 Felly, fyddwch i gwaelwch ar gwaelwch i Ysgolwchio Norwgrwm. Fyddwch i'w f Cerfwysgwil y Rhywun Newi Gwrthw Greece. Mae fyddwn cyntaf gan fyddwch ei palau'r holl, ac mae'r ddyn nhw'n i'w fyddwch i gafodd iawn. Dwi ddim yn embroiderdol o hyn sydd wedi gweithio i wneud i gyrdd diwylliant. Fyddwch ei ddweud i dwyntgen. Fyddwch ei ddweud i ddweud i gyd gyngor gydymuno brifwyddiol. rydyn ni'r unig ymraeg nad oedd yn gystafodd sesef y gydag hwnnw i'n ddweud. Na rwy'n wych i chi'n gwybod? Rhaid i chi. Fel ddweud y lleidol, mae'n gydag hwnnw i gydag hwnnw i gydag y mwyfodaeth fel ysgol. Ymwylfaith y Sfodd y Sôl yw'r eich cyd-doedd. yw'r oficiwys. Richard Cawrnish, director of devolution and Denise Horthall, director of the work services at the Department for Work and Pensions. Mr Greene, you have indicated that you wish to make an opening statement. Thank you, convener. Good morning to you and the rest of the committee. I am very pleased to be here, the first DWP secretary of state to appear formally before a Scottish parliament committee. Ie ddweud hynny cofeid lovely to my officials Richard Gwynish, Denise Horstholl. It's an interesting time, clearly the Scottish Government is at the start of its journey in developing and delivering social security in Scotland, and clearly the Parliament as well will be assuming a new and distinctively different role in scrutinising the Scottish Government's choices and decisions in this area. It is a unique moment in devolution and the transition of powers from Westminster to Scotland. I know that in this process, our officials have been working well together and I look forward to that relationship continuing. It's also a personal pleasure to be back in Scotland so soon after my last visit, where I saw great work done by a number of voluntary organisations. I visited kibbleworks in Paisley, where young people who face barriers to employment are helped to experience the benefits in terms of well-being and confidence that having a job brings, which is very central to the purpose of the Government's welfare policy. I also listened to views of a number of organisations on the front line about how my department can continue to develop and improve its work, because there's always room for improvement. Other ministers in the department, the Minister for Disabled People, had the opportunity recently to be part of Scotland's hosting of rehabilitation international, and I know she visited a number of organisations at the same time. We're at an important juncture for the delivery of welfare in Scotland. We're implementing the further devolution of powers that all parties agreed for Scotland in the Smith Commission agreement relating to welfare powers. In July, we commenced 11 of the 13 welfare sections in the 2016 Scotland Act. These included provisions in respect of creating new benefits, topping up reserved benefits, discretionary housing payments, universal credit flexibilities and employment support. The majority of those are already in force. They came into force from 5 September this year. The housing DHPs came into force from April of next year. We recently agreed, and I'm sure that the committee is aware of that, at the request of Scottish Government ministers to explore a unique, split competence approach to the commencement of the remaining welfare sections of the Scotland Act covering existing benefits, DLA, PIP and carers allowance, and we remain committed to transferring these powers as soon as it's practicable and, very importantly, as soon as it's safe for claimants. The powers being transferred are unprecedented in their scope and mean that, from a situation where, until recently, virtually all welfare provision was being legislated on and designed centrally, we now face a completely different landscape of both Governments delivering benefits in Scotland. The Scotland Act makes this Parliament one of the most powerful, devolved legislatures in the world and makes the Scottish Government directly accountable to its citizens in those areas that are being devolved. I'm sure that that means an increased role for this committee in reviewing how the Scottish Government takes those powers forward, because, as anyone exercising ministerial office knows, with power comes great scrutiny, and so it should. Now that the Scottish Government's consultation on how to do this has ended, I would encourage them to set out their policy plans as soon as possible, and I appreciate that this committee will play a significant role in scrutinising that. As agreed in the fiscal framework that's been agreed by both Governments, funding for devolved welfare powers transfers at the point of devolution. Under the situation of split legislative and executive competence, as we will have for some of our benefits, funding for welfare benefits transfers to the Scottish Government along with the executive competence at that moment. At that point, I think that this committee will become an even more key player. Successful devolution of £2.7 billion worth of welfare spending is a huge task. We all recognise that it will take the Scottish Government some time before it's in a position to deliver welfare programmes fully. I'm fully committed to working with them at all levels to make sure that implementation is effective and to ensure awareness and understanding of the changes for all those who are touched by them, and perhaps most crucially of all to deliver devolved welfare safely for those people in Scotland who rely on this support. In that regard, I want to pay tribute to the hard work and determination of the thousands of DWP employees in Scotland who day in and day out provide support to those who need support. Their contribution is very significant and I'm sure that committee members regularly visit their local job centres and will recognise that too. It's incumbent on both Governments to manage the transfer of powers during this transitional period in a sensible way. There are clear accountabilities on both sides and the needs of citizens must be at the centre of this process. I should also say a word about the UK Government's approach to welfare while I'm in front of you. In 2010 we inherited a broken system, a system where there were too few incentives to move from welfare to work, and one where too many of our fellow citizens were simply taken off the books and forgotten about. That's what we've been trying to change. We've ensured that work always pays through reforms like universal credit while ensuring a strong safety net for those who can't work. Spending on disabled people, for example, will be higher in every year of this Parliament than it was in 2010. But of course we need to continue to review and reform the system based on what we know works. That's why earlier this week I published along with the Department of Health a green paper which is designed to improve the way the welfare system responds to people with health conditions. We also want to see employers step up and play their part in helping people with long-term health problems and disabilities to get into work. We've created a disability-confident business leaders group. On the health side, one of the big mindset changes that we need is to see work as a beneficial health outcome in the jargon. In other words, a good job is good for your health as well. There's overwhelming evidence of that. We'll be working with the various health bodies in Scotland to make the benefits of work an ingrained part of the health workforce approach and to see a culture of high ambition for disabled people in this country. As a closing thought, clearly delivering on this devolution settlement is a learning process for all of us. We share the ambition to maximise the opportunities it can bring and to avoid any unintended consequences. It's vital to ensure that the new and any existing services work effectively in tandem and that we try to avoid additional complexity and cost and a disjointed approach. As I said, I look forward to the Scottish Government providing further clarity on its plans as soon as possible. We now have an opportunity to implement a new shared welfare