 We have a very good morning and welcome to the 18th meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Our first item of business today is a decision-to-take agenda items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Our next item is an evidence session with a panel of employers as part of our inquiry into addressing child poverty through parental employment. Last week, we started looking into the need for flexible and family friendly working with a panel focusing on policy and a panel of business representatives. Today, we are going to hear from employers. I welcome to the meeting our panel, Helen Herd, head of human resources for Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Rachel Hunter, director of enterprise support, also Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Heather Melville Hume, senior HR manager, independent living fund Scotland, and Harvey Tilly, chief operating officer, also independent living fund Scotland, who are all joining us in the room. We have Andy Wood, people services lead the weekly group who is joining us remotely, so thank you all for accepting our invitation. A few points to mention about the format of the meeting before we start. We have approximately about one hour where we will submit some questions to yourself. Please wait until I or the member ask him the question, say your name before speaking. Andy and members online, please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you start to speak. If you can indicate with an hour in the dialogue box in blue jeans if you wish to come in on a question and don't feel you all have to answer every single question, if you have nothing new to add to what's been said by others then that's okay. Can I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible? I'm going to invite members to ask questions in turn and first of all I'm going to introduce Miles. Thank you. Good morning to the panel, thank you for joining us today. I wanted to start with the question around challenges for businesses because we've been hearing in terms of flexibility and potential flexibility within business but just wanted to find out from yourselves what you believe the current challenges are for employers and how might this be impacting on efforts to provide a more fair, flexible and family-friendly working environment. I don't know who wants to kick off on that by starting from one end maybe with you, Rachel. In terms of the feedback that we're getting from employers across the Highlands and Islands, I suppose the big challenge at the moment is actually the cost to doing business. The cost of materials, other inputs due to inflationary pressures, there are significant increase in costs and there are associated supply chain disruption as well which is caused by the war in Ukraine. The other key area that's coming across is recruitment. The labour market is particularly tight in some areas, particularly construction, tourism, hospitality in the Highlands and Islands and employers are finding it hard to get permanent staff but also seasonal staff at this time of year. One of our recent business panel surveys also suggests that employers were concerned about their staff post Covid, their wellbeing, burnout because they're about a change that's going through at the moment. So I think there are a range of issues that are challenging employers at the moment and it's difficult for them to focus long term because of these immediate challenges. I think you want to add to that as well. I think from an employer point of view and particularly thinking about Highlands and Islands as an employer, I think recruitment is a key thing and being able to attract and retain talent. I think we are quite lucky in that sense. We've done a lot of work around the type of offering that we can give our employees but I think it is a constant challenge. I think that there's a lot more flexibility in the way that people have expectations around the kinds of work that they do, where they can do it from, the level of work that they want to do. So it's being able to respond to that, I think, is really key for us. Harvey Tilly, independent living front of Scotland. So I'm, as an organisation, we're very similar to Highlands and Islands Enterprise who have got very flexible working posture and we've got, we call it life friendly working rather than family friendly because individuals, every individual in our organisation has the ability to have the same equity of offer no matter if they're single, they own pets, they have caring responsibilities and we've got extensive policies which are in your packs that can be seen and I think I would argue that, you know, we're certainly at the forefront of that. However, for us, I think, some of the barriers you talk about, we work with over 8,000, it says 5,000 here, but it's actually about 8,000 disabled people across Scotland, Northern Ireland. Certainly what we see is that the equity of offer that we can give to our staff, many who have disabled or long-term health conditions, is not the same for the individuals that we provide funding to to live independently with choice control and dignity. Often we pay the Scottish Living Wage to all of our recipients so they can then fund their own support and care, but obviously the recruitment issues that we've already talked to and you'll be very familiar with in health and social care is an issue. The fact that there's, you know, often there's very little money for those individuals, these are relatively, you know, and I've been critical but low paid work so, you know, to go out and then to procure childcare alongside that and, you know, I can take as a parent myself when we moved up to Scotland, both myself and my wife work, you know, our childcare for the month was over £2,000, you know, a month because I was working in London, we had to provide, my wife had a job that took her around Scotland and so it was very expensive and I just think that expense, cost of living, all of the things we've already talked about is a real problem. So I think for me, you know, I think we provide a very good self support for our staff and an extensive set of policies which we have publicised widely, but for me there is a bit around equity of offer to certainly carers, family members and disabled people who employ PAs and PAs to provide that same level of support and it's certainly something we'd like to explore further. I think the other thing is providing information to individuals. We work very closely with flexibility works and working families in England, based in London and often those people that sort of haven't got the right information easily accessible to them at the right time for that so they can also employ us about, you know, right to work flexibly and all of those things. And also I think there is, you know, Covid was a massive, interestingly, one of the plus sides of Covid is we're allowed to step much further forward into the flexible working space. What we're seeing is quite a lot of rhetoric and seeing reality. Certainly if you read the wider press of companies retrenching back to pre-Covid posture, that is absolutely their right, but ultimately the whole balance is something that fits the employee and the employer. Hi, Heather Melville here, Independent Living Fund Scotland. Thank you for the invite today. I think just reiterating what the rest of the witnesses have said and that's around, I guess, those combination of affordable care, not just childcare, but also those flexible working options and I think the only thing I would add is about that collaborative approach and ensuring that both employer and employee are able to make informed choices so there's education and signposting and I think that lack of information or that lack of having the right information available, I think that's really helpful to enable those conversations to happen in terms of those flexible working options available because it's not just about a four-day week, it's not just about compressed hours, you know, life ebbs and flows and so should flexible working options and I feel very fortunate that we're able to do that in ILF, as I'm sure other employers do as well. Thanks, and Andy, can I bring you in as well? Good morning, Andy. I would echo, I guess, the two main points that the other witnesses have provided in terms of our challenges are the same, you know, it's how to best support our employees in the cost of living crisis. Aside from if affordable care rises, what other avenues are there to support people with the regular costs that they may have. We do a lot of work through our sort of wee benefit and our health plan, which provide employees with contributions towards dental, optical driving lessons, et cetera, sort of practical measures to help alleviate some of the other financial constraints or pressures that they may be under. Equally, we have one of our facilities is weekly care and I would say that the recruitment challenge within that is it's not a new situation, it's an on-going situation, I think one of the other witnesses spoke to that effect as well in relation to the, you know, it is unfortunately not the most best funded sector, that comes with challenges to us as an employer to try and make that an attractive employment proposition for applicants. Good morning panel. You've touched on the first question, but I really wanted to ask if you have workers whose job requires into the physically present specific workplace, how do you support them to balance work and family life? I'll pop out to Helen. We've got, I guess, very few of our workers that need to be in a particular location at a particular time. We've got some reception staff and we have some facilities management staff that that would be the case for, but pretty much we are able to look at options for hybrid working, a whole range of flexibility locally and formally around start and finish times. There's flexibility around quite well, I would say, resourced special leave provision for dealing with a domestic situations, family commitments, as well as caring commitments, and I think the kind of organisation where we are, where we have got a number of staff that are slightly elderly and that they're kind of 45 plus, there are different types of caring issues that come into play. I think that there are a whole range of approaches that we can take that reflect the different positions that people can be in at different times in their career and that whole kind of employee life cycle from when you start with an organisation, what may happen to you during that time to when you look at leaving the organisation. It's being quite tailored and responsive and recognising that there's going to be different needs at different times and working around that. We have a number of employees that we have need them to go into the office in Livingston, which is essentially our central point of contact. Heather will talk about some of the provision that we put in place to enable them to be flexible, but I think that the reason we do that is because disabled people that we interact with, some of them are not online, they don't like that medium of communicating and they like the hard copy because often when they come to reviews and when they come to discussions, having the hard copy paperwork in front of them makes that discussion much more easy. Certainly through Covid, we thought about should we just not be in the office at all, but the reality is that we get mail coming in and out each day and there are mechanisms to do it, but also what we find is that there's a mutual support of having colleagues in the office, but they're flexible of when they come in the office and there's some flexibility, loads of flexibility around that. For us, there's a cool thing of actually having people in the office to enable us first to function to support disabled people, Heather. I would just add to that. I think that ILF, our focus has always been on that inclusive culture in terms of bringing yourself to work and that dignity and respect that we want to offer our recipients, so we do the same in terms of our staff. We talk a lot about no conversations off the table, so in terms of people's needs, as Helen was talking about, it's about ensuring that our managers feel comfortable and capable, but also that our staff feel enabled to have those open conversations and say, actually, this is what I'm looking for. The flexibility that we offer staff in terms of life events is through our policy and that policy isn't just a document that's living, it's breathing, and it's about working with that individual and ensuring that that supports the team and the service as well, just as we do with our disabled recipients because we're all individual. I'd like to note just the last thing is that though we have some of staff that are more centred around