Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
TUESDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2007
MR ANDREW
GIRVAN, MR
JOE CONNOLLY,
MS FRANCES
TRAN, MR
JOHN WALLACE
AND MR
IAN DOBSON
Q320 Mr Walker:
So the best case scenario really was a saving of £400,000
but it could have been far higher than that saving.
Mr Wallace: If it had come to
the worst for each individual then it would have been probably
around £450,000 they were saving.
Q321 Chairman:
My question is to Mr Dobson. Presumably Dundee Council considers
this Project to be value for money and that is why the Council
is supporting it. What is your view on this?
Mr Dobson: Very much so. Part
of the difficulty is in terms of quantifying the costs or savings.
As John has said, quite a number of these families would have
cost the local authority quite a lot of money in terms of housing
officer time, social work time and education time had this Project
not been around. From the Council's point of view, this project
has two benefits: one is in terms of protecting communities through
dealing with antisocial behaviour and taking a very strong stance
on antisocial behaviour, but the other benefit to the Council,
and particularly my interest in it, is from the homelessness point
of view. There have been a number of families the Project has
dealt with who previous to Project services being around would
have been what we term "repeat homeless" cases who would
have been coming to us, would have been evicted, would have been
in temporary accommodation, who we would have been providing a
very limited service to, who would then disappear into friends,
family, private sector or whatever and who would reappear and
the whole scenario would kick off again. The Project gives us
the ability to deal with families from the homelessness point
of view and from our legislative obligations in a very sensitive
manner and tackle the issues and get some sustainability in terms
of their ability to maintain accommodation, live in the community
and not reappear. That is at the very hard end, families who may
have been evicted, families who are out on the street and who
present to us. The other aspect is the preventative work that
the Project does in terms of our outreach service. Again, it is
not an easy thing to say that of all the parents who went to the
Families Project 100% would have been evicted but we are fairly
sure that certainly a significant proportion of those families
would have been evicted and would then have come back to the Council,
that the costs in terms of the homelessness obligations would
have kicked in, costs in terms of void property, of re-letting
housing would all add up. These are not easy costs to quantify
and give you a definitive answer as to what the savings are. We
know in terms of how we had to deal with homelessness prior to
the Project being around and how we have to deal with it now that
there are significant benefits from a very pragmatic point of
view for the local authority. Leaving aside whatever your sympathies
are for the families and children themselves and the societal
benefits, from a hard-nosed pragmatic view in terms of how we
carry out our statutory obligations through the homelessness legislation,
Dundee Families Project is a major benefit to Dundee City Council.
Q322 Chairman:
So do you recommend that other Scottish councils set up these
kinds of projects and it is definitely value for money?
Mr Dobson: I have to say I am
biased. I would recommend that other local authorities replicate
the project as it is in Dundee. Having said that, I recognise
that it is an expensive project and that some aspects of the service
are not attractive to other local authorities. My belief is that
the three strands of the service as it exists in terms of core
block accommodation and dispersed flats and outreach services
provide a holistic service that you can fit a service user into
depending on their needs. I think we are very fortunate in Dundee
that we set it up in the first place to give the wide range of
services that we have. Nobody is denying that it is an expensive
project to run but these costs are expensive upfront and at the
end of the day we believe, and I think the research has backed
our belief, that it is value for money. That is from a pragmatic
local authority point of view but the benefits to service users
themselves are well-documented.
Q323 Mr Walker:
We met a couple of professors, Professor Veit-Wilson and Sinfield,
a few weeks ago and they were loath to say that any area of poverty
was a particular priority, they believed that poverty in general
needed to be addressed, but when pressed they did actually agree
that child poverty was a priority area which stood out above all
else. What is your view on that? Would you say that it is Government's
number one responsibility when tackling poverty to look at children
first?
Mr Girvan: My colleague Joe was
in the room when you asked the previous group, the Dundee Anti
Poverty Forum, what priorities they would like you to take away
from today and I think my colleague suggested that was keeping
child poverty at the top of the agenda and if we are asked the
question at the end of the session we will probably say that.
I think it is about the potential cost to society if we do not
invest in our children in the next generation. John eloquently
put what the hidden costs can be in terms of coming to a point
of view and what the net savings are in relation to a project
like Dundee Families. I think the cost to society if we do not
invest in our children—we have seen the UNICEF report, we
have got the FactFile document that backs this up in terms
of the related problems that stem from child poverty and poverty
of opportunity—is you do have an underclass and related
problems which are very difficult to unpick in terms of substance
misuse, binge drinking and so on that we are seeing growing as
a problem within society. We do have to address that as an urgent
priority.
