Ffwg i chi'n ei wneud y dyfodol ystafell digwydd o'r Cymru a'i gweithio'r cyflawni. Felly gwybod ar y cyfan a'i gwaith oherwydd gwychain a'r zîl i gyflawni. Eich ymgyrchu'r gemwy o sipatigol yn y rhaid i'n dwygen, a'r pryd mewn prydau i'ch gemwy 1319 yn ei gweithio'r bwysig o ddwy yng ngos varau yn Scoltland. Eich gemwy o ddwy-ynghyn yn ei gweithio'r prydau i'u gweithio 1319 yn ei gweithio'r and improving youth football in Scotland. The petition called for action on six points, four of which have been addressed in previous years. The issues that remain to be considered are contracts and compensation payments between clubs. There are a number of actions that have been suggested in these issues and associated questions about welfare and the rights of the children and young people involved. We shall be taking evidence in the petition from two panels. The first panel comprises representatives of PFA Scotland, the Scottish Schools Football Association and the Scottish Youth Football Association. The second panel that we will hear from is the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Professional Football League. We will also hear a future meeting from the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland, who was unable to do this today for personal reasons. I welcome James Dornan MSP and Richard Leonard MSP, who are in attendance and will be participating in this particular agenda item. I understand that Scott Robertson and Willie Smith are also attending today, and they are the petitioners who have driven this from the beginning. I would like to make the most of the time that we have available this morning by going straight into questions. We have copies of written submissions from each of the witnesses, so we have a fair steer from that where we are at the meeting. To our first panel, I welcome to our meeting Fraser Wishart of PFA Scotland, Roderick Huston of the Scottish Schools Football Association and David Little of the Scottish Youth Football Association. It is an interesting issue, and in some ways it is complex. For our new committee, we want to try to get a proper understanding of the issues of concern. I want to start off with a very simple question about welfare considerations. I would like to begin with the issue of players registered under the club academy Scotland system being able to play for the schools and the response from the SFASPPFL, that, as a rule change, we have made to reflect that there should be no restrictions on this quote, subject to appropriate welfare concerns. I can ask you to express your views on the issue of appropriate welfare concerns. Thank you and good morning. We welcomed that move on behalf of the Scottish FFA. We are strongly committed to youngsters playing for their school wherever possible.  We think that there has been significant progress in the last year. We still are receiving anecdotal evidence, which gives us cause for one specific concern. That is quite often young players are put in the position of having to make a choice between school and maybe a club or what have you. We would prefer there to be a dialogue between the adults with the young person involved to allow it. There is no question that there has to be a kind of negotiated too strong a word, but there is a great programme of demand on the young person in all sorts of ways. We are quite happy to be part of that and we can find around the country a lot of very good examples of just that. However, the anecdotal evidence is still there that some young people are put in a terrible position, which we are uncomfortable with. Does that mean that the appropriate welfare concerns could simply be the club saying that it does not suit us for you to play for your team. We need it. That is a kind of relationship that is a difficult one for a young person to negotiate. Appropriate welfare concerns is quite a nebulous statement. It is not in your interest to do this. I do not like that. I would like the child to be able to be involved, preferably the parents as well. That allows our youngster to play with his pals. For the pals, that is great. For the youngster, it gets them suitably involved with their peer group. There has been evidence of a distancing of the very elite kids from their peer group in school. Not much, not too nasty, but not really what we want to happen in the communities that are in schools. Thanks very much for that. I do not know if other members of the panel want to comment on that. It is all right to welcome one on its own. It is not particularly an area. It is all right. Good morning and thank you for the invite to inform this process. It is not really an area where we are experts in it, but I think the changes that have been made on the surface should be welcomed. As Rod said, for a young person to be able to play football with their friends is for me one of the most important things about development. When they go into the club academy Scotland and it is elite, there are players coming from all over the area, sometimes all over the country for training, but just playing with your friends in a local area, playing with your schoolmates, I think it is very important. Also, just from a developmental perspective, the more football that people can play, the better.  We always talk about 10,000 hours of elite development as to the level of how many hours you should get as a young person. That adds to it. What does that mean in practice? I do not think that any of us at the moment, Rod, would know more than I do in terms of appropriate welfare concerns. I think that the reality of it all will come out, whether players who are signed with the club academy Scotland teams are actually playing for the schools. I think that will come out in the wash at some point. However, I think that it was a step forward to taking by the SFA and the SPFL. It may be something that we want to monitor in terms of the figures for that. It is useful to know. Angus Macdonald? Thanks, convener, and good morning to the panel. If I could turn to the 28-day period, as we know, the new measures include enabling a player to give 28 days notice after which they could return to the recreational game. However, some submissions comment on the need for clarity about the conditions for the return of a player in those circumstances to the academy system. Can you ask your views on the conditions that they should apply in such circumstances? Good morning, and thank you for allowing the Scottish Youth FFA to be represented today. In respect of the 28-day rule, this was a rule that was put in place in May 1999 when the Scottish Youth FFA was formed. It was to eliminate the unscrupulous among the grass-roots game that at that particular time would say that we are going to hold on to a player for the full season. Since then, at our last AGM in June this year, we have taken the 28 days away, as I have indicated in my written submission, and we allow for a period of seven days. We will always err on the side of the child. The only reason that we have the seven days is if there is a dispute between a club and a player. The player writes to me as chief executive. We ask for comments from the club. If the club does not reply within the seven-day timescale, we automatically cancel the player's registration. The only two reasons that we would seek further clarification is that if the player owes the club kit, or if there are any items surrounding finance that have to be resolved. Apart from that, we would cancel the player straight away. For interest, do you have a percentage of the number of clubs that respond within seven days? It is not something that we measure. However, what I would say is that I do not hold me to this being exact, but 99.99 per cent of players are seeking release. We roughly cancel about 15,000 players per year. Of the ones in dispute, we probably have about 15 per year. The interesting thing, earlier on, I alluded to financial matters. One of the situations that we had to deal with was a club that had a young player. He had been at the club for two years. The club were alluding to the fact that he owed them his fees for two years at that particular time. I will brush up my reply, but it was basically go away. The guy has been with you for two years and now, because he wishes to leave, he wants to retain his registration. That registration was cancelled. Welcome to the panel. I turn to the issue of compensation. The Scottish Schools Football Association has commented that, with reimbursement of costs remaining, there are a number of risks. Those include a child being regarded as a commodity, an implication of course being that the child is owned by the club and the risk of such payments being used as leverage. If we are agreement that the welfare of the child and the enjoyment of the child in sport is paramount, especially to its longevity in sport, is that a risk that is recognised and shared by the panel? I can perhaps initially respond. It is a risk that we have highlighted. It is a risk that we have been unable thus far to delineate, but we have again a lot of anecdotal evidence of very unhappy kids. Where compensation becomes an issue, there are cases where children simply walk away from the game. That cannot be good for the game or necessarily for the child or the child's relationship with his or her peer group in school and in the community. Just the whole notion of transactions around young players gives rise to concerns. The general notion gives rise to concerns on a part of the Scottish Schools FA. We have commented frequently over the past 10 years or so on this, and we continue to hold those concerns. We have not been mollified in any way whatsoever. I struggle at times to understand why clubs do not see that they are benefiting the game and benefiting themselves. Maybe it is coming from a school's football background.  That is what we are interested in doing. If a school does well and they get some good experiences, who would have said that Stranraer Academy is going to storm away on route to get into a final in Hamden? It was not a great experience for the kids. They will tell you that it was an epic journey. It was the whole thing. Those are good things, but the minute they become commodities and the minute there is compensation, you are detracting from those possibilities. You are preventing kids from getting there. We are concerned about the overall welfare of children. If those things are getting in the way, it should not happen in our view. What is your interaction then with the categories in the SFA and clubs in the discussion around that? Continual dialogue between our SFA representative and the higher echelons of the SFA through the committees and at local level between local people on the Association's Executive Committee and senior people at clubs. If we find an impasse, we try to help. One of the points that we made in the paper is that when you have issues and a commodity, the school is not represented when they meet. I am thinking to myself, who is there as a kind of third party to make sure of the overall benefit? If you have a child with a problem relating to social work, family circumstances and all those things, the school has a chance to offer a view to assist in finding the best outcome for the child. If the impasse is that they cannot move from one club to another because of a fee, the school needs to be involved to help that child through it. We would strongly urge the committee to consider representation for the school where we have those cases to deal with. Are you suggesting in those circumstances—I do not want to put any words in your mouth, of course—that those circumstances are weighed against the child? Not necessarily, but there is a risk of it. That risk is something that we should seek to avoid, if we can, or diminish. I think that we have got to be very careful when compensation comes into play. We have got to look at this as being child-centric and we have got to look at it from their position. In the recreational game, schools, youth amateurs, welfare and so on, our core business is getting people to play and enjoy the game. The compensation issue should not be a barrier to participation. I know that, at a previous hearing of the petition, there was a dispute between evidence from two of the major clubs that there was a bidding war that was around £30,000 for a player, and that is in your records. I think that that needs to be eliminated. If there are guidelines, which there are now, those guidelines must be maximums. If it says that the compensation fee is £5,000, we should not have an auction over a child and allow it to get out of hand. Before I take in Gronach, I will ask the PFA from its own evidence, and you can respond to that point as well when you do so. On the issue of the 28 Days Notice, it does not apply to young people, or it may not apply to young people who are moving to another club, as opposed to going back to recreation and football. Your submission says that, as the current system stands, when a young player signs for a professional club under the club academy Scotland registration at sea aged 11, he or she cannot join another professional club unless his current club allows him to until the age of 23, as long as the club exercises his unilateral rights to retain his registration. The issue of compensation is absolutely vital here. I understand completely that the club academy Scotland players have concerns about the bigger clubs cherry-picking, about a loss of control, about players moving from club to club every year. I understand that, but I think that their fears are well-founded. We are just 21 years earlier this month since the Bosman ruling, which gave players freedom of movement. It is incredible that it took so long to give them freedom of movement when their contract was finished, because even when their contract was finished, prior to that, there was still compensation payable. Bosman was going to be a disaster for football. Here we are 21 years later, the game is flourishing at most levels, certainly in a professional sense. I think that those fears are well-founded. I just come back to the fact that it is about the individual, and this is what we should really be talking about here, is the individual young lad in these circumstances. I have just been through it with my own son through his teenage years, their bodies are changing, their minds are changing. If they are unhappy and they do not want to stay at a club, I do not think that compensation should be a barrier to them moving to another professional club. 28 days allows them to go back to the SYFA under their jurisdiction, but from what I understand, if they come back to the club academy Scotland, they will still be compensation payable. That is where the three-year registration kicks in, which we might get to. When you reach the age of 16 and you sign a professional contract as a player, you are then bound by FIFA's regulations, which bring in compensation. Again, as long as they make you a certain offer or a certain amount of salary, it is genuinely 11. If the club picks up your registration at the end of every season and it carries on to your 23, then that is when you are actually free. That is an issue for me. We have got more involved in this area. We have watched the petition as it is developed, mainly because more and more parents are coming to us about the issues that surround their lad in their registration. More on that are asking for information. They do not seem to be... I am generalising here, some clubs do, some clubs do not give the proper information. If you said to a parent that you realised when your lad signed it 11 that that was him, maybe he could not leave, they would probably say no. I just think that compensation needs to be looked at. There must be an alternative way, if there is a willingness there, to have a compensation pool, perhaps separately, that