees to raise it. Would it be acceptable to close the petition on the basis that it is already out of date, but it would recognise the petition that we want to bring it back? It is closely being monitored. Maybe we could say to Rachel and Brian in particular to be alive, to keep an eye on this, and to highlight, if we think that it is middle of next year, that this is problematic. I will bring it back, and that is a refreshed one, which might have a critique of why we did not get to the deadline. We also know that Rhoda Grant is engaged with it in many other petitions this morning, but I think that she might have front bench responsibilities. I know that she has certainly flagged it up in the chamber. I do not want anybody to think that the Petitions Committee does not think that that matters. I think that the test for us is or that there is not an issue here. However, if we close the petition, do we close off the topic? No, we do not. Do we afford the opportunity for the petitioner to come back with another petition that is refreshed and updated with perhaps great success or disastrous failure, and we can do that then? Would that be acceptable?  That last 5 per cent is that they are experiencing hardship because of this, and we are disagreeing over a description. Before 2021, and within the background information, it says, by 2021. We are disagreeing over such a large subject, over just such a small description that perhaps the petitioner was an oversight by the petitioner, and I disagree with the soul shutting it. The petition will not be successful because it will not be done by 2021. That is not semantic. It may be that we can get a petition with an updated version of the concerns around the issue. It could be considered more quickly than that if it is in a different version, but that is the fact of the matter. If we hold on to this petition, it will not be delivered. Why did we accept the petition in the first place with that wording? At the time, it could have been, but we are now told that it will not be. The petition was submitted when? December? That is not an excuse. You can see what I am saying here. I understand absolutely that this is something that exercises a huge number of people, including the petitioner, about the capacity to deliver a strong economy in Scotland if we do not have access to broadband. The test of that is not whether that is a big issue, but whether the petition committee adds value to that argument. I know that our colleagues, who are supportive of the Government and Government-backed benches, might be a view that would understand whether they are going to defend the petition. My argument is not whether they are getting their job right or not, but whether us holding on to the petition will progress matters when it is clear to me that it is politically alive elsewhere. We cannot allow ourselves, in my view, to put in a position that we are somehow the only place where political debate takes place. We have to be trying, I think, to afford an opportunity for issues that are not highlighted or not focused on. That is where we have been at a greater success, I would say, where there has not been the same kind of level of political pressure every day debating it. I do not want anybody to think that this is a serious issue. I am just concerned that we are holding on to the petition without—and the only reason that we are holding on to it is because we may be sceptical that the minister will deliver by the end of 2021 when the petition wants it before that. We are all supportive of the Government's aim to get this right. That is without question. I think that my frustration lies in this place's ability to almost hold the Government to account. I do not know what everybody else is like, but I write letters to the cabinet secretary about broadband at least every two weeks. The response that I get back is that the Government is committed to delivering broadband. The responses that we are getting in the chamber and in writing are not good enough in that respect. That is where my frustration lies, and I think that the committee has the ability, when needed, to dig deeper. It is such a big issue across rural Scotland and in East Kilbride that we have to be able to—it is not about whether we are going to get it. It is about getting reasonable answers from the police. You are therefore suggesting that we have to decide what extra value the committee brings to the process. We can scrutinise the contracts. We can scrutinise those people once their contracts are designated. We can ask them when they will complete the work by and how realistic is the Government's ambition. Therefore, we are making a decision not just to hold on to something that a petition is already not going to be secured. You are asking for a huge piece of work to be done around that, and I would be reluctant to spend time on that in a committee when other committees have a direct portfolio responsibility for something that is very alive politically in Scotland. I would be concerned if you are not just saying, let's hold on to it and see what happens. You are saying that you want to scrutinise contracts. I would take the view and the balance in relation to all the other work that we have to do. I would not support that, to be honest. That is not to say—that is not what the petitioner asked for anyway. We have to divide things off here. If it is the role of this committee to scrutinise Government, on every issue that the petitioner brings before us, we have to address the failings of ministers. I am as frustrated as any dales sitting in front of asking questions and getting no answers. That is a broader issue, but it cannot be the simple responsibility of this committee to do that. There will be issues where we have got proof that we have done that. My concern is that, in my view, that is not the one. I make a judgment, is there work being done in this elsewhere? Yes, there is. We might want to refer it to the committee that is responsible and say that there is a huge issue here, what are you doing about it, and underline to the petitioner that we have done that. If they remain concerned that they can bring forward a petition in different form, which highlights that failure, we will have to have a longer conversation about that. I feel quite strongly that we are not a substitute for the failures of other bits of the parliamentary process to scrutinise Government because we have been capable of doing it. I do think that we have to be strategic in thinking about how best our time is used. I am now having people coming to me as constituents who are