 Good morning, and welcome everyone to the 12th meeting of 2019 of the Social Security Committee. I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones and other devices to silent mode so that we don't disrupt and disrupt the meeting. We've got one apology this morning, our deputy convener Paul McNeill unfortunately can't be with us this morning, so we put on record her apologies. We move to agenda item 1, which is a decision to take an item in private. The committee has asked to agree that item 4, consideration of evidence heard and the committee's approach to our draft report to be taken in private are members agreeable to that. We move to agenda item 2, social security support for housing. This is our final evidence session of the committee's inquiry into social security support for housing. We've got one panel of witnesses this morning, and I welcome Shunle and Somerville, Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Old People, Kevin Stewart, Minister for Local Government Housing and Planning, and your officials this morning, Pauline Torrely, DHB in housing, related to social security policy manager, Keil Murray, Universal Credit Flexibility's policy manager, and Graeme Thomson, supported and temporary accommodation team leader. I thank all of you for coming to the committee this morning, and I can invite Shunle and Somerville to make an opening statement to the committee. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to come along with my colleague Kevin Stewart today to present the Scottish Government's position on how the social security system in Scotland supports housing costs and to advise the committee on the impact of the UK Government's welfare cuts on housing. As the committee has heard not just in relation to this inquiry, but for years now, the UK Government's welfare changes have had a damaging and harmful impact on people not just in Scotland but across the UK. There is no doubt that it is impacting on the Scottish Government's aim that all people in Scotland live in high-quality, sustainable homes that they can afford and that meet their needs. It is concerned that the reported increase in renter years could have a devastating effect on planned housing programmes and continuing investment in housing stock across Scotland. We have seen clear evidence that universal credit is causing avoidable and unnecessary harm to the people of Scotland. Evidence provided by COSLA shows that the renter years for those in receipt of universal credit in full service areas are 2.5 times higher than the average of years for those in housing benefit. Trusll trust analysis shows that food banks in areas that have had universal credit full service in place for a year or more have experienced an average increase in demand of 52 per cent in the 12 months after the full roll-out in their area compared to the 12 months before. That is against the 13 per cent average in other areas. Local authorities are being left to pick up the tab of a broken system investing their own money to support people in universal credit. For example, Glasgow City Council has invested £2 million in creating UC support hubs. The homelessness and rough sleeping action group found that the decisions about social security have a direct impact on homelessness and the group made a number of recommendations for the DWP relating to the benefit cap, benefit freezes, sanctions on people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, waiting times for universal credit and the support available in job centres. Overall, the UK Government's welfare cuts since 2010 are expected to reduce the welfare spending in Scotland by around £3.7 billion in 2020-21. Included within that are various changes to housing benefit rules, including bedroom tax and the freeze to local housing allowance rates. Across the 90 broad rental market areas in Scotland, local housing allowance rates are only able to meet rents at the bottom 30 per cent of the market in 10 areas. We know that the UK Government has acknowledged that the freeze is unsustainable, but not what its plans are to rectify this, if any. It is for those reasons that the Scottish Government will invest over £125 million in 29-20 to mitigate against the worst impact of welfare cuts and support those on low incomes, including over £60 million on discretionary housing payments, to mitigate the bedroom tax, the impacts of the LHA rate freeze and the benefit cap. Unfortunately, we are limited in what we can do with universal credit as it is a reserved benefit. However, we are using the limited powers that we have to make the delivery of universal credit more flexible and better suited to the needs of those claiming in Scotland. Since October 2017, the Scottish Government's universal credit Scottish choices have given people the choice to receive their award twice monthly and to have the housing costs in their award paid directly to their landlord if they want to, although we are dependent on the DWP to deliver that and to make sure that the clients get the information that they need. Our vision is that everyone has a warm, affordable home. We want a housing system that works for everyone, and we have taken a raft of actions to increase the supply of affordable housing across Scotland, end homelessness, support people in crisis and mitigate against the UK Government cuts. However, we cannot fill the £3.7 billion of cuts that the UK Government is imposing on Scotland. As the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights said in his interim report last November, devolved Administrations have tried to mitigate the worst impacts of austerity despite experiencing significant reductions in block grant funding and constitutional limits on their ability to raise revenue. However, mitigation comes at a price that is not sustainable. