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The aim of continuing care is to provide young people with a more graduated transition out of care, reducing the risk of multiple simultaneous disruptions occurring in their lives, while trying to maintain supportive relationships around them. I will make the distinction between that and aftercare, which refers to the advice, guidance and assistance that is provided to care leavers, as I alluded to in my answer to the previous question. As I said, we understand that there are inconsistencies.

The Promise has made it very clear that lifelong advocacy is required for people with care experience and, as I have said, we have heard loud and clear the calls from the care-experienced community.

I feel as though I am repeating myself, but I want to make it clear that we are determined to review and co-design the policies and supports and, if necessary, to legislate for people with experience of care, alongside those with lived experience and the practitioners who work with them. We will do so to ensure that we get it absolutely right for those people.

In response to your question, we would certainly consider amending the 2014 act, but that will be worked through once we have further information from the 100 days of listening and the consultation. Those measures will be considered if we think that that is right for children and young people, but I emphasise that we are listening to the voices of the care experienced and the organisations that are leading that work.

Guidance for that is absolutely explicit with regard to our expectation that corporate parents should work collaboratively with young people to deliver the integrated support that is required. The emphasis of that legislation, the regulations and the guidance is on ensuring that the young person is supported to develop in all aspects of their life.

As I have said, the guidance is absolutely explicit that the principles of getting it right for every child should be at the core of that pathway assessment, including everyone working together in local areas and across Scotland to improve those outcomes for children.

The children’s services planning strategic leads network—that is a very long title; I am surprised that I got it all out—is co-chaired with the Scottish Government. That is a national forum that promotes collaboration, shared learning and improvement activity at national and local level, between and across children’s services planning partnerships, the Scottish Government and key stakeholders. That is all done with the aim of strengthening the development, delivery and accountability of the children’s services planning partnerships, in line with the 2014 act.

On behalf of ministers, the Scottish Government undertakes a review of children’s services plans every three years against criteria set out in statutory guidance. That is all to support improvements at local and national level. We then publish a report that summarises areas of strength and areas where development is needed. I think that the most recent report was published in July 2022.

Again, we believe that lived experience should be absolutely core to all of that, so we have involved care-experienced young people directly in co-designing and co-producing services, so that they support care leavers effectively.

A lot of work is under way, with scrutiny and regular checks to ensure that the act is being implemented in practice.

I do not think so. I would just thank you for the opportunity to come along. As I have said, the petition has done a really good job of highlighting some of the inconsistencies, and I look forward to working on that and working towards our shared goals.

Again, the figures were produced in line with different stakeholders, including COSLA. I will hand over to Jack Eykelbosch to go through some of the finances in a little more detail.

In terms of what element? I am sorry—I believe that I have answered your question about sequencing. The two issues should be quite separate.

It is certainly something that we will be looking at in advance of stage 2, and it will be dependent on those stage 2 deliberations. I think that Kate Wallace said that she could provide international evidence on how this matter has been handled in other areas, and I would certainly be very interested in taking a further look at that. However, as I have said, considerations on the matter are on-going.

I would have to bring in an official to comment on the legal status, but I would say that, in line with keeping the Promise and the UNCRC, we need to ensure that we are balancing the rights of all children equally. I appreciate from Ruth Maguire’s question that it would seem that there are concerns about whether that is happening in relation to victims, but in terms of—

I believe that I alluded to this in my opening remarks. As I advised in previous sessions, we had used the lower end of the scale in that respect, and we have now taken the maximum. Also, in the previous financial memorandum, we used the cut-off of 17.5 years, and we have now taken that up to 18 years. We have probably overconsidered, as it were, how many additional hearings there will be. However, we have taken the absolute maximalist approach and, as I said, have taken it up to the full age of 18.

There are, therefore, two reasons for the increase. The first is that, in the first financial memorandum, we took the lower end of the scale, which we are now changing. Equally, we have moved the age up to 18 to address the issue.

Absolutely.

I cannot get into stage 2 amendments at this stage; that would be for stage 2.