Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Campbell and Ms Kinross. We appreciate their attendance. The document they have submitted has quite a bit in it and we are very limited in the time we have so I will fire straight into questions. I want to follow up on Deputy Tully who referenced the difficulties we have in Ireland in relation to assessments of need and the provision of therapies for children primarily afterwards. I will ask the question a bit more blatantly. Here in Ireland, children in particular are often being given waiting times of a couple of years for therapy or even to wait just for the assessment. Is the situation similar in Scotland or was it before these interventions were taken?

I note there is a significant reference to employment. There is a Fair Work First policy referenced in the briefing document. I like the way the words are used in the policy when it mentions leveraging employers' commitment to fair work by applying fair work criteria to public sector grants, for example. I like the use of the word "leveraging" there. Do the witnesses find that there is a fair compliance with that? Following on from that, I see that employers are also asked to "offer flexible and family-friendly working" to all workers from day one of their employment including those people with needs. Again, this centres around the same question: are employers fairly compliant with that? Have they bought into that or are there any difficulties the witnesses might flag with the committee in respect of that Fair Work First policy?

I will ask one final question. One of the recommendations made by the Scottish national autism implementation team referenced is to build a neurodevelopmentally-informed workforce in Scotland. Will the witness explain that for us? Is that the provision of training in public sector jobs, or across the private sector? Is it programmes that are rolled-out through universities and schools or are they built into a curriculum? I ask the witnesses to elaborate on that.