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Just before I bring in my colleagues for questions, I think that it has been put on record. You know how these committees work. Colleagues discuss before the evidence session starts about themes of questions that we would like to explore. I have to say that rent arrears was right top of the list, so as we move towards questions on that, I think that you can see the concern that the committee has that is a need that we really want to focus on. That is a pretty good place to start. Keith Brown, do you want to start off some questioning in that area? I was actually going to add the point that the cabinet secretary made about Scottish choices. The area was going to cover a bit. Since it has been mentioned, I would ask whether the Government has figures with some dispute of the last committee—at least, I thought there was. One of my Conservative colleagues said that my area had not been an increase in rental arrears because of universal credit. My figures show exactly the opposite. However, I wonder whether the Government has a breakdown as between different local authority areas. I was interested in what the cabinet secretary said about the nature of the increase once it had full roll-out of universal credit. I assume that those figures are available to everybody and accepted by everybody the figures for this. Is it from COSLA or some other source that produces it? Certainly, I have had discussions with COSLA about what more can be done to ensure that we have all this information. I think that committee members will have had material for Highland, for example. Obviously, one of the first areas to experience universal credit and COSLA is looking very closely at the impact on rental arrears and the gathering of data on that because it is having a very severe impact. We will certainly provide what we have and ensure that, if there is not material that has been presented from COSLA to date, we can fill in those gaps if the committee still has that evidence. We can give you a general idea. You may have some of those figures already. In September 2017, COSLA reported on high levels of mainstream rent arrears increases in East Lothian and Highland of 29 per cent and 14 per cent respectively for the full year 2016-17. Those are areas where roll-out was happening at the very beginning. From my own patch in Aberdeen, the initial roll-out of universal credit led to local authority rent arrears rapidly increasing. We can break that down for the committee in some depth, giving all that local authority by local authority. Although those rent arrears have an awful impact on people themselves, rent arrears cause difficulties for local authorities and for housing associations in terms of future investment. If they are unable to be comforted by the cash flow, they are reticent to go and invest in new homes or to refurbish existing homes. That impact is major on people, but it also has other impacts on how we deliver business here in Scotland. Before you come back in on that, I apologise that you want to explore Scottish choices. On rent arrears, the figure that we had from COSLA was the first four local authorities in Scotland to roll out on universal credit. It averaged 26 per cent increase in rent arrears over the first two years. Now that roll-out is complete and that is embedding in. The Scottish Government will not be collecting figures on those who migrate over to universal credit. Obviously, you get those eye-watering figures when a huge amount of people move on to universal credit. However, as folk trickle on to the system through natural migration, is there any analysis that we can do in relation to rent arrears there as well? We are not just getting those headline figures, we are getting the lived experience captured as well. That is why, as I said in my original answer, we are working closely with COSLA in particular on that. They are looking to increase the depth of the information that they have, which is already very strong in the first roll-out areas to ensure that we are picking up the full extent of the impact of rent arrears. The DWP said at the outset that it would recompense local authorities for any additional administrative costs that universal credit was causing. It would be fair to say that, since that original offer, it has not been forthcoming with assistance for local authorities in that area. That is another reason why the local authorities in particular are very keen. We are working closely with COSLA to ensure that we are sharing all the information that we have. I do not know whether, in the final analysis of the information that comes through when it is buried in everywhere—I should say that I checked with Clutman's accounts over their latest figures to respond to the point that has been made before—but one of the points that has come up is whether some of the immediate increases in rent arrears are systemic because of the change of system, and then it tapers off afterwards. I do not know whether that is the experience or not. It did not seem to be the case in Clutmanushire, but I think that what would be really interesting—I do not know whether the figures will be able to allow us to interrogate this—is the extent to which this is about a system change and the extent to which it is about—the cabinet secretary mentioned £3.7 billion of cuts, because of the cap put on, that is what is causing those problems, or is it just a systemic change? Given the fact that, in the cabinet secretary's open statement, all the mitigation systems that have been put in place by local authorities and many others, it seems to me that the whole system was badly flawed from the start, and we are trying to make it up where it was underfunded or both. However, it would be useful to see if the figures at the end, wherever they are gathered from, cause or otherwise, if they can allow us to interrogate the extent to which, because of the cap and various other things, that is what is causing it, or is it just a change in system? One of the challenges that people have when they move on to universal credit is, obviously, the minimum five-week wait. In many cases, there are people who will be building up