Thank you, convener. I will begin by introducing myself and the officials. Obviously, my name is Alex Neil MSP and I am the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights. On my left is David Thomson, who is head of primary care in the health division in the Scottish Government; on my immediate right is Lesley Irving, who is part of the equalities unit in the Scottish Government; and on my far right—I am sure that that is not the case politically—is William Fleming, who is from the housing division in the Scottish Government.
Although I do not have with me someone from every division or department that is involved in the issue, I thought that having officials from health, equalities and housing would be useful in showing how we are taking a pan-Government approach to the issue of Gypsy Travellers. I could also have had officials from planning, local government, education and a range of other departments, but I just wanted to give the committee a flavour of how the strategy on Gypsy Travellers is being developed right across the whole Government.
I am delighted to be here again at the Equal Opportunities Committee so soon after my recent appearance before the committee to speak in support of the Scottish Government’s efforts in relation to provisions for the Gypsy Traveller communities. As members will be aware, after the recent Cabinet reshuffle I now have responsibility for the issue, although when I was Minister for Housing and Communities five or six years ago I had responsibility for this area of policy. I am fully committed to meeting the needs of Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers, who remain one of the most disenfranchised and discriminated against communities in Scotland.
I recognise the great work that the committee has done on the issue up to this point. Its two recent inquiries—on Gypsy Travellers and care, and where Gypsy Travellers live—have underpinned our activity and shaped our agenda over the past two years.
As the committee recommended, the Scottish Government is working to develop an overarching strategy and action plan for Gypsy Travellers, which we expect to publish this summer. The strategy is being developed in consultation with a range of key stakeholders via the Gypsy Traveller strategy development group, which includes members of the Gypsy Traveller community; I know that the committee quite rightly attaches a great deal of importance to that.
In relation to accommodation, ministers and officials have visited sites, met key groups and convened a national site working group to gather views and consider the issues further. Our role is to set a robust framework and to promote good practice so that the accommodation needs can be properly assessed and met at a local level. We have already delivered new guidance on local housing strategies and housing needs demand assessments that stresses the need to assess and fully take into account the accommodation requirements of Gypsy Travellers. We have taken on board the lessons and information gathered through our visits and meetings to set out a clear plan of action for the months ahead, which will include publishing minimum standards for local authority Gypsy Traveller sites that every site must adhere to.
In relation to tenancies, we will also publish national guidance on the expected rights and responsibilities of every Gypsy Traveller site tenant. In addition, guidance on unauthorised sites will be published. As I have previously stated, I am committed to consulting Gypsy Travellers on guidance and decisions that affect their lives, and their views will be integral to the development of the guidance on sites to which I have just referred.
In the longer term, we are looking at promoting good practice on planning to identify the best way of helping the Gypsy Traveller community make best use of its assets. As the committee will appreciate, the community is a diverse one with a range of needs. Improving attendance and attainment in Gypsy Traveller children is a key priority and to support that, the Scottish Government has reconvened the Scottish Traveller education review group to improve access to education. The group will develop and then promote guidance on the education of young people from Travelling families and support the development of local, inclusive approaches across Scotland that address some of the challenges faced. Draft guidance is expected to be ready for consultation by the end of 2015, with publication thereafter in early 2016.
We remain committed to finding innovative ways of tackling the barriers to improving the health of Gypsy Traveller communities. For example, more than 60 Gypsy Traveller families have now benefited from the better breaks and take a break programmes, which provide short breaks for disabled children and young people with complex needs and their families. Both funds continue to be widely advertised, including through promotion via Travellers’ Times, to encourage future funding applications from the Gypsy Traveller community in the hope of supporting many more Gypsy Traveller families in the future.
Of course, that is just a snippet of the activity that is going on, and I look forward to taking questions from the committee in due course. At this point, however, I want to indicate five areas in which action is going to be taken in the coming months. In April, we will publish progress on our own equality outcome for Gypsy Travellers—which is, of course, to reduce discrimination against them—as well as our planning guidance on sites for local authorities. In May, we will publish our guidance on the quality of sites and, as I highlighted earlier, the rights and responsibilities of tenants and occupants. In the summer, we will publish the overarching strategy that I have referred to, as well as a briefing for local elected members on the issue. Finally, as we have indicated, we will be running, perhaps in the autumn, a marketing campaign to improve awareness and understanding of the needs of the Gypsy Traveller community and to try to reduce the level of discrimination against such communities throughout Scotland.
We recognise that resolving the issues faced by Gypsy Travellers is a challenge, and our approach has been very much based on looking at qualitative as well as quantitative issues and on taking all the key stakeholders with us. After all, as people around the table know, the Gypsy Traveller community is not a homogeneous community, and we must ensure that we take all sections of the community—as well as other stakeholders—with us.
Solutions require a collaborative working approach between the range of partner agencies, which include national and local government, national health service boards, education authorities, third sector organisations and the community itself. Working with the committee, we are determined to do all that we can to reduce discrimination against the Gypsy Traveller community in Scotland—with the objective, of course, of eliminating such discrimination—and to ensure that Gypsy Travellers have equal and on-going access to health, education, housing and all the other amenities and public services that we ourselves expect.