Q324 Mr Walker:
You can answer this in what you are about to say. In alleviating
child poverty does it make sense that you have to alleviate the
poverty experienced by their parents or guardians? You cannot
do one without the other.
Mr Connolly: No, you cannot. It
is about working with parents. In some cases we are talking about
second or third generation unemployment, children growing up in
households where they have never known anybody to work. That is
not the norm. I was going to make a couple of points around why
this project would not be replicated widely, but this Project
badged in different ways is replicated across the country in terms
of the methods of work adapted to needs, whether it is rural or
urban areas. We are involved in providing services but so are
other voluntary organisations and local authorities in terms of
working with parents. Early intervention is the key to it, being
able to work with parents as well as providing good nursery provision
for children. We have got a programme called "Highscope"
that is an American concept which is about empowering children
to make decisions at a very, very early age. You target the work
with parents and working with parenting skills, looking at empowering
them to go out and take up employment and also providing services
for the children. I suppose in terms of poverty, burrowing down
into it one of the major areas of concern is neglect. If we look
at some of the most recent social work reviews, they have identified
families who have suffered neglect and sometimes the threshold
has gone up because there has been such an emphasis on working
with parents. If we get the balance right the rights of the child
and the welfare of the child should always be paramount. In discussions
with two local authorities in the west of Scotland recently police
raids have been carried out on drug using parents and a number
of children have been taken into the looked after residential
system because of neglect. This may be of some interest to Mr
Davidson and the Chairman. I am involved in presenting a tender
to Glasgow City Council tomorrow and they are looking to move
children out of residential provision where possible, or prevent
them going in, by putting more resources into intensive community
support. It is a major initiative that will go across the city
and target families at different levels, some will be less intensive
intervention, some will be very heavy intervention in terms of
the preventative work aimed at getting kids out of residential
care. That will go across the whole city and at the moment they
have freed up £1 million for that initiative and the "invest
to save" will potentially free up a further £2.3 million
that will become available to provide more intensive community
support. If NCH is successful a lot of the methods of work that
are taking place in Dundee Families will be used in terms of the
work that will take place in that kind of initiative.
Q325 Mr McGovern:
I realise at the moment you are talking specifically about child
poverty but if we can move on a wee bit to talk about young people,
and I hesitate to use that acronym NEET, I have got a problem
with acronyms like that. I remember 30 years ago people were referred
to as "YOPpers", if they were on a Youth Opportunity
Scheme and it was not very complimentary to my recollection. That
group "not in employment, education or training" are
a priority for the Government and they also fit in with the Scottish
Executive's strategy which is mentioned in the report More
Choices, More Chances. Do you think enough is being done to
address the needs of that particular group?
Mr Girvan: I will give an initial
response to that and Joe Connolly is involved with a couple of
projects where we are developing services around that particular
area. The question is, is enough being done and from our perspective
the answer would be no, more could be done and should be done
to address the problem fairly urgently. Something is being done
and as an organisation we are trying to tap into those resources
to make an impact in that area. What we have had to do is pull
together a cocktail of funding, however it has not been a simple
task. We have had to access funding through European funding,
Career Scotland, housing associations, Scottish Enterprise and
Scottish Exec money. It is a hugely complicated process at the
moment, it seems to me, to try to bring together a viable project
to help young people get into employment, training and education.
We had some research carried out on the Inverclyde project called
the PICT project and the research was suggesting a 77% success
rate in engaging young people who had been out of work, employment
and education, getting them back and re-engaging them, giving
them the skills and tools they need to get back into sustainable
real employment, not pretend jobs. We are using that research
to build a range of services. We have interest from a number of
local authorities in Scotland in terms of doing that. We know
we are not alone, there are a number of providers in this area
and we would support all the work that is being done across Scotland.
I think more potentially still requires to be done. We know there
is huge difficulty even where we have had a proven success rate,
and I would probably repeat this in relation to Dundee Families.
