 Good morning and welcome to the 10th meeting of the Covid-19 Recovery Committee in 2020. This week marks the two-year anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown. I want to acknowledge those who have sadly lost their loved one to Covid-19 and to reflect on the many challenges that individuals have faced in the widest society over the past two years in dealing with the pandemic. We banged up pots and we clapped on our doorsteps in appreciation of the NHS. It is important that we still acknowledge that our NHS this week has never been under so much pressure. Yesterday we had over 2,257 Covid cases in hospital and over 5,000 NHS staff absences. We all appreciate how difficult this is for our NHS, and I would like to, on behalf of the committee, give a heartfelt thanks for the on-going work in such challenging circumstances. This morning the committee will continue to take evidence on the coronavirus recovery reform Scotland bill at stage one. I'd like to welcome to the meeting Adam Stature, the Head of Policy and Communications, for Aged Scotland. Douglas Henry, executive director of Argyll and Butte Council. Fiona Blair, President of Association of Registers of Scotland. Maori Miller, Head of Licensing and democratic services at Glasgow City Council, and David McNeill, director of development, Scottish Council for voluntary organisation. A warm welcome and thank you for giving us your time this morning. The focus of this meeting is the remote delivery of public services where these are enabled by part 3 of the bill. Each member of the committee will have approximately 12 minutes to speak to the panel and to ask their questions. We should be okay for time this morning, however I apologise in advance if time runs on too much. I may have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interest of keeping us to time. Thank you. I'd like to now turn to questions and if I may begin by asking the first question. If I can start on digital exclusion. I note from the Scottish Council for voluntary organisation blog that over 1.5 million people have started to use the internet in the UK since 2020. According to a recent Scottish household survey report, at the moment 93 per cent of households have access to the internet and 92 per cent of adults use the internet. However, deprivation is a significant factor and only 87 per cent of households in our most deprived areas have access to internet. However, one of my concerns is that, with the living cost crisis hitting households averaging about £3,000 a year, people will still start to make decisions where their money will be spent either in heating and food and perhaps more people may become more digitally excluded. Can I ask what other risks may arrive from the move to digital delivery of public services? If I could please start with Adam Stature. Thank you very much, convener. I think that from a Scotland's point of view, we've heard a lot from older people over 50, their family and carers of the last two years in particular about how inaccessible public services and the things they come to rely on, such as banking and other such important things, access to health, and how inaccessible they have been, not just as a result of the pandemic but before that. People desperately need that. You've mentioned the point about digital exclusion and areas deprivation. 50 per cent of older people in the most deprived parts of Scotland don't use the internet and often those are the people who will rely on public services the most, whether that's health or any other kind of support. There is a very difficult challenge to address here, but one of the things that is quite important is to remember that not everyone will be able to get online, whether that's through disability, whether that's through poverty, and actually quite frankly, whether that's also through choice. People who have never used such a thing and the older you get, you might be living with different health conditions, which might preclude you from doing so. We're not suggesting in any way, in a love-out fashion, that older people can't get online. There's been a great adoption of that, the necessities, whether it's through video calls or other such things, to connect people. However, there are really profound challenges for folks to get online, and actually realising the platforms that they go, whether it's local authority, NHS or other places, and GP surgeries are actually pretty hard to navigate to, so just because you can't get there doesn't mean that you can find what you're looking for or do what you're intended to. David McNeill, for that sound question, please. Yeah, and I suppose it's important to say that, I suppose, digital public services is the way that most people expect to interact. It's faster, more convenient, and if it's done right, it's cheaper to deliver. However, digital services isn't about just putting our existing services online. It's about redesigning those services to how people expect to interact with them and how they want to interact with them, but also recognising, to Adam's point, that some people there is a proportion of people that don't want to engage in that way or can't engage in that way and to not leave those people behind. Digital exclusion to us is three components. One is about the confidence and motivation to go online, and that refers to lots of those people that aren't online or don't want to go online, and what we know from P-pandemic around half of that group do want to engage online. They just need some support to do so, but there are a group of resistors who don't want to engage, so alternative methods to providing those public services are pretty important to providing that service. The other components relate to wider groups. There's the issue around access and affordability of the right device and an affordable connection. That is a key component. During the pandemic, we saw lots of people cut off to the safety nets that they had through perhaps libraries and the ability to go in and use devices and internet connections there. We helped stories about people hiding in the toilets and Tesco to be able to use the Wi-Fi on their phone, so we need to be able to consider the group who live in poverty and can't afford a connection and how we enable them to access that connectivity. The final piece of the picture, the third and final piece, is about the skills and ability to interact with services confidently and effectively online. That affects a much wider group. Just because you are a confident user of social media and you can use Facebook or send an email doesn't mean that you are confident in filling out a form online. That needs to be considered or that those three components in the delivery of public services are not leaving those people behind. Thank you very much for your answers. I'm just going to move on to my next point, then I'll bring in the other witnesses. I'm moving on to the Connecting Scotland programme, which is the joint digital strategy between the Scottish Government and COSLA to ensure that nobody is left behind and has access to the internet. I'm just going to give you an example. I had a constituent get in touch with me several months ago, which was about digital exclusion. Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke seven years ago and is now registered blind, so she likes to be self-reliant. She pays privately for care and she was becoming increasingly frustrated as everything she tried to do, she was told to do it online. It was with her online shopping, she rang the council, she was told to do it online, she was trying to book something, she was told to do it online and she did not have access to a computer or the internet at the time that she got in touch since we have been able to get her a talking laptop. However, my question really is how to ensure that people like my constituent, who may not be on the council or socials radar, are not excluded and left behind? There are a few other points to this. What can local authorities and other public bodies do to counter digital exclusion as we move forward to a digital delivery? Are the affected bodies organised in the best way to achieve this? Do they have the necessary capacity and skills? I know that that is a lot of questions in one, but what I might do is I will bring in, if I can, Marie Miller from Glasgow City Council. Thank you, convener. Certainly my experience primarily in licensing over the last two years is that I have been hugely encouraged by how well people have adapted to that move towards online, whether it is for our licensing committee and licensing board meetings, that ability to join via the online platform. There have been a small number of cases where people have experienced the difficulty with that and we have taken steps to assist. In terms of things like online application forms, because we had to move at a considerable pace and respond to the Covid situation very quickly, they probably have not been developed as well as what they could have done. I think that there is a significant piece of work still to be done in making the online capability for application forms and all those processes much more accessible. I think that that is obviously that there is a significant resource that will be required to do that, but we are able to build upon the experience that we have gained over the last two years where we have had to respond to an emergency situation, but to take that forward and use that to improve the digital accessibility of our systems. I recognise that there is a need across services for more of a hybrid approach to recognise that there are people who are not able to engage exclusively with online services. I would be in broad agreement with the comments of all three previous speakers in respect of the different ways that they came at. The basic question is the case that levels of accessibility to the internet, to people doing their business digitally, have increased significantly driven by Covid. I also think that it would be a mistake, however, to equate access to the internet with ability to use the services. Some people may be able to access the internet and digital services, but for a number of reasons that others have highlighted, they may choose not or be unable to actually use the facilities that are available. On how we might improve things further, I would also make the point that for rural areas part, and there are gail and mutant in particular, there are parts of our area where broadband capability, the speed of your connection is a mile away from that, which people in more built-up areas, certainly in our cities and so on, can generally access. That is also a limiting factor for people who reside in more rural, remote areas, islands in some cases and so on. The solution to that, I believe, is something that local authorities and others can contribute to, but ultimately it needs to be taken forward on a wider front. That is something that obviously the Scottish Government has in hand, but it goes beyond even what the Scottish Government we wish to do. We need to be doing more for remote and rural areas with the providers of service, to increase, to roll out, to expand the quality, the speed of the connections that people can make to the internet. That is all that is said at this stage. If I can bring in David McNeill again, and specifically David, I do not know if you have any guidance on what local authorities and other public bodies can do to counter digital exclusion as we move forward to digital delivery. The really important thing is that if we move to digital services, all services take on board some kind of responsibility to supporting people that are not confident to do it, that it is not just passing people off when they can engage with that service online to, for example, the library or another service. Going back six or seven years, I cannot remember the specifics, but there was in the move to online claims for farmers in particular, in a group that would not necessarily be in your traditional digital exclusion group, a lot does not have access to the internet, not familiar with technology. I know in that transition that plans were put in place when someone came into a local office. They supported them to use to go through the online system and the online claim with them in that office to build their skills. That not only benefited them from future years that they were able to sell service and do the claim themselves, but they had reports back that they were more confident using technology and it benefited their business because they were able to buy things online and get things cheaper and interact in a way that they would not. That has gone back almost a decade where digital exclusion is slightly different, but it shows that a public service supporting people that are not confident online or need support with skills can benefit their own service and have wider benefits for that individual, too. I would like to follow up some of those points that the convener raised about digital exclusion. I was very taken reading the submissions, although there is a clear difference between the approach that has been made by professional organisations and bodies who in the main are very relaxed and enthusiastic about a move towards more digital engagement, as opposed to members of the public, some of whom will have concerns. We have already talked about the issue of how that might widen inequalities in society. I will pick up the last point that David McNeill made about the need to try and provide support for people who might be digitally excluded already. Maybe I could put that to Fiona Blair on behalf of the registrars of Scotland. What thinking have you done in your organisation about how a move towards online impact on people who are