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Justice 2 Committee, 01 Feb 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Official Report 212KB pdf

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Youth Justice

Agenda item 4 is the committee's youth justice inquiry. I will allow a few moments for the minister's advisers to change places.

I thank the minister for being available to give evidence in our inquiry. There are various issues of interest to committee members, but I will start the batting by dealing with the partnership arrangements that exist throughout Scotland. The committee has been taking evidence in different parts of Scotland in which, at first sight, there seem to be differences in the practical application and operation of partnerships. There are diversities throughout Scotland in the engagement of the voluntary sector in youth justice at strategic and operational levels. It might be helpful to the committee if the minister would clarify what kinds of strategic and operational partnerships she wants to see throughout Scotland and how she expects them to work.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about that important issue. When we drew up our youth justice strategy and considered the strategic priorities for youth justice, we were clear that there ought to be a youth justice team in each local authority area and joint working between the agencies and organisations that have responsibility for young people. The key elements that we expect to be addressed relate to a spectrum of activities ranging from work on preventing and diverting young people from getting into trouble in the first place, to effective intervention when they begin to get into trouble, to work in regimes that require a greater degree of control over young people's lives, whether in secure accommodation or intensive support projects.

It is important to acknowledge that youth offending is not a problem for social work alone. I have said that on a number of occasions and have had numerous discussions with chief executives and political leaders of local authorities to try to encourage the local authorities to take a much more corporate approach so that education, social work and housing departments and those who are involved in community safety partnerships and antisocial behaviour strategies all consider the problems in a given area. Although we have put in place an overarching framework through the national standards that we expect people to meet by 2006, we acknowledge that there are differences between big-city areas and rural areas. I expect local authority departments to join up and I expect there to be a good working relationship between youth justice teams and external agencies.

The convener mentioned the voluntary sector, which in many instances has a major role to play in working jointly with local authorities to provide services for young people.

That is helpful. Do you see the participants in youth justice strategy teams as token figures from their sectors or as live communicators who will ensure that, where their sector is affected or has something to contribute, the dialogue is active?

I certainly do not see any participant as a token representative of their sector. If that were the case, it would have to be addressed locally. There ought to be dialogue that goes further than addressing matters that affect particular agencies. The people on the team have a responsibility to drive forward the strategy in their area, to ensure that the different players contribute to progress and, importantly, to monitor the effectiveness of what is happening.

Again, members will be aware that we brought in consultants to look at what is happening throughout Scotland. We did a mapping exercise to look at all the youth justice projects that are in place and to consider the effectiveness to date of what is happening in different areas. I expect the youth justice teams to be central in ensuring that we tackle the problems that communities expect us to, particularly those around persistent offending.

As a new member of the committee, I have not been part of the inquiry. However, I have done my best to read up on previous evidence sessions and evidence that the minister has provided, part of which concerns the budget. I think that the minister indicated to the committee that there is funding of £1.3 billion for youth justice. How much of that is for core social work services? I have visited hearings in the fast-track youth justice scheme in the Borders and I am aware that progressing youth justice depends very much on the social work element. How much of the increased expenditure over the period will be for core social work?

I will take you through the funding breakdown for the £1.3 billion. First, the child care strategy has an impact of some £29.75 million. I will not go through the year-on-year figures, because members can get that information elsewhere. Further examples from the breakdown are: around £137 million for early education; £78 million for integrated community schools; and £58 million for the national priorities action fund for study support, with an additional £24 million to that fund for support for parents. There is a range of things within the £1.3 billion. I could list a number of examples in relation to schools. The breakdown for work in local areas includes £30 million for community wardens and £4 million for the community safety partnership awards programme. There is also spending on our work on drug-related issues.

All the work to which I have referred is intended to bring about changes that would give young people a better quality of life. For example, we have given £175 million over three years to the changing children's services fund and we have provided £66 million to social inclusion partnerships. We have funded the better neighbourhood services fund and youth court pilots. We have provided additional funding for leisure and sports activities and so on. We have given £108 million to sure start Scotland and £6.5 million to the children, young people and families unified voluntary sector fund. We have also funded throughcare and aftercare in the working for families programme.

