 Good morning and welcome to the fourth meeting of 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business is a decision to take item 3 in private, our members' content. So our next item of business is an evidence session on the disability employment gap. The committee agreed to take some initial work into this area to identify and address the barriers for disabled people getting into employment. Although we are hearing from the minister today, our call for views remains open for another week. We encourage people to contribute to that. Last week, we heard from Fraser Valentine Institute, along with enable on structural barriers faced by disabled people in access and employment. Since then, we have been to visit dovetail enterprises in Dundee with enable works. On one day, we went to visit National Autism Scotland. National Autistic Society Scotland apologised to find out about their work in assisting young people into employment. I now welcome Richard Lockhead, MSP Minister for Just Transition Employment and Fair Work, who is joined with Sarah Ferguson, interim deputy director for complex mental health care and Lewis Hedge, deputy director for fair work and labour market strategy with the Scottish Government. As always, if members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers short and concise, I'll invite the minister to make a brief opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the committee. Thanks also for inviting me along today and for the opportunity to discuss the disability employment gap and the progress that is being made, but also the challenges that still remain, which I'm pleased to see the committee are investigating. The latest statistics show that we are making progress low and the disability employment gap has reduced by 6.2 percentage points to 31.2 percentage points. That reduction has been due to a larger rise in the employment rate of disabled people relative to the increase in the employment rate of non-disabled people. That means that we are currently on track to achieve our ambition to halft the gap by 2038 to 18.7 percentage points. However, we are aware that significant challenges remain, including creating a culture of change in workplaces where disabled people can be welcomed, hopefully, for the benefits that they bring. As you will also no doubt know, the employment gap between disabled people and their non-disabled peers is not a new thing, and it certainly exists throughout the UK and Europe to a greater or lesser extent. It's clear that no Government has found a very simple answer to this issue, but we know, however, that taking an approach that meets the needs of each disabled person is key to this. That's why our devolved employability programmes use a person-centred approach to reduce or attempt to eliminate the barriers for disabled people. However, we need to do more to support those with learning disabilities, for example, and, similarly, young disabled people need any support to raise and meet their aspirations through education and beyond. Information is still emerging on the long-term impacts of the pandemic on the disability employment gap, where it has added to the structural issues that we are doing our best to try to mitigate that. For example, in relation to mental health, where we have established a platform with information and guidance for employers, which is something that we discussed last time before the committee on those issues. Our commitment to at least half the disability employment gap is an integral element of our fair work agenda in the Scottish Government. We published a refreshed fair work action plan late last year, setting out how we will continue our progress towards making Scotland a leading fair work nation, and it is part of that, to have the disability employment gap. We will continue to work, particularly with those with lived experience, to continue to refine and develop those employability programmes. We will also work with employers to support them to make that cultural change that we want to see in all of Scotland's workplaces. As I said, the committee is doing a short piece of work in the disability employment gap, but one of the areas that we have identified is around data and information that is available. As you recognise, progress has been made in closing the gap, and the committee very much welcomed that. However, there is some evidence, particularly work that Fraser Vallander has done, to suggest that it is focused on certain groups and certain types of disability, while other groups are further away from the workplace, and particularly they look to people with learning disabilities. What are the Government recognising? Do you have an understanding of where progress has been made and where progress needs to be further made? Is the data needed to inform that that has been adequately collected? The answer, I am afraid, to your question, is yes and no. We are aware that we are making progress in some areas, but, as the committee has highlighted and your witnesses have raised before, there are data gaps. As part of our fairer work action plan, we are looking at improving that in the coming years. The biggest issue that I have come across discussing with officials over the past few months is obviously disaggregating some of the statistics that we have, for instance, to look at the breakdown of neurodivergence characteristics within disabilities. Therefore, quite often, members might raise some of the issues in Parliament about people with autism, for instance, and employment issues. It is quite difficult to disaggregate the statistics that we have. Part of that, no doubt, will be in relation to how the information is collected by the labour force surveys and the other various surveys. We are committed to looking at that and improving the data that has been identified as an issue. In terms of the commitment, because it is quite a long-term commitment, I think that it is 2038 that you are looking to have, is the interim targets a pathway that has been set out, or is that dependent on once you have the data? There has been successes, but why are we having successes, and where are the areas that we need to focus policy? Are there interim targets? Is there a clear pathway towards meeting that 2038 target? That is quite a big question, so I will try to keep my answer brief. In terms of interim targets, the overall target of having the disability employment gap by 2038 was set back in 2016, and we have set interim targets as part of that, so we want to achieve disabled employment to 50 per cent by 2023 and 60 per cent by 2030. Currently, 49.6 per cent of disabled people are employed looking at 2021 figures, which suggest that we are doing well to get to our interim target at 50 per cent by 2023, so there are some interim targets there. We estimate that we have to improve disability employment by 1.1 per cent per year, and at the moment, we are achieving 1.2 per cent. We are achieving our targets, hopefully, so we have got those interim targets in place. Your question is a big question about why are we making some progress and what are the remaining challenges? That is a huge question. I say briefly that we have got measures in place to work with employers to make sure that, through the Workplace Equality Fund and other means, we support people to adapt to making it easier to employ disabled people. Hopefully, that is making a difference. We have got other various partnerships with the Government and disabled people's organisations and employers working together to try to break down some of those barriers, and we fund those initiatives. Finally, employability programmes clearly have a big emphasis on helping disabled people back into work, particularly Fair Start Scotland. I think that you said that you have visited some organisations. Hopefully, what we are doing is contributing towards that progress, but, to be frank, we do not have all the answers. We do not know exactly why we are making this progress, because we do not know what is working the most and what is not. We know that it is all helping, but it is quite difficult to give a precise answer. I suppose that I am just going to add to that difficulty, because I am going to ask him, in the session that we had with enabled and Fraser Vallander, he did talk about an increase in people with poor mental health. You mentioned Covid and long Covid being in there as well and how that was impacting on the figures. Some of those people are already in work and who are then classified as disabled, so that might be contributing towards the improvement that we are seeing of people in work with a disability. However, the impact of poor mental health—I do not know if you want to