 unedw i, y pwyntydd phoesibol. Mynd ganddyn nhw'n mynd i'w ymwneud fearfadau o'r wneud dangos â cyfrifiddiu ynol. Maen nhw'n cael ei gwybrau y llehau mewn gw Knights of Scotland. The minister will take questions at the end of the statement, so there should be no intervention and interruptions. I will now call on Jim Freeman. I want to set out more detail on how we will deliver new powers over social security for people in Scotland. I don't think that that is going to be the name including what people can expect from Scotland's new social security agency and how we came to the decision on its configuration. I will also provide an update to members on our progress to abolish the bedroom tax at source and delivering choice in universal credit on rent payment directly to landlords and twice monthly payment. I was delighted to be with the First Minister yesterday when she announced that the agency's headquarters will be in Dundee with a second major site in Glasgow. However, as I announced in April, our new agency will offer a local presence across Scotland supported by those efficient central functions. Throughout the consultation and since, the importance of that local presence that human face has been consistently expressed. It is this local aspect that marks a key difference between our agency and what currently exists. For the agency, our aim is twofold, to give every person entitled to one of the benefits we will be responsible for, the information, advice and support in applying that they need and to complement what is already out there and working well. Since April, my officials have so far met with 17 local authorities and many third sector organisations to understand the particular needs in each local authority area and the current partnership provision where it exists. I am grateful that COSLA is working collaboratively with us on this and can confirm that we are jointly developing an overarching partnership agreement on the guiding principles to underpin delivery and to cure a consistency of approach across Scotland, building local social security services that are tailored to local needs. We will not compromise the level of service that we require and expect and for which we will be accountable. It will always be our agency staff meeting and helping individuals, not private companies. People will always be treated with dignity and respect and we will always meet the expectations of the charter that we are developing with the people of Scotland. That is both our ambition and our expectation. Let me now describe what the service might look like to those who we are serving. We know that increasing benefit take-up is a challenge. If a person is unsure of what they may be entitled to, our local staff will offer advice on the benefits that we will deliver alongside wider income maximisation support. If a person is looking to apply for a benefit, we will support them to complete the forms and advice on the evidence that is needed to support their application. Where a person is already receiving benefits, they will be able to get face-to-face advice on their payments, on notifying the agency of a change in their circumstances, on other benefits that they may be entitled to or in making a complaint where their expectations have not been met. Above all, our service will be proactive, positive and geared to helping the individual in their particular circumstances. The agency's local presence will be supported by vital central functions such as case handling, payment systems, contact staff and the corporate roles that any efficient public body needs. We have followed a robust multi-criteria assessment process in keeping with our evidential approach to designing the social security system in determining the two locations announced. Dundee will be the agency headquarters supporting regeneration in that area and demonstrating our commitment that key public services are not restricted to the central belt. Glasgow will be our main administrative site in the west of Scotland, offering equal service capacity and capability and ensuring that the agency can deliver continuity in its crucial services. As members will see in the evidence published today, each part of the country was assessed against a variety of socio-economic factors. We have considered the scale of economic opportunity that over 1,500 jobs can generate plus the scale of risk to business continuity if we were to choose a single site. The sensible decision was to have two major locations of similar scale. Dundee and Glasgow both performed very well against a criteria and will benefit from the ability to attract staff from a wide catchment area, thus spreading the economic benefit that new jobs will bring. However, the central functions will not be hidden away in an industrially state or a business park out of reach to those whom they are there to support. We will of course seek efficiency and effectiveness in line with our social security principles, but those two locations will also form part of our local network. They too will be public facing, open, welcome and accessible. We have already made clear that agency staff right across Scotland will be present and that the economic benefit from this new public service will be spread. I have spoken previously about at least 1,500 staff being required in those two locations. As we move closer to the delivery of the first devolved benefits, we are clearer on the likely human resource required. I can therefore confirm that we expect to social security agency staff to be employing around 250 staff by summer 2019 to 2018 to deliver our first benefits—carers allowance supplement, best start grant and funeral expenses assistance. In addition to the central functions, we also estimate that at least 400 additional jobs will be created for the locally-based agency presence. That number will be refined as we continue to work to design the service with local authorities and others, but it illustrates the scale of our commitment to local delivery. We recognise the scale of endeavour involved in staffing up an organisation of this size, so we will therefore work with local colleges, employability services and other partners to ensure that we have the right supply of people to work in our agency. Before concluding, I want to update members on our work to abolish the bedroom tax. I am sure that we will recall that our absolute commitment to abolish the tax had accounted for some difficulties prior to the summer recess. I met ministers from the DWP last week, and I am happy to report substantial progress in that we now have