What is a green recovery? And what should it look like? These are the questions that the Environment Committee have been asking during their inquiry. Listen as we chat to their convener, as well as Parliament staff and a community worker to explore how people feel about Scotland's green recovery, and learn a little bit about the parliamentary process at the same time.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP answers questions from Opposition Leaders and other MSPs on Thursday 5th November 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP answered questions from Opposition Leaders and other MSPs on Thursday 29th October 2020.

What is social care and how is it delivered?

The Health and Sport Committee heard from the Director of the Coalition of Care & Support Providers in Scotland, Annie Gunner Logan, as part of their Inquiry into social care during the pandemic.

If you would like to find out more about the Committee's work on social care, please visit https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/113970.aspx

 

Transcript of the session from the Parliament's Official Report:

Hello, and thank you for the invitation to join the discussion this morning. I am very pleased to be here for this session. This is a pivotal time for social care, and I thank members for their continuing and enduring interest and attention.

I have not given you a fresh paper today, because the paper that we originally submitted back in February is still valid. I went back to it in June and wondered whether any of it would be relevant after Covid, and then I realised that not only is it still relevant, it is now hyper-relevant. I will pull out the key parts of that, with particular emphasis on the bits about commissioning and procurement—because they are of interest to the committee—and then I will talk about how things could be different.

First, I want to say something about what social care in the third sector is, what it does and why it matters; our paper goes into that a little bit. Social care in the third sector is not a service like other public services. We do not cure people, deliver their babies, put their fires out, bring them to justice or get them educated and qualified. We do not generally wear uniforms, and you will not see us in television drama series on Saturday nights.

What we do is get alongside people when they have very significant challenges in their lives and struggle to participate in society as full citizens, and we support them, wherever possible, to make their own decisions and move their life forward as best they can. Where the world makes it very difficult for people to do that because of their age, impairment or whatever, we do what we can to help by ensuring that they are comfortable, are cared for and can have at least some kind of independence and peace of mind in their individual circumstances.

When you look at what third sector care and support organisations say that they are all about, you do not find much about services; rather, you find things such as,

“Our vision is for the people we work with to live meaningful and independent lives in a world which supports them to achieve their own ambitions”;

“Our mission is to enable everyone to live a valued life—the life they choose”;

and “Your way to a brighter future”.

The shortest statement that I could find among our membership is simply: “We support good lives”.

It is hard to capture and summarise those organisations’ work, partly because what they do to support people in practice will vary according to individual need and preference. That work is not seen as particularly exciting, sexy or critical—certainly not to TV producers on a Saturday night. To have to live without it, however, leads to huge stress and distress for people and when that work becomes the focus of attention, as it has during the pandemic, everybody finds out how important it is.

Over time, a substantial architecture of legislation overlaid that basic proposition of a supportive relationship for people with challenges in their lives. The foundations in modern times were the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970—I am getting a bit anoraky already—both of which conferred very important rights on people with care and support needs as well as duties on public bodies to meet them.

The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 introduced the market to social care and, since 1999, the Scottish Parliament has introduced a significant range of additional legislation that refined, revised and modified all those acts.

Over time, we have also co

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP took questions from opposition leaders and other MSPs in a hybrid meeting of the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 8th October 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP took questions from opposition leaders and other MSPs in a hybrid meeting of the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 1st October 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP took questions from opposition leaders and other MSPs in a hybrid meeting of the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 24th September 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP answered questions from opposition party leaders and other MSPs on Thursday 17th September 2020.

In this episode of the podcast Allan Campbell, from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), summarises what he and has team think stands out from the Scottish Government's Programme for Government 2020/21.

Find out more about SPICe's work on their blog:

https://spice-spotlight.scot/

Get access to SPICe's briefings:

https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings 

This episode was recorded on Monday 7 September 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP answered questions from opposition party leaders and other MSPs on Thursday 10th September 2020.

Talking points include: COVID-19, homelessness, airports, sport, Scotland's test and protect app.