 Fynt eu bod الزawrwch cynfaith cymuned. Do yn dweud i ddillredigau cynghraffyddol a Fyntafol Llywyddyn Fyntafol yw Arddangodau Cymraenol, a Fyntafol yr Adagor Ross McHaul. Fynteg wrth ar yfynifedd i ymddol 1 yma i ddysgu'r cyfnod i busnes yma, ond yw'r cyfrifiad nid i ddechrau i ymddol 3 am gyfan y mes Ierrfaith, rwy'n fyddion i ddegwydd gwybod. Rwyf i ddegwydd i ymddol 2. Yr next item is an evidence session on the Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill, SEAC Bill, for short. We have already heard from two panels, and we are evidently taking sessions previously, and we are here today from a further two. This is a member's bill that was introduced by Matt Griffin MSP on 8 June 2023, and it is currently going through its stage 1 process with our committee. The bill will create a Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council to advise Scottish ministers on employment injuries assistance. It is proposed that the council would have three functions—to report on draft regulations for employment injuries assistance, replacing the Scottish Commission on Social Security's role in this area, to report to the Parliament and ministers on any matter relevant to employment injuries assistance, and to carry out commission or support research into any matter relevant to employment injuries assistance. I welcome our first panel this morning, so I welcome Scotland's Associate Director of Employment Relations, Royal College of Nursing, and Linda Somerville, Deputy General Secretary, Scottish Trade Union's Congress, who are joining us in person this morning. Good morning to you both. Also, a very good morning to three witnesses who are joining us online. I thank Mike Corbett, National Officer, NASUWT, Lorna Glenn, Scotland Regional Officer, Unite the Union, Scotland, and John MacKenzie, Regional Secretary of Scotland, the FBU for all. I also join those to help us with the scrutiny this morning, so good morning to you also. A few points just in terms of proceedings this morning. Please wait until I or a member asking the question said your name before you come in and make a contribution. That's for witnesses. Don't feel you have to answer every single question that's asked. If you have nothing additional to add because it's been said by others that there's no requirement to do so. We're not going to dissuade from speaking, because with five witnesses it's just a time constraint matter. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn on your microphone before you do start speaking. For witnesses online, if you wish to come in to answer a question because you put an R on the chat box in Zoom and the clerking staff will make sure that I'm made aware of that to give you the opportunity to come in. I can ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible. That includes myself, I should note. We will now go to our first theme in relation to membership of a possible CEAC committee. I'll just open. Does the bill give CEAC the right balance of scientific expertise and other interests to sit on the committee? Let's go with witnesses online in the first instance perhaps, because the default is to go to the people in the room. Can we perhaps go to Mike in the first instance? From our point of view, it's absolutely essential that workers are at the heart of this for too long. Our feeling is that their voices have been ignored in this sphere, and in particular there's been a lack of research under the existing system into women's health and safety, which means that many female-dominated jobs and sectors seem to get ignored by the existing benefits. The notion that workers are to be at the heart of this, we would say, is absolutely essential to workers and their representatives. Alongside that, yes, obviously you do need health professionals and others to be a part of it. From our point of view, current balance looks right, and the most important fact is that workers are at the heart of the new employment industry advisory council. Thank you to any other witnesses online who wish to add to that. I don't see anyone taking it on. Norman Rylinda, do you want to come in? Do you think that the balance is about right? I'll maybe just add that we've heard last week that there was perhaps a gap in terms of those involved in occupational health across all workplaces in Scotland. There was perhaps a bit of a weakness in relation to good-quality data collection to be used for analysis. There was certainly a bit there. I think that we got last week for occupational health to have a have a role. Norman, could I perhaps take you in at this point? Yes, I don't have any comment to make about the occupational health element of it, but certainly in terms of the makeup of the committee, having an equal number of employer reps via trade unions as equal numbers with employers would be helpful. I think that trade unions are in a unique position with the experience of supporting workers who have been injured at work that that would be crucial to the committee. I think that it's really important that we have employers there, but also the main thing about having trade unions there is that they can actually speak to workers' experiences. I know through our experience with dealing with the Scottish Government and lots of politicians, particularly closely during the pandemic, that that was really, really important in helping shaping Government's thinking and a lot of the engagement that we had where we heard directly from our affiliates our trade unions what was going on in the ground in a way that Government or others couldn't have and that advice was taken into guidance. So it's a really good example of saying why it's really important that trade unions who have first-hand knowledge of what's happening on the ground can help to shape the policy and make the decisions. Okay, thank you and I'll move to Katie Clark now for some more further questioning. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Sorry, I think there are slight problems there technically. My question is for Linda and it is about the composition of the body because in the STC submission the suggestion was that it should be 50% of the body that's trade union representatives. I appreciate that different unions operate in different sectors so we'll have knowledge of different occupations but could you maybe explain why you think 50% is the right kind of level and maybe say a bit more about what you think the composition of the body should be overall given that we understand the UK body is very dominated by people from a scientific and academic background? We're looking to say that you know, whilst absolutely Katie is right, there's a role that there needs to be expert advice but we would argue that that expert advice does come from the workplace where people have got decades of experience and understanding of what the occupational risks are, what the factors are, what happens in the workplace and that's why we would argue for that in terms of how that composition is made up amongst our unions and that's for another discussion obviously but you know because we represent all sectors and all unions across Scotland then we would look to try and make sure that that's as equitable as it is in a representation the same way as it is for everything else that we do. Any follow-up questions from that Katie? No, I understand, I think that there is quite a wide issue there about composition of the board but I fully understand the points that Lynda is making. Okay, thank you. We'll move to Midi McNeill now. Thank you, Gideon Ergymorring panel. I want to kind of cover the issue of timing in relation to the UK industrial injuries policy and general things as you know have moved quite slowly. We've been told just recently that we're inheriting a warehouse full of paper files and legislation that left unreformed for a number of years. To guide us really how we can bring quicker change into Scotland, can any of the witnesses comment on the reasons for such little progress? Is that down to expertise or just a lack of will in terms of reforming it? I'll pop it out to Lynda first, if that's okay. I mean, I'd certainly not been a lack of will from our campaigning for things to be reformed. I mean, excuse me, it's really again at something to do with those that have a responsibility. There's obviously an issue here that's quite complex about devolution and about moving both the benefit and then the responsibility for it to Scotland when it's so intrinsically linked to other things. I know from a previous role trying to work on student support and improving student support through the Scottish Parliament, through the Scottish Government, that we hit all kinds of problems while trying to deal with the DWP, because whilst it was a priority for Scotland for this to happen, it wasn't a priority for them. So I think that some of the, looking to the future of when we move to do this, I think that some of the complexities are around the resourcing, I think particularly around the DWP and what they've wanted on to do. I mean, when we look at the system as it is just now, you've got a predominantly paper-based system for a variety of historical reasons, you've got a system that is overly complex and you've got a system which, although there is a decline in those that are now coming on as new claimants, that just goes to show that work isn't any safer at the moment. You know, people are not any safer at work. What that shows is that the system itself has been frozen in time, whilst workplaces and work has evolved around it, the system has just been absolutely frozen. We definitely do need an electronic digitalised system that's fit for purpose. Yeah, it's absolutely antiquated, isn't it? Back in the 20s, I think it's the late 20s. Norma, do you want to come in on that? Yeah, certainly, you're inheriting a system that is slow, there's no question about that. In terms of the people who handle the individual cases in our organisation, we hear that it's not responsive. In many cases, there is a lack of medical examiners, for example, to provide expert information about individual cases. Aside from that, the committee process itself appears to be quite slow. A year ago, the UK committee made a recommendation about four particular illnesses related to Covid and, to date, the UK Government haven't acted on that information. We wrote to DWP about that last week. Our view of setting up the committee in advance of the Scottish Government taking responsibility for the benefit will give you guys the opportunity to not only do this but to do it well by reforming the way that it's done and not having such a clonky, slow, unresponsive system. Indicative late to come in time to that show. Mikey, are you going to come in? Yeah, sorry. Just on that point about speed, that's one of the reasons that we think is vitally important for workers to be central to this because I don't know how many thousands of women over the years had spent hundreds of hours trying to convince their own GPs that endobetsiosis, for example, was a real thing. We believe that that knowledge that workers bring about their conditions would help to speed things up. The involvement of trade unions, typically, I think that we are all pretty good at holding the feet to the fire of those in power, so that would probably help as well in terms of helping to speed things up from what is absolutely, at the moment, what seems to be a very slow and archaic system. John McKenzie, I think that Mary's indicated. Good morning, John. Good morning all, thank you. Just to very briefly follow-up in the comments I've already been made in relation to this question. I think it really accurately sums up some of the concerns that our own union has raised in regard to the submission that has come in, not concerns in relation to the bill itself and concerns in relation to what needs to be done in replacing when the benefit is devolved and addressing our body overseeing that appropriately. Not only in terms of the makeup of the body, and we've already touched on having adequate trade union representation within it, but also making sure that it's fit for purpose in regard to current work injuries and diseases, and it's reflective of that. I'm sure we'll get on to that later in the evidence session, but currently what we have is a benefit that's significantly outdated, so it isn't just a case of making sure that the benefit is devolved. It's the Scottish Government that's making sure that when it is devolved, we have something that's more appropriate and in place for workers in the modern workplace, both reflective in terms of the gender balance of recipients of that benefit, but also in making sure that it covers a whole range of new injuries and illnesses that recent research shows is now a transplant in the workplace. Thank you. Thank you. Given what I've described of its complexity to all of it, it's certainly a sorry state of affair in terms of moving forward, but really what we're looking for is a safe and secure transfer that's going to the arguments that we've had. Do you think that that approach taken at all to the time scale required for the introduction of the Scottish Council? I'll pop it back to yourself, John. I think that this is one of the really important points from our union's view is why implementing SEAC now is so important. I think it isn't a case of cart before the horse, I think it's quite the opposite. Having SEAC in place in order to inform that the benefits properly devolved and that we end up with a benefit that's fit for purpose in the modern day is essential, I think SEAC can play a really important role in that. I know this is going to be a key part of the evidence session and it obviously has been in previous sessions before, but from our member's view, from our union's view, we see a real role for SEAC in that development of that bill, and I think there's an important role for both trade unions and the wider council itself to play within that. Anyone else want to come on that? Okay, I'll just move on to my final question. I noted from the written joint submission on the basis support groups that they're saying that the consultation on EIA should take place alongside that of the Scottish Council. Do witnesses see merit in that suggestion? I'll pop it back in the room, Norman. Do you want to come in on that? I don't particularly have anything to say on that issue. Okay, I'm just wondering on that point, obviously the argument could be made and I think Mr Mason will pick up on this later on in the evidence session, that this quite rightly is creating expectations from workers and trade unions across Scotland, that the list of