the office location, two thirds of our staff are home-based or hybrid working totally, but 100 per cent of our staff have got flexible working, so I think that's really a note. Thanks for that. Anyone else want to come in before I move on? Andy Wightman. We are in a position where we have quite a significant part of our workforce due to the nature of the roles that we provide or have within the group that are site-based or office-based, so primarily within our environmental and healthcare settings. I think that echoing what some of the other witnesses have said, it's important to give people that are working on those roles as much advice and notice as possible in terms of when they are actually being required to work so that they can plan their external non-work activities around when they are required to be in work. We have essentially a seven-week lead-in time in terms of actual shift patterns. We also have quite a range of policies that allow for time off for a variety of different scenarios, carers, emergencies, dependency leave, etc. But over and above that, I think that we have got a culture within our organisation that staff are able to approach managers and are very comfortable in asking for time or assistance or support outwith what may be stated in the policy. At the best level, the policy can't cover every single eventuality. Over and above that, we have very much the culture of the staff who are comfortable to approach the managers and ask for time off for support or as I'm required. Thank you, Andy. Helen, do you have any views on the merits of piloting off four-day working week? I think that it's something that we would be keen to see a bit more research on and the outcome of. I think that there are pilots that will be running. It's certainly something that we would look at considering, but I think that it is one element of flexibility in amongst a whole range of other elements. I think that you're not going to get something that suits everybody and it's got to reflect the nature of your business as well. We have quite a range of flexible options where we've got a lot of staff that work compressed working, so it effectively will perhaps work a four-day week or a four and a half day a fortnight. I think that there are indications that it certainly doesn't have a negative impact on productivity and it could well be beneficial. I think that there's been positive feedback from individuals that have got the opportunity to do that. I think that it's taking all of that into account and being open to see what would work. The four-day working week is a bit of a red herring for me. I don't think it's a four-day, I don't think it's binary, saying I'm going to go from five to four-day working week. I think that for us, we've looked at this extensively over the last four or five years, and we have put various submissions in to look at how we pilot those thoughts. For us, it's essentially reduced hours. For me, flexible working is working ultimately when it suits the business but also when it suits the individual. It may be that they take their time, those reduced hours, over a three-day period or they may take them over a six-day period because that works better for the way that their life is done. For me, it's about not a binary four-day working week, but I absolutely agree. Lots of research being done in that space. We're looking at doing a 35-hour, moving down from at the moment with 37 hours, we're following the pay policy, we have an hour health and wellbeing, so it's essentially a 36-hour and we're looking at doing it down to a 35-hour week. We've done lots of consultation work with staff. I think that the major theme coming through from staff is we have very high workloads because we're in the fiscal environment where resources are scarce. How do you balance this almost contradiction between reducing hours and your workload is ever-increasing? I think that there are efficiencies that can be drawn. Ultimately, happy staff or productive staff is not rocket science. I would just like to add, as a small organisation, about hugely effective and hugely efficient in terms of what we do. Since we started in 2015, we have over 100 working patterns. For a staff of just under 70, there are 100 working patterns that have been looked at and actually worked. That tells you what flexibility looks and feels like. It's not just a four-day week. It's about what suits that individual and what suits delivery. From recruitment, it's about having those conversations. Straight from advert, we talk about flexible working and we have those conversations because we want to create the best environment for that individual to deliver for us and for our disabled recipients. It's having those conversations that's enabling other small employers to be able to do the same. I think that that would be a real step change for many organisations. Thanks, Heather. Your comments are very helpful. In on online, Andy, do you want to come in before I hand back to the convener? No? Okay. Back to yourself, convener. Just before bringing in James, I just wanted to ask the panel your thoughts on, I know that as a mum and having a child in childcare, some of the challenges was when you get a phone call from the nursery to say that the child is not well and you have to go and pick them up. More often than not, it's women that are having to do that. I'm just wondering, and the struggle is having to pay that time back or take annual leave, so we are disproportionately impacted by that. Can I just ask what your thoughts are on that in terms of more flexibility there? Can I bring in Heather? Thank you very much. Certainly, during Covid, I was very much balanced between care and responsibilities and work. Although I wasn't with ILF at the time, one of the things that was shared was that it's just what you can do, so you can only do what you can do and life comes first. Because our staff are so committed and engaged in terms of what they do, it's not about necessarily making the time up, it's about just recognising that they need to balance that. It's about the manager being able to then flex that workload. I think that you're right in Scotland, I think that 42 per cent of women are responsible and there is that disproportionate impact. Every policy or practice that we look at will always impact assessing it. Employers being able to do that and we will look at that wider picture and being able to tap into advice and guidance in order to do that is essential. I'm a both-working parent and my wife works away quite a lot. My job enables her to do her senior role elsewhere. I get those calls and often have gone to pick up, but I recognise that the burden of that does fall. I go into school playground and I'm one of, increasingly there are more men there, but the vast proportion of people going up and picking children up are women and, therefore, that means that they're getting called and the onus is on them to pick up. From an ILEF perspective, just to add further, we don't request that anybody makes up any time ever if they have family emergencies. What we find with that is swings and roundabouts. We don't monitor anyone, we trust people to do their jobs and we don't monitor them in terms of their hours. What we find with that is that it may be that I do 20 hours this week, but in subsequent weeks I'll make that time up. We've never ever had to monitor it, we've never had to enforce it and what we found is that the return on that is loyalty, is highly productive, happy staff who are able to deal with not just children but obviously their other caring responsibilities. Thanks, that's really reassuring. Can I maybe bring in Helen? Yeah, I don't think I could have said it better myself really. I think flexibility is unessential and I think that needs to be recognised and I think there will be immediate situations that need to be dealt with and I think having that kind of safety net of knowing that that can be dealt with with the support of your employer is really reassuring and I think the whole thing around a culture of give and take, there will be different requirements at different times and I think you get paid back in spades really for having that type of approach which all comes down to trust essentially. We don't monitor, we know if things aren't working, it's keeping an eye on that but the overwhelming response that we get from our staff is that they appreciate that kind of approach. Thanks Helen, can I now bring in Andy? I believe he wants to come in. Sure, yeah. I think that from a weekly perspective we have enshrined in our policies emergency leave which covers exactly that scenario you described where there's a child care has been withdrawn or isn't possible or the child's ill or unforeseen circumstances we would provide paid leave for that. There's no requirement for the individual to pay back any time in respect of that. In respect of that we have 45 per cent of our roles as a result of Covid, the one on the first side I would say out of it. I've moved to home working contracts and within that the employee has the flexibility to choose when they work so there's an inbuilt flexibility if they need to go and pick up a child from school or nursery etc. That doesn't impact on that sort of contractual obligation. Thanks Andy, I'm now going to bring in James and then Gordon. Part of the question that I was just about to ask has been answered than the previous responses but I'd like to come to you first Andy, you've touched on it there about the sort of the great amount of home working you've got and the flexibility that the workers have in that but how do you ensure that an employee say with the additional caring responsibilities towards a stable child for example are supported further to the maybe just the flexible part of it? Yeah, we've got a number of ways in which we support staff in that situation. We recently did a survey which I think 47% of our staff stated that they had some sort of caring responsibility that keeps their child and adult apart from whatever. So we first of all have a number of staff groups one of which is the very active carers group which is sponsored by a member of our executive team comprised of colleagues across all levels of the business to share experiences, share their support and we have also brought in as part of that speakers from external organisations to signpost staff in the situation and caring responsibilities to support, they can receive grants etc. We have internal knowledge through our own welfare benefits money advisor roles that again can be used to signpost our staff to available grants support, where they can get adaptations in the houses etc. We also provide six paid days carers leave for staff and we also where possible we have a I guess commitment to trying staff are based on site or a working location we try and ensure that that's as close to as possible to our home or the caring location to ensure that the travel time is minimised as far as possible. We also have yeah I think that that's kind of the main supportive measures we have in place. Well I've got you on then Andy. What advice would you give to other employers seeking to be more flexible and family friendly? I'll come back to the rest of the panel with that. Yeah, I think it's really realising that what might be deemed or considered as flexibility for one is not flexibility for another. Everybody's got their own need. I think you've got to ask the question, you've got to listen to the responses. I think you've got to be open to trying new approaches. There may be some flexible working or sort of requests that come up that you've not tried before. For example, in the group that we introduced term time working several years ago, which was something that we had not looked at before and it seems to be very popular, less so now that we have moved to home working. We don't as many requests for that term time as it previously does. But certainly that was something new for us and with again other witnesses have talked about the buy-in and the motivation and the content workforce. Certainly we've got a very positive response because we've listened to what that request has put in place for following requests from staff, from feedback about what we were maybe not providing that would suit their what-life balances. Just to add in terms of the suite of policies that we have but more importantly it's not just about what's on paper, it's about that practice and it's about enabling that so it comes down to culture and those conversations so I think other employers it's about enabling those conversations and encouraging those conversations and gathering that feedback from your staff and from colleagues. We do so much more and go over and above in terms of our policies in terms of things like we've got a bereavement policy, we've