clubs can apply to under certain circumstances. A huge debate can be done, but any compensation should not disallow a young person from deciding that I am not happy at club A, I am not enjoying it, I am a 14-year-old boy and I want to go play for club B. That is the fundamental, but I cannot give my head around the compromising of the rights of children. Thank you very much, Rona. Yes, thank you. Again, this is about compensation, but just for sort of clarity, are you saying that the requirement of having a system of compensation could be met through a mechanism other than the one currently in place? Is there an alternative suggestion? I think you said you think there should be. Also, would the suggestion that compensation should only be payable when a young player first signs a professional contract is that compliant with FIFA regulations? The second part, I am not too sure of that. You can ask the SFA and the SPFL on the FIFA regulations, but in a sense of, is there an alternative? Absolutely. There are a lot of people involved in football who are bright and professional football. I think that if they go around the table, we would be able to come up with an alternative. There are plenty of ideas around. There could be a levy on transfers, there could be a separate pool on an independent panel. When a player signs a professional player, it is 16, they are often a professional contract, then the clubs that develop him could apply to the panel for compensation. It is not just for every player, it is only for the ones that actually make it to the professional game. It should be actual costs as well rather than the matrix that is put together by the Scottish FFA, which, in a sense, because the compensation levels are higher for the bigger clubs, means that players at bigger clubs are stuck there because smaller clubs will not pay compensation, so they cannot decide that they are a big club and that they are not enjoying going to play somewhere else. We could not do it in this hour, but there are ways and means if there is a willingness to provide a different type of compensation system while not restricting the movement of the young player. My next question was realistically, how easy do you think it will be to change the current system? It will not happen overnight, but can it be done in the current set? Can it be done if there is a willingness? The clubs are the ones who control that side of it, so depending on the willingness of the clubs, I know there is a fear of cherry picking and of movement of players and a smaller club develops a young player and they put a lot of time and effort into it and then he moves to a big club, so when he is 14, 15 and they have not done anything, I understand that. But there will be a greater flow of players if there is no compensation because the smaller clubs could then say to the bigger club, the player at bigger club, come and play for us. There is a pathway to our first team. At the moment, the pathway to most of the first teams is blocked, there is not enough young players coming through, so it is wider than just the compensation, this is about developing our players, about the national teams performance, our clubs in Europe, it is about the fact that we are looking for players from the lower leagues in England and Ireland as a short term. I understand that friends of mine manage football clubs, their jobs are on the line if they do not win the next three games, but if the clubs get a better ethos where they can say to young lads, come and play for us because you are going to play in our first team, that is how you attract young players to stay at your club rather than going to a bigger club. If there is a willingness, then there is a way, although the willingness is there, I do not know. This is a question about the registration period. On the registration period for players in the 15 to 17-year-old age group, there are a couple of things I would like to explore with the panel. The commissioner for the children and young people has noted that this is an issue which causes most concern. We will be able to explore that with the commissioner at a future meeting, but is that the view shared by others? If I could perhaps start. We are concerned that for boys, predominantly, 15 to 17 years of age can be a time of considerable turmoil, internal issues, family issues, realisation of education actually counts. There are all sorts of things and we think that that is quite a long time for them to be tied. If it is going to be three years that the club has first refusal in the current system, we would like to see better cut-off points, more explicitly stated cut-off points and more explicitly stated mechanism for dealing with it. In my experience with young players, that is from you 15 to you 18 is when we have to deal with an awful lot of stuff, but not necessarily the football itself. You might find that the young player simply is not enjoying it, so we have to have more explicit arrangements. If three years and Fraser is right about the concerns of clubs, we would never fail to recognise their concern that it will get lost elsewhere, although the extent to which that happens remains to be measured more fully. We would want there to be a clear pattern of points in that period where the youngster and his family—we would argue in the school, of course—take stock of it with the club. The club needs to be a little more flexible in how it approaches it at times. Good morning. I want to talk about the three-year contract. Just correct me if I'm wrong here, but the three-year contract is one that holds the player to the club and means that they can hold him, but the player at that stage does not have the same right to see the three-year contract through, would that be right? The club can let them go after a year, but it can hold them for three years, but the player does not have a specific arrangement of the club. To do with when you reach the age of 15, if the club has a right to unilaterally retain the registration, that gives them the right to do that every year after that. Although it can be for three years, it is only really for a year, but then it gives the club the right again to choose whether to retain it at the end of that year. The issues that we have around that are more from perhaps a trade union point of view to do with employment as well, because at that stage of reaching the age of 16, that is one year into the three-year registration period. There is no obligation on the club to offer any of these lads a professional contract, but they can hold on to the registration and keep them as amateur players, meaning that the lad cannot go and play for another professional club if he gets a contract to be an apprentice somewhere else. I feel that restricts, so there could be work done there where the club was allowed to retain the registration at age of 16 if they offered him a professional contract. Again, I have sympathy with the clubs, and the big English clubs circle. They have all got full-time scouts in Scotland. They circle around, and I understand why the clubs want to make sure that they get conversation at that stage, but I cannot again get my head around how you can keep a registration but stop somebody getting a job elsewhere, which is essentially what it is. Could I just add one way? Of course, the statutory school leaving age is right in the middle of that period, so you can have a situation where a child is leaving school but cannot actually go and do something because they have not been offered a professional contract. We think that the things out of kilter are with other legislative frameworks as they apply to children. The reality of it is that when you have a group of 20 players at under 16 level and clubs have got to choose, and there are restricted budgets, they cannot afford to take everybody on. It is a talent identification. If they take on three or four, they might have three or four that they think that they are still decent players, but we cannot afford to take them on, so they will retain them as amateurs but they will give three or four of the apprentice contracts. Again, you can sympathise with that element where they do not want to lose that control of them, but again, it comes back to not being able to be offered a job. Sorry, David, but surely you can only sympathise with it to the extent that if you are looking at it from a strictly business point of view, but you cannot sympathise with it if what you are looking for is the benefit of the child to make sure that people stay involved in the game and just common decency and fairness, because it sounds to me that all the cards are in the hands of the club and none of them are in the hands of the child. Having been a father of two teenage sons, having run amateurs and joined your football clubs, I know that in that period kids sing things and their parents are forced into it, one myself at some stage, when the glamour of it takes over from the common sense of it and it is a very, very difficult thing to do, so it is a very important issue. That is that around 100 young lads got apprenticeship contracts in the summer, probably summer of this summer of 2016, and out of the previous tranche, it is usually a two-year apprenticeship programme that they go into that is funded by SDS, and the lads who came in two years ago and turned 18, whose initial two-year contract finished, about 35 got further contracts. Now, if you think of the number of players that have come through that age group from the age of 11, if you counted them all, I would be guessing as to how many would actually be, have actually been registered during that whole period, but over a seven-year period for only 35 to get contracts at the end of it. I just think that that should be known, that should be told, we have to get the truth out there that football is a fantastic life, I mean I've been involved in football for all my working life, very lucky as a player administrator, but it's hard and it's hard and it's about, as you said, the welfare of the child, the interests of the child, the schools talking about school leaving age and education and it's about how we get into the minds of young people that the chances are they're not going to make it without taking away that dream, that's that we don't want to take away, but all these barriers are put in place and the truth of it is that only 35 people got pro contracts at age 18 this year at the full-time clubs. Can I just say that this particular age group is one of the most vulnerable age groups within Scottish society and we need to take as many steps as possible to support them. I welcome the reports in the press about Operation Brave, which is basically to reduce the amount of players within Club Academy Scotland. My contribution to Scottish football was coining the term jersey filler and there's too many jersey fillers within the system and we shouldn't give players young players expectations. A friend at the English FA did some research on this and that the reckon 0.17 per cent of players through academy systems actually go on to get full professional contracts. If we take that 0.17 per cent and in a Scottish context call it 100 per cent, you then have to ask the secondary question how many of that actually make a living out of playing football. I think that in respect of the three-year age group, players should have the choice and if there are programmes that are better and I think that's the way of retaining players have the best possible programme. Again, from a previous submission, a rear survey that was carried out, it basically said that 55 per cent of people surveyed commented that their club explained registration to them. With my old level in arithmetic, that means that 45 per cent didn't explain. I think that we've got to have robust guidelines for players because players are trying to latch on to a star, they're trying to latch on to a journey and sometimes parents wish to travel in the same journey. I think that there needs to be robust paperwork and there needs to be a sign-off in that paperwork, that it has taken place and that both the player and the parents accept and understand that. Any documentation has to be child-centric. That is a very good point, but would you also say that in that process there would have to be something that showed, without killing the dream, that the likelihood of you making a living out of football is much less than you think it is when you sign that document because most of them sign it because they think they're going to play for Scotland to centre forward or something, but the reality is that you're going to end up playing amateur football, you're going to end up playing junior football and you want to keep that, you want to keep the dream alive but you also want to make sure that they're realistic so that when they end up having to go their bubble isn't bursting, you're losing with football and I know many young men have stopped playing because of that. I think that we've also got to accept that during this period bodies are changing. The player that maybe wasn't the diamond at 14s may become the diamond at 17s, so I think we've got to look at that. It's a bit like one of the things that happened within your constituency when we had the X-factor additions at Hamden. I know, I know. That was because you were only the one with the dog. In that respect, again, thousands of kids turning up, and I think that there's people far more qualified than me within the Scottish Football Association and also my learned friend to my left that need to put something together and explain and have clear unequivocal facts out there about chances, not wishing to kill the dream but having to deal with the consequences. There is a risk with this system that the late developers overlooked because they're abandoned at 15. I would suggest that you might want to look at what happens in Belgium. They have a wonderful late developers programme and a significant proportion of their national team, which is one of the better national teams around just now coming from that. With the notion of the dream and reality, it's a difficult balance. It's one that we deal with in all sorts of contexts in schools. They need the dream to motivate them, so we can't lose sight of the dream, but we have to kind of cushion it with, well, let's have some insurance, you know, just in case. I've got a good example of a young lad who's currently playing full-time in professional football in Scotland. He comes from the far north, who had a late development physically, then had developmental issues in his skeleton, and basically had to take a year out of the game. People thought the game had forgotten him. He still had the dream and the determination, and he's now in the game at one of the largest clubs in this country. We have to kind of find a balance, but at the same time that he was out, he continued with some education just to cover it. I think that it's finding the appropriate balance again. Thanks for allowing me to join the committee this morning. My brief includes fair work, so I was particularly struck by the PFA Scotland submission, which spoke about something that we haven't got to yet, which is the national minimum wage. You say in the submission that some of the clubs are paying as little as £1 a week when we know that the national minimum wage, even for 16-18-year-olds, is £4 an hour. I wonder whether you could elaborate a bit more about your experience of pay rates and some of the reasons that lie behind those kind of rates being paid. Unfortunately, I have seen contracts recently as well of £1 a week and £10 a week, and this goes all the way down to the part-time clubs as well. I think we all say that's unacceptable. The law applies to everybody, and sometimes clubs will say, yeah, but the player agreed to it, and you think, well, no, an employer, an employer are not allowed