landscape for Scotland, one that continues to deliver in the best interests of Scotland while obtaining the benefits of the UK welfare system and transforming lives, giving people skills and opportunities to move into work and help them address the difficulties they may face. We are looking at two different areas, one about the devolved powers and one that is still reserved to Westminster. We have decided to talk about the devolved powers in the Scottish Parliament at the beginning, a couple of questions and then we can go on to any reserved matters. I'll start off with the questioning. You mentioned about the devolved powers. We know that only 15 per cent is coming to the Scottish Parliament and 85 per cent is still staying with the Westminster Government. You mentioned also in your opening speech about co-operation between the DWP and the Scottish Parliament as well and between the different departments. The Government has ensured a very smooth transition so that no-one falls through the net and everything is done smoothly as possible. Can you tell me what work is on-going with the DWP staff and staff from the PCS union who will be instrumental in delivering those changes? Is there any on-going work regarding looking at DWP staff transferring to the new social security agency that we have here? We have certainly had evidence from staff, PCS staff, that there has been no on-going talks in regards to that. Did you perhaps elaborate on that bit? Obviously, until we know what the actual proposals from the Scottish Government are, it's quite difficult to take a definitive position on individuals. Denise, you're working on a daily basis on this. Do you want to? On a daily basis, we're working locally and also at a national level concerning the impact of some of the early changes around employability. This is around taking the space that the work programme had before. There isn't any impact on my staff at this point in time. There'd be referring and working with different providers or the same providers sometimes, but the areas that you're thinking of are probably around the benefit side, and certainly those decisions haven't been made. We have had a number of discussions with trade unions and, in fact, just last week, I personally had one of my regular catch-ups with all three trade unions, specifically on what we're doing in DWP on Scottish devolution. Although the communications within the department have been relatively low-profile over the last year or so, until we get more detail about what will happen and when things transition to the Scottish Government, there hasn't been a huge amount to share with staff in DWP, but we've certainly been doing some communications. Last week, I was meeting with PCS and the other trade unions. It's just that there has been concern raised, and you mentioned the fact about the staff and job centres who have all visited, and have raised their concerns about lack of communication and a timescale. We don't have a timescale on when you're going to work even closer with the staff and job centres. I'll speak at the ministerial level and then let Richard say about the workforce. Clearly, we have the joint ministerial committee on welfare, where I attended my first meeting last month, and it was a constructive and sensible meeting. As I said, to some extent, the details of the perfectly sensible questions about timescale and so on will depend on the Scottish Government coming forward with its own timetable, both for legislation and, indeed, the structure. I understand that they've just finished their consultation on how they want to organise this, and we're all waiting for them to come up with some conclusions as a result of that consultation. Yes, and I think on the point you touched on before, convener, the Scottish Government haven't indicated to us that they want to transfer UK DWP civil servants into their new agency that they've announced they're creating. Indeed, a number of the people in DWP that work on the areas that have been devolved don't necessarily do that from Scotland. Some of the benefits that are being devolved are currently dealt with by places in the north west of England, for example. It's not necessarily clear that people would automatically transfer over from DWP. Of course, a lot of DWP staff in Scotland deliver benefits and services such as job centres, but they deliver benefits and phone inquiries for all different parts of the UK from Scotland, so they would be remaining working for DWP in the main. That's just one part of it talking about the agency, but the actual communications between them has been raised with the staff, and I understand that you have a memorandum of understanding as well, which says that you will work together. It's just to put some flesh on the bones. Is there any movement from yourselves in regards that we know that they work in different areas and they won't all transfer over to the agency? To ensure that there is a smooth transition, there has to be some form of communication between the DWP and the people who deliver it here in Scotland, whether it's an agency or whether it's working out with an agency. Is there a timescale for it then? I just want to try and pin this particular part down because people are concerned that there's nothing worse that we're looking at this and we're putting this forward, and then there's no safety net in case something happens? The DWP staff will still be working on DWP benefits as a number of the people that work on Scottish claims for the benefits that are devolving don't necessarily do that from Scotland, so I have given reassurance to staff in some communications over the last year or so that that's our expectation. We will start having more communications with staff. I plan on doing some more telephone conference calls of all staff in Scotland in the next few months, but we are, as I said, quite dependent on the Scottish Government sharing with us the timeframe for when they want to actually start taking on some of the services themselves. Until that point, it's difficult to give a lot more flesh on the bones to staff because the messages won't be fully formed. It's not a blame game or anything, it's just to ensure that people do get the services that they want. To be entrenched in the position where you want this one to come forward or that one to come forward, all I'm asking is when are you going to get together and speak to the staff that's going to deliver this? You mentioned telephone conferences, etc. Would we in this committee get an update when you're talking to the various staff? I think it's really important to get this correct and right and working properly. We undertake a number of different communications methods for staff on a daily basis just as business as usual, and that will continue. I would expect to be able to give you almost a daily commentary on that, but certainly, as I said, I have done some communications with staff in Scotland and elsewhere, and I am expecting to do that on an ongoing basis in the coming months. I thank the committee for coming to the committee, and I appreciate, as you mentioned, that you are the first secretary of state that has come to the committee, and it's good to welcome you here. I am grateful for the constructive approach that has been outlined in some of the comments there, too, in terms of understanding the member and how we implement the new powers that are coming to this place. I think that it's also important to consider the past and the present, and I thought that it was interesting on Monday that there was almost an implicit recognition from yourself in terms of the publication of the green paper around the fact that there have been significant failures and problems with the roll-out of welfare reform since 2010. Obviously, there has been a huge amount of distress to our citizens and to many of the constituents that we represent. I wonder whether, in terms of the fact that you are here as the first secretary of state to the Social Security Committee, you wanted to take this opportunity to perhaps acknowledge and apologise for the unnecessary and highly disturbing