comment on that—has there been any work being undertaken to assess what the impact of trends in those areas are having on the overall figures? It might be that Susan was particularly in that area. I will bring maybe Susan in a second. In terms of the big picture, as I said, some of the evidence is still emerging in terms of the impact of Covid on people with disabilities. I think that our view at the moment is that there is not any evidence that there has been a disproportionate impact of Covid on disabled people, but there has been an impact. However, we cannot say that there has been a disproportionate impact. There are various bits of evidence that show that there has been an impact, but there is no overall evidence that there is more than any other part of the population where people with long-term sicknesses and so on and so forth. In Scotland, there has been an older population and therefore the percentage of disabled people in the working population is slightly higher than the rest of the UK. Those factors all influence where we are coming from with your question. What brings Susan in to speak about the impact of Covid and mental health issues? Obviously, we recognise that there has been an impact from Covid in terms of mental health just on the broader population. I do not have the specific statistics that you are asking for, but there is a range of work going on around recovery in relation to mental health. We published a transition and recovery plan for mental health in 2021. We have been doing a range of work around that. We have some actions in there on employability in mentally healthy workplaces for the whole range of people, including people who are disabled. We have been working quite a lot with employability colleagues around their fair work agenda and also with partners, so employers and trade unions to take forward work to improve the offer that employers have for people who are mentally well and to keep people well and to stop them from getting on the first place. On the data and statistics, has work been done to collect it? You have described how challenging it is, and some of it is not in place yet. The target that we are heading towards is a number based target. In order for us to see the progress that has been made, we need to know the baselines. Has the work been done within the Scottish Government to collect and collect some of the data to have a better understanding of what makes up the disability employment gap and where we are making progress and where more progress needs to be made? What I was saying previously about disaggregating the headline statistics to understand the impact of people with different disabilities is where a lot of the work is going to be focused going forward. If you look at the stats for people with disabilities in employment, there has been a steady increase and we have increased from 251,000 people in 2014 to 407,000 people in 2021, at the end of December 2021. Clearly once the new stats come out for the subsequent year, we might see there is an impact on the number of disabled people in employment and what the relationship has with Covid to see if we can identify any trends there. We will figure up into the end of 2021, which begins to take that into account, but clearly as more data becomes available at labour market, we can see if there are any trends. I will bring Graham Simpson's request in our supplementary. I will bring him in for a brief supplementary, and then I will bring in Michelle Thomson. Thank you. Just to follow up on that. Minister, you say that you have got these targets. You say that you are making progress, but you also say that if I picked you up right, you do not know why or how you are making progress. Does that be accurate? What I am saying is that it is difficult to pick one particular factor that has led to the progress that we are making, because there are various things happening. It is a complex area. As we have discussed before, we have made people with different types of disabilities. There is lots of crossover between long-term sickness and disabilities, but we are seeing the statistics going in the right direction and more people with disabilities getting into work and the gap closing. We are making progress, but we are doing lots of different things to address that. It is difficult to see which factor is having the biggest impact. That is brilliant. We are making progress. The Government is funding various schemes, but it seems to me that, if you are funding these schemes, some will be doing better than others. Would it not be a good idea to drill down into the data around individual schemes and see which ones are more successful than others and then replicate the ones that are working better? We evaluate Fairstarch Scotland, where a lot of people with disabilities are helped and also no one left behind, which is delivered at a more local employment partnership level in each local authority. Those schemes are evaluated, but that is not just about schemes. It is about culture. It is about the fact that, for instance, at the moment, we have got labour shortages in Scotland and employers are now being a lot more open-minded to try and adapt to encourage people with disabilities to come into their workplaces. It is not just about funded schemes. Those schemes help people who are targeting through the employability schemes, but there are lots of other factors here that the culture is changing in Scotland. Many more employers are engaging and opening their minds to take on disabled employees. That is quite difficult to measure. I think that other people have come to have heard a lot about the need for in-work support although, once you have someone, it is good that they are in employment, but the importance of providing that future support. I will bring Michelle Thomson in to be followed by Colin Smyth. Good morning. I suppose that I will just carry on the theme that we have already started to discuss in terms of data. I would like to understand a bit more about your specific plans, fully accepting the complexity that you are talking about in terms of type of disability, because we have some data, but data is absolutely at the heart of getting an accurate picture. Can you just give me a bit more of a flavour? Obviously, you said that you are looking at it, but what exactly and what sort of plan dates do you have to reach a conclusion or recommend new data collectors and so on? Do you have any further information about that? Yes, there is work under way. I am happy to follow up on the exact timetables, but we are reviewing some of our plans. I think that 2024 comes to mind in terms of that data. We rely on people who are self-reporting disabilities. Scottish Government does not collect all the data. A lot of the labour market data is collected at the UK level. We have given a commitment to look at what we can do in Scotland to improve the data, and all of us will be wanting to say something here because he is much closer to this particular aspect. On the specific commitment, the Refreshed Fair Work Action Plan published in December includes a big commitment there, which is around a whole programme of data and evaluation around fair work in the rounds. That is a piece of analytical and evaluation work that will be running this year with a commitment that, later this year, will have that plan in place. As the Ministers pointed out, that will be looking at what else we can do that sits alongside the existing official statistics. That is the big piece there. The other bit is in terms of how we then factor all this into the design of programmes going forward. First up Scotland, no-one left behind, has their own mechanisms for bringing in that level of understanding, the use of experience and all those other aspects of the person-centred approach. You are simply highlighting what I believe that it is very complex. It would be certainly for me useful to understand a bit more deeper what you are planning because, to me, it is very complex when we start to think about cross-cutting issues and we know that we have different data sources. Leading on from that, it strikes me that there are a number of programmes in place and we want to measure their success by various data collectors of which we have some, but also thinking about how we could, for example, introduce conditionality into various grants and so on, so that would be useful to understand. You mentioned culture, which is a very fair point, and linking in with self-id where people may, for very good reason, be reluctant. I suppose that, as part of those plans, you have anything else that looks at how you might support businesses in developing a culture of awareness and a culture of data