digitally excluded? What specific measures can you put in place to try and assist those who might have some difficulty? My experience in the pandemic has been mainly older people who are digitally excluded. We, in our pre-pandemic, were doing everything in person. In the pandemic, we moved to remote registration of deaths. We found that people are quite happy to speak to them on the phone, although it is quite impersonal for some people. Some people really like that. It was mainly the emailing for older people, and they were not digitally savvy. They did not have access to emails, so it was just like finding a workaround and posting documents out to them, taking time to explain things. We would not necessarily be asking people to fill in forms online. Everybody has got a phone these days. I did find it difficult in one registration where somebody was deaf. Unfortunately, she also had mobility issues, which meant that she could not attend an office. Luckily, she was tech savvy, and we did the registration via email back and forward. Although it took a long time, the two of us got there in the end. Just looking at the bill, sections 18 and 20 give registration officers quite a degree of discretion as to how they offer remote registration of births and deaths. Have you got any thoughts, Fiona, about how that is drafted? Do you think that that strikes the right approach in the bill? I think that it is the right approach. I think that it is bringing in remote versus a policy progression. I think that there are occasions where in person registration is far better than remote registration for some people. There are pros and cons to each side with people who are vulnerable, with people who have disabilities and need an in-person registration that should never be denied from someone. However, remote registration has its benefits for people who do not live close to a registration office. People in rural areas have to travel long distances to carry out an in-person registration and being from the Scottish Borders. There are people who have babies in the Borders from England. A remote registration would save them travelling back to Scotland to do the registration, because, as you will know, an event that occurs in Scotland must be registered in Scotland. Maybe I could ask Douglas Henry to get some perspective on this from a local authority point of view. Yes, thank you. If I just make a comment first about the experience here, we found that remote death registration, which came in over 18 months ago now and is perhaps further along the road that we are talking about for births, was a success. Generally, the benefits that were perceived to come from that have been fully realised. We have carried out customer satisfaction surveys that indicate that the majority of people who have been using the service appreciate the process of being able to be done remotely, finding it less stressful in general terms, and, in the context again, of a rural area, like Ergyllwm Mew, where we have perhaps a presence or had. We have lost your good bit of technology. We have lost homework in our more remote rural areas. The introduction of being able to do things remotely has been positive. Specifically, in relation to birth registration, the current position is, as people will be aware, that we have a hybrid approach in place, but there is still a general requirement for physical attendance at a registration office. We actually think that moving beyond that would be positive. We do not see in Ergyllwm Mew terms any real negatives that we are still doing. We are informed, as I say, by our experience in relation to how we have dealt with registration of deaths. Coming out of that, as councils move to whatever new arrangements they are going to have in place for the delivery of services, it is clear that what will not be happening is a replication of what was in place pre-Covid, so there is a clear opportunity to do things differently, to make better use of the technology, to make better or fuller use of the people currently working in this field, and generally just to sum that up, there is no real fears about the position in relation of live birth registration if the model is moved on, as is envisaged. Okay. Thanks very much, Mr Henry. Maybe I could just go back to Adam Secura from Age Scotland. We have had quite positive feedback there about what was being proposed. Are you generally satisfied with what is in the bill around this, or do you think that there are additional measures that need to be put in? I believe that within the bill, on the face of it, there is pretty satisfactory in terms of what the provisions are, what the services are that will require or can be expanded to that digital option. There is a slight concern and very slight in this about what the next phase is. What comes next? What else will move to be primarily digital, or where the provision for non-digital communication and routes in is disregarded? The citizen in that sense has not been afforded that option. That is just where the trickiness might be. The way that it is written and the type of things that the bill is covering broadly fine, but I think that this is about how people apply it and how it is used and what might be the easiest thing to do. Hearing from other people on the panel about their particular areas and the feeling that it is working well, that is good, but the one caveat to having is that we often do not hear from the people who have not been successful at communicating digitally because we would not. Own lines from councils are shut down, face-to-face services shut down, and I think that that is part of the future. I think that we have also got a caveat on the last household survey in terms of the methodology in getting the truest picture of Scotland. By looking to the year before, half a million over six cities in Scotland did use the internet, and 600,000 over six cities did not have a smartphone. We are starting from quite a high place in terms of digital exclusion. I do not think that we are anywhere near that being cut to the levels that might feel that a primarily digital kind of service provision is acceptable. If English is not your first language, if you have a sight loss, you can offer lots of different reasons why your life is already tricky to interact with public services. Alex Rowley, please. I will pick up where Murdo left off Adam and pick up yourself. The panel, for what I am picking up, is broadly welcoming the part of the bill and seeing it as a positive. Given the concerns that are there, should there be within the bill something that says that the public can access these services face to face? Should there be some kind of protections built in? If so, what should those protections be, Adam? I think that there are better experts with regard to that delivery than I on the panel. You make a very good point about there being maybe stronger