 Good morning everyone and thank you for coming along today to the Meeting. Welcome members of the Scottish Affairs Committee. This is, technically, a meeting of the Social Security Committee, but in practice it's a historic joint meeting and the very first meeting of i i sicrhau newid y rhai yn gilydd. Felly, yn y ffordd, ac maen nhw wedi'i'r rhaglen nag oedd i'r gwaith ddymPs wedi eu ffwgau, yn liciwch arllurau anhygoel, gan ailaidd ar y bydduron i gael i gael i'r gwaith. A gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r giflwyr yn gyfasgw bishopach â dde chi oedd y ffwgau, i ddim pwgau a phwylio mewn gwaith. Am throm ddim dweud, y byddai'r gwaith i'r gwetag i'r gwaith i'r gwaith i'r Ieithio chi i gyrwch am y riliadwyr gwaith y Gwasiwner a'r dwi'n gweld iawn, ac mae'n gwybod gyrwch y ddwylliant ddwylliant o sicrwyr sydd yn gwybod i ddwylliant y 2016 ysgoledd ar y ddwg. Dw i ddweud hwnnw, i ddweud hwnnw, i ddweud hwnnw, i ddweud hwnnw i ddwylliant y ysgoledd a'r ddwylliant a'r ddwylliant yw oedd yn gweld iawn o'ch gyrwch ydych yn dd טrofod y cyfnodau yn brifogwladau o'r cyfnodau oesol yn eu cyfrifodau, ac mae gennymys o'r ddomethe o'r methu arry oesol. Presiding Officer haf ydych yn ddegwydd i'r cyfrifodau ar gyfer o rôl, cyfrifodau a'r ddegwydd a'r ddegwynnol acoelotau yn ddarparu â'r ddyntgen. I'n ddigwydd i'r ddegwynnol, mae'n gweinio i ffraith o'i amddangos i'r llwyll ac ti'n ddigwydd i'r gyrch hyffordd pwnghwyl. Mae wiren gweithio gyn lleidagus i ni ti ddim yn eiaroedd gwaethaf feddwl, ac nid oedd hynny am panf synthetican dymlug twff digwydd, oedd eich cy bast [#FrogTheSouthupbeatLaGovorgDheim, Fhuk et neith, iddo dahl長iaid vidnu cyn y gyfetibern.. Tras iawn i chi daila, rydyn ni'r bobi'r gwaith sy'n ei awd orphan.可以 oft mwych agig oddi wrth negin strthau ei dấuig i ni roeddem seidwll i ni i liel�d. Rydyn ni hi Body isnT� yn re SIMC ב�'r reib usiaid ydwellig ohyn podeis i cael i'r pannol fwyntnesiol. Thank you. Thanks very much for the invitation to come today on Nicola McEwan, Professor of Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh. I'm John Dickie, director of the Child Property Action Group in Scotland. I'm Bill Scott, director of policy for inclusion Scotland. Thank you very much. I think that you're all pretty well known not just to us but obviously the Westminster MPs as well. Can I kick off with the first question? Can I ask each of you from your perspective on how you characterise the relationship between the Scottish Government and the DWP, if you want to. It's difficult to tell because a lot of the negotiations and discussions take place behind closed doors and we occasionally see minutes, but they're often carefully crafted minutes. The relationship between officials has probably been surprisingly good, as far as we can tell. I think that there was a lot of investment put into that relationship, particularly by Stephen Kerr, who I believe that you will be speaking to, and Richard Cornish, when he was in the post before. That was built up within the Smith commission and carried on, and I think that's probably made an enormous contribution, but there will inevitably be difficulties given the different political mandates that the Governments are working to and the complexities of implementing and managing the social security systems going forward. One thing that worries me is that a lot of the focus, inevitably perhaps, is on implementation of the new powers, but there will need to be attention given to the on-going oversight of the interdependencies between what's devolved and what's reserved on an on-going basis beyond the implementation stage. I'm not at all clear how that will work yet. John Dickie I echo that. I mean, we certainly sense from our engagement both with Scottish Government officials and DWP officials that there's commitment across the board to work cooperatively together to make this work and to ensure that the transfer of powers works smoothly and is delivered smoothly. However, I echo Nicollin that it's a bit difficult to say that we're not privy to much of how that co-operation is working in practice. We see some of the outcomes in terms of minutes or, more recently particularly, draft regulations emerging around how the new universal credit flexibilities might be used in Scotland. However, we don't actually see the working process for how social security policy originating in one Government is interacting or overlapping with policy from the other Government. It's also fair to say that there have been some early warning signs that suggest that the current processes, agreements and arrangements could be strengthened to ensure that the needs of claimants come first in the process. That's where we're coming from as a child poverty action group. The context of that is that social security plays an absolutely vital role in protecting children and families from poverty and preventing poverty. We need to ensure that the whole process of transfer of powers is done in such a way that there's no disruptions in the administration of that vital financial support that families rely on. There are some early warning signs that suggest that there is scope for strengthening the framework for how Governments co-operate. There are three examples that have already been highlighted in the clerks, not to the committee, but the dispute over whether 18 to 21-year-olds will continue to be entitled to support with housing costs within universal credit in Scotland. The concern over whether commitments to use universal credit flexibilities in Scotland to abolish the bedroom tax can be implemented within the universal credit system, given that there may be some claimants above the UK benefit cap. Thirdly, the nature of the draft regs that are currently out for consultation from the Scottish Government to give effect to what's a very welcome policy intent to ensure that universal credit can be paid twice monthly and paid direct to landlords where that's the choice of the claimant. Those draft regs are drafted in such a way that there's a gap between what they achieve and what the policy intent is. That throws up the question as part of the reason for that, because of the need for negotiation, compromise between the two Governments, because there are different kinds of social security regulation than we would expect to see fit under the current system. I'm very much sure that we'll pick up on that in the next panel. Bill Scott? I have to speak as an outsider. Colleagues in social security directorate tell me that relations are very good and they're certainly being productive in terms of the implementation of some of the powers. I'd echo the points that John Smith made about housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds, the new regulations around universal credit etc. I'd also say that there's two different cultures at work and that may pose problems in the future. Just in the last wee while, job centre closures in Glasgow are wider across Scotland and changes to personal independence payment entitlement. Both of those have really been done without any form of consultation whatsoever preceding the decision. That's a very different approach to the one that's been adopted by the Scottish Government, which was to engage directly with claimants, hear their views and then try to formulate policy. We're told, and we hope that it will work out that way, that the new social security powers will be used in both a spirited co-production and to try to make that work in practice. That co-production is that the users of the service should have a say in how the service is delivered. That is going to pose on-going difficulties if areas that are reserved are exercised without a cautious approach because they will have impact on the devolved powers and impact on the benefits administration in Scotland. I thank you very much. I welcome Chris Lawan, who gets held up in traffic. I thank you very much for coming along. I will open it up now to people who want to come in. I thank you. It's worth noting how delighted and pleased the Scottish Affairs Committee is to join you this morning. It's the first time that we've held any sort of joint session between the Scottish Affairs and a committee of the Holyrood Parliament. We're looking forward to this joint work and we're particularly looking forward to welcoming you all down to Westminster next week. I also thank you all of you very much for your opening remarks. I want to pick up a couple of the remarks that Mr Scott made, and that was about the different approaches and cultures and how that will therefore have an impact and an effect on how those services will be delivered and the prospect of tensions possibly emerging because of the different way and perspective that both Governments have about social security delivery. Is it something that either of you are noting in the people that you work with? What are your major concerns about those tensions as we go forward? What can both Governments do and civil servants who are engaged in delivering this project do to try to ensure that some of that is offset? I'll start with you, Mr Scott, because you raised this. I accept that there are different political approaches by both Governments, and that's fine in some ways. However, to take the example of housing benefit or housing allowance within universal credit and 18 to 21-year-olds, Scottish Government had said in advance that they wanted to mitigate the impact of that and they wanted to take measures to do so. Just on that, what's your understanding about where we are with this? Because this does seem to be a flashpoint that has emerged in the course of the past few weeks. Where are we with this? What has been done to try to ensure that the type of emerging issues are going to be dealt with effectively? As far as I am aware, Scottish Government had let the UK Government know that it intended to take measures to mitigate the impact of the abolition of housing benefit and housing allowance for 18 to 21-year-olds. However, it needed time to do so. In other words, those computer systems need to be changed. You have to take action to actually be able to deliver on what you're promising will happen when a change like this in regulations or entitlement takes place. You have to be given the time to take those administrative measures to have a system in place that ensures that, when the change takes place, the 18 to 21-year-olds that you intend to protect tend to mitigate the loss that they are actually protected, instead of which we've now got a timescale of less than one month for that to take effect, which completely undermines local authorities and Scottish Government's attempts to mitigate. I just asked Professor McEwen on this point. There's not just this as an example, there's also the bedroom tax and the benefit cap and the tensions and the relationship between those that seem to be another potential or actual life problem. In your view and what you've observed, how are both Governments being able to reconcile some of these difficulties and differences? Well, they don't appear to have at the moment. I think with the issue of the benefit cap, I didn't see a minute from the last ministerial working group, so I don't know if that's available, but I saw the Minister's evidence to the Social Security Committee, which seemed to suggest that there seemed to be a difference of view on whether or not the benefit cap would be altered in order to accommodate policy change that the Scottish Government wanted to make. If that were the case, then that seems to me to be a clear breach of the fiscal framework agreement. If that is the case, then there is a process within the fiscal framework agreement to raise that issue as a dispute and as an issue under no detriment, but I don't know enough about it that's just going on with the information that we know to date. The issue around housing benefit is an interesting one and it seems to me to be one of timing in particular. There isn't enough time to do anything different, but I was also a little surprised—I guess that this might also be about timing—that housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds was always the issue that I had understood would be an exemplary area where the Scottish Government could, where it inclined to do so, use the powers to create new benefits rather than try to do something that was complex and technical through amending or mitigating existing UK benefits to enter into the arena itself with a new benefit now. There clearly isn't time to do that on the timescales that Bill was referring to there, but, in the longer term, that seems to be a possible route, but I haven't seen it discussed anywhere in anything that the minister said. John Baker, do you want to come in? Yes. What this flags up is how important it is to have clear processes, transparent processes in place that set out at what point each Government will engage with the other Government when it has a policy that may either directly or indirectly interact, overlap, affect and impact on the policy of the other Government. In this case, we have the UK Government with a policy in relation to removing entitlement from the housing element of universal credit for many 18 to 21-year-olds. It should stress that the housing element of universal credit—those receiving housing benefits for 18 to 21—doesn't affect those who will become eligible for the new housing element of universal credit. There is a policy intention there. There is clearly a known policy intention from the Scottish Government in relation to wanting to maintain that support for 18 to 21-year-olds in Scotland. I can't see, and we can't see externally, at what point it would be expected that the Governments would engage on that issue and seek to understand what the implications are and what the potential work-arounds might be, that Nicholas flagged up one potential work-around if it's not possible within the actual powers, specifically relating to flexibilities within universal credit. What it flags up for us is that that process is getting right. It's absolutely clear to everybody in each Government and externally at what point—I suppose that our point would be that this flags up—that that should be as early as possible so that we don't find ourselves in the situation that a month before eligibility changes. We have this confusion as to what the situation will be for young people in Scotland—a potential confusion for them and for those people who are advising them and for housing providers. Iain Murray, you wanted to come in on the back of that one. Just on the back, thank you very