Seòmar agus comataidhean

To Parliament, do you mean?

The milestones in the contract relate to assessing performance and provision. As for outcomes, the Government and the Parliament will be watching to ensure that the standards are being met and the service is being effective for people, and that will happen in due course.

The fact that VoiceAbility will be present in all health boards is an illustration of its comprehensive geographical engagement across the country. There are wider considerations, such as collaboration with different organisations and the wider engagement on awareness that Jeremy Balfour rightly highlighted, and local government will need to be kept informed about and included in the awareness-raising process. We will, of course, engage on that. However, I highlighted the issue of a presence in all health boards as part of the considerations around the contract to illustrate the geographical availability and the fact that there will be a comprehensive service throughout Scotland.

The questions that Mr Briggs has raised are important ones that we obviously considered in the award process. The VoiceAbility delivery model is built around home-based staff and an existing network of more than 100 accessible co-location venues in local communities across the country. VoiceAbility has already been engaged in such work, and it will continue to engage in it as it delivers the contract.

The organisation used that approach before Covid-19, so it was ahead of the game with its move to digital and accessibility in communities. That has allowed it to be flexible and responsive to fluctuating demand and to have a clear presence in all health boards at launch. As a result, the geographical presence that Mr Briggs rightly asked about will be there.

As you would expect, the organisation is very committed to creating that presence and working in collaboration with others. I look forward to seeing that happen, and I am sure that the committee, too, will look forward to engaging with it as it expands into Scotland from a strong position of delivering in the rest of the United Kingdom. With its Scottish base and bespoke training centre in Glasgow, the organisation will ensure that advocates and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge and skills that we have talked about to deliver the service to a high standard, as set out in the standards that we are discussing.

It is also important to point out that the organisation will scale up in line with demand. We do not necessarily know what the demand will be—in fact, we will see that only when the service is rolled out.

As far as I can recall, I made this point in my letter, but I should emphasise that there will be a working group that the service will engage with, which will include not only key stakeholders, who will be able to have an input to and to engage with VoiceAbility, but, crucially, people with lived experiences, to ensure that we have a connection between the new service and those who use it.

We are excited about what the organisation is going to do and how it will perform under the contract, and we look forward to working with it as it rolls things out. Of course, as I have emphasised to members, any such advocacy will be independent.

On the issue of costs, I do not have those figures just now, but I undertake to come back to the committee on that.

That is correct.

As I said, we have recently published evaluations on the carers allowance supplement and the young carer grant, and we will continue to do that as appropriate and in due course. However, the obligations that the amendments would place on us would take resources away from our development of Scottish carers assistance and the on-going work to consider improvements to the young carer grant, which is where our focus should be.

To respond directly to Miles Briggs, I note that, if the amendments are not agreed to, there is no intention to bring them back at stage 3, but I can commit to continuing to explore options outside the bill. I have talked about what we have done in terms of evaluation in recent times.

I am grateful to Maggie Chapman for the discussions that I have had with her in recent days, and for not moving amendment 4. As Jeremy Balfour has moved it, I will say that, although I am grateful for the debate that we have had, I urge members to reject all the amendments on reporting requirements, because they would detract from our work on developing the new Scottish carers assistance.

I have already mentioned the 100 co-location venues, full accessibility and a presence in all health boards, and the combination of utilising those venues, being present in those health boards and the collaboration that will arise means that support will be available to people, no matter their geographical location in Scotland.

On your last question, the answer is yes. I will bring in Colin Armstrong to speak about the procurement process. The procurement process was undertaken twice—once in 2019-20, when an award was not made because of the pandemic, and then again more recently. Throughout the process, Scottish Government officials engaged with current providers to give them all the awareness and information that they would need if they wanted to, for example, make a collective bid. However, that was not undertaken.

I will let Colin Armstrong come in on that.

Thanks, Colin. I will say a bit more. Consortium bids were welcome, but were not made. Two organisations with a presence in Scotland—Citizens Advice Scotland and Money Matters—made applications but, through the regulated procurement process and following an assessment under the appropriate law and criteria, VoiceAbility was assessed to have made the strongest bid and therefore was awarded the contract, as is appropriate.

We cannot speak on behalf of the City of Edinburgh Council when it comes to the choices that it will make—