 Good morning, and welcome to the 16th meeting in 2018 of the Social Security Committee. I can remind everyone to turn mobile phones and other devices to silence so that they don't disrupt the meeting or the broadcasting. We haven't any apologies for today's meeting, however my colleague Ben Macpherson will have to leave for a short period of time to attend another committee during proceedings. Agenda 1 is a decision to take items in private. Can the committee agree that agenda item 5, consideration of the evidence today, 6, 7 and 8, which is papers from the clerks, are all taken in private? Thank you very much. Agenda item 2 is evidence session on funeral expense assistance regulations. The Scottish Government is consulting on the draft regulations for funeral expense assistance. The committee is holding evidence session to feed into the consultation, which closes on 23 August. I would like to welcome to committee this morning our first panel, John Burrell, a bereavement consultant. Paul Cuthill, the national association of funeral directors. Paul Stevenson, the Scottish president of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors. You are all very welcome to committee this morning. I can maybe open the conversation today by asking just a little bit about his flexibility that appears to be in the new regulations and whether there needs to be additional flexibilities in terms of people who may become eligible during the time of death or an application, but we will become eligible before the funeral takes place and whether that should be extended. If the Scottish Government developing its policy considers that a minimum evidence should be required to be given at the time of application, it is difficult time for people, and whether the burden on people to produce that evidence at the time of application is appropriate. I am saying to Mr Burrell, would you like to come in first on that one? I think that the Scottish Government has gone a long way to extend what we have known in the past from the DWP's benefit and we welcome those extensions, particularly among them the extension of the time scale to make applications. It is quite possible that somebody might be in the process of applying for benefits when they experience a bereavement and that bereavement could set them back in doing other things because their focus is then on the grief. Although the six-month window is welcome, I can foresee that there may be times when people's circumstances change within those six months and just quite how flexible the new social security system will be to respond to that. It is something that we are still talking about. Thank you. I would agree with what John says that the system seems to have an increased flexibility. Ultimately, what we must remember is that we are looking after the bereavement here, and it is the bereavement that will be affected in anything that assists them in any way at all. It is certainly advantageous. As people's circumstances have changed because of the bereavement, they might then be entitled to deal with pubes or any support. Thank you. I am going to bring my colleagues in now, Mr Balfour. Good morning and thank you all for coming. I wonder if I can just explore a couple of areas. In regard to the £700 issue, I am presuming that that does not cover the whole of a funeral expense for a family. What is the bare minimum that you can offer in regard to a family who come and say that, as my granny has died, we have got the £700? How much extra do you charge beyond that for a family? How does that work? Maybe Paul could start with that. Yes, I am happy to begin with that, Jeremy. I think that we have to start by remembering that the £700 has remained static since 2003. If I can just go back a little further than that, in the mid-1990s, the amount paid by the social fund and funeral expenses was around £95 million. If you look at the amount that was paid in 2015-20 years later, it was £43 million. That is a drop of 50 per cent in 20 years. The criteria for claiming has apparently not changed in that time. Funerals have changed drastically. In that time, I have worked in our family business now for 20 years. When I first started in our business, you could routinely expect someone to pass away this morning and you would carry out their funeral on Saturday. If not, it would be this coming Monday. The reality is that someone dying this morning will probably not get the medical certificate of cause of death until later today. They will then have to phone the registrar to make an appointment. They may get an appointment tomorrow, but realistically it will probably be Monday. We will meet with that family today, but that is automatically adding in another three or four days. The reality is that that funeral will take place towards the end of next week. Funeral directors now have a far greater involvement to see that people are within our care for far longer. There is far more interaction with the family in that time period as well. People now stay further afield than they once did, waiting on people to return for funerals. There is increased pressure on local authorities. We are finding, particularly in the early part of this year, where there was a very high volume of deaths. It was frequently for three months that my local crematoria was taking two weeks before we could get a time slot with them. Cementries were not just as bad, but they were still the delay. To answer the question of how little a funeral director does for a family, that is not always within our control. Families come to us with a great burden upon them. There is a time where they need to be loved and cared for and guided. We would try to work with them to keep a funeral within their means. Very often, they are trying to have a funeral that is in expectations with what society has come to know. Faith plays a large part in that as well. The Roman Catholic community would be very common that the deceased would be brought to rest in church the evening before the funeral. Then there would be the funeral mass the following day. All of those things have an additional involvement on our part. We cannot say to a family, I am sorry, that we are not able to allow our staff and our hearse to be available evening before because there is an additional cost for that. There is the Jewish culture where funerals must take place in a very quick period of time. That is going to the other end of the spectrum, but it is very difficult for us as funeral directors to say to people, well, this is the minimum that we can do and I am afraid that we cannot do any more for you. I suppose that what I am looking for is—I am not saying that we go all the way down the road—that if you were looking at a figure that was realistic to cover your costs and was nutritious, you did not make any money, but it was nutritious, what kind of money are we looking at for that? I appreciate that that will vary across Scotland, but can you give us some kind of indication? I appreciate that this could be commercially very sensitive for you to answer that question. I think that, for example, Mr Stevenson had it on his website, so I did read last night to check to see. I am not looking for great commercial confidentiality, but as an industry, what roughly are we looking at? I would suggest a figure of £1,500. The £700 will not, since 2003, fix and everybody knows that, but the third party costs have gone up incredibly since then. Even on local authority at North Ayrshire Council in the last three years, the purchase of a new layer in 2015 is £519. Today, it is £744, up 30 per cent. The cremated remains layer in this small hole purchased in 2015, £201. Today, £408, an increase of 103 per cent. We do not want that side capped either, because it would increase the gap that the families would have to find for. We just want a fair figure for the family, and £700 was not enough in 2003 either. We are looking to that to a reasonable fair price. I can speak for myself, not commercially sensitive information, but our simple funeral price guide since 2015 has not changed. It is £1,560 plus the dismussments. Even if you take the Bank of England's calculator, it will bring it up to just over £1,000, nearly £1,100. That is it at 2003 price, which was not enough then. The calculation we make is then to about £1,500. I wonder if you are able to give the committee any information about repayment plans. If a family gets a ward of £700, that is not going to be enough. Are they offered a repayment plan for the rest? If so, could you give us any guidance about what percentage or what numbers of families do that? I do not have a credit licence. Right. Did some funeral directors have that? I believe so. I believe that some of our members would do so. Certainly, within my own business, if people do not have the means to pay a funeral, we would always say to them, well, you have trusted us to look after you and we would trust that you will come and pay us when you are in a position to do so. We would ask a family to set up a standing order to pay that over a period, which we would speak with them about. We do not charge them interest for doing so. But you do not need a credit licence for that? I do not need a credit licence. In funeral directors that have a higher rate of poverty within their area, from your members, are you here on any member saying that we simply cannot afford to do those funerals because we will not get our money back or it is costing us too much? Is there any danger that there will be parts of a country where it will be more difficult to find someone to do a funeral for you? Or are your members coping with that at the moment, if that makes sense? The fear is a bad debt. In our poverty area, there is obviously a lot more of those funerals coming to us. It is communication, it is chat with the family, but there are on occasions where there is no money above the £700 at all. Is it possible to do the funeral? I think that the difficulty that we have as trying to run commercial businesses is that people come to us and they do not have the money and they ask us to look after a funeral service for them, but the cemetery of the crematorium authority, who we will liaise with on behalf of the family, they will require to be paid immediately upon their invoice, as will the florist, the newspaper, the organist on the day of the funeral, or the fees for the church if they apply, or the celebrant that is taking the funeral, or those kinds of things. That is where it is difficult for funeral directors, and you will find that the vast majority would now ask for any third-party cost to be paid in advance of the funeral, because the funeral director simply does not know if the family is going to receive assistance towards the cost of the funeral until after the funeral. The DWP will not make a decision on the current system unless they have the final invoice from the funeral director, and certainly our members, we have it within our code of practice that the client has the right to change the funeral arrangements at any time at all. Therefore, our members would be in breach of our code of practice if they were to issue an invoice in advance of the funeral. What we do is tell them that they must give the client an estimated cost of the funeral at the time of discussing the funeral arrangements, which will then be followed up by a full written estimate as far as practically possible. That will very much accurately record the funeral director's costs based on the instructions that are given. Those seldom change after that. Occasionally, a limousine may be added or taken off or something like that, but the costs that are not known before the funeral will often be things such as the florist's invoice or the cost for the catering, perhaps. Those costs can be estimated to a degree, but the challenge is that the decision is not made whether assistance will be given until after the funeral. The island lies a really major issue, because although we all welcome the Government's undertaking to try and process these applications within 10 days, nevertheless, the bereaved family are signing a contract with the funeral director possibly for as small amounts as they can arrange or possibly more than they can afford because they assume that they are going to get the benefit, but they are committing themselves financially before they know whether they are going to be eligible for the funeral payment or not. Funeral directors do their best to give them advice, but they are not financial advisers and there is a limit to how much they can ask about the family's own finances. However, the family then take a gamble that they will sign the contract and commit themselves to the bill, including the disbursements. We are talking of the average funeral costing about £3,500, but even if they are coming in under the benefit and the disbursements are paid, they are still committing themselves to the £1,500 minimum standard charge of a basic funeral, and they do not know whether they are even going to get the £700 towards that or not. Is the first conversation with a family about the possibility of funeral expenses being paid with the funeral director, or are people aware of being a possibility when they approach it? Things have changed over the years. It is an important conversation now to have. How is the funeral going to be paid? That might be from an estate, insurance or the DWP. In my experience, most people who are on benefits are well aware of what they are going to get or not, so they are able to come up with a figure. The £700 for all the funeral arrangements from the funeral director is certainly not enough. Even if the family is going to pay for their own floral tribute, their own tea and their own newspaper, the £700 is still not near enough for all the funeral director's arrangements—the hair, the cough and the professional-trained staff, etc. Michelle, you wanted in as a supplementary in this year? Yes. It was just to explore a comment that was in Paul's Evidence, where you talked about reducing the number of refusals on unexpected debt by bereaved people, and you said that you felt some sort of screening needed to put in place. I am assuming that people are coming to you potentially within a couple of days of the person dying. When you say refusal, are you talking about you saying, no, sorry, we won't take this funeral on the basis that we don't think you can pay? Is that on what they are saying to you? We say that it is on the basis that we don't think the client can pay. It would be on the basis that the client has said that they are not able to pay the funeral invoice when we have had the discussion with them. We need to understand that the initial conversation with a bereaved family could be at 3 o'clock in the morning when that person has died in the family home. Now, when I answer the phone at 3 o'clock in the morning, the first thing that I am going to say to them is, how are you going to pay for the funeral? Can you give me your credit card details, please? It is just not appropriate to do that. They have someone who has died who may be lying on the bathroom floor and they need someone to look after them. Unfortunately, they cannot get in touch with any other people who would assist them, so that would be the first point. However, thereafter, we would certainly be discussing their funeral arrangements with the family and, of course, as our member should, we would discuss the cost of the funeral with the client. However, it is not in anyone's interests—any business whatsoever—to take on a debt or to take on a business that they know that they are not going to be paid for, is what I am trying to say. That might be an instance where the funeral director feels that they are not able to look after a family. That is purely because the family are unsure if they will get assistance or if they do not have the money to pay the additional third-party costs that we are paying on their behalf at the outset. Therefore, the question is, well, how would they intend to pay the rest of the funeral service? That refusal can come after you have collected the body and the body is on your premises? It may come after we have collected the deceased. Then what happens? At that point in time, the funeral director certainly would not turn their back up in the family. In my own business, we would look upon that situation very sympathetically, and I know that many of our members would do so as well. If we were not aware of that at that point in time nor were the bereaved family, I suspect that the funeral director would not make a charge for the services that they have provided thus far, because they had done what was essential at that time to get the family to the point where they now may now wear it. It is very different if the funeral director has been engaged fully by the client and there has been a contractual agreement written into it and the costs have been discussed. Then the client turns round and says, I am sorry, I am not able to do this. By that time, the funeral director may have confirmed the times with the clergy, the cemetery and the newspaper that all the different people will be involved. There is a fair amount of work that has taken place. I am curious about what I am trying to get to. If somebody comes in and you have assessed and you do not think that they are going to pay, that may or may not be because they have an application for support through the WP or the Scottish Social Security System. The deceased is in your care. The person is saying, I do not know if I am going to be able to pay. You are not confident. What happens then? How many people are we talking about? What situation are we looking at? It is a very difficult situation. At the end of the day, we are a business, but it is a unique business in many ways. To make judgment calls and assessments is very difficult, but if you have a family who then goes to the bank and asks for a bank loan, and they refuse the bank loan to pay for the funeral, then the family is asking us to pay it up. It is the same thing. I am not criticising whether you can do it. I am asking what actually happens. Those are people who are potentially coming along. As we are looking at this, we are looking at what are the issues around assistance being granted or the right amount of assistance being granted and what are the problems that they can encounter. That lept out at me, the word refusal. I understand commercially why you might have to do that. What I am asking is what do the family then do, what happens to the deceased and what time frame are we talking about? As we have taken part of a community, if Paul says that someone dies at 3 o'clock in the morning, we are not having that conversation, we will bring the person into our care and then the conversations will take place thereafter. What happens then? If we turn down the funeral, we are not going to charge for bringing someone into the care at that stage. The family would then be free to select another funeral director who is willing to take the hit, I suppose. As funeral directors, though, we would be making the client aware that they should perhaps be speaking to the DWP at the outset to understand whether they may be able to have assistance, because clearly, if they do not have the means to pay a deposit for a funeral service, then clearly they are in financial hardship, so we would be encouraging them to do that. We would be encouraging them to speak to other organisations who may be able to offer support to their charities, people, their former service personnel, etc. We would be encouraging them to do that. We would be discussing with them how to try to keep a funeral within their means, but Paul was talking about the bare minimum and what funeral directors we would class