to contract out of the national minimum wage standards, and I would like to see something in the rules to address that. My HMRC, on its website, says that a contract is invalid if it doesn't pay the national minimum wage, which to me creates all the problems for football in terms of registration and compensation and eligibility to play. Players are reluctant to raise complaints sometimes, especially when they're younger lads, because if you raise a complaint, the reality is that you might not play, you might not get a new contract, so they kind of go along with it. There was a situation a couple of years ago, I think, when I think it was in front of this committee, a young lad, Kieran Doran's case was brought forward, and Skills Development Scotland, as a funds and apprenticeship programme, wrote to all the clubs just to make sure that they were paying the minimum wage via the training company. I think one or two did have to change their wage. The difficulty, of course, is what does a football player do? What is their working week? That's something that I think could be agreed with by ourselves as a union and the clubs. Therefore, you have a starting point, because players, for example, are not allowed to go out on a Thursday or Friday night, socially, stay out of pumps, restaurants or whatever else, rest. Now, if they don't, and they go out for a sneaky pint somewhere, then they can be sanctioned, they can be punished. From my point of view, that's them working. Initially, I think that it could and should be dealt with, but we're told there's no appetite really to the clubs to deal with that in terms of regulation. Of course, the players can come forward and go to HMRC, which one or two of them are doing, then go to the SPFL with the complaint as well. I say that they're reluctant to do so sometimes, and one club recently we went out to, and it was young lads who were 17, 18, not in the apprenticeship programme, and they weren't getting paid the minimum wage, so I sat round with Dave with a club, just trying to negotiate, trying to talk through it, and their reaction was to actually shorten their hours, rather than actually pay them the minimum wage, so full-time football is now in for 16 hours a week. How they can develop their professional football on that basis, I don't know, rather than looking at it in most jobs. If you're 17 or 18, you know you're going to get a wage rise, so the minimum wage is going to be put up, but the football seems to be rits real the other way. I wonder if I could move on just because I know time is limited to something else that we haven't discussed, which I think is important. We've spoken about clubs, lads themselves, parents, but there is also now in the game a set of people who are agents and intermediaries, and I wonder whether you could perhaps tell the committee a bit more about their role in the way that this registration scheme works. Absolutely. This is absolutely relevant to the petition and the welfare of young people and children. It's a concern for us. As a short history, FIFA used to have a licensing system where you had to pass an exam and you then had to post indemnity insurance or a bond or some kind, and there were checks and regulations. FIFA disbandied that completely, for reasons only known to themselves, mainly because most transfers weren't being done conducted by licensed agents. What they did was they gave a minimum set of standards to every association in our situation at the Scottish FFA, and that was the minimum amount, and they are pretty minimal, and they allowed the countries to create their own regulations on top of that. We've had concerns, which we have raised with the SFA and the clubs, and they are aware of our concerns. In this area, the concerns are a lack of disclosure and PVG checks for those who register as intermediaries, as they are now called. They are allowed to sign representation contracts of sorts with minors, so an 11-12-year-old lad with a guardian's approval can sign a contract for an intermediary to represent him at that age. Why do you need somebody to represent you at that age? I don't know. An agent is really there to conduct the negotiations for a contract of employment, so those are areas that do concerns. There are no limits to the length of that representation contract, although the one caveat that has been put in it, our request, was the three-month notice period until you're 18, but you can sign a representation contract for 20 years. If it doesn't kick it, you don't—I'm implementing the notice period at the time you're 18, so you're stuck with this intermediary. In terms of the welfare of young people, I think that there should be greater checks of any intermediary that's going to interact with young people. I think that they shouldn't be allowed to sign a representation contract with a person under 16, but that's my view. You do not need representation, you do not need an agent until you are 16, but if they're going to have it, then I think that there should be greater checks put in place. Can I make just one point on that? It's maybe homework for the panel. There is a book, The Secret Agent, Inside the World of the Football Agent. That's worthy of reading. The author, surprise, surprise, is anonymous. Sorry, but can I just confirm that you've said that these intermediaries don't go through disclosure Scotland? Fairly. The SFA will have a checking system, and I'm sure they can explain it a bit more clearly, but if it doesn't stand out, there's not any requirement for disclosure. The three panel members here are all here because they have a—the role makes them feel responsible for the welfare of the school children, the young players, the players in general. Do you not think that what seems to be coming out of the evidence here is that there seems to be an almost total disregard for the welfare of the children coming from the authorities? If you have agents that can interact with kids at 12 years of age that haven't been PVG checked, if you have contracts of a pound a week and if you have no certainty around what that child is going to be able to do when it reaches 16, 17 and 18, that's surely a dereliction of duty on nodes that should be looking after these children, because I'm convener of the Education and Skills Committee. Child protection is in our remit and I'm kind of horrified by some of the stuff that I'm hearing here today. I think just to come in on that, the school's FFA is profoundly concerned about this development, and it's in recent years really, and we think one of the reasons is that parents feel intimidated by clubs and they think that an agent will know how to stand up to a club. So I think we've got to balance that way. We're profoundly concerned about intermediaries. We think it's for anything up the school leaving age, it's completely inappropriate, and we'd ask that the game looks at that very seriously, particularly in the current environment. You know where we're at just at the minute. I'm just clarifying this question of the minimum wage. My understanding is that clubs have either sought or been given advice on how to avoid the minimum wage. Do you have a view on the ethics of even seeking that advice? Well, when we've been involved in speaking to clubs about the minimum wage and about other industrial issues, if you like, and I believe some of them sought advice from the SPFL centrally and understand their lawyers put together a document. I don't think it was to avoid paying it, but there were suggestions around zero hours contracts and other matters as well, as a way of clubs being able to budget for these matters. It would be a real good surprise that we disagreed with a lot of the impact in that, and I think that these things are not possible in football anyway. There's a lot of advantages in zero hours contracts, but at least you're allowed to say, I'm not going to go to my work. It doesn't feel that in the clubs that you're describing that somebody can get paid a pound, a week, a pound a month, but they're not able to go and take another job because they're expected to be at their work, and at one level it's not so much to me the idea of the dream. I get that, but it's using the notion of that to encourage young people to work against their own interests. I can't see how it can possibly be anything other than—I mean, I don't know if you agree with me—that it's simple exploitation to work in the base that somebody would do this because they have some ambition to go and work for a little or no money, exclude the possibility of working elsewhere, and not to live any control over their own destiny. My experience tends to be around, again, compensation. One lad who was a £10 a week contract was the only one of the under-20s who was a part-time club, and the only one of the under-20s who wasn't on an amateur form—he was put into professional form 10 pounds a week—basically because the club were open about it, they lost a player who was actually turned out to be a decent player and made a career out of it, and they didn't get compensation because they only had them on an amateur form, so that tends to be why these players are put on these types of contracts, so it's just around retaining the right to compensation rather than players going free. I'll take Brian and then Morris. Can I just say, having been involved in sport for about 40 years and the last 20 years as a coach, having coached at national level under 15, under 17, under 20 and senior level, I find it absolutely absurd that we are using words like agents and wages and compensation for kids who should be out playing the game and enjoying the game and falling in love with the game. I just don't understand how this current system in any way, shape or form looks after the welfare of the child, and what I would like to ask you is, from your position, what influence can you have on this system at the moment? I'm getting so angry, I think it's insane. I think anger is understandable, but we need to moderate it to actually find a way to solve the problem. I go back to something that I said very early in our proceedings this morning, about how we continue to have grave reservations about compensation culture, and we're seeing it here. I think that a lot of these issues reflect that and would sustain the view that we carry that that needs to be looked at in a manner that is much more in keeping with the interests of the youngster. I think that Fraser's last point about a club putting a kid on a minimum amount of money just to hold it is just a beggar description. The beauty about it is, of course, in schools we don't have these issues. Now that's not being complacent or blasie because we deal with the consequences of it with young children, you know? A kid comes back to school and says, I started pre-season and I hated it, but they'll know let me go. Right, come back into school, you can play schools football, we'll get you back in love with the game because one of the things that's getting lost in all this is winning people to the game and I would make a plea to the committee to consider the welfare issues with that and it's not only players, it's great for the best players and perhaps become members of the Scottish PFA and you know, it's about all the levels of the game, it's about people who become coaches, administrators, referees, you know? All these people count and they all go through school and that's why we take a view on these things, that's why we're worried about the compensation culture, it's losing people to the game and there is a question about the ethical approach. Yeah, thank you chair. Following on from external regulation and following on from my previous comment, in his submission the Children and Young Persons Commission has set out his view that his overall impression is that the SFA and the SPFL have gone as far as they are prepared to go or are able to do so within their governing structures and that for real change to occur external regulation has to be imposed. Could I ask you as a panel what your thoughts are on this view? I would hope that the family of football could come together, I can identify the issues that have been raised today to identify the issues that have been raised on all the hearings of the petition and that we can come with player-centric and we can come up with rules and regulations that will enable the game to be much better regulated. I would hope that that could take place. Yeah, I think I agree that football has got enough good people around, enough clever people around to get together to come up with a compensation system if it has to be or it's a registration system, a developmental system that's fair to the young person. I just take it, strip it all back and we're all talking and lawyers are talking, it comes back to the young person, it comes back to me as a father, my son wasn't good enough to get to that level but he played boys' club football and still does. How would I feel if I was that parent, if my young person was unhappy and was tied in? I can't give a head round the young person not having the opportunity to have that option to move around and to choose where they play. The fallout rate is huge and I think we're seeing it more and more on the two gentlemen's either side, we know more than I do about this. Certainly anecdotally I hear more and more of lads when they leave a club academy system, they don't get professional contract at 16, just stopping playing. Now that's totally wrong, I still, some of my closest friends are people who I played with when I was playing in boys' club football aged 12, 13, 14 up to 16, still very close to them and it's a social thing and if they don't make it at a certain level, find your level, play football, if that's amateur football then absolutely fine, if that's fire-side football, absolutely fine, there's fitness, there's health, there's all sorts of other benefits, there's social benefits training tonight's a week and a plan a weekend as well, friendship aspect of it as well and that to me is also very, very important, it's wider than just the game here, I think everybody has to look at it. Surely from the individual's point of view. I was going to ask what the extent to which you've been engaged with Scottish Government in terms of if the clubs aren't able to regulate themselves, have you had, I think, the phrase, was extensive discussions with Scottish Government round what the options might be? I know the word extensive was used but I wouldn't have called it extensive, we do have good contacts, David Hamilton who's the lead of strategic leader, I think, his title is and I've found to be very good, very approachable and speaks to everybody within football which is certainly welcome from our point of view to PFA Scotland because we do get frustrated sometimes. Extensive discussions may be exaggerating slightly but we have had discussions. This is not an area where we've been too involved in previously but I think now given the intermediaries, given it's a moral issue for us as an association as well, the developmental issues around the players, how we're developing young footballers and also the number of parents that are coming forward to us looking for advice, that's why we've kind of stepped into this area. So the contact has been welcome from Government. Okay, James Jordan? I was just going to... Oh, I apologize, sir. No, no, thank you. I haven't stopped you already. I have a preference for Georgia rather than World War. I think if everybody in football sat down and we actually started saying, right, here's the context we want a young person to be in and Gyrfech sits out there, it seems to me to still be current enough and applicable enough that we use that as a starting point. What happens at the minute is the interests of the clubs tends to be the starting point and that's understandable in many senses and bear in mind the clubs form the Scottish FA so you have to find a way of that. I share Fraser's view, I think there's enough ability in the game to do these things and I would just point out the game needs to make the most of these abilities, which is why paragraph two of our response applies to my point here. Thank you. It's kind of leading on from what you say, convener. You're right, obviously, the ideal solution is an internal football one, everybody's on the same page, but football has to accept it, it doesn't stand alone, it's not an island, it's part of community and there doesn't seem to me to be a recognition of that given the evidence that we've had today that they have got a responsibility to those people that are involved in it, not the three witnesses that we have here, but the general bodies. How can you see that football in itself is going to do it unless they're willing to take that responsibility on? It's always possible if parties to a discussion are prepared to accept change, if they start from point of resistance. Part of my working life was involved in the Highland Football Academy Trust, which involved two professional football clubs in Wines, Caledonia and Thyssel and Rose county.  