I do not think anybody has a divine right to deliver services
but if you are demonstrating success and you are demonstrating
that things are working it seems an anathema that we are having
to go out and spend as much of our time, effort and voluntary
income from people who support NCH, for example, to chase the
money to fund the projects that are delivering success. If we
can address that in some way with simpler funding schemes, simpler
mechanisms, sustainable funding around this issue, that would
be key. We went in knowing this is a high risk area because all
of the funding around it is very short-term and it will take up
a lot of our time, effort and energy of our finance managers and
others just to put a package together to go through 18 months
and then we have to repeat the same process. I would put that
as a plea for all organisations involved in this area of work
that we need long-term sustainable funding to address the issue.
Mr Connolly: I can give you a
specific example of what Andrew is talking about. We work with
a lot of young people, all of our services are geared to young
adolescents and older teenagers, 16-21, and we have recognised
that gap. It has got to be real jobs, it cannot be the YOP or
the YTS, it has got to be real. We have entered this with that
principle underlying what we do. We have got a couple of initiatives
on the go but we have got a major one which will be a landmark
for us in partnership with a private company, with local housing
associations, with Glasgow City Council and we have got European
monies, a cocktail of funding that we have pulled together to
renovate a landmark building, the Great Eastern Hotel. That will
create something like 35 or 40 jobs, real building apprenticeships
for young people. A lot of those young people would not be ready
to go in and sustain that but our part will be to support them,
to get them over that hurdle where it is a good idea to have a
job and sustain getting up in the morning and being able to work.
With that combination I think that is quite an attractive package
to pull together. The young people do need that type of intensive
support to get them to achieve.
Ms Tran: Can I just say in terms
of young people with disabilities, who are even more disadvantaged,
that the issue for them is even greater in terms of work and experience
of that because they need an additional support person and often
that is not available to them and there is no money to try and
find that and we have to seek other ways of doing that, either
trying to get match funding or through the Big Lottery. In fact
it should be a statutory responsibility, we should not have to
go to other organisations like the Big Lottery to try and get
money to develop programmes and sustainable work for young people
who have a disability. What we have done through the Scottish
Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee is we have tried to look
at working with another organisation where if we can develop a
programme we can develop some social care skills for mentors,
if you like, to work with those young people going through that
transitional period and try to get them into employment.
Q326 Mr Walker:
Frances, I was going to ask this a bit later on in the session
but since you raised disabled people I will ask it now. Do you
have any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that parents of disabled
children are being discriminated against by employers, perhaps
because they are not allowed time off work to care for their children
or take time off for hospital appointments?
Ms Tran: I have responsibility
for a Service Development Group which covers all NCH Scotland,
and project managers who work in a number of local authorities
are involved in that group. The information is anecdotal but it
has been stated that parents have difficulty. Firstly they have
difficulty in finding employment because they do not have appropriate
childcare facilities for either their child or young adult and
as a young adult becomes 16-plus they change in some local authorities
from being a child to an adult. They move from the childcare system
to an adult care system under community care and within that the
families do not get the same level of money that they get in terms
of respite or support. There are personal difficulties for families
in that area. That is the first part. Secondly, we have had information
from all of our projects that it is not recognised that parents
should get time off to attend hospital appointments, it is very
much seen as it is their appointment they need time off for and
if they have to take time off for their child that has got to
be through annual leave or some other arrangement and they have
to pay back the time. We do not have many families that we work
with who are in employment. There may be one parent but if it
is a lone parent who has a disabled child or a disabled young
person in their family it is less likely that they have employment.
Q327 Mr McGovern:
Mr Girvan, you have mentioned a couple of times the UNICEF report.
What was your reaction to the UNICEF report, and I realise that
I am now speaking in acronyms, which put the UK at the very bottom
of the table of 21 industrialised nations in terms how they meet
the basic needs of children?