as a basic funeral. In that, the vast majority of funeral directors will offer a basic funeral or a simple funeral package, but that would very often be the minimal involvement upon the funeral director's part. It would be the essential care of the deceased. It would not allow for the provision of having a service prior to the burial or the cremation. It would not allow for limousines. It would not allow for family coming to pay their respects. It would not allow for the… Previously, you would term a popus funeral. Perhaps, yes. Ultimately, if it becomes apparent at that point in time that it is just not possible for that family to have the finances available, we would suggest that they would be discussing things then with the local authority who may provide what we would call traditionally a popus funeral, environmental health funeral. It would be their duty then to undertake the funeral service, but that would be an instance where there is no family at all. It is clear that no one is able to look after the funeral service. I just ask one final question. What is the time like? Time seems to be the key in this process. How long have people got what turnaround do we need in a system to ensure that this kind of difficulty does not occur? I think in the system we would need a decision made in principle before the funeral. That would help the bereaved. It would help the funeral director to know exactly where they stand at the moment that does not happen, unfortunately. The reality is that there is a deceased person. There is a bereaved family. There is a community wanting to know the first thing that people will ask when they hear that someone has died is when is the funeral going to take place. By that time, the family will already be getting the death certificate from the hospital or the GP that will make an appointment to go to the registrar. The next thing that they are going to do is to speak with the funeral director. They are going to speak with the DWP. When people come to us, they often say that they have already been in touch with the DWP. We have the documents, but they say that they need your invoice. We say that we cannot issue an invoice until the funeral takes place. We can give you a full-type estimate of the funeral service, but ultimately we cannot issue an invoice until we have provided you with that full service. Mr Griffin, do you want to come in on that issue with regard to whether there is no family? Before I go on to funeral expenses assistance, I want to ask if you are able to outline what happens when someone dies and they have no family members. In an instance, when someone dies and they have no family members, there are a number of scenarios. It may be that that person has made provision with a funeral plan or they may have made provision within a will and have a solicitor named as their executor. There may be instances where there is a neighbour or a very close friend who would look after that funeral and that neighbour or close friend may end up paying for that funeral along with some of the deceased's own funds. Ultimately, if there is absolutely no one that would be where the local authority would then step in and would then take ownership of arranging that funeral service? In that situation, where a close friend or a neighbour took responsibility, would they qualify for any assistance through the funeral expenses assistance as we see it now if they met the qualifying criteria when they weren't a direct family relative? I'm sorry, I'm unsure of that. I wouldn't be confident in answering that either way. I'm not saying that I believe that it won't happen. I just don't have it clear enough in my own mind. I think that they would have to meet the criteria, whatever that criteria is, and if it's a neighbour, does a neighbour meet that criteria? Does a close friend meet that criteria? I don't know the answer to that just now. The reason for raising it is that I had spoken to a social worker over the weekend and we were talking about this situation where he had a client who had died and there were no funds available to pay for a funeral and he was doing this off his own back because he had gotten close to his client in arranging the funeral and just thinking about the situation where someone like that or a neighbour or a close friend was taking on the responsibility, whether we should be looking at making sure that they have the kind of assistance available that a family member would have if they were in receipt of one of the qualifying benefits. I don't know what your view would be on that. Ms Johnson, do you want to come in on this area? I think that it's the same area. The written evidence suggests that many crematoria and cemeteries do not accept bodies without a coffin. Is that correct? Am I correct in thinking as well that those charges would not come under essential costs? In reality, you do not need a funeral director. In reality, a local authority or a crematorium is not going to accept a body without a coffin. The only instance in which a funeral burial would take place would be for cultural beliefs and perhaps the Muslim community would be areas where the deceased would be taken to the burial place but then removed from their coffin. In my area, that is not the case. There is a Muslim area within the cemetery and that is not the case but certain other faith groups would be able to offer that. I agree with Paul that a deceased person will not be accepted at a crematorium if they are not within a coffin or whatever structure that coffin may be. What would be the minimal cost for a coffin? How inexpensive could that be? Citizens advice suggests to us that the average cost of a funeral is £3,598. You are suggesting that £1,500 could deliver the essentials. Can £1,500 deliver the dignity that we would all want to see? The figure is quoted there. In my local authority, if there is a new layer, an open layer, that is £1,500 off straight away. All of a sudden, my average is now to £2,300. I have a paper notice that might not be essential. The floral tribute is £100 and might not be essential. Start taking these things off and if it is direct to the crematorium or the cemetery, you do not have any church fees, etc. That is where the figure starts coming down and down and I could be on average £1,500 on the funeral director side only. I submitted in my evidence the suggestion that a coffin, in fact, is an essential where the funeral director, although I think that they are hugely important, is not essential. You can go ahead without one, but my suggestion was that the cost of the coffin should be moved over into the first part of the payment. We are now covering the cost of the funeral, the burial and cremation and basic transport. I believe that the cost of the coffin should sit within that part of the benefit and not have to come off the £700. For exactly the reason that you cannot really arrange your funeral without a coffin, it is an essential. The death registration process is taking longer. The evidence speaks of the land deficit, the fact that more private companies are moving into the cremation side of things, and that it is an increasingly commercialised market. There is also evidence suggesting that some local authorities are using floating squads. All of those things seem to suggest that everything will take longer. I would like to understand the difference that time makes to the cost. Is the fact that things are taking longer making things more expensive? I would say that it does have a cost implication. I said earlier on that there is a lot more interaction with the client and a lot more involvement on the funeral director's part. As a business now, we have our own fully qualified embammer, which we did not do within the business 20 years ago, because there just wasn't a need for that service. The reality is that because DCs people are with us for far longer, we want to ensure that they are cared for to the highest possible standard. There can often be the need for us to have a conversation with the client to seek their permission to carry out and to ensure that everything remains as it should between the time of the death and the time of the funeral. To come back to the cost of the coffin, we have also noticed a marked increase in the levels of obesity, meaning that larger coffins are often having to be provided. The result is far more staff being required and more equipment needing to be invested in order to ensure that we are looking after the welfare of our staff, that the deceased is being transported in a dignified manner. All of those things have a cost implication as well. I understand that the DWP previously had bereavement officers, and they no longer do. You have had to fill that gap, too. Online and telephone. We have a conversation with the families, a system to fill in things, very difficult over the phone when they have just had a bereavement. They want to know if there are moneys available to them before they even approach the funeral director. I want to add to Paul's comments that we have installed more refrigerated units in our business because the length of time from the time of death to the time of registration, which we can only bam after that, is longer. We have got those refrigerated units, 24-7 running as well, so there are all sorts of cost implications. I want to ask you about the relationships to the deceased of people applying. One of the strongest criticisms of the system at the moment is that questions can be intrusive when the DWP is trying to establish the connection to the family. Do you think that if the new Scottish proposals that are going to introduce a family hierarchy of relationships might help to avoid some of that intrusive questioning? It is always, if we are talking about death and money, two topics that are always going to potentially feel uncomfortable and a bit intrusive, but do you think that some