signed up to a bereavement charter recognising the impact of that. We have monthly health and wellbeing sessions and again it's about having some difficult conversations around some really challenging subjects at the moment given the financial impact. We ran a financial wellbeing seminar and again that was enabling and signposting people so it's some really challenging subjects but again it's about signposting because not one size fits all but it's about enabling people to make informed choices and being able to take that time and work flexibly to go and support themselves and get that life balance. We've used the staff survey till there's a really useful way of co-creating our suite of support for individuals and over the years you know I remember a member of a colleague who said to me you know I haven't got children but I've got you know two pets and they are everything to me and that is my life and one of their pets were really poorly and they had to tend to the vets and all of that side things really worried about the consequences of their work we'd only just started out left and so we created you know a sort of a pet leave policy so as part of our suite and and obviously we've really talked about and about the whole idea of allowing people sort of time off for dependence I think Wales is you know two or three weeks off for time of dependence and then there's carers leave and there's all of these other things and what we find with that is it sounds really sort of excessive but what we find is the return on that we get is we're a highly productive public body delivering the best support for disabled people on behalf of the Scottish and Northern Ireland governments it's and again for me it's just not rocket science it's good to know as a dog owner harvey I'm delighted to hear that because I know the challenge that I face trying to get dog care as well so that that's a really good policy to bring in can I bring in Rachel yeah I mean I think just generally we need to promote that there are significant business benefits to family friendly working policy I mean I think you've mentioned you know increased motivation and productivity and when we've seen that there's been studies done by the Fraser Rallander Institute that have shown that but I think also your staff are are are less likely to be off ill and are happy to go the extra mile there's reduced sickness rate but also it's good for customers too because I think you know people want to buy products and services from you know good employers ethical employers and and I think it's it's seen to be it's enhancing brands and reputations if you know people you know if employers are looking after their staff and have a range of policies to support that staff so I think business reputation and recognition is really important as well it enhances that reputation and recognition and I always think you know we're speaking to employers about fair work you asked them what do your staff say about you behind your back because that's what they're going to say to other prospective employees of your organisation so I think you know do they say good things about you are you a supportive employer and if you are then you know they're going to say that to other people that you may want to recruit in the future because we've spoken already about the challenges around recruitment so having a good reputation as a family friendly working employer will help recruitment in the long term. Do you want to come in Helen? Yes I think it was a question round about the kind of advice that we would give and I think flexible working is one part of a whole approach to fair work so you know having engaged employees where there's effective voice there's opportunity security fulfillment respect and it's all part of that that one thing and I think just focusing as well maybe on the role of line managers because they are the sort of key interface between the organisation and your staff and will influence the experience that the individuals will have and I think as has been said before you can have a whole range and suite of wonderful policies but if that's not being reflected in the discussions that take place and the support that there is from line managers then you know that that's where it can fall down and I think I would say as well round about recruitment where just being very upfront about you know we say that we're happy to talk flexible working in our adverts so that there's the recognition that you know have that open discussion upfront at the recruitment stage you know build that trust and it just makes for a better relationship going forward so I think all of those things working together will support family friendly flexible working but it needs to be a kind of holistic approach. I think don't underestimate the value of having these types of conversations and offering that flexibility I've had a number of conversations with individuals in terms of the positive impact around their mental wellbeing so it goes back to that sort of positive content happy workforce and I think a number of people across the industry but also in terms of the practitioners that I work with as well and people have turned around and said flexible working has literally kept me employed you know it has enabled me to live a life and to you know support my family whatever the makeup of that is and I think the positive impact around mental wellbeing and resilience particularly in today's climate cannot be underestimated and I think as a small employer and other employers looking for advice they need to see the value in that you know. Thanks Heather. Thank you. Sorry James did you want to come back in at all? No that's fine that's great thanks very much Mark. Okay so I'm going to invite Gordon to come in and then I'll bring in Paul. Thanks. Thanks convener. This neatly goes into the line of question I was talking about we've heard about best practice about flexibility and how how helps retain staff etc. I'm also the other aspect of that if we're going to help parents out of poverty encouraging employers to pay the real living wage but my question is around support for businesses so how do we improve engagement with businesses to provide practical advice so that the benefits that you guys have witnessed for having flexible working pay in the real at least the real living wage can be rolled out to what 85,000 small microbusinesses in Scotland. How do we improve that engagement and promote what you guys have just spoken about? I mean I don't underestimate we've written a very fortunate position you know we're fully funded we act on government policy that is forward thinking and rightly so and progressively positive should I say. I think that the challenges at small business and I'm not you know we run an efficient organisation but you know we haven't got the you know profit and loss we haven't got the rising energy costs we haven't got we all they're not as as in front of our in our thinking so paying a you know a Scottish living wage in fact I think all of our employees get higher than the Scottish living wage in fact I'm confident all of them get higher than the Scottish living wage but a nurse made the challenge so you asked the question about what can we do I think there is advice and I think there's a lot more advice there is the piece that we've talked around promoting the benefits but ultimately there is a financial issue here and for organizations are already on that very that financial tightrope between you know solvent business and insolvent business you know offering this nirvana of Scottish living wage or higher pay is sometimes very difficult I don't know I don't you know the solution I suppose you know ultimately are there some tax breaks are there some things that can be done from a system level or a government level that can enable people to ensure that those benefits are spread across those sort of micro and small businesses but again I you know I think that is a very difficult question to try and resolve yeah you're right about being a difficult question but I mean sure it's about promoting the benefits so if you pay the real living wage you reduce your recruitment costs because you're not got staff turnover you're also in a situation where you're not having increased training costs as well because you're retaining that member of staff I don't absolutely are 100% in a in vehement agreement with you about that but I think when you know and I've got you know friends I've got businesses and what they say to me is you know that that's all well and good that's all well and good but I'm you know it's kind of fighting for my financial survival of my business and some of these things take a while to bed in they take a longer period of time the next thing that comes in sort of rent rates rising costs of materials and I think when you're trying to I agree all of the things you've said make absolute business sense to me and it would be if I had a small business it would be I want to be doing that but I just don't recognize I recognize the challenges without being a business owner myself I recognize the challenges of that for you know people I know Rachel then Heather yeah I mean I think the essentially in the Highlandslands enterprise we've spent a lot of time looking at promoting the business benefits and we've got various case studies of micro and small businesses you know right across the region remote and rural areas I think you know the real living wage you know wages are rising and you know as we say we've got a tight labour market and I think I think you're right and deputy convener and that you know we're speaking with businesses we you have to look in a longer term you know businesses want to retain their staff and if they think about the additional recruitment costs of you know constant staff churn because you know staff will just go out there and find a better job better paid jobs so that there are additional costs involved in retraining and re-advertising jobs successfully so and I think you know some some employers do find it a chance to keep up with the the annual wage rises I think we also need to make sure that you know that small businesses that they're engaging with business intermediaries maybe such as banks accountants other advisors trade bodies and membership organisations we need to make sure that these organisations understand flexible family friendly working policy and what the benefits are because these are the on a day-to-day basis these are these are the people that small businesses are interacting with and they need to be you know gend up in terms of what the benefits are to so it's not just about you know government agencies providing you know case studies and so on and I think the other thing that we have done in the Highlands and Islands is we've we've actually got a programme of specialist HR support that we can bring into small businesses to help them develop a fair work action plan so to understand what the benefits will be but also the longer term financial impact of you know paying the real living wage and what that might mean so I think we're trying I know we're probably going to speak about fair work conditionality but from a Highlands and Islands point of view we've always had the kind of carrot approach what are the benefits of fair work how we can promote that and get and get businesses on that journey before thinking about you know having a stick approach around conditionality okay rich Heather sorry yeah I would just add to that recognising that a lot of small medium micro businesses they don't have access to HR resources like some some organisations so they don't have those subject matter experts so I think in terms of where you can influence and manage policy as I would given them access to that and recognising that maybe where they are getting that advice at the moment is under huge pressure you know so I know certainly in terms of some of the voluntary work that I do and that I have capacity to do because of the organisation that I work for people are tapping into that all the time in terms of I didn't know about that or where could I signpost that so I think a lot of bodies and being able to promote that and support that as well but also you know things through like business enterprise and and other agencies in terms of giving them more funding to support the small and medium to tap into that experience and that knowledge that up-to-date knowledge and being able to support those conversations that need to be had thank you just on on that point we heard last week the new legislation that's coming in across the UK for day one right to flexible working that forget my percentage you're right 49% of businesses were unaware of it I know is there a need for a business mentoring system to be introduced and who would run it would it be the likes of