anxiety, suffering and hardship that many of our constituents have faced since 2010, particularly in regard to working assessments, working capability assessments, the sanctions that have been imposed and also the cuts and the wider austerity agenda and welfare reform. I just wondered if you would like to reflect on that, given your comments on Monday. The green paper that we produced was explicitly building on the new types of things that have been introduced of the system, notably universal credit, which is the biggest new development, a benefit that always makes work pay, which avoids one of the problems that have bedevilled the benefit system for decades. You mentioned the work capability assessment, which was introduced in 2008 by the Labour Government. It was not invented by the coalition government in 2010. We inherited the work capability assessment. There have been five different reviews of the WCA since it was introduced because there is nothing that cannot be refined and improved. I hope that the measures that will flow from the question that we are asking in that green paper are designed to make it do its job. What I want to do is remove the binary nature that it has got into, where it puts people into groups and you are designated as a member of this group or that group. I want it to be much more personal, so it can achieve the sort of responsiveness that I suspect we all want to achieve so that an individual can be helped in the best way possible for that individual to either gain access to or regain access to the world of work for all the benefits that that brings, not just in terms of money but in terms of self-esteem and control over your own life. If you would like to try and divide that help away from the pure benefit that I am going to get, I think that it is that confusion that I regard as being slightly unsatisfactory. I think that you need to assess people to know what help they have. I think that at the end of the system you need a sanctions regime. It is very much the last resort and what I think is interesting, and I know how controversial sanctions are, is that sanctions have halved in the last year, both under job seekers allowance and ESA. In Scotland, they have fallen further than other places. There have been a 60 per cent fall in JSA sanctions in Scotland in the year to March 2016. On average, only 2.4 per cent of JSA claims results in a sanction. I think that they need to be there, but also absolutely they need to be there only as a last resort. That is why we are trying here in Scotland one of the improvements that may work. Let's see what works. It is an early warning system that gives claimants an extra 14 days to provide further evidence for reasons of non-compliance. We are still at the relatively early stages of that trial and we get the full evaluation early next year. I want to bring about the improvement to make the system work better for your constituents and mine in England as well. It is good to hear that determination to make the system work and an implicit recognition that there have been significant problems. I noted earlier this week that you dismissed the film by Daniel Blake as a work of fiction, but unfortunately for many of us, the constituents that come to see us at surgeries, that story that is told in that film is by no means an act of fiction. I think that what would be useful for us going forward if not an apology is a wider recognition of the suffering and the stress that has been caused to many individuals, the most vulnerable individuals in our society, from single mothers to the disabled to those with mental illnesses. I want to give you an opportunity to acknowledge that before we move forward together to think about how we use the powers of this Parliament to do things better with the 15 per cent that is coming. It is absolutely, it sort of goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, not the intention of anyone connected with the welfare system, whether it is ministers or staff of DWP to cause distress. The system is there to help people and I see it as an essential part of my job to try and set up the structures and set up the organisation of the system. It is there to help. I genuinely do not know what your personal view is about a sanctions regime. I think that one is necessary as a backstop, other people I know do not. Similarly, I know that there are some people who think that there should not be any kind of work capability assessment. I do not agree with that. I think that you need some assessment, but the assessment can be made better. I can only assure you and the committee and everyone that the whole purpose of the system is to help people and also to use the benefit system as a way not just to give people financial help, which obviously it does, but also to give them the benefit system. To give them the tools, if we can, to take more control over their own lives, to make their own lives better. That seems to me the basis of any humane welfare system. Adam Tomkins. Good morning Secretary of State and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. It's very good to see you here. I wanted to, in the same way that Ben Macpherson was, I wanted to ask you about this week's green paper, which I note was a joint publication between your department, the DWP and the Department of Health. One of the impressions I got from the green paper, and I suppose the first question is this the right impression to have got, is that one of the things that is coming right into the heart of the government thinking about social security is the joined upness of social security on the one hand with health, but also on the other hand with employment. The function of the welfare state is not merely to help those and support those who genuinely cannot work, but also to do everything it can to move people off benefits and into work. I wondered if that was a deliberate innovation on the DWP's part to jointly publish this green paper with the Department of Health. I wondered also if you could reflect a little bit on the policies that I understand of the United Kingdom Government, a very ambitious policy to halve the disability employment gap. It's a success story that we have so many people in work in the United Kingdom. It's a success story that we have so many disabled people in work in the United Kingdom. I think the number is 360,000 people with a disability in work now who were not in employment two years ago. To go from there, that's significant progress, but to go from there to a point where we have managed to halve the disability employment gap, which is as paragraph one of the green paper says is one of the most significant injustices in the United Kingdom today, is a very ambitious policy. How can we realise it? Two huge issues there. I'll try and be as brief as I can, partly because I'm very passionate about both of them as well. Absolutely, the DWP and the benefits system cannot solve problems of welfare on its own. We will devise benefits that try and help people, but particularly in the example that you give of the green paper. Across the UK, there are more than 7 million people with a disability. That is a huge pool of talent and potential. One of the things that strikes me as hugely ironic is the way every four years now we've got into the routine of everyone in the country hugely admiring Paralympians. We think, look what these people can do, despite the fact that life has dealt them a difficult hand. Everyone goes back to their day jobs and tends to regard disabled people as, oh, we feel sorry for them, they've got a problem and things like that, not recognising that there are millions of people with talents to do great things. We've got to make it easier for them to express those talents and do the great things that are within them. To do that, you need the health system, particularly for instance with mental health issues, to diagnose them earlier, treat them better, recognise that there are conditions that come and go and therefore people's working life will be different because it may be more sporadic. How can we help employers to be able to