provision for accessing it offline. The challenge that we have seen, as I have said to Mr Fraser, has been where folks just cannot interact online. I will give you some examples. Although it is not part of the bill or part 3, people are trying to access applications for a blue badge in local authorities, but it is essentially all online to do so. If disability is a big driver of digital exclusion, then they are having to go through many, many fiery hoops to get there. The part of that, which is just like caveat, as I have said before, is making sure that the person's right to access it in a non-digital way is clear and that they are empowered to be able to do so. That is the challenge, but on the face of the bill and the reading, there very well could be enough there, but I think that that is about how the public services actually enact it and what scrutiny is given to their use of that. I think that the challenge for lots of things is that there is a digital communication and notices and notifications. Well, they are on the website somewhere or they are stuck on Twitter, might not quite cut it for many people who want to be engaged, but again, there are really good answers from folks about how their experiences of their services are working, but again, just making sure that we are not, we are making sure that we are hearing from those that we would normally hear from. Okay, thank you, and could I pick up where Mary? I mean, you said, Mary, that in some senses the systems that were brought in were brought in in necessity. So has there been an evaluation carried out by any local authority of the experience so far, because you did say that there was room for improvement in systems? So has there been an evaluation, do local authorities, for example, know where those improvements are needed, and what are the barriers to that, i cost? Yes, we've certainly been, in terms of licensing, engaging with some of our main trade group representatives, for example, taxes and private hire cars on the experience of those online application processes. I think that obviously we recognise that we engage with a number of people where perhaps English isn't the first language, and that has been a particular difficulty with some of the online systems. That is something that we need to work on in terms of how we improve the engagement and that experience of moving to online. I think that one of the difficulties we have is where we haven't been, for example, being able to fully resource the phone lines that we had pre Covid, where people are able to pick up the phone. I think that we are moving in that direction of trying to channel shift people towards the online systems, but we need to recognise that it has to be done in such a way that it ensures that everyone can properly engage with the process. I think that there is further evaluation that has to be done on that. Licensing more generally, having meetings online has allowed people to engage with meetings that they may not have been able to do before because of the time that they would need to take to attend a meeting in person. That is something that we want to take that experience forward where people are able to join remotely, even if we move to face-to-face meetings that we do build on that capability for hybrid meetings. It allows people to engage in the process that might not have chosen to do so in the past, particularly people who may be objecting to licence applications. I think that there is a lot of experience that we need to take from the last couple of years and really carry out that evaluation process. Douglas, can I pick up with you? Local registration offices are given quite a lot of discretion under 18, 16, 18 and 20, the extent to which they are able to offer remote registrations, they burst deaths, the methods, etc. Is there a danger that you end up with 32 different setups and some local authorities you can go face-to-face, others don't? Should there be clearer guidance given to local authorities so that people are not excluded, while encouraging greater take-up with online tools that are there? I think that there was a slight glitch in the broadcast. I missed the very first part of that, but I think that I have the gist. If I miss anything in this comment, please feel free to pick me up. In general terms, I recognise the comments that were made by my colleague from Glasgow a couple of minutes ago. I think that the future is hybrid for licensing hearings by the liquor, by the civic government and so on. I think that it would be wise, sensible, appropriate for local authorities' councils to have the discretion in that regard for those type of hearings. On general guidance to apply across all 32 local authorities, I think that that might be possible and desirable if it is a statement of a set of principles, but the nature of 32 councils is that we are so desperate that it would be, I would suggest, impossible to produce a detailed set of guidance that all councils had to follow in. We have a technical issue. I think that it is a reasonable manner, but, as I say, one size fits all I do not think would do. David, can I come to you in terms of my experience when universal credit was being rolled out? I visited a number of projects, third sector projects and local authority projects where there was a lot of intensive support being put in place because people were having to use the online tools and register and search. For a lot of those people it was difficult, but there was a real attempt certainly with the local authorities that I was involved with in third sector organisations to support. Is that something that needs to accompany this bill? Does there need to be a recognition that there will be greater support needed at community level and should funding be made available for that? To the universal credit example, we have spent a lot of time ourselves and others, including working with the DWP, touring the country, supporting people to understand how to support people through the application process. It is a big system and it took me and my trial around 45 minutes to go through it, which is a big ask for someone that is digitally excluded. One of the key learnings around universal credit was that if you could not access it online, there was not a paid for phone number. If you were digitally excluded, you had to pay for a phone to phone and complete the application over the phone. That was subsequently removed but was not built in at the start. Further excluded people were digitally excluded, so that was a key learning there. Obviously universal credit is touching the high risk of digital exclusion because it is working with the people who are already facing poverty and other forms of exclusion. We talk about the best way to support people through embedded approaches to digital exclusion, so people who are working with the most excluded need to consider how they