conditions that will lead to receiving the relevant benefit will potentially significantly increase, and the number of claimants will potentially significantly increase. There's a reality and I make no judgment in relation to it that affordability might be part of that mix. Does anyone have any comments to make on affordability at all, Norman Provan? Yes, certainly. A real example of that, for example, would be long Covid, particularly after the Covid pandemic, the number of nurses who have contracted Covid, occupationally contracted Covid at work, and now have long Covid. At this moment in time we have people who are now losing their jobs because of that, because they're not fit to work. At this moment in time, the Royal College of Nursing has lodged a number of personal injury cases on behalf of those individuals, so the issue of cost, if it's done through a proper benefit scheme that's administered properly, then it does reduce the risk of individual employers having a number of personal injury cases. We have somewhere in the region of 20 that are currently assisted waiting for the emerging information about long Covid, but it would be better for people to be recompensed for the harm that's been done to them through a benefit that lasts for lifetime than employers and trade unions wasting time and court spending money through a litigation process that would be entirely unnecessary if people who have been harmed at their work could get a benefit to compensate them for that. The affordability thing doesn't just lie with what it will cost for people to access the benefit, it lies with the costs that might be incurred if you don't apply the benefit fairly to people. Push on that, because that's important to put on the record, and John Mackenzie wants to come in also. Yes, thank you. I won't repeat what Norman Slavsley made, the point that I was going to make, and I won't repeat that, but what I would say is that I think, while the point of affordability is absolutely relevant, and I think that Norman's covered really well some of the current risk that is within that rather than just being affordability through payments made through the benefit, I think a really important point for us to ask ourselves as well is, do we think the benefit in its current form, as it currently is administrated, adequately addresses the ask of why it was originally set up? Do we think it is a realistic reflection where around 7% of claimants are female? Do we think that adequately reflects current injuries, illness and disease in the workplace, or do we think it doesn't? If it doesn't, the matter of affordability has to come secondary to whether the benefit itself is suitable and addresses the purpose of why it was there. So an important point, I won't repeat the goal or repeat Norman's point, but I think that's a key area to focus on as well. Please, I did nudge because I've now inspired Mike Corbett to come in and add to that also, Mike. Could you give me your comments, please? Yes, just to partly build on what John is saying there, the current benefit is unequal and discriminatory. The figures that I've got here suggest that in the 10 years up to December 2019, only 13.5% of all new claims were made by women. If you want to embed inequality in the future, then let's talk about how much it's going to cost or not. The Scottish Government's own programme for government recently suggested strong and inclusive communities defined by equality and good opportunities are where the people of Scotland thrive. Communities work best when they work together to improve social justice, reduce inequality and tackle poverty. That focus on equality is vital. Perhaps that costs some money, but that's a good investment. Finally, the way that we would see the new Employment Injury Advisory Council working would be that, in future, with that involvement and workers, we might manage a lot of preventative work in the future. If you take something like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, if workers themselves have been involved in an Employment Injury Advisory Council long before now, what was happening to them could have been identified earlier, preventative action could have been taken earlier and that saves money in the long term. It's a bit simplistic to say that there might be more things that are put on the list and that it's going to cost more and therefore we can't do it. I think that's a bit too narrow a view to take. Thanks for making that comment. I hope that you'll appreciate it. It's our job to scrutinise all aspects of the bill so that we make no judgment on any of that. We need to ask the questions to come to an informed decision as a committee, so that's helpful to the committee. Hi, thanks, convener. I'm just really echoing what my trade union colleagues have already said. John had mentioned a 7 per cent. I know that Mike Cewd said 13.5 per cent. Our figure, as well, is also 7 per cent. I think that there is a lot around that, reducing inequality and the tackling of poverty, as well, because if it means that women aren't coming forward, if it means that they're effectively getting long codes at their work and then they're possibly going to be taking down their capability route and it means that that's going to lead to poverty and inequality. Although I'm an officer within Unite Scotland, I'm also the regional women and equality officer, so this is certainly a matter close to my heart. The submission so far has been excellent. I've not got a lot to say, but I just wanted to come in and echo that and just say it really strongly. Thank you for letting me come in. Lornaw, that's finished your point at the house. We're obviously trying to avoid some duplication. It's important that you need to put something on the official record today. You should absolutely come in and just do that, which is what you've done there. Thank you for that. What will we move on now? Can we go to Katie Clark? My question picks up on some of the evidence that we've already heard, because we know that the UK body is already looking a lot of these issues. For example, Covid has been mentioned by Norman more than once in long Covid. There's obviously significant issues around about cancer and other conditions relating to firefighters and the occupational women's health issue has been very strongly made in this session. One of the concerns is that if it is a scientific body and it's very much a committee and a body that's made up of academics, that it would simply be duplicating work that's carried out currently by ILAC, that it wouldn't have different outcomes. What we're trying to understand is what the added value of this new body might be if it was considering the same issues. Is it the case from what you've said already that you believe there would be different outcomes if the composition of the body was different? Are you suggesting that it wouldn't be purely scientific evidence that would be considered and there would be other evidence? If maybe I go to Linda first, as she says to you, Zee. Helpful to back up that scientific evidence. I'll go back to the pandemic and the work that we did with government during that time. We were in meetings with the Scottish Government from the very start of March around twice a week and that eventually was once a week and then continued for at least 20 months. What we helped to bring them was the evidence, which, although some of it may have been anecdotal, it was evidence that actually allowed them to make better decisions because the decisions whilst they can have science in front of you and absolutely we would defer to the experts on many, many occasions. One of the strengths of this is that you'll be allowed to commission research. That's where a lot of your academic work and your scientific work will come from, is from the research, but to see what that looks like in real life for those that have lived experience can share their stories, tell their stories and we can feed that in. I think that it gives a much more rounded decision making experience for people when they can hear from workers and their representatives around that. Rather than just being looking at science sometimes on policy, as we all know, things on paper can look a certain way but they turn out slightly differently. There are numerous examples that we worked with the Government during Covid where that was the case, where they were thinking about doing a certain thing and we said, well, on the ground we know that actually this is the impact that it's having in workplaces and therefore they took that into account as well as what we were being told both by public health or indeed by scientific information that was around at the time. I don't know if Norman would want to come in because he has spoken about Covid a couple of times and whether he thinks a different composition and a different way of doing it would lead to maybe quicker outcomes or different outcomes. In terms of quicker outcomes and better outcomes, I would certainly hope so. I think trade unions are in a unique position to reflect the lived experience of people who deal with occupational harms in their workplace and that's missing from a committee of people who only look at the scientific evidence around particular conditions. It's been commented by members today in the committee about this being a fairly clunky process at the moment that it doesn't work particularly well, is antiquated in terms of the way that it's recorded and maintained. So, for example, as trade unions, we can bring to the table a working knowledge of when the system doesn't work particularly well. What we know for example just now is that many people submit quite complex medical information about their individual case and get rejected and then when we have an appeal against that we have very high levels of being successful on appeal and often the information that has been submitted the second time round is exactly the same as it was the first time round. So, it suggests that there are some structural issues that I think trade unions could bring to that committee to help iron out those problems. I would guess that in Scotland we would want to do this well. Thank you. Thank you. So, yes, two of our witnesses, I apologize for cutting across. Katie, that wasn't my intention, as she hadn't spotted. Both John Mackenzie might call, but I've asked to make a contribution. Can we call to John first if that's okay? Thank you. So, I just tied together a couple of the points that have already been made and I think it's a really important question. In no way shape or form is this looking to marginalise the scientific role. I think that's absolutely crucial, pivotal part setting up the council. I think it's strengthening it for a couple of reasons. So, Mike touched on earlier, I think he made a really good point in regard to not addressing, not recognising and addressing new and emerging risks within the workplace, both in terms of injury and disease, has the potential to lead to real financial burden both for government and more widely in the workplace beyond that if we don't do that. Now, trade unions have a really key role in flagging up early trends of workplace injury and disease. We see that all the time. I'll make no apologies for it. The Fire Begans Union has been heavily involved in our own de-con campaign, which has been flagging up injury and illnesses in firefighters and the likelihood of cancers, contributing cancers, strokes, blood-related illnesses as a result of firefighters' work. That's been evidence that we've seen first-hand, or maybe not evidence but certainly first-hand experience of our members for a number of decades now, but it's taken a long period of time to ultimately be able to produce the data and the scientific evidence that's needed to progress it to the level that it has over the case of the last 18 months. Now, it's only through the Fire Begans Union working in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire that it's produced that data, and then it gets us to a place where there is the data available for us to be a scientific contribution on that. Trade unions have an absolutely unique role in engaging with working people within their workplace. We've got a unique role in both identifying when there are trends when people are becoming ill through their work or maybe becoming ill through their work, and then being able to provide access, a scientific access, for those members of workplace in large numbers so that this suitable research can be done. I think that partnership role is something that we're seeing probably lacking a wee bit in the current benefit prior to it being devolved. I think it's absolutely an opportunity for it to be addressed when the benefit is devolved to the Scottish Government again. I'll just finish on the point. That's why, from our perspective, from the Fire Begans Union perspective, we think it's so important that SEAC is set up in advance of the benefit being devolved, because I think there's a key role for the members of SEAC or the future members of SEAC to play in making sure that that benefit is devolved most effectively to deliver the original intent of why it was set up in the first place, which is ultimately to address workers who have suffered injury and disease through their work. Mike Horwbett. Thanks, convener. A couple of points. The first one, in terms of the idea, could decisions be different? Well, yes, they could be different, but let's face it, that's for us anyway, that's no bad thing given some of the decisions or lack of decisions that have been made by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. That's not just us thinking that. There was a University of Stirling report, and this was many years ago, 2015, I think, that at that stage, the report's co-author, Professor Rodio O'Neill, said that the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council approach hovers between incompetent and Rome. The Government-prescribed disease scheme might just be capable of supporting a catastrophe, but there's nothing to recognise, compensate, or avert tens of thousands of personal, preventable and frequently fatal human tragedies. So, there are things that that existing body does that we think it doesn't do very well, so decisions could be different. However, that doesn't mean that we're dismissing all the scientific evidence, etc. If you look at what's going on right now in terms of Covid inquiries, we've got a UK Covid inquiry and we've got a Scotland Covid inquiry, and all of you round the table in ourselves and employers and workers across Scotland have an interest and an input to both of those, but they have a memorandum