Highlands and Islands I mean I think again it's it's about maybe promoting across this through intermediaries particularly in banks and I think you've got to think about who are businesses interacting with you know enterprise agencies probably only deal with a certain selection of a certain section of businesses in particular regions business gateway and local authorities and another you know body that you could help promote this this new policy coming in and but yeah it's challenging for your very small businesses to keep up with the latest legislation but it's just making sure that those that support small businesses are aware of this and you know any mentoring schemes or whatever you know that this obviously that could be built into that that you know there are mentoring schemes you know that that are run by enterprise agencies but I think it's a bit more promoting this through the business intermediaries Andy I think you want to come on then Harvey yeah just I guess to say what the other witnesses said about the the there might be small organisations that are very willing to and keen to try flexible working I mean the benefit to them but it's it's kind of getting off the ground part it's having the knowledge or the access to the support to actually do it to understand what the legal and practical and financial implications of putting flexible working in place are so yeah having some sort of central body or team of advisors or something that where the kind of system and doing so would I think can only be a beneficial and drive uptake of flexible working practices and also as you stated that the awareness of some changes that are coming down the tracks quite soon and to ensure compliance and I think you know it was mentioned previously as well about having you know testimonial or case studies of small organisations where it's worked may be sort of what's on all and you know what were the what were the challenges what were the what were the sound kind of hot holes in the road on that journey but ultimately what were the what are the benefits of embracing flexible working okay thanks Harvey I often think about sort of practical solutions and something that can be achieved and we work with you know thousands of disabled people we work by through them thousands of PAs and often I think a really practical way and perhaps you know that the Scottish government have done a lot in recent years to promote things like the Scottish Government's wage and to invest it and it's investing into the health and social care environment but I think procurement is a real issue and I think that you know a way of perhaps leading the way is that all tenders that go out for health and social care contracts are have fair work at the core of that and the funding to provide and ensure that that is given over to the staff and employers of those organisations and for those who are providing direct payments to disabled people and we're we provide a quarter of all the direct payments in Scotland you know and we provide some provision within that to be good employers but actually we're limited on the amount of money we can because of the wider environment we're in but actually you know that is a direct way of influencing by through direct payments and making sure that those disabled people have the ability to be even better employees than they already are and use the procurement frameworks to invest and to articulate what the requirement is from those funding bodies around things like fair work I think is a really practical way something that could be achieved relatively quickly I think we've we've got a good set of suggestions just my final point and on that you've just raised harvia you're right that it's procurement law can be brought into use to promote the real living wage and flexibility but would it not be easier with a call last week from the STUC suggesting that employment law should be devolved would it not be easier if we had the powers to actually do something about it rather than play about with the procurement regulations? Oh well that's an interesting question and I'm not sure quite how to answer that I think there has been devolved legislation that has absolutely benefited Scottish citizens I think that the problem with procurement is often looking at the lowest cost and I think you know to answer your specific question absolutely you know I wouldn't disagree that for the benefit of the citizens of Scotland if you know some of those issues could be be devolved I'm not a constitutional lawyer so it's a bit hard for me to think through that but certainly it makes sense from the citizens of Scotland to have those devolved powers to have both employment law but also you know on a broad practical level you know let's not look for the lowest cost employer or lowest cost bidder and procurement frameworks because that's how it's all configured and and stable you know ensure that fair work comes right through that. Thanks very much Camilla. Okay thanks that's been helpful I'm actually going to bring in Jeremy before I bring in Paul because Jeremy has to leave us at 10 o'clock so can I invite Jeremy? Thank you and good morning panel thank you so much for the evidence you've given so far. This committee is a wee bit central Scotland based and we are aware from previous sessions that there are those who live within rural Scotland who maybe have extra issues compared to our city slickers. So I'm just wondering if you can particularly for working for low-income parents transport childcare affordable housing and what can business and employers do to address these issues perhaps particularly within rural areas and maybe Helen I can start with you and then see where we go from there. I think there are clearly different issues in rural areas where there isn't maybe a sort of critical mass of available services and provision and you know what we hear from working parents is that childcare needs to be affordable accessible and there's issues round about you know times and location where that's provided and I think there is so much that can be provided by private providers but I think there probably is a case for some kind of subsidy there or support to maybe fill the gap because trying to have a viable business providing childcare that there's a whole lot of issues that I think do come into sharper focus when you're looking at rural more sparsely populated areas. I'm not sure of Rachel. I think the regulations and the ratios around childcare are I suppose very much skewed towards an urban setting and when it comes to childcare provision in rural areas particularly in very small island areas then you know you just can't get that economies of scale. Child minding is seen as a really good flexible option in very remote and rural areas. One of the challenges though is that it's usually a parent, usually a working mother that will set up a child minding business and they'll have their own children but in terms of they don't get any payments for their own children so it then compounds that financial burden of setting up the business. I mean we have been working with the Scottish Child Minding Association in Hyde and we've seen about 30 new child minders, child minding organisations being set up but across the region but there are still pockets in particular areas in island communities where there is no provision at the moment and it is a real challenge. I think one of the big challenges for and I'm from Shetland so I've been through all this is you've got to you've got to throughout the working day you might have to move your children so you might have to put them in a breakfast club then you've got to get them to school and then you've got to get them to child mind their after school or vice versa. I think it's all over and hear lots and lots of stories of stressed out parents having to try and move their children through the working day so I think one of the things that we really need to look at is existent infrastructure so schools for example if a kids school can they have you know a breakfast club and after school club so they don't have to move them around during the working day and we're also looking at a pilot from this kind of cradle to grave type pilot where you'll get a care facility that can be used for the older people but also for for children and you can have them one facility because I think let's use the infrastructure that we've got a bit more creatively and wisely and you know the other challenge is also recruitment and childcare we just don't have enough people for the ratios in the Highlands and Islands so I think that's a big big problem in rural Scotland and you know keen to to work with Scottish Government as we are we are working with parts of Scottish Government at the islands to them and so on to look at this problem and address these issues. Yeah I'm just add to that it's it's not solely about childcare it's about care in general so it's about you know young disabled children it's about children and young people with additional needs it's about care for disabled people you know across the country but particularly in rural areas so I guess that sort of using existing infrastructure is key but also being able to ensure that that care isn't just focused on purely children. I was interested in as a committee at the beginning of this year we did a visit to UST and it was really interesting to see the distances people have to travel to be able to either have older people care or younger people care and I suppose and you were saying you are working with so with Scottish Government I'm wondering even more Scottish Government can do to help particularly rural island communities around flexibility around that maybe I mean I think it's very interesting this model of everything happening in the school rather than having to move around you in the day other models out there or more Scottish Government can use to support that? Yeah I think it's I mean I think Scottish Government can help by bringing it because it's it's a it's a multi-faster issue and that you're talking about the school estate is talking about childminders you're speaking about local authority providers it's actually about you know getting people joined up in these areas to work together and also to think it from the parents point of view in the challenges yeah you might be able to have fine childcare from 8 or 6 but you know you've got to move kids around you in the day or you've got to travel huge distances so it's trying to think from the what you said the customer's point of view and I think that the Scottish Government can help you know bring the sort of key organisations and the different parts of government together yeah and that going forward. Thank you. I'm now going to bring in Paul. Thank you very much convener I suppose I just want to expand perhaps on the conversation we were having there in terms of the rural locations and maybe ask more broadly about childcare a lot of the conversations we've had in committee have been about the expansion of funded childcare to 1140 hours and obviously there are discussions on going about how that might be widened to one in two year olds and so I wonder if the panel has a view on you know we would further state funded childcare be beneficial and I think how do we ensure that flexibility I'm not sure who might want to to come in on that I mean Rachel you were on a roll there. I mean Paul I would just say absolutely you know I think having a childcare from birth you know or from the time that the parents or the mother wants to you know move back into the workplace or to to do other things having affordable childcare from pretty much as day one right and expanding that you know that range I think is absolutely I just think it's okay I don't think you know again I'm in agreement more hours a wider range and I think that will absolutely have a significant impact on all of the issues that this committee is trying to challenge. I would completely vehemently agree as well I think when you look at the return on investment that you've got there you know there's economic return wellbeing education development you know that that's really key to everything and just looking as well at the research that's been done by flexibility works and going back to almost kind of like selling the benefits of you know what greater flexibility and having that kind of support can achieve and you know we're looking at productivity loyalty retention business costs impact and mental health well being delivery engagement reduce sickness you know so that there's an abundant range of really important measures that can be influenced by having that that focus so yes yeah I mean I think childcare is a public good and I think it's it's you know we're not going to see our overall economy thrive without you know increasing support for