Mr Girvan: Initially not entirely
surprising, I have to say, just given my experience of working
with childcare in the UK over a good number of years. Our own
evidence in FactFile bears that out in terms of a lot of
the figures and also brings some of the trends up-to-date. I think
if you ask children, and as an organisation we try to make sure
that when we are speaking here we are representing their views
and trying to convey them, a lot of children would say they do
not feel that the UK is a particularly friendly place for children
to grow up in, they do not feel as though they are treated with
the same level of respect as adults. Anecdotally, for example,
if they go into a shop the security guards usually home in on
them, they are not spoken to with the same level of respect. They
do not enjoy equality in terms of the fact that they can still
be physically chastised. They do not enjoy the same level of protection
as adults do and that we would all expect if we were walking down
the street. There are a number of ways in which we could learn
from this report rather than just saying it is historical, as
was being reported in the media with representatives saying some
of the facts were historical. Given the overall picture it would
be very dangerous to ignore what that report is telling us. We
should be humble enough in the UK to look at some of the other
countries, such as the Nordic and Scandinavian countries, where
we are seeing much better results in relation to family cohesion,
integration of children into society and far fewer children feeling
excluded from society. In answer to an earlier question about
where should child poverty sit, I think it should be at the top
of the agenda because there are so many costs to children concerning
the next generation and to society as a whole we should also be
looking to try and achieve social cohesion as much as possible.
Q328 Ms Clark:
The UK Director of Save the Children was reported as saying the
fact that Britain was at the bottom of the table was "shameful".
Do you agree with that?
Mr Girvan: It would be hard not
to when you look at the wealth in this country, the fact there
is the biggest disparity between the rich and the poor, the haves
and the have-nots. Having worked for as many years as I have in
Children's Services and now with NCH, my focus has very much been
with vulnerable families and children. The evidence is often in
front of our eyes. You feel embarrassed at times by the fact that
you are in a well-paid good job when you look at the quality of
the lives of the families we are working with and the gaps that
are there. The thing that gives me some hope, thinking back to
families who were all sitting in a group over there celebrating
the tenth anniversary, was what I saw were groups of families
who had been excluded, who were a cost to society, whose children
were a cost to society, people potentially on Anti-Social Behaviour
Orders who were not fulfilling their potential, who were all there
looking happy to be here, not embarrassed or shy to be here, saying
they were now contributing to society and felt they had established
a place in their communities. It is helping people make that journey
that is important in society and how we build greater social cohesion
is going to be a key issue, not just child poverty but ensuring
that we put a value on parenting, on caring for children, and
that we do not get the balance wrong, which I think we have done
over the last number of years. For example, it is often no longer
a matter of choice for women going out to work, it is almost a
matter of necessity because of the values that underpin society
at the moment. We have to bring back that question of choice and
we have to raise the importance of childcare and parenting and
the value we put on it if we want the UNICEF report to change
in the years going forward.
Q329 Ms Clark:
You mentioned specific other countries, the Netherlands and Nordic
countries, who did very, very well who were at the top of the
table and Britain and the USA came at the bottom. Why do you think
it is in particular that the United States and Britain were at
the bottom?
Mr Girvan: I think I hinted at
that in my earlier response. There is something underlying in
our society regarding the value we place on children and their
place in society and if we value them more and give them a sense
of equality. In terms of the Equal Opportunities Commission we
gave evidence saying where we felt children are treated unfairly
in society. It is something we need to address. To look at what
we invest in childcare and what we invest in terms of parenting
support to families. Fran has mentioned in particular the issues
for parents with children who are disabled, that is at one end
of the spectrum. The link to poverty is undeniable there but what
we need to do to support parents who carry that burden, in a sense
and to make sure there are better support systems in our society.
Q330 Ms Clark:
Do you think the US also undervalues children? Are the cultural
patterns similar in the USA?
Mr Girvan: There is a similar
pattern of undervaluing there. Professor Jim Garbarino from Cornell
University was invited over here a couple of times. He was one
of the speech writers and an adviser to Bill Clinton, although
recently his phone has not been ringing a lot. He talks about
the concept of social toxicity and I think that it is an important
and useful concept. I am also aware that there is a British author
who has more recently built on that premise. It is undeniable
that we are talking about toxicity in the physical environment
and we are all up to speed on that now but the concept of social
toxicity in terms of children growing up in a socially toxic environment
is not so well known. Yesterday in the media we were asked to
comment on the impact of children watching too much violence on
television. It is however not one single thing that is causing
the problem for children today, it is a multiplicity of factors
in terms of the level of risk in the environment in which they
live. Whether it is the culture of binge drinking, whether it
is access to drugs, about needing tighter parental controls and
more support to vulnerable parents, there is a range of things
that we need to look at in society and look at them holistically,
bring them together and examine what can we do to reduce social
toxicity for our children who are growing up in this environment.
What are the key factors. It is all inter-related and it is important
that we grasp that in developing social policies.