of understanding that they've developed to try and work together to avoid duplication. So, to our minds, something of that nature, if it can work for the Covid inquiries, as it seems to be at the moment, we can apply that in the case of two advisory councils trying to work together. Thanks. Katie, do you want to come back in on any of that? Okay, we'll come to you next anyway, Paul, because if you've got a supplementary, you can do that just nicer. Passing to you for now? Yeah, thank you. I think off the back of that discussion in terms of current interaction with IAC at the moment, where trade unions have made requests for research or looking at certain conditions. What has that interaction been like in terms of IAC? Has there been a pushback? There's maybe too strong a word, but perhaps a lack of interaction in terms of looking at those issues and trying to move them forward? Sorry, I don't know who might want to answer. Norman, you were kind of nodding there. Yeah, I'm happy to come in on that. I go back to the example that I gave previously. IAC in the UK Committee made a decision around four conditions related to Covid a year ago that have not been acted on, and we, along with the BMA, wrote to the DWP about that last week. So, the example that I gave about personal injury claims that are now being pursued through the courts wouldn't have been necessary if people had a confidence that the benefit was going to be applied properly to their set of circumstances. At a time when people stood in doorsteps, clapping hands and banging pots about front-line workers working through Covid, to have those people injured at their work and not be compensated for that feels completely unacceptable. So, certainly our experience is that the response has been clunky and slow, and we would certainly hope that in Scotland we could do that better. No need for anyone else to come in, but just the opportunity to do so, if you wish. Paul, do you think that the next line of questioning anyway will pass back to yourself? Thank you very much, convener. I think that it really follows in this vein around that kind of what value would be added by SIAC and by having this Scottish body. I know, for example, when any SWT had commented on how long it takes for recommendations to be made by IAC, and I think that we've had some of that engagement there in terms of my first question. So, I wonder if we can maybe explore just how could SIAC work faster and quicker to get to those sort of decisions that will make an impact for people. I don't know if Mike wants to come in just because it was any SWT who had commented on the length of time that's taken at the moment. Yeah, I mean, I would think of repeating what I said earlier, but repeating what I said earlier. I mean, we do think that the involvement of workers is key in pushing to get quicker and more accurate decisions. The involvement of trade unions, we believe, often helps in pushing to get quicker and more accurate decisions. But also, I suppose, the one thing I would add is that notion of things often being better and being responded to more quickly locally, so our feeling would be, well, look, if you're looking at Scotland and you've got a smaller scale of things to look at, then potentially that helps to speed things up as well. Do you have any comments on that? I would suggest in terms of doing it better in Scotland, one of the issues about looking at scientific evidence is always about retrospectively looking at what's happened as opposed to horizon scanning for what might happen. And it does seem to me that having trade union involvement, where they see the types of cases that are coming through in real time, would be useful and perhaps it would be up to the Scottish Government for how it commissioned the committee to work, but they could perhaps, for example, look at pre-empting issues rather than just responding to things that have created harm. I think that that is an interesting point, because obviously one of the issues that's flagged is that sense of perhaps duplication or concerns around how duplication might occur. I wonder if panellists have any views on how they might foresee those organisations interacting, I suppose, and collaborating. I think that that's possibly a good example about preemption, but I would guess that I would need some form of engagement between AIAC and CIAC. Can anyone also foresee a way to avoid duplication in terms of how we set those things up, essentially? I'm deliberately leaving the pause to see if we get a volunteer. I mean, I appreciate it's quite a broad question, but I think it's just the principle of, you know, following from what Normans said. The one thing that I would add, of course, is that AIAC can't give advice directly to the Scottish Government, so if you're going to be responsible for the benefit in Scotland, it would make sense to have a body that can advise you directly. Can I just clarify, Normand Proven? That's because they're not allowed to give advice to Scottish Government. It's not that they can't give advice, because I think we heard evidence, I think in last week's evidence session, that some of the experts that would be quite keen to perhaps sit on AIAC might already sit on AIAC and our committees asked for information whether there'd be a bar for them to be able to sit on both. Is that your understanding as well, Mr Proven? In terms of the Scotland act, AIAC provides advice to the UK process and not the Scottish process. If there was, I don't know what the rules would be about people sitting on both. I genuinely don't know the answer to that question. The point I'm making is that I would expect the Scottish Government to have a process in place where they can be advised. That's our understanding as well, is it, at the moment, that AIAC has absolutely no role to provide advice to Scottish Government and ministers at all. We would definitely need a new body, and it's really about how that new body is formed and when that body would be formed in order to give that advice. I think that also looking at this now gives us the opportunity to do something well. Everyone can point, both industrially and across the occupational health and safety, to the failings that there are, and some of the concerns, in particular around time, that things take to the current system. That gives us an opportunity to improve the system and make sure that it's fit for purpose. We recognise as well the complexities that there are around devolution, because some of the areas that the bill is inextricably linked to are still reserved matters, for example, employment, law and occupational health and safety. The SDUC and its affiliates have continually supported calls for employment law to be devolved to the Parliament. Longer term, that is something that may also support the swift or the easier movement of some of those processes along, but in the meantime, we recognise that we need to see whether that is a complex area. We do need a body here that would have those powers that can actually advise ministers. Can I just mop up a couple of aspects of that? A proactive approach to health and safety at work is clearly desirable for everyone. Workers and trade unions on the ground see in real time exactly what is happening and have got that lived experience. Where should CIEAC identify gaps in employment law, gaps in health and safety legislation, whilst employment law is not devolved to Scotland, while health and safety legislation is not devolved to Scotland? Should they have the power to make recommendations to the UK Government where the powers do currently sit, is that something that you would like to see? You have put a record under someone who would like this to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but in lieu of that, in the meantime, should any new body be making direct recommendations to the UK Government also? We imagine that it would be helpful, because if this body that we are envisaging is actually going to be more efficient, cannot be a better decision making, then surely any recommendations that they have, we would want them to share back to the UK and to make those recommendations in the way that other organisations do in Scotland. Indeed, Scottish Government and Parliament itself sometimes feed into UK things, but whether they take that advice and whether they can enact on it is different, but we would certainly support that. It also falls into Scottish Government thinking about one of its big priorities around fair work and what does fair work look like in Scotland. We are looking at an inherently unequal and inaccessible system where you have a purely disproportionate impact on women, where it is all gendered in terms of both the lens that it has seen through, the industrial injuries that it covers and the processes that are accessible over there for women. We really need to think about how we modernise that and change it, so if the Government wants something that really matches its ambition to be a fair work nation, then we would want that to be as expansive as possible. One final question for me before we pass to my colleague John Mason for the final line of questioning. The health and safety executives came up a few times during evidence sessions. Last week it was described as the policeman in relation to work health and safety, and there was almost a debate around how effective it is or is not, or how visible they are in workplace making sure that the health and safety is upheld. Is there a role for the health and safety executives to be working with CAC? Should CAC be brought into creation? Is there more of the health and safety executives to be doing anyway? I ask my colleagues to follow up on this, because I think that it is an important point, but what we have submitted as part of our evidence also to the Covid inquiry is about our lack of faith sometimes in the health and safety executive at a time when it was much needed in Scottish workplaces and to be advising because of a number of factors, including not only the underfunding of the health and safety executive, but the role that it should have had in terms of enforcement and being able there to protect workers did not happen at a time when we needed it most. However, how we would interact with the going forward is something that we have not got any thoughts on at the moment. Before I move on, are there any additional, there is no need for additional comments in that area, but any other witnesses want to make a comment in relation to this? Yes, just very briefly to follow up, and I know that it is not the main purpose of the evidence session, but I think that it fits in very briefly to follow up on Linda's point. Certainly our own trade union has significant concerns in regard to the defunding of the health and safety executive over recent years, the last decade particularly, and the impact of that, the impact that that has had on its own role without getting into the specifics of some of the issues our trade unions had. We have just recently, over the last 18 months, seen complaints by the union that has raised by the HSE take over 18 months for them to investigate and report back, and even then, the way they have done so, we are not satisfied with in terms of the evidence and the way they have gone about that. That is very much rather than any individual thing, that is very much in regard to, from our perspective, funding and in regard to the resources that the HSE have in comparison to what we might have 15 or 20 years ago. So I think that yes, there absolutely is a role for the HSE, I think that it can work alongside any SEAC that is established, but I think that there is also that in many ways, I think that it also underlines the need for SEAC to be set up as well, or certainly a similar body, because there are failings that we are seeing across some of the other organisations that would be picking up some of the work that would be covered there. Thank you very much now. I had said I was going to go to John Mason for the final line of questioning, but I know Katie Clark wants to come in. Not quite a related point, but I think it makes sense to take in at this point, Katie. Sorry, yes. Just listening to what is being said, the bill suggests a council of 12. Do you think that that is the right size of a council? I do not know if anybody has got a view on that or has given that any thought. It might be something the SQC might have given some thought to, given that they have made a submission about the number of trade union representatives. I mean, we really just looked at the proportions rather than the membership at that stage, Katie. We would certainly be open to discussion about it at a future stage, but I mean, optimum numbers for committees and decision-making is of a great debate, so we do not really have a view on the size at that stage. I know Jordan McKenzie wants to come in, Katie, without ignoring that as well. We are just very briefly, very briefly on that point. I am not going to pretend for a second that we are subject matter experts in terms of the numbers that will be up for the committee, but I would echo Linda's point in regard to having greater trade union representation. What I would say is that that just further supports the point that we have introduced in the SEAC prior to the benefit being devolved. If we are being honest, there is going to be a wee bit of lived experience in regard to seeing what is suitable in terms of the number of individuals represented within that. Far better to do that by setting up the SEAC prior to the benefit being devolved, having an active role in how that benefit is devolved and how it is set up, and finding its own feet, rather than retrospectively setting it up once it is done so, and then still having some of that early learning work ahead of it. No comment particularly about the size of the committee. The issue is about the composition of the committee, rather than the size, not the number of people in the room, but having the right balance of people in the room with the right experience and the ability to have workers' voices heard would be really important. Mike Horvath? It is less about the numbers. I would not disagree with what my colleagues have said there. It was just briefly a touch on the role of the health and safety executive, and certainly in schools the approach to check on whether or not mitigations were in place was often to phone up some headteachers and say that our mitigations in place would be told yes. I think that example demonstrates that the HSE often cannot be trusted to do its job properly. If the HSE and the current IAC have flaws, as we think they do, that again