debt that they find very difficult to try and recover from. In essence, the system itself of universal credit is building in a period when many people fall into debt right at the beginning and find it very difficult to move away from that. Yes, it is a change in the system that is causing it, but, in effect, it is now systemic within that new system that that will carry on and be very difficult for individuals to get through. Obviously, as Mr Stewart has said, that has an impact on the local authorities' RSLs, particularly smaller RSLs, when we are seeing more and more people moving on to universal credit. That makes a really big difference to their returns. I think that we have to also say that many in the housing sector the RSLs have done all that they possibly can to help people along the way with information. I know of one RSL that was suggesting to tenants that they may want to pay a little in advance of any switch-over, but those kinds of things are almost impossible if you are on your uppers and you are living from hand to mouth anyway. There is a huge lack of understanding, I think, from the UK Government on the impact of that, not just on individuals and families, but also in terms of the delivery and refurbishment and service provision that is given by our local authorities and our housing associations here in Scotland and across the UK. Mr Stewart, in that direction, convener, my last question would be about a question that I tried to ask at general questions last week that I was not able to. I will go back to the cabinet secretary's point about how people can be started off almost right away because of the five-week situation into arrears almost right away before they are being started. Given the reluctance of the DWP or the UK Government to reduce the amount that can be clawed back, I forget what I called again, the retentions that are paid, I think that they have said that they will not go below 30 per cent where a recent recommendation was that it should be 5 per cent. If you take those two things together, your five-week weight can put you straight into arrears and then you can have as much as 30 or even more per cent of what, as the minister said, is a fairly small amount for people living pretty much on the edge. That is just going to perpetuate an increased future arrears, I would imagine. Well, it is very difficult when you look at that clawback mechanism to see how many people that we represent would genuinely be able to survive on that without the assistance of food banks or without the assistance of other charities within the area. Again, it goes back to the policy choices and what is systemic within universal credit that just makes it exceptionally difficult and impossible, indeed, for some people to be able to get out of that bit. Yes, they can have an advanced payment within universal credit to alleviate some of the issues within the minimum five-week weight, but they have to pay that back and they pay that back as you pointed out in your original question from last week at very, very high rates. That is a great concern because, again, it is about the impact on the individual and the system is just not flexible enough for those who are trying to implement it to allow them to be able to take into consideration. They are put in a very difficult position on an individual basis when they are going through those cases of the system drives debts in many areas, and that is another one that you have pointed out today. I wonder if I could also point out some of the impacts on universal credit when it comes to temporary accommodation. I have some figures here. Three local authorities, East and Bartonshire, Highland and Midlothian, were able to provide us with substantial data on the trend of increasing rent arrears for their temporary accommodation. All three of those local authorities show steep rises in the level of rent arrears in their temporary accommodation, which arise both from the processes of payment and universal credit and also because of the policy of restricting the level of housing element to local housing allowance rates. The increased levels of temporary accommodation rent arrears from the start of universal credit range from 113 per cent in Highland to 432 per cent in Midlothian, with East and Bartonshire, the other authority that I mentioned, with a 122 per cent increase. That clearly demonstrates the real difficulties that there are arising for the funding of temporary accommodation rental costs through universal credit. Again, we are seeing some real problems across the country, which we will continue to capture that data and to talk to COSLA and other partners about that. All of that, of course, convener, is having a real impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I just wanted to go into a bit more detail on Scottish choices and to ask whether there is any analysis or an audit plan of Scottish choices, how many people have taken them up, how many people have chosen to revert back to payment direct to tenant after taking that up, how much it has cost so far and what the Government's view is on whether exercising Scottish choices to pay directly to a landlord is having a positive impact on rent arrears? Certainly, the latest figures that we have had for the Scottish choices has shown that almost 50 per cent of those who were offered a choice took up one of the choices. I am very interested in looking to see how Scottish choices are working. They have now been in place for a reasonable amount of time to be able to allow us to review that. We will be moving forward later this year with an analysis of Scottish choices to ensure that it is working correctly. Some of the areas that I know that the committee has been looking at and that it would be interesting to once again test out would be the way that it is offered, the time that it is offered within the system and the fact that we need to do things around general awareness and so on, because we are very keen that there is a greater awareness of