On the specific projects that have been put in place to tackle the problems of youth crime and disorder, money goes to the local authorities through grant-aided expenditure and an element of what is spent on social work will cover children and families. We have tried to identify additional mechanisms to increase the amount of money that is available. Jeremy Purvis referred to the fast-track programmes. Additional resources were put in specifically to ensure that the programmes went alongside the fast-track children's hearings. We are in the process of evaluating that and considering what the outcomes have been.

Okay. I will come back to the fast-track scheme in a moment. However, I wonder whether any element of the funding supports social work, particularly youth justice social work. Certainly, for a hearings system to be effective, it requires such support. I wonder whether you can come back with information on such funding or whether you know what proportion of their funding local authorities spend on the hearings system. Obviously, the funding for the other areas to which you referred will not be effective in bringing about the change that you want unless the core social work back-up exists to service those areas.

I have with me five pages of figures that I can give you; I think that some of the information came to the committee previously when it was dealing with budgetary matters.

We have tried to target additional funds and to direct them specifically to improving services and ensuring that we have the right services in the right area. Interestingly, one of the things that showed up in the work that PA Consultants Ltd did was that we probably had just about enough places throughout Scotland in youth justice programmes but that they were not always necessarily in the right place.

The other aspect that we must consider is how effective the programmes are. We are putting in more and more money, but we want some changes in behaviour and outcomes. For example, we have tried to ensure that additional resources have been allocated to the fast-track hearings pilots, intensive supervision and electronic monitoring, but if we do not get the outcomes that we want, we will have to assess whether that money has been well spent. We can certainly provide more figures on that element of social work.

I appreciate that. I regret to say that, as a former member of the Finance Committee, I am used to looking through many pages of figures.

We will be delighted to give them to you.

You said that you intend to analyse the fast-track hearings first, but how much will such analysis influence any decision to move budgeting away from funding initiatives and pilots towards mainstreaming such approaches? Is there a timescale for analysing the outcomes of the fast-track pilots and for mainstreaming that approach in the budget?

The issue is not as straightforward as that. We cannot simply analyse individual projects and then decide to mainstream every aspect of them; we need to consider what works.

That said, irrespective of the outcome of the fast-track pilots, we must ensure that we have the additional resources to assist local authorities in meeting the national standards by 2006. That is quite important, because as you rightly pointed out it is not simply a question of introducing more and more projects. We must improve the overall position; that is why we have set national standards and why we have provided additional consultancy and support to ensure that local authorities are on the right track. We must speed up systems so that young people get into the programmes that they need earlier. We are not simply waiting for the results of the pilots without doing anything in the meantime; we are directing resources to local authorities. Indeed, we might get different results in different fast-track pilot areas, and I would want to examine those results in more detail.

Submissions from rural authorities to the inquiry have highlighted how the remoteness or size of their area has led to particular problems and additional costs in delivering services. For example, Highland Council and Argyll and Bute Council cannot have central services, which means that their efforts are dissipated and cost more to deliver. On the other hand, some urban authorities that are affected by high levels of deprivation are more concerned about the sheer volume of work. How does the funding formula work?

Given that there are five pages of figures, there are probably a number of different formulae that take account of matters such as rurality and problems in urban areas. Each funding stream has different criteria and, knowing that the committee will want to consider the matter, I can certainly provide members with a bit more of a breakdown instead of trying to go through everything now.

That would be helpful, because we want to understand this matter.

We have tried to take account of problems in specific areas to ensure that, for example, rural issues are addressed. Indeed, we opted to introduce fast-track hearings pilots in geographical locations that contained rural communities as well as urban and mixed urban and rural communities. We felt that we could learn from such a model.

One of the themes of our inquiry has been diversion and early intervention schemes. Experts have pointed out persistently that those schemes are very effective when they nip problem behaviour in the bud and stop it spiralling down to a point at which it becomes much more difficult to turn round. However, many submissions have suggested that provision is not uniform—indeed, that it is quite patchy from one area to another. How satisfied are you with the range of provision and services throughout Scotland?

Again, we have to strike a balance between having a national framework, standards and expectations that must be met and allowing local people to devise local strategies based on the position in their area. If we were not to do that, the alternative would be to have a single organisation to manage youth justice and people might have views on that.