cope with that? The health system has to do that. You're right about employability. The skills system has to recognise that if somebody is moving away purely from people with disabilities, but more generally, if somebody is at a stage of their life where they haven't got the relevant skills, then it's for another arm of government, then the DWP, to make sure that they've got the skills so that they can take advantage of the many work opportunities. That's why the Prime Minister has set up a social reform committee on which all the relevant departments are sitting so that we can drive forward the social justice agenda, which we're very determined to do, in a joined up way. Your second point is challenging. I think that this green paper is the start of a very long perspective. People often accuse politicians of being short termists. I'm being deliberately long termist here. I don't think that there are levers that you can pull that you can make huge differences over 18 months or so. Governments have got to commit themselves to 10-year activities, but, as you say, we are getting more disabled people into work than ever before. The gap is so big precisely because we've got more people generally in work than ever before. Roughly 80 per cent of people who are non-disabled but are of working age are in work at the moment. That's historically at a high level. What we need to do at all stages—the health system, the welfare system, the employment system—is to get all the ducks in a row to make a real difference. If we can do that, we can make a significant dent in the disability employment gap. We can do that in a steady, consistent way over the course of many years to come. That has to be the target. Can I pick up on the part about the disability and getting people with disabilities back into work? We've heard absolute horror stories with people with disabilities being forced to take jobs. They just can't. The debate yesterday, one of the contributions was a gentleman who couldn't walk. All he could do was use the finger of his hand and he was told he could get a job texting. It's concerning that, although it's admirable that people who want to work and yet work is a great way forward, people are being forced into work with a disability. Could I draw your attention to paragraph 114 in the green paper? Obviously there's a particular group with people with life-threatening illnesses and disabilities that are put into this group in which they don't have to always go for a disability work assessment. In paragraph 114, it says that there is currently no requirement for people in this particular support group to stay in touch with the job centre, besides engaging with reassessments. We could consider implementing a keep-in-touch discussion with work coaches. This could provide an opportunity for work coaches to offer appropriate support tailored to the individual's current circumstances, reflecting any changes since their work capability assessment. The light-touch intervention could be explored as a voluntary or mandatory requirement. I'm quite worried to see that word mandatory requirement. Mr Greene, are you saying that people with disabilities will once again have to go through this revolving door of work assessments? Not all of them. Indeed, one of the announcements that I've already made is that somebody whose capability assessment says that they're not fit for work and who has a condition that cannot get better will either stay the same or degenerate. Anyone in that unfortunate position will stop reassessing. I think that that's one of the beneficial changes. That will be a huge weight off the mind of very many people. I think that's the kind of change that's entirely sensible. Sorry for interrupting, but how do you define this? It's a question that maybe others will raise as well. Do you have a list of conditions? We know which conditions to generate or which conditions don't improve, but the key is that it's got to be individualised. It all fits in with that pattern that there will be people who, at some stages of having multiple sclerosis, can work. At some stage, it may get to the point where they can't work. What I'm saying is that if they've got to the point where they've been assessed as being unable to work, then with a condition like that, there is no point calling them back in two years' time saying, we're going to reassess you because we know it won't have got better. There are many people like that. I think that the point about not just putting people into what we call the support group and leaving them there, which is what's happened in the past, one interesting historical statistic is that when this system was created under a Labour Government, the estimate was that about 10 per cent of people would go into that group. If they'd been assessed, people would think, I'm afraid you're never going to be able to work, so here are the benefits for you. Actually, it's about 50 per cent going into that group. Forecasts are always wrong, but that seems a huge difference. I suspect that the 40 per cent who are unexpected or unexpected to the people who made the predictions in 2008 in that group will contain large numbers of people who may well have conditions that go back and forth. That particular applies to many mental health conditions, and the largest growth of people with disabilities at the moment are those with mental health conditions, partly because we're getting better at diagnosing them and recognising them and saying, we can do something to help these people. People like that, again, there's a lot of medical evidence that they are precisely the sort of people who shouldn't think, I have been told I cannot work, I will never work again. Many of those people could work, certainly for part of the time, and would benefit from work. Their lives would be made better, so those are the sort of people we want to keep in touch with so that they don't feel they've just been left by the system. Thank you very much for that, just at the paragraph 114. Does concern me about light touching, but I'm sure others will come in and I don't want to hog the paper, so do contribute. I certainly will, and I'm sure that this committee will also have individuals as well. Thank you, convener, Secretary of State for coming to speak to this committee. I have a question about engagement, which I'll perhaps focus in on two issues. The first of those is how constructive has been the engagement between UK Government and Scottish Government officials, and perhaps you could comment on that. The second, perhaps more specific matter relates to something that is covered in the green paper, specifically in the chapter that refers to taking action together towards the end of the green paper. Pargraf 297 refers to sharing effective practice and being active partners with government by third sector organisations. That's a particular area that I'm interested in, and certainly in my area, Edinburgh and Lothian. Indeed, throughout Scotland we have very many churches, community groups, voluntary organisations and others in the third sector who are actively involved both with government agencies and with individuals who receive benefits. I've met two of those this week alone, one of whom raised the very point that you touched upon, an organisation dealing with disabled people and the need to be flexible because identifying an individual's particular skills and looking at developing that and finding work for them in areas where they are very good, very able as opposed to focusing on the disability. They welcome this approach of having a flexible approach to things and also this attitude towards working between government agencies, voluntary organisations and individuals. How important is this sort of engagement and working together with third sector organisations to the United Kingdom Government and the approach that is presaged in the green paper? On the communication between officials, I'll ask Richard to comment since this is his life full time, 90 hours a week or whatever unfair hours we put on him. All I can say is that I've observed in the three months or so I've