of the changes might help to address some of that? I think that they would certainly help, and I think that we would welcome anything that makes the process easier for the bereaved at present. The DWP will look into other family members who, it should add, may have had no contact with the deceased for a considerable period of time, who may not have had any contact with the deceased, but there could be another four siblings who have been estranged from that family for a period of time. That can certainly be very distressing for a client going through the process, having to get in touch with people that perhaps they have not been in communication with for many years. Emotions are running very high and they are always heightened at the time of a funeral, and very often we are the people that are in the middle with conflicting situations. I think that the proposals in the draft regulations actually go further than that because they are also saying that where there are people on the same level in the hierarchy and somebody else on the same level might actually have the money to pay for the funeral. If that is not the person who has stepped forward to arrange the funeral, they will not chase even across the same level in the hierarchy. That is hugely generous on behalf of the Government, and I welcome that, because the DWP has the reputation for at times almost trying to find somebody that they can land it on so that they do not have to pay it, so that they are constantly trying to hold back on payments. The Scottish system is taking a much more sensitive approach than that. Do you think that the discretion that is going to be afforded to ministers is at the right level? It sounds like he did it from your first response, but I do not know what he is talking about. Why are you talking about one at a level? No, just in terms of the hierarchy relationship. If it was really quite transparent and simple, again, we as the funeral director can help the family in the decision process, but again, we are taking the risk and doing it now. As you mentioned, some people will have a will and an executive appointed as a solicitor. Can people make these choices before death about who they want to be responsible and what influence would that have in law in relation to the DWP? If somebody said that they wanted a particular son or daughter to do it, and another person was perhaps eligible to get the assistance, are you aware of what implications those might be? The executive would have a sole autonomy in the situation, because the executive does not need to be a family member, he can be a friend, he can be the solicitor himself, but he would have a full autonomy to deal with his states. And he could actually change a written request from a deceased person? Yes, because it is a request. Someone may request to be cremated, but in the circumstance of death, Procurator Fiscal might say that the funeral can go ahead, but it can only be a burial, because a body could be disentered at a later stage, but after cremation there is no redress, so it is a wish. The figure that you are giving the committee of the basic funeral £1,500, would it be possible at some point to get a breakdown of what that looks like, so that the committee could see what arrangements are made for that? Yes, so the basic funeral, so you are talking about some pure transport costs. We can all the funeral arrangements, providing professional advice on the certification registration of the death and any related documentation to crematorium local authority. Removal of the deceased to a suitable resting place and under our code of practice we say within 25 miles radius, and practice that does not happen if it is full or we still do it for the same price. Within normal working hours, again, we are 24, 7, Sunday night, Friday night, three o'clock in the morning, and we bring in to our care. Provision of simple veneered cofan, the convenience of the heist direct to the crematorium, or burial, the place of burial. In that code of practice we say without the choice of the day, date and time of the funeral, but, again, as funeral directors, we are very flexible in that as well. I provide all the funeral director and all the necessary personnel to carry out all the works. So we have established that, in the cases of where the body is to be cremated, the crematorium will not accept a body without a coffin, but also that there is no recurrent for a funeral director. Is it possible, then, for families to basically do the funerals themselves with permission? Is that possible? Has that happened that you know about because... I saw one in the TV once. It does happen. People do look after funerals themselves as a family. I think that the reality is that, when faced with the rawness of a bereavement, a family with the best of intentions may want to do so, but they may engage a funeral director to carry out some part of that service and they may carry out other parts of the service. We have families who may want to use the chap's pickup truck for the coffin to travel on, as opposed to using a hearse, but we will still look after other aspects of the funeral service. A family can have as much or as little involvement as they would want to do so in a funeral. The thing to remember is that there is ultimately an unpleasant side to death. As funeral directors, very often we would act as the cushion between the reality of death itself and the bereaved family and because of some of the unpleasant sides that come associated with that, that may prevent a family from looking after the funeral that they would have hoped to look after themselves. One of the biggest things is the care of the deceased themselves. That would be quite hard for a family to deal with. All of the committee are concerned about rising costs for funerals and for families, so we are dealing with people who might qualify for a small benefit that will not cover their costs. There will still be families who have a low income that will not qualify and £3,500 or even £1,500 is a lot money to find. In your view, should there be some exploration of other options? I do not know of such a thing if funeral loans exist or whether credit unions provide it. There are certain charities, multinational companies and EDF provisions for applications for contributions towards costs of funerals. That is helpful, thank you very much. If I could do something, as Stevenson Yu mentioned, the cost of having its North Ayrshire in your area and the increase in costs is 30 per cent for one type of plot and 103 per cent for another. Can we get an idea about what the picture is across Scotland and what the variation is across local authorities in terms of costings in those areas? It is quite so. There is not a huge difference between most of them and it seems to have taken the attitude of coming to the average, so the average increases. There are figures here across the board. From Aberdeen 1400, Angus 1200, Fife 1700, not far away from each other. If I take my own trading area, which would be Falkirk, it would be £592 to purchase a layer in the cemetery, a further £537 to open the layer for the burial and, through our office in Bone S, we would often look after the breed in South Queensferry. That comes under the City of Edinburgh Council. The cost there is £1,307 to purchase the layer alone and a further £1,150 to open the layer. What we need to remember here is that, while the £700 has been capped since 2003, the DWP has always paid the local authority charges and it gives you an idea of the variation between them. A bereaved family can go to a funeral director, they can discuss the costs of the funeral director and if they are not able to pay for the funeral and they want to go to another funeral director and try to find costs elsewhere. It is a commercial market, funeral directors set their charges at what they believe are right and fair for the service that they provide. There are varying levels of service and investment by funeral directors. In their businesses, not all funeral directors would have the same facilities and be able to offer the same services, but bereaved do not have choice over the crematoria that they would want to use. For instance, Scotland is a very, very big country. If we think about the bereaved dying in the north-west of Scotland, the reality is that they are near as crematoria as an Inverness and they may face a two or a three-hour drive to go to the crematorium. Ultimately, that is impacting upon the funeral director's involvement as well, because suddenly there is an additional five or six hours on top of that funeral was I looking after that in my local area where I would average a 25-30 minute journey to the crematorium. I ask North Ayrshire Council to come up with a forum, an indemnity forum, and as much as we would act as the family's agent, we would send an invoice direct to the family. They have come back to me and they said that they would have to be paid up front for the opening of the layer. They are taking no risk whatsoever and the risk remains with the funeral director. They would be asking the very people who cannot afford to pay it up front. They are waiting in the DWP money coming in. It does not affect them because it is not capped and that will go on to the £700 anyway, but North Ayrshire Council is going to ask for that money up front. I should also add just as another example, I had a lady who was arranging her brother's funeral within the... Sorry, can I just pause? I think we've got a problem with the broadcasting. Oh, sorry, if we could just wait for the system to be a bit... Welcome back and apologies for that brief suspension due to technical difficulties. Mr Stevenson, you were just finishing off. Is there anything else you want to add to what we were discussing at that point? Any further questions to Ms McNeill? I was really surprised to hear the variation across local