for childcare and seeing more investment in that and funded places and I think we often in Scotland you know compare ourselves to Scandinavian countries and I know I have friends in in in the Scandinavian Norway and you know it's it they know that they're going to get childcare from eight o'clock in the morning till six at night for wherever they are and and it's it's a it's a it's a it's a daily stress that that's taken away so I think you know if we're if we're modelling ourselves on that type of countries you know that type of economy then that's where we need to go okay um I don't know Andy wants to come in at all nope okay Paul if you get any further questions that no can be on that in the interest of time I'm happy to hand back to you okay so um that's us come to the end of our questions so so thank you to all our witnesses for taking part in sharing your expertise and we will continue with the inquiry in September this is obviously our last day before we go into recess hence why you're seeing lots of smiley faces here today so yeah we we're going to continue on with the theme in particular on on transport and the challenges that brings as well so I'm now going to briefly suspend the meeting till I for the setting up of the next item of business so thank you very much for joining us so welcome back and we are now going to hear from social security scotland on disability benefit processing times I welcome to the meeting David Wallace chief executive at social security scotland Allie McPhail deputy director for strategy change data and engagement at social security scotland and Sue scotland deputy director of the social security program management and delivery division at the Scottish government's social security directorate all the witnesses for this session join us in person but before we begin I would like to remind members online to please allow broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you start to speak you can indicate with an R in the dialogue box in blue jeans if you wish to come in on a question and again can I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible and now begin by inviting David Wallace to make a brief opening statement thank you David thank you convener and thank you for the opportunity this morning to speak to committee and members I won't reintroduce my colleagues and we'll be hearing from them in the questions as well so thank you for that I just wanted to start say by it's just been over sort of six months since I last appeared in front of this committee and I know there's number of new committee members that have joined us as well and we haven't yet had the opportunity to have you welcomed into the agency I very much look forward to welcoming you to Dundee up which I think we're looking for a time in September for those members that can join us I did want to just sort of reflect back into December when we when I joined you in December we were in the midst of extending the Scottish child payment and for people under 16 we now have over 300,000 children in receipt of the Scottish child payment and in total we have paid over 248 million since the Scottish child payment was launched in February 2021 since that appearance is in December as well we've also completed the first winter heating payments to almost 400,000 eligible clients in scotland members will know and appreciate that social security is one of the largest delivery programmes and transfers of powers under devolution by the end of 24 25 we will deliver 16.5 million payments per year to people in scotland worth around about 6 billion to an estimated 2 million people we've done this by building a brand new public service from scratch and we've introduced 13 Scottish government benefits seven of which are entirely new forms of financial support available only in scotland and I've spoken before here about the pace of delivery and if I again I used example of Scottish child payment Scottish child payment went from inception to its initial delivery inside 18 months the way we do this is we work very closely with our colleagues from Scottish government to create the new social security system in scotland Scottish government colleagues work with ministers on the policy processes and systems and social scots security scotland use these to deliver the benefits they also work in line with the ministerial decisions on who can get paid benefits how much people should get and this is also a joint programme with our UK colleagues from the department of working pensions as usual then I'll do the caveat that I'm happy of obviously to answer questions but I'm unable to really comment around about the policy behind some of the benefits I wanted to turn to processing times and I just want to be absolutely clear I know some of the benefit processing times are taking far longer than are acceptable I absolutely share the frustration around about this and we as an organisation are absolutely committed to giving clients decisions as quickly as possible and making sure that we've got the information required to get decisions right first time we did expect that processing benefits we'd need a little bit of time to settle in and this is very much in line with all new benefit launches including indeed the launch of personal independence payment pip when it launched back in 2013 but I do want to absolutely assure the committee we are committed to getting this right for our clients and we are taking urgent action to address some will improve those processing times so action is already under way to to reduce those times and I believe that we can demonstrate that those actions are having an impact so I've we've put in the written submission some of the work that's going on I just want to rate it some of that work so we've already made changes to the application form for clients and we're drawing far more on our in-house health and social care practitioners to make early decisions based on their expertise as well we've made a number of changes to how we handle calls so we can ensure that our clients are able to speak to us about applications and we're reinforcing with our clients how they can help us reach timely decisions as well with supporting evidence we are also taking a comprehensive look at every step of the journey from people applying to benefits right through to payment at anything that identifies that will help processing times we will ensure that we can take so I look forward to taking your questions and thank you for your time. Thank you very much David that was very helpful so I'm now going to invite the first member to ask questions and if I could just invite Miles. Thank you convener good morning to the panel thank you for joining us today I thought it was interesting from the outset David that you acknowledged processing times and concerns around that and I think our constituents are certainly saying that I was looking at your social media feed last night and that clearly that is where a lot of traffic and anger is so just wondered particularly what parts of the process currently are contributing to that long process time and is there a difference then between ADP and CDP and how that's being managed and operated in that processing? There's a number of things probably going on so I'll outlay a couple of those and I'll maybe ask colleagues just to come in as well so as I said in the opening statement as well adult disability in particular is still what we would term relatively new benefit we're still under a year of having launched it so everybody involved in that process has been new into the organisation we're having new systems we're having new processes so what we've had probably for the last sort of eight months or so is we've been building up as applications come into the organisation we've had more applications coming in than decisions that we've been making so inevitably we sort of build up what we would term ahead of work but as you rightly say these are clients applications that we need to process so we are now in a position where I think we can demonstrate that we are we are now processing far more that are coming in so to use an analogy if you think of filling up a bath with applications we've spent seven months filling it up and now we're starting to really get into those applications in terms of the differences I mean the main differences obviously between child and adult disability is that on adult disability we have the ability to do consultations around about that and but the main sort of element that I guess we're seeing initially as a bit of a blocker is that supporting information and again there's a bit of a difference between child and adult as to where we're getting our quality supporting evidence so for children in particular schools we would find that are generally aware of how a condition impacts a child and are quite a rich source of information but aside from the consultations and where we might get supporting evidence from the both benefits are essentially in the same position. Thank you for that so it's not necessarily an issue with regards to capacity then within the organisation and time to process. I wouldn't describe it as a capacity issue at the moment so we have as you know from previous benefits we sort of build up the capacity as we reach as the benefit goes live and as benefits go live clearly you know our first applications are the first time we're seeing things so we've got people who are new into the organisation they're also picking up a process for the first time they're seeing a client with a particular condition for the first time you know clearly the more experience that they build up to doing that the quicker that becomes so we would normally say within the organisation it probably takes about a year to get somebody from you know joining the organisation to being fully effective in terms of making these decisions and clearly you know we're only really just hitting that period for for some of our people coming in so I would describe it at the moment as saying it's less about the overall resource of the organisation I think it's about making sure that the resources we've got are you know up to capacity up to that wider capability and able to to make decisions. Thanks for that and have you reviewed information you're providing to clients during that period of time as well I noticed there seem to be a lot of people saying seven times they've been asked to review or provide information and so on that journey have you reviewed how people are being kept informed of where they're at or how long this is going to actually take so that expectations can be managed in that way so I'll maybe say something and then bring Sue in who can say a little bit more about how our role and how we're working on that so we've certainly been looking at what information that we give to clients through the process I mentioned in an opening statement we'd already made some changes to the application form so the changes we've made to the application form are to really try and emphasise to people that if you have supporting evidence please do give it to us we recently published some research that is really the first bit of research about people who've gone through the adult disability process and there was certainly coming through there a feeling that clients believed it would be easier for us to get information and of course we can collect information on behalf of clients we still need to go to the same people to get that so if clients have available information then we've been trying to be clearer in the application process of please give us that the example that we we kind of classically use is for example a prescription list so actually lots of clients will have a prescription list available and if that can be shared with us early that actually helps us make decisions so one of the other things that we've done is to try and put a step in place that when we're looking first at an application we're getting back in contact with that client and saying is there anything else you've got I know you've you've given us some stuff or you've asked us to collect it but do you have anything to hand which we think might would help that but I'll maybe just ask Sue to reflect on the point around about informing clients. Yes so I work for the Scottish Government for the programme so again we will look at the sort of the service design and then the implementation and it's very much hand in hand with the agency so when we delivered for ADP and CDP we continued to work within the agency with our teams to look at and prioritise some of the activity that we were looking to deliver so from a notifications perspective we're looking at that end to end journey and revisiting that to look and see whether or not we can add in any steps and there are definitely steps that we can put into that process