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You may be aware that the current Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has newly come into post. We had her in front of us recently.

We have been quite thoughtful about how best to carry out the scrutiny role, given that she is new in the position. We also have to recognise that each commissioner is quite different. As convener, I was never given the opportunity to scrutinise the previous commissioner. I have only ever had Nicola Killean in front of the committee.

We heard evidence from her and her team about their strategic plan and that set the tone of what we will look for from her in the next year or so. We looked at what her priorities will be and we were glad to know that they are around poverty, education, mental health, climate change and discrimination. Nothing is unfamiliar or a surprise. Those priorities are all in the work plan that the commissioner is keen to focus on.

We were interested when she spoke at length about her accountability tracker, which, in the landscape that she works in, is designed to hold the Government and other bodies to account for how they are progressing their plans in relation to the promises that they have made to children and young people. We are keen to see how that develops and whether it gives us some oversight as a tool to track progress.

I do not know how long I have. I could talk for a while, Mr Gibson.

The only one that springs to mind right now is additional support for learning, but I am afraid I cannot talk an awful lot about that until tomorrow.

I suppose that the issue goes back to the role of the Children and Young Person’s Commissioner, which is specifically about hearing the voices of all young people without making the assumptions that adults might make. The current commissioner is looking at finding ways to proactively engage with some of the groups that you mentioned to make sure that their voices are heard.

Having a commissioner as massive and unwieldy—that might not be the right word—as that, with a remit as broad as that, would not allow for advocacy for young people, who often feel unheard at the best of times, without their perspective being diluted by all those other things. That is the key thing that sets them apart.

I have one small point to make, convener. We are concerned that bringing more commissioners into the mix could create further confusion and could make things even more ineffective for young people by making it harder for them to figure out who to go to who could act as their champion. Such confusion in the landscape comes with costs and creates more barriers to justice. That is my final word.

In digging in and getting a bit more detail about the children’s commissioner, the challenge is the work plan that we all have to work towards, specifically the education committee. Our heavy legislative agenda prevents us being proactive about going into more detail with the commissioner about some of the work that they do. If you want us to have that increased level of scrutiny, perhaps the capacity of the existing system needs to be reviewed. That does not necessarily mean that there needs to be another committee; perhaps the Parliament’s whole work plan needs to be reviewed.

This comment might be more from me than from me as a convener. A leaner legislative programme would allow committees to do more in-depth work and have more of a proactive agenda.

They do, but disabled young people are covered by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner. As I said previously, the children’s commissioner is for every young person, whether able-bodied or disabled.

I am not certain that the commissioner spoke an awful lot about that specifically to us, because the evidence was about her strategy going forward. She was taking a new approach. In the past, you have heard about the gaps in keeping the Promise and how care-experienced young people still feel let down. We had an informal session with them and we heard some quite critical voices. It is the role of the commissioner to champion those voices as well.

Do you want to go first, Martin, while I have a think?

It is difficult because everything that the commissioner generally does is more subjective, which is why we were so keen to learn about that accountability tracker. You will know that, in terms of challenging her budget, there is a split in roles and responsibilities. As a committee, we take assurance that her role in coming in with a balanced budget is scrutinised adequately elsewhere within the parliamentary process—that is, by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. Apologies if I have that wrong.

The key performance indicators that we hear about so much—perhaps when we challenge Government ministers—are not quite as relevant to the children’s commissioner role. We have to be a bit more subjective in doing that.

Okay! [Laughter.] It was also interesting to learn about her new and innovative ways of engaging with young people to make sure that she was hearing their voices. I am fortunate enough that a couple of members of this committee were part of that evidence taking and I know that they will reinforce that.

The commissioner’s powers are being expanded later this year with the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We will be able to gauge her powers of having some influence across the community.

Other than that, our scrutiny will be based mainly on the evidence that the commissioner’s office shares with us, aligned to our other programmes of work on legislation, including evidence on bills, and inquiries that we are working on. That is where we are.