authorities of fees. That is staggering and therefore I wonder if you are able to offer any views as to whether or not that reflects the cost. It seems to me that it could understand whether there will be variation in transport costs but I have difficulty understanding why there will be such a wide variation across local authorities of digging out a layer from £500,000 to £1,000. I would be interested in your view and whether it actually reflects the costs because it does not sound like it does. I think that perhaps you need to ask the local authority that question. Certainly North Ayrshire Councils say that they run at a deficit of £950,000 a year. A deficit for the bereavement services? There are varying levels of service from local authorities. There are some cemeteries where we go and we would expect there to be two cemetery staff and we would have additional staff with us because we are always before people normally to carry a coffin. There are some cemeteries where we go where there would be four cemetery staff and our staff wouldn't be allowed to handle the coffin at all for health and safety reasons. That varies within my area. If I arrange a cremation for someone within the Falkirk area, the cost for the cremation is £669. If I arrange a cremation for someone who resided in Stirling, they do not have their own crematorium in Stirling at present. The cost rises to £920. There is a higher charge because the person is a non-resident. The same was regards to Beryl. I say that it was £592 to dig a grave if the person is not from the area. The cost rises to £867. There are differences in that. Local authorities look at that differently as well, but the trouble is that not all local authorities have their own crematoria. Most would have their own cemetery, but a family… To me, it seems to be a bit unjust just because you did not live in that local authority and there is no crematoria. You have to go elsewhere, so the costs go up. If there is a desire to try to allow families, particularly those who do not qualify for the benefit, to try to do a dignified funeral within £1,500, I hope that the committee will start to look at that, but we have to get transparency in the costs of local authorities so that we can see where there might be ways in which those costs have to come down. If we do not get those costs down, I do not really see how we could really begin to build a plan for around £1,500 for a basic funeral. With all due respect, that is the funeral director's side. The local authority's side, the crematorium's side, is not capped and will be paid anyway. So it does not affect the family? Yes, for those who qualify for the funeral benefit. It does not affect them? Yes, but there is going to be lots of low-income families who will not qualify for the funeral benefit. That is probably the saddest group in as much as they are in low income, but they are not in any benefits. They might get five posties with the utilities in each post and the savings for Christmas, but they will not qualify for a benefit at all for the funeral benefit. That is the hardest group. One of the things that we have not mentioned is a change in the funeral industry generally, which has been an increase in what is called direct cremation. That is arising partly for the very reasons that Mr McNeill is talking about. Direct cremation is where the deceased is collected by a funeral director from the place of death taken into care and then taken to a crematorium of the funeral director's choice at a time that suits the funeral director, normally with no family present for the funeral. It is more of a if you like a disposal service than a funeral and it is then up to the family to arrange whatever memorial event they want in their own time, in their own place. That may be as simple as saying family and friends, please meet in the pub on Saturday night and we'll all drink his health, or it may be that they arrange a full memorial service in our local church. That kind of service is becoming more, it's not becoming common, but it's becoming more common in both the two large national companies, excuse me, funeral director companies, Dignity and the Co-op both now offer a direct cremation service, which is for a total of under £1,500, including the dispersals. You can purchase that service within Scotland for less than £1,000. While that is good news in one sense, it is sad if people, because of their lack of resources, are forced into having what they may not see as a proper funeral. I think that that would be unfortunate, but it is a growing trend within the industry. I would agree with John's comments. Certainly, as a business, we implemented the direct cremation. Our local authority has just implemented an unattended cremation slot, which I have just checked, and that costs £334 for the cremation compared to the £669 that timeslot that they have available at 8.30 or 8.45 in the morning, but no one can attend that other than the funeral director and the crematoria staff. I know that other local authorities are doing that, and there are instances where people choose not to have a funeral. They would ask the funeral director just to take care of the cremation. The ashes would be returned to the client and they would go ahead and have a memorial service or some form of celebration of the person's life. Equally, that is not what culture is in Scotland. There is concern from the brief charities that there is not the opportunity for people to come together formally as they do and to support one another at a funeral service, and there are on-going concerns there after that could impact upon the grief process. We offer direct cremation as well, but we do not want to take the choice away from the family of a traditional standard funeral. It is another option, but I would not like the families having to take that option because of the lack of resources. I just want to visit briefly the application process by which you get the funeral grant. It seems to me and in part of your submissions that there is an argument that if you are on benefits, qualifying benefits and we have good hierarchy of relationships, then part of your benefit award should state that you are entitled to ex-funeral expenses in the event of a death within that hierarchy of needs. I take it that does not happen at the moment, but if it did happen, it would not need to be an unknown quantity in an application process because it would already be granted by a dint of the fact that you have got the benefits. Has that been discussed at all? It is also means-tested, though. But your benefits are already means-tested? Yes, but the funeral benefit is slightly different. It is means-tested. If there are any insurance policies on death, as well, that would affect the benefit. Is there any way that that can be built in that is made clear at the time of the application? It is means-tested at the time of death, the time of clean. I am just trying to think laterally here, if it was on the form, you will get, however, at the time of death, if your mother had £1,000 in savings, it would affect the benefit. Perhaps what Paul is saying is that we would find that we can have a family receiving assistance towards the cost of a funeral and it can be as low as £103 that they receive, but, on average, it would probably end up just around £1,000, £1,004, is what we find. There are a lot of other factors that influence how much assistance would be given, whether that person has their own savings, whether there has been contribution already made towards the cost of the funeral, etc. That would certainly be helpful. What you are suggesting is that we would welcome that. There was a request in the last consultation process for the Government to include some kind of ready, recon or computerised digital system where you could see what you were going to be entitled to. I think that the concern about that was that there are so many variables that families might go ahead on the basis of the ready, recon or, but that might not actually equate to what they got in the final analysis. That is the reason that we did not do that. It is taking us back to the concern about the time delay in getting any clear idea of what benefit somebody is going to achieve. Any further questions? I think that we covered your question earlier on, but perhaps, if not, we could maybe write to for further information. Is there anything else that you want to say, just before we close this first panel? Anything that you wanted to get on record that has not been covered by today's questioning? I thank you very much for your attendance and also for providing us with the briefings before today's session. I will briefly suspend while the panel is changed over. Welcome back. We now turn to her second panel of witnesses for today's session. We have Delia Henry, director of Age Scotland, David McCall, bereavement services manager at Glasgow City Council and Ruth Mendel, policy officer at Cissan Advice Scotland. I would like to open a general question about the flexibilities in the proposed new system and whether the proposed flexibilities are enough to ensure that people who are due to receive this benefit will be entitled to, if I can hold to my brief first panel. I think that, just to start, we welcome what appears to be a simple structure, particularly around family members at the same level. Quite frequently, we have people coming to the bureau who have either a former partner, parents or siblings, particularly on a strange man. It seems like a very positive step forward, having the simpler process and particularly for people when they are very vulnerable and they are dealing with grief. If there is something that is an easier process that is positive, I think that what is really important is making sure that it is very clear to people when they are applying, but also for people like Cissan's advice bureau, who will be