We expect the youth justice teams in each area to try to identify the young people who are at risk—those who are coming into the system and are at risk of moving up the scale. The teams need to be able to put in place appropriate measures for those young people. The committee might want to ask me later about the figures.

Some 1,200 young people across Scotland are deemed to be persistent offenders under the definition that I announced in the Parliament back in November. If we break down that figure into different local areas and different youth justice team areas, we find that the numbers are very few in some areas and, obviously, greater in others. However, each number is an individual young person who is known to social work, education and probably to other agencies, including the police. Given that they are known about, the next job is to ensure that they get the programmes.

The same approach needs to be taken in trying to identify the young people who are on the verge of getting involved in offending behaviour. We are not talking about young people who live in a vacuum; they are known to people and their behaviour is visible. I am thinking, for example, of the system of police restorative warnings being rolled out. We need to pick up the young people's behaviour at an early stage, involve their parents and ensure that the problems are identified and worked on. Those are the kind of things that I expect people to take account of in terms of the national strategy and the national action plan. In each local area, it is important that people look at how best to deliver them.

I will come to the figures in a second. What is your approach to the areas in which diversion and early intervention schemes are patchy? How would you intervene and press the case for greater provision in those areas?

I am not sure whether the member has in mind a particular area where patchy provision of early intervention might lead to an upsurge in offending. If so, I would be interested to hear his views on the area in question. As I said, we must get the balance right in relation to what we put in place to meet national expectations. Agencies have to meet national standards in dealing with young people when they come into the system. I would also expect diversionary schemes to be put in place throughout each local authority area.

As the committee is aware, over the past couple of years the justice budget has included additional resources to run summer projects, such as sport and leisure activities, to divert young people away from trouble. Many of those projects have been successful and the report back has been very good. We are seeing imaginative initiatives through which young people are being engaged in new and different ways and outside the traditional times of youth provision. For example, there is the twilight football project in Dumfries, which I have visited. A twilight basketball project has been launched recently and a range of other things has started up. With the provision of relatively small amounts of money, activities can be put in place. Importantly, the activities are the kind of things in which young people say they want to be involved.

The effect of such work is a reduction of the hot spots where young people hang around and are likely to come to the attention of the police. I expect people to look at such initiatives in each area and, within the overall framework, to identify where the problems lie and what the solution is.

I turn to the issue of the figures. You made a point about the importance of early intervention. This week, the committee received a submission from Polmont young offenders institution. Of its current population, 85 per cent have previously served a custodial sentence; on average, they have already committed seven offences. A number of witnesses have said that there is a need for a clearer evidence base to show the effectiveness of diversion and early intervention strategies. They have asked for figures to back up the idea that early intervention is the more effective way of dealing with youth offending. Do you agree? Is the evidence there?

There is a catch with that one. If diversionary activities are put in place and young people do not get into trouble, it is difficult to prove that, if the activities had not been in place, the young people would have become involved in offending behaviour. That is why a strategic approach is important. If we divert young people from hanging around in places where they should not be and channel them into productive activities that they enjoy doing and which have value for the community, such as sport and leisure activities, they will be less likely to be tempted to become involved in criminal activity.

When young people cross the line and start getting involved in offences or offending behaviour, we do not do them any favours if we condone that or do nothing about it. That is the point at which the intervention may not be as extreme as it is for persistent young offenders, but something still has to happen to let young people know that what they are doing is not appropriate. If they have problems, we must try to provide resources to assist them and their families to deal with those problems. The issue is not only about diversion at the sharp end; we need to work throughout the spectrum.

I have questions on residential and secure care. What are your plans to ensure that quality care exists for looked-after children, both in the community and across the range of residential provision?

Whether care is in residential provision, run by local authorities or the voluntary sector or, at the sharp end, in secure care, quality is important. We know from history that if we do not get the quality of care right, the life chances of young people who go through the care system are unlikely to be particularly good.

