 The 15th meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Our first item of business today is a decision to take item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? That's great, thank you very much. We now turn to our next item of business, which is an evidence session on our inquiry into low-income and debt problems. We had our first formal evidence session on this inquiry on 28 April. Today we'll be hearing from two panels. The first will look at the delivery of money advice services and key issues for people on low incomes. The focus on the second panel is debt and mental health. I'll begin by welcoming our first panel. Online we are joined by Peter Kelly, who is the director of the poverty alliance. Sarah Jane Dun, who is the policy manager for financial health at Citizens Advice Scotland. And Anna Baldock, who is the financial inclusion team leader, one parent families in Scotland. We also have in the room with us, which is fantastic, the first time that we've got somebody in. We have Emma Jackson, national director for Scotland of Christians against poverty. Welcome this morning to all of our panel. We also have colleagues Pam Duncan-Glancy and Faisal Chowdhugh, who are joining us remotely. A few housekeeping points to mention before we kick off. For those of you that are online, please do type R in the chat function if you want to come in on a question. Emma Jackson, if you can indicate just by raising your hand that you want to come in, I'll make sure that I see that. All of us in the room will endeavour not to direct every question at Emma as she's sitting here, so we will be very mindful of that. Please everybody don't feel as if you need to answer every single question, because we've got a lot of questions to get through and four people on the panel means that we are going to be a little bit tight for time. However, if you have something that you want to add, please do let us know and come in. We have roundabout an hour this morning for this panel. I'm going to turn to my colleagues who are going to ask questions in town, and we're going to start with my colleague Emma Roddick. Thank you, convener, and good morning everyone. I have my first question directing towards Sarah Jam, but I suspect a few others might have opinions. I think that at the moment there's still a bit of a misunderstanding that learning to budget can fix everything for everyone, but what I'm hearing is that for a lot of households their income is just not as much as their outgoings every month and it's that simple. Are you finding that there are more people coming to you for help who just have no possible way to make ends meet in their current work or with their current benefits? Yes, that's a very good question. Generally a key issue for both the income and debt problems is the rising cost of living. We are seeing that there are people coming to our bureaus with deficit budgets, and demand for advice from across our network has certainly shown that bone concern. In terms of our online advice pages, we're seeing concerns around landlords and peace and rent, we're seeing online advice around food banks, almost double that of March 2021, and certainly preliminary data from our city's advice bureaus is suggesting that demand around advice or debt advice is close to the pandemic levels. We know that certain groups such as those of low incomes, larger family households and people with vulnerabilities such as disabilities, including mental health, are more likely to be in poverty, and that certainly is the case when you see the cost of living will continue to make this worse, because incomes are being stretched beyond any reasonable standard of living. But even before Covid and this cost of living crisis families in poverty were having to prioritise what they were going to pay, with many having limited or no disposable income after essential bills. In fact, like you say, many don't have enough to pay their essential bills, which is pushing them further into poverty. When it comes to dealing with debt, money advisers in our network are concerned, because whilst they can deal with the client's debt of today, they know that unless a root causes of what's pushing their clients into poverty and debt, these clients will fall back into debt and return to advice a six, nine months down the line. But when we think about options for those on low incomes, yes, they can be limited, but, as a former money adviser, we have a saying that, like life, money advisers will always find a way to support clients, even if that means looking at temporary solutions such as token payments or moratoriums to help to tide that client over until either the situation stabilises or we can improve it through income maximisation, or even just to give them time to consider what's the best option for now. That does have a knock-on effect, because obviously that involves tens' handholding and support, which adds another level of complexity to clients' cases, which means that advisers are having clients on their books for longer and needing more index support, especially for those with no disposable income, and having to try to deal with those rising debts. At the moment, money advisers do have that feeling that they are firefighting and looking ahead, knowing that the worst is yet to come, because that's one of the facts. Whilst we are in the cost-of-living crisis, we are also in the summer months, so people who are prioritising bills and having to decide whether they put their heating on or put food on the table, they can be a little bit economical with their electricity usage or maybe being able to turn off the heating, but when we get to this cold and darker months, when things start to freely feel that pinch, that's when people are going to start to really have to think about what do we have to do, because at some times, for clients in our network, they don't actually have even a choice of eating or heating, but, as I've just said, we do have a range of tools that our money advisers are trying to use to limit that damage, and we'll always try to find a way to support clients as best as possible, but we can do more to support money advisers to tackle those issues. Emma Jackson in the room would like to come in, Emma. I guess really just to build on what Sarah Jane is saying there, that we are experiencing people coming to us at the point of needing debt help, describing incredibly difficult set of circumstances. We know that, unfortunately, people do continue to wait until things reach the point of crisis before reaching out for help, because there still, sadly, exist so much stigma and shame around debt and seeking help, but the types of issues that our clients are reporting to us are around food scarcity. A third of our clients at CAP would say that they regularly miss meals because they don't have enough income. A quarter are reporting at the moment that they are skipping and putting heating on, and, like Sarah Jane said, that is in the milder months, so it really is those concerns. People are trying to minimise the impact themselves. They are trying to take every measure not to get into debt and not to fall further into debt, but sadly, about 65 per cent of our clients would say that they have had to borrow from family or friends to afford food or fuel, really basic essential everyday items that we know that everybody needs. Like CAS and other organisations, we work with people to enable them to go debt free and to try to find a solution to the immediate issue that they have. We have good statutory debt solutions for people. Often it is an insolvency option, but the reality that we are facing for households on the lowest incomes is what we would describe as deficit budgets. Once we have worked with that individual to clear their debts, we would provide them with what we describe as a debt free budget to help people to continue to manage their income and stay debt free. Those are looking impossible, really very difficult for people. I wanted to bring an example to the committee of that this morning of a single adult household in Ayrshire that we are working with. We are very nearly at the point of insolvency of a map for that individual. Their sole income is through social security. They have anxiety, depression, often prone to panic attacks. As we are building the budget for this individual once they go debt free, they have £8.55 per week for food and all household items. That is £1.22 a day. I do not know about you, but I would find that almost impossible to stretch, to cover food, toiletries, washing up liquid, all the things that we need. Whilst we can take that individual to the point of being debt free, £8.55 is not sustainable. The very tragic reality is that that individual will fall back again into problem debt. Thank you Emma for that example. I think that that is really important for the committee to hear that. Emma, I do know that Peter and Anne online would like to come in on that, if we can have them come in briefly, please. Emma, do you have a follow-up question? Just very briefly to follow up, because I think that Emma has made the point, the agenda is well very powerfully. The issue of budgeting is really crucial. What do we expect? What is people's individual responsibility to try and work the way out of these problems that they find themselves in? As Emma has just said, the scope for doing that is incredibly limited and impossible. The message that we get from our members is that budgets are stretched beyond breaking now for individuals. We need to be mindful when we are discussing in this inquiry today and through the rest of your work, the importance of low income and the importance of not only income maximisation but looking at how we secure adequate incomes for individuals. The other brief point that I wanted to make as well is the context that we are in just now. We are all very focused on the cost of living crisis, and that is absolutely right. It is something that we need to be really concerned about. We remember that the cost of living crisis comes on top of budgets being stretched for those on low incomes during the pandemic. On the back of it, we remember that the start of the pandemic was only when benefit levels were unfrozen. We need to remember the context that we go into this inquiry, where people are already facing really significant challenges. We need to bear that in mind when we are looking at the kind of solutions that we can come up with. What we have been finding on parent families is that more and more the parents that we are dealing with are not just parents that are on benefits but also on low income. Low-income parents in particular tend to have quite an up-and-down employment history. That can cause significant problems. Loan parents can often feel quite isolated and maybe do not have a lot of family and friends support. The type of service that we deliver is a holistic way of looking at things and not just looking at debt as something in isolation. We have different sections in our organisation that can help people with family support and employability, so it is very much taking the issue as an overall problem. However, as the rest of my colleagues have said, more and more it is becoming too difficult to do that because you can help somebody's budget, you can maximise their income as much as possible, but the reality is that the amount of money is just not there to provide the support that is needed on-going. Over the past two years, during the pandemic, we were able to hand out significant amounts of crisis payments, but most of the crisis payments have now finished and charities are struggling to provide grants to get somebody over an initial crisis to be able to look at their debt. Especially with young parents who are affected by the penalty, if they are under 25, they receive less universal credit than parents over 25. I want to follow up on disabled people, because I know that the rising costs of things that are getting more expensive include energy bills, which we know are going to impact disabled people more. However, picking up on Sarah Jain's comment about the warmer months, that is obviously not going to be as helpful to people in certain islands and coastal communities. Are you finding that there is that disparity in location as well as other characteristics? Certainly, the rural element of highlands and islands that is that disparity, especially when you think about energy costs. A lot of people in those areas are on non-regulated energy, such as oil, colour gas, for example. The problem with that is that the support that usually comes out is usually geared towards gas and electricity, so regulated energy, so there is usually less support for people. They also have to pay up front, which can be a significant cost that they have to find. They can push their bills elsewhere into their areas, so they might have to think that I have to prioritise my oil bill, because I need to buy that now, so I will not pay my rent or my mortgage or my council tax, because I have to think about which bill is coming up. I am going to do this a lot today, as we have a saying where you rob Peter to pay Paul. A lot of the time, that is what is happening. People are having to think about what bills do I prioritise. When you come in, location is a definite, significant issue, especially because if you are having to pay higher travel costs, food costs are usually higher. A few years ago, in our Dumfries and Galloway, Bureaus did a study around the cost of living in a rural area and found that the price of a shopping basket was significantly higher in those areas than it was in urban areas. All of that adds again to an already growing rising cost of living crisis, where people are having to think about what bill do I pay to pay my rent, so I pay my council tax to put food on the