been Secretary of State that relationships are very good and very constructive and practical and realistic. As I said in my opening statement, we're at this transitional phase where powers are being passed over. Within the next year or two, those powers will start being exercised here in Scotland. It's all real now. People are going to have to run systems and pay benefits and do all the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of the day job of the DWP here in Scotland. My limited experience is that I detect good and constructive relationships, but you're no better than me, Richard. We are doing a huge amount of engagement with the Scottish Government and have been now for nearly two years since Smith and as the bill went through to become the act. We have done a lot of activity on a number of different fronts, so it might have been from the capability building. We've done a lot of work to help the Scottish Government to transfer some small numbers of people on circumference or, indeed, they have recruited one or two DWP staff. We've run somewhere in the region now for about 100 sessions, workshops, visits, you name it. We've done it in terms of activity with the Scottish Government and helping them to get a better understanding of how the current landscape is developed. In quite detailed areas such as IT, finance, fraud and error, all of the different policy areas but also all of the operational areas and the technical areas, we've been doing a lot of work with the Scottish Government pretty much now on a daily basis. I have a team of around 30 people working full-time on Scottish devolution with the Scottish Government with their counterparts there, so a huge amount of activity has been going on. I could wax lyrical about it, but I won't say any more. On your second question about the third sector, one, absolutely, they are essential participants in this. They will have contacts, ideas, ways of working that are unfamiliar to governmental organisations, which may be better, so we can learn from them. In particular, I'm keen to have them running individual programmes in local areas. You'll often find that those are the best programmes, particularly in some difficult areas, that will make a difference on one of the visits that I've made. It was a general needs housing association that said one of the things that it had taken to doing. It had plugged into a different charity in their area who gave work advice, so they were moving their tenants towards that. They were upfront about it. They said, if our tenants are in work, we get our rent paid more reliably, so this is good business for us, as it were. Nevertheless, I met some of the tenants who said, in one case, they'd been out of work for 15 years or so, had sort of got into trouble as a man in his early 20s and drugs and alcohol and all those type of problems. Now, in his late 30s, he was in regular employment for the first time in his life. That came entirely from an initiative by an individual NGO. The flexibility and ideas that they bring are absolutely essential to running a successful welfare system that does actually encourage people, as I keep saying, to take control of their own lives, which is what I want to achieve. Can I just add to that? On a local level? Jobcentres continuously work with their partners, again for all the reasons that Secretary of State said. We run community representative groups at a national level in Scotland and also at a local level. If there are partners that we haven't touched, we'd really like to hear about them in that locality because there's no doubt that together we get better results, people get better outcomes than us trying to do things individually. There's always the opportunity through our partnership teams to engage. Thank you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to question you this morning, Secretary of State. I want to return to the question of sanctions that Ben Macpherson raised. We debated last night in the Parliament led by the conveners at research by Glasgow University and other universities, including Sheffield, about the question of sanctions. A number of things came out of that research and I wondered if you'd seen it. One is the disproportionate effect that it has on young people in terms of sanctions. One of the key issues is not the principle of sanctions but the disproportionate nature of it and the way that it's being applied. There aren't just one-off cases. There are numerous thousands of cases where people have missed appointments and either the DWP hasn't realised that they've been told this or someone simply made a simple mistake and they've been sanctioned for four weeks, six weeks and, of course, those sanctions can be as long as 26 weeks. I just wondered if you had any plans at all to adjust the sanctions regime to take some of the fairly well-researched evidence into account in reshaping under your leadership, if you like, a better approach to this. With sanctions, as with every other part of the system, I'm always looking at it, and clearly as a new secretary of state, I look at all parts of the system. I haven't seen the details of the Sheffield-Hallan report. They didn't send it in advance, but I will read it in detail over the next few years. I hope that we can establish, if you like, a consensus that the principle of sanctions is not a bad one, but I'll happily add to what I hope is a consensus that nobody wants to put sanctions on to no purpose or to drive people away from the system. The purpose of the sanction is to have a backstop so that if somebody really is not co-operating at all, really is not trying to get into work when they could, then that's not acceptable. It's not fair on all the other people who are paying their taxes to pay the benefits. Of course it's important, and I'll look at the individual cases. Of course it's important that claimants are given the opportunity to provide good reason for not complying. That seems to be the nub of quite a lot of the complaints. As it stands, claimants can ask for an explanation of the decision, ask for it to be reconsidered. They can appeal against the decision to an independent tribunal. It seems to take an extraordinary amount of time, but I'm sure that you know that. It can do. Again, in all areas of the system, we try and minimise delays. One other thing that I would say is that we have hardship payments. There's now a well-established system of hardship payments, specifically on the point of delays, because it's relevant to that. We've accelerated the system so that it's now paid within three days. I'm sure that there are examples, but if you look at the system in the round, the applications for these hardship payments are down 43 per cent for JSA claims and 29 per cent for ESA claims last year. I hope and think that that's because the system is working faster and better. If it's not, I'll keep reviewing it. My second question is that the Scottish Government is committed to providing the option of payment of universal credit twice monthly for social tenants to have their housing cost elements paid directly to the landlord. For many claimants it's just a better arrangement. What has been said to the committee is that it wouldn't be possible for the Scottish ministers to exercise that option until the full roll-out of universal credit in 2022, but that's something that you'll be discussing in the joint ministerial group. Is there any scope for bringing that forward? I would be keen to support that idea. I think that people can manage their money better if they have more regular intervals and I think that it's a very sensible option. I'd like to see that sooner if that's at all possible. The flexibilities that we've agreed, we completely agree on the last point and I think that the reason universal credit is designed as it is with basically monthly payments is to replicate the world of work as much as possible and increasingly obviously people who are on universal credit may well be in work anyway so it gets them into the world of work that many people know. In terms of the flexibilities, it's a practical problem as