collectors that you would be able to support, conditional on if they were getting grants potentially. That is another question about the depth. There are two questions that I will try to answer. The first question is about the fair work agenda, essentially, and conditionality. We are constantly evolving the fair work agenda in Scotland, and it is crucially important because the more employers sign up to the fair work agenda, the more they benefit in terms of being more productive, retaining staff, easier to recruit staff, and more profitable. Of course, the more people can get into work and that benefits individuals in terms of their own wellbeing and self-esteem getting into work, and that is also very good to the economy. At the moment, the fair work agenda is some broad themes, and one of those themes is flexibility. We look now at the criteria for supporting businesses with public grants and contracts at fair work criteria. That includes flexibility, so we are urging employers to be much more flexible. That, in turn, will help disabled people to get into work. The more flexible an employer is, the more attractive they are, and the more easy it will be for disabled people to work for that organisation. That is where the fair work agenda plays a role. In terms of helping to employers to adapt and hopefully change their culture, there are many different initiatives under way. For instance, I visited the Salvation Mindroom in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, and I urge the committee to find out more about that or visit. They are working on neurodivergent issues. I met various employers, big employers in the Edinburgh area, who have effectively been changing their recruitment policies and taking on boards how they can adapt to get people working for them with different neurological conditions. That was an interface between the organisation and the employers. There are lots of employers in the Edinburgh and Lothian area who are engaging in that now. It would be great to see that going national. Of course, we have got the Workplace Equality Fund, which funds very different projects across the country. That is one of the projects that it does fund, actually, as a Salvation Mindroom. Park funds it a lot, but it comes from the Salvation family. That fund alone is about that. It is about working with employers and helping them to adapt and learn about how they can be more accessible for disabled employees. My last question is that one would expect the larger employers to have the resources, notwithstanding anything else, to be able to adapt. Still, 99.3 per cent of our businesses are SMEs, so have you given any specific consideration as to how you might be able to support them beyond the broad principles of fair work? It is worth noting that all businesses are subjected to fair work criteria, but our fair work first criteria is proportionate. We know that it is more challenging for small businesses to get through some of the hoops than a much bigger business, so it is proportionate. The enterprise companies and others who are applying that criteria will take that into account. I think that what we are trying to do is raise awareness amongst all employers in Scotland, small, medium, large, and break down some of the cultural barriers. We know, I am sure, that the committee has come across this, that many employers think that this is going to be really costly. Maybe a small business might think that I cannot afford to adapt my workplace to take on a disabled employee. There is a lot of awareness that is going on. Some of the projects that we fund are projects about raising awareness and working with all kinds of employers. I think that a lot of work has to be done there. Colin Smyth, to be followed by Graham Simpson. You talked about how you are close to reaching the 50 per cent target for the employment rate for disabled people. When you look specifically at the figure for autism, it is a pretty shocking 16 per cent compared to the wider population of 73 per cent, yet the committee is being told constantly by employers that they have real labour supply shortages and that they are missing out on a really talented workforce. Given that this priority group should be being supported to tackle that low figure, why are organisations that work with, for example, young people with autism being plagued by really considerable delays when it comes to funding? A lot of those organisations were told that they would have decisions made on Government funding by the end of December. They are now being told that that has been delayed well into the next financial year, and that obviously makes it impossible for those organisations to plan. In some cases, it is leading to them being under threat because they are not having the hand of redundancy notices to staff because it is beyond the financial year that they are being notified of funding. What has caused those delays? Can you explain to us what the extent of those delays are? Thank you for using the issue with me and I will certainly investigate that because I can pretend that I have had that feedback, so maybe other ministers have had feedback in their own portfolios dealing with some of these organisations. However, I am sure that the members are aware, as are others of the very volatile economic environment just now, that the Government has been experiencing over the past few months and the pressure on public finances. The draft budget is before Parliament just now, and it has not been as easy as we would like to give many organisations across Scotland and all many different sectors the assurances that they have wanted because of the financial situation facing the Scottish Government and the budgets. We all know the reasons behind that. We will do our best to give people as much notice as we can. I am happy to investigate the organisation. I can give you an example of it, but I appreciate another portfolio. Here is one letter to a third sector organisation. Thank you for your application to the Scottish Government's children, young people, families and adult learning third sector fund. We had planned to inform applicants of funding decisions by the end of 2022, unfortunately that will not happen. As a result, the funding decisions will be shared in early 2023 with the intention of commencing in July 2023. That means that anybody who employs staff is having to handle the notices because they have a nine-month figure of having to have funding to pay salaries, so you have that real uncertainty. I hope that you do investigate that, because I think that this committee has had real difficulty being able to get to the bottom of the extent of this. We are being told that there are different delays right across the board, but nobody is telling us in detail from Government why the delays are taking place and how much funding in the budget has been delayed and what the impact is. One of the issues that organisations have raised is why we are not moving to a position of multi-year funding. I know the challenges around that and we have this debate every year. We should be having it every three years, but we have it every year. There must be a way in which priority projects dealing with this are not at least given a minimum commitment of funding over more than one year in order to avoid issues such as that. We know that budgets vary, but the whole Government budget does not vary. When it comes to priority projects, we do not tell local government that we are going to completely stop all your education funding—it might not be a good example to choose, but all your education funding, they know that there is a minimum level in the baseline that is going to be carried over each year. Why, for priority projects, do not we have a minimum level over more than one financial year, knowing that it may change the overall figure? I know that it has been an on-going debate for many years, and I have got many organisations around constituency that make the same points to me on a regular basis. I can only point to the enormous pressures on the Scottish budget. Unfortunately, Scottish budgets do not vary as much as we would like it to vary, but the demands do. The demands on the budget vary all the time, and we can see the huge demands on Scottish budgets now. There is only so much that we can cut the same cake over and over without growing the cake, and the demands are there. In the news every day of the week for anyone to see it on Scottish budgets now. We would like to be in a position to give much more long-term certainty to those organisations, but until the Scottish budgets get the same long-term certainty, we are unable to do that in the current time. However, we take on board the point