table. That is where people are having to think about what is a priority to them, but what do they need to have now? It is a struggle, definitely, on a daily basis. Like you were saying about disabled people, we have cases and cases of clients who are coming in who are maybe on limited incomes, fixed incomes such as pensions, or they might be on benefit-only income, and they are seeing a significant amount of that being eaten up because they have to have their heating on, for example, or they have to follow a special diet. When I was working on the front lines as a money adviser, I had a client who, because they were on a prepayment meter and there were electricity switched off, they were very panicked because they had to keep their insulin in their fridge and they needed that insulin in order to be able to take a meal. That panic of being able to not have that resource and to be able to keep their electricity on was more significant because of their disability, and that is another factor and another complexity that our advisers are having to see across the network. I will move on to questions now from Miles Briggs to be followed by Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us today. I wanted to carry on the line of question with regard to access to services. To kick off on that, I wanted to ask how the delivery of your services have changed compared to the start of the pandemic and now, and also whether or not you were able to carry on with face-to-face meetings with clients as well. I will maybe start again with Sarah Jayne and then, if anyone else wants to come in. The Scottish Service of the Vice-Network basically rallied to ensure that we continue to serve the public during the pandemic. That involved a very quick transition to remote working, meaning that we were still able to help people across the network even during the pandemic since the advice bureaus were able to unlock more than £147 million for people. That meant that, for every pound invested in core advice services, £14 was roughly returned into the communities. Since the Vice-Scotland, our main role was to support our bureaus with that, to ensure that there was no disruption to services to seek. That was providing bureaus with things like additional laptops and equipment, training advisers and just supporting our bureau staff to ensure that they were okay and supported during that time. Quite frankly, when I look back, I know that, since the advice we were created for the war effort, so we have it in our blood, if you will, but it is still astonishing to see the amount of work that our staff and volunteers across the network banded together. Some bureaus were able to offer face-to-face contact to the most vulnerable during Covid, and that meant having to source things like PPE to ensure that their health was protected. That was increased as restrictions were eased. We also launched our money map and our sense of advice Scotland helpline during the pandemic to provide multi-channel support and to ensure that things like our advice pages, our digital advice team, for example, work tirelessly to ensure that advice online remains accurate and up-to-date. We saw more than 2.5 million users during the pandemic using our online advice sites. During that time, we were also hearing from advisers who were constantly worried about what we call our frequent flyers. That is people we know who are clients who rely on face-to-face, either out of necessity or choice, such as those who are digitally excluded, for example, or just prefer the comfort of speaking to someone face-to-face, which is certainly a case when it comes to date advice. When we think about remote delivery, yes, it can do wonders and has a lot of advantages and disadvantages, but if clients are not able to access the bureau in a way that they want to, that means that, even the things that we were offering in the video chat, it just knows that advisers are worried about those clients who are needing our help but couldn't access the bureau at that time. However, when we think about our multi-channel support now, we are obviously going to continue delivering remote advice as much as possible, but using that to strengthen our face-to-face support now that we are able to do it. You are from Emma from Christians Against Poverty as well. Thank you. Like the bureaus that we provide in the network of 27 debt centres across Scotland, we are quite unique in our model of debt help. Our normal mode of delivery is to provide debt advice within the privacy and safety and comfort of individuals' homes, so our debt coaches go in to homes and deliver the appointments there. Like everyone, we had to completely pivot back in March 2020 and change our services. During those very strict lockdown months, we were able to take our services to either a telephone or web-based service, given that many of our clients experienced digital exclusion. It was predominantly telephone-based that we offered, but because we have a predominantly community-based support, we were able to keep going with some of what we would describe as doorstep support for clients. We offer emergency aid, so at the first interaction that we have with someone, if there is no food in the fridge and the electricity has run out, there is no mobile phone top-up. We were still able to assess those needs and go out to people's homes and safely deliver that emergency support for people and then predominantly journey through debt with them via telephone-based mechanisms. As restrictions eased and we were able to provide face-to-face services for the most vulnerable, we pivoted and prioritised that by moving through to being back where we are now in offering our home-based appointments. We have retained the option of choice. That has been a good thing for us to now build into the model the opportunity for phone-based services for some people who prefer that, but we find predominantly with the client base that we have, that it is face-to-face in home support that people want. That provides opportunity not just for the specialist debt advice that people need but for that practical support, the compassion of being able to draw alongside somebody and to really see the extent of the difficulties that people are facing within their local communities. We now have that slightly mixed model of how we deliver our service. Ultimately, we believe in channel choice. It is about the right people getting the right support for them. Not everybody would need in person in-home debt advice, but people should be able to choose and access the support that is right for them. You touched on that in your response, because I wanted to ask in terms of what you have learnt during the pandemic, specifically around new models. I know when I visited the Citizens Advice Bureau down in Leith that we were talking about how those partnerships have been developed with some of the banks to look towards that early intervention to help support people. I just wondered what learning had happened, which you have carried on. You said that it is a difference of access to support, like a phone line service. Is there anything else that we need to know about specifically early intervention schemes? I think that, like everybody, the pandemic really provided an opportunity for collaboration, quick, meaningful collaboration, video calls and coming together, so that we could look at addressing what the issues were. As an organisation, we already had good existing partnership relationships with organisations like CAS, like the Poverty Alliance, but the pandemic almost acted like a catalyst to super speed some of that. We were able to build new relationships with organisations such as Shelter, for example, so that we can really do that earliest point of referral. People still do not know out there that free, professional debt advice exists. I have already mentioned the stigma and shame. People carry within them the myths that my problem is the worst that exists out there. Nobody has seen anything like that. There is no help. There is no possible way out of my circumstances. It is incredibly important that across both civil society and across the third sector, across the NHS, everybody is aware that it helps us to get free, professional debt help. We really believe in the concept of no wrong door. Whether I spoke to my GP about my debt help or my health visitor or my son's primary school teacher, that person would be able to say that there is free debt help available for you to Scotland and point you in the right direction. Strengthening of the partnership relationships, Miles, has been really important. Another thing that we have had to as a response of the pandemic is to increase our emergency support that I have described to you. The extent of the issues that people are facing, the complexity of cases, means that people really are in the most difficult of circumstances. We have seen an increase in people needing that, so we have chosen as a charity to widen and extend our budget so that we are able to make those crisis needs as people contact us. Thanks for that. I have Sarah, Jane and Ann looking to come in, if they can come in very briefly on this, because we are 25 minutes in, and two members are into questions, so please briefly, Sarah, Jane and Ann. I was just going to echo what Emma was saying in regards to ourselves and our own set of advice, that we are also a community-based organisation, like Christians Against Poverty, and we work closely with Christians Against Poverty. A lot of our bureaus across Scotland have very solid connections with our local communities, but what is important to note is that different services offer different support at different levels, and collaboration is certainly key. One of the things that we think for this model to thrive is that training is definitely needed for certain partners. One example that I can best give is mental health settings. We are obviously trying to work within the set of advice bureaus to work closer with our mental health practitioners, support workers and local community mental health teams. While our advisers are being trained on the understanding of mental health and how that interacts with money, the same cannot be said about the mental health professionals' understanding of the debt and advice service processes. That is not about making them become a money advice expert or even asking professionals to provide debt advice, but by giving them a basic knowledge of the debt advice journey in certain key features such as what the debt of mental health evidence form is and what severe mental impairment can mean for their savers users, it really means that they feel confident enough to bring in those questions when looking at a client's mental health crisis, for example, whether financial issues are causing it or being caused by it. If we really want to start to break the vicious cycle of debt and poverty, we really need to look at bringing up the base knowledge of our trusty partners, if you will, and other organisations and services that we want to work with so that they understand how debt advice and debt interact with somebody's mental health issues, for example, and go beyond just placing money advisers in settings such as GP surgeries. That is about bringing up their knowledge base and their understanding so that they feel confident enough to discuss it with their service users. Thanks, Sarah-Jane, and if we can hear really briefly from Anne on this point. Nick, we moved to a different way of working. We couldn't do face-to-face for quite a while, but after that we used the family support workers and the family support working network that we have in OPFS, and we relied on them to get information that maybe we couldn't get over the phone or over Zoom meetings. They were very good at keeping in touch with parents on-going so that, if they were based out or were suffering from anxiety because of their debts, they had somebody there that acted as a link. Likewise, our advice helpline, we saw a huge increase in the inquiries that we had during the pandemic because a lot of the debt letters and the debt companies started using much more text services and emails, so clients were getting repeated text messages. Now that we have moved back into a hybrid system where we offer whatever the client needs, we have learned from what we used during the pandemic to provide a service that is suited much more to what an individual person needs and the support that they need to deal with their debt. Thanks for that, Anne, and it was really important to hear that message regarding people getting multiple texts and multiple emails from their creditors, which really did impact on a lot of people's mental health. When your phone is buzzing and you don't know if you want to look at it, it's the same as when the envelopes land on the mat, but it's just continuous and sometimes even through the night, so thanks for bringing that up. I'm going to bring Pam Duncan-Glancy in who's online for her questions to be followed by Paul McLeanon. Hi, good morning, convener, and good morning to the panel. I'm sorry, I'm not the in-person today, and thank you for all the submissions that I sent in so far to the inquiry. They've been incredibly helpful and for the evidence that you've given this morning, some of which are incredibly hard to hear, and I can't imagine how hard it is to have to deliver the services that you're working on, so a massive thank you for that. I have a couple of questions for Sarah Jane, if that's okay, and then a couple for Peter. First of all, to Sarah Jane, we heard last week of a really horrific operating environment, to be honest, of some of the citizens advice bureaus and advisers and what they're having to deal with, because of a lot of what you've explained this morning. Just that they're completely