much, convener. Professor McEwen, you mentioned the issue around the complicated nature of no-detriment and fiscal framework and how all that fits together. Do you think that there's an understanding of that in terms of the two working groups that are coming together? It's quite clear that if the Scottish Government so wished to use the example of 18 to 21-year-olds and put in an additional benefit or a top-up that it wouldn't be included in the benefit cap. Is there a clear understanding that, from both of the working parties that are coming together to try to resolve some of those issues, they can do that on the basis that that's their starting point? It seems to me that there's a bit of a throwing up of smoke for the two groups to come together and try to resolve some of those complicated issues? I think that you would need to ask the working groups themselves if I can't testify to their understanding. John Swinney, of course, is about flexibilities within universal credit and it may well be that that makes for a more complicated situation than the one that I set out. I think that there's quite an important distinction between the power to create a new benefit and the power to top up an existing benefit. Sometimes those two are put together. Politically, I see very little attraction in topping up existing benefits. I imagine that that would raise many of the same complications as we're talking about here, because you would be trying to operate within the UK benefit system rather than creating something fresh and something new where there was greater scope for designing it in the way that you wanted to design it, but that's clearly a longer term issue. Again, timing is important here. You can't just create a new benefit and introduce it and implement it within a couple of months. That's another example of the need for more clarity and transparency in terms of the process. It doesn't seem clear to us, given the fiscal framework and the agreements that have been made through the Smith commission, since the benefit cap creates a barrier in itself that would be a breach of the fiscal framework. What is the issue? We can't see that as a difficulty in operational issues or technical issues. We are left guessing that that must be what the situation is. The barrier is one that is housed within the universal credit system. The operational system takes account of the fact that, in Scotland, people will be getting additional support that would otherwise have taken them above the benefit cap, but that shouldn't kick in in Scotland. Is that a technical operational issue that's creating the problem? That's about the transparency that presents. We are not seeing externally what the issue is, and that's leading to confusion. If it's leading to confusion for us, more worryingly it's leading to confusion for people for whom this is potentially a vital source of financial support and for those who are trying to advise them as well. One of the issues, for example, is that it's the DWP who will know who is affected by the abolition of the entitlement and can pass on those details to Scottish Government local authorities, etc. Without that lovely co-operation, information sharing is, in Cassie's paper, a really important issue. Information has to be shared to allow Scottish Government to utilise its powers in the way that it was envisaged, whereas, if the DWP holds on to that information and won't share it, then Scottish Government has great difficulty in taking measures to mitigate things like that. Ben Macpherson, do you want to come in on that? Thank you. Thank you, Camilla. Supplementary, then it's Alison Johnstone. Just coming in on some of the themes, Ian Murray raised the theme around complications, and Professor McCune raised the issues yourself and also on timing. I really wanted to focus on something that, in a related way, John Dickie said about the claimants. John Dickie and Bill Scott, do you believe that the people that you represent in terms of your organisations have an understanding of the complexities and the time needed to ensure that both policies and legislation are in place before the benefits can be transferred and delivered by the Scottish Government? Straightforward, no. I think that it's very difficult for people to get a handle on the benefits system as it was, far less how it's going to be in the future. Many, many people think that local authorities, because they deliver some benefits, that they are responsible. DWP are responsible. They don't know where to go at times, and I think that that problem will be magnified when there are three or more agencies delivering benefits. It becomes incredibly important that communications between those organisations are extremely good. To give you one example, a case that has recently come in front of myself, a disabled man wanted to go back into work, so he wanted to go into permitted work, which is under 16 hours a week, under a maximum amount that he can earn. He notified his local job centre of that. Low and behold, a month after he starts, his benefits are stopped. He's told that he's working over the hours threshold, but he's given all that information to the local job centre. He goes back to them and says, I've given you this information. They say, yes, we've got it, but we've passed it on to another job centre because that decision-making is centralised. He and his welfare rights worker contact the other job centre. They say, no, it's not us, it's another one. He has to contact four job centres before he can get the matter resolved, and he goes without his benefits for over a month, endangering his employment, etc. That's within the current system. That's the complexity that they are just now with centralisation, etc., and call centres handling issues. I think that there will be a huge amount of confusion when the new system comes into being about who people are dealing with. I appreciate that. When we get to the point of delivery, there will need to be awareness raised around where the provision is coming from. I absolutely understand and agree with that. Is it a small supplementary from previous? Is there an awareness that both the policies and the legislation need to be in place before the process can transfer in terms of the benefits in question, in terms of the Scottish Government delivering instead of the DWP? I'm not sure if I'm quite caught. I'm just picking up the general point. I think that Echo Bill clearly, the general public clements, is complicated anyway, introducing another, splitting the two Governments responsible for two bits of the social security system. There's a risk of that further complicating things. I think that what systems need to be put in place to ensure that we mitigate the risk to clements and those who advise them and support them are being further confused. I suppose that that struck me that there's scope for building on the memorandum for understanding that's there just now to be more specific about the whole range of areas in which the two Governments need to co-operate and the terms in which they will co-operate. That's right from—we've talked about the policy inception stage—but right through to the communications and the communications with the clements stage. I think that that's where there's scope to build on that memorandum of understanding and really spell out what the commitment is from each of the Governments and how they will work together to get those communications right to avoid that level of confusion. Thank you very much, Mr Diggie. Alison Johnstone. Thank you, convener. Bill Scott spoke of two different cultures at work, but here we are in a situation where I think that there's probably not precedent for powers in a devolved area of responsibility requiring such extensive co-operation and joint working. I'd just like to explore what challenges you think this poses. We have one Government that refers to welfare, the other to social security. There do seem to be different views. I think that there's a different culture, not just a political level. There's a different culture at an operational level, which is going to be quite difficult. I know that we've not got them in operation yet, but we've already got a Scottish Government talking about people using the social security system in Scotland being able to have choice about how they communicate with the social security agency so that they can be able to use the means most appropriate to themselves, which, by the way, is in line with equality law. That's what any service should be doing. They should be making themselves available to be contacted in as many formats as possible, by telephone, by paper or online, as is needed by the person. SteadyWitch at DWP has a digital by default approach for universal credit, which penalises people with learning difficulties, people with sensory impairments, etc. The hypocrisy of the DWP is saying that you have to communicate with us online, but refusing to communicate with a blind claimant by email, even though they've said that that's the only way that I can read your communications, the DWP refused to email the person and said that it has to be in on paper. As I said, that sort of different cultural approach is not only going to create tensions for the claimants, but it's going to cause a huge amount of confusion. I can do that with this social security agency, but I can't do that with the DWP. How will they know that? How will they know that the different approaches won't work with the different agencies? I think that the cultures need to be addressed. Do you want to come in the back of that particular one? Can I just ask—I mean, it's constituency MPs in England. We have all sorts of problems with the DWP and the benefits agencies with our constituents. What level difficulties does the Scottish agencies have with the DWP? Is it the same stresses and complications that we have as constituency MPs with the English DWP and other agencies? Thank you. Both questions, really. When we're CPG on record, our concerns about the direction of UK social security policy and the stresses that's creating for ordinary families in and out of work claimants across the UK, that's a huge matter of concern. We work hard with colleagues across the UK to seek to influence the direction of UK social security policy. Clearly, there is a policy divergence. There's a divergence in terms of the approach to social security that's been taken in Scotland and the rest of the UK, and there's a lot of opportunities in that for us in this Parliament to take a different approach to social security, but clearly only within very specific bits of the system that have actually been devolved. There's a need to find a way of recognising in the way that the Government's co-operate and ensure that co-operation happens in such a way that just recognises and works around those clearly current policy divergence. When one way, looking again at the memorandum of understanding that's in place at the moment, one way perhaps of doing that has been a bit more clear and explicit about what's the purpose of this memorandum of understanding. For us, the purpose should be absolutely clear, that it's about ensuring the needs of claimants and claimants come first, that the purpose of working together across the two social security systems will be to ensure that claimants get the financial support that they're entitled to in a timely way, and that everybody across both Governments is working to that end. There's some reference in bits of the memorandum of understanding to the need for co-operation and the name of co-operation being to ensure the best possible outcomes, but quite far down in paragraph 11, I think it is, in part 4. Bringing that to the forefront and putting that at the forefront of what is the purpose of this co-operation would be at least a starting point in trying to work around and work with those clear tensions between the two approaches. The difficulty emerges when the two Governments have different views of what the needs of claimants are. Where this might emerge as a particular difficulty for a transitional period is when you move forward with the splitting of legislative and executive competence around the disability benefits, which I understand has been part of the agreement so far. I can't propose an alternative way to do it. You have to have that time to enable a legislative process to unfold prior to taking on the responsibility for delivery and executive decision making, but it seems to me that that's a time period where there will have to be very careful oversight of the relationship between the two Governments and a very good communication between them to ensure that there is nothing taking place under the executive authority, which will make it difficult to implement the legislation further down the line. Bill Scott, do you want to come in and out? I very much agree with that. We accept that it will take time to put the legislation and regulations in place. It is a very complex system. We want to be sure that, as is not happening with housing allowance, on day 1, when the Scottish Government begins to deliver benefits to disabled people that nobody misses out because the system in place is not good enough to ensure that. We have to take the correct amount of time to make sure that it is a system that works, but, at the same time, there are massive changes happening to personal independence payment, which were not envisaged when the Smith commission was in place. Some of the changes that are taking place were envisaged, but those ones that have been brought in in the last few weeks were not envisaged. That will reduce the amount of money that is coming to Scotland and therefore reduce the Scottish Government's ability to ensure that people with mental health issues and people with learning difficulties are treated on an equitable basis as those with physical impairments. I do not think that that is a fair situation for somebody who cannot go out because they have severe psychological problems and cannot go out unaccompanied. It is going to be stranded in their home because there is no money available to get them a taxi and go out unaccompanied. Absolutely. I just wanted to say before I bring Alison Johnstone back in again that the roll-out of universal credit is very problematic up here. We are calling for a halt on what is happening because we have seen people in debt as soon as they go into universal credit. Maybe we can have a chat when we see next week. Bill Scott's point is that I accept that the relevant sections of the Scotland Act haven't yet been commenced, but