and we know that it is not an ideal situation, but it is just a symptom of where we are with the pressure on public finances at the moment. Those particular cases of delaying it into the financial year are not a long-term thing. They are a very short-term challenge at the moment, and it would be good for the committee to hear back what the full extent of the problem is for disabled people across portfolios, because I appreciate those cross portfolios and what action the Government has taken to try to tackle that. I have to give a further update to the committee on the speed to finance course. I did raise a particular case in the chamber with yourself for a few weeks. Of course. I would just make the point that the projects that you mentioned are extremely important, but every project and every organisation that comes to us sees itself as a priority and very important. It is a very difficult balance to strike. We have heard some evidence that the journey for people into employment starts when they are at school, and it can start very early. If you do not catch kids when they are at primary school, identify youngsters who have learning difficulties and start to help them at that point, their life chances later are diminished. First of all, do you accept that point? If you do accept it, are you working with your colleagues in education to improve the situation? Once you get to the end of your school life and possibly think about moving either into employment or further education, we can see that the figures are quite stark. For instance, the school leavers with learning difficulties go into higher education, which compares to 48.7 per cent of pupils without a learning difficulty. You can see the issues. If people leave without decent qualifications, their chances of getting a job are diminished. We need to start early. It is fair to say that we agree with the sentiments of what you are saying, and it is becoming an issue that has a lot more recognition in Government and general debates on issues relating to young people and disabilities. As you may know, we have committed to the first national transitions to adulthood strategy. The Government is now committed to that, which will address the very issue. My colleagues across Government are working together on it, because, as Graham Simpson says, this is about education. Young people come through school and into the workplace. Ms Hawke and Ms McKelvey, to the ministers involved in this, are going to be giving evidence to the Education Committee later this month on this. You may wish to, as a committee, to liest with them, because they will be giving evidence on the members' bill, which is also before Parliament just now, which will be whereof, which is about disabled children and young people and transitions to adulthood. That is on the Government's agenda. We are happy to work with committees and members for bringing forward members' bills, but we are committed to that first strategy. That is interesting to know about that strategy, so it is possibly something that the committee should look at. If I am writing following up the committee appearance, I will incorporate that. At the moment, it has not been written yet. We have given the commitment to introduce it in this parliamentary term, but I think that work on it is imminent. As I said before, my ministerial colleagues will give evidence to their colleagues in the Education Committee about progress and responding to the members' bill. That is very useful. I will ask you one more question. That goes back to data. Do you have any idea how many disabled people are employed in your own department? I have got Scottish Government figures. I do have a breakdown. The latest figures I have in the Scottish Government are impressed by. I have got them. I am writing saying that through the Scottish Government recruitment and retention action plan for disabled people, which the Scottish Government brought forward a few years ago, in the eight years, that has been in place. We have increased the number of disabled employees in the Scottish Government from 6.4 per cent to 13.3 per cent in 2021. It is more than doubled in the eight years. In the Scottish Government, there are various teams that are set up to help to adapt to different workplaces, to help to disabled people, to be recruited and accessible. There is a lot of good work that is taking place in the Scottish Government. I hope that that gives you some of the assurance that we are trying to set an example. Yesterday, on Monday, we went to the National Autism Society of Scotland to hear positive reports about the work that has been undertaken by the Scottish Government in terms of employing people on the autistic spectrum. They were favourable about the work that has been done. There was some comment that could learn and be taken from that. Could that example be used to encourage other employers? That points towards a need for more joined-up policy and more connected policy, where the earlier points of where something is working well, that needs to be recognised, and then spread throughout the country and used as good examples. Maybe that is just not happening enough. There are pockets of progress and there are pockets where things are not. We do not know where and what is happening and where. That goes back to the data question. In terms of schools, when we went to visit National Autism Society of Scotland, a strong point was made about the need for specialist support for young people in schools. While we might be looking at it from an education perspective, making the case, there needs to be specialist. Often that is in the third sector involvement in education, and that needs to be funded in terms of that support. I understand that it is not your portfolio, but it feeds over to if you are looking at bringing young people into employment and making them productive members of society, they need a specialist support, it is not always available in schools, and there needs to be more focus on that. That might be something that you can feed back to. We will speak to the Education Committee about the work that they are doing. It is worth mentioning, perhaps if I should mention this response to Grim Simpson's point, that there are some trials under way in Scotland. We are working with an organisation, our initiative called Association for Real Change, and it is working with 10 local authorities at the moment. Some of the issues that we are speaking about with Grim Simpson are kind of being trialled at the moment. Obviously, we are committed to national strategy, as I said in this parliamentary term. That trial is designing and testing changes to improve planning and delivery of support for young people who need that additional support as they make the transition into young adult life. I am happy to fall up again with some more information about that to the committee. I think that I give us a reassurance that those issues are on the agenda, and they are now, for the first time, being implemented and trialled. I am happy to come back to you on what my education colleagues are doing. Colin Beattie, to be followed by Jimmy Harcaw Johnson. Minister, witnesses have raised the issue about support services being inconsistent across the country, and specifically that it is a bit of a lottery as to the quality of the support services in the range of them. That is particularly true in remote areas and rural areas, where there seems to be a limited number of service providers, poor transport, poor digital connectivity in some places. The Scottish Government has a model no-one left behind, and I wonder how the Scottish Government can ensure that the minimum service levels are offered while retaining some flexibility there? We carried out a review into supported employment, which was reported last year, and we are working our way through the recommendations of that. I would want to double-check the recommendations that might link to your own question, because they identified a lot of issues along those lines, which we have given the commitment to take forward. In terms of no-one left behind, I take on your point about a single standard across the country and the postcode lottery issue. I think that the committee in your inquiry has more to say on that. I will certainly want to hear that. No-one left behind is about person-centred support, so, on a local basis, people who are getting help, bespoke help for their own needs, the case worker helping them will deal with transportation issues and other issues. We are trying to have that approach where it is person-centred, so if a person has challenges with transportation in a rural area or elsewhere, they will get some advice and help with that as