burnt out, and in fact someone said that their staff are worrying about some of the same issues that the people they're given advice to are worrying about, which shows the depth and the change in nature of poverty and debt in Scotland. What is your understanding of that environment right now? Can you tell us a little bit more about the experience of your advisers? A slightly different question, but also for Sally-Anne, so just for the interest of time to move it on. We know that digital exclusion prevents people from accessing some services, and we heard that evidence in the previous session that mobile phone companies let people access the NHS without using their data during the pandemic. Would that help for the clients that you're working with if they were able to access some specific websites without using mobile phone data allowance and if so, which ones? Certainly the experience of our advisers, as you said, there are a lot of our advisers, and certainly being a past adviser myself. I was given advice up until September 2020, so I know that it can be very hard when you are hearing these harrowing stories to switch off at night. You have clients coming to you who are at the brink of crisis and who have contemplated suicide, some have tempted suicide, and it can be very difficult when you are looking at their situation that it can feel that sense of hopelessness. However, a money adviser will try to do what they can to support that client as best as they can in that situation. When there is a level complexity, the clients that we are seeing coming to our bureaus, for example, are not just coming with a debt advice issue. They are coming with housing issues, employment issues and immigration issues. They are multi-layered and complex. A money adviser has to look at what support they can give and what support other services are out there to support with and able to almost provide a multi-disciplinary approach to a client's situation to see whether there is something that we can do to deal with that root cause so that, when they are debt-free, like Emma was saying, they are able to move on. Some clients will only be able to provide temporary relief, and it is something that we have to constantly look at and deal with. I have had clients in my 12 years of money advice who were there throughout my 12 years of career. I had to go back to them time and time again, because things such as chronic lack of income, no matter how much budgeting and income maximisation is never going to deal with a lack of income and never going to solve that problem. We have to look at other routes and solutions that might be able to deal with things such as fuel poverty and looking at energy efficiency measures, for example. It can lead to adviser Burnout and adviser wellbeing being affected, especially because it can feel sometimes that, no matter what you are doing, your client is coming back to that for their advice. However, we have advisers who have been in the business for 25 or 30 years, so it can be very individual. The best thing that I can always say is that we are making sure that our advisers are supported. They have a range of tools in their arsenal that will help a range of different clients as best as possible, because, in that way, they will not feel like they are not being able to do anything and that they have found a way to support that client. Regarding digital exclusion—you are right—there would certainly be a pocket of clients where access to certain websites without having to use their data up would be a massive use, because data poverty is a significant issue. However, when we think of digital exclusion, it is not just a lack of being able to afford data or being able to get access to data. In actual fact, some of it can be a lack of confidence or a lack of digital skills. Even if they have access to that NHS website, they would be able to navigate it in order to find what they wanted to use as well. When we think of digital exclusion, we have to think of the different clients that come under that bracket. A lot of the times, many people do not want to use digital. They want to go face-to-face with somebody. Money Advice Scotland did research years ago on the client journey. Certainly, when it came to things like finding out initially where to go for data advice and to get that initial set up, digital and remote advice was what they wanted, but when they were actually wanting to look over their options and discuss what they wanted to do, it was face-to-face. When we think of digital exclusion, we also have to think of client choice and make sure that it is not a channel shift instead and make sure that it is a channel choice. Thank you for that, Sarah-Jane. Pam, you have questions for Peter. I do. Thank you very much for that, Sarah-Jane. I am much appreciated. For the interest of time, I might roll one of my questions, but it might sit more appropriately into this one with your permission, if that is okay. We will go ahead as long as it is quite quick. My question is for Peter, if that is okay or my few questions. We know in some of the evidence that about 60,000 people got into debt for the first time during the pandemic. I was wondering what that tells us about the picture of poverty in Scotland. What does that mean for how services are delivered and what the solutions are? We also know from your submission that you have called for a more joined-up data sharing scheme for support services and for affordable credit. Would you explain a little bit about what happens now and what that more joined-up scheme would look like? Finally, we know that people do not have enough to pay for essentials and even bankruptcy, as has already been said as a temporary solution. What specific action could we take in Scotland to do about that and address the course of the crisis today? I might have to come back to you to just repeat the final of the three questions there. As I alluded to in the opening statement, the pandemic has changed things and it has changed the pattern of poverty or deepened or hastened some of the existing patterns of poverty. In terms of in-work poverty, we have seen that change around the value of social security benefits. It has also highlighted the importance of poverty in terms of labour market experience but also in relation to issues around housing and access to housing and affordable housing. I guess that the pandemic has heightened our awareness of many issues that already exist in terms of the way that poverty plays out in Scotland and across the UK. Debt is one of those crucial dimensions of that picture of poverty. As you said, 60,000 people are increasing their debt during the pandemic. As I said earlier, more people report that they simply cannot stretch budgets any further. The opportunities to manage online incomes have become increasingly difficult. The cost of living crisis, the inflation, the changes in the energy cap have all magnified those problems. I guess that the general response is that things are getting much tougher and we have seen that reflected in the kinds of issues that colleagues are speaking about today and reflected through the membership of the poverty lines. We have just seen that intensification of already existing problems and more people being drawn in to those issues. Your second question was about data sharing and joined-up approaches. I guess, again, that this is about that no-wrong-door approach that one of my colleagues mentioned earlier as well. I think that there is, if we take access to social security benefits and the automation of a passported benefits, we need to consider that people who are clearly on low incomes and are known to be on low incomes by some public authority, being able to enable those people to have automatic access to other entitlements is really important. I think that the ways in which we can help notify organisations and that organisations, sub-sector, community-based organisations are able to access data and share data, that is something that is quite complex and obviously has legal implications in terms of the way that data is shared. Public authority is better able to communicate and share information is absolutely crucial. It does not seem to be happening at the moment. There seem to be good moves of foot, certainly in Glasgow, where there has been, as far as I understand, some greater efforts to share data. I know that the relationship with DWP in terms of the data that it holds on low income is crucial. I think that there needs to be more done to ensure that that data is shared effectively. The third part of your question has now completely gone for me, so if you could maybe keep that in quite capture. It was just basically, what could we do in Scotland with the powers that we have today to make this better? In terms of boosting incomes, there is one part that is trying to focus that there are lots that can be done. We have spoken to the committee and we have committed evidence previously around a range of areas where we could look to boosting incomes. It is important to repeat boosting incomes through things like such child payment, the mitigation of the benefit cap, and those are very welcome efforts that have been committed to by the Scottish Government. In one area where we could possibly see more action, it is around access to affordable credit. It was highlighted in the first child poverty delivery plan that the Scottish Government produced back in 2018. In terms of the current focus around preventative approaches—that means the kind of services that the quality are providing directly—there was less of a focus in the new child poverty delivery plan. It would have been good to see more emphasis on that and to see clearer approaches around developing the support for affordable credit investment in affordable credit in Scotland. I think that is something that can be shown to make a difference to help people to keep out of the most unaffordable and problematic forms of debt, so we need to see greater investment in that. Scaling up some of the efforts that the welfare advice and health partnerships that are referred to in the child poverty delivery plan are really important measures to get money advice into the 150 GPs in the most deprived communities in Scotland. That is really important. We can see that kind of model as something that will really help to ensure that people can access the support that they need and know about the support that is available for them. Many thanks for that, Peter. I will now turn to questions from Paul McClellan to be followed by Deputy convener Natalie Dawn. Paul, please. Thank you, convener, and thanks panel, and thanks for your submissions and evidence so far this morning. I'll conscious of the time, so I'll try and roll two questions into one. What first question was really just asking about the funding environment for your own organisation at the moment? I suppose where are you at the moment and where are you forecasting where the requirement would be for the next number of years? The second part of the question was really just talking about partnership working, where you see the role of partnership working, and particularly looking at specialised services the evidence week when you got last week was talking about obviously looking at more fuel poverty issues. It's maybe touching on that issue, but also where do you see the partnership working I suppose improving in the next number of months and years? I'll probably open it up to herself first of all and then open it up to the panel after that. Thank you, Paul. I'll pick up on the partnership working. I've spoken a bit about that already, so I won't repeat the things that I've said. The real idea of this no wrong door is really important so that individuals can get referred on. However, we need to, as we consider things like that, always be having in the fold of our minds the dignity and the agency of people who are experiencing problem debt. We must never get to a situation in which someone is accessing one service and accessing that becomes about the conditionality of staying there unless you go on to get debt help, so you can't stay with us unless you go on. We've got to be careful about conditionality and coercion. One of the things that we know, as I've mentioned, is that people do find it very difficult to take those first steps to begin to gather the evidence, understand the extent of the debt and work out that solution. There is an element of people needing to be ready and able to do that and be supported within those journeys, but we've already got a number of really good, joined-up partnership arrangements and I think we can be building on those. As Sarah Jane explained, we're just getting some entry-level information about the routes out of debt that exist across Scotland and where free debt help is available so that signposting and pointing can happen no matter where anybody goes. On your questions about the funding environment for debt help organisations across Scotland, I think that the security of longer term funding would be deeply welcomed across the sector, the precarious nature of one-year bits of grant funding. Are just difficult and there's a challenge that comes with service delivery in the mix of that, so multi-year cycle funding would be incredibly welcomed across the service. Again, just that continued opportunity really for collaboration. Each of us who have organisations, we deliver something unique and something different whenever in competition with one another, but how do we come together to be able to raise awareness? A number of us participated in the Scottish Government's debt awareness campaign that took place at the start of the year and that was a really excellent example of how organisations can work together, each highlighting their unique strengths so that