providing advice and support at that difficult time and also making sure that all some of the kinks that we have spoken about, for example, with friends or neighbours, making sure that those sort of things are decided before the benefit goes live, so that there is not confusion for people at that very hard time. I would endorse that. I think that it is absolutely important. We welcome the approach that is being proposed from the Government so far. However, clarity is really critical. We have people calling who are very confused with the current system to our helpline. The clarity for both advisors and people is critical. It is so difficult, because we are right, our colleague from Cissan's advice. People are extremely distressed, so if we can make it as simple—a human rights approach to this—think about people and how they would feel in those circumstances. If they needed support and help, they would want to try to remove those complexities as much as possible. We welcome the proposals, but to simplify it and plain language is critical. Obviously, we are at the end of the process and my opinions are less relevant to this particular subject. However, I think that simplification with appropriate robust protections is key to this. I would suggest that, however, from a personal perspective, my concern would be that we are capturing all the people who might be troubled by this issue. I am concerned with those on lower income and being hopefully in benefits. How are we dealing with that, particularly the gap in the market? Excuse me for using the term market, but it seems to me that there is a gap. Maybe we need to think about how this can assist these people too. I have a few questions. I was quite interested in sitting since advice Scotland in your submission around the qualifying benefits, perhaps you would like to elaborate on that point. I think that it comes down to the simplification of the system. What we are saying is that UC should be included as a qualifying benefit with no further qualifications, and it is about making it clear for individuals and advisers about eligibility. It is based on the fact that we believe that in the way in which the full service universal credit operates, it is not necessary to have the qualification that there should be an award of more than £0, because no circumstances the claim would be closed. In terms of the residents, you raised an interesting point in your submission about people who have temporarily moved to provide care. I wonder if you could give more detail on that. This is something that I believe the Scottish Government has mentioned in the regulations that they are looking at, and that is something that we are definitely welcome. The example that we are thinking about is someone who, due to a loved one being ill, has come up to Scotland, for example, to care for them, but they will not necessarily know how long they will be there at the end of their relative's life. It comes back to our point about making sure that those things are worked out before they go live, so that people are not struggling at that point to navigate a very complex system. I might have some questions later. I think that it would be okay if you wanted to tell someone else what Mr Balfour said. I wonder if I could come back to the issue of provision of funeral directors that we were talking about earlier, particularly perhaps Ruth Cymru's experience from your CAB officers. Have you got her stories of where families have gone to funeral directors? I'm afraid that you just don't have enough extra money beyond the 700 for us to do the funeral. Have you heard of the experience of that? Do you know what has then happened in regard to that? I would say that we haven't seen a huge number of cases. What we generally have is that people will come to an adviser and they will say that they don't have money to pay for a funeral. They might not necessarily say the particular reasons. I think that one thing that was touched on can be the difficult situation for people when they don't know how much money they're going to get. For example, a case where someone is not able to apply for the benefit because they haven't been able to pay an upfront deposit to a funeral, so they don't have a funeral date, but they're also, because they're not getting the benefit, stopping them to arrange with a funeral director what the date is. I think that some of the stuff also comes back to the flexibility that we were talking about. I think that it ties into just generally the uptake of benefits. Systems and the Vice Bureau can play a really important role that was touched on about if people become eligible in the time period, but we also actually have cases where people would have been eligible for a qualifying benefit, but they actually didn't know that they were eligible. I think that that could really help and support people that are on a low income. For us, it's people just struggling. An example here is that we had someone come into a bureau and she'd lost her son to suicide, and she had no money. She wasn't able to pay for upfront payments for his funeral, and she was extremely distressed because she didn't want him to have a local authority funeral, but she simply didn't have the money to pay for it. I think that funeral directors, as I've mentioned, do really try to work with people when they do come in, but it is about choice and it is about dignity and being able to show respect for your loved one, so it is a very hard situation. Do you have experience, again, of slightly going beyond our remit, but those who don't get the grant, so their income is slightly over that, so they are not going to get either the burial or the cremation cost covered? Have you got experience of people coming in and saying, we've got to pay this whole £1,500, whatever cost it is, for local authority? How are they dealing with that and how flexible are local authorities in regard to if a payment has to be upfront or are local authorities at all accommodating to people who are just above that income but are still financially really struggling? I can talk a lot of it about some of the work that citizens advice bureau advisers will do with people when they are struggling. I've probably deferred to David in terms of the local authority question, but we actually have the Scottish Government funded some training for advisers about planning for funerals but also about how to pay for funerals. A lot of the process that advisers would go through with an individual would be asking about whether looking at if they might qualify for the benefit, which they might not. They would also be talking about possibly for a lot of people that may be family and friends that they might be able to help for support, but also, as has been mentioned previously, I think that there are some charitable grants that may be available that will be helping them and supporting them in terms of looking for that. I should say that some people do get the amount of the funeral benefit payment and are still unable to pay for it and are able to forward. We do see cases where people are having to, for example, put it on a credit card that has zero interest going to high cost credit, which are not things that we would want to be seeing. When I was looking at the cases, some example of someone going into food poverty and one of the factors was that they had had to pay for a family funeral and it meant that they did not have money to eat. I just want to remind the committee that we are focusing on the guidelines today, but we are doing our inquiry into work poverty, which might be something that we can add in to, given the evidence that we have seen in funeral poverty today. Do you see any way to start them in regard to Glasgow or other local authorities? If someone comes to you who wants an internment and they are financially struggling, do you have any way of… Do you offer the payment upfront or do you offer the funeral director for the payment upfront or is there any way that that can be paid over a period of time? To be fair, we do not often get that approach. As I mentioned in my opening, we really are at the end of the process and very rarely we know the full circumstances of our customer, if you like. Being aware of those circumstances, it is very rarely we come to the bereavement services of the council at any point that we probably take in. So, it is advice social work, other departments first. I suppose that the key is the communication that is between the various departments that assist people in making sure that that awareness comes down that we then can consider what we can do. I have not offered that, not been required to offer that, not been requested of me in my years with Glasgow City Council or previously in my other authorities. However, it is something that maybe folk do not know they can do, that is why it is not my approach. I can see it in all honesty that I have not had that approach since my time with Glasgow City Council. Cognisant of what you just said about being focused on, it was just to ask whether the experience with Sinservice Scotland in terms of the involvement of credit unions in provision, but perhaps that is not on topics, so I am happy to come back to that future date. I do not know whether you want to respond to that. I think that part of the advice process will be talking to people about where they might want to go for money, and a local credit union could be an option. I think that when people are thinking about planning their funerals, part of that conversation could be a saving product with a credit union. Miss Transon? Good morning. Written evidence suggested that, in 2014-15, 6,300 people in Scotland made applications to the DWP social fund for a funeral payment, and only 4,300 of those received an award. That was 2,000 refused rewards, which is a lot. We are looking at a third, and you can only imagine the stress