Scottish choices out there. I am sure that the committee's recommendations for the inquiry may assist myself and officials as we are looking to where we might want to take that review and remit for that. On the on-going operational costs, there were just under £115,000 for the period 4 October 2017 to 31 December 2018. The costs beyond that are being finalised. The Scottish Government paid just over £0.5 million to the DWP in April 2018 for the on-off costs, which included changes to the UCIT system and updates on the DWP staff guidance and training. Obviously, we will look during that review to see whether that is good value for money. Importantly, what individuals who are receiving Scottish choices feel about that system and that is something that we are determined to take through speaking to the individuals who have experienced Scottish choices and those on UC who may not have went on to Scottish choices to understand the reasons why that has happened. You spoke about the point in the process that people are offered the choice, which is being important, and I think that you are absolutely right. Last week, we were speaking to the DWP and asking them for a description of how a Scottish choice for direct payment was implemented in comparison to the DWP's alternative payment arrangement. They said that there was absolutely no difference administratively in implementing those two systems. Do you think that it would be much more beneficial if Scottish choices were able to be direct payment initiated from the very first payment in the same way as the DWP's alternative payment arrangement system operates? That was something that was looked at when the original project was being designed and we were again out speaking to those with lived experience about what they wanted to see from the system. The feedback at that point was that it would make sense for the Scottish choices to come in within that second payment time. That was based on the feedback that we got from individuals, themselves with lived experience, not something that we came up with just from between the Scottish Government and the DWP. As your review goes forward, this will be an interesting point now that people have had more experience of Scottish choices to see whether that is still the belief and understanding that people would want to move on that. It is not something that I am beholden to saying that we are not change at all. However, as the committee would expect, as we do with all the policy areas in social security, we will base that on the evidence that we get with those with lived experience to see what works for them. I am certainly concerned that it was raised by witnesses that Scottish choices were only available from second payment onwards, so I am glad that the Government is taking that on board. On value for money, which you mentioned, the amounts paid to DWP so far are a lot of money. There was a concern raised by witnesses that the DWP were pushing people to exercise a Scottish choice rather than using its own system to put people on an alternative payment arrangement. That was raised by witnesses to the committee and that was put to the DWP. The DWP recognised that and had said that they had had to reissue guidance to their members of staff on the appropriate use of alternative payment arrangements. In that instance, whether you will be speaking to DWP to recover some of the money that the Scottish Government has possibly had to pay for Scottish choices being exercised inappropriately when someone should have been put on an alternative payment arrangement? In general, we think that Scottish choices represent good value for money because it allows the individual to have the flexibility that they cannot have under the rest of the DWP system. In general, yes, it is good value for money. Obviously, it would be more advantageous to the Scottish Government if there was inbuilt flexibility into the UC system full stop. Therefore, those types of choices would be available at a UK level, and we would not have to be using Scottish Government block grant to provide those choices. They would just be done as a matter of course. I think that that is regrettable that, again, we are having to use the Scottish Government block grant to make a reserved benefit slightly better. It is an interesting point that you are raising. I have seen the evidence sessions that the committee has had around the administration of the Scottish choices in particular. In general, we are satisfied that the DWP is administering the UC Scottish choices correctly. However, the evidence that the committee has had is exceptionally interesting, and that will be something that we will pick up directly with the DWP. I am very interested in the material that the committee has had and we will look into that further. Finally, on the policy decision on Scottish choice to have a default paid to the tenant and the opportunity for a choice to be made to pay direct to the landlord, we have had a number of witnesses who have said that it would be beneficial for the system to work in the opposite way for rent to be paid direct to the landlord as a default, but still maintaining and preserving the choice for those on universal credit to take control of their own rental payment and managing their own budget. In review of Scottish choices, is that something that the Scottish Government would keep open to consideration? I think that it has been interesting to see the evidence that the committee has taken on that. I would take it back to first principles about our belief in social security being a human right and it being for the individual to choose how their social security payments are implemented. I can see the reasoning why some of the witnesses have suggested an alternative approach to that. I would be quite uncomfortable about taking away the right of the individual to make that choice and assuming as a default that it should go straight to a landlord. It is again something that can be looked at, but we have to look at it