a lot of people have been very surprised about the extensive changes that have been made to DLA and PIP. Recently, the UK Government overturned a ruling via tribunal, which means that people suffering from mental health conditions, which make it difficult for them to travel on their own, now need to score points to qualify for PIP. It just seems to me that this goes against the spirit of the devolution settlement. Would you agree? I do tend to agree because I think that negotiations took place in good faith. We were led to believe what the outcome would result in terms of the amount of money coming to Scotland. We did point out at the time that it would take quite a while before DLA and PIP did come to Scotland that a lot of people would experience loss in that period, but there have been changes since then. Those two upper tribunal decisions should have resulted in people with mental health issues, people with learning difficulties and a small group of other people receiving the higher rate mobility component of personal independence payment, but now they won't. At the time when the bill to introduce personal independence payment was going through the lords, the Government Minister gave a commitment that they would be getting treated on a more equitable basis alongside those with physical impairments than ever before. That is not now going to materialise. That means that a lot of people who are expected to qualify for personal independence payment will not. They will have lost that benefit before the Scottish Government has the new powers, and it will have a reduced budget with which to make up the difference. That does not seem fair to ourselves. Does any of that panel want to come in in that particular? No, I suppose again just trying to think how do we, what needs to be put in place to try and deal with this as best as possible. I agree again the concern about the policy itself, but at what point there is nothing clear in the current MOU that I could see or my understanding of how arrangements work that spells out the point and the scope at which UK Government, in this case, has changed its policy in relation to disability benefits. It is clearly going to have an impact and implications for devolved policy in this area, as powers are transferred in terms of cost, in terms of the impact and all the rest of it. What point do they engage with Scottish Government to flag up that this is the policy intention and that they are committed to what we are arguing that there should be, that there should be something in place that ensures that they are committed to reviewing the implications for social security policy in Scotland from a change in social security policy at UK level and vice versa, because as social security policy in Scotland develops, there will be implications for UK social security and it needs to be at a very early stage. I think that it needs to be set out quite clearly the point at which not just information is shared, so it is not just about saying that we are going to do this, it is about saying that this is the policy intent and there is a process to go through in terms of reviewing what the implications are for the other Government's social security programmes. I think that, as far as we can see, it does not seem to be there very clearly at the moment and that is why we are ending up very close to the point that changes are happening and the confusion being there. That addresses directly the point that I was trying to make in my first remarks, which is about the need for a forum like the joint ministerial working group to think for the longer term beyond the point of implementation and to have a process in place where you can ensure that there is communication early on. However, I wanted to make a broader point about the money and I think that there are clearly issues in this transitional period when policies that will be devolved are altered pre-devolution, because that absolutely affects the fiscal transfer at the point of devolution. However, there are also inevitably going to be on-going difficulties, even if there was no policy change at the UK Government level because of the agreement on block grant adjustment for welfare to be barnatised. Where there is disproportionate spending obligation under the current spending within Scotland because of the disproportionate need, that is not going to be taken into account under a Barnett system. When you have policy change and that reduces entitlement still further, there are knock-on effects on the block grant. There will, it seems to me, be very difficult financial issues to deal with for the Scottish Government at the point of post-evolution. I very much want to see good, close, co-operative working at official and ministerial level between the two Governments, and also good, close co-operation at parliamentary level in terms of holding both the Governments to account. I very warmly welcome the members of the House of Commons here and the fact that this is the first Holyrood committee to be working jointly with the Scottish Affairs Committee in trying to understand the complexity of this new adventure in new experiment in shared government or joined up government, to use an old phrase in a different context that we're seeing. With that in mind, I've got one or two questions that might perhaps be particularly directed at Professor McEwen, but I'd also very much welcome Bill Scots and John Dickies' reflections on them if they have any. The first question really is, and we've heard quite a lot this morning about the policy differences that exist between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. Of course, there's nothing in devolution is there to suggest that the UK Government and the Scottish Government cannot or should not have policy differences, or indeed that devolution somehow prevents either Government from changing and adapting their policies in accordance with how they assess need to be changing. So, if we can just put some of the policy differences to one side for a moment and just think about the system. Is the system of joint ministerial working that we've got in the UK and that is under development in the UK fit for purpose when we know that we have different governments in different parts of the UK with, in some respects, quite radically divergent policy needs? And if it isn't fit for purpose, what sorts of reforms to that system do you think we need to see in order to make it fit for purpose? Your question is no, and in terms of what reforms we need to see, there's clearly, as you know, there are different types of forums, so there are the multilateral forums under the auspices of the joint ministerial committee. I'm talking specifically about social security. Right, okay. Well, I'll come back to that though. Then the bilateral forums, which are new, and it seems to me that the bilateral forums have been set up to deal with transfers of powers. The Joint Exchequer Committee is probably a bit further down the line because it's been in existence for longer in terms of dealing with on-going issues, and there's probably something to learn from that around the path ahead for the joint ministerial working group, if that is to exist for the longer term as an on-going management issue, but some of the social security issues will be also for the Joint Exchequer Committee because a lot of the issues that emerge will be financial and under the auspices of the fiscal framework agreement. There may well be the appeal or the possibility of a multilateral forum dealing with welfare issues going forward. I know that that's been discussed by a number of colleagues when this has come up about trying to find a purpose for the joint ministerial committee beyond just chat and communication. However, I'm not sure that the current incarnation of the GMC for European negotiations that had a purpose is necessarily a sign of good things to come in that respect. Going back to your first point, devolution has to come with different mandates, different policy directions for both Governments. The difficulty that we have here is that the design of the devolution system in the Scotland Act 2016 adds significantly to the complexities and the interdependences. That's new in the devolution settlement and that's why there is a need to have more robust systems and possibly also with more robust dispute arbitration systems because the way that these have been designed so far seems to me to encourage indecision or non-decision or disputes that emerge that can't be resolved will simply fall and there may be inaction. There's always been a reluctance on the part of both Governments to have independent arbitration and that may be something that we can look at again. Sorry, Mr Tomkins. Mr Scott, did you want to come in on that? Yeah, yeah, just very briefly. It's a practical example. We have been making this point before but because of the split and the benefits that have been transferred, means-tested benefits, universal credit, income support and so on, all remain at Westminster. So the potential exists that if the Scottish Government extends its title to disability benefits or carers allowance, that premiums that are awardable under certainly the means-tested benefits will, the number of those premiums awarded will rise, which will have a knock-on consequence for the UK Government in terms of the amount that it's paying out, which is likely to lead to under the fiscal framework Clawback. That potential already exists and because of the nature of the split, it's more likely because those premiums are awarded because you're a disabled person or because you're a carer, that it's the Scottish Government that's going to end up on the wrong end of the fiscal framework and losing money than it's the UK Government that ends up losing it. So I think that this is going to be caused by on-going difficulties over time and it's partially due to that split. Come in, Mr Dickie, on that particular point. To add a huge amount, I suppose much of what I was saying in relation to how the framework for the officials are engaging with each other and the need to identify the scope for that engagement and the points in the process, policy development process, that they will engage with each other and apply to joint ministerial working at political level as well, that clear agreement between the political level at what point they are committed to sharing, engaging with each other about the potential implications of their own areas of social security policy on each other. I think that that needs to be clarified and brought out and agreed sooner rather than later. To confine to Mr Dickie. Just to develop one or two of those points a little bit more, if I may. If the joint ministerial working group for welfare is not fit for purpose, what kinds of reforms to it do we need to see in order to make it fit for purpose? You mentioned, Professor McEwen, that the Joint Exchequer Committee may be an example in terms of bilateral relations from which the joint ministerial working group may usefully learn. What are the lessons from the Joint Exchequer Committee that the joint ministerial working group on welfare should be learning? My point about intergovernmental relations systems, processes being not fit for purpose, was a more general one. I cannot tell you precisely about the joint ministerial working group because it does not have sufficient transparency for me or perhaps even the committee to be able to tell and make that judgment. I think that there may well be lessons within the Joint Exchequer Committee simply because it has gone beyond the point of transfer. I kind of remember how often it meets a couple of times a year, I think now. Again, I do not know enough about what goes on in that process to be able to say precisely what the lessons would be to learn, but it is worth looking at. There are clearly relationships between the two that we would have to develop because social security is also a financial issue. I think that is where most of the difficulties on an on-going basis and possible disputes to a marriage will lie. Can I get one very more quick? One small sum. Thank you very much. Clearly this is not the only country in the world with multi-layer government where different levels of government point in different political directions. Are there any lessons that we can learn from other multi-level democracies that manage or have managed the processes of intergovernmental working in social security specifically for longer than we have in the United Kingdom? I think that it is difficult because there is no other country in the world that has the degree of asymmetry that we have in the UK where you have, so you will have examples of federal governments engaging with provincial governments or state governments or whatever it is on social security and other issues, but I cannot think of an example of an intergovernmental multi-layered system that has a federal government simultaneously acting for the largest part of the population of the state. That instills a degree of hierarchy into our system of intergovernmental relations, which is difficult to design out, if you see what I mean, so that is part of the system that is there and it is part of the dynamic that is there. Processes can help, but processes are one part of the underlying thing and the politics that emerge on top of that and the relationships that emerge as a result of that are difficult. It is a feature of the UK and the UK is becoming more and more complicated and we will have to find ways of managing it. If I find particular practical suggestions, I would be very happy to share them with the committee. Bill Scott, you wanted to come in on that particular one. The brief point is that Stormont has had social security powers since about 1920, 1921, but until very recently it has not exercised those powers any differently from the UK Government and it is only in those recent years that it has exercised the powers differently again that the problems have emerged and the UK Treasury has been imposing fines on the Northern Ireland Assembly, because it has not implemented perhaps the UK policy and, as a consequence, its fiscal framework has been affected. Deirdre Brock, do you want to come in on a supplementary in that particular one? No, not supplementary. All right, thank you. Margaret Ferrier. Thank you very much, convener. I just want to go back to a couple of the things that were mentioned at the start regarding the minutes that occasionally you get minutes. I think that it is all to do with this lack of communication or that the communication