that it would have caused at that particular time. What do you think the Scottish Government can do to ensure that the process is better? You were speaking earlier about using plain English and making sure that the language is understandable. Do you think that that is part of the issue? How can we best help people to understand what they are entitled to and make sure that it is streamlined and efficient and that people are not being disappointed at a really stressful time anyway? We did a survey last year as part of our money matters project, and I know that we are not talking about debts and things just now, but the figures that we had were only 61 per cent of the applications for DWP funeral expenses. People were successful, so that would endorse what you were saying. We have got over 1,000 older people's groups across Scotland, so that was part of the demographics, probably at least 60 plus. We would be the group of people that are most liable to be, not uniquely, but most liable to be affected. It was very unclear what people were going to qualify for, so they obviously thought that they were going to qualify, but only 61 per cent were successful. Clarity in the criteria that we would recommend is important, but also around affordability. I know that we are not touching on that too much today, but in that same study, only 35 per cent of people had thought about making provision for funeral costs, and only 38 per cent had actually made a will, so all of that is relevant. You heard that comment earlier on from the funeral directors about people being prepared and having preparations and thoughts about that, so that I suppose people are not thinking or talking about end-of-life uncertainty that people do not want to face and a very distressing time. It is about preparing for that, but it is very significant that only 61 per cent of people were successful in their applications. I definitely agree with everything that you have said. I think that what we really see is that it is about people struggling to understand both the criteria and the application process can be very demanding. Particularly when people are very vulnerable and experience grief at the same time, that is very difficult. I think that the fact that the application window has been extended from three to six months, I think that is a positive step. I think that what is really important is communication. When the benefit is communication with individuals and suffering from pain in English, communications with people such as Systems Life Bureau or People Age Scotland will be advising those people and supporting them through the process. Just think about the case that I have got here. Someone who was refused a funeral payment for her partner's funeral and she had borrowed money from her family and expected that she would be able to pay this back. She put in a very difficult decision and an adviser was trying to support her to contact the Department for Work and Pensions. They were kept waiting for a long time. They were transferred between distant departments. What she said was that she felt that she was being given the run-around by this agency and that she felt that they should have been trying to help her while she was going through the grieving process. I think that there is something about the application process, but it is about treating people with dignity and respect. We would have similar case studies. We had a situation to our helpline. Fortunately, the person was aware of it, and they called. An individual had taken responsibility for his sister-in-law's funeral and was told that he should not have done that when he made the application process because there was another member of the family who, in the hierarchy, was not in benefits. As it turned out, our adviser spoke to them and spoke to the family. The individual suggested that he should take responsibility and qualify for benefits, and we advised on that. However, can you imagine that situation when you have someone in your family who is close to you, who has died, and you are having to scrabble around with the DWP to try to qualify for the benefit? It must be so stressful. If we can take that out of the system, that can only be a good thing. Some of the evidence that raises concerns about the eligibility criteria, particularly for older people, is a panel convinced that the criteria that we have got is right and that we will not end up excluding people who should be eligible for assistance? Is that so? What we have said already about making sure that people are on the benefits that they are entitled to and supporting them with that, and the take-up of benefits? I would endorse that. The case study that I have just highlighted is that this man who was in the situation of not receiving benefits that would have qualified the family, not just him as an individual but would have qualified the family, did not know about it. There is a lack of clarity in eligibility and compounded in a very difficult situation. It is about the clarity. We welcome the fact that the criteria has been broadened, but we need to get that right for people. I will pick up, because one of the things that you raised in your submission was mixed-aged couples. You are obviously very concerned about that one. That is basically the situation. We have touched on this earlier about that someone in a couple is still working on a low wage, so they do not qualify for benefits. We are not touching that too much, but it can remove eligibility and cause great distress. If that was something that the committees would be considering in the future, we were concerned about that, because we have had callers to our helpline. People are working longer, particularly women, and they are on low wages, so that can cause a lot of distress, and it can remove eligibility for the grant. I will come back to something that Ms Wendell said about universal credit. It has been a benefit that should be used as a qualifying benefit, but you talked about the zero ward for universal credit. I am just trying to get my head round that. I understand that it could very well be wrong about people who are self-employed or in zero-hours contracts that sometimes they can have a zero-award, but still be in the universal credit system because the next week or the next month, the earnings could effectively drop to zero. My understanding is that there was a change that was made quite recently, and now it is that if you are in a zero-award, the benefit would close. I am happy to come back and clarify that, if that would be helpful. That would be really helpful, especially to me. Thank you very much. I am looking to my colleagues for any further questions. Thanks very much, convener. One of the strongest criticisms of the current system is that questions can be intrusive where the DWP is trying to establish whether it is reasonable that someone takes on funeral costs, and family estrangement may be one area where it would be difficult for any system to avoid questions that could be considered intrusive. Do you have any thoughts on the Scottish proposals and whether they would avoid intrusive questioning of family relationships, particularly where there is a need to depart from the hierarchy of relationships in cases of family estrangement? I will start by saying that it is positive that estrangement is mentioned as a complicated situation, so it is about recognising it. As I have said, it is about thinking through some of these complex situations whilst the regulations have been developed so that it is very clear both for advisers but also for the people who are making the decisions. I think that having the hierarchy makes it slightly clear and hopefully slightly easier, but I think that it is again remembering that people are in a very difficult situation at the time and trying to make it as easy as possible and treating them with respect. I think that that is absolutely right. If someone is estranged and you are in a situation or a family member or a friend is close to an individual, it could be massively distressing. So thinking that specific through the process would be very important, I would suggest, given the circumstances of the distress that people are in inevitably because they are bereaved. I do not think that it is going to be easy, but I do think that it has to be considered and welcome the fact that it has actually been mentioned. I am just going to ask if there is anything that we have not covered. I know that you sat in on the first session. Is there anything that we have not covered today that you wanted to bring to the committee's attention today, Ms Mendel? I think that I just wanted to start by just saying that we really do welcome that the Scottish Government has committed to upgrading the benefit annually with inflation, the fixed, the capped element of it. I think that that is really important and it is going to ensure that the gap between what the benefit covers and what a funeral cost is not growing. I think that a lot of what we have heard today is about people who cannot afford to pay for a funeral even when they do get the benefit. Those are people with very little money. We see cases where people are selling off a mother's jewellery to pay for a funeral, so those are people in very difficult situations. I would probably want to echo what the early panel said. We would like to see that increased. The figure that John Burrell mentioned was slightly over £1,000, but it is very important that it is being upgraded already, but the point that we are starting at is that, since 2003, the other cost element has not been increased and the cost of funerals in that time has increased significantly. I again would endorse that. I think that it is really important that we consider that, because 2003 to 2018, and you heard described by the funeral directors this morning, the significant changes and the impact of that, so