on the basis of whether that fulfills the core principles of what we are trying to achieve within social security in Scotland, which is for the individual to have a choice about how their payment is made. There were a number of people with different opinions on where the default should lie, but it sits on the device. Evidence said that there should not be a default in any way and that the choice should be offered to the claimant at the outset. Do you want that paid directly to you or to the tenant? There was no default at all. What is your view on that since that would seem to maintain the first principle of human right that you talked about? I think that that relates more to the first principles that we have. Again, the citizens advice Scotland evidence in this area was very interesting. That is the type of things that the review could certainly look at, which is about how we constantly check what we are doing within Scottish choices and other areas of social security around the first principles that were in the act. Obviously, things have moved on a lot since Scottish choices were implemented because of what else we are doing in social security. Once we have established the review, the evidence that the committee has taken on that area in general, including that of citizens advice Scotland, will be very useful as we move forward. As I said earlier, we will pay close attention to what those with lived experience are saying of the system. However, the stakeholders and particularly citizens advice Scotland, who will deal with many people with renter ears and concerns around universal credit, will be crucial to our review and to ensuring that we are capturing all that possible information. Of course, I would be more than happy to provide the committee with further updates on that as we move forward with that in due course. Can I ask whether the Scottish Government can provide information in relation to those claimants who have exercised Scottish choices in terms of having payments go direct to the landlord and their level of renter ears are otherwise vis-a-vis those who are getting the money themselves and then go on to pay their rent? Have we got an evidence-based to say that the application of Scottish choices reduces renter ears? That is one of the areas where we again have to look at the evaluation of Scottish choices and the impact that that is having. It is not something that we can provide to the committee directly at this point, but it is again something that Scottish choices have been running up and running for a reasonable moment of time that we can now look to evaluate. I think that the committee would find it helpful, even if not today, even if anecdotally you are aware of local authorities or housing associations that can say, well, actually we have done that audit of our tenants and we can see that those who have exercised Scottish choices are less likely to have renter ears. I am also wondering whether or not Mr Stewart spoke about local authorities and housing associations very, very reliant on that rental income to refurbish homes and to also use it in terms of investment and give banks assurances when they borrow money for new-built stock. Is there something there in terms of giving confidence to the sector that the greater degree of exercise of Scottish choices that you have as well, so a bit more information that I think would be helpful, Mr Stewart? Convener, as you are well aware, I have regular discussions with the COSLA housing conveners and with the Scottish Federation of Housing Association and the Glasgow and West of Scotland housing association forum. While some of those issues have come up, I have had no direct data from them. However, that is something that we can seek if we want to add to the data pool that we have. I have to say, convener, that a number of those bodies are not backward and coming forward if they feel that there are real issues or anomalies, but that is certainly something that I can raise when I next meet with them. Okay, I think that that is helpful. Can I ask colleagues to have any more questions on the written Scottish choices? I wonder if you want to say anything about the process by which social landlords are collecting their rent and is there anything that they could be doing themselves to try to minimise some of the impacts of the introduction of universal credit? As I indicated to Mr Brown earlier, many of the social landlords that we have are extremely proactive in terms of helping their tenants. In some cases, that is probably above and beyond the call of duty, but they have to protect their cash flow too. As I said to Mr Brown, I know of one case where a housing association tried to get folk to pay a little bit extra up front, but that is not possible in a lot of cases. Some of the housing associations in particular have absolutely fantastic money advice schemes. They do their level best to try and give people the best advice so that they do not get caught in that poverty trap. It is also in their interest because that means that they are getting the rental payment and arrears are not happening. One of the other things is that DWP members have committed to fix social landlord payment schedules. I think that that is a way forward too. We continue to have discussions all of the time about this issue as you could well imagine with housing associations and councils. What we always try and do is where we find good practice in those regards, then we try and ensure that we export that best practice. I have to say that the likes of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations are immensely good at that as well. However, in order to help folk in certain circumstances like that to maximise their income, all of that is good, but as I said to Mr Brown, if you are living from hand to mouth on your uppers and your income is maximised and all those anomalies that have been put in place by the UK Government have been brought to bear on you, there is not a lot that can be done. What we have