could be much better. Maybe you could tell us how communication can be improved between yourselves and these organisations and also between the DWP and the Scottish Government. Secondly, apart from the joint ministerial working group and the joint senior officials group, we have got the memorandum of understanding and the Concordat. The Concordat was set out to ensure that there were good working relationships between the DWP and the Scottish Government. The last time that was updated was 2010. Is it time for a further update? Obviously, we have now got the Scotland Act 2016. Come to you first, Bill. I am not the expert on intergovernmental working, I have to say. Just before it. Yes, it is certainly time for it to be updated. One of the things that we were very pleased about at the Smith commission approach to negotiations was the involvement of civic society in the process. There was a great deal of openness. I know that there were internal negotiations, but there was a lot of openness about the process and about hearing the views of civic society as well as negotiations between officials and politicians. I would like that approach to open government, where civic society has a role in intergovernmental relations. I think that we have a contribution to that. For that to work, there has to be a certain level of openness and a wee bit more in terms of minutes than, as Nicolaus pointed out, we get fairly sparse minutes of what was discussed and what was agreed, action points, whereas we do not really get very much insight into some of the detail that we probably need to know about in the next step. I think that the memorandum of understanding goes considerably beyond the 2010 Concordat anyway, so I think that that has to be seen as a positive. On transparency, it is not about relationships between those processes and us. I think that it is about relationships between those processes and parliaments. If that is transparent, then it is easier for everybody else to see as well. The Scottish Parliament should be getting communication from the Scottish Government. There is written agreement to uphold that. I do not know if, with the minute of the last ministerial working group, if it has been published and I simply could not find it, that is entirely possible. It was not in your papers for this meeting either, and it may be that there were not minutes. If there were not, then there should be communication from the Scottish Government to the Scottish Parliament on its participation in the intergovernmental process. One example is going back to the joint executive committee's early days, where there were very extensive minutes around the discussions that took place between the two Governments. For me, as a scholar, that was fantastic, and the roof never caved in, so when those minutes were published, it is probably only people like us that are reading them. I think that the more extensive the minutes, the more accurate the minutes can be to get not just what was agreed but what was discussed and by whom and to try and get a better understanding of where the issues lie and where the difficulties lie. The more that can be provided there, the better. That will enable people like John and Bill, who have insights that Parliaments and Governments do not have, to help to feed into the process and help to overcome some of the difficulties as well. We will certainly, just to small piece of information, as far as I know, it has not been published yet. We certainly have not seen it, so you have not missed it. It is just not there. John Dickie, do you want to come in on that? Yes, I think that there had been perhaps more transparency and more opportunities to share what the thinking was. If there were to share the co-operation of the engagement that there had been around, for example, 18 to 21-year-olds universal credit facilities, if that discussion had been a bit more transparent or there had been opportunities for external engagement and scrutiny of that, then perhaps some of the issues that have arisen or we would not be this late on in the process of finding ourselves in those sort of situations where it starts. I think that there is lots to say that. I suppose that I am not sure that it is directly related to the other area where we think that the whole system could be supported and that the whole system for co-operation could be supported would be just through having that independent statutory scrutiny body that would look at both policy developments in terms of devolved social security but also in terms of draft regs, draft legislation and would be able to provide a level of independent expert scrutiny that both Governments could then have confidence in that would take some of the heat out of the relationship, that level of impartial expertise to be able to identify where there are implications for UK Government, Scottish Government, whichever the implications and vice versa in terms of policy being developed in one Government and potential implications for the other Government's area of social security, to having an independent body along the lines of the kind of social security advisory committee model but I think maybe evolving to deal with the issues of split responsibilities for social security. I have two members who want to come in this up and then Deirdre Brock. Godlyntus, was that supplementary to the question there? It was small supplementary. It was to go back to a point that Professor McEwen made but I could perhaps raise it after Deirdre Brock. George Adam, did you want to supplementary on that particular point? I suppon what was just mentioned there after Margaret's question was, obviously the panel has given us an explanation of a very complex kind of difficult landscape but as part of the problem it's not even political as such, we have the political issues which are challenging as well but there's also the fact that we seem to have DWP Westminster just bringing on regardless as if it's business as usual, an example of which would be the job centre closures type idea what happened just before Christmas where the Scottish Government never knew about it and in fact the minister came here and told us minister for employment that he read about it in the daily record before he actually heard anything else so is it not a lot more less complex than that that we just have a system that just seems to kind of just want to bring on and continue and doesn't seem to be kind of looking at the modern kind of processes that we currently have and the changes that are happening? I didn't mean to just talk about it, but I know that Deirdre Brock had wanted to come in that particular issue. Do you want to come in the suppon in the panel? Can I speak more? Well, actually further to that, I was going to raise that too because I just wondered with your knowledge of the internal workings, if you like, of the political and operational teams, I think someone mentioned the operational teams seem to be ticking along fairly well at the moment, was it Bill, was it? Aha. I wonder, you know, with whatever knowledge you've gleaned from those internal workings, how you thought that situation might have come about? I mean, just our minister finding that out in a newspaper and not having obviously any sort of warning of that beforehand. And what lessons would you glean from that then and take forward into this situation specifically around social security? I mean, I don't know how that happened. In terms of thinking how could we avoid that situation or the situations arising, then it is about strengthening the memorandum of understanding, is it a new concordat, is it a new memorandum, to be absolutely clear where DWP needs to engage with Scottish Government as policy is developed within DWP and that that should be very early on and it shouldn't be restricted just to those areas where there's devolution of, where powers are devolved, but also to those areas where policy DWP policy will sort of rub along and impact even if it's not overlapping or with devolved areas of social security, that there does need to be absolutely much clearer agreement that information will be shared about policy development by DWP and vice versa. I mean, we're talking about it this way around, but as the thing develops, this will be something that works both ways, but at the moment it is more that way. Another thing I suppose to say is that it wasn't clear to us reading the memorandum of understanding. Clearly there's an agreement there between the officials and different programme boards and there's the DWP have a Scottish devolution programme board, but what the relationship between is between those programme boards and the actual programme boards within DWP that are responsible for driving forward bits of policy, whether it's jobs on our plus or whether it's universal credit roll-out, whether it's a clearer explanation within the memorandum perhaps as an ex about how those different programme boards relate to each other would be really important. I think that we do have a concern that the Scottish Government programme boards are kind of one step removed from those bits of the DWP that are actually responsible for the day-to-day policy and operational developments within the social security. So something that's clearer about how those all link together would be really helpful and might help to ensure that throughout DWP there's an understanding of the need to reflect on the implications of policy for devolved Scottish social security responsibilities. I'm using the DWP's example there because that's what's current, but this will make sense. This will be important both ways as the transfer of powers continues. Thank you. Next, McHean, do you want to come in? Yeah, I mean that there's nothing new in social security policy having an impact on devolved competence. That's always been the case between the interface between social security and social policy. I wanted to draw the committee's attention to work done by the IFS recently on the changes that are coming to tax credits, particularly for child tax credits and working families, because they will have an enormous impact on other areas of devolved competence, not the social security powers because those aspects of social security are not to be devolved, but on other areas of social policy and with a knock-on effect there. On your point about how did that happen, I don't know when, and maybe that's a question for the panel to come, but it does seem to me there's been a lot of work within Whitehall it seems to me in the last few years to build up expertise and knowledge of devolution. One of the risks of that is that you have a group of officials within each department that work on devolution and they probably have really good working relationships with the Scottish Government, and they probably communicate very well with their counterparts in the Scottish Government. I'm not sure how then the rest of the officials within DWP will have—how much their understanding is also developing around issues of devolution where their decision making and their policies will have an impact. That seems to me an internal Whitehall challenge, an on-going one, given the mobility that takes place for officials, but it's maybe a question for the next panel. Absolutely. Bill Scott, do you want to come in? Very briefly, I just echo that. I think that the health and work green paper that was issued by the DWP, there's nary a mention of Scotland in it and how the proposals would work in Scotland, even though a lot of it is about the DWP making referrals to the NHS, and we've had devolved NHSs since it was created in Scotland, so the DWP couldn't do that without negotiations and so on. It's a massive department—88,000 people. I think that your political decision was made to reduce the staff complement and the number of premises that DWP has and then the operational decisions are made further down the line. I think that that is the problem with such a massive department that a lot of the operational decisions are made elsewhere, and I would agree very much with Professor McEwen that they don't necessarily talk to each other within the DWP about the relations with Scotland or even what the devolution settlement means. I was just going to ask our witnesses today if they're aware of the experience panel that the Scottish Government is looking to recruit people with recent experience of benefits so that they get the social security system in Scotland right, working for it. Is the panel aware of that and able to put it out to the people that they come in contact with? We're trying to actively recruit disabled people who are in receipt of disability benefits to go on to the experience panels because we think that there's a fantastic opportunity for Government policy to be informed by the end-user, and that is the way to reform services as to ask the people who rely on those services how they need to change and adapt to meet their needs. Quick yes or no from the panel. We're aware of important development. Thank you so much. We are running short of time, so go on and lend us the last question. Thank you, convener. Just very quickly, Professor McEwen, you mentioned possibility of arbitration, and I wouldn't want to dismiss that out of hand. A lot of people would say ultimately decisions on those issues are political decisions. The Scottish Government, whatever political complexion it may have, the UK Government, whatever political complexion it may have, may differ on those things. I'm just wondering, even in systems where there isn't perhaps the imbalance in the size of the component nations of the unit, as it were, such as Germany, which is a federal system, precisely the issues on social security and differences between the federal government and the local government, for example the Bavarian government, have risen in the past two years. Whatever system is set up, there will be these differences, but I think I'm just curious if you could develop your comment about arbitration or whether one could look at other countries and see how they resolve these differences that do arise in any event. I suppose that in other countries where there is more of a legal culture, and there may be more of a role for constitutional courts, and I don't know more about this than I do, so I won't say anything further. I wasn't necessarily advocating that. I think that I absolutely agree with you that, ultimately, a lot of this will boil down to politics, and it's appropriate for the political actors to resolve that or decide not to resolve that and take the consequences with them. However, some