support people to get online and to be confident. That is the way that we have delivered Connecting Scotland by giving a device, an internet connection and digital champion support to people to pass on those skills to their service users. The challenge that we are seeing now is that as we go back to more normal modes of service delivery, the capacity of front-line staff to deliver that digital champion role and support people is limited. There is a need for support for people, but that support really needs to be targeted at the organisations and teams that are working with those who are already likely to be facing digital exclusion, who are facing poverty and other forms of exclusion. They are resourced effectively to support the people that they already work with rather than necessarily seeing that digital exclusion is something on its own. Having said that, there are some strategic interventions that are needed to support people with the infrastructure, skills and affordable connectivity. If I could move on from the access to the accuracy of information that comes through to whoever is registering bus death marriages, I could start with Ms Miller. Is there a risk that if everything is done remotely, let's take marriages to start with that there could be a sham marriage where there is not a real relationship that is to do with immigration perhaps? Would that be easier to pick up if it is face-to-face than if it is remote? Certainly from what I have been speaking to our registrar and colleagues, there is a concern around the potential for those types of issues where those things are done remotely. Obviously, checks and balances are built in, but the experience has been that being able to do those things remotely does not always mean that it can be done more quickly by the registrar's services. Often, face-to-face, error of mistakes and errors can be corrected very quickly, where it is done online and can sometimes be a sort of back and forth. That can sometimes be certainly in the situation of registration of deaths. That can be something that can cause some distress. It may prolong the registration process. Those are issues where we need to consider the impact of having those services remotely. I think that Fiona will be able to comment more on that potential issue that you said about the sham marriages. I will come back to her, but I might pursue you a little bit more on some of that. For example, with deaths, because the registrar had raised the point that maybe they get wrong information and then that has to be corrected, is that a complex process correcting those things or making changes? I think that it is just more time-consuming than where you have that face-to-face registration and those things can be checked there. It does involve emails or communication going back and forth. It is about taking longer to complete the registration. If we are waiting for information to come to us, it can be the perception that the local authority is holding up that registration process, but we may be waiting for information to come that could have been resolved more quickly face-to-face. Moved to you, Ms Blair. If you have got some thoughts in this area, I think that you have some concerns about information around deaths. Can I just come on to sham marriages first? Nothing is going to change with this bill with regards to marriages and the fact that people will still submit their notices. At that point, things are just not quite right. We have a list of guidelines to look out for sham marriages. Therefore, if those things are picked up and dealt with, a marriage schedule will still be given out, a wet signature applied, but it will not really be remote or digital when it comes back into the office. It is really like a background function, so that is not going to change. With regards to deaths and changes, it is harder over the telephone—I am not going to lie—to get in the right information, to re-tease in how we people. People do not understand that when you ask if someone, the diseased person, what their marital status is, and they say that they were single, and then I always qualify that with, oh, so they never married, and then you find out that they are divorced. It is just proper questioning and experience with regard to remote death. To make changes can be quite time-consuming for the registrar and also quite intrusive for the informant. After you have done sealed in a registration, you then have to get evidence to make that change, and that evidence needs to be sent, not on all circumstances, but on some circumstances, then up to the national records of Scotland, and then the change is made by what we call an RCE, a register of corrected entries, and that can be quite time-consuming. You are in the stage of re-issuing new extracts to the informants with the corrected documents. You raised the issue of funeral directors and they do not know all the facts, so they are dependent on the family giving them the right information and all the rest of it. I know that my mother died just a year ago, and I was very dependent on the funeral directors and really appreciated their support in guiding me through the whole process, because you do not go through it very often as an individual. Does the idea of doing things digitally online make any difference to that, or have we just got an inevitable problem that people are getting information through? Yes. What we are going to be offering is people's choice. They will have a choice of an in-person registration or the choice of a remote registration is not that local authorities will move only to remote registration. That is not my understanding of it. My understanding is that the National Records of Scotland will engage with local authorities shortly to find out what the best method is for them, but in-person registrations will come back, because they are important for people who have disabilities, who are vulnerable and who need support. My problem with funeral directors is that they cannot register deaths at the moment. They are the last qualified informant under anyone else who has knowledge of the particulars of the death. For example, someone who has came on holiday at a diving accident off I-Mouth is not an appropriate pre-pandemic for their family to travel up to Scotland to register the death. In that case, a funeral director came in on their behalf to register the death with them on knowing that the funeral director was in doing that appointment on the telephone in case I needed to know anything further. I do not see it like it is going to be an online forum for someone to fill in. My problem is that, essentially, funeral directors will be really in the information from the informant to the registrar. That is something that could easily be covered by remote registration. I think that it is a case of giving people choice. Do they want the funeral director to do it, or would