to whether they can be introduced into the system before we've rolled out the completely full service that we'll be introducing over the next five or six years or so. For the very good practical reasons, the last thing that I want to do is for the system to be put under strain because that's the point. We get delays, that's the point where people don't receive payments to which they're entitled so we've agreed that those flexibilities can be introduced but it can only be when the systems can cope. The discussions are ongoing with the Scottish Government so both through the joint ministerial as you alluded to and also a lot of work at official level so we're just in the process of exploring what might be possible and I think the sense that we have is that those flexibilities will be able to be introduced before 2022 is our current assumption. We're just seeing with the Scottish Government to understand exactly what they want to achieve and all of the detail of that policy so we can try and work out what the solution is but it will take Secretary of State touched on. We want to make sure that the system is able to do those flexibilities in a way that will not cause any problems for anyone so it's more a technical IT issue rather than anything else. Alison Johnstone. Thank you for joining us this morning. My first question relates to sanctions and devolved employment programmes. Your predecessor committed to referring benefit recipients to devolved employment programmes on a voluntary basis and I'd be grateful if you could clarify for the committee that that is a commitment that you intend to honour. The question, the sort of interface between the a sanctions regime and the employability programmes, the work programmes is a practical one and it boils down to what happens if somebody is not going to co-operate at all, what happens if they refuse to. If you run a regime and we don't know yet what the Scottish Government is going to propose with its employability programmes but I get the impression talking to Jamie Hepburn and others that they may well want to run a completely voluntary system. If they do that, what happens with difficult cases, I'm interested that your sister committee in Westminster, the Work and Pensions Committee said in a report in 2015 that they thought sanctions were a key element of the mutual obligation that underpins the effectiveness and fairness of the social security system. I suspect it will be an interesting piece of work for this committee to see whether you can devise a realistic system that doesn't have that as a backstop because around the world as well as the Work and Pensions Committee in Westminster people have come to that conclusion. The skills part, the sort of employability part is a Scottish Government programme. I'll be interested to see what they say and what they do. I'd like to focus now on universal credit. The Musselboro Job Centre, which is in Lothian, the region that I represent, has introduced the full service in March this year. I've been approached by housing associations who have concerns that the life service and the full service aren't quite in line with what they do. They are enabling them to deliver the same service previously, so perhaps that might be a question that officials could help to respond to, but also concerns have been raised about the fact that people are having to wait six weeks for universal credit. That has led to referrals to Citizens Advice Bureau. The Musselboro Citizens Advice Bureau has noted a notable increase in people who are asking for advice on how to get through this very difficult period and having an impact on referrals to local food banks. I'd be grateful if you could clarify the differences between the live and full service that's impacting on housing associations being able to help clients and also the difficulties for people when they're having to wait for six weeks to receive any assistance. I'll take that one. You're absolutely right. We've moved from universal credit life service to full service. Life service is for single customers who are on working-age benefits who made a new claim. As opposed to full service, is anybody that would have applied for a variety of benefits, including housing benefit, working tax credits, employment support allowance and traditionally job seekers allowance. It's all benefits that those claimants would come to us for universal credit on in full service. We've been running since March. We have been working consistently with local housing associations at a national level and also locally to eradicate some of the gremlins in the works. There are gremlins. It's about information being provided systematically and that being received in an appropriate way. So it's not delaying the customer's benefit. Customer's benefit of six weeks is expected that a customer receiving universal credit it will take six weeks to receive because it's in arrears. So the support in that case is around advances. So there's three issues there. Around housing we're working locally and also nationally to resolve the information flows that are going between us. The second issue is around six weeks. Six weeks is because it's an arrears benefit so it will take, with waiting days, six weeks for somebody to receive benefit and around six weeks. And the last issue is that if somebody can't wait for that first payment then there is an opportunity to receive an advance. There's also referrals obviously to places like Scottish welfare fund and the rise in food banks, I don't know, nobody's actually come to me around that issue at the moment. Okay. One of the issues that the housing associations have pointed out with this move from the differences between live and full, keeping live universal credit claims for six months after a claimant has found work, was very helpful for those in temporary or seasonal work and that seems to have been discontinued in full service. So people are having to start again. That's, I can't comment on, I'm not aware of that being a policy change. I'll be very grateful if you could. That's not the intention at all. The intention is to keep claims open so that if there's a fluctuation in income then it takes away that it de-risks the reclaim to benefit. Can I just ask quickly about that six week delay? It seems a remarkably long time. Has there been any intention at all to review that, to look at what could change? It must be quite unsettling for people who are having to rely on advances. Why does it have to take so long? The calculation is around waiting days to start with, so that's seven days waiting, and then it mimics actually the word of work again, it's paid in arrears. It's basically designed to monthly payment. So when you've got through the bits of the system that you need to do, you then have the end of the month to wait for, so that can be as much as six weeks. I appreciate when you're changing, that's why we have the advance payments, but after that hopefully it's a teething problem as it were, or a difficulty for people when they're in a regular flow will obviously go away. I would just be very grateful if attention could be focused on that, because I do know that referrals to food banks during that time are quite notably peaking. Gordon, do you feel, I thought you wanted to come in the back of Anderson? George Adams. Thank you, convener, and good morning, Secretary of State. Thanks for coming along. I'm not a subtle man, Secretary of State, so I'll say to you now some of the things that my colleague Ben Fersen has mentioned regarding our constituents, horror stories of the current system. So I will not be less subtle when I'm talking about this, but I will take the idea that the Green Paper does say our vision is to create a society in which everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential. Where all that matters is the talent someone has and how hard they are prepared to work. Now if we take that on board, then why is it in Scotland currently, inclusion Scotland told us, that 48 per cent of disabled people are living in poverty? And we also have a situation where Black Triangle campaign came