There has been a lot of discussion in the Parliament about the need to increase the number of secure places. I have made it clear that I want to ensure that we improve quality, at the same time as increasing the number of secure places. That means reconfiguring the secure estate, not simply building an extra couple of blocks somewhere. For example, we need to think about the needs of girls and young women, whose reasons for coming into the system are often different from those of young men. We need to consider the needs of young people who are in secure accommodation because they have been sentenced by the courts versus the needs of young people who are there for their own care and protection. We are increasing the number of secure beds, but we are also trying to tackle some of those problems. That is why we are considering girls units and how to get the mix right. People do not end up in residential care simply because of offending behaviour. We have put some of the money from the youth justice fund, in particular the money for intensive support, towards close support and supervision programmes, in which young people spend part of their time in a residential facility if necessary, but receive support to allow them to go back into the community.

Of course, all the units are, rightly, subject to rigorous inspection processes. The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, the social work services inspectorate and, where education is provided, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education all have a role in ensuring that we get the provision right—not just the buildings, but the quality of the care that is provided.

I am glad that you mentioned the number of secure care beds, which has been an issue for several years. The Executive is committed to increasing the number of places, but concern has been expressed to the committee—the minister might have heard similar concerns—that young people might be put in secure places when the only reason for doing so is a lack of residential accommodation that would be more appropriate for the young person's circumstances. How do you react to that? Is there a danger of that happening?

Rightly, secure care is a scarce resource. Strict tests must be met before a young person is put into secure accommodation: the person must be either a persistent absconder who puts themselves at risk or a person whose offending behaviour puts others at risk. I do not believe that there are whole swathes of young people who end up in secure accommodation who should not be there. However, I do think that, if we get things right earlier in the process, we might be able to use other options to try to prevent some young people from ending up in secure accommodation. An option that will be available is intensive support and electronic monitoring. In some instances, it might be appropriate to put such monitoring in place for the young people concerned. I find it interesting that people have suggested that. Usually, the argument that is put to me is that lots of young people are waiting for secure accommodation but cannot get in.

I would say that both arguments have been put to us. However, we are not talking about "whole swathes" of people; we are talking more about people at the margins.

Some young people have a pattern of behaviour that, if not curbed, seems likely to lead to their going into secure accommodation. Social work assessment and hard choices about intervening early might prevent a young person from ending up in that accommodation.

I accept that.

Some of the evidence that we have received discussed the requirement for a more co-ordinated national strategy, particularly on the resourcing and use of residential care in general. What are your views on that? Do you recognise a problem in the lack of a national strategy, or do you have a different opinion?

I am aware that local authorities have at times been concerned about the cost of residential accommodation. It is worth bearing in mind the distinctions between the different forms of residential care—whether we are talking about children's homes run by local authorities or in partnership with the voluntary sector or about residential school facilities—before we move on to discuss secure accommodation. Different resources will be required in different sets of circumstances. It will not necessarily be the case that each local authority will run each and every facility. Local authorities have to begin to think about partnership arrangements, perhaps involving other authorities, to ensure that, in each area, if a young person needs a particular facility, there is at least a way to access it.

The proposition that, rather than try to deal with things at a local level and take account of the needs of the local population, we should transfer responsibility to a national system is interesting.

I do not think that that is what has been suggested, but there is concern about possible variation in service delivery. That is the motive for having a national strategy, rather than a desire to be run from the centre.

That goes back to the reason why such services are inspected, why national standards are put in place, and why certain requirements need to be met—to ensure that the accommodation that is provided is fit for purpose and is of the right kind for young people.

We should not forget the range of other ways in which young people can be looked after. A number of arrangements involving foster carers aim to ensure that young people are appropriately supervised. All those arrangements ought to be part of the package.

I do not disagree with that. Many of the young people whom we are talking about have a complex set of needs and specialised services are required to meet those. How is the Executive ensuring that what is going on now is monitored and how is it planning to develop services, in particular the specialised services? How will it ensure that they are resourced adequately?

I am not sure whether you are referring to—

I am referring to secure care in particular.

The secure care proposals and our approach to the work on secure care came about because of work that had been done to assess the needs throughout Scotland; the likely numbers involved; the traditional geographical spread, with young people coming from different local authority areas; where units would be best placed to meet that geographical spread; and the need for gender balance and a balance between sentenced young people and young people who are in the accommodation for reasons of care and protection. All those factors were taken into account, and we want to continue to have regard to them.