they prefer to do it directly with the registrar? I would hate to think that a funeral director would charge someone for doing that service because death registration is free and you only need to pay for the extracts that he purchased at the time of the registration. My experience was that the funeral director was not cheap, but they just did it all as a package. I cannot even remember now exactly what they did and what I did. You make the point that it is easier to pick up mistakes or the point about somebody being single or divorced if they are actually there, if you see them face to face, because you can read the person. That is true of me and my colleagues as well. It is better face to face. I wonder if there is a problem if we go more online. Just to switch another one would be births. I think that there are issues around births as to whether there is only one parent on the birth certificate or two. Again, is that not something that would be easier to deal with face to face? I think that, obviously, it is younger people who are having babies. At the moment, as the other panel members suggested, we are doing a hybrid version where we are taking the information all over the telephone, making an appointment for them to come in and check and sign the register page. I think that, as a natural progression, we have ran remote very successfully. We have progressed to do remote first, because all-in cities find it easier to make an in-person appointment and pop-in in the registration office. People in rural areas find their travelling a long distance to their registration office. In the borders, it can be something like 18 miles to get to the registration office. If you have had a C-section that can often be difficult because you need to get somebody to drive you, that is back to work. I think that there are occasions where it would be beneficial to have that service, but also to offer choice in an in-person registration. That is not going to change. Local authorities need to offer that service. That is very helpful. I realise that I have focused here on Ms Blair quite a lot. I do not know if any of the others are wanting to come in with any points. Have we picked that up? No. I was very struck when I was listening to David McNeill, who tested me there. I think that he suggested quite rightly that being on the internet does not mean to say that you are confident and knowledgeable enough to navigate formfilling or applications. I think that the concern for me is that those who are furthest removed from mainstream society are the ones that are... That was an issue pre-pandemic and the pandemic has exacerbated that. Are we in danger here of forgetting about a section of society here and leaving them behind? I think that the key theme that has come through is about choice, that a digital service is not necessarily the only option that there are backups for people so that no one is left behind. Having said that, and partly about the previous point about formfilling online being difficult, to create a really good digital public service is a complex job. It involves understanding user needs, engaging with users, doing lots of testing, and that bit falls down. I think that even sitting aside for a moment the issues around people who cannot access the internet are not confident. The average reading age of the UK population is nine. In terms of filling out a form online, if you have to design a form to do it really effectively, it could be completed by a nine-year-old, because that is how the majority of the population can read that. However, lots of our public services probably make things much more complicated. It is a real skill in being able to design those digital public services with that so that we get the right things in and people are not confused. However, there is definitely the issue around choice and having backups to online, because the reality is that 80 per cent of the population will want to engage with an online service and it is how we support those who struggle and those who perhaps do not want to or can't access an online service. That is helpful. If I could just take that a little bit further, I think that the third sector tends to be the main interface between those communities and services and councils. If I ask what the role of the third sector is in ensuring that the issues are brought to the attention of people like us, people in the councils, and how, therefore, as part of this strategy moving to digital, we ensure that there is an improved communication, if you like, between council services and the third sector? I think that where we have seen at really strong places like Renfrewshire, I have put their digital public services transformation strategy pre-pandemic, put digital inclusion right at the heart, but before embarking on a change of a service, they were considering the needs of users. They have established a very strong partnership with the local third sector interface, with housing associations and others that came together as at how do we collectively solve the issues around digital exclusion so that we are confident in developing our digital public services. We have been working very closely with that partnership in Renfrewshire to look at place-based approaches and how to support people. It is about developing that in the service and tandem with the digital exclusion support, with the third sector and the public sector and the private sector in terms of connectivity, all working together. We are beginning to see other councils adopt similar partnership planning and co-ordination approaches, which is really to be welcomed. I wonder if Douglas Henry can give us a perspective from the council. I think that to reiterate a comment, I made in a different context earlier in the proceedings, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach right across all Scotland. I agree with the comments of the last speaker in terms of the general approach. From a local authority perspective, digital exclusion links to a number of key or core themes that authorities should be pursuing, poverty, in the widest sense, but there are all sorts of poverty, not just purely financial. Other types of exclusion are, again, part of the overall picture, but it is clear that it is going to be absolutely necessary that there will be no alternative other than to develop joint-up arrangements that will go well beyond the remit of the local authorities. That is at a wide level in terms of community planning and factors like that that we can pick up but the role of the third sector voluntary organising is on the nature of the country that areas within the country are such that delivery in areas such as Argyll and Bute will not rule out what to work in the widest possible way in. It would not be appropriate, sensible or possible for local authorities to try and do that on their own. It is absolutely key that joint-up