and that review is currently underway we're also working looking at as David mentioned around the applications and also looking at how we can interact with clients at a very much an earlier stage rather than waiting to later on in the journey where then we're asking for information which might seem that's the wrong order so we are looking at that early stage interaction but also looking at digital and you know different ways in which we can then interact with clients at a much more regular basis as their application progresses through that service. I wanted to ask you about getting supporting information from third parties so I mean you mentioned about schools that you clearly have to get information from health boards, local authorities, GP practices, maybe third sector organisations. I noticed there was a comment from the Scottish Commission on Social Security that said eliciting timely and detailed supporting information from busy professionals which is focused on daily living and mobility activities will be challenging so wonder what steps you are trying to take to smooth that process and reduce processing times by getting information more timely from these third party organisations. I think it absolutely recognised the comment that has been made around that as well of being challenging so some of that is the work that I described out line with Mr Briggs if clients have got it that's actually one of our first steps of saying if you have this please give it to us and that will help us make more timely decisions but we're also working very closely with GP's health boards as you described to try to make that process easier. There is as I referred at the start just some internal learning I think for us to do you know picking up these new processes how we ask better questions of those health professionals how we find the right health professional as well to who may be in contact with a client so we said in the very early days of this that we shouldn't be relying on GP's I think yeah our our early sort of reflection is we probably still relied a little bit too much on GP's to to go to for information and actually you know they aren't always the best people to do this they may not be in direct contact with the clients on a daily basis so finding those health care professionals who are able to do that is is probably easier. As outlined as well we're we're also using our health and social care practitioners far more so when we launched adult disability as you'll be aware one of the the fundamental changes we've made from the UK system was to bring those health and social care practitioners into the organisation so we have colleagues sitting in the organisation with a fast wealth and knowledge and expertise around about all of these conditions that our clients may have so one of those improvement actions that we've taken is to make sure that if we're struggling to get supporting evidence actually is there enough in the application where it doesn't lead to necessarily a client having a consultation as such but a case discussion might help the decision maker just understand the condition and the impact around about it. So I don't know, Ali might want to say a little bit about how we're working with that set of stakeholders in particular but we'll continue to work with health boards trying to get the information that we know we've got. We're also trying to make that there's a portal in place for GPs in particular to help provide information so we're working with GPs surgeries to make sure that that's active as well and you'll be aware that we recently introduced an ability to pay for third sector providers to give us this information as well which is a relatively recent addition that we've put in place to make sure that that isn't a barrier as well but I don't know Ali if there's anything else you want to say. There's a couple of things I was going to mention the feed to third sector organisations which I think is helpful. We have an operational reference group where we engage on a six-weekly basis with third sector organisations where we provide information around what we're doing operationally so they can understand what it is we're doing, how we're doing it and some of the challenges and learning that we're facing but it's about engagement in that forum so just to the point that was made by SCoS I think it is that feedback loop in terms of what it is that we're experiencing and some of the challenges in relation to processing cases and also how they can support us in doing that in a timely fashion. That's happening, that has been happening in the engagement with stakeholders and that stakeholder community has been fairly constructive in that area in relation to them recognising actually that they can help us in that space to do that information, gather quicker and to reach more speedy decisions and over the course of the summer we're looking to roll out a further engagement plan again with that stakeholder community where we're going to set out what it is that we're trying to do and how they can help us in doing that and again conversations have been on-going but we're looking to try and build on that and David probably will lead some of those conversations with some of the senior representatives of stakeholders so they're exactly understanding what it is that we're looking to do. So we've touched upon processing times already this morning and what I was wondering was once you get that supporting information and it's complete what's the delay between you know having the information and actually making a decision about an individual's case how long's that period of time on average? We probably don't measure that particular metrics to hand so we could certainly take away and see but I don't think we probably have that direct measure in place I'm looking to Ali who might tell me differently. No so we don't have that measure we don't I mean I think of what I would say if what you're referring to is any potential blockers once we have the information I would suggest not but again we can provide more information on that but what I would say is we've spent some time with our case managers understanding what it is that they do with that supporting information how do the case conference piece with our health and social care professional colleagues and I think that you know that that's part of improvement action that we're taking but what I would say is there has been a real kind of want through kind of the values of the organisation to get to the right outcome for the client so perhaps there has been a there's been something in the mind of our staff around about continually seeking for that extra piece of information which may or may not exist and I think it's about I think it's about building the capability and confidence within our staff to understand that they have the information they're able to understand the impact of the information on the client to make a decision at a point which is which is helpful. So I mean I think the organisation is still learning and I think to your point around blockers I would suggest not but perhaps there is something about our confidence and how we use the evidence that we have. Is there ongoing IT problems? In relation to processing cases? No. No. What about duplicate profiles? There will be some duplicate profiles in the case so just to for new members in particular I might bring Sue in to this point as well. The programme of delivery which I've outlined at the start is one of the biggest sort of technology programmes the Scottish Government has. We're delivering it as I think you're wearing an agile way so what that means is we deliver enough technology to deliver the benefit and then that allows us to continue to go on and deliver more benefits and throughout that process as well additional functionality comes into the system. So the consequence of agile and it's a feature of the delivery rather than a you know an error as it were in the system is that when we launch a benefit we do not have the complete technology in front of us. So if that's perceived as an issue that's a consequence of the way that we're delivering it. But it's an issue for the individual who can't get a decision because there's a duplicate profile there is an IT fix that needs to be done to merge those two profiles so that a decision maker can make a decision but they can't make a decision until the two profiles are merged and the information we've had on a particular case is thankfully now being resolved but took five months was that it was an IT issue. I'm happy to look at that I mean duplicate profiles aren't something that comes to me as a common issue I mean clearly in the case of your constituent that's that's unacceptable and you know has my apologies for that happy to take that away but certainly duplicate profiles don't come to me as one of the your major things that needs to be corrected in the system so I'm happy to take that particular instance away and have a look at it. I might just ask Sue if that's something that's crossed Sue's radar. It's certainly something that it's not something that has come to any of the work that I've been doing around this. But these things will exist in all systems again that's too long to rectify that problem but all systems will potentially have duplicates in it that we need to make sure that we eradicate make sure the data is just correct in it so that's not one I've heard about but I'm happy to take away but the wider point around about agile delivery I think is a really important element of how we're delivering. Audit Scotland as you're aware have reported on the progress of the programme at various points and I've kind of highlighted you know the agile delivery as the right mechanism for us to be using but it does mean at various stages we're operating on what we would term as a minimum viable product. Okay, thanks so much. Okay, thank you. I'm now going to bring in James and then Katie. Thank you. And James is joining us online. Good morning, thank you convener. I'd like to discuss the consultations, understand why there was a expectation that consultations won't be on the norm and give them people's bad experiences with PIP but given that the consultations that have taken place under ADP have been generally very well received can you tell me a staff spending a lot of time trying to make a decision without a consultation but a consultation sometimes may be very much what is needed? So what I think I would say that I don't think staff are trying to deliberately avoid putting a case to a consultation as Ali has said a little bit there I think our staff are absolutely focused on trying to get what's best for the client including if that that potentially has added to some delays in the system so the example I would give of that and Sue Ali and I all sat with some of our decision makers looking at this so even in an example where we might think there's enough information to make a decision if the decision maker actually thinks a higher level award might be merited we have gone in that case out to try and get additional information to support a higher level of award so it's not simply saying you know we don't think there's enough information to make a decision in a case the organisation and the people in it have been committed to try and get the best possible right outcome for the client so I think that the sort of when we when we brought our health and social care practitioners into the organisation and made the sort of trying to sort of switch the 80-20 so in the UK system around about 80% of people having a having assessment trying to sort of put that round that that was about we thought the evidence would be there in those 80% of cases to make a decision not that there was a target that we shouldn't use consult consultations so as part of the improvement we are definitely looking at other cases where we could more quickly come to a decision if we if we'd put through to a consultation and I think you are highlighting as well actually the feedback from clients who have gone through that process is on the whole overwhelmingly positive so you know for them it feels very different than going through the assessment which is good because it's entirely designed to be different from that so we're not we're not scared as it were to put people through if that's the right thing to do I think it's it's comes back to the wider we are our teams just need to find that right balance about information getting it right for the client and then pulling it to a quick conclusion yeah I mean all the reports are very complimentary on the on the way the consultations have been dealt with but given that is there any danger that sort of try to speed up the process and I completely understand why you would speed up you know you want to speed up the process as everybody