There is another interesting point about all this. We did not consider secure accommodation as consisting of secure units in isolation; we considered it in the context of developing close support projects and of the work that was being done on youth crime prevention. We ensured that, at every stage of the process, we had different layers of measures in place to try to meet the needs of young people.

There are matters on which we need to keep a close eye, particularly in relation to secure accommodation. There are issues with young people being in secure accommodation at the age of 16 or beyond. For some young people, it will be right to remain there, but others, particularly those who are sentenced, might transfer to Polmont. That all needs to be managed properly. The educational opportunities for young people who are in secure care at times have given cause for concern. We want to try to ensure that we improve on all those matters.

Do you have a structured plan in place? You have talked about all the things that have been done leading up to the present situation and you have stated that you will continue to examine and monitor the situation, but is there a structured plan in place for the necessary planning and monitoring?

When I was Minister for Education and Young People, we had the 10-point plan on youth justice, which has been followed through in a range of areas. The work that we have done in secure accommodation was one strand of that. If you are asking me whether we will continue to monitor the effectiveness and quality of the service that we provide, the answer is yes, we will do that in a number of different ways. Local authorities have a role in that, and we must consider how we inspect services. That will continue to be done.

Problems with the continuity of care and throughcare in residential and secure care have been noted in many of the submissions that we have received and much of the evidence that we have heard. There is a feeling that provision is patchy and that there is a lack of a national strategy—or, at least, that there is variation in service delivery—and that those issues contribute to difficulties in the system. What plans do you have to address those issues, given that they are critical to meeting young people's needs effectively and sustaining changes in their behaviour so that the work that is done is not lost?

Historically, there have been concerns about the process of young people moving back into the community from residential care, whether they were there on welfare grounds or because of offending behaviour. On throughcare, work has been done to produce a plan to ensure that we have greater consistency across the different local authority areas. The lack of consistency can be felt most acutely when a young person moves from secure accommodation straight back into the community, so work has been done to ensure that we have additional resources in secure accommodation, that staff are available to deal with throughcare and that young people have the right kind of support in moving on.

That approach is reflected in some of the work that we are doing at the more adult end of the youth justice system. I am very conscious of some of the issues to do with young people coming out of Polmont. On the criminal justice side of our strategy, we ensured that, when we put additional resources into throughcare in the prison system, young people were targeted so that we had an opportunity to pick up and try to deal with some of the problems.

I will ask about engagement between local authorities and secure accommodation institutions. I get the impression that the local authority does not always engage with youngsters once they have been put in secure accommodation. Should the local authority engage with young people continuously while they are in secure accommodation? What guidance is there on that?

That is not a question of guidance, because young people who are in secure accommodation are under the local authority's supervision and the local authority has a responsibility towards them, which includes helping to ensure that they are prepared properly for returning to the community. Local authorities should not abandon and have no input to young people who end up in secure accommodation. If there are concerns, a number of safeguards are built into the process, including review periods and times within which cases must be considered.

There can be distance issues when the local authority is Shetland or the Western Isles and the secure accommodation is elsewhere.

There are regulations on local authorities' duties in respect of young people in secure accommodation. There are difficulties when young people are located far away from their homes. The island authorities take particular care to find alternatives to that. They have welcomed additional resources to keep young people locally. However, we recognise that distance can be an issue, particularly for families.

We took evidence from a number of people, who all reported that there is a problem with the availability of mental health services for young people. First, do you have figures for spend on child and adolescent mental health services in Scotland, compared with in England and Wales? I am happy to take that information separately, if you do not have it to hand. Secondly, do you think that current service provision is adequate? If not, what can we do to improve the situation?

I cannot give you the figures that you are looking for off the top of my head, or even from my notes, because they do not fall within the remit of the Justice Department, but I am sure that we can get the information.

It is clear from discussions that people are concerned to ensure that adequate resources are available to deal with the duties that will arise from the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. As members will recall, during its passage, an amendment was lodged to ensure that young people under the age of 18 had a particular place.

