Petition

Our third item of business is consideration of petition PE1420, by Teresa McNally, on behalf of Clacks kinship carers, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to recognise the real value of kinship carers and give them parity across Scotland with foster carers. Members have a paper from the clerk, which points out that the committee has already considered many of the issues that are raised in the petition, and that we are scheduled to take further oral evidence on kinship carers from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government in September.The Public Petitions Committee specifically asked us to consider inviting the petitioner to provide evidence at that meeting. However, an alternative approach would be to ensure that we reflect the evidence that the petitioner has already submitted in our questioning of COSLA and the Scottish Government. Again for information, I inform members that Liam McArthur e-mailed me to say that he feels that we should not invite the petitioner to give evidence on kinship carers with the minister and COSLA, but should instead ask her for further points that she would want us to raise in that session.Do members have any comments? Is the committee happy with Liam McArthur’s suggestion?

That sounds practical.

We will leave the petition open and ask Ms McNally to submit any further questions, points or evidence that she wishes to provide in advance of our meeting with COSLA and the Scottish Government. That meeting is scheduled for September, so she will have plenty of time to submit evidence.

Are we still to understand that the forthcoming children’s services bill will cover kinship care? I believe that we previously put off a formal inquiry on that basis.

It is still the understanding that we will look at the matter in that context. I have no further information on that at the moment.