individuals can make the right choice. Who would like to come in over to yourself, Sarah? Jane? Again, just to echo a couple of emails, Sarah, I certainly agree with Emma in regards to a more sufficient and stable funding relationship, especially with local authorities. That just means that every person in Scotland has equal access to free, independent and confidential advice, which are networked as known and valued for. In regard to the relationship, I kind of want to go back to training, certainly in regards to understanding financial difficulties. For one example, I know that users are probably going to pick this up in a later panel, so I don't want to dwell on it for too long. It's about things such as the debt mental health evidence form, so our advisers have to spend time and resources that are very limited and very precious to them, especially at the moment, to explain what the debt mental health evidence form is to make the health professional so that they can get it completed. They then have to go off to creditors and do the same thing again, to explain what the debt mental health evidence form is and what it does. By equipping professionals with that knowledge and again of the money advice process, it not only encourages discussion, but it just means that service users are going to be looking at their multi-layered issues. As good work has been done elsewhere—for example, in Wales, they use the Money and Pension Service Money Guiders programme in order to train mental health professionals to understand what is involved in the money advice process. The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, which I know that you will be listening to later, is looking to develop a e-learning module that is tied to continuous professional development around teaching how mental health and money interact and how someone's mental health can be impacted by money. That is something that we would like to adopt and explore in Scotland, so that, if we are going to be making these partnerships and we are going to be having this level of collaboration, that both sides of the coin understand how it is connected. Thank you, I think that that was really helpful for us to hear and will help us in the next panel as well with our questions. Paul, do you have anything else? I suppose that, talking about the three-year funding model would be good. Where are you forecasting that in the next two or three years? Do you see a massive increase in the funding that you will require? If so, there will probably be a bit of time that will be required for training people up as well. Is that an issue or is that something that you are looking forward to? Do you see a massive increase in funding that you require to run the services to meet the demand? If so, how do we then take on the training issues to train people up at that particular time? If we can hear very briefly from Sarah Jane on that and then I do have Anne that wants to come in on it, I will have to move on to the next question. Over the last couple of years, we were successful in securing funding for additional front-line money advisers. That was from the debtlet advice levy, which was also increased. That was mainly due to, obviously, to deal with the demand from the pandemic. We are currently in discussions with the Scottish Government about support for money advice this year. Although there is not any additional funding coming from the UK Government to help with demand for the cost of living, as it was for the pandemic, that will limit our ability to increase capacity and help the greater numbers that are coming to cab at service for support and advice. The funding question has always been a problem within money advice in comparison to say welfare rights provision. During the pandemic and beforehand, a lot of smaller organisations and charities, such as ourselves, have formed very good local connections with other organisations. We secured money through SLAB to do a test for change programme, which we are currently operating on. The focus on it is to try to reduce the debt journey for people. It is very much working with advisers who already know their clients well and can support them to get the information before they actually see a money adviser, which cuts things down. Looking at different programmes like that will broaden the service that is available. There are not a huge amount of money advisers available. I always joke saying that we are a dying breed, but there needs to be investment into training new advisers and making working in money advice an attractive prospect. I am really looking at how funding can be put in place that is over a set period so that people have job security and money advice. I think that we will go a long way to broadening the advice that is available. I thank the panel for appearing this morning and for your responses so far. I start off. Do the members of the panel feel that there are any improvements that could be made to the processes and procedures that are used by creditors that would help people with low incomes and debt problems? Can I go to Peter first, please? I think that improvements and processes are one of the areas that we have not discussed so far is public debt, state debt, the fact that this is a growing dimension of the debt problems that people face now. It gives us an area for action where the scope, given the ties between regulators and the state, is much clearer and better approaches. For instance, the approach that we use around council tax debt, which is an important part of the overall problem of over indebtedness, is very rapid and perhaps is an area where we need to see further action where we can look at building in more steps that would allow people to address debt before that debt is increased, so the issue of summary warrants and so on would increase the problem. That would be an area for action. I think that looking at other aspects of public debt as well, where local authorities and the Scottish Government might have scope to act around things such as Aberlau or highlighted the issue of school meals debt, which they estimate to be over £1 million in Scotland at the moment. There are actions that could be taken to ensure that either that debt is written off, particularly as primary school children move into secondary school, or families are carrying debt. There are specific areas, given the context that we are operating in at the moment, where we could take some specific actions. Those are just too in the interested time. Thanks, Peter. I think that Sarah-Jane wants to come in on that as well. In the interest of time, I will not go into the full answer that I would love to give. We have put that into our submission anyway to the committee. As Peter was saying earlier, we would like councils to do, especially in relation to council tax rears. One suggestion, which I know was raised by Alan McIntosh in the session in April, which is something that we could do now, is to raise the protective minimum balance and bank arrestments. Council tax is one of the single biggest debts that we see coming to the bureaus. When it comes to the collection of council tax, local authorities are favouring bank arrestments, and it has become a significant issue, especially for our advisers. The protective minimum balance at present is just over £566, and, quite frankly, it is too low. It is not enough money for everybody. The amount that is arrested is done so regardless of the person's personal situation and household composition. The money that is often taken is also benefit income. Although that is technically not allowed to be touched, creditors argue that, once a benefit hits a person's bank account, it loses its protective status. What that means is that those on the lowest incomes are being left without any means to support themselves, and advisers are having to spend time and resources fighting on behalf of clients to recover those funds, as well as sourcing emergency crisis support, to provide things such as essential, such as food and energy. We would like to see the protective minimum balance increase to 1,000, albeit as an emergency measure in the short term, but it is subject to a wider review to determine a more appropriate long-term level, as well as only seeing a percentage of any income above that 1,000 to be subjected to a bank arrestment. Using the sliding scale that is already used in earnings arrestment, we need to see household composition to be taken into account when it comes to protecting minimum balance, because, at the moment, it is regardless of whether a person lives on their own or in household with larger families. We know that certain groups such as those with lone parents, families with three or more children or those with disabilities face higher living costs and are more likely to live in poverty, yet bank arrestments have no protections or medications for those groups, meaning that they are disproportionately affected by this form of diligence. Just to build on things that both Peter and Sarah Jane have said there, in terms of government debt, 43 per cent of the clients that access support from CAP have universal credit deductions, which makes managing a budget incredibly difficult. Our observations with council tax rears is a very difficult environment for people. Around 40 per cent of our clients have council tax rears when they contact us. We observe often quick and harsh action taken by local authorities, which already adds pressure to circumstances that households are facing. In terms of the opportunities for change within the framework, the bank arrestments is one particular issue, and I will not go over everything that Sarah Jane has said other than to say that we wholeheartedly agree and would advocate everything that she has put in place. That is just one thing that the committee is obviously aware of. There are different routes out of debt. We have different statutory solutions that the AIB is responsible for, and we have been working through a review with the AIB this year to look at some particular issues. There are some particular things, especially around a map, which is the insolvency option for those on the lowest incomes that the AIB and the committee could be considering. One of those is the minimum debt threshold for an individual to ask to go through bankruptcy. That is set at £1,500, so you must have £1,500 worth of debt before you can access a map. Experience in case study would show us that even debts around £8,000 or £9,000 can be devastating for households on the lowest income, and that removes that option of insolvency for those households. Even small amounts of debt keep people not just trapped in debt but trapped in poverty, which I think should be a particular concern for all of us. The other big issue that we are really concerned about that could be coming towards us as a direct result of the impact of the cost of living crisis on the lowest households. We talked about this deficit budget, so we are able to work with people now and to get them to become debt-free. However, we know that it is very unlikely for a number of households that are going to be able to maintain that debt-free status. Under the current arrangements with a map as a debtor, someone who is in debt yourself, you cannot apply for a map again for 10 years. That is incredibly concerning given the current environment that we are in. People are going to need to access a debt solution before that point in time. Creditor petition map can happen before that, but that is a completely different experience for someone who loses the agency to be able to decide and determine what you would like to do about your circumstances. That is something that we feel that we really need to be considering now before it is coming towards us in the next year or two. I will follow on from some of those responses. In terms of debt with private creditors, do you think that more responsibility could be on the creditors themselves to flag a potential debt arising before it gets to a crisis point? When looking at debts such as credit cards, credit accounts and catalogs, minimum payments tend to be a real issue for people. No one who is making a minimum payment for a crude debt is doing it for any other reason other than that they are in trouble. You are not doing that if you have the money to pay. Creditors allow that to go on endlessly and it just turns into a horrible vicious cycle. You are not actually cleaning any of the debt that you have raised originally. When looking at food poverty now, people are now getting into debt for essential items with creditors popping up that give people the ability to buy food shoppings on a buy-now-pay-later basis or over a three-payment basis. I have get constituents that are paying interest for food items that they bought nine months, twelve months ago, and it is just shocking. It is to see if there are any ways that we can catch this before it becomes an issue, or if it gets to the stage of a debt arrangement scheme or a bankruptcy, it probably will not be relevant. Looking at reducing that debt by removing even a portion of the interest of crude or just flagging it, it is an issue. Obviously, if we get rid of one problem kind of organisation in those kinds of creditors, it seems like another one pops up, like I am saying, with those sort of food shopping organisations, do you think that, going forward, there is any way that we could limit that because they tend to generally be focused and targeted at people on low incomes? I will bring Sarah-Jane in first then, thank you. When it comes to credit card debts, and you are right, those on the low who are making the minimum payments are not doing so because they want to keep their debt on-going, it is because that is usually what all they can afford. It is estimated that if you only make payments on