part of their support package. That is the kind of way that we are trying to address it just now, as that person-centred approach is helping people. It could be with childcare issues, it could be with transport issues, so that is something that has been developed over the last couple of years and that we are hoping to build on. Do you have any comparative data that would support where the provision of services in the more rural and remote areas are put in comparison with the urban areas? Do we have anything on that? Well, I expect that the Scottish Government does, so I would happily come back to the committee if you want to. I will find out if we have that information. I am sure that that must exist at national level. It would be interesting because, obviously, we would be very anxious that people are not left behind in the rural areas and so on in Scotland. It seems to be a problem not just in this area but across a lot of the services that are provided, the inconsistency and the logistical difficulties in providing the support that is needed. Yes, so those issues are absolutely right to affect our rural communities. I am trying to remember the name of it, but there is a forum in Scotland for disabled people and people with mobility issues that advises transport policy and works with transport colleagues. There is access to work theme around that as well. I do not remember the name in front of me, but that does exist just to give you assurance. I will happily send details of that initiative to the forum, and I am sure that it has its own work streams and issues that it is looking at. Although we have taken an obvious comparison between rural areas and urban areas, there is reportedly an inconsistency in support across the country. That includes urban areas. I wonder if you have any data on that to compare support in places such as Edinburgh or Glasgow or wherever, where there is a greater concentration of people who would want to use those services? Not directly. As I said before, we have moved towards no one left behind over the last two or three years, which is decentralised local level, allowing the local employment partnerships to come up with bespoke solutions for their areas. Many of the projects are funded locally for disabled people, as well as other people who are maybe far from the labour market, so it is very much localised. There is, of course, a platform that brings all the no one left behind partnerships together and discuss common issues, so hopefully there are any discrepancies or postcode lotteries that are identified at the national level. However, I do not have any direct data that I can give you about comparing different areas. Jamie Halcro Johnston, to be followed. I do not know what it means to sound unfair on this, but you have come to a committee session on disability gap in Scotland. You cannot tell us the figures for your own department that are responsible for the number of disabled people working in your own department. Do you think that there is data on rural areas and wider a field, but you do not have that information to hand? I would have thought that this information would be fairly standard to be able to provide if you want to understand the picture across Scotland, so I certainly think that it would be helpful to get that information and what information you do have. I wonder whether it really does, as others have raised the data issue, shows that we are perhaps not getting a full idea of the data. How can we look at where the problems are if we do not have that information to go forward with? On the postcode lottery side, you represent a seat in the Highlands and Islands and I represent the region. It is harder to deliver in rural areas and it is harder to access services in rural areas. It is a whole wider issue than just the services themselves. It is transport, connectivity and IT, as others have said. How do you liaise with other departments on making sure that the work that you have responsible for is deliverable through the work that other areas are responsible for such as the transport minister or those responsible for digital? How do you do that liaison with other departments? The plans and policies that we have in the Government are signed up to by all the relevant areas of policy. The transport question is a wider question that affects disabled people but other parts of the population as well. I said before that there are specific forums that look at people who have mobility issues and that is fed into transport policy. It is a collective government and all policies are reflected through all areas of government. I gave you the Scottish Government statistics. I do not have a breakdown of that. If it exists, I will send it to the committee in terms of the number of disabled people working for various Government departments. However, I thought that the question was about the Scottish Government's track records and therefore I gave an answer, which I thought was a good answer and an incredible answer about the Scottish Government's track record. I am slightly unfair to you, Mr Brock, for a breakdown of every single policy section across the Scottish Government. I might be wrong, but I think that Mr Simpson's question was about your department or the department that you are in, but I can check back. However, it would certainly be helpful to get that breakdown. If it does not exist, do you think that it should exist that you should know how the number of disabled people in your department, given that it is your responsibility? Yes, but the Scottish Government civil service has its plan that I referred to before, and I gave you the Scottish Government statistics. I am not the permanent secretary, I am not the civil service, but I am delighted with the progress that the permanent secretary has made. You are the minister, so I would have thought about that. We know from the budget that there was a £53 million cut to the employability funding. A number of issues have been raised about the short timescales to access funding. What impact will that have on the sector and some of the schemes that have been delivered, but also on the wider issue of the employability gap without funding being removed? There is currently just under £70 million for employability support in the draft budget that is before Parliament just now. The £53.06 million that was initially budgeted for and then removed was not cutting existing services. It was to fund additional work that we wanted to undertake, but clearly will not happen now because of the money being removed because of the budget pressures facing the Government and the cost of living crisis. We will see the budget being through Parliament. The funding will be there for the employability schemes. There were additional work around tackling child poverty and other issues that we were going to play a role in through employability schemes, but clearly that is not going to happen to the same degree because of the budget being removed. It was a simple question of budget rather than a lack of uptake of potential funding. That was solely a budget decision. As I said before, it was additional money that was going to be coming into the portfolio, which is not now coming as opposed to cutting existing projects. On the point that Colin Smyth talked about before, you suggested, and it may well have been about the individual cases that you would look into them and that you were not aware of them, but surely you are aware that there have been issues from the sector about the length of funding parcels a year when they are looking perhaps longer term. What kind of on-going discussions are you having with the sector on that? Clearly, I have discussions through the employability field, but in terms of Colin Smyth's examples, I am not aware of being directly contacted by any of those organisations. Of course, it is all part of the general concern expressed by many organisations in the third sector in particular, which I referred to before. Of course, we are aware of that. These are financial decisions and budget decisions, and I am unable to fix that, but my P-grade in the Government— That is right, but there have been representations that you are aware of from the sector that there is a need or that there is a request for longer funding to give them— Yes, and it is a regular point made. I am not denying that it is a regular point made. Ever since having an MSP, going back to 9 to 9, it has been a regular point made by the third sector and other organisations that prefer long-term certainty, three-year budgets or whatever. However, the way in which the financial settlement is set up for the Scottish Parliament is not easy to deliver that. I have a couple of quick