reinforces the need for the CAC, we think. Okay. Thank you, Mr Corbett. Katie, do you want to follow up on any of that? Nope. Okay. John Mason? Thanks, convener. I think that it is my role to ask about finance. If I can start with yourself, Mr Proven, you are very enthusiastic about the IT and the whole system being run less on paper and more on IT. The set-up costs for IT and the website are only £50,000, which seems quite low, given that we know that IT can be very expensive. Do you have any thoughts on that? I do not know where the figure came from, John, in terms of assessing how much it would take to set up digitally the logic, however, suggest that doing anything that was a paper-based system in this day and age would seem odd. You had inherited a system that you had no impact over how it would look, but certainly I would suggest that having some paper-based system in this day and age would be an odd decision. I do not know what the cost would be for setting it up, but I certainly think that a digital way forward would be the correct one to know. We can ask future panels unless anyone particularly wants to come in on that point. Another figure is—a number of you in your submissions have talked about research and the importance of research—yet it is only £30,000 that is down for research on an annual basis. I do not know, Ms Somerville, if you feel that is enough. Probably not. No, especially if we are going to look to have expert opinion in that sense from research, because often getting academic research does not come cheap quite rightly, because that is something that we would need quite a lot of investment. On the IT point, I think that looking at complex systems and how you begin to do this, setting up a website is one thing, but moving things from paper-based into electronic is also complicated, but there is a huge amount of experience out there that can be bought and that we can get advice about. I am actually a former IT worker and have digitalised lots of different systems in the past working in the finance sector, so we are talking about—there is experience to do that both within Government and elsewhere. It does not have to be the most costly of approach. The system itself, when you look at the cost-based and baked into a new system, the system is not about the data or digitalising the data. The cost comes in about functionality. If you want an incredibly complex system that has lots of functionality, then that is where the cost goes into the build of the system and the testing of the system, but that is not the kind of system that we are talking about here. The rules for it can be applied fairly easily. There is not a lot of functionality in the system, and the data warehouse that would need to be built around that is a one-off cost that can be—that is not insignificant—is not the big cost of the IT system. The other issue with finance is the actual cost of the benefits going forward. I can come to you, Ms Glyn. A number of witnesses have suggested that there would be more people entitled to benefits going forward. I do not know if you have done any work on what that might cost. No, I would not say so, John. Finance is not my area of expertise. I just think that it is an absolute reasonable conclusion to draw the fact that only 7 per cent of claims that come forward are from women. I know that it certainly will not represent the members of our BEM communities either. I know that that has not really been mentioned in the sessions so much, so it would only be a reasonable conclusion to draw that. It is going to open up for more people to come forward than, obviously, rightly so, as far as we are concerned. Mr MacKenzie, you have also talked about this, that there are more, especially with firefighters, people that might be entitled to benefits. Have you any thoughts about what that might cost? In terms of having an exact calculation, John, I know, but I think that the principal point that I would see is absolutely the important point in this is that these costs are not going away. What we have seen within our workplace, being really honest, is that we have seen a range of different responses from fire and rescue services in the scientific evidence that the FBU has helped to produce over the last couple of years in terms of either engaging really well, in some cases, thankfully not in Scotland, completely the opposite. But firefighters are not becoming less ill because we are not paying them for benefit. If they are, and our evidence suggests that they absolutely are becoming ill as a result of their work, there is going to be a significant cost to that at some point in the future. We have to ask ourselves, do we want to address that now, and that also, and we have also seen as well. One of the things that comes about through having a role or body such as this, driving forward legislation, driving forward how benefits are allocated, is that it actually has an impact on employers. All too often we have seen that employers are driven, sadly in many cases, through potential costs in the future. All the money that we want to be is we want to stop people becoming ill in their workplaces, we want to stop people becoming ill or hurt in their workplaces. That is where there is real savings in the longer term, and it is also to the benefit of individuals themselves. But there is a number of pressures that we need to create in order to do that. We have seen that for many, many, many decades now in the workplace. It is reactive, rather than visionary, all too often in terms of employers addressing these issues. That is why I think it is really important that the benefit accurately reflects how people are currently becoming injured or ill within their workplaces. Even if I am looking at it from a cost-saving point of view, that is by far the most effective way in the longer term, rather than addressing it now. I think that inevitably, if we have more workers becoming eligible for benefits, there will be an initial additional cost. Yes, I do not think that any of us could dispute that, but in the longer term, I think that that is absolutely going to save money in the long term. I take your point about preventative, so that could save money both for employers and the state and so on. If the scenario was that the council could only do preventative work and only give advice and only do research, but the total amount of benefits were staying the same, which I believe is about £78 million, would it still be worth going ahead if the total amount of benefits were staying static? Yes, absolutely, because I think that one of the problems that we are seeing just now through the current structures are there is that a lot of research is not being discussed or it takes an incredibly long time for a lot of research to end up being discussed. Ultimately, that is ultimately producing a greater cost pressure in the future. In terms of the finances and the specifics in regard to how the benefit is devolved, there are obviously better witnesses in regard to being able to answer those specific questions. Primarily, from our member's point of view and certainly from our union's point of view, getting that evidence in front of politicians, getting that evidence in front of decision makers is a key role for driving change and pursuing driving change in the long term. We are going to be making better use of public finances because we are not going to be addressing issues rather than just being reactive to them. Can I move to Mr Corbett? You are arguing that more women would be due benefits and more teachers. Assuming that the 78 million total benefit stays the same, could it be reallocated better? First of all, we do not know what the level of numbers would be in terms of the increased access to benefit, but I would touch on a couple of points that I made earlier. First of all, I do not think that we should be embedding inequality. That is not part of the Scottish Government's programme for work and the fair work agenda. As John has been saying, we think undoubtedly that the way that we are suggesting the new council should be set up is that there would be that preventative work and that would have, if you like, a cost benefit in the future. However, what that means in the interim is difficult to say, but I think that I would be very disappointed if we were simply putting a cap on the money and saying that there is only a certain amount that can be spent because if we do that, I think that automatically we are embedding the failures of the UK council and its approach. I would hope that the Scottish Government would be much more progressive than that. Where would you suggest that extra money should come from for the Scottish Government? Would it take off teacher salaries? I would not want to do that. I think that that amount of money, although in itself it sounds significant, would be able to tell me perhaps what percentage of the overall Scottish Government budget that is. I do not think that it is huge. We have seen in the past that suddenly, when you talk about salaries that we have been told in the past, there is no money available and suddenly there is some money available and it was not taken off someone else's budget. I do not have a simple answer for you, but equally I would not want this to put in my mind an artificial cap on things because I think that that would just embed some of the problems that we have already got. When we look at the finances, it is quite rightly that the committee wants to examine this in detail and say that between us we probably do not have these calculations, but I think that if we want to first of all just bear in mind that the legislation that we are looking at and the processes that we are looking at is rightly the committee examine it, but this benefit is around compensating workers for non-fatal injuries at work, for disease, for occupation or indeed fatal injuries at work. We have lost in Scotland 21 people last year who went to work one day and did not come home and families should not suffer that. We reckon that there are over 43,000 non-fatal injuries at work last year in Scotland as well. When we are thinking about the compensation that is paid, we have to look at that in the round about how do we want a fair work nation to compensate those who through no fault of their own whilst that work suffered from disease, occupational injury or indeed fatal accidents. Thinking about the funding for it next week, you will actually see that the STUC has refreshed its tax paper that we brought out last year that said that the Scottish Government can at the moment in its current powers not any new devolved powers in the short term add and have an income by increasing some of their taxes and introducing some new taxes which they have legislative power to do can increase its funding by £1.2 billion. I was impressed I have to say with the STUC. I apologise, but just before you move on further with the early in the question, John Mackenzie had wanted to come in. I did think that the STUC paper was very good on tax options and so on, but we still have a relatively fixed pot of money. Assuming that it was only if we raised more tax that we would put more into the benefit system, the NHS has a huge budget that we could take about out there and put it into compensation? I would not be suggesting that we take money out of the NHS, but I think that within the Government's powers they have a way to raise more revenue and then look at how they distribute that fairly and how that discussion happens will be up to organisations such as our own to lobby for where we think that money should go, but no, I would not be advocating its cut from elsewhere, obviously. Okay, Mr Mackenzie. Just a couple of quick points. Just to put on record, Fire Brigade Union absolutely supports the STUC's tax strategy as it has about winderies, you have commented yourself, John and Luke. If we are talking about a fair work nation progressive government, I am sure that none of us would suggest that the best way of paying for a benefit is by cutting the salad, although I recognise that it was tongue-in-cheek to a certain extent. None of us would support the notion of cutting salaries and worker salaries in order that they could then pay for their comrades' injuries and illnesses that they have developed in these very same workplaces. On a more serious note, we would not shy away from the fact that the Scottish Government is inheriting a benefit that is well overdue to have structural change to it. We touched on the fact earlier, but I think that it is a really important one to focus on, 7% of claimants being 50% of the population. Do we think we are inheriting something that is really fit for purpose? If we do not think we are, and we are genuine about being a progressive fair work nation, then we have to take the opportunities to address these concerns. Yes, it absolutely has to be financially sustainable, of course it has to be. I think that some of the STUC campaigning around taxation is a really strong pattern, but the primary place we have to start from has to be that the benefit is adequate in its current form. The final point that I would make on this, and without expanding too widely, I think that there are a real Christy commission learning points within this as well. If we address some of these workplace injuries, we have key drivers, and unfortunately drivers often are compensated to having employers properly address the reasons why people are becoming ill and injured in their workplaces, then that absolutely has a contributor role in its future savings across other government portfolio. It is absolutely a good case. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It is out with the current financial year. I think that we are just about out with time, I am afraid. We are drifting slightly, Mr Mason. Norman Proving, you did want to come on. I will try to be very brief. We spoke earlier in the committee about the possibility of SEAC having a proactive as well as a reactive response, John. I think that that is an important point of it, because one of the things that you have heard throughout all of the evidence is that this is a benefit that has not modernised over time. There are new occupational illnesses that are not being recognised and being treated properly. At the end of the day, if the £73 million or £78 million—I cannot remember the figure that you used—has remained static, it will not necessarily remain static, but if it does not go up through this, it will go up through other things, either through the health costs of maintaining people with long-term chronic conditions or other benefits that people will have if they are not fit to work. At the end of the day, the problem of financing is not going to go away by just saying that the costs of this would be capped at £73 million or £78 million. We will not rise if more people do not join it. I think that it is about recognising that workers, if they are injured at their work, should be compensated for that and the opportunity to look in horizon scan possibilities for that and stop it from happening. We will do better to cut the costs than just suggesting that people will not join the scheme. We are almost there. I hope that Mike would make the comment about teachers pay. I have moved to this committee from the Education Committee saying that the money was found and that it did not come from anywhere else. I know that £26 million to pay for the teachers pay award in the current financial year came specifically from the colleges budget in the current financial year, who lost £26 million. I am not going to open up a wider debate, but it is relevant to Mr Macy's line of questioning and Linda Somersall's points on how we use the wider taxation powers in this place, but not just this place, but at a UK level as well, because there are Barnett consequentials coming to here. I absolutely get that witnesses today have tried to articulate passionately and clearly what the right thing is to do in relation to worker safety across Scotland. It is sometimes one for the politicians to look at a bit more detail about how that could be financed. I thank all of you for your really important evidence here this morning. That is the end of this particular evidence session, and we will just suspend briefly how we prepare for the next panel of witnesses. Welcome back, everyone. When I move to our second panel on the CAC Bill, I welcome Anna Ritchie-Allan, Executive Director of Close the Gap, Tony Higgins, President of the PFA Scotland, Ian Tasker, Chief Executive of Scottish Hazards and Professor Andrew Waterson, Occupational Environmental Health Researcher University of Stirling. I thank all four of you for helping us with the scrutiny of this bill here this morning. As with the first panel, we are not trying to tear anyone from speaking, but if all four of you want to make the exact same point that has been said, you might just want to indicate that. We don't always have to hear, but we appreciate sometimes you want to get things on the record, so absolutely where you need to do that. I might just start by opening up with a general question, as I did with the first panel. Do witnesses think that the bill gives CAC if it's established the right balance of scientific expertise and other interests that will be important when reaching decisions in relation to the benefit? If you don't, what changes is perhaps desirable and why? I don't know if someone wants to go first on that. Catch my eye if you do, Professor Waterson. I think that there's an opportunity here for CAC if it's established to move on from where IAC is. I think that you need the scientific and clinical input, but you also need input from those who deal with the problems, which isn't necessarily a sort of research element at all, and you also need those who are actively involved with the problems. I think we can see that with John Brown's submission from the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, where he's talking about welding. There's knowledge there that may not actually be available to the scientific and medical community. They may identify problems. I just heard the reference to new hazards and new industries. Often it will be the workers in conjunction with the employers and also the researchers who identify these problems. I think to have a broad range, as he's suggested, by CAC is a very good idea. Our original position was that we thought that it was potentially too small and might not get enough of the academic expertise, but following discussions with Mark Griffin and the explanation of how that figure was arrived at, it would be a reasonable basis to move forward with, should CAC be established. Do you want to say any more about that, Mr Tasker? I'm not remotely trying to be awkward, but the member in charge of Mr Griffin will give evidence to the committee on why he's opted to that number. You've had a discussion with Mr Griffin to say that that's probably about right. What's persuaded you, because we'll need to ask Mr Griffin the same question? I think that it was down to the way that things seemed to operate in Scotland where those bodies would be substantially smaller. However, I've also looked at IAC meetings and seen the breadth of expertise they've got. Do you wonder whether, within IAC, there is some duplication within the membership in relation to what they're actually bringing into the table. However, in the evidence that they've provided to the Scottish Parliament to the committee, IAC said that it doesn't have a toxicologist on IAC. No matter what number we arrive at, we're going to have to go outside at some point to get the kind of evidence that we need if that specialism is not on the committee. What's Mr Tasker? If we were suggesting that the membership, this is a starting point within the bill, but depending on what CAC may be looking at, we'd have to flex up our membership to give that particular expertise depending on what they're looking at. To me, that could either be done on a formal basis, which would mean increasing the membership of CAC, or it could be done on an informal basis, on a needs must. I would assume that IAC have done at points if they're dealing with matters relating to toxicity. Before I bring Tony Higgins and Anna Ritchallan, if you wish to add to that, are there any additions that you would like to see on Anna Ritchallan? I'm used to these European models in Brussels, so I'm never quite sure what I'm pressing. I'm also beat by committee or by situation that I have a lot of discussions with Amanda Cappell, who many will know from the past in here, in creating Frank's law. It would be useful, I think, to discuss certain issues. We brought some down to those discussions, who I lived the experience of dealing with out of circumstance, and that's certainly something that we would advocate. That's very helpful. Anna Ritchallan, did you want to come in? Not on additions, no. Okay, thank you very much. We'll move to Katie Clark now. Thank you. I'm very much picking up on what's already been said. In the previous evidence session, which you may have heard, the view was that 50 per cent of the seats should be held by trade union representatives. The bill suggests a composition of 12. Could you maybe say a little bit more about whether you think the proportions are important on the new council and what you think those proportions should be? In particular, what the employer representation should be and the academic representation, because we've already heard about trade union representation. As I'm not in the room, it might be better if the deputy convener could bring in a witness who looks like he would like to respond. I think that Anna Ritchallan was trying to do that, and I may have cut her off inadvertently, so perhaps we can… Yeah, no, sorry. I can give a brief answer to that, but I have additional point on the composition of the membership itself, which is that we were broadly supportive of the proposed breakdown of the membership, but I think that what is particularly important is around having gender balance on the council, but specifically in the lived experience element, because, and this is a point that I can return to, no doubt, in every answer I give, is around the invisibility of women's work-related injuries and illnesses in the system, in the benefit and the opportunity, I think, with the establishment of this potential advisory council, because we know that when women's voices aren't around the table, their experiences are often ignored, and so I think that this opportunity has arisen to make sure that the advisory council centres that approach on women's experiences. Could I just support that? I think that it's also a reflection on some of the problems that have existed within IAC in the past. There's a term used that's called one-eyed science. Basically, I see the men and I don't see the women. It was interesting that when you took evidence from the IAC chair, she said that one of the issues was women's health. Now, IAC had prepared reports in 2004, 2005, and the researchers involved with that, and they'd identified, for instance, shift work and breast cancer. 2004, 2005. Here we are 2023, and they're still talking about, well, perhaps women's health is something to come. So I think it's absolutely essential that we get the appropriate groups represented and if it goes through, IAC can be a very useful catalyst to press other parts of the UK to do things. Any other witnesses want to come in on that point? Okay. Katie, do you want to follow up on that? Yeah, and just a follow-up in terms of why a different composition might lead to different outcomes, because you're presumably the science is going to be the same. You're going to be drawing from the same scientific community. So is it the impression I get from you is you think that the questions put to the scientific community might be different and they might be asked perhaps decades earlier from what's just been said, but this may drive research. Is that fair? Is that a fair reflection or are there additional factors that you think may mean that there would be a different outcome from the current position that we have? Is that a specific witness, Katie? I can't see who would like to come in, so I would suggest, would you entasker like to come in on that? I think, you know, really, this is maybe going back to every set, the number two low, you know, and it's quite rightly, you know, we have to ensure that some of the inherent inequalities in the current system are addressed and I think it's right that people who have been subject to that inequality over the past are part of that body. So, you know, really, when I read the STUC's evidence I said, well, 50% should be trade unionists, then if the total number is 12, then six would be from trade unionists, six from employers and there's no room at the table for, so I don't know and I didn't hear the evidence that was given in the earlier session. But my view would be that a balance, there should be 50% representation from trade unionists, trade unionists and employers, but, you know, really, we have to be realistic. That should perhaps be either six or four with another two seats potentially for people with lived experience, people like asbestos groups, you know, but also leaving enough accommodation within that, that the voice of the academic community can play an important part in this committee as well. Okay, thank you, Ian. Professor Waterson? Yes, just picking up the point, I think there's a lot of science out there that hasn't been acted upon and there's a lot of science that I have seen that hasn't led to a recognition of prescribed diseases or indeed where they are prescribed, then compensation coming through. So you wouldn't necessarily need more scientists to do the work. I think what you would need is some of these other groups that are being suggested for this committee identifying where things have gone wrong and I just come back to welding as an example. So in 2017, the World Health Organization international agency for research on cancer identified welding fumes of any sort as being a cause of lung cancer and possibly kidney cancer and also ocular melanoma. In 2019, the health and safety executive asked its work health expert committee to look at this again and they came up with the same conclusion. Now, literally, in the last week, the health and safety executive and WEC have said, we're going to hold a seminar and people can sit in and listen to whether welding fumes cause cancer or not. They've already decided it does. We don't need the science. What we need to find out is where the 175 people that the health and safety executive estimates and IAC estimates suffer from cancer due to welding fumes are, why they're not being compensated and whether or not we can, in fact, bring in measures to prevent future exposures and future diseases. Okay, thank you. Katie, do you want to follow up now? Yeah, slightly different point in terms of the evidence earlier. There was a suggestion that there might be less personal injury cases if this body was actually recommending awards. Have you given any thought if that was the case? It perhaps doesn't matter so much in the public sector because at the end of the day, the money's all coming out at the same pot, but in terms of the private sector, have you given any thought to that? I don't necessarily need detailed responses now, but is there anything you could point to that would assist with that? How do we ensure that employers are taking their responsibility, if you like? Whether it would result in a dramatic reduction in personal injury cases, I think that it's questionable. What we would see is potentially at lower level injuries, where, if people are getting compensated through industrial benefit, they may decide not to pursue a personal injury claim through the courts because that is obviously a very stressful time for individuals, so there may well be an advantage in relation to, if people are getting adequate benefits to live with their injury, that they would decide that compensation was not something they really wanted to seek. That might be something that we can think about later, but that's helpful. Just before we move on, I asked the same question to the last panel because it came up in the last week's evidence session. There was a bit of an appeal that the membership or a strong link with occupational health across Scotland would be important in collecting a lot of that data and identifying trends early in that proactive work. None of the members in the last panel particularly jumped at that when I suggested, because we heard last week that there would be a greater role for occupational health. Is that something that any witness here would commend, Iain Tassar? Clearly, I would suggest very much that we need to look at occupational health. We need to make that body proactive and preventative. Since the inception of the NHS, occupational health has always been funded by employers. We need to work to develop good occupational health provision for everybody. That is a way to prevent the injuries that are happening in the first place. It will drive down the number of people who have access to national health services treatments. Clearly, that could potentially free up some funding from the