welcome the fact that the Government is considering an inflation increase, but be cognisant of the evidence that you have had this morning. On that, you pointed out to the committee earlier that women are working longer, so we have all been involved in campaigning with the Waspie women, for example. When you said that, it occurred to me that those women who are working, because they are forced to work longer, would not qualify for any benefit, but they might be dealing with a deceased person who has no estate, but they would not qualify for anything. That is why we put the mixed couple example in, because of exactly what you are describing. We are talking about people who qualify for benefits just now, but we are talking about people, and you have heard it alluded to all day this morning, about people in very low incomes and how tragic that can be. I think that it is worth bearing in mind. In view of that, you can argue for an upgrading from £700 to £1,000. I just wondered whether it would be fairer to allow a wider group of people to have some money on the basis of that. If you argued that it should go up to £1,000, it is the same people who have the eligibility that will benefit from that. There are lots of other people who will get nothing from the wasp women, for example. That is a possibility. What we are talking about today is the funeral benefit. However, you are right. The evidence is pulling that out that people in low incomes are often really challenged with that, who do not qualify. There are always lines in any kind of benefit that people will or will not qualify for. I am sure that citizens advice has got lots of people in those circumstances going along on very low incomes and in very distressed circumstances. You are right. Widing the eligibility might be something to think about. We would need to look more at the evidence around that, because we have not done that as much. It is examples of the kind of calls that we get. I am sure that citizens advice would be the same. People in very low incomes do not qualify and women would fall into that criteria. I certainly would be interested in any information that could show. On the face of the eligibility criteria, it looks like people who are working may qualify if they have child tax credit, for example. Maybe older women would not get child tax credit. The balance looks to me that the eligibility criteria is helping those who are mainly on benefits. I wonder if you agree with that. That is what it looks like on the balance. The eligibility criteria tends to exclude low-paid people. You might qualify if you are on child tax credit. I refer to the first panel's discussion on the cost of writer burial and the burial for itself. Can the committee please bear in mind the fact that there are a whole lot of factors that affect those costs? When we celebrate the burial, it is sold for a period of 100 years. We have the duty of care to maintain that for that period of time, including infrastructure and whatever else. There is a fair amount of additional unseen costs attached to the sale of the writer burial. We also need to remind the fact that, over Scotland, there are a variety of geographical social reasons that costs have to vary to accommodate those services. I felt that it was appropriate that I could qualify at this stage to forgive if it is not appropriate. No, that is fine. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your attendance this morning. It certainly gives us a lot to consider going forward in our deliberations. I will suspend momentarily to allow the panels to change over. Welcome back. We now move to agenda item 3 on supporting legislation. The Scottish Government officials have been invited to attend this morning to brief the committee on the Scotland Act 1998 agency arrangement specification order 2018 and answer any questions that we might have. The instrument is subject to a negative procedure here and at Westminster, and we welcome officials Anne McVeith, deputy director of social security policy division and Colin Brown Solicitor, social security director, both from the Scottish Government. I refer members to paper 6 by the clerks. Delegated powers and law reform committee have drawn this instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the ground that the meaning of article 2 could be clearer. I invite Anne McVeith and Colin Brown to explain the purpose of the instrument and the procedure to be followed. The purpose of the instrument is to allow the Scottish Government and the UK Government to enter into agency arrangements as part of the devolution of existing benefits. That links to things that the committee will be familiar with, which are the safe and secure transition of benefits from the UK Government to the Scottish Government, or to be delivered on a devolved basis. As part of that, the Scottish Government and the UK Government will undoubtedly wish to make arrangements where, for transitional periods, benefits remain delivered by the UK Government, and that enables the Government to make those arrangements. That allows the committee to look at that as a proposal and say, yes, we are happy, that should happen. I do not think that anybody has any difficulty with that as a principle. The most immediate need of that will be in relation to carers allowance, because the arrangements for devolution of responsibilities provide that, when the carers allowance supplement is introduced, the Scottish Government becomes responsible for delivery of carers allowance. At that point, the Scottish Government will wish to have an arrangement in place for the UK Government to continue to deliver that for a transitional period until the Scottish version that the committee has seen through the bill is developed and ready to be put in place, and further transition will undoubtedly be arranged between those two. That is what the order is about. Does the committee want me to go on to address the delegated powers committee point now, or do you want to discuss that aspect? Do you think that it would be helpful if you could cover that now? What the delegated powers have picked up is the example of things that sometimes happen in those cases where people put the words on the page and the drafter knows what they mean by them, and because they know what they mean by them, they miss that others who aren't looking at them with that background may think that they could mean something different. The committee has asked if the meaning could be clearer, and frankly it could. It has also said that the Government should consider whether there is a need to amend the order to address that, and the view of the UK Government and the Scottish Government is that it does not actually need to be amended to address that. I should appreciate that those things are drafted in a co-production manner between the UK and Scottish Governments. There are a number of people involved in it. It is about a reference to the end of the period. What the drafter has done is picked up that this is referring to the periods for when executive responsibility of benefits will transfer. In the context of the transitional arrangements regs, which are already in place, there can potentially be four different periods for four types of benefits. We are talking about disability benefits, industrial injury benefits, severe disabling allowance and, most relevantly, carers allowance. What the drafter intended was that arrangements could be made when each of those four came at the end of the period for each of those four. By moving the reference into that order, if you do not approach it with that blinker, you may wonder if it is ambiguous and could it mean something else? It could mean one of two things. It is either the period when first of those benefits becomes a devolved responsibility or it is the period when the last of them becomes. The view of both Governments is that if a person looked at it that way, they would intuitively think that surely it must be the first, because that is when they would need those things. If the person looks at the policy background, it is immediately obvious that that is what this is about, is to make it a feasible arrangement when the first of those things happen. It is difficult to say that this would ever end up in a tribunal or a court to be assessed anyway, but if it did, the other meaning is quite clearly irrational. It does not fit for the policy. It simply makes no sense. Inevitably, whichever of the two it means, both fit what the Governments intend to do. It delivers the policy intention, and therefore there is no necessity to amend it. Is there anything that you want to add? Maybe just briefly, just to go back to the basic purpose of the order. As Colin said, the use of agency agreements is very much part of the incremental approach to transition that we are taking in line with the Audit Scotland recommendation to make sure that people that are already in recetive care allowance continue to receive their benefit week in and week out until the new agency is in a position to take on delivery of that at its own hand. Also, in relation to the care allowance supplement, the use of the agency agreement enables us to actually deliver the supplement earlier than otherwise would have been the case, because we would have had to wait until we were in a position to take on responsibility for care allowance in the round, whereas the use of this agency agreement allows us to deliver the supplement by the end of this summer. Are there any questions from members? What can I thank you both for your attendance? I'll just pause briefly till I get to leave. We now move to agenda item 4, which is consideration of subordinate legislation, and the committee is invited to note the Scotland Act 1998 agency arrangement specification order 2018 to the committee to note that order. Thank you very much. We now move into private session.