Q331 Mr MacNeil:
This is an inquiry into poverty in Scotland and over the last
day or so I have been thinking about comparing and contrasting
the Scottish situation with the situation elsewhere in similar-sized
countries. It strikes me that going to somewhere like Copenhagen
and across to Malmö in Sweden might be worth doing as a compare
and contrast exercise. I would just like to know what you would
think, whether you think it would be worthwhile for our Committee
to have another view on poverty in Scotland to see what they are
doing elsewhere? If so, what do you think we could possibly learn
if we did something like that?
Mr Girvan: The flights will already
be booked! Perhaps you will consider another means of travel across,
possibly the ferry and the train. As I said earlier, I think we
should admit there are lessons to be learnt. If we look at our
position on the league table we would be foolish to deny that
there are lessons to learn from countries big and small. The small
countries seem to be doing particularly well. I think there is
something in their value base that underpins their cultures and
societies. I know that in another fellow organisation, Children
in Scotland, Bronwen Cohen, the Chief Executive of that organisation
has been a long-time supporter and advocate that we should learn
and look at what is happening in the Nordic and Scandinavian countries.
I think that we could do more and should be humble enough not
to think we are getting it right in this country because clearly
we are not.
Q332 Mr MacNeil:
It strikes me at the moment that we are not doing what they are
doing.
Mr Girvan: There is a range of
things we are not doing, even from the basic point of children's
position in society and the support systems and mechanisms around
them, whether it be childcare, supported parenting and flexibility
around employment legislation to allow parents to properly parent
at different stages, not just at the baby stage, where we are
starting to recognise the role of males as well as females, but
also different stages of childhood. For example I have 20, 19,
17 year-old children who require almost the same level but a different
type of support than when they were growing up. We have to recognise
children require support throughout their childhood and into adolescence,
particularly at points of transition, and we need to better support
parents to deal with that to make sure they have the time and
give priority to that.
Q333 Mr MacNeil:
In your submission you state that: "more than 80% of parents
with a disabled child are unemployed". Why should that be
the case?
Mr Girvan: I will ask Fran to
come in on that, as she leads on disability in NCH Scotland's
Children's Services.
Ms Tran: As I said earlier, I
think the difficulties for parents are two-fold not only in terms
of having a disabled child but very often they have not had the
facilities in terms of appropriate childcare to support that,
they do not get necessarily the benefits. Obviously the Welfare
Reform Bill that is being discussed could disadvantage parents
with disabled children even more. The difficulty is about their
lack of support basically and resources in order to facilitate
them working or having appropriate resources for the child.
Q334 Mr MacNeil:
Also in your submission you are aware of the UK Government's role
in setting up the framework that we are dealing with but what
do you think the Government should do in order to address the
particular concerns and issues that you might have in terms of
welfare reform and disability and discrimination?
Ms Tran: Certainly, like a number
of organisations, we would be supportive of that because there
is discrimination directed towards parents who have a disabled
child. I think the Government has to look at that because benefits
for some families are perhaps all they have. It is important because
if some of those benefits are changed in such a way that disadvantages
them even further then there will be difficulties. If you look
at fuel poverty, for example, and the fuel rates that are going
up, often disabled children have to have the heating on all day,
24 hours a day, and that is another issue, so how do families
who are on benefit pay for that. If you are working you may have
a different experience but with the figures that are stated many
families do not have a working parent and they are disadvantaged
even more. To feed a child with a disability in terms of health
needs means there is further cost to that and often benefits do
not cover all of that. Although people say, "Oh, well, you'll
get this benefit, that benefit, the next benefit", when it
comes to what people have net left to provide for their child
it is not a lot of money.
Mr Connolly: Can I just add to
that. In terms of disability and the transition from school to
going on to college or other adult provision there is a gap. For
children who attend school with a disability there is a heavy
intensive support package around them but the minute they move
into the adult system that is not there because they move from
childcare into community care quite often and the costings and
funding packages are different in terms of providing that service.
It is important that in terms of transition from childhood to
adult services that that is adequately resourced because that
is creating a lot of problems in terms of young people being able
to sustain the next move whether to college or some training centre
because the supports just are not there.
Mr Wallace: Can I throw something
in on the question of disability and in particular learning disability,
where a parent may have a learning disability. Research has shown
that the majority of children in families where there is a parental
learning disability will spend part of their lives being looked
after, so they will spend part of their lives in care. There is
a need for joined-up services. There is too much demarcation in
terms of, "We are adult services" and "We are children's
services", there is no joined-up working. They hide behind
their little barriers, "We don't work with the children"
and "We don't work with the adults". There needs to
be something that is far more generic to prevent these children
being removed.