questions, because a lot of the area that I was going to ask about has been covered. There are 125,000 people of working age who are disabled who have a qualification at degree level, yet disabled people with a degree are less likely to be employed than non-disabled people. In Cerebral Palsy Scotland it has suggested that there is a need for an online hub so that people can find out information and support on employing a disabled person. Is that something that already exists or is it something that the Government would consider? I am not aware of that existing moment, but I think that we just might want to say something in order. Yes, so on a slightly more general answer to that, so not personally where that particular data point, but one of the things again in the fair work action plan, and this goes to the convener's point earlier about promulgating good practice. You will see one of the actions in there is how we gather together the good practice that already happens with employers, donings from the Scottish Government as an employer, the outputs from the things that we fund, Workplace Equality Fund, the Public Sector Partnership and so on, and bring all of that together in one place. There is a package of information support for employers as well, so that is something very active at the moment, how we bring all of that together. There is a lot of good work already out there, the CAPD already have their own resources and there are others, so there is a bit about what is the gap that we are trying to fill, but there is something about bringing all of that together. The other point that I was wanting to ask about was that you mentioned that the Scottish Government has doubled its number of disabled people that it employs over the last eight years. However, when Enable Scotland was giving evidence to the committee two weeks ago, it said that at times we find it most challenging to work with the public sector, so I was wondering what your perception was. Obviously, we have the public sector, private sector and third sector. Do we have any data that highlights the proportion of disabled people that are employed in each of those sections? I would revert to the Public Social Partnership, which is the initiative that we fund, and that brings together the private sector, the public sector, Government and disabled people's organisations. I would certainly revert to them to see if there is a breakdown of their work in terms of the statistics that you are looking for there. I would hope that the public sector would be an exemplar, and I would be disappointed if there was any public sector in Scotland that was not being accessible for disabled employees. Clearly, you have taken evidence, and I will wait for your report, and if that identifies an issue, we would take that very seriously. Your wider point that you made earlier about disabled people who are qualified is that we are always open to new ideas of how to address that. That is, of course, just symptomatic of the wider disability employment gap and how we need to change the culture in Scotland and in its workplaces. The evidence that we took when we went to CNABL about private and public sector, what they described with the private sector, it was easier for them to make connections with the private sector. They run things like academies where they would take in maybe 10 of their clients who would spend a week at that workplace. They would then go through the formal application process. We are finding that the public sector did not have that same degree of flexibility and responsiveness that they could get in the private sector. It was not that the public sector was reluctant to employ people. It was just the lead-in time and the relationship building that they found easier with the private sector, just to set a bit more background to that, but that was the evidence that we received around that, Maggie Chapman. Thank you for being here this morning and for what you have already told us. I want to focus on two areas, just to draw down around the progress that we have seen around participation rates in the labour market and then on the action plan and the targets. On participation rates, we have heard already this morning that we know that there is progress and we are not really sure. We cannot pinpoint what is being successful or why it has been successful in certain places. I want to pick up on a couple of those things. Firstly, the question is what is it that you need to know in order to identify what is and what is not working, and are you confident that we have a plan to get that information? It is the raw numbers, but Michelle talked about culture. Is there something else other than just the numbers? I suppose that there are a couple of other questions, and that maybe speaks to Colin and Jamie's points about postcode lottery issues. The participation figure is a nationwide figure. Are we sure that it is not masking further inequality in some areas, either geographic areas or sectoral areas? In the call for views, we have already had a response from the NHS Tayside Disability Employment Network. It seems to them that the gap is widening after initial progress. I think that being able to drill down into that a little bit more and understand the sectoral, the geographic variations and even potentially some of the intersectional issues are older disabled people more disadvantaged than younger disabled people. For instance, can you say a little bit more about how we are going to answer those questions? I think that your question is somewhat the complexity of the issue that we are discussing today because there are no easy answers to some of those questions. I will try to address your first one first and then come to the second one. The first one is where are the best interventions and what would make the biggest difference. My point earlier on about not being able to identify the specific reasons why we are making progress is because it is a combination of practical support and supporting people, but it is also a question of changing culture, particularly in workplaces. That latter is quite difficult to measure. We want to see it happen, it is beginning to happen. To what extent is practical support or culture changing is quite difficult to measure? That is the point that I am trying to make. I think that the biggest obstacle would be cultural change in workplaces. If we can open the minds of all employers in Scotland that there are steps that they can take to tap into the massive talent pool that we have in this country, which is the disabled population who are not in work, then that would help to address these inequalities. That is what we have to do. We can to focus on cultural change. I think that there are some positive signs, particularly, as we have said before, with some of the big employers. The convener just said that some of the feedback that you have had as a committee was that the private sector is now doing a lot more to be adaptable and flexible. That is the biggest area. In terms of how we identify disparity across the country, I think that that is really important. From our interventions, no one left behind. Each partnership at local level should be looking at its local labour market and coming up with projects, initiatives and funding, various work streams to address that. We have to make sure that we are on top of that. No one left behind is relatively new, so we have to understand if some areas are performing better than others in trying to identify gaps in any part of the country. That links to the point about progress on the action plan and the targets. You have said that we are on course at the moment. Is it your sense that we will continue with that kind of linear progress or will there be the possibility of either speeding that up or hitting a plateau? What is the assessment around the right of progress over the next 15 years? Our fair work action plan has an aspiration that Scotland becomes a leading fair work nation by 2025. The action plan has a lot of measures in there to try and push that forward. As I said before, we have a situation in Scotland where we have got labour shortages, so we have got talent pools where people could be working, but we have got labour shortages. Now is the time for employers to be more open-minded and adaptable and flexible, as well as for Government to play its role as much as possible. It is really important that we speed that up. My final point is about the importance of culture change. There is a balance between support at different stages in people's lives in terms of supporting the individual. There is support and encouragement and culture change of employers, but I am wondering as well if you see a challenge