minimum payments on your credit card, it takes over 30 years on which to clear the debt. However, private sector creditors are heavily regulated by the FCA, and in actual fact they have what is known as the persistent debt policy, which they have to follow. If you are only making minimum payments for a set amount of time, which I think is nine months, you will be sent a letter from your credit card company saying that you are in persistent debt and you need to be looking at things like debt advice in order to do it. There is a system in place in order to do that with private creditors. However, there is not a reciprocal policy and public sector debt. When you see clients going through, as Emma was saying, unrepeated benefit over payments or having things like deductions from benefits, there is not a persistent policy around if somebody is in this for a long period of time, is there other ways in which we could be dealing with this debt rather than taking constant deductions from your universal credit, for example. When it comes to things like buy-now-pay later, you are right. It feels like once we deal with one bad lot, like pay-d lending, and we have brought that under heavily regulation. Another one pops up in buy-now-pay later, and it seems to be the new one. However, again, the FCA and the regulators are on top of that, and we have already raised that with the FCA. We are looking to bring in tighter regulation around that, and hopefully to the same levels that we have brought in around pay-d lending, but not taking as long as it did. However, again, it comes down to that public sector. Although the private sector is heavily regulated and there are expectations around things such as treating vulnerable customers fairly and making sure that those with certain vulnerabilities such as mental health rules and regulations are followed, it is not being reciprocated in public sector debt. That is where we probably need to focus more. There are things that we can do when it comes to things such as council tax debt, because one of the most important things to note is that, yes, people are using credit cards, and yes, they are using them for cost of living essential, but more people are coming in with priority debts such as council tax rent and rent arrears. That is the areas that people are seeing. It is not necessarily credit cards and personal debts like we used to see before. I know that Emma wanted to come in on this, but I can ask you to follow-up in writing, so I will get two more members with questions that we are over time. I will bring in Jeremy Balford, please. Thank you, convener, and good morning to everyone. I have a very quick question really just following up Emma's last point about maps and insolvency. What are the negativities of someone going down that road? Obviously, it is a way out, but it does come with negativities. Can you just tell us a wee bit about if I do go down an insolvency or into a map? What are the negativities long-term for the clients or have I done? We have an excellent structure with accessing insolvency options in Scotland, in that you need to go through a money adviser, someone who is trained and accredited to do that. You are getting that specialist help. Therefore, we have already put a mechanism, like a gate, in the process so that the right people are getting on to the right solutions. Nobody wants to go bankrupt. No one wants to access a map. It still comes with a huge amount of stigma and taboo within society around going through bankruptcy. It is an arduous process. There is a lot of paperwork to fill out. Your life is kind of unpacked and people have to share quite a lot of detailed and personal information, so I think that it is worth all of us bearing that in mind that nobody chooses the solution unless it is absolutely necessary for them. Yes, you are correct. It has some impacts on individuals in terms of accessing credit and moving forward in the future. People move through a map because it is the best route out of debt for them. That has been carefully considered by a money adviser, because, like the examples that Sarah Jane just described, an alternative, a DAS, could be 30 years paying back a debt. We had an example come through the office last week, where a repayment option for somebody would be 50 years to pay the debt back. None of us could live like that. People's wellbeing and health is absolutely essential. Perhaps, although there is some short term, I would describe as implications of going through a map. If that is what has been advised by a money adviser, it is probably guaranteed to be the right solution for somebody. Just one clarification in regard to your comment about the 10 years before you can enter into a new one. Maybe the others can write on this. What scale would you be looking for? Is it a three-year, four-year? Have you thought about what would be the appropriate length of time? A great question. Sarah Jane and some other colleagues and I were literally just discussing this issue not that long ago. It is helpful for the committee to know that the comparable route out of debt in England and Wales is a DRO, and that is six years for you to be able to re-enter that. That is something to bear in mind. We need to look at the backdrop of the economic circumstances that we are facing and to be able to have a system that is flexible and to meet the needs that are facing us. We are about to have crisis emergency needs. Therefore, it is potential, Jeremy, that we might choose to do something for a limited period of time to best meet the needs of people who are weathering the current economic crisis and then return to a figure that might be agreed more longer term. Something about flexibility would be the thing that we would consider. You may not know the answer to that, so I am putting you on the spot or the others on the spot. My understanding is that that would require primary legislation to change those things. Is that correct? Yes, that is my understanding as well. Thanks very much for that, Jeremy. We have a question from Faisal Taujou, who joins us online. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I will make it very short and the question will be for the panel. Do you find variation in the issue faced by people from BME as compared to the rest of the population? Is there an issue of multiple disadvantages faced by these groups? Thanks very much for that, Faisal. You dropped out a little bit, but I think that this question is roundabout. Is there a specific impact on the BME community? I do not know who you want to bring that to, Faisal. Do you want to bring it to Citizens Advice Scotland? Do you want to bring it to Sarah Jane? Sarah Jane, then sit to that advice, please. Sarah Jane, can we hear from you on that? Yes. On the short answer, yes, there is. We emmudd commented earlier that it can take up to a year for somebody to seek help even when they reach crisis point. We find that those in BME communities are even longer. That is because, in some communities and in some cultures, the stigma around debt is even higher. Seeking help and trying to reach out for help can be seen as deeply shameful. That adds another layer to getting support. There are also issues around language barriers. In my time, as a money adviser, I help to support many people from BME backgrounds and communities who are having to bring in an interpreter or even using their children to come in and interpret and translate and talk through an issue, which can be very difficult because you never know what the translation is going to be exactly what needs to be said. That can add different challenges. We definitely see that there are variations. There are different levels of poverty and there are different demographics coming into play, especially around those communities. Obviously, we try to make sure that we can be as welcoming and work with other community services that are already supporting clients in those backgrounds so that we are seen to be working together rather than trying to compete or to be seen as somebody that you do not go to or somebody that you do not speak to. I have a question, but I will ask if people can follow up in writing. Yesterday, there was a report from the Lloyds Banking Foundation entitled, Drivers of Poverty. A huge part of that was roundabout, which Sarah-Jane has already touched on. There were deductions from benefits and my past experience of working with people and debt. That was always a big issue. There was always this perpetual deduction of benefits. Some of the drivers for that, we know, are roundabout recouping advances, historical debt from the clunky tax credit system that people get surprised by, etc. Obviously, that is driving that debt where people just can never get out of debt because it is essential things that they have to pay. I wonder if your organisations can maybe write to us whether you agree with the recommendations that are coming out of that report about writing off these historical debts, about doing a full review of the system of callback from benefits, which essentially are the minimum that people are supposed to live on, but they are not means tested at this point. It was very interesting to hear Sarah-Jane say about once they hit the bank account, or was it Emma? Somebody said that once they hit the bank account, they are not protected anymore. I think that the committee would like to hear your thoughts on that report and the recommendations that came out of it, if that is possible. Thank you very much to everybody this morning for coming along. Sorry that we did run over time, but I am going to pause to allow the panels to change over and for members to have a short comfort break, so I suspend the meeting just now. Thank you very much. Welcome back, everyone. Our second panel is all joining us remotely. Oh, we are still suspended. I will start that again. Welcome back, everyone. Our second panel is all joining us remotely this morning, and I welcome Sarah Hussein, Mental Health and Money Advice, Senior Advisor, Mental Health UK, Hannah Brisbane Public Affairs Assistant, Scottish Association for Mental Health, Rebecca Stacey, Senior Research Officer, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, and Wendy McOsland Development Coordinator at Voices of Experiences, Mental Health Foundation Scotland. As we have run over time and we are quite short for time this morning, I am going to head straight into questions for members and I will have Emma Roddick kick us off this morning. Thank you, convener. First off, I wanted to pick up on something raised by support and mind in their written submission that people with mental health problems often do not have the energy and motivation to improve their situation. As well as being financially poor, there is maybe not enough of an understanding of how you can be energy and time poor at the same time. Is there enough understanding within services and I suppose in this building as well of how exhausting it is to be worried constantly and working constantly without an end in sight? I think I will go to Sam H first, if that is okay. Over to you, Sarah. Thanks very much for that question. Good morning, thanks for having us along. I think that in general, probably not, there is not enough awareness of those particular issues. I know that people using our services feel a lot in terms of the impact that their mental health can have on their energy levels, particularly symptoms of mental health problems that can cause things like brain fog and memory problems, and those can have a real impact in trying to deal with daily finances. You talked a lot in the first panel about budgeting. That can be really difficult if you have a mental health problem trying to keep track of all your finances and dealing with paying bills and online banking. I think that in terms of awareness, in general, public awareness is not there of those at the moment, but also in the advice services, in banking services and financial services as well. We would certainly like to see awareness around those issues raised. Do you have any further on that, Emma? Yes, just one follow-up. I suppose that this is for anyone with a particular interest. Along the same vein, is there enough being done to support children who are living in households who are in that situation? It is obviously going to be quite traumatic growing up knowing that your parents are struggling and are exhausted all the time. Can we start back with Hannah on that? I should have said at the beginning, for anybody else that wants to come in, if you can type in R in the chat box. I can monitor that here and bring you in. From our Children and Young People Services, we are aware of the impact that mental health problems in households can have. I am aware that the money and pension service is beginning to implement their delivery plan in Scotland around their UK financial wellbeing strategy. I believe that there are actions in that to look at the place of schools in not just mental health problems in that respect but also in financial education as well. I am aiming not just at children and young people but at parents and using schools as those places in communities that parents are already accessing in places that they can get that information. Wendy, who would like to come in on that point? It was just really in relation to the first part that you mentioned there about whether there was enough understanding of the difficulties that people with mental health problems face. In terms of what really matters to them, it is not so much information that they need to be able to help themselves out. It is things like that kind of general support. It is not about knowledge, it is about things like decision making processes, it is about depression, impact on motivation and other factors that really mean that people feel quite terrified, they are scared and they do not know where to start, they do not open up mail, they do not want to go there. For me, it is just making it really clear that it is not about a sort of information related issue, it is more about that kind of feelings that people have. Thanks very much for that, Wendy. Emma, do you have anything further at this point? No, that is me. Thank you very much. Thank you. I will bring in Miles Briggs now for his question. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thanks for joining us today. I wanted to ask a few questions with regards to debt and suicide and specifically to start off with with regards to since the publication of the research in 2018 by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, what reassessment has taken place with regards to the scale of the problem of suicide and debt and will we bring Rebecca in and if anyone else wants to comment on that? Thanks for inviting us to give evidence today. In short, the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute has not done as wide-scale as an investigation into that link between debt and suicide since that publication, but a couple of points to make, first being the findings from that are still really relevant and stand. That link between debt and suicidality is really strong. What we did do last year is we did a bit of research that took stock of the state of the nation's financial and mental health. As part of that, we did again look into that link between struggling financially and being at risk of suicide. We found that 2.5 million adults in the UK with a mental health problem either considered or attempted to take their own life while behind on a payment during the pandemic. That issue is still really prevalent and those findings are really concerning. A really important point to make when discussing debt and suicide is that the reasons why someone decides to take their own life is always very complex and multifaceted. It is really important to consider the number of different factors that will be at play behind that decision when considering that link between debt and suicide. Just to link into that question, in the earlier session, we heard the ask really around training and advice referrals within mental health services. In your opinion, do you think that the current mental health and suicide prevention strategies adequately look towards the role that financial difficulties can play? How would you like to see that change in terms of that ask that we heard earlier? In short, there have been some steps towards acknowledging that people who are economically vulnerable are at greater risk of suicide, but a lot more needs to be done as part of those prevention strategies to further establish and make that point about that link between financial difficulty and suicide, and actions need to be taken on the back of that and building on what was mentioned in the earlier session. A key part of that is mental health services and healthcare professionals working within them being able to better identify people who are at risk of suicide as a result of, for example, being part of their financial difficulty. A key part of that is empowering healthcare professionals within those services to be able to have those questions and make those inquiries about how someone's financial situation is impacting on their mental health. There are two key parts of that. The first part is around the issue of training and having a training module for healthcare professionals around money and mental health, but also embedding within processes in mental healthcare settings more financial prompts. For example, in Wales, mental healthcare and treatment plans have a specific financial prompt, and that is something that we would really be looking for the other nations as part of the UK to implement as well. Second, it is really important when healthcare professionals have identified and made that inquiry about someone's finances that they are then able to refer people on to the adequate support that they need to help to mitigate that risk of them being at risk of suicide or their financial and mental health worsening. It is part of that that it is about having warm referral routes from mental health settings to advice settings, but a really important point to make is that for people with more severe mental illness, people in secondary mental healthcare settings, expectation that people are in a position to act on signposting and act on referral routes is not realistic. For those sorts of people, we are also wanting to see more of an integration with debt and money advice being provided within mental health settings themselves, both primary and secondary. There have been some good steps towards that happening in primary healthcare settings, but we want to see more of that taking place in secondary. With that increased knowledge from healthcare professionals, there can be better referrals on to schemes of support, which we can come on and discuss in a bit around, say, for example, breathing space or moratorium and the potential for a mental health breathing space as well as, as Sarah-Jane was talking about, better support in terms of bridging things like debt and mental health evidence forms. Thanks for that, Rebecca. I can see that we have Sarah and Hannah, who want to come in over to you, Sarah first. Hello, everyone. My name is Sarah. What I'd like to talk is that I've seen such a large increase within suicide and debt. I had a client, I'm a front-line worker, and I've been working on debt advice for roughly about five years. The amount of people that have had suicide or severe mental or health conditions have even had clients who've suffered heart attacks due to the pressures of the debts and the pressures of creditors coming by text messages, by phone. It's really, really challenging for vulnerable people. The cost of living has increased. It's a vicious circle. There's limited protection, especially since Covid restrictions have lessened. There needs to be more empathy towards people who are vulnerable and who use tools such as debt and mental health evidence forms. What happens when those forms don't work with creditors? For example, I applied with just means-tested benefits and will never get better years of mental health issues for 30 years. It has been in hospital because they've been sectioned. They've gone to such serious parts, stages in their lives, but creditors, even though they write such detailed letters and provide evidence using debt and mental health evidence from psychologists to trust in professions, yet those things are not taken into account. Sometimes they won't acknowledge us, the workers that are in the front line, and they won't think about the person who's suicidal. If I speak about one client who tries to hang herself or try to jump off a bridge at least twice during Covid, what impact will that have on the family? It doesn't affect one person, it affects the whole family, it can affect a community. We need to look at the bigger picture, we need to make changes, we need to make changes within debt advice, we need to think about how we can stop the spiralling debt, the stress that pushes on people's mental health. The living cost and income is becoming a lot more challenging, you can have the working poor, even if you're not eligible for benefits, you can have the working poor and you can have people that are single without kids. I know that people with kids is really very difficult, but someone in universal credit on limited income who doesn't have additional means, what are they going to choose between eating? Okay, they're heating, okay, heating might not be as high as what we've been in the winter, but if they've got disabilities, I've got someone with a car and they can't even plug it in because they've got an electric car, because the high cost of fuel costs, it's just a vicious circle. I could keep going on, but I really need to give other people a chance, but I just want to say, please have creditors and local authorities arresting people making bank arrests. How can we leave someone with just £566 and say, that's enough to live on? We know the cost of living, you can't even get a standard social housing and you have to go to the private sector, and are you telling me that you can get a property for £600 or even £500, and where are you going to eat, where are you going to pay your energy, where are you going to pay your living costs, how does that sort of, I don't understand, when the arrestor wages and then you've got an added £25 court order, so it's not just that £560, it adds on and all these other costs. We are just to see the impact that suicide and debt is having and even health matters, because, like I mentioned, that person who had a heart attack, I just don't know what else I can say, but I'll let other people take as a six, sorry. Thanks for that, Sarah. I do think that you've painted the picture of the firefighting that you're doing on the front line with people as they try and navigate the situation that they find themselves, and can I bring Hannah briefly here and then I've got Wendy as well who wants to come in, but we will have lots of other members' questions, so we do need to keep it brief if we can. Hannah, please. Sure, thank you. Just to quickly bring it back to the question about suicide prevention strategies, certainly the current national suicide prevention plan recognises at-risk groups, including people in poverty, although there's not currently an action dedicated to that. It's something that we would like to see this relationship between poverty and debt and mental health acknowledged in the new strategy that the Government's currently developing, and in particular I would like to see a focus, this focus in local suicide prevention plans and the local implementation of those as well. They are currently varied across the country in terms of what will be in those, based on their local needs, but we would definitely argue that debt should be acknowledged in those as well. A really good example of local work that's happening in this country at the moment is the distress brief intervention programme that quickly signposts people who are in distress to support in their communities such as debt advice, money advice, based on what they need. We would like to see that rolled out nationally on a face-to-face basis, as opposed to the current telephone model that is currently being used. Thanks for that, Hannah and Wendy. I was just to really build on some of the things that Rebecca was mentioning earlier. I think that, certainly for people with existing mental health problems, there's a real need for clinicians and health staff to be able to pick up on some of the issues around economic rights. I think that, certainly up until now, it's been very much about people's symptoms, and we're just saying symptoms, but we really need to be making sure that we've got a process of understanding the set-up, the situation that people are in in terms of their finances. Unless we do that, a lot of our members, for example, they wouldn't necessarily be linking in with the debt advice or the debt advice bureau. Many of them don't go out, and they don't have a lot of things that they tend to have a lot of contacts, especially those with complex mental health problems. It was just really to say that we need to find ways to pick up on those people who have spiraled debts and who don't see very many people other than needed their clinical support. Thank you for that, Wendy. I'm now going to move on to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy, who is online. Pam Duncan-Glancy, thank you, and good morning to the panel. Thanks again for all the evidence that you've provided so far and for the information that you've shared in advance. I said this earlier in another panel, but a lot of what we're hearing this morning is just horrific to hear. I can't imagine what it's like to have to deliver the services and to experience what you've described from a direct experience point of view. It's just horrific. I have a couple of questions, if that's okay, for theme 1 and 3, together, which I'll direct if it's all right at mental health UK and Vox. We know that mental health and debt issues are related and much of the evidence that we've seen in advance acknowledges that. Can you say a little bit about what that would mean for how we should deliver services? I know that you have touched on some of that so far. How can we break the link between mental health and debt, and how can we help to identify people who will need that additional support? What specific actions could the Government in Scotland take to do that? Who do you want to direct that to, Pam? If it's okay, maybe Zara and Wendy, please. Thank you. Zara, can we start with yourself? Yeah, of course. You mentioned about breaking the link with debt. You really need to have support in place. There's been so much cutback in support. Services such as psychiatrist, psychologist, I'm talking about services that are in our NHS, even senior GP, is really, really difficult. We have limited, if not face-to-face, or just getting an appointment. I know of someone applying, obviously. It took three years just to see a psychiatrist. Three years. Three years for some people is three years too late. If you want to try and break a link between debt and mental health, you need to start, obviously, tackling putting things in place. For example, think about the council tax. I'm just going to talk about something random, which I see on a daily basis. It feels like daily, but so often people of all walks of life experience council tax a year, because of their mental health being so bad that they are just struggling. However, how can you break the link if your money is being taken out and your bank