NHS to actually meet the benefits payments. I would not push that any further. We heard last week that we wanted to float it this week to see if there was any buy-in from witnesses in relation to that. We will move on to Manny MacNeill. Thank you again, Dean. Good morning, panel. I really appreciate your time here this morning. I want to continue on covering the issue of timing in this session in relation to industrial injuries policy. In general, things have moved extremely slow. I mentioned in the previous session that we are basically inheriting a warehouse full of papers and legislation. It has really been left unreformed release since its inception, while it is back in the late 20s. To guide us on how we can bring a quicker change to Scotland, do any witnesses want to comment on the reasons for the sort of little progress that has been made at UK level? Do you think that that is due to a lack of expertise or just a lack of will for reform or do you think that it is a mix of both? I will pop it out to Ian first. I was struck in the evidence from the IAC chair when she said that industrial, I am paraphrasing here, industrial injuries benefit is a political decision, and I think that has been part of the problem over the years as successive governments have just ignored industrial injuries benefit. That has resulted in a committee that really doesn't get the scrutiny that other organisations, other NDBBs, get in relation to triennial reviews. They have been allowed to go on doing the same thing. There was a, far back as 2007, David Walters, who is from Cardiff University. He carried out a review of various systems across European countries and in relation to, and it might not be surprising, that the UK, in his view, the UK system was the worst. He went on to say that it allows for considerably lower benefits that are not earnings related and represents lower proportional expenditure on this form of support for workers harmed at work than found elsewhere in Europe. Further more, it makes no provision for either prevention or rehabilitation. That was in 2007. Now we are 16 years down the line and nothing has changed with the IAC. That's why in the transfer of this it is absolutely right that it is done safely and securely, but we should not be transferring an underfunded, not that we are in a situation where an underfunded benefit is being forced on the Scottish Parliament. Due to the complexity and the secure transfer of existing cases, do you think that approach will alter the timescale that is required for the introduction of the Scottish Council? Just on your last comment there, I thought I would come back on that. I first got involved in the potential transfer of industrial injuries, a disabled benefit when I was at the STUC. That was in 2016 when the first expert group was set up. We are now seven years down the line and we are having these discussions now. I think that we have to move with some speed if that is possible to address some of the inequalities in the system. We wouldn't like to see, obviously, as part of that, any people who are currently in benefit be impacted on that, but the advantage of setting up an advisory committee before the Scottish Government consultation takes place is that it can start to work on that and make recommendations to the Scottish Government on how that should be shaped moving forward, because we can't have what is happening down in Westminster. That's not sustainable. On that point, we have been working in closed consultation with the PFA in England and they have greater resources and have been working on it for a few years now. They made some informal inquiries of the IAC at Westminster through Westminster. They were told in formula that it could be between one and two decades as a normal before a decision has reached in this. Reality for us is that while we are still working with Westminster, we have been working closely with Cross Party, with Ian Blackford and Douglas Ross. What we are trying to do is stimulate the politicians to push IAC to make a decision. We think that we have considerable evidence from three or four countries that substantiate our view, but the reality is that how long will that take for a decision to be made? In Scotland, we have the opportunity through our own system, a new system, to have a quicker process. Whether that will be rejected or not, we understand, certainly in our case, with the players with dementia. It is their families who are the ones who are suffering on a daily basis, so the quicker we can get it through properly, the better. I was really dismayed when they told me that that could be the length of time that we have to rely on the IAC system at the moment. Of course, we are a debate in Westminster for three hours when we have it on the minister's agenda, so hopefully we can move it quicker. From many other industries, that is not always possible. Can I endorse what Ian has said about IAC? In 2015, we looked at the occupational diseases that were listed by the ILO and within Europe, and we looked at the IAC list. There were a very significant number of diseases that were recognised elsewhere that IAC hadn't acted upon. This is partly, and I think you heard about this from the chair of IAC. It's partly because they have this approach about you must show double the risk. In the Social Security Act, there is no reference whatsoever to double the risk. There's a reference to reasonable certainty, and I recently spoke to an IAC member who'd gone through the minutes, and they said in the minutes the statement that they had seen was that you compensated for an occupational disease if it said more likely than not. Effectively, we're talking about more down the balance of probabilities end than beyond reasonable doubt end. Now, this doesn't mean you automatically compensate people, but if you don't list a disease and you don't identify the disease, then nobody's going to be compensated, and just to reiterate the points that John Mackenzie was making, then there'll be no action taken in the future to address this problem. Literally this week, there have been three outputs that demonstrate, I think, the failures of IAC. HSE picks up the disease problems, and then nothing happens. Just in the last three days, a report has come out that reviewed COVID as an occupational disease. 35 countries in Europe there are. Two do not recognise COVID as an occupational disease. Moldova and the United Kingdom. I think that tells us a great deal about how the scientific evidence is being used. As I say, there may be different compensation systems, but it doesn't necessarily follow that people will be automatically compensated, but that's a system where there are huge holes, and clearly CAC could do something about addressing that. I'd like to agree with what others have said, but also take it back slightly to think about the way that the system has disbenefited women and how the delays that others have spoken about further entrenched the inequalities that women have in terms of the barriers to accessing benefits in particular. What's especially relevant is the fact that the social security system doesn't meet the needs of women, even though there are more reliant on it generally. However, Ian had intimated the lack of political will at the UK level to address that, and instead we see further layers and layers where women's work-related ill health is invisible within that. One thing that is really important to think about is that the historical focus on health and safety at work has predominantly been on dangerous, what's perceived to be dangerous, visibly dangerous work within industries, which tend to be male dominated, such as construction and mining going back further, whereas the work that women are more likely to do is deemed to be safer. However, the harms and risks that women experience are more invisible, they are cumulative and result in musculoskeletal conditions and stress and so on, but those things aren't recognised within the system. Until there's a proactive approach to actually try to address that, the inequalities will continue to be baked into that system. Taking back to you, Professor, what's a new written submission at question 10, a CAC is urgently needed to help advice employers and employees in Scotland to recognise the full range of industrial disease. You've obviously touched a bit on that already, but could you comment on the urgency of what needs and also how you can see the Scottish Council fulfilling that role? Obviously, you've spoken about it already, but if you could expand any further, it would be great. I think that it's becoming more and more urgent, and I think that we obviously need the good scientific medical research. Scotland's got a lot of that. If you looked at Silica, the work that respiratory physicians have done in Edinburgh, picking up problems in asymptomatic young people exposed to Silica, who've got silicosis, is very significant. That begs the question then, and in fact the researchers themselves pointed this out. Why aren't we bringing in more measures that will reduce the exposures and prevent the diseases? I think it's a very big problem. This week we've seen the 2023 health and safety executive statistics come out. On that list, in terms of worker real health, we are actually worse than 13 other European countries. In fact, there's a lot of pressure there. We're often falling behind with what goes on, and we're not picking up the problems that are identified. Just picking up the point about women again in those health and safety executive statistics. They identify what are the key self-reported groups, the sectors that suffer most occupational diseases. Health and social work, public administration, education, where we have very large numbers of women, often low paid workers as well. These are all slipping through what's going on. There's work that Scotland could do in terms of identifying the old problems, and there's also work that could be done to pick up the new ones. Again, just reflecting what John Mackenzie said, the latest health and safety executive report for 2023 has got the annual costs of new work-related ill health as being £13 billion. That's new health, new cases. Obviously there are the old cases, and if we look to Scotland in that context, we're probably talking about £1 billion each year on new occupational diseases damaging the economy. This is why a better system will be good for employers, good for employees, good for society. As you'll appreciate, the committee has been looking at whether setting up a new council in Scotland would add value and whether there would be duplication with the ILAAC council at the moment. We've heard evidence in relation to long Covid, firefighter cancers, et cetera. Could you maybe say how you think this new council would relate to the existing UK body and how we ensure that there is added value and avoid duplication? I might ask the professor, but he's in the room, Deputy convener. Katie, that's fine, my silence, but no-one is willing to catch my eye there. You see that, that's why there was silence. Professor Watterson. What I'm asking is how we avoid duplication with work that's going on at a UK level, and how we ensure that there's added value. You've covered a lot of that already, but particularly how we avoid duplication is something that we're concerned about. I think it's true to say that at the moment we have some duplication, which is what we've already touched on. We've got international agencies producing reports, we've got the health and safety executive producing reports, we've got IAC reviewing reports, we've got WEC then reviewing what IAC and IARC has done. So the system actually in the UK, I don't think, is that efficient. So I think what we'd be looking for is something that complements and acts as a catalyst, and it could complement by picking up various sectors certainly, but I think it could definitely complement in terms of finding out why we have these failures on silica, on welding, on women's health and so on, looking at the workplaces that operate, and because Scotland has got a very good body of researchers and others working on health and safety, I think they'll be actually ideally placed to do that because it's a smaller country, but I think it's a case of not necessarily ignoring the toxicology and epidemiology work that goes on. That may often be funded by research council and others. It's looking at how we're using that information and why groups are falling through the net as well. I think CAC would be ideally placed to complement what IAC does and what's going on in the UK. Before we move on to any other witnesses in terms of this issue about how we apply, if you like, knowledge, in terms of the test that would be applied, there's been mention of reasonable certainty showing the double risk test. How do you think the test that the council applies should be developed? Would that be the council itself that would do that? Is that something that the Parliament needs to set in legislation? Maybe looking at other European models, how would you suggest that Scotland approaches that in terms of how we develop that test? Maybe you recommend a test today, or maybe you might recommend the process by which that test might be developed. Do you want me to answer that? I take you back to the research that they commissioned and ignored in 2007. That's exactly what they did. They looked at European models, Australian models and clearly there's a lot of other models other than that relative risk, including dealing with issues on a case-by-case basis. I think that it would be important that a similar study was done or that study was looked at to see if it was still reasonably irrelevant, but the committee should provide advice to the Scottish Government in relation to what model it wishes to adopt. If we're going to really be serious about making improvements to this system, everything should be under discussion, and we think that's part of it. That's one of the areas of work that a sciac could concentrate on if it was constituted before the actual transference of the benefit. I suppose that the question is who is benefiting from that particular test and who is benefiting from the model. That is something that would need to be looked at. The current model that is used clearly disbenefits women and probably certain types of women, say older women, racially and minoritise women, for instance. I think that that's probably a starting point to have with that. I want to come back on the added value point that you raised, Katie. Where we see it close the gap is having that dedicated research function there, which is really