working across all interests, looking to target the people that we need to, through a whole range of mechanisms that will be quite different, say, in Tyree perhaps than they would in Glasgow. Ultimately, it is local solutions for the local people, if I can conclude from that point. I will say a little bit to Mary Miller. Some local authorities expressed some concern that holding remote meetings and hearings might limit public attendance. I wonder if that is your experience and whether you think that there should be support in amending the bill to make sure that applicants can present in relation to licences and have input into the format that a hearing should take. To go back to 2020, when we first launched our fully online meetings, I was really nervous about how our applicants and objectors, members of the public, would engage with those services. I have been surprised at how well people have managed online meetings. Everyone has experienced that. Even those who are very apprehensive have had a fairly positive experience of dealing with online systems. Even people, as I said, we have had to contact them and provide just some additional guidance on how to join the meetings. We have had people who have not been able to use the system and we have made alternative arrangements. For example, we have been able to phone in to meetings. It has been generally very positive, but I do not think that we would necessarily choose to hold meetings exclusively online. Certainly, speaking with my elected members, I do not think that they get the full experience from having the meetings fully online, certainly in terms of being able to take direct advice from myself and other officers. We have been able to licence quite a dynamic meeting situation. I think that we have been able to get advice more quickly at the face-to-face meetings. I certainly have not spoken to a number of the licensing agents. I think that they prefer the face-to-face meetings because you lose some of the nuance of facial expressions and the indicators of perhaps where their submissions are going. My experience over the past two years is that we have seen more members of the public engage where the meetings are online, just because of the length of time that often meetings take. They may have to take a full day to come along to an online meeting, but they have been able to continue working, but sitting on the background of an online meeting and enjoying the appropriate time. I think that it is about trying to find the right balance. I certainly think that having the ability to hold hybrid meetings going forward is a really important amendment to licensing legislation but allowing local authorities that choice is to what is the best format and making that decision through engagement with all of our various stakeholders. I will go back a wee stage to the points that John Mason was raising earlier on if it would be possible to direct this to Fiona. The guarantee of an in-person registration—the Scottish Government's position is that the effect of section 18 to 20 is that the local registration office must offer in-person registration to any individual who desires it. Is that your understanding in the reading of the bill? That is my understanding at all. The law for choice to customers of a remote registration or an in-person registration is not going to take in person registration away, because that is important. I think that the way that the bill is drafted does not need to be guaranteed in a prescribed circumstances as it should be offered as a choice to people. As we go forward and more people take up the digital option, do you see there being problems as we go further down the line with smaller and smaller numbers of people looking to have the in-person meeting being able to be accommodated? Do you see that having a problem in the future? I do not really see that, certainly from Borders perspective. I do not see that being a problem. We still have to have registration offices. People still need to come in with marriage notice forms, collect marriage schedules. I cannot see that ever changing—collect certificates if they do not want to post it out because they need it quickly. I do not see that ever changing. I will turn to the local authority discretion. There is an awful lot of discretion in the current drafting given to local authorities. Is there not a concern that local authorities have too much of the discretion in the people who are making the applications for licences and do not really have a say in the format of how the meeting will be held? Mary, would you be the best person to answer that? I think that the point that Douglas made earlier is that a one-size-fits-all is not going to suit all local authorities. The geographical area is important in making that decision, but you are absolutely right. I think that, certainly for a licensing authority, in choosing which format to move forward with, it is important that we engage with our stakeholders, whether they are trade groups, community council representatives or licensing agents. All of that is important in understanding what the experience has been over the past two years and what the best format is moving forward. It is important to have the option to deliver whether it is fully face-to-face meetings, whether it is fully remote or to have that hybrid model, but I think that it is important to take account of all those who are involved in the process. The same idea when the question that I just put to Fiona, there is nothing in here that says that local authority must give the option. Do you think that that is something that should be added to the bill? I think that it is important that we do engage. I think that it is definitely because of the difference across local authorities. I think that it is important that local authorities retain the discretion, but I think that in deciding what is the best format, there should be an obligation to fully engage with various stakeholders and whether that is done through a consultation or a formal consultation or a more informal process. That is perhaps something that the bill should reflect. I am going to press you a wee bit on that when you are saying that the local authority should still have the discretion. Regardless of whether you live in a remote area or not, I live in a remote area myself, if I am dissatisfied with the decision that local authority has taken on the basis of how a meeting or an application is going to be held, there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to stand and speak to somebody face to face. If the local authority has that final say on that discretion, where does that leave the person who feels dissatisfied with the fact that they cannot actually have a sit-down face-to-face conversation? Surely there should be some provision in the bill that allows people to say, no, I am sorry, I am not happy with that, I