Yes, that's what I'm doing. We had that, we did proximity talks, A-cast style and they eventually agreed that trust is a success, it is developing players, the two clubs are in the top division in Scotland, built on the foundations that they've built, because they realised that working together is much more important than running parallel paths. I see a direct link between that kind of discussion and the kind of discussions we need to have to address the issues that members are raising this morning. I think that it's vitally important that all parties, all levels of the game, need to become involved in this debate. Certainly, over the last few months, I've spoken to David Hamilton on a number of occasions, I've found him to be very helpful, very informative and I would have absolutely no difficulty going back and speaking to David on any issue. Brian, just a final last question. As you've alluded to, there are some really good people in football from the SFA down, who I'm quite sure would hold the same view as most of the people currently in this room, which begs the question, why haven't they got round the table? My concern would be, is this because the power of the clubs is that the club voting system, do they have too much control over what might change or what might not change? Yes, absolutely right in the sense that it's the clubs that are members of the SPFL, that they make the decisions, they are also member clubs in wide and wider, there's more than just the 42, they're members of the SFA and I think you're right that there's an intellectual argument to be won here about this whole issue and I think it comes down, its fundamentals come down to the clubs are scared to lose that diamond, they're scared to lose that one star player and that's the wrong way to look at it because that just leads to a complete inertia in terms of the movement of players, the flow of players, it's about taking away that fear and saying to a smaller club, even if he's 13 a bigger club comes and takes him, you've still got the ability to go and convince young people to come and play for your club and that might be at one of our bigger clubs as well, which can't happen now because of the compensation system, so taking away that fear that they have and looking at the wider and greater good, our national team that's been struggling for many years, our clubs aren't performing as well as they perhaps could in Europe and it's about wider to the good of the game is developing young people, making the environment happy, making them flourish as individuals as well as football players, making sure that when the dream is taken away from them they've been working hard at school and their education has been done properly, making sure that they slip back into whether it's David's system or whether they're older into the amateur system and they continue to play football, so it's wider than just the focus on if we miss this one nugget then we're not wanting to miss out on compensation system, it's about the greater good, so I think there's an intellectual argument here that needs to be debated and had for football before we can move forward. I think that that has concluded our question or if you've got any last comments you want to add. If not, thank you all very much for coming along this morning. I think that your contribution has been exceptionally useful. We're also going to be hearing at a later date from the commissioner for young people and that's really informed our thinking but I'm sure that the conversation will continue and can I suspend until we change the panel? Thank you very much. If I can call a meeting back to order and can I now welcome our second panel of the morning, Andrew McKinley of the Scottish Football Association and Neil Doncaster of the Scottish Professional Football League and as with the previous panel we'll go straight to the questions but can I welcome you here today? Can I maybe just start off by asking how many children and young people are currently registered within the club academy Scotland system and what proportion are expected to graduate? If I can use that term to play professionally for Scottish clubs? I'll take that one. There are three and a half thousand within club academy Scotland. I can't give you a percentage of how many are expected to graduate. There will be a small amount of that. What I would say though around that and it's important in the current context is I think that it was mentioned by one of the previous panellists that is part of Project Brave. We are looking at that number. I think there isn't acknowledged, I don't think there isn't acknowledged but that's far too many. It's club academy Scotland is supposed to be the elite end of the game and I think that David used the phrase Jersey fillers. We need to look at that. It needs to be cut down and Project Brave is looking at that to make sure that there is more of an expectation that if you're in that you're likely to succeed. I took the point on earlier on listening to the evidence that getting that balance right between the expectation and not dashing someone's hopes I think that's a really good point and a really difficult balance to allow. The drop-out rate is as opposed to those who are not successful. Is there any analysis, any conversation with young people who decide to chuck it for a better phrase about what has motivated that desire to leave? On the first point, genuinely, I don't have numbers for drop-out rates from club academy Scotland on the second point. One of the things we're very keen to do and we've worked with the Scottish Youth FA in this and it's had teething problems but I think we're now at a good place in it is around when boys do drop-out we want to find a path for them back to the recreational game. They've often come from the recreational game in the first place and therefore it's important that you don't want to lose them entirely to the game and so what we've done is we've worked through issues, usual data protection type issues, to make sure that those names are available so that the clubs that maybe they've been with previously or other recreational clubs can pick them up again to make sure that they do still enjoy and play football. In your letter to the Children and Young People's Commissioner in November 2015, you set out a series of measures to be put in place in response to recommendations made by the commissioner and we're also going to come to questions and specific issues relating to the measures but briefly could you confirm whether the measures set out have now been rolled out and what processes are in place for monitoring by the wellbeing panel? Yes of course all of them other than one are in place and the one that's not in place is not because we don't want to put it in place we will put it in place I think it's a fundamentally important one and it's around having this standard pack that clubs give to individuals at the beginning of the season we are still working on that so I don't want to mislead the panel and that that's in place the others are all we're all brought in by new rules I think that standard pack is appropriate when we were here last time and I think it was it was Mr McDonald actually was here last time and he was showing the form that had to be signed by the parents and that's an area that we need to work on more to make sure I take on board the fact and we've had this discussion before that when parents are there with with children signing forms the last thing they're wanting to do is to get into the minutiae of all the all the registrations etc so it's an area we do need to make sure we get that in plain English so there's a clear understanding of what they're entering into. Okay thanks very much Maurice Corry. It's going to be a gentleman to the 28 day period the new measures which include enabling a player to give 28 days notice after which they could return to the recreational game. If a player chose to exercise this but after a period of time they wish to return to academy football at a different club what conditions would apply to that return? The main ones around the reimbursement of training costs but it would it would depend on the particular circumstances and that would be something for the children's wellbeing panel to consider at the appropriate time but the main one would be would be reimbursement of training costs that had been incurred by the initial club. Okay okay Rhona Mackay. I'd like to repress you on the issue of the standard pack you mentioned you were working on can you give us can you tell us more about that how long will it take to actually have that? It has to be in for the beginning of next season and basically the crucial bit for that pack is at the end of each year we only brought the new rules in at the beginning of this season so they're new for this season so therefore we have to work on them that must be in for the beginning of next season. Do you have a figure for the current percentage of players reporting that they actually understand the terms of registration prior to the form being signed do you have an idea of how many? Well it was actually I think it was Mr Little in the last session gave a percentage that came from our own analysis that's not so it was talked about that 55% fully understood it was a bit more than just we're aware fully understood so I accept that that and that's why that's an area that we need to work on totally totally appreciate you place for the next yes okay thank you thanks McDonald thanks convener and we've heard some discussion regarding compensation during the previous panel session so we've also had submissions that we've received making reference to compensation scheme being a FIFA requirement so how prescriptive is this requirement about the exact arrangements of the compensation scheme? The scheme that has to be in place the FIFA requirement I think it was in my my first letter to the commissioner we actually referred to specifically but basically the FIFA requirement is that all associations have to have regulations for movement between clubs so within a domestic sphere that provide for a system to reward clubs for investing in the training and education of young players it's not it's about reimbursement for them investing in the training and education of young players the matrix and again the suggestion has been given that the matrix that these numbers are somehow plucked out of thin air we did quite a lot of work this goes back three or four years ago around the amounts that are spent by the clubs at the different levels and so the matrix ties into what level a club is within club academy scotland having said that and this is a crucial point and it's picking up again on something that was said earlier the suggestion then is is that if you want to go from a higher club to a lower club that would be impossible because the higher club had spent more and that the regulations are done in such a way that that's not the way it works the lower club would pay the amount as if they had been trained to make sure that that movement should be able to happen and in practice has that happened has movement taken place yeah well I guess from our perspective what we did around the matrix is we brought in in 2015 in the summer of 2015 we brought in a dispute resolution procedure to make sure that whether where issues because and the reason we brought that in so I should take a step back the reason we brought that in is we spent quite a lot of time and I think I gave evidence last time in 2014 to this committee around this point that in my time which would have been two years at that point within the Scottish FA there had only been a handful of these brought to our attention that's more than you want I accept that for the particular individuals involved but we had dealt with them on an ad hoc basis we had come to you know we'd effectively mediated and we'd made sure that satisfactory arrangements were made however what we did we appreciated that that was ad hoc we brought in a dispute resolution procedure in 2015 where there are disputes around it and today that dispute resolution procedure has never been triggered okay thank you can I ask in that in any other walk of life if I'm working for a company and they train me and I get a new job because I've benefited from that training under what circumstances would my old employer best able to get money from my new employer I take it slightly differently and analogy around more around sport for a lot of elite sport and a lot of other sports the children that are involved in that pay to be involved in that they pay the clubs that they're involved in on a monthly basis the elite level of football here the clubs are doing the players do not do not pay playing for a club which then benefits from their play their business benefit I mean it's not as if they're sitting there training them giving them skills which they don't then deploy in the interests of the club no I appreciate that I mean there's also suggestion here that there's loads of these payments being made per year and I I'm not aware of their actually being many payments but these compensation disputes are disputes amongst clubs they're not really about the young person well that the point of the rules is that the young person should not be stopped that should be between the two clubs absolutely so do you accept the description of somebody who could end up signing a contract at 11 and being stuck there to their 23 I've not I've not seen it in practice I've not seen that issue the issues not come before us I accept I accept it's a technically possible I accept that except that if no one's if no one's possible is acceptable or unacceptable even if it's a technicality even if it actually hasn't happened yet but could technically happen if it did happen would it be unacceptable it would be unacceptable if a player was frozen out of football for that period of time absolutely can I come in there would you mind mm-hmm firstly very much welcome the opportunity to talk to the committee I think there's a lot of misinformation out there and certainly I want to do whatever I can I'm sure Andrew's the same to ensure that we bring as much clarity to the debate as possible I think whenever we're talking about movement of players and compensation systems it's important that there is a balance in place and there's a balance between the interests of the young children and the interests of the the clubs ultimately if there is no incentive for clubs to invest time and money in developing these young players then they won't do it and that's what the the system that we have in place aims to do is to develop young players given the opportunity to succeed and follow their