is a system at this moment in time that is putting those folks who are the most vulnerable even into greater depths of despair because of an unthought-out system. One of the pressures that we have talked about is the weight that most people have for an initial payment. Although you have touched on some of those issues, I just wondered what you made of the DEWP and its assessment that the first payment period is needed for the work coach to assess whether an alternative payment arrangement is needed and its explanation is that it is somehow needed for the process to work. I think that it is very difficult to agree with that assumption that that five-week wait is needed because of the impact that it is having on people. I have a great deal of respect for the work coaches at an individual level who are trying very hard to implement a system as best as it can be for the people who are in front of them, but there is no doubt that work coaches will be sitting with people and they know that they cannot wait five weeks. It has to stress that it is a minimum of five-week wait. There are many people who will wait more than five weeks. That is why it is very important that the systemic problem in universal credit and the five-week wait are looked at urgently. The UK Government seems to take that on in some aspects. For example, in some of the areas around migration, there will be some transfer security for some people and a two-week run-on, but that is not in all cases and that does not protect everybody. However, it does rather hint that the DWP knows that there is a problem there because for some people there is a transitional arrangement put in place, but if you do not qualify for those transitional arrangements, you do not get that. I think that there needs to be a very serious investigation about the implications of the five-week wait by the DWP. I would suggest that the evidence is already out there, not from the Scottish Government but from very well-respected third sector charities and think tanks who have provided that evidence direct to the select committee out at Westminster, for example. There is strong evidence out there to suggest that the five-week wait is having an impact and that there are ways where the system could prevent that from happening. You say that the DWP and the UK Government should have a think about that and should review that. Is there any sign that they are actually doing that? They are exceptionally beholden to the policy of universal credit and that is despite the evidence to the contrary that there is no impact on people. The UK Government is absolutely perfectly entitled to have different policy proposals when it comes to reserved benefits like that, but I think that what is disappointing is around some of those areas in universal credit. The evidence is really stark and it is from organisations who you would expect normally a Government to listen to when they are all coming together. Indeed, the select committee in the House of Commons has also raised those challenges as well. I think that that is deeply disappointing when there is such a strength of evidence out there, but I can say that there does not seem any willingness at this point within the UK Government to change on universal credit. It is not one of the areas that the new secretary of state seems to be looking at in particular is around that five-week wait. She has said that she is listening. There is a welcome difference to our predecessor, but there are areas where I think that, if she is listening, the evidence is really loud and clear for her to hear. I wanted to move on to DHPs. I think that the evidence so far generally is that people view DHPs as having had a positive impact, not least in preventing adears. I know from my own case work that that is very much the case. Where there are some questions arising is that, first of all, the bulk of the DHP budget goes on bedroom tax mitigation, which is applied to the social rented sector, but £11 million for other spend could include support for private sector tenants, which we have been looking at or social rented sector tenants affected by other welfare reforms. What work has been undertaken by the Government to assess the impact of that element of DHP funding, so the £11 million non-bedroom tax mitigation? Have you looked at how local authorities are individually and collectively spending that money in order to assess its impact and perhaps where, whether the allocation of that is right between local authorities and whether or not the overall balance of the £52 million and the £11 million is right in the light of some of those pressures? First of all, convener, I should say that the administration of direct housing payments is fully devolved to local authorities who are, in our opinion, best placed to understand and support local communities and households in their own areas. The DHPs themselves are used to alleviate hardship caused by an inability to pay housing costs. As such, at times, it can be very difficult to determine a single factor for that. Ms Robison asked about data and how we collect that. The Government itself publishes official statistics on the number of DHP awards, the total spend per local authority, and we collect and monitor out-turn data from councils on a biannual basis. That data includes spend by each local authority for LHA, for the benefit cap and core DHPs. We intend to start publishing that data in 2019-20. The funding itself is distributed in a formula that was agreed with COSLA. In agreeing that formula, we take into consideration the out-turn data that I have talked about from the previous years and from other factors, such as if there was to be a roll-out of universal credit in that area coming up. As has already been pointed out, we are investing over £125 million to mitigate the worst impacts of welfare reform. That was to effectively abolish the bedroom tax and to support those in low incomes. Since the devolution of DHP funding from the DWP, the Scottish Government has