between that person-centred support that the policies and plans are based on and broader structural and systemic things. That maybe speaks to some of the joined-upness that we need in the data, but we also need, in how we think about this, that enhanced inclusion for everyone. Where you see the balance between that sort of focusing on support for the individual versus actually making the structural changes, whether that is making sure that there is inclusive transport in rural areas or whatever it is, how do we get that balance right and how do we get the joined-upness across Government, because it is not only your responsibility all of this that connects into so many different other areas? As I said in a previous answer, it is the responsibility of all Government to support the fair work agenda. Therefore, whether it is transport or childcare or education, it is the job of all those areas to support the fair work agenda. Your question is a good question, but the whole point of person-centred approaches is to identify some of those barriers in a local context and then work for local partners to knock down those barriers. All of those represent areas of Scotland and your local employment partnership should be delivering person-centred approaches as does fair start Scotland, the national initiative, identifying those barriers and working with local partners to knock them down. That is the benefit of a person-centred approach, looking at those barriers and working with local partners to knock them down. Before I bring in Fiona Hyslop if it is okay, you referred to the fair work action plan. There are only two references to people with lenin disabilities in that plan. Maggie Chapman described that it is at risk of reaching a plateau in terms of the progress that has been made. The Fraser van der Report that I referred to earlier does indicate that people with lenin disabilities remain furthest away from the workforce. There is not enough progress in that area. Unless we start to make progress in that area, we are at risk of not meeting the target. Is that an analysis that the Scottish Government agrees with? Is there a clear focus that this is a group of people that we need to concentrate on if we are going to meet the target? Yes, absolutely. I think that I mentioned the Salves and Mindrooms and others that are looking at some of those issues in their relatively new projects. I know that you mentioned the fair work action plan twice, but the fair work action plan is about the employment gap facing racialised minorities, the disability employment gap, the gender employment gap, the gender pay gap etc. It is a fair work action plan and the disability employment gap is a big part of that, but it is much wider than just disabilities. The Scottish Government adopted in 2021 the learning and intellectual disabilities and autism towards the transformation plan. There are various recommendations to come out of that that have been taken forward as well. I think that all of those things are joined up here and there are specific actions in the employment sphere. Just to give you an assurance that those things are being addressed, I am happy to include that in our response to the committee. You talk about an all-government approach and you will be aware that the Government is planning to introduce a learning disability autism in the new diversity bill. That includes a proposal for a national commissioner, which the National Autism Society Scotland is keen on. What engagement have you had with the minister in the development of that bill and do you see it as an opportunity and vehicle to improve legislation on employability of people with disabilities? You have highlighted the forthcoming bill and my officials will be engaging in the employment sphere on that. Although that is a bill not just about employment, we will certainly be engaging with that. That engagement has already begun, but things are quite at an early stage. I do not know if Susan Ewing wants to come in here to elaborate on your involvement. We have been working very closely at official level around the bill and will continue to do so. I think that between May and July 2022 we undertook scoping work. That was with a range of different people and organisations, including those with lived experience. I think that it was 30 events and 18 different organisations. We are going to consult on the bill in the second half of 2023 and we are setting up various mechanisms with which to engage with policy colleagues across the Scottish Government who deal with different issues. People with lived experience, practitioners and stakeholders. We are putting all that in place to inform the development of the consultation, which will take place later this year. Do you share any early employability themes that you have identified to date following the work from last year? Not at this point. I could certainly go away and see if anything specific has been identified around that and respond to you separately. I think that we would be very interested in that. Similarly, there is a transition bill from Pam Duncan Glancy that is making its way through Parliament. What engagement have you personally had on that minister or your officials in trying to influence that? And again, what seems on employability that you are trying to support within that piece of legislation? At the moment, that has been led by the education ministers and the qualities ministers. We are keeping a watch and briefing and feeding in. I have not done any direct involvement with that minister, but again, that is at quite an early stage and we are waiting to get the feedback from the other ministers. However, those issues will indirectly obviously impact on employability issues, so we will look at that closely. Can I then move on to cross-cutting work? As you said, it is an all-government approach and your role in making sure that all ministers are actively involved in looking at employability aspects is very important. Developing the young workforce is very effective in bringing together and being led by the private sector by bringing different groups together. What progress is being made to ensure that employability for young people with disabilities is embedded in the developing young workforce activity? Is there any good example that you can give us or feedback that you can give us on how that is improving? The skills minister, Jamie Hepburn, answered some questions on this in Parliament in the past few weeks. If I refer the committee to those answers, he laid out how that is all being addressed and he is leading on that aspect. There is a lot in his answers to Parliament about the interaction between supporting young people with disabilities and developing the young workforce and the skills agenda. I will look at that. It is picking up on the points that Graham Simpson was raising. We were very struck by the evidence that the expectations of young people can be set really early for all young people, particularly young people with disabilities. How young people are working in early years education and primary, the appearance that comes in connection with them, and the culture that you have referred to culture is really important. What interventions can we take place to ensure that everyone knows that there are capabilities for young people for the future? They just have to be given that support. Again, I think that it is that culture of expectation that you can do things. The world is there for you and you will be able to take part in employment. Are you convinced that we are doing enough in that area, minister? The answer is probably no, because there is a lot of new work under way that you referred to in the earlier questions about supporting this agenda within schools, in particular transition between school and young people into young adulthood. I think that it is now recognised that you have to do a lot more. It is quite exciting that all the new policies and plans are going to be developed in the coming months and years to address some of these issues. There is no doubt that there is a lot more that we could do in schools to promote those equalities and to support disabled people in our schools and to be prepared for employment. Finally, if we have time, I, too, as a conveyor, was struck by the comments that perhaps the public sector is falling behind the private sector in how prepared they are to support people into employment. I think that your default assumption might be that it would be the other way round, but we are getting some kind of steer on that. You have referred to the permanent secretary already, but it is clearly the leader within the civil service that is in a strong position to ensure that