dreams but also not unduly curtail freedom so it's about getting that right balance in place my belief is that the system that we have in place achieves and strikes that appropriate balance I think we've made a number of important and positive changes to the rules and regulations both in relation to the SPFL and mainly on the Scottish FA and that those changes have improved the concerns that that did exist and I think we've ended up with a system that needs time to be to bed in and be monitored as to how successful it has been in protecting the interests of young players but also ensuring that clubs continue to have a strong incentive to develop and invest a lot of time and money in developing those players. What you're suggesting there that clubs are the only way that kids can be developed within the sport can I suggest to you that the balance should always be towards the welfare of the child there are other avenues from which children can be developed within sport I think it's interesting I was listening to you there there's many many other sports where talented children and one of the things I think that I need to point out here is enthusiastic talented children should not be classed as elite as it has been suggested here elite sports people are those at the highest international level in senior and I think that's one of the things here that's coming across to me there are many other sports where talented youngsters make it into national squads where they don't have to pay anymore as part of that and I just find it strange that we're talking here about the clubs being the only avenue for which which kids can be developed within the sport and absolutely to take a point I don't think I am suggesting that the clubs are the only avenue but they are an avenue clubs do spend a lot of time and money their own money in investing in youth and in most cases you know that investment doesn't come to anything because the players don't go on to become elite professional players but in the circumstances where they do and they become sought after particularly from bigger more wealthy clubs south of the border there has to be protection in place to ensure that the clubs are appropriately compensated for the investment that they've made at the same time the absolute prime focus has to be on the welfare of players and I believe that the system that's been brought in and the rule changes that we've together introduced over the last few years have been absolutely focused on player welfare and have achieved that appropriate balance ensuring that players' rights are fully respected whilst at the same time continuing to ensure that clubs have an incentive to invest if we remove that incentive then we will remove many of the opportunities that exist for young players and I can't see how that can be in the interests of those young players you're saying that the issue is that the bigger clubs in the clubs south of the border are suckling to me that would suggest that the problem extends outside of Scotland then because again that's all I'm interested in quite frankly is in the welfare of the child and the child's ability to play within sport would you not agree that we need to put pressure on elsewhere as well as within our own game I'm sure Andrew's got a report that I'm sure he'll want to refer to in a moment which talks about the scale of the problem I think the system that we have in place at the present where we have any form of dispute where there is a concern about a player being having his or her freedom curtailed we have rules in place to ensure that their interests are at the heart of the considerations going forward and we particularly the Scottish FFA would want to get involved and to help resolve those issues and that happens in practice so I suspect that that's why we haven't had disputes go all the way to the children's panel because actually they get resolved and they get resolved in the right way with with the children's welfare being being at the heart of the debate I suspect it might be appropriate to give evidence of these because I totally um take the point it's wider wider than Scotland it's important to look at that and and that it was a it was a crucial part of the consideration around the 15 to 17 year old point was around this upheaval point of children to england england we are in a difficult position because we have the wealthiest league in the world on our on our doorstep they are able to you know pardon the colloquial but they're able to take a punt and and we put that in there that it was important for us from from a welfare consideration that we didn't allow the English club just to come in and take take our talent just like that now that was scoffed at it's quite often been scoffed at to me and say well you've got no evidence of that you don't you don't that that's just not happening and and just two weeks ago a report came out from and I'll just read parts of it and I'm happy to send on to the committee and the CIS football observatory monthly report for december 2016 on the international mobility of minors in football and of almost 600 footballers who moved abroad before the age of 18 and who currently play in clubs at the top 31 divisions in UEFA almost a third of them the destination is england 180 minors the report which was fully explored in the french language book slow foot where it states that players having left their country under the age of 18 have on average less rewarding careers than footballers who left with more experience under their belt and it says whilst this is for some time been the suspicioners of observers of the traded minors the obvious conclusion is that it is the money within the market that is dictating the movement of youths rather than development of their footballing potential in secure and supporting environments the authors claim that the premature international migration of inexperienced players poses serious risks for both the footballers concerned and the teams recruiting them and so I'm just giving that from it from independent around why we were genuinely I know there's a view that we we look at this through one prism and we don't look at it from a children's welfare perspective but genuinely around the 15 to 17 year old point we were really concerned people in the working group were really concerned about this ability of the English clubs to come in and take the players I do understand that and you know I'm aware of you know Mersenbengers actually one of the main protagonists of this especially pulling them out of France but that doesn't get away from the fact that that practice may not be the best interest of the child and by creating a system in Scotland that backs that up even though you're trying to protect you're protecting the football clubs which is my worry that doesn't make it right we're trying to strike a balance I don't know if you do I think it's absolutely about the balance and if you if you create the absolute freedom for for young players to move as they wish then what will inevitably happen is that the most talented will simply go to the very biggest and wealthiest clubs particularly south of the border at the very earliest opportunity because of the the understandable lure of money and it's difficult to see how that's in in their developmental best interests but from a Scottish perspective what it will absolutely do is to remove any incentive from our professional clubs to invest in youth development we had a presentation at the the Scottish FFA's convention recently from a club south of the border and their model is now not to invest any money in in the lower levels of youth development but simply to hoover up the the the talented players who don't quite make it in the top level academies and what that's effectively doing is then removing opportunities for the lower age groups and reducing the investment in the lower age groups so I do think that it's important that we strike a balance absolute freedom will may may in the short term be seen to help the players but will absolutely remove the number of opportunities and the investment in the development of those young players so it's appropriate that we have a balance system that incentivises clubs to invest but also creates appropriate freedoms and respects absolutely the the rights of the individual and the child my view genuinely is that we've arrived at a fair balance system it may not be perfect and there may be further improvements that can be made but I do believe that we've made significant progress that we've introduced a number of very significant changes as a result of this process and those changes have been positive and what we should rightly do is to have time to see how they work in practice and if there are any further improvements that need to be made look at that time after we've evaluated how successful they've been but at the moment we are not seeing any evidence of unresolved disputes and players, young players having their their appropriate freedoms being curtailed. Can I ask you what has has a compensation scheme which is operating in Scotland present being compared to schemes in other countries? All old countries have similar type schemes and what I would say on that is that there's actually a move in other countries across the UEFA jurisdiction to extend the three-year point. There's a feeling in other countries that it should actually be longer than that that's not something that we're suggesting just to make it clear and the reason for that is not protection of the the clubs it's actually development of the young players the view is that premature movement of players actually reduces their ability to develop as professional players so the view elsewhere is that they should be kept with their home clubs for longer. Our view is that three years remains an appropriate time at this stage with the protections that exist to enable players to move in appropriate circumstances and the regulatory bodies have a role in ensuring that happens. Chair, can I just ask a further question? Are there any other key differences that you've found from that investigation apart from what you just spoken about? That's a number of jurisdictions where the compensation is payable on the awarding of a first professional contract. We have a system in place which deals with compensation where the players move prior to the first professional contract. There's no rights and wrongs here, there's a difference in approach. I believe that our system is right and appropriate and is appropriate to Scotland. You may have just answered my question. You'll have heard from the previous panel about the high level of concern about the compensation culture in children's football and I was going to ask if you share that concern and if you have a figure or a percentage of players moving between club academy Scotland clubs and how often that compensation payment is triggered just to give us an idea of the level of that? Andrew may have more statistics than I've got to hand, but certainly my experience of the clubs is that they work very hard to resolve bona fide disputes, where, for example, a young player's family is moving from one region to another within Scotland. There will be a lot of work done behind the scenes to ensure that the compensation framework that exists is not a barrier to that player moving. Clubs are very respectful, genuinely, of the rights of the young player. If there's any doubt, then it will come. It will end up with the governing bodies to get involved and to find a resolution. Just to clarify, you approve and would not change the present compensation system? No, I genuinely believe that it strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of the young player and the need to incentivise clubs to invest. Do you have a figure, Mr McKinlayon? I don't have an exact figure. What I would say is, and I think I touched upon it, is that it's very rare for there to be compensation or reimbursement training cost payments. I would pick up on the point that Neil made there around where there's a couple of things. One thing that we did bring in, and it's not been mentioned at all here today, is that we brought in a new rule around game time. If a player doesn't get a particular amount of time, they are allowed to leave the club at the end of the season, even during that three-year point. It was a feeling that clubs were just hanging on to players and weren't using them at all. It's 25 per cent. On the other point, as I said, there's not many examples that I'm aware of of where it's actually paid. One specific area where some concerns have been noted is the phrase subject to appropriate welfare considerations in respect of club academy Scotland players being able to play for school teams. You've probably heard this issue discussed in previous panels. Could you explain what these considerations are and why they will benefit to the children and young people affected? I'll take that one because it's quite an easy response to that. That was in the initial recommendations. That is not what's in the rules. That's not in the rules at all.  We took out the wording around subject to welfare considerations when we came to the actual rules. That was in the initial recommendation. We took on board the comments of the Children's Commissioner on that point. Therefore, when it actually came into the rules, it says that the child should be allowed to play for their school team. I accept that there will be discussions going on that I'll be unaware of that were mentioned by the schools FAA between clubs and schools, but the rule is clear that the club should not be preventing a player from playing for their school team where they wish to do so. One of the issues identified in relation to not changing the multi-year registration period for players in the 15 to 17 age group is the potential for negative impact on health and wellbeing. In particular, the upheaval, both to England and Scotland, would be disruptive for family life and education. Why would decisions about what would be the best answer of family life or the education of a young person be matters for clubs or the SFA rather than a young person and their parents or carers? I mean, I guess we've just talked about the background to that and we've just given you answers to that. The other side to that and it was evidence that we gave last time, I think, in 2014. And it's probably important that you should hear from a club and it was John Murray, the end of hearts, that came and explained more around the 15 to 17-year-olds and gave good evidence to the committee as to why that age group was so important from a growth perspective. We've talked a lot today about often a difficult three years. I think that when you look back at the evidence from 2014, he talks about the growth spots that children have gone through and the Osgoode slatters and those sorts of things and he gave good evidence on that as to why it was an important period for stability for the welfare of the child. I don't know if James Dornan. Thank you, convener. I've got a couple of questions for us. I want to go back to you on the misinformation point that was raised by Mr Donkuster earlier on. You talked earlier about two things. One is that the English FFA is by far the richest, the EPL is by far the richest league in the world and then you quoted from that report quite clearly protect the clubs because at the end of the day, if clubs are going to pay compensation, then the English clubs more than any other clubs are able to pay that compensation. So the amount of compensation means absolutely nothing in terms of the welfare of the child because if those English clubs want those players, they'll just come in and get them. So how does that help the welfare of the child? To me, you were trying to say that this was all about the benefit of the club, all the benefit of the child to make sure that he's not