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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.

It is, clearly, public money—we need to be mindful of that. We are in a very challenging environment. When the public see spiralling costs and the Parliament carries on spending like that, they think that we are a little bit disconnected from reality. We need much more accountability. As I said, the SPCB has the governance procedures around that, and the Auditor General for Scotland has a role in inspecting the annual accounts, but we need a reality check in many of these offices about the tight financial envelope that we are all working within. That is my steer on that.

Martin Whitfield has alluded many times to the commissioners’ independence, and I think it would be difficult for us to pick some of the budget areas and the activities that the scrutiny body carries out and make judgments about the value those bring from the spend. You are looking quizzical, but I am trying to form my—

Indeed.

The information gives us a sense that the services are failing. I am thinking of the evidence that we took for our scrutiny of the Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill and the evidence on secure accommodation that we took recently from the commissioner for our scutiny of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill. What is happening on the ground does not match the intention of the policy—the mismatch is quite vast and seems to be growing—and the commissioner highlighted that.

I am talking about the new commissioner, but, looking back, the previous or outgoing commissioner was critical of many of the Government’s policies when he was in post, and he shone a spotlight on, and was very critical of, their development and implementation. We are transitioning to a new commissioner, so I am trying to figure out how best to respond to your question. In the past, the previous commissioner very much challenged the implementation.

I alluded to the massive gap that people see between the policy and how it feels to the young people on the ground. There is a massive disparity there, and the commissioner plays an advocacy role in championing the rights of those children.

Your question has answered itself, Mr Greer. Fitting it into our work plan would be a challenge, and there is also overlap. The children’s commissioner represents disabled children and children who are neurodivergent. She is responsible for advocating for all those people. Far too much overlap would cause conflict for young people. Who is their advocate? Who is best placed to serve them going forward? It would make scrutiny within the committee system and the education committee more complex.