wants that is this going to jeopardise any of the potential outcomes or have you got safeguards in place make sure that that is not going to or is not likely to happen I would like to say that we've got safeguards in place to do that I mean we have fundamentally changed what a consultation looks like the guidance that our health and social care practitioners have when they're completing a consultation means that you know doing more of them isn't suddenly going to sort of revert to a something that happened under a UK system that that's that's not going to happen it may put a bottleneck in a different place and we're really really mindful and careful that all of the improvement actions aren't just sort of pushing on a bit of a bottleneck somewhere else into the system so making sure we've got the capacity to to do more consultations if we do them will be really important but we will not jeopardise what it feels like to undergo a consultation because as you'll be aware you know that making that feel different to our clients was fundamentally one of the 2016 consultation responses so when we looked at what makes this system different fundamentally that was part of it there are other elements as to that we could come on and talk about local delivery in particular support up front but we will not jeopardise what it feels like to go through a consultation with the organisation yeah there's certainly nothing but good what's been said about it so i'll just leave it like that and thank you very much okay thanks James i'm now going to hand over to Katie and then Paul who's joining us online also thank you thank you and i'm wanting to ask about the extent to which we're currently still in a settling in period and in your submission you said it was always expected that processing times we need a settling in period whilst staff gain experience in new systems are introduced and you've said already that usually it might take a member of staff up to a year to really get across the whole role now the child disability payment has been available nationally since November 2021 but there doesn't seem to be any indication that processing times are going down so would you consider that we're still in the settling in period in relation to that specific benefit i think we're still overall into in a period which is settling so just to focus on child disability one of the things that when we went swiftly into adult disability was that some of the expertise that had helped us launch child was then moved across to go into adult as well so whilst that on paper looks like something that's been more stable for longer that isn't necessarily the case as well i think i would also come back to the when i made my opening statement just about the layering up of benefit upon benefit so over that Christmas period clearly we're launching a benefit which then doesn't fully embed in before we then launch an x benefit and that puts extraordinary pressure on people so the guidance changes and some of it is back to the question around agile delivery as well so even those child disability payment may have looked stable we were still making changes to a system that would have affected our decision makers and our client advisors who were dealing with that system as well so we do not launch a benefit on a single platform call it stable call it complete and leave it the the organisation is is effectively through a consistent period of change and that can be challenging for us for our staff working on that i'm sorry i take the point but you know we've had a year longer on that on paper that should mean that we're in a better place in terms of process could you give an indication of when you think the processing times might start to come down in relation to that specific benefit child disability so we we are seeing internally good progress in terms of this now so that the things which give us confidence internally around about this is we're seeing the productivity of our people really starting to increase now so that driving how many decisions we've made we see over the last couple of weeks now we're making far more decisions inside the organisation than we have ever made before so our record couple of weeks in terms of numbers of decisions have all happened in the last couple of weeks and the more we can do that the more that we sort of cut through the head of work we we are in a position where we're hoping by the end of the summer we would bring that average time under the 80 mark and then but as a stepping stone we'll continue to work on those processing times thank you and will you keep the committee advised in terms of progress on that issue but also if there are specific problems if you could proactively share that with us that would be very helpful um you'll have seen that there's been a lot of publicity around about personal independence payment and the fact that that those decisions are currently being made more quickly than the adult disability payment over time do you expect that gap to narrow or do you think there are just elements of adult disability payment decision making process that mean it's likely to offer being a longer process than personal independence payment um so i'm probably not going to try and focus on the gap because the gap could narrow because pip increased which is clearly what nobody wants as well so i'm i'm probably more focused on bringing our processing times down for our clients rather than the particular gap with DWP you're right there are some things that are fundamentally different in the system as well you know information gathering we've we've talked about um so that the systems aren't always completely comparable but i think the main thing for for our clients is bringing down our processing times rather than measuring it as a as a gap with with DWP i have to say there is a point into i mean DWP have done an extraordinarily good job of bringing their processing times just now down as well and if you look back historically clear that's not always been the case and i referred to you know benefit launches um if you look at the sort of the profile of processing times when pip launched as a new benefit i think they went up to around about 35 weeks before bringing that back down so we're we're falling a bit of a profile lower down but but a similar profile to that benefit launch so i don't i don't see as a competition or or DWP as a comparator for our clients is getting that processing time down i don't see it as a comparison either but you know clements have said to me that their experiences of social security scotland are worse than they had with the DWP and they've also said they didn't believe that was going to be possible so would you agree that we need to make sure that we have the highest standards and the quickest processing times and the expectation is that it would be better than the DWP and i'm very much welcome if they're getting better at their processes so um you know how quickly can we expect better processing times in relation to adult disability payment would you say so again i think by the end of the summer we should be starting to see that there will be a bit of a lag in our published stats but i'm happy to come back to the committee and keep you very much appreciated if you could keep us closely advised thank you okay thanks very much and now you're going to bring in paul very much convener i wonder if i can just ask about how processing times are actually impacting clients what what's the view about the impact that that's having and how does social security scotland keep people informed and updated throughout their process whilst they are waiting you know is there a regular communication other set points in the process where communication is proactive so again i just reiterate from from the start mr okayne everybody in the organization is completely committed for for our clients and as i was describing some of the other answers part of i think some of those increasing times have been because we have been absolutely trying to get the best from from our clients when we think about processing times nobody should be in that cycle where they haven't had communication from from the agency and we've been trying to do some things there which are also by telephony as well so you know it is not unusual in the current under our system to be just phoning a client and you know asking about the sporting evidence you know saying where we are with it we would like to get much smarter that in terms of use of technology and that's some of the stuff that sue was referring to in the previous answers but we nobody is waiting what we would see is those average processing times before they hear from the organization and indeed you know we would expect multiple times in there also in those and some of those applications will be applications where we we have simply lost contact with the client as well so they will be pushing up some of those averages where again as an organization i think we need to become a little bit clearer about how we close off cases where we're not where we've actually lost contact for whatever reason with a client we can't communicate with them so again sue might want to say something more about how we improve that including whether we can look at text messages for example i think when i was here back in december i think mr valford asked a question around about you know direct portal with a client and you know would it be helpful if they could dial in and see the progress of their application and i think at the time i said something of yes that of course that would be helpful for clients so we continue to look at these things as well but i'll move just as soon to coming back to that automated contact with clients yeah i suppose it's about automation and about personalization as well it's not just about sending a you know generic text although we will be updating people with text messages but again we're looking at ways in which we can have those touch points throughout and again doing that proactive step at the front step you know it's good to have that interaction with a person people calling you telling you where the where the you know received your application and so again that has been received very well by clients as well but we're also looking at that as i mentioned earlier that end-to-end journey and seeing what automation we can put into that end-to-end journey it's not something it's not simple but again it's something that we're looking at proactively as a sort of a sort of improvement overall for the client journey as we go through that process thank you i wonder if i can just expand on the point about the telephone system and people calling in for advice you know i've seen data that one in five calls are left on hold for over half an hour in 28,000 calls we're waiting for over an hour and indeed the longest call waiting time i think recorded the stairs seven minutes and 25 seconds so obviously there's a particular issue in terms of i don't know if it's call volume or or not having a system in place that's robust enough in terms of some of those issues i wonder if you can maybe just say something about the action that's been taken to rectify some of those issues yeah certainly so i'm conscious of those again those numbers are unacceptable and i think that probably relates to our last published statistics that we've put out one of the things we've done internally is far more active engagement on on moving resource directly onto the lines so what we now do rather than try to sort of have a fixed resource based on what we think the volume coming in is we would go performance managers inside the organization actively managing every individual queue inside the agency moving resource as it's required to do that so i think already that we're seeing those those numbers come down quite significantly i'll maybe bring ali in as well because the stakeholder forum which ali referred to um earlier we've been asking those questions of are people starting to see those improvements on the ground and we believe that the answer to that is yes um but ali i don't know if you just wanted to reflect on on that point yes there's probably a couple of things there so i think we absolutely recognize that the the numbers you quoted there aren't acceptable and we have put measures in place to to seek improvements so there are a few things that we've done so i hope we're being a bit smarter around about the management of queues so trying to direct our clients to the right queue so they get to speak to the right individual about their case more quickly and we are seeing an impact on that and we are seeing the benefit of that and we're hearing that through the stakeholder community as well um and i think also to your point around about technology we have spoken to our supplier about how we can