disrupted, but if they want them, they'll get them. The point, well, is a different compensation scheme cross-border, but I don't want to particularly go out money for the club and not for nothing to do with the child. That's fine. The point, though, was actually more around the stability of the system and the fact that the system is a good chance that the system would fall apart, and we wouldn't have a system and there wouldn't be anything for children, and that was what the main point was about around the welfare of the children in the wider sense. I don't really get that, but do you want to come in also? Don't cast it. I can only echo the points previously made, which is that there has to be an appropriate balance, and ultimately clubs are investing their own money in very extensive player developmental operations. They're doing their best to turn raw talent into future professional players, and they're doing that because they believe that they will either get the benefit of those players playing for them, or should the player decide to go elsewhere, then those clubs will be appropriately compensated for the money they've invested in those players. If you dismantle the framework, then you remove the incentive for those clubs to develop young players, and you'll end up with a significant lack of investment in development of young players, and I can't see how that can be for the benefit of either the Scottish Game or ultimately for the young players involved. As I was talking about earlier on, the Bosman ruling, everybody said that the world of football was going to come to crashing hall and didn't, and what you find is that football very often reinvents itself around about the rules that are in place. I would suggest that others have, that the child should be the centre of all these things that we're talking about. I want to talk about the misinformation point earlier on. Is it misinformation to say that three-year contract means that the club has all the control of the players now? It's a three-year registration, if it's not a contract. Right, that's worse because if it's three-year contract, the child will be getting paid for those three years. It's a three-year registration, which the club can break if the child can't. Well, Dan, do you want to give details of it? The club has a one-way option at the end of the first year and the second year to extend it. We also talked earlier. I've also mentioned that there are opportunities now to come out the game time rule that we've now brought in, the 28-day rule to go back to recreational football that we've now brought in, which we didn't have previously. I think that the other point to make it clear is that, in practice, it's not in the best interests of a club to keep hold of a player that doesn't want to be there. Therefore, in practice, there are many occasions where there's agreement between the players and the clubs that a player moves on, whether that's at the end of the season or during the season. Why do we have that three-year registration that only benefits the one side, Dan? Are you giving our reasons as to why? I know you don't accept those reasons, but we've given those reasons. You're right. I don't accept the reasons. The other piece of misinformation I think you might have been looking to, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, is the one round about wages being paid to young players in Scotland. I mean, there's tenor a week that's been mentioned, one pound a week that's been mentioned, and amateur club playing professional to get players to sign professional forms at a pound a week. Do you accept that this is happening or is this misinformation, and if it is happening, why is it happening and what action are the SFA and the SPFL taking to stop it? We saw the report in the daily record last week, at the same time as everyone else, so we weren't given any advance notification that that was going in there, so we've not given any opportunity to comment beforehand. We saw a report that three SPFL clubs were alleged to have breached national minimum wage legislation, so I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that we've written to each of the clubs concerned, asked for their comments, asked for full information, and we will investigate fully the allegations that have been made, and it would be premature to comment on those investigations at this time. What I can absolutely assure you, however, is that all SPFL clubs are fully bound by national minimum wage legislation. They are bound by the law of the land, like every other club, every other business, and it would be contrary to our rules that it were a club to be not paying national minimum wages. The obligation to pay at least national minimum wage is included within the scope of our standard professional contract. So we will absolutely investigate the claims that have been made. What I can do, however, is appropriate perhaps to quote from Stirling Albin, who was one of the clubs mentioned within that report in the daily record. They put a statement on their website, and that statement said that Stirling Albin FC can confirm that the case study referred to by the daily record has been fully addressed and resolved with the player in question. The club would like to thank PFA Scotland for their support and co-operation in bringing this matter to a satisfactory conclusion. The club can confirm, with the resolution of this isolated case, that everyone on the payroll at Stirling Albin FC exceeds the minimum wage requirements as laid out by HMRC. Wherever any player ends up in dispute with a club over any matter, whether it is national minimum wage or any other matter pertinent to the contract, we have a free dispute resolution procedure in place that the players can avail themselves on. They can bring a dispute to the SPFL and the SPFL will adjudicate on that complaint. That has happened on a number of occasions. We have not yet had any case brought to us in respect of national minimum wage. I ask what your view is of clubs seeking advice on how they get round to national minimum wage. It is important to put the report about the legal advice from Harper McLeod that was referred to in that article. We recognise that all clubs have to pay national minimum wage at least and that all clubs are bound by that legislation. The report that was put together by Harper McLeod was designed to educate clubs as to how the law operated. It is quite a difficult area. To work out if somebody is paying an X amount an hour, they would not have a contract that gave them a pound a week. What education is required for a club to understand if they are employing somebody and managing their time for 16 hours a week, they might be reasonably expected to get 16 times what their minimum wage is, rather than a pound a week or a pound a month? Absolutely. It comes down to how many hours they are working. How many hours would they have to work in order to get a pound a month? I am not suggesting that a pound a week is in any way compliant with either national minimum wage. I am asking you what your action would be against any club that has a contract that says that somebody is getting a pound a week or a pound a month. As I said, we are investigating the allegations made against our member clubs and we will look very carefully about what has happened. We are in the middle of that process. If it is appropriate to take further action against the clubs concerned, we will do that. Please be in no doubt that all clubs are bound by national minimum wage legislation and all clubs have to pay at least national minimum wage as part of a professional contract on the SPFL standard form. Given what we have said about imbalance of power between the club and an individual young person who may have an ambition to play, is it reasonable to test the effectiveness of the system by the number of young people who might have had a confidence or courage to go and take on their club? I hear what you say about that you do not hold on to a young person that you do not want to use any longer. I think that there is at least some anecdotal evidence that some young people do get frozen out, but they are not able to move on because of the power of the club itself. I would hope that that were to be the case. They would come forward and they would come forward to PFA Scotland, to ourselves or to the UK. We look for them in circumstances where they are future and their ambitions are at stake. To make a name for themselves as a troublemaker within any football club is not something that they are going to comfortably do if it then has an impact on their ability to get a game elsewhere. Well, players do bring cases to us to adjudicate, and we adjudicate on those cases and deal with disputes that exist between players and clubs. It is a very effective process and it is a free process. It is very easy to implement the PFA Scotland themselves, advise a number of players in relation to those cases. It is an effective system that works, but in no cases have we seen as national minimum wage has been an issue at all. Please be in no doubt that all clubs are bound by a national minimum wage legislation, and we will investigate any allegations that are made against our clubs. You have to contrast with the fact that there are contracts that we have seen for a pound a month and a pound a week, and anyone who is educated on how their national minimum wage existed would not have those contracts. That is something that you may want to chat further. I had a look at the SPFL rules and regulations, which are quite extensive, and it has a 10-page glossary at the beginning from adjudication through to visiting clubs. It goes from M membership criteria to O. There is nothing in the glossary that begins with letter N, perhaps national minimum wage could be introduced in the next edition. I just want to go back to something that I raised in the earlier session, which was about the role of agents and intermediaries. We are dealing with a crisis in football at the moment around child sex abuse, and it appears from evidence that we were presented with earlier on that there is no PVG checks made on agents and intermediaries in the game. I wonder whether you could perhaps address that, Mr McKinley. Can I do a first point on national minimum wage, and then perhaps if Mr McKinley deals with the agents and intermediaries? In relation to national minimum wage, please, again, be advised, be in no doubt that the obligation to pay national minimum wage is incorporated within the SPFL standard professional contract, so all clubs are bound to pay national minimum wage. If we see any allegations, whether it is through the daily record or elsewhere or through PFA Scotland, then we will investigate whether clubs have breached our rules. That is absolutely clear, and we are doing that in relation to the report of the three clubs in last week's daily record article. Could be more proactive, Mr Doncaster, couldn't you? Well, ultimately, the HMRC has primary jurisdiction in relation to national minimum wage. We aren't a police force wherever there is an allegation that any of our clubs is in breach of the rules, whether it be national minimum wage or any other rule, then we will absolutely investigate, and I think that it's appropriate that we do so. About the intermediaries, of course. It was touched upon by Mr Wishart and his evidence around the fact that this area was deregulated by FIFA. We do have regulations, however, one of the points about that is that intermediaries do not come under our jurisdiction until such time as they carry out a transaction. At the time that they carry out a transaction, they have to sign a declaration form. One of the points in that form is that they have to give a declaration that they have meet the required criteria to allow them to work for minors under the current guidelines, rules and regulations that are set out by Disclosure Scotland, or such other relevant Government agency of my country of domicile, the point being that you get a lot of agents that are not Scottish and therefore not covered. However, there is a self declaration. I accept that that is an area that I need to look at and see if there is more that we can do in that area. I do have oversight of the child abuse matter that you have alluded to. I will have oversight of the independent review that will be set up by us, and I suspect that this will be an area that they look into. Can I just follow up on the point about wages? As the regulatory body for professional football clubs, can you confirm that you did not know that some of the clubs were paying their children £1 a week? I find that astonishing. You did not know until you read it in the press. We moved from a situation prior to the merger with the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League in 2013. In 2014, we moved to a situation where, instead of having three separate registration systems, we effectively have one that is administered by the Scottish FA. We do not have sight of contracts that are signed between clubs and players. Effectively, eligibility to play in SPFL competitions arises due to Scottish FA registration. I did not have knowledge of any clubs paying £1 a week. Is there a dialogue or real interaction about the registration of the contracts or the payments being made? Is that not anything that you have concerned yourself with? No, I am absolutely concerned if clubs are not paying national minimum wage. My point is that you did not know that. No, it is precisely because we are concerned that all clubs should pay at least national minimum wage that we asked our solicitors to prepare a report for clubs to help them to ensure compliance with national minimum wage legislation. It is not as portrayed elsewhere that it is somehow to get around the rules. It is to be compliant with the rules. It is part of the SPFL standard contract that all clubs should pay national minimum wage. That is part of the framework that exists. Where there are allegations that any club is not paying national minimum wage, we will look very carefully at that. The grey area that I spoke about earlier is where, for example, you have a situation in the development of young players, you will often find that clubs on away trips will take young players with them to get used to the idea of travelling with a squad without any expectation that they would play on that day. That technique is probably working time. The point about national minimum wage is that, because clubs have to be compliant with national minimum wage and have to be paying players for any hour that they are working, what the national minimum wage may create is a situation in which clubs are no longer able to take players with them on those trips because they would not perhaps be compliant with national minimum wage, be that as it may. You are suggesting that clubs cannot afford to do that? At the lower level, that is absolutely the case. Yes, absolutely. That is what we are talking about here, generally part-time clubs that are really struggling to get by and will, in many cases, be struggling to pay even national minimum wage, but have to. With the more wealthy full-time clubs, I would be certainly very surprised if we were in situations where national minimum wage was relevant. But all clubs, whether they are part-time or full-time, are on professional contracts, as opposed to amateur contracts. Those professional contracts will be on the basis that national minimum wage is part of that. You want to comment on this, Mr McKinlay? All I would say is that we, the Scottish FA, register players. The registrations team, which is a team made up of three individuals—I checked that on Monday—to date, this year, have processed in excess of 18,000 transactions. They do not consider the terms of the contracts, so I just want to make that clear. I was absolutely not aware of that