an agreed proposal that will fully mitigate the bedroom tax without funding being clawed back or the support that we provide to those to whom the tax applies being limited by the operation of the UK Government's benefit cap. I hope to be in a position to bring forward an amendment at stage 2 of the Social Security Bill to provide full legal cover for the technical solution. I also want to update members on the work that we have been doing on universal credit flexibilities that will be delivered by the DWP on our behalf from the 4 October this year. The flexibilities will offer people in Scotland the choice to have their housing costs paid directly to their landlord and to have twice monthly payments. We have now tested our work directly with those who will use the service to make sure that we are being clear about what is offered so that informed choices can be made and that people are clear about what they need to do. The Social Security Agency delivery configuration is not about bricks and mortar. It is first and last about a public service that exemplifies our founding principles of dignity, fairness and respect, in how it works as an organisation, how it works for those who need that support and how it cooperates with its partners across our public sector. I want us to be clearly at the opposite end of the spectrum from the existing DWP system of distrust, misery and despair. That is why we have set the groundwork for our public body with a rights-based service at its heart that will employ staff who are proud of what they do and who will create a positive and respectful culture to deliver the service that we need. I urge all members who wish to ask a question following the statement to press their request to speak buttons now, and I call on Adam Tomkins. I thank the minister for early sight of her statement. As a Glasgow MSP, I am particularly pleased about the Glasgow news. I am also very pleased with the report that she gave to the chamber a few minutes ago about the update of the work of the joint ministerial working group on welfare, which has delivered further progress on joint government working in the smooth delivery of devolved welfare. What Scots want to see is that there are two governments working together, and I am very pleased that the minister was able to report on that a few minutes ago. Can I ask the minister two sets of questions, both of which she has been asked before and both of which I think continue to bother opposition MSPs from across the chamber about the delivery of social security, devolved social security, first about jobs and then about costs. How many of the 1,500 jobs that the minister talked about in her statement are new and how many are replacement jobs for people already in employment at DWP, and how many of the 250 jobs that she says will be in place by the summer of 2019 are new and how many of them are replacement jobs for positions that already exist in the DWP, and how many of the 400 locally based jobs that she talked about in her statement are new and how many are replacement jobs. I hope that those questions are sufficiently clear to get a clear answer. Secondly, about costs. I asked the minister about this in general questions last week and I wasn't satisfied with the answer with respect, so I'm going to have another go and see if I can get a little bit more detail on this. The financial memorandum accompanying the very important social security bill that the minister introduced in June and that the social security committee is now considering includes within it a cost that the IT provision within the social security agency about which the minister has given a statement today will be £190 million. The Auditor General last Thursday morning told the social security committee that she was not in a position to assure the committee about the robustness of that figure. My question on this figure of £190 million and the minister didn't include any figures about costs anywhere in her statement today is how can she help us as MSPs from across the chamber be assured that that £190 million figure is robust? I'm going to do my best to answer all of Mr Tomkins' questions and I'm grateful to him for those parts of the statement that he welcomed. In terms of jobs, how many are new and how many are replacement jobs? At the moment, we are working through exactly the detail of each of those 1500 jobs. How many people do we need, for example, in terms of case management? How many do we need in terms of the payment system or of document handling and so on? As we do that and we do that in consultation with PCS in our agency partnership forum and with others, we will be able to identify from there whether any or some of those jobs that we require are jobs currently done in Scotland by the DWP on the benefits that will be devolved to us. I do not have an exact number for you, Mr Tomkins. My expectation is that a small number may well be existing DWP jobs in Scotland administering or dealing with the benefits that we will be responsible for, but it will be a small number because the bulk of that work in the DWP is conducted south of the border. I will be able, as we move through that exercise, to advise you of exactly what I think the split will be and, of course, where there are jobs that are comparable to jobs being done by DWP staff in Scotland right now on any one of those 11 benefits. We will, of course, comply with the public sector version of TUPI. My apologies again to members of the chamber. I clearly have a mental block about what that is, but I am sure that members know what I am talking about. On the 250 jobs that I said we would have working or staff that we will have working in order to deliver the first phase. It is, indeed, by summer 2019, incrementally recruited. Incrementally recruited, in total, as we build it, 30 of those jobs currently exist inside the social security directorate. There are individuals who were recruited to begin that work for us. Those are all new jobs. My expectation is that almost all of those 250 jobs will be new in order to deliver those new benefits. As we clarify what the DWP does in terms of jobs, I will be able to advise Mr Tomkins and other members of the exact detail on happy to do so. On the 400 locally-based staff—remember to please that that is at this point an estimate—it may be higher, it may be lower. The reason it is an estimate is because we need to work with each local authority area to ensure that what we deliver fits with what is already on the ground. We also need to take account of the different demands of each local