necessary to put more of a focus on women's occupational health. I know that the colleague from IAC had previously mentioned that there was some scoping work going on about women's occupational health. Women have been working in the labour market forever. If we're only at the scoping stage, I'm not filled with reassurance that there's going to be any substantial changes in that anytime soon. What we need, as others have said, is a much more proactive approach to making sure that all workers in Scotland are able to benefit from that system. I particularly see the role of remedying the injustices that have happened to women workers in particular who haven't been able to access that but still live with the cost of workplace injuries and diseases. Particularly many of those are key workers who were so essential at that point to the pandemic response but are undervalued in the economy and unable to access the benefit in the current system. Just in terms of the test, what was in the IAC minutes was this statement about more likely than not. I think that that's been used in other countries. Why replicate the wheel? If we have lists from the ILO, an authoritative body of occupational diseases, if we have lists from the European Union, if we have data from the US and Canada about firefighters' occupational diseases, why replicate it? As I said before, it doesn't mean that they are then automatically compensated but it's the starting point for action. I think that CAC could look at that and look at those other approaches and then start to debate with IAC and the health and safety executive possibly why things aren't happening. Although, to be fair, the health and safety executive does identify the diseases but it's obviously not responsible for compensating them. So we don't need to reinvent the wheel on everything but we would need to review it as Ian says. Ian, do you want to come back in? I think that there was something that Hugh Robertson said, it was XTUC but it was also a member of IAC at the time when he was given evidence to the Social Security Committee and it was about the importance of establishing a CAC prior to the transfer that actually took place. What he said was that if the Scottish Government were to rely on evidence-based academic reports coming from the IAC and come to a different conclusion then problems may well arise and we would agree with that but he went on to say, however, if the CAC reached a different conclusion on any proposed prescription of a condition having considered these reports from IAC, commissioned its own research and looked at other available evidence then that decision to prescribe a disease would be taken by the Scottish Government based on advice provided by their own experts. Now that's how I see it's important that we actually get a CAC is because we can look at the other evidence from other parties and consider that along with any evidence from IAC and come to potentially a better decision in relation to prescriptions of disease and has taken in the past. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. I think that we've touched on this in some previous answers but in previous evidence we'd heard from some of the trade unions spoke about the length of time it takes very often for IAC to make decisions or to advise and I just wonder if there's a sense of what CAC could do in order to make those processes quicker and perhaps more streamlined if that is possible. I don't know if folk would maybe give a general view of what would speed things up. Higgins, you were very conscious you came in earlier on talking about 10 to 20 years that they're appropriate time to bring yourself in? Yeah, I think that in the injury time campaign that Michael Marra was orchestrating unfortunately can be here today but we talked about establishing a working group in there because one of the issues of course is that when if you're successful you have to work out a process of a criterion established so that for instance in professional football would it be a football that has to be employed for a minimum of eight years or ten years or six years so there's a whole variety of problems that have to be dealt with bureaucratically so certainly in particular issues, certainly in our issue we would have to, that's why we're in a working party to look at that, to establish what the criteria would be to supplement the medical evidence we're presenting to it and I think you mentioned it, an advisory council issue as well earlier in about that. The preparation of information and stuff beforehand and certainly in terms of our industry because it's a relatively short career we would have to work out ourselves with the medical people what length of time a professional player male or female had to be employed in the game before they would qualify for any potential benefit. Ian Tasker, you mentioned it. I think that IAC doesn't do anything quickly and it's probably connected to the way that it's just been allowed to develop and it goes back to the fact that it seems to have been reasonably untouched by these triennial reviews which would investigate whether there was an issue to start moving things faster and you know it just seems to be an organisation that is working at its own pace. Now 20 years is unacceptable if the HSE took 20 years to investigate a work related death you know questions would be asked so you know there really is it's something in relation to transfer. I think that the Scottish Parliament is probably better placed to move things faster. There's been changes made in the Scottish Parliament that have had an impact in the UK Parliament particularly in relation to asbestos compensation you know where the Scottish Parliament took decisions, there was a process that moved extremely quickly, meant in one case that mesothelioma victims got compensation in their own lifetimes that had never happened before and now we see that being brought in elsewhere in the UK so this ACAC could influence the benefits that actually are awarded to people elsewhere in the UK by being able to act more quickly than ACAC does. Anna Ritchie-Allan, a theme of the agglacial pace of any progress for female workers is something that you've come back to your time and again, does anything you think ACAC could do to speed up the pace of that? I suppose I was quite struck when reading the evidence from the ACAC colleague and others that had pointed out that although they don't have a discrete research function, the research work that is done there tends to be done in the evening so they're obviously significantly under resourced but I think there is something to be said about having that evidence base in place and being able to be more proactive about gathering evidence and information on women's injuries and diseases at work and the proposal for ACAC obviously includes that discrete function and I think that it would centre it more in the work and also complement what others have said about speeding up in Scotland really leading the way on ensuring that people have access to the benefits they need in a timely manner. Thank you. Paul, it's your line of questioning. Do you want to follow up some of this? Yeah, I mean the sense I'm getting from people is that in terms of ACAC you could be about the criteria that's put in place. People see there being perhaps timescales attached to when an expectation of certainly reporting back or work is done in order to keep the thing on track because is it a sense that the 20-year period is about, as Ian Tasker said, ACAC going at its own pace or is it about there being a lack of accountability within the process, I wonder? I think it is the situation where ACAC has been totally under resourced. To me that has to be the main problem that is taken so long alongside potentially, I mean we'll look at some of the reaction when it was suggested that Covid should be a prescribed disease in the reaction from the UK Government. Let's face it, it's an NDPB that's under control of a government that's not particularly trade union friendly or worker friendly. I think that the political circumstances certainly affect the pace that these decisions are being made at. I wouldn't downplay at all the importance of research and evaluation but I go back to the point that if we have good research we don't want to reinvent the wheel. If the World Health Organisation and the International Agency for Research on Cancer can do very detailed international work pulling in researchers from around the world and come to a conclusion it seems crazy that we then have second guessing and as a researcher I would also say, and I could say it about lawyers generally, as a researcher you ask a researcher what they want. More research please. Whereas what we want here is where there is good research and good evidence we actually want action. I mentioned that in 2015 we looked at what ACAC was doing and what diseases it recognised and what diseases are recognised elsewhere. Asbestos and cancer of the larynx was recognised in Norway in 1956, it's not recognised here, it's recognised in Denmark in 1986 in Austria and in Germany, France and Italy also recognised cancer of the larynx. At the time as well there was the only listing for breast cancer in 2015 was radiation. As a say, the health and safety executive were identifying shift work and the position of women there. That's not changed, it's still not changed. We've talked about COVID, we could talk about diesel exhaust, we could talk about welding and lung cancer, it would be exactly the same. So I don't think we want to reinvent the wheel, we want to ask why where there's good evidence hasn't action taken place and we get research and evaluation on areas where that have been neglected. I mean there is a great deal of evidence about women's health in the workplace and the health and safety executive have identified it as a priority. Why aren't we doing something about it? Just to follow on on the research point, I suppose the context is very important I suppose we would say that women's and the evidence I think and you've recognised this within Scottish Government's women's health plan is that generally women's health is an under-researched area it's women's health, ill health is under-diagnosed, under-treated and often dismissed as something else and we see that within the workplace context around about the old wear and tear thing about women's ill health from doing manual work, increasingly skilled manual work such as social care for instance and because women do the bulk of unpaid work in the home as well and there's a lot of overlap with that type of work that when it's done in the labour market it can be increasingly complex to unpick that and it's often dismissed as just general wear and tear and women should just get on with it. I think the point around UK Government is well made in terms of the political decisions it's taken, the UK Government over the course of a number of years does not have a reputation for doing good things for women's equality and actually has taken action that has exacerbated the inequalities that women face and in Covid I think we do need to recognise the gender dimensions of that as well with women being more exposed to Covid during the pandemic as the vast majority of our key workers but also being more likely to have long Covid as well and then the further systemic barriers which disadvantage them such as having less access to sick pay reduced access to being able to claim this type of benefit not having sufficient time to recover having a caring role and being more at risk of poverty all of these factors compound to increase the inequality that women face both in the workplace and outside of the workplace. Thank you. Tony Higgins, do you want to come in? No, I'm very grateful. Paul, any more questions? I'm very grateful. I appreciate the exchange we just had in terms of resourcing and in terms of research and I appreciate John Mason's going to come on to talk more broadly about the finances but I just wonder in terms of the funding of research. You know there are challenges in terms of as Ian says I think the broader resourcing but in terms of actually funding that research so I don't know if Professor Watson has a view about the level of investment required in terms of being able to do research within the kind of SEAC proposal if you like. Well I think the health and safety executive has its own research programme and research facilities that could feed in. As we've mentioned there's already a lot of research going on that isn't necessarily funded through the IAC structure so there are opportunities there to identify problem areas and to try and fill them but sometimes research in inverted commas could mean not necessarily doing detailed clinical toxicological epidemiological work it could be looking at the organisation and delivery and the problems of exclusion. That would be a legitimate area and research councils and others could do that. I see there's been a little bit of movement post Brexit about Britain being able to participate in some European research but clearly a lot of work is going on in this area elsewhere that Scottish researchers could get involved in and indeed are involved in it. It is noticeable that Sir Patrick Valens praised the research of an Edinburgh researcher in terms of getting health data together with regard to Covid so there will be complementary strands operating. Before we bring in John Mason, I'm going to look at finances. I'm conscious that that was the last line of questioning so before we go to that I mean clearly it's self evidence bill will pass or it won't but are there certain things this bill will achieve that must happen irrespective of whether it's passed? I'm thinking the bill may be passed or it may not but the research must still happen. The bill may be passed or it may not but whether the criteria for getting on that list is genderised appropriately or not needs to be reviewed so from each of your perspectives this is an opportunity if there's something you want to be say at this point about what must happen in relation to industrial injuries and making sure that people are properly compensated this might be a good time to do it because I'm conscious once we've got to talk about the finances of it that takes us in a different avenue but we have to robustly scrutinise the finances depending on the legislation as well is there any comments and I would like to make at this stage in relation to that Tony Higgins. Up to now certain of the research that's been conducted in professional football it's been largely funded by the game itself and many would argue particularly at the top of the game