here and told us as well that basically the regime of PIP assessments is actually sending people to commit suicide. That's the situation. It was so strong by the Black Triangle campaign that actually it almost accused you of sending murdering people. So really I've got a situation here. Is that part of the unintended consequences that you mentioned earlier on, or is that helping people, as you said, in more than one occasion today, take more control of their lives? There's no evidence. I mean I think bringing people committing suicide into political debate is always unfortunate. Clearly every suicide is a tragedy. There are complex reasons behind everyone and to, as I say, to try and politicise individual tragedies like this always seems to me to be very unfortunate. The figures about PIP, since you bring that up, in Scotland the amount paid for PIP and other disability benefits have had a real-terms increase of £294 million or roughly 16 per cent over the course of the last Parliament. So the amount being paid to people who have extra difficulties because of their disability is actually going up under PIP. So what the evidence shows is that this is a benefit that is helping more people. It's a wider benefit than the old DLA and in particular it's something that people with mental health problems find easier to access than the legacy benefits it's taking over from. I mean I just disagree with the black triangle analysis of the situation. We'll move on then to, since we're talking about PIP DLA, the idea that you mentioned multiple sclerosis earlier on in your submission and it was actually quite hopefully naive what you said regarding someone with multiple sclerosis because is that not part of the problem that we have a system that doesn't understand the conditions that people have and the long-term conditions that they're dealing with? Is that not the problem, Secretary of State? And also you mentioned Paralympians. Was it not the case that Ben Rowling's and Carly Tate actually ended up in a situation where they went through the assessment and could have lost their mobility vehicles and these are the people that you said we talk about them as heroes and then they're going through your system and then effectively these heroes are becoming zeros? On multiple sclerosis I'm not, you said what I said was naive, I'm not clear about that. You said that someone with MS could at various points work, yes he could, but the problem would be that what employer would have difficulty dealing with someone that could maybe work one day a week and then for the next five could actually not deal with that work. It's the chronic fatigue alone. The point I was making was individual conditions understanding them, that's the point. As it happens, I do understand multiple sclerosis quite well. I have an employee who has multiple sclerosis and have had for many years, so I know quite a lot about being an employer of someone with multiple sclerosis, thank you. You can do it and I know it's a degenerative condition and therefore there will come a point. The point that I was making was in terms of the announcement that I made about not reassessing people that if you have reached a point where you can't work at all and you've got a degenerative disease like multiple sclerosis then you're not going to go back to work and reassessing people like that seems to me to be an appointment here as pointless. You've spent a fortune at this stage of assessing people when it used to be a desktop condition and there was only about 3 per cent of people in DLA who were found to abuse the system. Clearly any boost of the system needs to be stopped but I want to make the system more sensitive and that's what I'm doing. If there are individual cases of anyone that you want to bring up, do let us know and we'll look at them. Can I say one final point? You answered a question with Jeremy Corbyn with regards to I, Daniel Blake and it just so happens that the writer of that is here today and Paul Lavarty is here. He gave me this book in the way in and it might be some light reading for you on your trip down to London so you get the opportunity to actually experience it. I do believe that the writer told me, Paul told me that this was based on some of the ideas and research that he had done and also we can back it up as constituency MSPs at some of the horror stories that are coming from your so-called welfare reforms. I'll leave that there for you, Secretary. That's very kind, as I say. That's kind as well. That's very touching. Thank you very much, George. I remind members of the committee that in the Scottish Parliament we always treat people with respect. Also, Secretary of State, when you mention suicide and the black triangle, there are absolutely, I have a constituent who unfortunately committed suicide after getting a letter from the DWP. There is evidence in that respect but I just wanted to put that point that in the Scottish Parliament we treat everyone with dignity and respect as we would expect to be treated and the people here and outside as well who have been through this process. Mark Griffin. Thank you, Secretary of State. Thank you for coming on to speak to us today. There is a clear distinction between powers over particular benefits that have been devolved and which are reserved but there is that grey area in the middle. I welcome power and a significant power that the Scottish Government will have to top up benefits that remain reserved. I just wonder if you are able to outline what the process would be, what any potential costs would be if the Government decided to top up an area of reserved benefit particularly. There is a strong lobby outside this Parliament to top up child benefit, to alleviate child poverty. I wonder if you are able to talk about what the process you see, whether the Scottish Government would do that through their own agency or whether the Scottish Government would make a payment and that would operate through DWP. It is a good question because you are quite right. The Scottish Government does have these powers to top up if it wants to. It will be different for different benefits. I think we are engaged in a feasibility study at the moment about carers allowance. On one example, the Scottish Government have commissioned DWP to do a feasibility study to look at how their policy to pay a different amount of carers allowance could be achieved. We have accepted that commission and we are working on that at the moment to explore what will presumably be several different options where we may be able to help the Scottish Government to achieve that policy. It depends on what that feasibility study identifies as the options to therefore what the solutions might be and then the choices for the Scottish Government to make around how they might deliver those. We have been looking at carers as a specific example and how they are delivered, whether the sense that the Scottish Government will have a separate agency seems to be the steer they have given so far. We will be looking at ways in the carers allowance example of how the information that DWP might be able to be shared in some format with the Scottish Government to achieve their aim of topping up. The principle will work in a number of different areas where we are able to help the Scottish Government to achieve their aims. Do you have a time scale at all for that feasibility study on carers allowance? Yes, so we have committed to undertake the work within three months, so we are expecting it to be complete by the end of December. I have a separate point that I wanted to raise as well. You may or may not be aware of the sad case of Alison Shaw who died in Glasgow in July. Alison's family took a selfless and courageous decision to keep her life support operational for three days to allow her to donate her organs to allow other people a better standard of life for to save their lives. As a result of that decision to keep her on life support for three additional days, she qualified for her pension, which meant that her husband, her widower, did not qualify for a bereavement payment. If you agree that