authority area. Rural authorities, for example, require a different configuration of staff in terms of how they are deployed. However, those jobs are new. They are new local social security staff based in local authorities across Scotland. DWP currently has no comparable jobs in that area. On IT costs, let me start by reminding members and Mr Tomkins of one of the key lessons from Audit Scotland in terms of how to create an IT system to support any major project on any major public service. I need to say clearly that, for me, the IT is a supporting part of the infrastructure. It is not the driver, it is a supporting part of the infrastructure to deliver on what is the driver, which is social security policy, that rights-based system and so on and so forth. One of the clear lessons was, do not build it all at once. Take it in chunks, manageable chunks and build flexibility into that, which is precisely how we are building the IT system, the infrastructure, to support our overall delivery of social security. Again, as we draw down responsibility for the benefits incrementally, as we recruit incrementally to deliver, as we build our agency incrementally, so too do we build our IT incrementally. How do you get an overall estimate of cost? Mr Tomkins will have read the finance memorandum in great detail, so he will know that that £190 million carries a number of caveats in order to be sure that we all understand what we are saying. Those caveats detail the assumptions that are made in reaching that £190 million figure. What we did was, because we are building it chunk by chunk, we determined the cost as we go chunk by chunk. At that point, we needed a finance memorandum for a bill, so we looked with our digital in-house experts inside the Scottish Government at what would you need for that social security system in the round, what would you need in terms of case management, verification, documentation handling and what kind of IT would you need, and then used the costs that have been incurred previously in various projects, looked to find some clear analytical basis to judge those and come with a figure, and on the basis of all that, £190 million. However, as we were clear—I think that at finance committee, but certainly let me be clear now—that figure itself will be refined as we go through that IT build. My officials, I understand, have offered or very shortly will offer finance committee the opportunity to hear in more detail how we are going about that IT build, but I hope overall that that gives Mr Tomkins a bit more detail and certainly a bit more assurance that we are approaching that in a soundly-based, robust way bearing in mind that we are taking it all step by step. Those need to be the caveats around it. The assumptions that we have made are very clear in the finance memorandum, and the approach that we are taking is one that is sensible and sound. That was it. Very detailed questions and even more detailed answers, which is to be applauded, although I am very conscious of time. Mark Griffin is the opening speaker for Labour. We will get to a slightly longer question. I would urge all members and ministers to keep the answers very tight from now on. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. We welcome the news that the bedroom tax will finally be abolished at source since it has been a long-held ambition of ours going way back to when Jackie Baillie had her initial proposal for a member's bill. The minister talks about agency staff meeting people, not private companies, and also about income maximisation. I wonder if the minister would be able to say if the Government plan on introducing amendments at stage 2 to that effect so that people have the assurance of primary legislation. And that future Governments cannot change those principles with such ease that we both agree on. On universal credit as well, we welcome the additional flexibilities but would again ask about the situation regarding split payments, since evidence that was heard last week at the Social Security Committee shows that Northern Ireland is working towards those flexibilities with the DWP. Thank you very much to the member for his comments. On whether or not I can commit to amendments at stage 2 on the questions that he raises, the answer is no, because I think that it is really important that I hear all of the evidence that the Social Security Committee itself is hearing. I am continuing to have discussions with stakeholders on a number of aspects in terms of our draft bill, clarifying my position, which I think has been clear up until now, but clarifying it again on questions around scrutiny and around the charter. As we go through that process and as my officials produce, I hope, helpfully for the committee, themed papers on a number of issues, as we get through that process, I will take a view on what appropriate Government amendments at stage 2 or amendments that may come forward that we think the Government would be able to support. At this point, I am not saying yes and I am not saying no. In terms of split payments, the member is absolutely right. I am conscious of the work that Northern Ireland is doing. I think that he and I have discussed before, I have certainly discussed with his colleague Ms McNeill, some of the complexities around actually delivering that, notwithstanding our commitment to do that. We are currently working our way through some of those complexities, with an eye to what Northern Ireland is doing, but also taking further discussion from some of our key stakeholder groups in terms of being able to do that in a way that is legislatively robust and deliverable. My members, no preamble, no explanation, just a question. Can the minister provide more detail on what level of jobs she expects to be available in both Glasgow and in D? Does she agree that those who have lived the experience of the current system, for example, have taken part in the experience panels, should be encouraged to apply for some of those jobs? Thank you very much. The kind of service that those two locations will be providing to social security as a whole is case management, case handling, decision making, document verification, identity verification, payment systems themselves, corporate governance, appeals and so on. Those are the jobs that flow from that. Who applies? I am a firm believer in as diverse a workforce as we can possibly manage. Our workforce should reflect those that we serve, but we also need to recruit in a way that is sustainable, defensible and we recruit the right people with the right skills to the right