want to sit down with somebody. Would that not be something that you would consider? I suppose that whether we are talking about application forms, for example, that there should be the ability for those to be done face-to-face, I suppose that it is the resource that would be required if we are moving more towards a digital model, whether what resource would be required to deal with those who contact us and want to meet face-to-face. It is certainly something that we would hope to be able to do, but it is difficult given the circumstances across all the different local authorities as to how that would be facilitated. It is easier for the registration of birth, death and marriage just to be able to hold that because they will always have that requirement for an office, but not for local authorities when people are trying to deal with licensing. At the moment in Glasgow, we have not reopened our service desk. What we have done is extended our phone lines since they were diminished over the lockdown period, where we did have staff working exclusively remotely. We are bringing back our services, but there will need to be a decision taken as to whether we reopen our face-to-face service desk. It is not something that has been raised with us as a particular issue. The majority of people applying for licences are now very familiar with those online processes, but I agree that we have to allow for the fact that some people will want to retain the ability to lodge something as a face-to-face and have that interaction with a member of staff. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. If I could just ask one quick question, just going back to what my colleagues Alex Rowley and Brian Whittle did raise. It is regarding the digital exclusion and community support for people that do not have access to the internet to fill in forms. I note David that you did mention about Renfrewshire. It is interesting to note also that a digital champion co-ordinator is crucial in building a digital ecosystem for Renfrewshire. Is that a position that has been put in place in Renfrewshire? I believe that that is now in place, and the partnership in Renfrewshire has been around for quite a while, at the cutting edge of digital exclusion. I know what they felt was that there are lots of good organisations in the voluntary sector, as well as teams in the council that are doing good work to support people around digital exclusion. I know the challenges that they were facing around capacity and ability to do that, and knowledge about whatever things are going on. The co-ordinating role was to help people to access additional support that is available within the local authority and share resources. That co-ordinating role is key to alleviating some of that capacity, pressure and finding extra people that can support whether there are more specific needs around physical accessibility or connectivity that that direct organisation might not be able to provide. I think that they have been very proactive and maybe lessons can be learnt by other local authorities by Renfrewshire. I will bring in Alex Rowley. I wonder if I can go back to Adam and ask, in terms of older people in particular, is there good practice that has been developed around this whole digital agenda? In terms of the bill itself, or as part of the bill, is there any specific amendments that you believe could improve, particularly for older people, access to digital services? It is also mentioned that there is a lot of it in the third sector. I think that it can be potentially overlaid on by public services at times. Almost that, well, if they are doing it, we can rely on them to take care of it and forge our path. I am thinking of different parts of the country—people like Clasp out in Ayrshire and Helphold—where people get online and build the confidence, as much as people of similar ages are working with them. I suppose that someone a lot younger is showing them how to do it. You can work with your peers to understand it and recognise what the tools are there to make your life easier or more fun. I study a few years ago and looked at how, as soon as they were allowed, they had free access to Wi-Fi and some care homes that their data usage was through the roof. The residents were playing online games, and nothing pulled them expect this kind of thing, just when there were opportunities there that people can make the most of it. I will go back a couple of points. One of the concerns is that, in terms of the items in the bill that are looking at more digital routes to take care of them, they seem fairly fine. The bill was mentioned earlier on with regard to the discretion of local authorities. I think that precedence that the bill might set for future services, moving online or primarily, is that people must have the option for non-digital routes for lots and lots of different reasons. Part of that is predicated on the fact that we are never going to get to a position where 100 per cent of our citizens are online or online confidently for lots of reasons. I know that the Connecting Scotland programme, which is at a cost of £40 million of investment, has gone into that. It might be more and David will know more. When I last read the impact report about 40,000 people had been supported, I do not actually know how many older people were in that. I think that they were in the first tranches and the early part of that. After two or three years, will that kind of investment come in again to just to top up those that have been accessed? It might do, and is there a will and the finances to do that? I do not know that. That is a great initiative, but I think that it is also a tip of the iceberg of what is required. Broadly, in terms of amendments, I think that Mr Fairlie's point about the discretion of local authorities is good, because I think that at times you can see that it is not putting the kind of citizen at the start of that. What might be easier to deliver a service could be online and remotely, but is that making the most of what the person needs, and are we fulfilling what their rights are accessing them and making sure, as I said before, not jumping through too many hoops to get there? Is there any other questions from members? No. I thank the witnesses for their evidence and giving us their time this morning. If witnesses would like to raise any further evidence with the committee, they can do so in writing, and the clerks will be happy to liaise on how you can do that. The committee's next meeting is on 31 March. We will conclude our evidence taking on the coronavirus recovery and reform of Scotland Bill at stage 1 with the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. We will also consider the outcome of the next ministerial statement on Covid-19. That concludes the public part of our meeting for this morning, and I move it into private for the next agenda item.