of it seems to be too technical, or at least open to interpretation. Again, we're going to go back to the physical framework agreement time and time again because it was, in some ways, quite ambiguous still, and maybe that was necessary to get that political agreement at the time that they needed to get it, but it's at least open to interpretation, and some interpretations will set precedence for the future. You might be right that it may be more appropriate for the political actors rather than some independent arbiter, but at least if there is independent or impartial evidence basis for them to then make those political decisions, that might help the process further. I thank you for saying that a wee bit longer. I'm sure that we can ask you lots and lots more questions, but I do have to bring this evidence session to a close. I thank you for attending and answering the questions and I'll allow a few minutes for change over our witnesses. Thank you very much. We're on to our second panel and we're very welcome to yourself here. I know that Mary Paterson is replacing Richard Cornish. You have asked both groups to make opening statements, so I'll pass it over to who wishes to go first. Cymru. Members of both committees, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the work that we're doing in collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions to implement the devolution of social security powers under the Scotland Act 2016. Social security will be by any measure the most complicated area of devolution ever undertaken by the Scottish Government. For me, the safe and secure transition of around £2.8 billion of annual benefit payments to approximately 1.4 million people living in Scotland depends on two important factors above all else. Firstly, a team of people across the Scottish Government who have the skills, the capabilities, the enthusiasm and the determination to succeed, and secondly, strong, constructive and effective working relationships with the UK Government and particularly our colleagues in DWP. The committees have asked us to appear together to provide you with an update on our work so far is entirely in keeping with the fact that this is a joint endeavour by both Governments. I've been the director of social security for over 12 months now and at that time I've been focused on establishing the foundations that we need for the devolution to succeed. We've grown from a single division of around 30 people to a directorate of around 150 spanning the areas of policy, analysis, service design operations, programme management, digital, legal, HR procurement and communications. I expect that around 200 people in post by the end of this year with further significant expansion in the years to come as the new social security agency begins to emerge. Within the directorate we've sought to recruit the right people from across the Scottish Government and its agencies with right skills and experience at the right time. We're building capability across our organisation now and for the future, providing training and support for colleagues taking on new and different roles. We've also recruited people permanently from a number of other UK Government departments, including DWP, the Treasury, the Cabinet Office, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Justice. We've just advertised our first suite of posts externally looking to attract in people from the wider public and private sector. The result will be a diverse team with strength in depth. Designing, building and testing new devolved services requires robust governance to support effective decision making by civil servants and ministers. A key member of my team is Lisa Barron-Brodhurst, a civil servant with over 20 years experience and projects and programme management. I'm delighted that Lisa is able to join me today. As you might imagine, we've been busy since the Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2016. In July, we published a new future for social security. In what was one of the most wide-ranging consultations ever undertaken by the Scottish Government, over 120 engagement events took place and we met with people in every one of our 32 local authority areas. By the time the consultation closed at the end of October, we received 521 responses from a wide range of individuals and organisations. That is intended to provide ministers with a valuable and rich source of evidence that they can use over the next four years to guide the development of our work. Initially, it will inform the social security bill to be laid before summer recess, a key focus of activity in the directorate at the moment. I want to briefly say something about how my team is going about its work. Engagement with people, in particular those with lived experience of the services being devolved, is going to be crucial to our success, but we will be going further than the traditional approach that officials usually take to stakeholder engagement. We plan to design and build our social security system hand in hand with those who will come to rely on this new public service. Of course, as you would expect, the civil service has a term for this. In the jargon, we call it co-production. In my view, it is just common sense. A good example of this is our experience panels, where we plan to recruit over 2,000 volunteers to guide our activity. I am pleased to be able to let you know that, after the first two weeks of a 10-week campaign, we have already recruited 550 people. The launch of the panels is important for another reason. It marks a significant milestone in our working relationship with DWP, who will be issuing letters on our behalf to a broad sample of people in receipt of devolved benefits tomorrow as the next phase of the campaign begins. The partnership between the two Governments goes deeper than just my directorate in the teams that Mary and Pete lead. Our two executive teams met last year to underline the seriousness of their commitment to this work and then meet again in the spring. That sends a clear signal to both organisations that only the right leadership culture, one where openness, trust and collaboration is encouraged, will help us meet and overcome the challenges ahead. Beyond the more formal occasions, intergovernmental co-operation and the area of social security happens in a number of fronts. Mary and I jointly chair a group of senior officials that supports the joint ministerial working group, which we have been talking about this morning. Together with the Scotland office in those meetings, we progress key ministerial priorities such as the commencement of the Scotland Act provisions and joint communications activity, and we look at our emerging programme of work. Indeed, on Thursday, the four of us here with you today met with our senior teams to review and discuss how we can work more effectively in the future. Every day, and it is every day, people from my directorate are speaking to people from the devolution teams, indeed, who are having joint workshops or meeting to progress this activity. As civil servants, we are guided in what we do by various things. At a general level, we have the civil service code that sets out our values that we are expected to live and breathe each day. Those are honesty, integrity, impartiality and objectivity. More specifically in social security, we have a memorandum of understanding between the DWP and ourselves, which contains certain procedures that we have agreed to follow in a number of areas, such as information sharing. The MOU has been critical in cementing a close working relationship between our teams and building my directorate's knowledge and understanding of the benefit to be devolved. In closing, convener and chair, those remarks are not designed to be exhaustive, but I trust that they provide you and members present with an insight into how the two Governments are working well to achieve the safe and secure transition of social security powers from the UK Government to the Scottish Government. With your permission, I will now hand over to Mary Paterson to make her opening remarks before we take your questions. Thank you, Stephen. Convener, chair, members of both committees. Thank you for the opportunity to come here today to talk about the work that we are doing in DWP with Scottish Government colleagues to support the transfer of social security powers to Scotland. The Scotland Act 2016 provided the legislative means for the UK Government to devolve power for over £2.8 billion of welfare benefits and payments for over a million Scottish citizens. That is just the start, and we are now embarking on an ambitious undertaking to ensure successful, secure and safe transfer of powers and responsibilities. As Stephen has noted, success relies on strong working relationships between DWP and Scottish Government, underpinned by robust governance. DWP is committed to making a success of this, and since taking over the role of senior responsible owner, I have sought to build on the excellent working relationships developed by my predecessor, Richard Cornish. To continue to share our learning and experience of running the UK social security system, to seek solutions working collaboratively with Scottish Government as we work through the details of this joint endeavour. It is worth rehearsing the range of powers that the Scotland Act devolves to Scotland. Those include the ability to create new benefits and make discretionary payments, responsibility for a range of current DWP benefits, the ability to change certain defined elements of universal credit and powers to create new employment programmes. The key interest for both our Governments is to deliver those powers securely, safely and smoothly, and it is essential that we ensure that Scottish customers receive high-quality support. Stephen has already touched on the important Government arrangements that we have in place, which include the joint ministerial working group on welfare and joint meetings of officials between DWP and Scottish Government, including at the executive team level, to share knowledge and experience at the most senior levels. DWP is investing significant resource to take this forward. Pete and I have dedicated policy and programme teams in place to support devolution of powers, and they draw on expertise from across the department to ensure that the work is given an appropriate priority. Alongside that work, we have shared our extensive corporate knowledge and expertise of design and delivery of welfare benefits to help to build capability and understanding of this complex area. We have shared over 300 pieces of information with Scottish Government on our business processes, customer journeys and a range well in excess of 100 meetings and workshops delivered to explain the processes in more detail. We are also building capability and understanding within DWP on the devolution settlement and how and when to engage with Scottish Government in this new landscape. There has been significant progress to date. The first transfer of powers, covering 11 of the 13 Social Security sections of the Scotland Act, took place July 2016. As a result of close co-operation, progress has been made on a number of early priorities, including new devolved employment support, Workable Scotland and Work First Scotland, to be launched from April this year. Those services will use existing DWP systems to underpin delivery. Work is now focused on the remaining two sections of the Act, covering existing benefits for disability, industrial injuries, carers, maternity, funeral and heating expenses. At the request of Scottish Government ministers and agreed at the joint ministerial working group on welfare, DWP is progressing an innovative and unprecedented approach to commencing these remaining sections by splitting the competence. This will allow the Scottish Government space to legislate for its new arrangements, but the UK Government will remain accountable for delivery during the transition period up to 2020. We are on track to lay the regulations in April. At the request of Scottish Government when we have completed a feasibility study, we are exploring options to deliver a carers allowance increase in Scotland. I know that Scottish Government is considering those initial findings. As Stephen mentioned, we have also supported the experience panels with the mailing that is going out tomorrow. In summary, although our two Governments might not always share the same view or policy approach, our aim is to work closely and constructively for all levels to find solutions to the challenges presented. Good progress has been made to date, but there is obviously further to go, and we will begin to take shape as we see Scottish Government social security bill and we work with Scottish Government officials and colleagues as they shape their new system. A close, constructive and productive relationship with Scottish Government is at the heart of delivering the new powers in a successful, secure and safe way, and I look forward to continuing to build on the good work that we have already made to date. Thank you very much, and it was remiss at the moment not to mention Lisa Barron-Brotters, programme director of social security at the Scottish Government and Peter Searle, director of working-age benefit and evolution directorate department for work and pensions. Welcome and very sorry, I am remiss of me not to mention it at the very beginning. Could I just perhaps kick off one of the questions that has the previous panel, and they certainly had a good overview about it in regard to working relationships. Now you have said yourself that you work in partnership, like Stephen Kerr mentioned that, but also Mary Paterson mentioned the fact that although both Governments may have a different way of looking at it, I remiss and looks at the welfare, we in the Scottish Government social security based on dignity and respect. In that respect, you have two different political masters, if I may call it with different views on the way you call social security or welfare and how you approach it. How would you describe your working relationship, taking in mind that you have both said yourself or yourself, Mary Paterson, that you have come from it in a different way? Is there difficulties there with you working together in that respect? I am thinking of correspondence such as job centre closures, which we did not know anything about until we saw at the newspaper. Is there difficulties there with you working together? I would not have said so. Clearly, our ministers will sometimes have