Ms Tran: That is from the Executive
down because even within departments within the Executive it is
very clear that there is that demarcation of age responsibility,
if you like, for young people.
Q335 Mr MacNeil:
One of the things I heard Dundee Anti Poverty Forum talk about
was people learning to be poor. Looking towards breaking that
cycle and maybe incentives for work, one of my colleagues on this
Committee in one of the other evidence sessions talked in the
context of incentives for work that an awful lot of jobs are taken
in Glasgow by people who come from Eastern Europe. What can be
done to move people who are currently living in poverty traps,
incentivising for work?
Mr Girvan: I am sorry, I missed
the last sentence.
Q336 Mr MacNeil:
What can be done to incentivise people for work who might be caught
in poverty traps?
Mr Girvan: I will pick up the
specific point and ask Joe Connolly to come in. There is a particular
area of work where the disincentives to work or get into education
are very marked and very clear for us. In terms of our housing
support projects we deal with vulnerable 16-18 year olds and maybe
we can focus firstly on the detail of that and then pick up on
the generality.
Mr Connolly: We provide a lot
of services for young people and we are key providers in terms
of housing support. I do not believe there is such a thing as
a homeless young person, there is a young person who is a son
or daughter, they have issues and homelessness in a period of
their lives can be an issue. We provide a whole range of services,
some of them are residential, very, very high support for these
young people with really high support needs. It is not just a
case of they have a roof over their heads, they need support in
a whole range of areas, it may be family, it may be addictions.
We staff these projects appropriately with qualified staff with
the training to be able to work with those issues. We have some
that have supported tenancies as well and some have a combination
of both. Across the country from the central belt right up to
the Western Isles we have a range of services. This is something
you can impact upon in terms of welfare reform, as it is not a
devolved power. In terms of housing support there is a disincentive
for them to go and study beyond HNC level. Once they get to HNC
or degree they cannot fund the placement that they are in because
of the cost. In employment terms, if they take a job—
Q337 Mr Davidson:
Sorry, I am confused about that. I did not quite understand that.
Mr Connolly: I have a couple of
case studies I can take you through in terms of breaking it down.
High rent charges for housing support: for example, at one of
our projects the rent is £147.90 per week because of the
support needs of the young people. Some of these young people
will go through the care system as well and they may have the
same needs as teenagers in children's homes. The Housing Benefit
calculation is a young person's wage or income minus £44.50
which is calculated as the amount they need to live on. After
that amount of money 65 pence in every pound of income is paid
in rent, so 65% of their income after that amount is paid in rent.
Students on any course which has a Higher National Certificate
are liable for rent. Case study one: a young guy studying for
an HNC in travel and tourism is liable to pay rent of 65 pence
in the pound calculated by us; he had a student loan of £3,685
and the more he borrowed the more he had to pay in terms of the
rent because of the 65% calculation. There is a disincentive to
take a part-time job because he would have to pay 65% of everything
he earns. That is the calculation that has been worked out as
what he contributes. The local authorities work out the calculation
and that has been calculated as the amount he has to pay. He received
a bursary of £2,510 but his annual living costs were calculated
as £4,325. That was somebody who was studying. Case study
number two is in terms of a young woman who was in employment
and her weekly wage was £180 minus £44.50. She would
contribute £88.07 towards her rent on a weekly basis and
would be left with £91.93 after paying rent every week. She
was also liable for council tax of £20 per week, electricity
and laundry charged by the project of £10 per week, so after
she paid all her rent and bills she had £61.73 to pay for
her travel and food to buy from that. Because of the calculation
and there is a high support need for the young people the rents
are high.
Q338 Mr Davidson:
That is partly because you are loading on to the accommodation
costs a whole number of support costs and making the combined
rent figure far higher than it would be if it was just simply
accommodation.
Mr Connolly: What I am trying
to say is—
Q339 Mr Davidson:
It is a cost they would not have to pay if they were receiving
that support in the community. Is that right?
Mr Girvan: The issue is that these
are the most vulnerable young people who need that level of support
and include those who are perhaps self-harming and, as Joe said,
these are young people leaving care and we know how—
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