jobs, and that will be the approach that we take. Jeremy Balfour, to be followed by George Adam. Would the minister agree with me that, however outward facing the new agency is, it will not be independent of the state and that new claimants will still require independent advice on occasions? Will she commit to funding those organisations that give her independent advice? Will she also give a commitment to make sure that that is in the bill that there is a statutory right for independent advice where appropriate? The Social Security Agency is an agency of government, so in that sense it is an independent of the state. In terms of advocacy and advice, I have long accepted the importance of that. I am not prepared to pre-empt the proper scrutiny of our bill as it goes through the committee stage, and I am not prepared to commit to funding or to any other matter in terms of the bill. I think that the proper process for me as a responsible Government minister to take is to listen to the evidence that comes before the committee, to continue my discussions with stakeholders, to hear what my experience panels are telling me, and then to form a view on what makes the right decisions for government in terms of either additional amendments or accepting amendments that may come from other parties. That is precisely what I will do. George Adam will be followed by Pauline McNeill. Can the minister provide further detail on when she expects the local network to be up and running, which will undoubtedly benefit communities across Scotland? As members will recall, I said that our officials are currently working with local authorities and other local partners to identify what is the right model in each local authority area, accepting that there will be a difference between local authority areas across the country. The end result and the quality of service and the consistency of approach will be the same, but the model may be different. What we are looking to do is have in some early areas test models in place by 2018-19, in place in terms of our first delivery of our first benefit, the carers supplement, so that we begin to test how those models may work and how effective they are in working alongside other partners and then we will roll those out across the country as appropriate. The date that Mr Adam is looking for is 2018-19. Does the minister accept that independent advocacy in the new system would be a good thing, and notwithstanding what she said to Jeremy Balfour, what is the Government's position on being independent advocacy within the new system? Does she remain open minded on that question? I can answer the second part first. Yes, I do remain open minded. I am pretty open minded generally. In terms of independent advocacy, I see the value of that, but can I just make a general point? I have made that to stakeholders, and I think that it is important to make it. I understand that, to an extent, all of us come to the question of a social security system in Scotland through the prism of our experience of the DWP and how it has operated and how people have been and also feel they have been treated under that system. I need all of us to take a wee step back and recognise that that prism is precisely what that is. Therefore, while we might argue very forcefully about the need for significant levels of advocacy in the current UK system, particularly around appeals, particularly around disability benefits, our approach and our intent in how we will change that system, how we will make better decisions first time, remove the private sector from face-to-face health assessments and reduce significantly the numbers of them, I think that it alters how we might view some of those other matters. My mind is open on how we best approach this, but I need us to recognise that we inevitably and understandably look at it from the current experience and we need to recognise that what we are bringing forward is significantly and materially different from that. Alison Johnstone, to be followed by Mike Rumbles. I thank the minister for early sight or for statement and apologise for missing the opening in the chamber. Does the minister agree that we need to have a statutory right to income maximisation support and that the social security bill would be the place to do this? Does the Government intend to use powers under section 35 of the social security bill to provide payments without an application? I think that I missed the last part. Can I just check if the member asked if it was payments without application? I am not quite sure what the member might be referring to there and I am perfectly happy to discuss that with her offline, as it were. In terms of income maximisation, I do accept the absolute importance of that. I note that local authorities have a role in that, too. In order to ensure that we are not willy nilly handing out statutory requirements left, right and centre to local authorities and to Scottish Government, I think that I need a conversation with my colleagues in local authorities and perhaps also with Ms Johnstone herself to look at how we might best achieve a cohesive income maximisation provision for people across Scotland. Can the minister assure us that her approach to the IT system, which she outlined earlier to Adam Tomkins, is dramatically different to the approach that was taken by her colleague Fergus Ewing in the field of the IT systems for our agricultural payments? Is it a dramatically different approach? My approach is, as I am sure Mr Ewing's approach is, to learn the lessons from those previous IT projects that work well and those that work less well, both in Scotland and at a UK level. I can only talk in detail about the approach that we are taking for social security. I am perfectly happy to, at some point, follow the presentation and discussion with the Finance and Committee if colleagues choose to accept that offer from my officials on our IT bill to extend that to other members across the chamber. I hope that, if we do that, they will see for themselves that our approach is building on the lessons learned across a whole range of IT projects—not least universal credit, I have to say—and taking a staged, sensible, managed approach to building IT, and not, as the Audit Scotland report says, going for one big bang. Thank you very much. Apologies to members who did not get a chance to ask their question there. I am sure that there will be other opportunities. We now move on to a Government statement on homelessness. We will just take a few seconds for members to change and ministers to change seats.