it is right that a family who selflessly and bravely make that decision and to keep a family member on life support so that they can donate their organs are then financially penalised, I wonder if you would look at that particular case. I have seen the case and am sure all our thoughts must be with Mrs Shaw's family. This was clearly a brave decision to allow her organs to be used for donation. I know that my department has been in touch with them to explain the situation and in particular how they can appeal against the decision. Your last question here, would I, as it were, change it? There is an important principle in all cases that politicians do not give individual benefits. On individual cases, it is the law that we as politicians pass laws that then get implemented and departments have to obey the law as much as anyone else. There is a legal appeal process, which is the appropriate way to do that rather than an individual minister intervening. However, as I said, my department is in contact with the family to explain that process to them. I would like to welcome your guarantee that the Scottish Government will have power over conditionality and sanctions for the employability programmes that we have. I wonder if you could reflect a little on some of our people facing additional barriers to work, be that disability or poverty. The impact that punishing them further through cuts has in that it inhibits their ability to take part in society and to gain employment. I wanted to talk a little bit about your green paper. It states that you want to ensure that people are able to access the right employment and health services at the right time in a way that is personalised to their circumstances and integrated around their needs. Everyone would welcome those warm words. However, my question is if that is the case, why are you merging the work choice and the work programme and reducing the budget for employment support? The green paper also states that a new personal support package offering tailored employment support, which Jobcentre plus work coaches will help disabled people or people with health conditions to access. What will the benefit of that be? The answer to the first question is that what we want to do is concentrate our support precisely on those who benefit the most, hence the new work and health programme. What the support package includes is a place on either that programme, the work and health programme or work choice for all eligible and suitable claimants, depending on whether it is before or after April 2017. We will also be able to offer another range of help. Additional places on specialist employability support programme will be having job clubs delivered by peer support networks. A lot of the charities who work in the sector have said that they think that it is peer-to-peer help that is particularly effective. You need to know what the condition is before you can explain to someone else who may have the same condition as you how they can best benefit from what is available and explain to employers. We are creating 200 new community partners who have got disability expertise and local knowledge in individual areas. Again, to provide specific expertise, there is another list but I won't go through all of it. This shows that what we are trying to do is spend the money that we have as effectively as possible so that what we are also doing is listening to those involved in the sector providing practical help. It is reasonable to observe that a lot of the big charities who work in this area know to be Scope and Arthritis Aid welcome what is in here. I want to get to grips with these specific programmes because they believe that they can help people in a more effective way than they have been helped before. As I said, it is about concentrating where it needs and the personal support packages will be precisely what they say on the tin. Instead of just lumping people into groups and saying that you are this sort of person, try and personalise as much as possible because that is the practical way to make a difference to people's lives. I would urge you to listen to the real experts who are not those people but our people in our communities that go through these programmes and really hear them when they say what does and does not help them to contribute in society, which they all wish to do. I do not think that there are many people who do not want to work but there are real barriers in terms of poverty and disability in health conditions. I hope that you will take that opportunity. Absolutely, hence the peer-to-peer idea. You are right, it is removing those barriers and some of them are unnecessary barriers imposed by actions of the state and others are really deep-seated and ingrained barriers of people's attitudes. I do see that it has literally taken a generation for women to get near equality at work. We know that there are still problems there but the mindset has changed hugely in the past generation. This might be a generation-long fight as well to make sure that the barriers to disabled people being completely involved in the workforce take. I appreciate that there are many people and I would be one who would say that all the barriers to women having full participation in the workforce have not been removed but we have made huge strides. I think that that is unarguable over the past generation in that. Let us do the same for this other group. I do not want to go back and forward all day and I will not even touch on gender equality here. I urge caution to talk about changing attitudes. Perhaps looking at the consultation responses that the Scottish Government has done, it is not the attitude of people who have challenges against work that needs change. The system is society. Most of those barriers are not about the attitude of people who need that social security safety net. There are structural barriers in it and it should not take a generation to change and I would be deeply ashamed if it took a generation to change that. I completely agree. We do not differ here. I agree that it is society's attitudes, in-grade attitudes. One of the reasons why we set such great stress in the green paper on employers' attitudes, there are some very good employers who are very enlightened on this. I want to spread that good practice across the world of work. I have talked about gender equality just as there are employers who are more enlightened than others on that. Successive Governments, successive other agents in society have tried to spread that good practice around. I want to do the same thing to help people who have a disability. Thank you very much. Just one very, very last question. I wonder if you would agree or perhaps look at this particular part. The sanctions and conditionality is the biggest huge with people who are facing barriers, particularly with the sanctions. In your green paper, would you perhaps look, stop, think and put a moratorium on the sanctions part and conditionality until you get further evidence? The evidence that we have received from Sheffield Harlem and Glasgow University does not imply that the figures are there from 2010 up to 2016 sanctions have been used excessively. It is basically making, forcing people back into work. I do not expect you to give me that commitment, but if you would think about it even. I always look at new evidence. I can only say in response that more than 70 per cent of JSA recipients and 60 per cent of ESA recipients say that sanctions make it more likely that they will follow the rules. There is clearly evidence on both sides. I will always make a commitment to look at evidence. It is not about following the rules that are set. It is about trying to treat people fairly with respect and getting them back into work. I will leave it at that. Thank you very much Secretary of State. We have also received various written questions. I know that some members have more questions to ask. Would it be all right for the committee to put these in writing to you? Would that be all right with yourselves? Certainly, yes. Thank you very much. I will formally close the meeting now.