issue. Do you think that you register somebody with a contract that is illegal? Under the registration system, you can, yes. Under what circumstances would that be defined as a registration scheme worthy of its name? Well, we do not look at the terms of all the contracts. As I said, there are 18,000 transactions a year. No, I know. I do not think that having lots and lots of registrations or justification for having a registration scheme does not meet basic legal requirements, surely. I am missing something that you would register somebody who has been registered in circumstances where they are expected to work for a pound a month, a pound a week, whether there are conditions that are placed on them, not like a zero hours contract. They cannot go and do something else. Is that not the business of the SFA? I accept the point that you are making. I am just telling you how the registration system works. Is this something that is going to change? We have no immediate plans to change the registration system. We have on the one hand somebody who does not know that it has happened, that even if you do know something about it, you are registering people without reference to that and you have no plans to change it. Can I offer the absolute assurance that, where we have an allegation that any of our 42 SPFL clubs are not paying national women's wage on a professional contract, we will investigate that because, on the face of it, that is not compliant with our rules. So we will look at it and investigate it and we will absolutely be in a position to comment on it when that investigation has happened. Do you have more confidence that you will set up in place a system that prevents people from trying to break the law, rather than hoping that somebody who is having their rights denied will have the confidence and ability to take that club on? Would you not be more reasonable, which I think is probably what happens in the rest of the world? We are registering you. We are responsible for you. You will meet the legal standards that are required and we will check that you are doing them will not wait until somebody complains. With respect, that is an unfair suggestion. We cannot be the police force. It is the HMRC's primary responsibility. It is a bit like suggesting that the Scottish Government is somehow responsible for MSPs having car insurance in place. That would be ludicrous. All clubs are businesses within Scotland and they are bound by the law. The law insists that national minimum wage is paid. If it is not paid, we will investigate. It is appropriate that, where allegations are made, we have the primary responsibility to investigate that on behalf of the football authorities. No doubt, HMRC would have an interest as well. To be clear, your registration scheme bears no relation to issues around the law. Individual businesses have to comply. I agree. Why have our registration system at all? If you have no authority over them, I think that you are operating inside FIFA rules, which you have signed up for. However, you have no authority over clubs that may be breaking the law. You have no ability to sanction them. We are saying at all. We are saying that, where it is alleged that clubs are in breach of national minimum wage legislation, we will investigate it and take appropriate action. The right to take action once you find out that it is happening, but you will not set in place circumstances to make sure that it is not happening in the first place? You cannot know how many hours players are working for. Only that will be known to the clubs and the players. If it is alleged that you have a situation where players are working and they are not being paid the national minimum wage, if that is alleged, we will absolutely look at it. It has been alleged in the daily record last week, and we are investigating. I am sure that I cannot be the only person who feels that is not quite the response that we would have been hoping for, but I recognise that that is continuing to be what you are saying. I was actually going to say that I recognise that there are some good people throughout the whole of football who do have the best interests of the game and the best interests of young players in mind. We are talking about 12-year-olds, and I felt that, if all the elements of Scottish football were to start with a clean sheet of paper and start with the welfare, enjoyment and longevity in the game of the child, would we end up with the current system, which I would doubt? Would words like agent, compensation, wages and disputes end up in that paper? Is there a willingness from the SFA and the SPFL to engage in those discussions in a further process? My concern would be how much influence do clubs have as a bloc to many change? Your question seems to presuppose that we are somehow different from the rest of the world, and the fact is that agents, compensation and such like are a matter of reality in world football, but it exists and we have to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it were. I think that we have in place a fair system and a balanced system that respects the rights of children, that offers an incentive for clubs to invest in development of young players and protects the rights of children within them. It may not be a perfect system and it may be that further improvements can be made. We have made a number of significant changes over the last few years in response to this process. I would urge all concerned to give those changes time to bedding and to reflect on whether they have been successful or whether further changes are needed. It is only appropriate that we do that. To what extent have they been successful in achieving their aims? I completely accept that we are dealing with reality here and I find it incredulous that we are dealing with kids. I cannot get my head round the fact that you are defending a system that will have compensation in kids and payment in £1 a week payments. I find it incredible that there are a number of different issues. To turn round and say that it happens elsewhere does not make it right. We are talking about, on the one hand, young players who are enjoying the football are associated with clubs and clubs are doing their best to invest in and develop as professional players for the future. That is entirely separate from a situation of professional players, who will be at least the age of 16 on professional contracts, where national minimum wage at least has to be paid. At the age of 12, they are clearly amateurs. They are clearly there to enjoy football primarily, but also where a club is investing in those players. Should there be a situation where another club wishes to take them into their system and develop them instead, there is a system there to protect the investment that has been made by the first club. It is appropriate that that exists, because if it does not exist, there is no incentive to invest in the first place. I am very little time left. I am going to allow the last few questions from committee members, but I would say that what you have just said is that somebody under 16 can be deemed to be somebody who can be the contract involved in compensation and so on. Clearly, minimum wage does not apply to them, but those other adult things apply to them. The irony might be that you are making a case for young people under 16 to be paid, and I think that it shows perhaps some of the difficulties around us. Maurice, and then James, are wanting in. Thanks, chair. I am really quite seriously concerned with some of the comments that are coming from the panel, but would I ask a question? Would you say that you were here in your work preventing the exploitation of the young people or not? Part of our role is absolutely to ensure that young players, young people, are dealt with appropriately and respected. I believe that the system that exists at present does that effectively, whilst at the same time creating an incentive for clubs to invest time and money in developing them as players. I believe that that appropriate balance is struck and it is vital that we have a balanced system. If we end up in a system that is far too much one way or the other, it will not work, either because it does not respect the rights of the child or because it removes any incentive for the clubs to invest. A balanced approach, I believe, is the right approach, and I do believe that we have that approach in place at present. Just a final quick one, but you seem to be reactive rather than proactive. I think that that is an unfair criticism. I think that we have made a number of positive changes in line with the discussions here, and in some cases we have taken them further. The game time rule is an example of how we have gone beyond what has been recommended, how we removed the welfare consideration point from the right of the child to play score football. I think that we have been proactive. We will continue to be proactive. I think that we will be always keen to come along and ensure that we are dealing with facts rather than misinformation, which is out there in this area, and to ensure that we have the best possible system in place for Scottish football, but also for Scottish young people. Thanks for your indulgence this morning. A couple of things. One is that you talk about being part of the real world, and I have to say that, too, the answers I got recently made me think that you are not really part of the wider society when you talk about the fact that you have an admin system that seems to just consist of one big rubber stamp that says no wonder you could go through 18,000 so quickly. The other one is that because you don't pay the minimum wage, the kids won't go on bus trips. If we are talking about the benefit of the child here, then surely what we are talking about is building them on, but the really important issue is that I want to go back to the minimum wage again. I am not going over stuff that has already been said, but HMRC, if a minimum wage contract is not kept, then the contract is invalid. Are you telling me that when you do your investigation and you find that some of these people have been on less in minimum wage, those contracts will be invalid? I absolutely assure you that we will investigate any allegations that our clubs are not paying national minimum wage. It is fundamental as part of any professional contract signed by a club and registered with the Scottish FFA that national minimum wage will be paid. Let's have that investigation. It's ongoing at present and when we're in a position to comment on the outcome of that investigation, we'll absolutely do so. Is HMRC's position that the contracts will be invalid? Ultimately, we will ensure that clubs abide by our rules and it's a part of a professional contract that national minimum wage is paid. It's a very large question. HMRC has primary jurisdiction in this and I'm sure that they'll have looked at reports and that they'll be looking at it as we indeed are. I'm sure that after today's evidence they'll certainly be looking at things very closely. My very last question is on compensation. You continue to talk about compensation for the training that was put in to make these players the people that they are, the players that they are. What role do the SFA and the SPFL have to make sure that the compensation is done for those who started these kids out in their career in the first place, because they don't come fully formed or even semi formed to football clubs? There's already been a lot of work done by youth clubs guys like Willie and Scott and others. There is some money that goes down the game. It's not a lot. I accept that. What often happens, and I know Willie has spoken to Willie a lot on this, or has often happened in the past, is when players move from clubs like his up the game, they maybe get a bag of balls or something like that, and there's maybe not actual money. I accept that, and Willie would be able to give better evidence than I am on how well that works these days. No, I totally accept that that's where those players came from and they are vitally important for the vibrancy of the game. So, why can't we put a system in place? We've continued to talk about compensation and the importance of compensation and clubs getting that so that they can continue to train the players or to make it worthwhile for the players, but yet we're asking the same people to do it for nothing or a bag of balls. In relation to professional clubs, they are very heavily licensed and regulated in relation to how their academy systems operate by the Scottish FFA that imposes very strict standards and requirements on those clubs and how they operate. Effectively, they're being told that they have to work to a certain standard and invest to that standard, but in return you get compensation for the money that you've put into training and development when a player moves on. Those standards are not applicable to clubs below that level. I assure you that at that level, the money in comparative terms is much greater. Thank you very much, convener. I'm just very conscious of time because we're time constrained because the chamber sits from 2012, so we are going to have to close the conversation here. I don't think that it's by any stretch the end of the dialogue or the discussion, but I do want to thank our panel members for coming along today. I think we've learned a lot from that. We will be hearing from the Tourney Young People's Commissioner Scotland, and it may be at that point that we'll take the opportunity as a committee to reflect on what action we take next, because we would want to test his view of what he's heard today against his own particular comments that he's made to us. I thank our panel members again, thank our visitors, and I'll suspend for a couple of moments until we can move on to the next bit of business. I bring a meeting back to order. I welcome Murdo Fraser, Rona Grant and Kate Forbes to the meeting for an item later in the agenda. I'm very conscious of time now, and we want to through as much as possible, but at the same time we're giving enough time to each petition, which of course all of these are important, so it may be that we end up deferring some of them, but we'll see how we get on. The second final item for today is consideration of six continued petitions. The first petition, 1458, in the register of interests for members of Scotland's judiciary. This is by Peter Cherby. On the register of interests for members of Scotland's judiciary, members will recall that we had agreed to invite oral evidence on this petition from Professor Alan Paterson and from the Lord President. We will hear from Professor Paterson at our next meeting on 9 January. In response to the committee's invitation, the Lord President has sent a letter in which he requests more information about the questions that we wish to address to him. I wonder if members have any comments on this. Angus? Thanks, convener. I note the letter from the Lord President in which he states that he was under the impression that this matter had concluded, and I'm a little surprised that it's been raised once again. However, I think that the letter from the petitioner, Peter Cherby, highlights that it would be remiss of this committee not to follow this petition through as far as we possibly can. I think that we're not at a stage yet where we have exhausted all our options. In addition, I've been made aware of issues where the recusal system may not be working as well as it should be. The petitioner's letter would suggest that he's also aware of those issues, too. I'm pleased that Professor Paterson has indicated that he's available next month to give evidence to the committee. I think that we should perhaps wait until we've taken evidence from Professor Paterson before we consider our next steps. I'm not sure if we're required to reply to the Lord President at this moment in time, or if we should wait until we've taken further evidence. I suggest that we wait until we take evidence from Professor Paterson, if that's agreed. Then we can decide, of course, of action. Thank you very much for that. We can then move on to petition 1480. The next petition for consideration is petition 1480 on Alzheimer's and dementia awareness and petition 153C on abolition of non-residential social care charges for older and disabled people. Members will recall that our meeting on 29 September 2016, we asked the Scottish Government to respond to the issues raised in the petitioner's submissions. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has provided a response, noting that the Scottish Government will continue to conduct a feasibility study into expanding free personal care and nursing care to people with dementia who are under 65. The timeframe for completing the study is summer 2017. The committee has also received a submission from Mr Adamson, the petitioner for petition 1533. Mr Adamson is concerned that the feasibility study has a narrow focus that is condition and age specific. Members will see from the clerk's note that the session 4 Public Petitions Committee held an evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary on 6 October 2015. At that meeting, the Cabinet Secretary appeared to suggest that a funding system that is condition or age specific would be unfair. It might be something that members would wish to explore further with the Cabinet Secretary. Mr Adamson is also concerned that the recent changes to the income threshold for care charging do not take account of the different costs of living across Scotland. Mr Adamson suggests that some local authorities have raised their social care charges despite the Scottish Government's recent increase in funding. For those reasons, he is concerned that progress has not been made towards achieving a fair social care charging system in Scotland. Members may know that I led a member's debate on 6 December, in which issues relevant to the petition were debated, including the terms of the feasibility study and variations in charging between local authorities. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action on which clearly an issue that is widely regarded is very important. Morris? Yes, having spoken also in your debate, chair, it raised various issues. Having had the Cabinet Secretary there for Health and Sport, I think that it would be appropriate to invite her to come to give evidence at a future meeting based on the information that was led on from that debate. Obviously, if she and her team have gone back to look at it, we need to review that. It would also be possible to have costs. We could certainly explore that. I think that there is an issue about the fairness of social care charges at all, but also the different ways in which they are imposed in different parts of the country. The age question, which we know from Frank's law, is something that is highly contentious as well. There are reasons for the issues that came up in the debate, but it does seem that the debate is the petition's winding its scope at the moment. It is going into other areas. If we bring the Cabinet Secretary, what specifically would we be aiming for? I think that what we are looking from the Cabinet Secretary's clarity around the feasibility study against what was said earlier on, where she was suggesting that any proposal that discriminates on the basis of age or condition would be very difficult to deal with. However, if we can agree to explore the question, I would of course love to invite the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport to give evidence. Would that be agreed? We can move on to petition 1540, an appointment solution for the A83. We now turn to petition 1540 by Douglas Filland on a permanent solution for the A83. When we last considered this petition, we agreed to write to the Minister for Transport and Islands to ask for more information about the review of the national transport strategy and the strategic transport projects review. As members will see, information has been provided, and it would appear that there is quite a long timeframe for both these pieces of work. The work to be undertaken will involve some engagement events in and out from our point of view. Do members have any comments or suggestions for action? Yes, I do it. I do have fair knowledge of this project. It is in my role, and I declare an interest it as a councillor for our Government Council. The issue really revolves around—I think that we should have before us a detailed plan of action in relation to options. There are four options, three to four options, that are fully aware to the transport minister, fully aware to the council and the petitioners, and I think that those need to be brought forward in a proper, costed approach and evaluate them and what the minister is, because I do not think that the response of the minister really tells us anything. I think that it does say that it is going to take quite a long time. I wonder whether what we might suggest is that it would be useful for the Scottish Government to hold a stakeholder event in our down butte to ensure that the views of people in the area would be taken into account, because there must be, presumably, the challenges of the immediate against the long term and the costs of the very long term proposals that it would be. Simply to say that in some time we will be consulting on a strategy that does not, I think, address either of those fully. I think that they could bring options forward. It might be just proposals, but I do know that there are proposals there. So we would see that being hosted by the Scottish Government themselves, and we can see what response we get to that request. Is that agreed? Yes. Okay, thank you for that. If we can then move on to the next petition for consideration, it is petition 1577 by Rachel Wallace on adult cerebral palsy services. Members have a submission from the Scottish Government and the petitioner. Since the petition was lodged last year, we have now had three responses from the Scottish Government, the position of which appears to be unchanged. Members will see from the latest submission that the Scottish Government has highlighted the funding for a pilot programme being led by Bobass Scotland. The Scottish Government does not appear willing to commit to consulting on a national clinical pathway for adults with cerebral palsy, as called for by the petitioner. While the petitioner is supportive of Bobass Scotland's work, members will see from her submission that she is concerned that the project has a very narrow focus. In this regard, Ms Wallace explains that the pilot project is focused on the particular services provided by a single charity, rather than the full range of services available under the NHS and privately. Ms Wallace explains that the full breadth of treatment required by adults with cerebral palsy includes occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, orthopedic treatment and neurology. In the absence of a clinical pathway, it is up to the individual to navigate all of those services to find the right treatment for them. For those reasons, the petitioner views her call for a national clinical pathway as completely separate to the work being done by Bobass Scotland. Ms Wallace, we welcome a consultation on this issue to allow a full range of clinicians to provide their views. I wonder if members have comments or suggestions for action. Murdo, do you want to maybe say something? Thank you, convener. This is quite a long-running petition from my constituent, Rachel Wallace. Progress has been quite slow. We do, however, have a meeting arranged with civil servants at the end of January with Rachel to discuss the possible ways forward. I think that we would be keen at the very least to see the petition carry on and be continued. It might be appropriate for the committee to consider continuing the petition until after that meeting and then bring it back for reconsideration once that meeting has taken place to see what the Government's response is at that point. Okay. Would it be worthwhile maybe in terms of organisation that subject what we hear about the report from that meeting? It might be something that we would want to hear from the Minister for Public Health and Sport at the committee. I think that it is surprising that there is not a clinical pathway, quite frankly, for civil palsy. I would be quite keen to listen to the minister. If it would seem that the petition is entirely satisfied and subsequent to the meeting, that might not be necessary. Although I think that there are issues that we might even want a report back to the committee on about how that was being addressed, but I think that the complex needs of an adult with cerebral palsy is something that we would want to see the Government's response to. Is that agreed? Okay. Thank you very much. Petition 1591, major redesign of healthcare services in Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross. I, as I said, welcome both Rhoda Grant and Kate Forbes for this item. The petition is by Katrina MacDonald on behalf of SOS NHS. It calls for the Scottish Government to reverse its approval of the major service change to healthcare services in Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross. We have received responses on the petition from the Cabinet Secretary and the Scottish Ambulance Service. The Cabinet Secretary's response sets out information about the decision to improve the service changes and where work has been identified for NHS Highland to take forward. The response states that approval has been granted and that it is now important to move forward and ensure that the plans put forward by NHS Highland provide the best possible services for all the people of Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross. The Scottish Ambulance Service response details a number of measures that it has put in place to deliver services within the redesign. The response from the petitioner sets out views about the options, appraisal process and why the petitioner considers the decision to have been made or incomplete information. A detailed critique by Professor Ronald MacDonald is attached to the petitioner's submission. I wonder if members have any comments or views on what further action we may wish to take within the terms of the action called for in the petition. I don't know whether it might be worthwhile getting more to say something just to help our considerations. I am happy to say something. I was at the committee when you last considered this petition. The comments still stand. I do not think that anyone wants a delay to a new hospital in Skye because it has been delayed for far too long. However, there are issues about the service that the people in the north of Skye receive and how that is going to be delivered. I do not say anything in the papers to say whether or not any discussions have been carried out with the people living in the north of Skye about the services that they will receive to give them a degree of comfort. Also, the Scottish Ambulance Service response talks about the emergency response, to be honest, and they talk about increasing the number of staff on the ground, but I am not sure that that is adequate because I understand quite often that the Scottish Ambulance Service is not just taking people to the hospital in Skye, it is taking people to Inverness. That can mean an ambulance off-island for a long period of time. I hear anecdotally that sometimes there is very little or no cover on Skye, so I think that it would be worth going back to them about that. The concern about having an ambulance on Rassie but four wheels and a vehicle is not much good to anybody because they do not appear to have any staff, but it can be driven by nominated local people. That is a concern as well. However, there are bigger issues in Rassie that you might not want to get involved in. However, it says nothing about patient transport, and I think that that is the big issue, because when people are going to the hospital for routine treatments or indeed non-life-threatening treatments, they are not going to phone 999 and get an ambulance out. However, their problem is that if they do not drive elderly people, they are not able to drive an adequate public transport, how do they get to the hospital? I do not think that the Scottish Ambulance Service has addressed that at all. In fact, they have not really spoken about patient transport in their response. Great. Thank you. I think that I echo a lot of what Rhoda said. It is wonderful to have the prospect of a new hospital, but in order to get to that point, we need to have the confidence of the population and of the users who are going to be using the new hospital. I think that it is also quite important to separate two things here, which is prospect of new services, as well as the location of a physical brick and mortar hospital and where that should be. Professor Ronald McDonald's paper, his most recent paper, raises three issues that I would at least be interested in response from, say, from the cabinet secretary and from NHS Highland on population density, on income deprivation in the north end of Skye and also, as Rhoda Grant has mentioned, on travel options. When the A87 does have a blockage, how are people expected to get from one side of the island to the other? I think that we need some more answers on those things. To the ambulance service, I personally was not content with the response. I think that a lot of it was written in the past tense, so that has already happened, but that does not necessarily resonate with what I see on the ground. There is still a lot of local concern about the inadequacy of the ambulance service—fantastic paramedics—who do a wonderful job on the ground, but we probably need some more confidence about the ambulance service on the ground. RAZE is obviously included. There are additional issues on RAZE to do with not just the redesign but about the lack of 24-7 care on RAZE itself, which is almost a PS in the document. However, I think that it is quite a crucial thing to factor in to redesign, because it is a redesign for Lochalsh, Skye and South West Ross. I think that there are issues that perhaps need more answers. That has been very helpful from both of you. In terms of action, the very least that we could do is ask the cabinet secretary to respond to the critique that has been provided by Professor MacDonald. I will also factor in the comments that have been made by our colleagues specifically around the ambulance service confidence in that patient transport, which I think is a very significant issue, both in rural and remote areas, but also in urban areas with poor bus services. I am not quite sure—you know a lot more about that than I do—to what extent the RAZE question is encapsulated inside. Are we opening up something separate in asking for comments on that? We could maybe get the class to just look at that, but what we would be looking at would be the response to the critique from Professor MacDonald and also an addressing of the question around ambulance services and returning to them. That would be agreed. Thank you very much for your attendance. I think that we have managed to get there just in time before the powers of the Parliament come after us for sitting too long. I just take this opportunity to thank everybody on the committee and the clerks for making my job so easy. In this first term of the new petitions committee, I genuinely appreciate that. I know that three of our members here are new. Angus has resisted the temptation to tell me exactly what I should be doing as a longer-serving member, so I just want to wish you all a very, very happy Christmas. I have a good break and I think that we are all looking forwa