that's the thing to do but I would have concerns about many other industries who don't have that ability to galvanise public support or support of other people for research and certainly certain that the act could look at I don't know if it's possible within the new bill but again all research even the research we've had from other countries has been funded by the game itself maybe in conjunction with the government there's three or four other pieces of research going on at the moment which the PFA's have helped fund the governing bodies in the Scottish case the Scottish government put some funding into it as well so I think it's really important that research is conducted but also for again for smaller industries where that finance might not be available it would be really interesting to see if that that those fundings could be provided. That's helpful any other comments Ian Tasker. Yeah just going back to the speech that the first social security minister made in 2016 she said that they wanted to ensure that every single person was treated with compassion with dignity and fairness and with respect and nothing less would be will be tolerated with a massive amount of people not getting access to compensation for their workplace injuries that will not be met unless SIAC or whatever if SIAC is the bill is not passed then the qualities in the system has to be addressed. Important to put on the record also give the opportunity to put on the record that the timescale at the moment is the last agency agreement between DWP and the Scottish government in relation to the current payments is I think is the financial 2025-2026 which kind of gives us a timescale for whether it's this bill or Scottish government legislation that we're kind of looking at I suppose within within this place but that's a point well made. I will pass on to the financial aspects of it unless Anna Richie-Allan thank you. I suppose just wanted to highlight the the tension there and we've seen Scottish government commit to doing things differently with the devolution of the social security powers that it has particularly around ensuring that equality and non-discrimination were embedded in the social security charter but there is a tension there with the approach which is the safe and secure transition which in this and to some degree will at least be business as usual but all that is is just replicating a system that disadvantages women and increases the inequality that they face both in social security and in the workplace. One other thing I wanted to mention that needs to change is the way that violence and harassment in the workplace is framed particularly from a gendered perspective although men are in the workplace are more likely to be affected by a one-off physical assault women are far more likely to experience bullying, harassment and violence particularly because so many women work in customer service roles and public facing but I think the point around sexual harassment is really important to note here as well with women being overwhelmingly the majority of sexual harassment victim survivors and men overwhelmingly being the perpetrators and it's endemic in workplace and yet it's not seen as a health and safety issue and so within the wider discourse around health and safety at work there needs to be much more of a focus on the impacts and the harms and the risks of sexual harassment at work and how that can be prevented and mitigated against. We've been doing some work with the S2C Women's Committee on sexual harassment at work and it's quite clear the HSE has admitted that they don't investigate sexual harassment at work it's the role of the opportunities commission but they don't do it either so there is a big issue in relation to who takes responsibility. The Police Scotland don't even know where a sexual harassment act has been related to work or taken place in the workplace. Okay thank you very much to our witnesses. Mr Mason thank you for your patience we've passed to you now. Thanks very much convener so yes on to finances I don't know if you heard some of the previous questions at the end of the last session but first of all what's actually in the financial memorandum is the set-up costs of £149,000 and I don't know if any of you are IT experts but that includes £50,000 for IT and website set-up and I just wonder if you think that's going to be enough and then similarly on the running costs which are expected to be £372,000 per year and Paul O'Kane already mentioned research is less than 10% of that at 30,000 so it seems quite a small amount. So have you any thoughts about these figures and are they reasonable or unreasonable? Somebody said that IAC was under resourced was that you miss Allen? Yes it does seem to be under resourced. I don't have many comments to make on the specifics of the costs that are allocated for each of the set-up costs but I suppose thinking about the initial investment but what the longer-term benefits of that will be for women in the workplace but also all workers in particular. The £30,000 research proposed budget for that is I suppose thinking about discrete research projects that are commissioned is not that much but as Andrew said there are a number of other channels that can be taken to do further work on research in terms of looking at existing research, bringing together other stakeholders on that and so on so I don't have any specific comments on set-up costs though. Anyone else? Salary is £175,000. I think when I read the financial memorandum obviously these figures have been taken from similar past experience which I think was right and it's probably about the only model that you really can use. I think that like Ann I think that the research budget is low but I think that there's potentially better ways as Andrew has obviously said of using the expertise we've got. The Fire Brigades Union for instance when they gave evidence told about the new research raid commissioned in relation to their decon campaign which is excellent research now and Andrew mentioned the HSE research. If you go on the HSE website there's hundreds of pieces of research that should be connected to industrial injury compensation investigations but it just sits there on a website so you know what 30,000 I think everybody would obviously if there's more available we'd take it but I think there's ways of actually ensuring that any CAC has good quality research placed in front of them when they're considering their work. The next question is if CAC gets set up and if there's all this unmet demand out there including for women and football injuries and all the rest of it does that inevitably mean that the amount of benefit we pay out will increase? Nobody? Volunteering? Professor Watson do you think? I mean I think there's a general issue here. I mean in some respects there's some seen modest obviously they'll be evaluated but if the body works it's actually going to be one helping to ensure social justice for those people who've been affected by occupational diseases, their communities and also it's going to have significant benefits I think for the national health service and others as well because it will be identifying where there are problems so there'll be cost savings because what we know at the moment is bad employers be they in the public or private sector actually externalise the costs of occupational disease and injury and I just indicated earlier some of the figures and they're absolutely huge so if the system's working what you would expect is gradually then the benefits to go down because it would be feeding in to what the regulators are doing and the knowledge of the employers to control the problems and so on so in the middle term you would expect it actually to be greatly reducing the cost but yes in the short term it may be that the costs go up but as we heard in the previous session you know I mean that is a big social justice issue at the moment the people who suffer the problems aren't properly compensated and we all pay for poor ill health in the workplace. I mean so yes I get your point in the long run there might be savings say to the health service but at the moment we're looking at a budget of something like 78 million in benefits the Scottish Government does not have any spare money that I'm aware of to pay for but we could say well let's take it off the health service because they'll save in the long run but I mean is it worthwhile having this council if we're still stuck with 78 million? Well I mean I think you want to address the problem so in the middle and long term absolutely and it will give it give a focus and there should be spin-offs that should allow more effective actions elsewhere to be taken um I mean but others will have a have another Mr Tascar? I think if we look at who actually pays the cost of occupating a little health and we mentioned the latest figures 1.3 billion government pays very little of that the cost does not fall on the government it does not fall on the employers 750 billion of that falls on individuals in their families you know so that when we're talking sums you know that's staggering that's absolutely staggering that employers don't really have to pay in relation to the harem they caused we we tend to support a polluter pays principle you know the people that are causing the harem should have to pay not only for the compensation through civil courts but if there was a mechanism to actually ensure that they are contributing towards these benefit payments okay help do that or is that entirely employment law reserved to Westminster well I think if we look at clearly the bill in relation to recovery of costs for personal injury and then there was a more recent one that didn't seem to go anywhere in relation to recovery of costs for occupational disease now that's recovery of costs going into the NHS but depending on how much that recovery of costs the sum involved in that recovery of costs could that not be used to actually provide some funding to improve the benefit system okay I don't know yourself miss allen I mean does do you think this inevitably means an increase in the benefits paid out potentially I don't know but I suppose I would agree with just because it's going to cost more or there's going to be a higher cost doesn't mean it shouldn't be done because the the consequences of of not doing this I think are vast and what we see I think it really does undermine Scottish Government ambitions on tackling poverty child poverty which is interlinked with women's poverty but because there's women now who can't work can't access benefits and so are inactive in the labour market because of a work related injury or illness but also can't access those benefits and these two things are at odds with each other and so I would agree with what others have said in that the longer term benefits need to really be thought about from that preventative approach about how we actually realise a Scotland that is founded on social justice where poverty is eradicated and where equality is realised and would you agree then with the STUC whose argument would be we should raise taxes to pay for that we are supportive of progressive taxation yes okay Mr Higginson yeah just on that John the just falling Andrew's point that again I'm not a politician and politicians are elected to make decisions on finance and that's why we elect you so you're throwing it back at us to answer but in terms of the change in the industry what we've recognised by our research is a change in the rules of the game and the regulations through concussion the treatment of children the treatment of women so that's a by-product that has arrived in the last three or four years changes at local level and at FIFA level so hopefully in the next two or three generations there'll be less dementia encountered by players during their career male or female so that that would be a saving then on on the health service so we didn't push that process forward having this council yeah yeah that because interested would look at how they can provide better security for their workers certainly that's happened in professional football which you know is a very capitalist situation but they do recognise that they have responsibilities and American sport they have no fault liability where they because they have so much revenue they set a pool of money aside and if a player develops dementia he automatically qualifies for that without having to go through any process so i think that if we can throw it back and the moral responsibility on the employers we can get more funds derived to look after these um these professional athletes okay professor Watson do you want to come back in just a very quick point um the system should fairly quickly benefit good employers because what happens at the moment is good good employers are penalised by bad employers having poor working conditions the health and safety executive over a period of time has produced various reports on the the costs of avail health and they've estimated at various times that it's one year's economic growth and if you ask make you know the successor to the engineering employers federation or the federation of small businesses they all say they want to see better occupational health so this is sort of part of part of the picture i think and then there would be various cost savings and benefits insurance and other things that would come into play okay thanks Camilo thank you um time is almost upon us and i forgot to say this to the first panel if there's anything burning with thinking you just have to get on the official report before we close this evidence session as long as it's brief of course um you have the opportunity to do that now just one point in relation to uh the very i think very last act that dacbeg did was to send a letter to to the minister in part one of their recommendations and a long list of recommendations and it was quite a strong recommendation was that there should be a c act set up okay thank you and you've put that on the official report just across party here so please support our injury time campaign across the parliament thank you there's an event recently we're all hoping to attend to to learn more add more questions i wanted to ask but i didn't want to take the session specifically in that direction so thank you mr higgins for drawing that to our attention any other comments before i close the session okay all that remains me to do is to thank all four of you for your your evidence this morning and of course the first panel we had earlier on that that concludes our public business for today and we'll now move into a private session thank you