best you know use the technology that we have available to us and we're starting to see some benefits that we can implement through that through you know various different activities that we can take forward through management information etc and we've also had conversations with with other suppliers in the sector including nhs 24 around about what it is they doing what they do well and what we can learn from that so you know as you would expect we are looking at process and we're looking at process with a view to improve things and i think you know as davis has said we are hopefully anecdotally starting to see feedback which suggests that a difference has been made in that area and i don't know if so if you want to put us pick up that point as a as a seven one time statement we are looking end to end every every place where our clients interact with the organisation and if there's any improvements that we can do in that we'll absolutely include technology in that review as well so indeed yeah and that that's the you know that that end to end reviews that we've mentioned as we review each step in the process we'll look at where we can bring improvements into that and when we can do that so again it's not about looking at that look you know we are looking at that sort of you know short medium and long term what can we do immediately and what can we do and what can we plan for the future as well so that is very much a joint activity with the agency and the programme and Scottish Government so again that prioritisation how do we do that is something that is at the heart of what we're trying to do as we take these improvements and these opportunities to improve that journey for our clients thank you if i may convener um david you mentioned there that um you expect to see call wait times come down um i mean are you able to say in terms of do you have a timescale in terms of what you're working towards in bringing those numbers down are you taking an approach where you're looking at targets around that you know so we'll be able to analyse you know what improvement looks like essentially so yeah these these are actions that we're taking now so internally what we see is is caused now on average below 20 minute marker and we will continue to sort of monitor and try and drive that down as well again it will take a little bit of time for those numbers to be reflected in the published statistics but the the work that I was describing about the active queue management has helped drive those times down so so this isn't something which i'm saying well we will look at this is something that we're fundamentally doing now to try and make that telephone experience far better for clients phoning the organisation so absolutely those those are numbers that we will see and we will see coming through the published stats but internally we are seeing now and as Ali was referring to when we speak to our stakeholders they tell us that they're seeing that improvement as well it's similar to Katie Clark's point I think it would be useful if committee could be updated on the progress there if there's a willingness to do that I'm happy to thank you convener okay thanks very much Paul I'm now going to bring in Marie and then after that I'll come to an end unless there's any other member get any other questions so thank you thank you thank you convener it's good to see you all along the committee this morning understandably the sessions obviously focused on processing times I found your written submission very helpful social security scotland and dwp of different approaches and to illustrate this in section 12 your submission you state both cdp and adp improves significantly the dwp benefits to replace to give some context with what we're dealing with can you expand on what you mean by that so when we when we spoke about child and adult in particular I would always highlight three significant changes that were made in terms of the process the first was the sort of the application process itself so huge amount of effort was invested working with clients to get that online application in particular into a place which people could readily and easily use and you know we've done some sessions trying to sort of illustrate to MSPs and constituent staff what that actually looks like front end but for example the use of photography in there was we think quite groundbreaking in a disability application form we thought some of the prompts in there again that was reminding clients you know some things that you may have normalised in your life actually will help you qualify for a benefit so think about these things as well so the application process absolutely up front was was one of the key changes that we made and we have around for disability benefits we've got around about 70 of clients which now use that channel I think what we also were really clear for all benefits that all channels are available as well so that suits for people who are digitally able to do that or supported to do that but we are also available through telephony you know so if people want to make an application on the phone that's we will help them do that on face to face as well so the other or the second big change I always talk about is local delivery function so we now have people based everywhere in Scotland helping people with applications so the premise and the rationale of that was you should not have to go to a third party to negotiate applying for a benefit if you want to apply for a benefit we will help you do that so some of the work of our local delivery teams and I know that they're in every area I'm happy to recirculate a list of contacts you know some members I know have been meeting with our local local delivery reps and that's something we'd absolutely encouraged to happen as well so in those instances we've got people if they need support with a disability benefit they can go into people's houses you know so we have examples of again anecdotally but you know what we hear back is people who would not have applied for a benefit you know are now applying for benefits and when we speak to our local delivery teams they will say they're building up some of the road relationships they might be in a library every Tuesday for for a month or so before somebody actually comes across and tells them that they need help and support destigmatising applying for benefits so that's the that's the second fundamental thing I would say and has been touched on before moving those health and social care practitioners in both what consultation feels like but bringing that into the organisation is something that we would always say was the three major major changes that we've made to the system which were all driven from clients experience and which then leads us to say we believe there's improvements because this is what our clients asked for way back to that 2016 consultation. Thanks, making the process much more accessible. There've been comparisons made with process and time for PIP and ADP given the process of making decisions is very different do you think these comparisons are much value to us? I'll go back a bit to my answer to Ms Clark as well I think it's inevitable people will make the comparisons but I don't think they're hugely helpful but it's difficult to say that against a time which is clearly unacceptable so I think again just to be utterly clear we want to bring these numbers down but the systems are different you know people at particularly that front end of the system as I said earlier you know our teams are absolutely focused on trying to get people the right benefit and the right level of benefit and inevitably I think that has added to some of those early processing times as well so I think the comparison will be inevitable but I think you're right I would always just be cautious for me it's about making sure it works for the client and what I would say on that and I should have said response to Ms Clark's question as well the thing that we usually focus on there is the customer charter and again this isn't a charter that we came up with it was driven by clients and people in Scotland about what they wanted to see and yes timeliness is a measure in there but I think it's one of 50 60 measures in there which are measuring the overall what it feels like to engage in the organisation and the one which I keep coming back to and I think I've probably quoted before is we we asked clients just were you treated with kindness now as a public organisation you know processing an application that that was I think quite a novel and quite an innovative measure to put in place and the last two years it's come back that 94% of people said yes they were treated with kindness so it's I think inevitably just now we're going to be compared with those DWP times over time I would like to just get back to the chart and say actually it's a measure but here's the other things that people told us really matter to them. The number of redeterminations are low what more can be done to promote the clearance right to a redetermination? So again I think there's probably something about direct notification there's certainly something about working with stakeholders around about just being clear so we do work with the advice sector will continue to make that point I don't think I put it in the submission as well but also the the availability of voice ability so the Scottish government separate to the organisation for obvious reasons have funded and supported voice ability for people claiming disability benefits as an advocacy service as well so we're working closely with voice ability about referrals but we're also working closely with the advice sector just to make sure that that's understood and again there are changes to that process about how we operate that one of the first things a client asking for a redetermination will get is a call from the organisation trying to say well do you have any more evidence is there anything else that we could we could do to support a redetermination so again I think we've made that process far far easier to navigate and putting a bit more onus on us as an organisation to make that process work. Thanks and the last point equally can I appeal or not so what can be done to promote the right to appeal? So it'll be similar in terms of redeterminations I would just be cautious that I think we're back to the point being saying you know how new is a new benefit I think we're probably at that stage of appeals you know it's a handful at the moment because of the lack of the system I think we will see those coming up as more and more cases flow through the system so again I wouldn't at the moment say that is a settled level of appeals in the system I think we've yet to say that but in terms of heightening a way on us of it it will be the same activity that we'll undertake with with our stakeholders with voice ability to make sure that's understood that it's an option. Thanks for that thanks. Okay thanks Minnie I'm just going to quickly bring in Katie. I'm just a little bit concerned by what you're saying and whether there's an appreciation within the agency of how important it is for people to get money quickly and I very much welcome what you're saying if the evidence is that claimants are finding that the agency is treating them with more kindness and with more respect and if that is the case that is something that is a massive advance in where we've been in the past but as you know the reality is the reason that most people are claiming these benefits is because they're in financial difficulties some of them extreme financial difficulties where they can't eat and they can't eat so can you just reassure the committee that you do have an understanding of the client group that you're dealing with and of the importance of ensuring that cases are processed quickly and that people receive money quickly for the reasons given? Absolutely if I've given that impression I absolutely did not mean to give that impression I think what I was saying or trying to say was that against this background of course processing times is the absolute focus of the organisation but as we move into the chartable we reviewed or would be due to be reviewed next year I think the whole package of measures is something that really does matter but against the current processing times absolutely it is a single focus of the organisation that's very helpful and I wouldn't want to leave you with any other impression on that. That's helpful to have in record thank you. Okay so that actually brings us to the end of our questions today so I'd like to thank the officials for joining us today and also look forward to visiting in September when we come through to Dundee so that concludes our public business. We will now move into private to consider the remaining items on the agenda.