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Today, we will hear from two panels as part of our inquiry into addressing child poverty through parental employment. Over the past few weeks, we have held evidence sessions on issues around childcare, education, training and employability programmes. Today, we are focusing on employers. The need for flexible and family-friendly working was a clear theme in addressing child poverty in the committee’s recent call for views.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses, who will focus on policy. In the room, we have Jack Evans, senior policy adviser for Scotland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Lynn Houmdi, founder of Flexible Working Scotland and co-creator and programme manager of Making Work Work, the Challenges Group; Nikki Slowey, director and co-founder of Flexibility Works; and Marek Zemanik, senior public policy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Scotland and Northern Ireland. Joining us remotely is Jane van Zyl, chief executive officer of Working Families. Thank you all for accepting our invitation.

I have a few points about the format of the meeting. We have roughly one hour to put questions to you. Please wait until I or the member asking the question says your name before speaking. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you start to speak. You can indicate with an R in the dialogue box in BlueJeans if you wish to come in on a question. Do not feel that you have to answer every question, and, if you have nothing new to add to what has been said by others, that is okay. I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible. I invite members to ask their questions.

That concludes our public business. I thank our witnesses for taking part and sharing their expertise—it has been invaluable. We will consider the remaining items on our agenda in private. Thank you, once again, for coming along.

I believe that Jane van Zyl wants to come back in.

I think that Jane van Zyl wants to come in.

That is interesting, Jane. We will have the director of Social Security Scotland with us next week, so we will challenge him on that as well.

We have come to the end of our questions, unless any member has questions that they want to come in on. I thank the witnesses for the evidence that they have given. I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for the set-up of the next panel. Thank you all very much.

Jamie Greene took part of my line of questioning, which was about the liability of corporate bodies.

I have a technical question. Ofcom will be the regulator, particularly for social media sites. You said that sites will be given an initial warning before being prosecuted and held liable. Will Ofcom provide regular—perhaps quarterly—reports about warnings and prosecutions? Will you get that information regularly?

Before I bring in Marion Davis, I note that we are running out of time and two members would still like to ask questions. I ask the panel, if possible, to be more succinct and concise in their responses. Thank you.

Our next item of business is evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our inquiry into addressing child poverty through parental employment. Over the past few weeks, we have held evidence sessions on issues around childcare. The focus of the discussion with our first panel is the provision of education and training. Barriers to accessing education and training was a strong theme in our recent call for views. Such barriers can, in turn, prevent access to the workplace and to work progression.

I welcome to the meeting our first panel. Kenny Anderson is director of the Scottish Wider Access Programme (West)—SWAPWest—and Keith Robson, who is senior public affairs manager at the Open University, is representing Universities Scotland. Kenny and Keith join us in person. We are joined online by Sharon McIntyre, head of careers information, advice and guidance operations at Skills Development Scotland, and Jackie Galbraith, principal and chief executive officer of West Lothian College, who is representing Colleges Scotland. I thank you all for coming. We are delighted to have you here.

Before we start, I have a few points to make about the format of the meeting. I ask witnesses and members who are participating online to wait until I or the member who has asked the question have said your name before speaking. Please give our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn on your microphone before you start to speak. If you wish to come in on a question, please indicate that by typing R in the dialogue box in BlueJeans. You should not feel that you have to answer every question—if you have nothing new to add to what has been said by others, that is perfectly okay. I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible.

I invite members to ask questions in turn, as agreed in our pre-brief, starting with Katy Clark.

Thank you. I will now bring in Paul O’Kane with the last of our questions.

I believe that Marion Davis and Sarah McCulley want to comment.