it is addressed. Is that something that you can take up with him? Is that a discussion that you have with him in terms of not just his leadership of the Government's civil service, but across all public sector, that there is a leadership role for the permanent secretary in that regard? Absolutely. I, too, was struck by your comments on the committee that this has been identifying an issue. There is obviously the benefit of having a committee inquiry to take evidence and flag up some of those issues to Parliament and ministers. I will definitely take that message away from today and I will certainly investigate that and obviously await your recommendations. Thank you very much. Just a couple of final questions. In the written responses that we received from Enable and also Social Enterprise Scotland, they have pointed to the focus that has been on providing support to get disabled people into work but maybe does not recognise the importance of in-work support and making sure that it is sufficiently funded to enable people to retain employment. When we visited Enable, they had pretty good figures on retention but it was achieved through a very one-to-one support workers who were not overloaded with a caseload that could provide the level of support that people need. Is that recognised as being an important part of the strategy here on how to increase the employability, how to decrease the gap, that it is not just about getting people into jobs, that will have an impact on the gap, it is about retention and keeping them in employment. Also, we have heard yesterday about career progression for people. It is not just once they are in employment, it is about the ambition and aspirations that can be achieved through that. Is that recognised as an important part of what we need to do here? In answering that, I have to refer to the fact that a lot of those issues are reserved to the UK Government. The access to work scheme, which I think is probably the most obvious source of funding for employers, is quite substantial funding. I would have to check the figure if it is over £60,000 that can be made available to help adapt workplaces to allow access to work for disabled people. It is clear that that is the UK responsibility of the Scottish Government. Obviously, it is a very important role to play. I understand one of the issues around that is just raising awareness with employers that that support is available from the UK Government. Maybe there is more of a role that we could play in the Scottish Government to raise awareness of that as well. Obviously, it is not a responsibility and we cannot take responsibility for that per se, but I think that your point, a valid point, is that we want employers to know that assistance there and that it is quite substantial. The answer to your question is that there is support there. It is a UK Government scheme. We have funded projects that look at the specific projects about working with employers, but natural financial support for individual cases would be through access to work. In terms of the culture within workplaces, it is an important issue that you raise about career progression. It is a cultural issue for employers that could take you into areas again that are reserved, which are on-going debates over mandatory reporting of disabled employees and the figures around that. I do not know whether that debate would include also managerial positions, but there are debates around mandatory reporting for employers, which is a reserved issue. The UK ministers are looking at a number of issues just now. I know that the House of Commons committee did a similar inquiry last year, or 2021. The House of Commons committee did an inquiry into the disabled disability employment gap, and it looked at some of those issues. We did hear about the access to work programme, which, as you recognise, is quite well funded. We did hear difficulties with delays in the application process, and we will follow that up. However, it was not just about that type of support. The question was about the support that we give in Scotland to the third sector and other organisations. They talked about the importance of the continuation of services, so the same organisation that has helped you to gain the confidence to apply for jobs and got you through that service is often the organisation that is best placed to provide the in-work support. Sometimes funds will be drawn down from access to work, but other times that is funded by Scottish Government or by local authorities. We did hear positive feedback about Dundee and Edinburgh, the way in which we decided to give some security of funding to those organisations to continue that work. That goes back to the postcode lottery question. That is not happening everywhere. Does the Government recognise putting aside the access to work programme, which is important and people should access that? We should have more information on that, and it should be higher profile. There is also a job for the Scottish Government to do about supporting people once they are in employment and securing employment and making sure that organisations are funded to provide that. Do you see that as part of the strategy? I am happy to take that point away as well. If that is what the organisations have been raising with you, that is something that we would take on board. I would be happy to discuss that with those organisations. I meet them regularly and I fulfil visits around the country. I know some really good stuff happening, but clearly, if there are issues, I am happy to find out more about that. The final question is... I think that it is worth coming in at one point. Thank you. I am agist on the devolved element. One of the things at First Start Scotland does, obviously, as well as the 12 or 18 months support for the individual to get progressing towards work. There is also up to 12 months of in-work support for the individual and the employer. I am happy to provide more information on what that is and how that looks, but we provide that for that first year after. That is helpful. Thank you. I expect, like yourself, when I visited First Start Scotland projects or offices around the country, I was at the opening of their new office in Ayr a month or so ago and I met disabled people whose lives have been turned around by getting work through First Start Scotland. I am sure that you have heard similar stories and that it is obviously very humbling and heartwarming to hear how their lives have been transformed by getting into work. There is a lot of really good stuff happening at the moment, but, as I said before, if there are gaps, clearly we must not do that. We did meet with clients in Dundee and it was great to hear their experiences of support and how it changed their lives. We did, in Dundee, discuss the unmet need, so while that organisation did work with quite a lot of people, they still recognised that there was a huge unmet need out there of people who just weren't accessing services and weren't getting into employment. There is untapped potential and opportunity within our workforce that we want to see the Government make sure that the target is reached and that there is more investment put in that group that is supported. The final question that I wanted to ask was around the Social Enterprise Scotland report, which talked about the pay gap. As well as disability employment gap, there is a pay gap. For every pound a non-disabled employee earns £8.3. It is almost £4,000 a year in terms of salary that people receive. Is that under the Government's fair work agenda? Is that something that has been looked at? How do we address the issue of pay gap for disabled people? We are aware of that. It is part of our thinking for the fair work agenda. The disability pay gap is under devolved responsibilities. We are limited in what we can do, but we want to look at ways of involving the fair work agenda. I think that the House of Commons committee looked at that as well. One of their views was that they were not pressing for mandatory reporting of pay, because they felt that it might disadvantage people getting on to the first rung of the ladder, disabled people getting into the workplace to start off. I am sure that there is a whole lot of debates around that. However, all I can say is that it is part of our fair work thinking. It is, again, a quite complex issue to address, because we can only address that through fair work and influencing people and employers. We do not have any legislative power over that. That brings us to the end of this morning's evidence session. I thank the minister and the officials for the evidence that we have heard this morning. I will now move into private session.