There have been concerns about the number of educational and clinical psychologists and about young people having access to their services. There is on-going work to ensure that all those areas are addressed. However, as I said, those services come under the auspices of the Health Department, although I am sure that we can get the figures that the member is looking for.

From the evidence that we took, it seems that while child and adolescent mental health services are not the entire answer to the problems of persistent reoffending, they are a critical part of it and have a contribution to make. What dialogue will you have with the Minister for Health and Community Care to ensure that there is adequate coverage, because such services contribute directly to your agenda?

When we examined secure accommodation places and how to proceed, we were clear that we wanted to build in such services. Where we had concerns about particular young people or groups of young people, we wanted to ensure that they had access to such services. As always, I am happy to work with other ministers to ensure that we put in place provision where it is needed.

In answer to a question a while back, you said that we have to identify young people who are on the verge of offending, rather than just persistent offenders, and that others will know that those young people are on the verge of offending. One place in which they would be known is school, but we were told in evidence that education services do not always play their part in identifying young people. It was suggested by, I think, Includem that truancy flagged up the danger of young people getting into offending. It thought that there ought to be bridging projects that would bring truants not directly back into school, but into some kind of educational project that would then bring them back into school. Can you comment on how education can engage better with the youth justice agenda?

Education services can engage well and positively with young people who have problems, including those who are involved in offending behaviour. I have seen some good examples of such engagement where bridging projects—for want of a better expression—have been designed within school buildings. Although the young people are not within mainstream classes, they are nonetheless retained within the school and do not miss out completely on their education. In other areas, there are places where young people attend a different project to receive some education with a view to getting them back into mainstream schooling. In the work that I have been doing with local authorities to try to get them to adopt a corporate approach to such matters, I have been reminding them that, when a young person is on a supervision order, it is the responsibility of the local authority to consider how best it can support that young person. That includes looking after their education needs.

You will probably recall that a few years back we did a lot of work on trying to improve educational outcomes for looked-after children and we set local authorities some pretty tough standards that they had to try to meet. Some of those standards cover matters that people might think of as being pretty basic, such as having a care plan that includes a section about a young person's education. However, those issues continue to be important.

In a broader context, the integrated community school model can often reveal at an early stage where there are difficulties for young people—problems might be picked up at primary school—and provide the opportunity to involve parents and others in the community in flagging up issues and supporting young people. I would be disappointed if it was felt that education either did not have a part to play or did not play its part, because it is clear that education has a part to play. There are many good examples of education playing its part and that is what we hope to see.

Are there enough good examples? Are there enough projects? The other comment that was made to us—by Includem, I think—is that although such projects exist, there are not enough of them.

People must consider what is appropriate in each local area. I have seen very good examples of such work throughout Scotland. People might require to focus on young people who are on the verges of truancy or offending. There are issues about the point at which intervention should take place. The principle is always that one should not go in at the sharp end—intervention should be appropriate. I suggest that local authorities would not want to ignore warning signs. If warning signs are being flagged up, it is important that somebody in the local authority picks that up. I have seen good examples of social work services and education services working together and with the police to identify young people about whom they have concerns and seeking either to get them into formal projects or to provide them informally with additional support.

You will be aware that there has been additional funding to develop the workforce in early years and education. What has been made available specifically for residential child care and secure care accommodation? Given the need to back-fill posts and high staff turnover, you will be aware that there are cost issues in relation to training staff and helping them to be eligible for registration.

Obviously, you are aware of the resources that went into trying to recruit people into qualified social work posts. Incentives have also been introduced to get people into training. However, there is no quick fix. Part of the work that was done when we launched the work on improving the social work workforce was to consider the social care workforce. The intention was to highlight the fact that such jobs are valuable, that we need people to do them and that people would have opportunities for training if they became involved. Work is being undertaken on a framework to assist local health and education services and social services in planning and delivering more integrated approaches to children and young people, particularly in relation to mental health. That will have an impact. Money has been committed to child and adolescent mental health workforce development over a couple of years, to upskill and provide additional training for people who already work in that sector.

We still have a job to do to ensure that people are prepared to enter such work and can continue their training. As we know, work with difficult young people in residential settings is among the most demanding work. In a range of other settings—not just in social work—we are looking for people to be involved in working directly with young people.