different views on how they might approach things, and that is partly why we have the joint ministerial group, so that those issues can be discussed where we—always where we—these issues might come up. We work on them together, as we have been doing on them most recently. Ministers from both sides are committed to devolution and to making this work successfully, so I think that, in the main, it really does not create problems. We have to, as civil servants, we provide the sort of neutral advice about the options that might be available, and that is what we have been doing. Stephen Kidd, do you want to comment on that? I think much the same. We do not exist in a vacuum, of course. We work within the political circumstances of the day and in our jobs to not let that constrain us, convener. It is really to keep focusing on solutions to issues that arise. From a personal point of view, I have been working 13 years with UK Government departments, so on my list of shame or glory, DFS, DFE, Biz, Deus, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, DWP to name but a few. I have never found in the way that I have gone about the business and the Scottish Government that these things have prevented us from working together. If you look at the work that we were doing and the lead-up to the independence referendum, we were introducing new devolved powers in partnership with DWP, the Scottish welfare fund, at the time when our ministers were obviously pursuing policies in independent Scotland, so we find ways to make those things work. This morning is an unusual surroundings for us from the Scottish Affairs Committee, but we are grateful for the opportunity to ask you just a few questions about the process. My first question is about a process issue, and it is the fact that Stephen Kidd creating a new department out of absolutely nothing, no history, no background or culture about delivering welfare benefits in Scotland, where the DWP has been in existence for 100 years, perhaps the largest white hall department, over 80,000 staff. How is this working then? Do you feel, first of all, Mr Kerr, that you are getting the adequate resource from the DWP in order to build and create this new department? Is there anything that you feel that you further require and need in order to ensure that the early Government's intentions are going to be realised? I think that if I can point to my left in terms of a visible manifestation of resource from DWP, I mean that Lisa has maybe said something in a moment about her experience, but so far we have found requests that we have made have been forthcoming in terms of resources. There have been lots of workshops, lots of meeting, lots of sharing of information. In fairness to colleagues in the UK Government, that point that you make, chair about capability building, is quite important. We have got to be in a certain place of readiness before we can engage meaningfully with DWP, who, as you say, are a department with 100-year history, so there's an obligation on me to make sure that I've got enough players on the field to be able to engage with DWP. That can sometimes prove to be challenging, but where DWP can help us, they're doing so, with other areas, and the Government can help us. I think that they are doing so as well. Stephen alluded to it before in terms of bringing more people into supporters. We've recruited people in from all the other Government departments, which is great, but we're reaching out now across local government and other areas with the external advertisements to bring even more capability in. The last session concentrated, and there was quite a few exchanges about some of the tensions in the relationship. I was very impressed with your political answer about how you serve different political masters and how those things are all evened out and everything works seamlessly. However, can I suggest a couple of areas where there might just be a very concern and I'd be interested in your views as civil servants expected to deliver programmes for your respective governments? There seems to be tensions right now about the changes in PIP, for example, which we've seen at Westminster, the Job Centre closure programme, which we did a one-off session to try to better understand and see what the process was all about, particularly the issue around housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds, where the Scottish Government has very clearly said that they want to make sure that this is retained, where the UK Government is determined to progress with this. Maybe you could help us with this, Ms Paterson. Where are we with this? Is the UK Government going to plough on with her plans, regardless of what the Scottish Government wants to do as an early priority and secure in welfare powers? If I start on that one, Steven, I don't want to come in. I think that on the 18 to 21, it's something that we've been talking about for a while. Both Governments have very clear policy positions on that. We've been trying to work through it together to find the best way through to enable the UK Government to deliver what it wants to deliver and, likewise, the Scottish Government. However, I think that it's an area where we're in a bit of a period of transition because the Scottish Government hasn't yet had time to put in all the frameworks, the agency and so on, the legislation that it needs to build its own system. We have to find a way through with the legislation as it exists, either in Scotland or in the UK Parliament. There will be issues like this where there isn't a perfect way through, but we keep talking together to try to find the best way through that fits the needs of both Governments. Are there mainly issues for the joint ministerial committee to deal with? If this works out at a political level and then you're expected to try to come up with an arrangement that tries to meet both the requirements of your respective Governments? Typically, what would happen would be that we know what our Governments want to achieve and we would try to work through and be asked to work through at official level how we might, what the different ways for achieving that might be, either through changes in the UK legislation or changes in the Scottish Government legislation or approach, and then we take options, ideally agreed solutions, recommended solutions up to the ministers and then it's for them to ultimately decide. Stephen, do you want to? I think that Pete has covered the territory well. As he says, the UK Government has a policy position in our jobs to try and arrive at a place where both policies can be implemented in discussions and that has been intense over a good few weeks and we're still working and actively discussing that. I'm not wanting to willfully suggest this, but is there any sort of sense that because the Scottish Government's departments all knew novel not really got the experience and history that they would tend just to go along with what the UK Government wants to do in terms of policy ambitions when we see the job centre closure announcement, for example the changes in PIP, some of the tensions around bedroom tax and benefit cap, do you feel that your early priorities are being addressed and being met and can we hear from the UK civil servants that you will take into account the early priorities of the Scottish Government and you will do all you can to support them and ensure that they will be delivered? I mean inevitably we look at the sort of areas of tension but clearly there are things where we've made early successes, I mean maybe not as much for this committee but the employability changes happening in in April that's been very close joint work between both Governments to support the implementation of the work programmes there, the feasibility on the carers allowance increase, which clearly is not UK Government policy, us looking about options about how that might be delivered early, are also a good example of that. The only comment that I would make is you know I think it's fair to say I don't think I work for a group of ministers who would allow us just to take the views of the UK Government ministers and accept them, I think they're always pushing us quite rightly to look at the outcomes that they're looking to achieve in securing those. Stephen Hepburn, do you want to come in the supplementary on that one? Just I wonder, I mean the two systems that are evolving either side of the border, whether there was any border issues and if there was could you give any examples and how you're overcoming them? I mean I don't think we've come up with too many so far but I would expect there to be some border issues, for example where carers might be a good example, where someone, one side of the border is caring for someone, the other side of the border and how that will work through in detailed policy as we go forwards. I don't think we've really come up with any concrete issues, problems around that so far but we're probably at a fairly early stage in policy development in Scotland but that's certainly the sort of thing that we need to look very closely at. Have you got any special working party looking specifically into this issue, possible problems with borders? I mean no particular working party on that, I think what we'll probably do is take each policy as it comes, work through that and think about border issues as part of that. Now it may be over time we come to the stage where it looks to be a bigger cross cutting issue that we need to look at separately across a number of areas but at the moment I think we take it on a policy by policy basis. Just because there isn't a forum or a group looking at it doesn't mean to say that people from my team and people from DWP aren't looking at this so they are, they are talking about cross cutting issues like residency and for example in our bill we will have to be able to mark out the territory of who's a Scottish benefit claimant for the first time so of course we can do that through the legislation and as we start to implement the legislation through practice then there'll be a requirement to keep that under review of course as well. Chris Law, did you want to come in on us up on that and then it's Mark Griffin? Yes, I just want to ask, given some of the challenges you face at the moment in terms of timing with some of your policies, is there an openness in preparation from your ministers to delay implementation if there's not a common agreement found between two Governments? Well from a UK Government position, I mean UK Government's got its clear policy positions, the things it wants to implement across the UK at certain points in time. It's open to having conversations with the Scottish Government about what the Scottish Government wants to achieve and how best we can do that. I think it's fair to say that generally the UK Government would be reluctant to delay its plans in the light of difficulties between the two Governments in implementation because it wants to deliver what it's committed to publicly but, crucially, it would want to talk very extensively to the Scottish Government to try and find that common way through that can meet the needs of both Governments. I mean I think if you're talking about implementation, I don't think there's a minister in either Government who would just crack on regardless of an issue that arose. I mean there are things that I've got to do in Scotland, in the Scottish Government, to be able to allow our system to be ready and there are things that DWP has to do to be able to ensure that its system is ready as well and nobody is going to proceed with decisions on either side until we're both happy that we're good to go. You know, the safe and secure transition is not a term that was just made up overnight. It's something that really sits deeply at the heart of the programme. This is about people after all and it would be a very difficult and bad position for both Governments to be in to press on regardless if we weren't satisfied that in the implementation side of things we were good to go. Mark Griffin, do you want to go? Thanks, convener. People have touched on the issue around the Government's intention to abolish the bedroom tax in the apparent conflict that is with the benefit cap. The previous panel's position seems that many people's position is that the agreement through the fiscal framework and the policy of more detriment would mean that if the Government were to abolish the bedroom tax or to make any change to make a more generous provision in a particular benefit, create a new benefit or top-up, that money would not be clawed back and can ask officials on both sides of the table if that is both Governments' agreed positions. On that one, both Governments are clear about the outcome and that there would be no detriment. What we're trying to work through is a technical way of how we do that at the moment, so there is no difference. I don't know if there's anything that you want to add. I clarify that there is no political difference. Political will is that there should be no detriment that the Scottish Government should be able to carry out that ambition without any penalty on any recipient in Scotland. It's purely a technical issue. It's a technical issue in the short to medium term. In particular, what we're very focused on is the outcome that the Scottish Government wants to achieve here in terms of people who choose to remove the removal of the spare room subsidy through UC that those people should be able to benefit from that effect. Now, in practical terms, in the short term, it's difficult to do that through the UC system, but we're talking about alternative ways in which that could be achieved through discretionary housing payments. In effect, the Scottish Government will pay no more than it pays in total for the removal of the spare room subsidy change, but it does that through discretionary housing payments rather than through the UC system. That's a technical, practical way in which we might need to address it or option for addressing it in the short term, looking at longer-term solutions later. You can't really divorce the two things on. I think that my colleagues, indeed, I would agree that the Government's manifesto commitment is to abolish the bedroom tax at source. Those words at source are really important. At source means within the UK Government's universal credit system, which is still being built and developed and being rolled out across the UK. Getting in and about that system is what is required to deliver that manifesto commitment. So, when you hear language around technical aspects to implementing this, that's what the discussion is referring to. I would underline the point about the outcome. Our ministers have been very clear on what the outcome is that this UK Government's policy should be reversed with no impact on the benefit cap or the benefit cap not having an impact on that policy. That's been heard loud and clear. That's what the focus is on. Causing benefit is where the discussions are at at the moment to try at how one gives effect to that policy. Briefly, do the Scottish Government have a continuing commitment to mitigate until it removes that source? As you said, ministers do have that commitment. Thank you very much. Ruth Maguire, do you want to come in? Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I'd like to ask you a little bit more about the experience panels. I think that it is inherently sensible to use the expertise of people with the lived experience of benefits, but I wonder how you view the potential dilemma if you're going down one road in terms of delivery and the views of the experience panels sure that they would like something different? I think that you're right to say that it's the correct approach for an undertaking of this nature. If we end up completely diverging, then we've done something wrong. Quite obviously, the panels are there to help us to develop the system and the policy and the practice. Might there ever be occasions when what the panels want we can't deliver? Yes. Will we explain why? Yes. Will we then focus on compromises and different ways of achieving the same outcome? What's the best way to overcome the issue that's been identified? Absolutely. Although the experience panels will provide quite a rich source of evidence, they won't be the only place that we go to, so you've got the new disability—I can never remember the name of this thing—disability and carers benefits expert advisory group. There you go. Chirred by Dr Jim McCormack, who is familiar to many people around the table. Another place where the voice of individuals claiming benefits can be captured. We're quite excited about it. I don't know if you've ever seen Scottish Government analysts. Actually, Dr Signeurini comes here and sits in front of this committee. He's very disappointed that you've never asked him questions, but his team is wildly excited by all of this. They think that this is a magnificent approach to policy that the Scottish Government is taking on. We look at it as something that is going to pride us with a huge seam of evidence over the next few years. I think that it is the right approach to taking. As long as everyone is clear about why decisions are being taken, it avoids any mishaps with different directions. We've heard relatively little. I feel, certainly, from both Governments on the issue of topping up reserved benefits. Do the systems for reserved benefits to be topped up currently exist? We're looking at one area in particular. We're looking at carers allowance, and you've heard a bit about the feasibility work that's going on. We're looking at that now. We're trying to understand what the options are around DWP doing on our behalf, or whether there's other routes as well. We've used the term governance in programmes, and that's really important for members of both committees to understand. Yes, there's a lot of informal contact, but there's formality in terms of how the Government works. I've got to look at that study and whether, for example, things like the value for money case stacks up. We've got project boards in place that need to look at the carers allowance work. It will come to a programme board, which I'm on as well. There's a process that we are currently taking that work through to understand whether the DWP systems can top up carers allowance and what the costs of that would be, and how quickly that could be done as well. In each case, carers allowance is obviously the one that's come first in terms of a variation to UK Government benefit in advance of it being fully devolved or in the transition period. I think that my feeling is that when future ideas come forward for topping up reserved benefits, that will be a discussion to have between the two Governments about feasibility and deliverability of that. In the hybrid area, I suppose, in terms of top-up, because it is a devolved benefit. I guess that when the systems were developed by the UK Government, the scenario where it now was never envisaged, you are having to have a look at the capability of infrastructure that, in many cases, is several decades old and whether it can cope with that? Certainly in my own party's views, we'd like to see child benefit, for example. Increased by £5, is there any discussion at all into what might happen if a Scottish Government in future proposed such a change? No, not at the moment. I am focused on what the current Scottish Government is doing. And child benefits administered by HMRC. In the previous panel, we heard quite a lot about the importance of transparency. It is in all our interests, as Parliamentarians, irrespective of which Parliament we serve, and irrespective of whether we are Government or Opposition politicians, to have as much transparency in intergovernmental communications and intergovernmental operations as possible. It seems that the key piece of their inter-institutional architecture is the joint ministerial working group on welfare, which you have all been operating for some months. How can it be made more transparent so that we can do our jobs more effectively? I know that you have a particular answer to that, Professor Tomkins, which is a request to be in the room. The discussions have taken place, and I know that you have raised that with my ministers. You are putting words in my mouth. Those are issues that I think you should explore with our ministers. You recognise as a balance to be struck, are you not? They are between the space for discussions to take place between ministers and making sure that there is a degree of visibility about what those discussions are, and when those discussions take place. Ministers are, as you all know, accountable to both Parliament, so you can ask them questions at any time in this committee. If I can slightly move the question on deliberately, so to an area that I can say something more about, and there was a point in the previous session about whether officials could do more with stakeholders and forums between officials and stakeholders. I think that we were all struck by that suggestion, so that is something that I am very happy to look at. Transparency of the ministerial group, I think that we would ask you to probably explore that further with our ministers next week. Oh, thank you so much. Ian Murray, did you want to come in the supplementary? I saw your hand up. I think that I agree with Mr Tomkins to a certain extent, not necessarily with this joint working group on welfare, but we have seen communicates coming out of the ministerial committees for the fiscal framework. I remember one in particular that said that the ministers, the finance secretary and the chief secretary of the treasury met. This was the sixth time that they met. They look forward to meeting again soon, and that was the minute from a particular meeting. You can see why there is a little bit of frustration that we are finding it difficult to be able to hold Governments to account when we do not really know what is happening in terms of these kinds of discussions. My question goes to the way in which your respective organisations are working together. There is no doubt that you are doing a tremendous job in trying to pull together some of these incredibly complex issues that ultimately affect people's lives of the most vulnerable, which is incredibly important to get right. There was a community from October last year that split off both the executive competence of the two of the remaining competencies, which are the biggest ones, disability allowances and carers being one of them, and the legislative competence. Can you just explain a little bit about why you came to that decision and what is the need for splitting off those two competencies to push it out to 2020? I want to start. There are purposes to ensure that A, the system can carry on so that people keep getting the very important benefits that they need to get while the Scottish Government is developing its plans and particularly its legislation for the new system that it wants to bring in. It says in the short term that we can transfer or give the Scottish Government legislative competence. It can take forward its bill a bit later in the year. At the point at which that starts to be commenced, that will be the point at which we transfer executive competence. In the meantime, the UK Government can retain that competence so that it can carry on delivering benefits and people can carry on getting the very important payments. The crucial thing is to make sure that only one Government has executive competence at one time. There is an immediate point of transfer when the UK Government will pass it across to the Scottish Government. It may be there at that point on some benefits and issues. The Scottish Government might still want UK Government support and delivery, but we will be delivering very much for the Scottish Government under agency agreements rather than for ourselves. You could put it another way. If we did not do it, what happens when we pass our legislation? We become responsible for delivering the benefits. With the best will in the world, we are not going to have the infrastructure in place and time to do that. That is the need to separate them out. Why is it different for those two and not the other 10 or 11 competencies out of the package of 13? Are they just easier to administer because it is a single transfer? The ones that are left over are essentially the benefits that we currently deliver. For example, the employability support is different. That is transferring across pretty well immediately, or discretionary housing payments again, is transferring this April. It is the 11 or so benefits that need to carry on being delivered through this period of transition. That is why we have taken this particular approach. It is a really good example of the two Governments and two sets of officials working very closely together to find a solution that works crucially first for the customer, which provides that seamless transition, but also for both Governments. Thank you, convener. Just a quick question. I think that Stephen mentioned briefly at the beginning of the involvement of the Scotland office in all of this. Could you maybe expand on that and tell us what their role has been in ensuring the smooth transition of powers between both Governments? Could they be doing more? Are they doing enough? The Scotland office, I think, are not here today, and we might think that if we have had lots of fun today at reconvening all of this with them too, I think that they do provide a useful place for both Governments. From my point of view, if I do not quite understand what might be happening behind the scenes at a UK level, I can pick up the phone to people in the Scotland office and they can help. The Scottish ministers are keen always to broker compromises between the Scottish Government and other departments in the UK Government, and David Mundell is very active in that regard as well. They can sometimes just help unblock things at official level, which happened from time to time. If they were not there, would we miss them? Would we think that there was a need for something like that in the system to make the devolution of those powers in particular work? I think that we probably would. Yes, and I think that they bring that expertise of having worked in this sort of area for a long time and ensure that we can go to them for advice about issues to do with Scotland. As Stephen says, they can help us. Not least, they have that picture of the whole landscape of devolution and what is happening. Potentially, they can show us good practice of what has been happening in other departments that we can learn from. They can hold the ring on that as well. How do you respond to the suggestion that was made by the previous panel that the sheer size of the DWP is a problem in that, while a few senior civil servants such as yourselves have a great knowledge of Scotland and the devolutionary issues, there are many others in different sections of the DWP who do not and who are not thinking about the impact of changes that they might be introducing on Scotland at all. What specifically can you do to improve that situation? We have got a devolution capability building plan and it is made up of a number of elements, one of which, for example, is that we have devolution champions and we have a network of these that meet and advise from about every month. They are working with colleagues who are working on policy or operations or administration to think about the implications of devolution. It is fair to say that we need to continue to build knowledge and understanding. We are doing some joint communications and we have a joint communication framework so that colleagues in both organisations are hearing things expressed in the same way. Over the work that we were doing on employability for 2017, a lot of close working between Scottish Government and our colleagues in Job Centre Plus to work through and understand the implications of the changes and what it would mean in practice. It works on different levels. Colleagues who are working on policy need to think about devolution in terms of policy and our staff working on the ground and our front-line officers need to understand the implications of support coming directly from Scotland or how they interact. As we work through the implementation alongside that has to be a very robust communications, learning and development plan, we have already talked a bit about communicating with the public and it is just as important that we are communicating with our staff about the changes and the different landscape that we work on. It is still a work in practice, as you say, it is a very big organisation but there is a mixture of, and we have an internet site on devolution where we have updates on it. It is about that general understanding, the policy colleagues who are working specifically on policies that might have an impact getting a deeper understanding and then when we implement changes, the staff on the ground who are working with those changes understand how to work in practice at different levels. That sounds like there is some work going on there, which is good. Can you give an assurance then that something such as the job centre closures where a Scottish Government minister was not informed of this despite it being his responsibility would never happen again? Do you think that there are sufficient structures in place to prevent that ever happening? I think that there are very specific issues around the job centre plus closures to do with the commercial arrangements. I was not involved in that directly, so I think that there were some very specific issues around that. Generally, going forward for future changes and where we are working on things that might have an implication for Scotland, the idea of us building our knowledge within the department is what it intends to do. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I would just like to ask that it is good to hear that you are all working together, and things seem to be going quite well that way. It is nice to know that civil servants can have a wee team huddle and get things sorted out, but the whole point is the fact that you do have, as Steve mentioned earlier on, two entirely different political masters. Does that lead to tensions with yourself for delivery? Does it, in Stephen's case, give you tensions to possibly deliver earlier than what you would expect to do? How can that add to the tension of you as civil servants trying to deliver both Governments, which are, in some cases, diameter—I cannot even agree in the word—one sells welfare, the other one sells social security? How do you manage to make sure that you deliver and balance that out? A couple of thoughts on where those issues are, and we have focused on them quite a lot today. Where the issues arise, we try and work across the piece to think about solutions to them wherever we can and offer those up. In terms of implementation, I think that ministers from both departments are really clear, and both organisations are really clear, that they want to see safe implementation of this. I am very experienced in doing programme and change, and I would expect to talk to ministers with Stephen about delivery dates and how safe they are, and how we can make that happen, what the issues and risks around anything are. However, I know that the ministers share that view, that they want this to be safely implemented. The agreement has been made about the devolution of powers, and the Governments now want to make it safely implemented. I think that that is where the agreement is. We work through that. Delivery of complex change like this is very significant. It is a complex system with lots of variation of welfare payments and benefits in it, which interact with one another and interact with DWP. We need to work through that, particularly on the DWP side. We need to understand, as the Scottish Government works through its plans and its design, how best we intercept that to provide what the Scottish Government needs for Scottish customers in our IT systems, in our new business processes, in terms of customer-facing products. We also need to design into our system new processes and new IT functionality that ensures that we get flow of information in both ways where that is needed. It is a complicated delivery. We will work through that together, and we will be talking to our ministers jointly. One of the things that the joint ministerial working group will no doubt move on to will be the milestones for delivery and how we are doing against them and so forth. Just in terms of the word pressure that you mentioned, and I think that Mairi has dealt with the point about political pressure, we understand the political environment that we work within, but our job is to achieve ministers' objectives. Do we feel pressure in terms of what we are doing? Absolutely. We tell everybody that comes to work in this area that these are going to be difficult jobs in hard times, but do we think that we can do this working together? Absolutely, no doubt about that at all. We have worked really hard. I have worked personally very hard to develop an open, honest relationship with both the cabinet secretary and the minister. I enjoy working with them. They listen to our advice, they respect our advice. We operate on the basis of no surprises. I think that we have the key ingredients that we need in terms of working with ministers for the future to be able to make sure that this endeavour is successful as well. Let's speak to ministers next because we are very much to go forward to that session. Would you have the confidence of senior civil servants to turn around to senior ministers and say, hold on a minute, this looks like it's cutting across devolved competencies and there might be an issue that we want to alert you to? Is that something that's within your brief or your competence to turn around and say quite clearly to ministers that there's an issue here? I'm thinking once again to the 18 to 21-year-olds housing benefit issue again, which does seem to be unresolved, possibly to the detriment of Scottish 18 to 21-year-olds. What do you say to ministers when something like this comes across? Absolutely be open to sharing with them all the information and advice. If it looked as though it could cut across devolved competence or we felt that the Scottish Government felt that it could, then we would make that clear to our ministers and again put the options before them. In that particular case, as we talked about earlier on, it is two Governments with two different objectives and policies and it's about working together, which we continue to work together on that to find the best way through. Our respective ministers are going to talk about that further next week. We're still exploring. It's a challenge, the time is very tight, but we are working together. I've got two supplementaries. I know that time is running short because, obviously, our colleagues have to head down to Westminster for the Brexit vote. Chris Law. I'm interested in you to mention Brexit. Whilst we're on the topic, what happens if, due to Brexit or other pressures or even plain political will, it's made clear that working with Scotland on a transition is not just the key priority for DWP? How will that impact on staff working, for example, at the DWP level, the transition process and on your joint working relationship, which you said is key? I'd also like to hear from Stephen Elisa in response to that as well. Difficult to talk in the abstract. That's certainly not the position now. It is one of the top priorities to make this work. I would expect that to carry on being the case. Inevitably, pressures will arise from all sorts of different directions, Brexit being one, and then departments will need to think about how they allocate resource, but I can't envisage a situation in which getting the right resource in place to support this agenda wouldn't remain a priority for my department and my government. That's good to hear, but I didn't need to come here today to know that to be the case at the official level. If, in the scenario that you're painting out, that were to happen, un-natural and unlikely as we think it to be, we would look at what was possible at our own hand in terms of moving forward a lot of the work. We know that there's going to be an agency. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to establish an agency, and that's work that could continue quite easily at our own hands. This is a joint programme of work for a reason, and we're embarked on this together. I think that the most important thing for me is that we haven't quite touched on everything that we do in terms of joining up. There are two Governments that are putting the customer at the heart of everything. Everything that we do—all the joint working, all the good workshops and relationships that we have with the UK Government—is around what we're doing for the customer. We shouldn't come to a point—or we won't come to a point—where we have to stop, because we have to progress this to support the people. Thank you. Margaret Fair, you want a small supplementary question? Quite small, convener. I have just a question to Mary. I notice you're the director of Aging Society in State Pensions, so just tying it back, there has been some criticism regarding the communication between the DWP and Scottish Government, but also there's this question that myself and my colleagues asked the minister about whether they would approach all the claimants and let them know that the job centres in the area were closing and they refused to do that. There seems to be a bit of a pattern forming, because if we look again at the women against state pension inequality issue, a lot of these women didn't know that that was coming down the road to them. How can communication be improved between the DWP and its clients? I think that we can always be looking at different ways of communicating with customers as we're developing the universal credit service. We're doing more and more through that online route to talk to people. The check your state pension service that is now online is very accessible and allows people to find out what their state pension is going to be. We continue to work through all sorts of different ways of communicating using new technology as well as traditional technology. Sometimes letters are the right answer, sometimes people don't respond to them or don't see them. Sometimes we can't always get people's right addresses, all sorts of reasons. We want to look at a range of ways of communicating with people about DWP services. I think that, going forward, in terms of working together, we're certainly, even at the moment, working on a joint communications plan, so that we're working on those joint milestones to make sure that we are talking to each other. We're informing the people that are due to receive these benefits. They touched on it earlier around how important communication is going to be. It's absolutely going to be critical. A seamless service, people to be able to come to Scottish Government or DWP or other departments across the UK, so it's absolutely critical that we absolutely get that right. Absolutely is. Maybe we should have a communications minister, because we don't seem to have got it right so far. Thank you very much and I think we've learned quite a lot. I didn't know you had devolution champions. Is it a group specific or is it taken from various groups? Can we get a list of the names being the spirit of transparency? There are officials within the department and they come from, obviously, Pete, because he has policy for devolution in his area. For example, in my directorate, where I have not only pensions but I also have carers allowance, attendance allowance and winter fuel payments responsibility, I will have a champion. They work across that network and then they meet to ensure that they are building their understanding. Last week, we had a devolution awareness week, where we had lots of sessions for staff to come and find out about devolution. When we're talking about devolution champions and you set up a group, we're not used personally, but obviously, do they have any say in the memorandum understanding or the other groups? Who do they feed their information into? They're primarily feeding information into Pete's devolution team at the moment, but as we start working potentially through the implementation of devolution, you can see them interacting as well with the programme team. I think that you can see their role evolve over time. Their role primarily, coming back to the point earlier, is to make sure that it's not just people like me and Mary and our teams who understand and work in the space but who write across the department, people understand what it is that the Scottish Government wants to achieve, what we need to do to support that and don't do things that cut across that. We always get it right every time, but we certainly try to. Maybe I could be a bit cheeky then and maybe I'm Stephen. Devolution champions feeding in, there's obviously minutes there, talking about communication, transparency, would we, as a committee, be able to see those papers or minutes or whatever they are? It's a DWP initiative to the devolution champion. It's not a formal piece of governance in that way. It's more of a network within DWP of officials to make sure that that awareness is there. It's not something where we'd have formal minutes ourselves. On any minutes at all. I'm not aware that there would be some sort of high-level internal record of what was discussed, but it really is just a mechanism at official level to try and raise awareness throughout the organisation. I don't want to labour at this point, but the point that I'm trying to make is when you talk about transparency corresponding with people, yes, the job centres have been brought up on a number of occasions. We had visited Muscleborough job centre and spoke to people there. No one told us at all from the DWP that they were actually in the process of closing them down. You wonder if the information that you're collecting from the devolution team, if that takes that in and it's fed back in, why can't elected politicians be party to that knowledge? I would really like to know what they are feeding in. It's partly what they're feeding in, but it's also what they're feeding out to their team. You might have someone who's working on labour market issues and their role is to make sure that they're wider team, their colleagues in that part of DWP understand that they're thinking about the devolution consequences of their policies. Coming back to estates, I know it's a sensitive issue, but those were commercial decisions, very sensitive commercial negotiations, and it simply wasn't possible to make that more widely known before those commercial considerations negotiations had finished. It wouldn't be in the interests of the taxpayer to do so, and I know that people aren't happy with that, but that's the reason. Certainly, they did communicate with landlords and in areas of Glasgow, Casamal, for instance. They approached the DWP and said that they would reduce what they were paying, but nobody listened to them. I'm not blaming yourself for maybe it's an issue that we can raise next week at the other committee. Thank you very much for coming along. It's been a pleasure speaking to you and getting your information back. Sessions are just about concluded, but before we leave, I thank all the members of the Scottish Affairs Committee for participating today. I remind everyone that our next meeting is next Monday, 20 March, at Westminster, under your auspices.