account is being arrested? We're just going through a vicious circle. You need to try to cut down when you have someone who knows that it's got severe mental health issues. For example, our mental health money advice service, we usually get a lot of clients who reach it at crisis point, as Mendy mentioned. I'm part of Sport of Mines Scotland, and we have the DBI, which is a distress brief intervention service. The people who get referred to our service are at crisis point, often people who have commit suicide. They are at the lowest of the point. You need to bring in services. I'll just keep buying away services until we get the services back up and running in a timely way. Three years, three years, surely, that's not right. He's trying to see your GP when it's really serious. He's not helping. We work with carers, but if they're watching, let's say that we'll have one client, their daughter trying to commit suicide, where are they supposed to go? How can we break this cycle? It's really impossible unless you put in barriers to manage people's debt. That action is not so severe for people that they have to be forced into taking their own lives, or having heart attacks, or having such experiences, or putting more force—I don't want to sound like a monster, but just to have a bit of understanding, have a bit of empathy. I know that it's not built with everybody, but if you were in that position, nobody chooses to go and kill themselves. Nobody chooses just to have debt. You have credit cards thrown at you, and you've already, for example, had a bankruptcy, but you're on the highest APR, so you're going to go back into that vicious circle because it costs the living. If you can't leave money in your bank account, like I mentioned, increase that protected minimum amount. That is not reflective on someone's living life, but increase those amounts and get the Scottish Government to make these changes. We need to let people live, and we need to let families live, we need to let communities live, and we need to not have people. Sorry, Zara. I'll need to bring Wendy in, but you are underlining some of the points that we've heard previously, especially around leaving the minimum income within the banks, and we will be speaking to council tax next week. The evidence that we're taking on that is going to help us to formulate our questions going forward. I'll bring Wendy in, and then back to you, Pam, if you have another question. I think that it's a really complex question to answer, but it's so important that we certainly know that our members are three and a half times more likely to be in problem debt, and four times more likely to be in arrears with the gas and electricity. We know already that we've got a group of people who are at real risk in terms of debt problems cycle. In terms of addressing the issue that's been there for a number of years for our members, and it's just going to get worse, there are issues that are just the kind of board issues, employment, underemployment, people being in jobs that have a lot of turnover, low-paid jobs, and I think on top of that as well, we have a benefit system that doesn't fully understand the fact that mental health isn't about the sort of things that the assessments ask, and it just doesn't quite fit right, so you've got people who are obviously in a situation where they're much more likely to experience debt. I think that to be able to address that, we have to address things like underemployment, we have to address unemployment, we have to look at the benefit system and make sure that it's really suitable for people with mental health problems. The last thing that I would like to say about this is, I think, certainly that the Scott review just now, which is looking at mental health legislation, is looking at ensuring that we really prioritise social and economic rights, and I think that one of the concepts that they're looking at is something called human rights enablement. I'm quite hopeful that that could be a vehicle to make sure that people access rights, economic rights and that we make sure that there's a sort of real drive towards not just supporting somebody and signposting them to where they can go, but making sure that somebody must get those services if their rights are going to be upheld. Thank you for that, Wendy Pam. Did you have a further question? Thank you, Wendy and Zara. Not on this theme, but I do have another couple on other themes. Would you like me to do them? Just now I'll come back in for a second time. I think that this time I'll need to move on and then I'll bring you back in just to make sure that everybody gets their opportunity. I move to a question from Foisle Toudry, who is also online, please. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. Pam just asked a question about the cycle. How can we best break the cycle of mental health problems? Is there evidence for some policy approaches working better than others? I would ask that to Hannah. Hannah, if we can bring you in, please. Thank you very much for that question. I'd say just to echo what others have said in the previous response that prevention and early intervention of both mental health problems and debt will always be key to even stopping the cycle from forming in the first place. Sam Hitch has, for example, been calling for better mental health support in this country. For us, the mental health system was already struggling before the cost of living crisis and before the pandemic, so we really need to be seeing more investment in communities for mental health support at that level so that people can access that as early as possible. We also need to ensure that people are able to meet basic costs through things that have already been mentioned—higher wages, social security payments, as well as ensuring the better take-up of benefits. I know that the University of Glasgow recently published research into universal credit and the experiences of people with mental health problems receiving that and found that they were struggling to meet their basic needs and often relying on family and friends to help with that. Participants were also often unaware of emergency financial support that was in place, such as the Scottish welfare fund, for example. We need to ensure that people have better incomes to meet their daily needs, but we need to use all the current support that is available to them as well. Thank you. I also want to pick up on a couple of points. There are a number of different actors involved in breaking the link between having a mental health problem and experiencing it. I have quite a top-line view of who those are and what some of those actions are and some that are specific to the Scottish Government, which we would really like to see. The first one is essential services firms. It is really important that they have our providing services that are accessible by default to people with mental health problems and providing better support to customers with mental health problems, whether that is provision of more suitable repayment plans, touching on issues that were raised earlier about challenges when you have a mental health problem in terms of concentration and processing large amounts of information, and potentially providing transcripts and follow-up to interactions with customers with mental health problems. There is also a big role that advice services have to play, but I think that it is best at the moment that a lot of our research community members, which is a network of people with mental health problems who drive our research and our policy calls, struggle to both access, understand and act on some of the advice that is given. I think that a big challenge that advice providers have talked to us about is the fact that their funding models do not necessarily facilitate providing that more bespoke and tailored support that clients with more complex needs, like those with mental health problems, might need. We have got calls for the funders of their advice to take into consideration those more complex needs when funding their advice. That could look at things along the lines of having ACE premiums or ring fence funding for more specialist advice for people with mental health problems. Finally, there is also the role of mental health services as well. I do not want to repeat what I said earlier, but as part of that, there are certain schemes that we would really like to see the Scottish Government to implement, which are linked to mental health services and can help to improve access to them. The first is around having a similar breathing space for people who are going through a mental health crisis, like we do in England and Wales. Something similar that works with the moratorium system in Scotland is a useful tool to help to ensure that people who are struggling with their mental health and finances are able to access that breathing space and that respite. Through removing barriers in the form of charges of GPs charging for dental health evidence forms, that is another really important change that can help to ensure that people with mental health problems are able to get better support from their creditors, hopefully, if they accept that form. But overarching to all of that as well is the issue of income, and that is why the UK Government more widely is absolutely vital. More is done to both ensure that benefit rates are invested in to keep pace with the cost of living and also to restore some of those cuts that have taken place more recently, so restoring £20 uplift, but also rates such as the limited capability for work rate on UC and the work-related objective rate on ESA as well. Thanks very much for that, Rebecca. I am going to move on to the next question from Miles Briggs. Are there any follow-up things that the members of the panel want to make us aware of? Please do follow-up and writing, because we are not going to have time to get around everything that everybody wants to say this morning, so I will move back to Miles Briggs. Thank you, convener. I just wanted to ask one question with regards to accessing help and support. It was about early intervention, so I just wondered from your experience what scope there is to identify people, do you think, earlier and then to be able to look towards that referral. That is not necessarily within a mental health context, but in terms of other organisations who might be in contact with individuals who are financially vulnerable. Who do you want to direct that to? I will start with Rebecca, as you are up on the screen, and then see if anyone else wants to come in. In addition to mental health services, there is a role that essential services firms have to play, as well as advice services. From an essential services point of view, in terms of making that identification, there is data that they should be using to potentially identify people who are more vulnerable financially and therefore might be at risk of struggling both with their finances and their mental health. One thing that we have always said is that there should be more proactive identification of those customers, but also for people who do disclose better provision of support. Through research, we have done that one in three people with a mental health problem who have disclosed this mental health problem to an essential services firm have not had any additional support on the back of that. Obviously, that is a great concern. One key thing that these services could be doing is, yes, once they have identified or someone has disclosed, referring to advice services that exist, I think that there is a big opportunity there, which is not as fully being utilised as it could be at the moment. Again, with advice services, we know that sometimes people with mental health problems can be struggling to access these services. In some cases, we have heard of accounts of people not disclosing them into health problem 2 and its advice service either because they do not feel like it would affect the advice provided or they do not understand how the advisor might not understand the impact that is having on their situation. Again, I think that there is a big opportunity there for advice services to be more empowered in a big way through funding models to take that time and provide that more bespoke and tailored advice to people with mental health problems. I bring my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy back in for a couple of questions that she has. I was keen just to ask a little bit about the current landscape of services, if that is okay, so maybe I would direct the following questions to Sam H and also to the mental health policy institute. What is your understanding of the funding environment in which your organisations are working and has that had an impact on their ability to provide mental health support but also debt support? That goes for debt advisers and their role in providing mental health support as well as for the workforce. My second question is about the breathing space in England mechanism. It is slightly different from our moratorium here, as you will know. Should we extend that in Scotland's moratorium to ensure that creditors do not contact people at all and for a longer period as long as someone is experiencing a crisis? Thanks for that. Pam Duncan-Glancy, we can start with Hannah and then Rebecca as the organisations that you have directed your questions to. Hannah, first please. I think that I would just echo on the point about funding. What was already mentioned in the previous session, we would definitely be calling for multi-year funding as a better way of protecting the services that we have in place and making more consistency between tenders in terms of the reforms to aspects such as breathing space down south. I know that the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute were quite instrumental in getting that secured down south, so Rebecca will have more to say. Sam H were not the solution to experts, but we can definitely feed in our point of view on the mental health aspect of this. It would make sense for us to have provisions like exist in England to protect people with mental health problems. We would have questions about should that look exactly the same up here, particularly should people have to be in crisis before they have access to the protection that that scheme offers and around the 30-day period after someone has completed their treatment for their mental health crisis? I think that the scheme in England would be a good opportunity for us in Scotland to take learning from that, but I think that we could maybe adopt it a bit differently up here. Thanks for that. Can we hear from Rebecca, please? Yeah, sure. Without wanting to repeat too much what I stated earlier, but in terms of funding, I think the main challenges that we hear from advice providers of their advice is around the issue of not being able to provide that more bespoken tailored advice to people with mental health problems. People with mental health problems in our research community have told us that quite often they would benefit from more frequent but shorter advice sessions, which could help with things like attention span and also challenges around digesting large amounts of information when it is provided. They have also told us that they quite often struggle to both understand and also follow-up on advice that is given. We would be ideally looking for more intense follow-up advice to being provided to people, but as we talked about, there is not always that ability within funding orders at the moment, so we would really be asking funders of their advice to consider those requirements and not penalise services for providing that level of tailored support. An additional point to make in terms of access to advice around the provision of face-to-face advice, so again, it is really important, especially for people with mental health problems, 75% of people who struggle with at least one main communication channel, the main one being the telephone, it is really important that they are able to access advice services in a variety of formats and also through the ability of drop-ins as well as more online appointments. On the point of mental health breathing space, so it is absolutely something that we would be calling on the Scottish Government to consider implementing in a similar sense to what we have down in England. I can touch on a couple of points why we campaign for it and it has been really important for us to have that tacked on to our conventional breathing space, which I think helped me in case for a similar programme in Scotland. For the conventional breathing space in England and Wales, the first point is around the fact that to access that, you needed to be accessing advice, but we know that, especially for people who are struggling with more severe mental illness and who are in crisis, that expectation just isn't at all realistic and so it really needed to be available to people who are in crisis care and weren't able to be accessing more conventional forms of money advice. Secondly, someone's mental health crisis, there's no saying how long that's going to last and the prospect of having the moratorium or a breathing space respite out during someone's mental health crisis is detrimental and provides a real risk to both exacerbating their mental health and financial health. Another key part of the mental health breathing space in England and Wales is having it last as long as your crisis lasts with that buffer period. We'd be calling for something similar in Scotland. Obviously, as far as I'm aware, the terms for accessing moratorium are slightly different and don't necessarily require access to a debt visor, but again, if someone is in crisis, that needs to be automatically offered to them instead of the expectation that it's on them to apply to it or seek advice and apply to it. One piece of learning that we would suggest to the Scottish Government to consider based on our experience of having that implemented in England is around implementing it in conjunction with health care professionals and that's for a number of reasons. That's both to increase awareness of a scheme if it is implemented, so I think that is a challenge that we face in England and Wales at the moment. It's maybe not as great as awareness among health care professionals of a mental health breathing space, but also so that health care professionals working within mental health settings in Scotland could suggest who best was placed to sign off on access to a mental health breathing space equivalent here. That's something that we would encourage to be considered in terms of the implementation. Thank you very much for that, Rameca. Hannah, I think that that really helps us in terms of the evidence that we need to hear and to take. I'm going to bring my colleague Emma Roddick back in to be followed by Paul McLennan. Emma? Thank you, convener. I'm going to go back to Hannah for this one. Just thinking about stigma, which we know prevents a lot of people from coming forward to seek help, do you find that this is worse when there are children involved or are people anxious about what admitting having difficulties will mean for custody of children or even the stigma that their kids might face? Hannah, can we hear from you? I don't actually have experience of that in my role at SAMH. It's something that I can look into and chat to colleagues and see me and ask them to follow up in writing about that as well. Seamies Scotland's anti-stigma programme, so I'm sure that they'd be happy to. I think that we want to—Zara Cymru wants to come in on that as a front-line worker, Zara. Right. I just want to say that Covid and the restrictions brought many challenges and stigma increased in services. The problem being that a lot of issues weren't handled in a constructive manner. Unfortunately, when it's in a family environment, children live in the space of the adults, the parents. What often happens is that that goes back in the school. Unfortunately, when someone has mental health issues and it goes down to the children who struggle at school, but the limit of services is just not helping children and there are more issues that are happening. There is a lot of prejudice about mental health. There is a stigma if you don't dress appropriately, if you don't—if you're colour, if you have a disability, that's another issue. If there are just so many discriminations that are happening, and it's just happening more openly, you'll see children who are training. Unfortunately, that's having an impact outside of school, outside the environment. We need to look at how we can provide services that, unfortunately, have stopped for children's services, such as community centres. You just don't have them. Thank you very much for that. Across the country, we see best practice where they've brought home link workers and financial inclusion into schools. That helps to start to drive down that stigma that we do know exists, because, as you said, children live in the space where their parents live and they experience those same things. Thank you for that. I'll move on to a question from Paul MacLennan. I was going to ask a question about stigma, but I think that's been answered. I just wanted to ask it about the role of community link workers. As you know, they originated in deep-end GP practices in Glasgow. Where do you see the role of community link workers in the next months and years ahead? I don't know who will want to answer that one. Maybe go to Zara to ask that one, but just open it up to the panel after that. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get a community link worker. It's great when you have a community link worker, but there are limitations with community link workers. That can be things that don't have enough time. If you have mental health issues, you need more time, you need more time to follow up information, you need tailored information and you need to put a bit more money into services. As well as you have a community linker, you need to keep that through to mental health services. Unfortunately, when it comes to people with mental health issues from all ages—we are talking from children to pension age—we see that, especially when it comes to counselling, a lot of the counselling services are, I'm talking about, unpaid into certain criteria. For example, if you take drugs, you might get some free service. What about someone with mental health services? There are limited services. I know that we support them in Scotland, so we have our staffer centre and we have counselling. However, there is such a long waiting list. We need to take a bit more money into those services to help people with mental health. Samhitch provides a link worker service in Aberdeen City. In Aberdeen, it is one of the few places in Scotland where there is community link worker embedded in every single GP surgery. The link worker programme is a whole various across health boards, so I can only speak to our experience as a service provider of that. However, our link workers are regularly in contact with people who present with mental health problems. Once they take the time to delve into those issues, they find that they are being caused by financial difficulties or burdens as well. In 2021, about half of the referrals made to that service included a mental health component and a further third involved finances and benefits. Our link workers really take time with an individual to identify their personal goals and overcome barriers that are affecting their mental health, such as financial issues. That is something that GPs quite often do not have the luxury of time to be able to do, so link workers will really be key in taking that time with people as more and more people become affected by those issues during the cost of living crisis. They can then support people to achieve those goals, and that might be through supporting or referring them to housing or management services, benefits support services and employment support as well. It is fairly common for our link workers to find that people are not in receipt of all the benefits that they are entitled to, so that is going to be a really key role that they play as well. On the picture across Scotland, as I said, it is varied in health boards. There is not a gender community link worker role, and that we believe is affecting the consistency of delivery across Scotland. In some health boards, there are not any link workers currently in other health boards because of the banning of the link worker role that the health and social care partnership is doctored for. They might not have access to medical records and things like that, so I think that that is something to be considered as well in the role of link workers. We touched on breathing space briefly in some of the comments earlier, but I am just looking to ask the panel if you have any other suggestions for reforms or improvements to the processes and procedures that could help people to experience in debt and mental health problems. I will go to Rebecca for that first, please. In addition to some of the other stuff that I talked about, the debt and mental health evidence form is a really important mechanism by which people with mental health problems can hopefully give it accepted by their creditor, get a support from their creditor. That can be, for example, creditors helping them with a better repayment plan, potentially cancelling interests or charges, or, in some instances, even writing off certain debts. It is a really important tool, but there is a big barrier to it in that, in Scotland still, GPs are able to charge for that form to be completed. In England and Wales, we campaigned for that charge to be stopped because, prior to that, we were finding that up to around one in three people with a mental health problem who were being charged for that. That charge was up to about £150, in some instance, so a really huge barrier. We would say that it is completely unfair that that cost is having to be held by people with mental health problems and who are needing that support. One thing that we would regularly be looking to be extended to Scotland is the stopping of that charge. Just a couple of things that happen in England and Wales help to facilitate that change in that form. Essentially, that form was shortened and simplified in an attempt to reduce the burden on GPs and competing it. We will do some evaluation later on this year in terms of the new mental health evidence form that we have in England and Wales, because there is always room for improvement. Through simplifying and shortening it and stopping that charge, that is a really important way that people with mental health problems can get greater support from their creditors, hopefully, in managing some of their debts. I understand that time is moving on, so if any of the other panel wants to come in on that, otherwise I will pass back to the convener. I do not have anything saying that anybody else wants to come in on that. What I would say is that we have come to the end of our time this morning, and it was too short, because I think that we could probably ask a lot more questions. What I would like to say to all the panellists is that if there is anything that you think that we need to hear or that you want to underline, please send it to us in writing. That would be very helpful for us in terms of the questioning that we are having coming down the line next week with regards to council tax and insolvency, etc. It would be really interesting to hear that. The information that we have this morning round about the debt and mental health