What age range do you have in mind when setting the youth justice agenda?

In youth justice, young people up to the age of 18 are within the scope of the children's hearings system. On the adult side of the criminal justice system, we have tried to address the particular needs of young offenders, such as those who end up in Polmont.

The crossover point will always exist. Some of the work that we have done to pilot the youth court and fast-track hearings recognised that, for some young people who might well be fairly persistent offenders at the age of 15, we needed to try a different approach. One benefit of the youth court pilot is that it brings together all the agencies and organisations round the table to ensure that the right programmes are put in place. That is a positive spin-off.

I accept all that. The crossover involves 16 and 17-year-olds, so why do the national standards not cover the processing of young people in the adult criminal justice system?

That is because the national standards were set to deal with the children's hearings system and to speed the processes in it. They are intended to ensure early intervention. You will be aware of the work in the Education Department, under the auspices of the Minister for Education and Young People and the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, on a wider review of the children's hearings system. Interesting issues to debate will arise from that review, but I do not want to encroach on other ministers' territory.

Heaven forfend, minister. Thank you for that clarification.

The committee has heard many times and from many sources that recruitment and retention problems in children and families social work services have undermined or at least slackened progress on youth justice. How much progress has been made to address such difficulties in social work? What does the Executive plan to do to ensure that progress is sustained?

As I said, several initiatives were taken to increase the number of people. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I understand that record numbers of people were applying for social work training and that additional spaces have been made available.

I am always cautious to say that dealing with the issues is not only the responsibility of child and family social workers. A range of professionals and other people can play a positive role in working with young people who are at risk of being involved in offending behaviour. They might be youth workers, people who work in the community, people in education or the police.

I have said before, probably at a committee meeting, that some of the best youth work that I have seen recently involves community police working with community activists and others in their local areas. I caution against the notion that the way to solve the problem is with more and more social workers, because a range of people must be involved in the process and we should try to make the best use of the wide range of resources. In some cases, young people themselves are involved in running projects, particularly at the diversionary end, and we should not forget how important that is as part of the strategy.

I accept that. As you will know, at present only 30 per cent of the workforce has the required minimum qualifications, and the date by which the sector must meet qualifications standards is 2009. Are you confident that it will achieve that?

Again, that particular issue is no longer in my portfolio. The question would be best addressed to the education ministers, who could give the committee an update on the current position.

In your conversations with them, are they reasonably confident?

I hope that we will see some movement towards that. One of the difficulties is that the matter goes back to before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. A number of reports at that time were particularly concerned about the lack of qualifications, particularly among residential care staff and those who work with the most difficult and troubled young people. There has been an expansion of opportunities for people to get training places. I would not like to hazard a guess at whether all those people will go to work in that sector, but there has certainly been an expansion of opportunities for people to get the relevant qualifications if that is what they choose to do.

I started the questioning by discussing partnerships and asking about the youth strategy groups. Will you clarify whether you consider that voluntary sector providers should have a place on those groups?

At the local level, it is important for people to look to all the agencies who might have a useful role or something to add to the process. Where the voluntary sector is involved in providing places, I cannot see why anyone would want to exclude it from being involved in developing the strategy. Good practice suggests that we want to bring people together.

That is helpful. I ask you to remain seated while we deal with the final aspects of the inquiry.

Members have received a summary paper that shows the evidence that we have heard so far, and I need to ascertain whether members want to engage in further evidence taking or hear from further witnesses. Do members agree that a sufficiently broad spectrum of evidence has been taken?

With the supplementary witnesses whom we invited previously, I think that we have covered all areas.

That is helpful.

The summary paper also notes the emerging themes. Have any other issues arisen from the evidence that members would like to be covered in the draft report?

The summary paper is fairly comprehensive. The clerks are to be congratulated on recapitulating the salient points in the paper and we should use it as the basis on which to proceed.

That is helpful. It looks as if we can begin to focus on the draft report. If the clerks feel able, we might be able to consider that at our meeting on 22 February. If that is agreeable to the committee, is it agreed that we would take the item at that meeting in private?

Members indicated agreement.