concerned that they delay and get into the petition system. We have to think about what added value we bring. One of the tests for me is, will there be debated elsewhere anyway? In that case, it is clearly yes that it will. Is it being like that? Are other committees dealing with that at the moment? Is the rule that the clear committee is dealing with it? No, it will be the right committee to deal with it. Our job is not to see what we have to do with it because other committees do not do it. If we refer a petitioner, they are obliged to consider it. Therefore, there is a responsibility in members in that committee. I have got these concerns to ensure that it is addressed. I will go back to the point that the petition itself was published in September 2018. It is already asking for something that will not happen. If they want to have a petition or an issue around evident failure to be delivered in 2021, people can do that. If the petitioner brings it back and rewards the statement, how soon does that petitioner bring back that petition? If there is a big backlog, how— Well, if they come back into the process, they will all be at the end of the two. It is not as if they come back and they could submit a petition in September, but we could not guarantee that it would be dealt with immediately because we have to deal with things as they appear, and we have to be fair to other petitioners. I think that we have to separate off the importance of this individual petition to some members of this committee and, indeed, more broadly to a lot of people in the Parliament and way beyond from whether we add value to holding on to it. I am sorry, but it is not us as individuals who are speaking for rural dwellers and residents who are so frustrated by this. If we cannot scrutinise the Government through committees— No, I am not scrutinising through committees. What I am seeing is that the Public Petitions Committee has to apply it. We are not the committee for scrutinising all the issues that our constituents bring before us. It would be an impossible task. We are also not a cross-cutting committee. We are a public petitions committee where we have the opportunity to highlight serious issues and to take them forward. We have an eclectic mix this morning. Everything is important to everybody who brings it forward, but it is impossible to manage if we are going to be the scrutiny of last resort on issues that really matter. Every party in here has got front-bench spokespeople, they have got committee time, they have got parliamentary time, they have got questions that they can use, and I have seen them doing it. Indeed, not that long ago there was a topical question on it. If we took the view that has been argued here, we would be in permanent session, because I myself would have thousands of issues that I would want to bring forward. There has to be some means by which other bits of the system do that job. Political parties highlight the inadequacies of it and use whatever means they have to do that. But they do not get an answer, and that is the problem. On that point, when the minister made a statement in the chamber, he pointed out that he cannot give a definite answer until the contract has been signed. So demanding the detail now before the deal is signed and sealed is impossible. I am not demanding the detail, I am not demanding anything. That is not how we are negotiating whether we close this petition or not. I think that we just bring this to a conclusion, because we are going forever. We are going to have to have a conversation as a committee that gets on very well together about how we prioritise our work and our role and how we test the question of added value. I am as reluctant on occasion as anyone else to let petitions go, which is why you gridd of so many last week when I was not here, because we all are invested both in the issue and the petitioners who have taken the trouble to come to us. We are all agreed on that. The only question is whether we add value on this petition, which we cannot have as outcomes secured, but that the underpinning issues are still really important to people. One of the tests that I apply is whether other committees or other means by which you raise the issues in the Parliament mean that the issue is addressed. It is a question of whether it is addressed satisfactorily. That is a different question, but it will be addressed. I feel that what we may want to do, which I think would be helpful to us, if we agree to refer it to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee underlining to them the importance that the members felt of the question. The petition itself is out of date, but the issues surrounding it and the concerns that people have about it are not, and they are very much alive. I appreciate your comments, convener, but the problem with that option is that we have already accepted that the petition is out of date, so referring it to the REC committee could result in that. What we can do is refer the petition to the REC committee and state the obvious that the question is out of date, but that the concerns behind it about the delivery of the programme remain and that we would ask them to look at the question. Maybe they would contact the petitioner and they might want to reflect on how they are going to keep scrutiny of what some people regard as drift in the process. Would that be fair? That seems a fair compromise, convener. I think that what it highlights is what we are trying to balance here and what we have done very effectively, as the committee has been working together to understand all the pressures that present to us about the different petitions. I think that we need to be careful that we do not end up in a place where, when a petition is either closed or referred, somehow we are saying that it does not matter any more, because I do not think that that is the case. If we did, we would end up not being able to have the kind of dynamic thing where people begin to feel that I have a petition and within a certain amount of time they are then heard. I think that there is a too big a gap between somebody putting a petition in and being heard. We also have to recognise that. If we can agree to refer it to the REC committee and the terms that I have outlined and maybe we would ask them to keep us updated on what they plan to do, that would also be very helpful. With that, I think that discussion has been a very important one. I thank my colleagues for working through it so that we can at least come to an agreed position at the end, and with that can we move into private session.