significantly increased the funding available, providing an extra £6.1 million, as the committee is probably already aware, to help those folks who are most affected by welfare reforms, which include things such as the benefit cap and local housing allowance. We continue to talk to partners. We know that some local authorities are adding to their DHP budgets from their own resource, which they have the ability to date. That is where we are at present, but you can be assured that we will continue to monitor all of those situations. I am certainly aware that some local authorities, including my own, are adding to that budget, which is important. However, as the Scottish Government has had to look to its resources to mitigate local authorities, it is a double whammy in some respects in trying to mitigate the impact of reserved benefits. I accept the fact that DHPs are devolved to local governance for them to decide, but, as I am sure that you are aware, some concerns have been raised about variation in how those payments are being made and how that spend is being overseen by individual local authorities. Under the 2018 act of the Scottish Government now has the powers to issue guidance, and you will be aware again that some witnesses have suggested that it would be beneficial for the Scottish Government to issue guidance, what is your thoughts about that? At the moment, as I understand it, there are following DWP guidance. What we have at the present moment, convener, is interim guidance, but in the main, councils are following DWP guidance with that interim guidance note sitting alongside that. That has been provided to local authorities by the Scottish Government. We are currently drawing up full statutory guidance on all of that. Obviously, we are doing that in conjunction with the councils and with COSLA, and that will be available once we have consulted on the draft. It is probably too early for us to say how much that would defer from the current DWP guidance with the interim guidance note that we have put into play, but we are working together in a working group with COSLA to ensure that that guidance is drawn up and that consultation will take place. As I understand at the moment, we have had no difficulties given to us from local authorities about the current guidance that is being used with the interim note that goes alongside it, but we hope to have our own guidance very soon. On that point, when I was just over a year since the act was implemented, and both powers have not been taken yet by the Scottish Government, you said that, in a minute, what does that mean in Lehmans language? Are we talking six months, nine months, 12 months before we see those? I am moving away from the DWP to the Scottish Government. I do not think that I used the word imminent in anything that I said previously, but we are working in partnership with COSLA, with local authorities in order to get that right. If there was a difficulty with the current use of the DWP guidance with the interim note that we have issued, then, obviously, we would be trying to move a pace. One of the things is that we have an opportunity to hear to get this absolutely right for everyone here in Scotland and to address the issues that may have been raised during the course of this committee. We will continue to work with that working group with COSLA and local authorities. We will move to consultation and we will issue that guidance as soon as it is practicable to do so. We have heard some concerns that the introduction of universal credit as problems, getting DHPs for bedroom tax mitigation for some universal credit tenants, and that was in relation to, because local authorities are not necessarily processing and housing benefit anymore, it is done differently under UC, so they are not always aware that that issue is occurring. Has the cabinet secretary heard any of those concerns and what can we do to rectify that? Well, there is a concern around this area because it was the ability for local authorities to be able to access information on housing benefit that would infer who may be eligible for a discretionary housing payment. If you are not on housing benefit, it therefore makes it more difficult to be able to look at how you alleviate some of the problems with the use of DHPs. That is a particular concern. That is one of the reasons why we are concerned about our current mitigation of the bedroom tax. We want to be able to abolish the bedroom tax at source, but the bedroom tax still exists in Scotland. We are simply mitigating against that, but it is getting more difficult to do that because of the fact that we have this challenge about access to information to do with universal credit. That is why it is very disappointing that the DWP has put back the timetable for the mitigation of the bedroom tax from April 2019 to May 2020 at the earliest. We are entirely beholden on the DWP to be able to mitigate the bedroom tax. The policy is there, but it is, unfortunately, not within the Scottish Government's gift to be able to deliver that policy objective when we need the DWP to do that. That is causing us more problems than we would like, given the timescale that has been involved with that. I am just wondering, given that there has been slippage in that timetable, is the Scottish Government doing the work that it has to do so that, eventually, when that does happen, the Scottish Government can move quickly to mitigate, if not abolish, the bedroom tax effectively mitigates at source? Is the work on going about how the government would go about achieving that? We need the DWP to mitigate it because it is a change to the DWP system. The policy has been agreed, but it is an inherent change in the DWP IT systems. That is where you come down to, quite frankly, where you are on the list on the DWP. They are not short of IT projects and information and analysis that they need to do within the wider DWP, and the devolution of benefits is one small part of a very large department. We are also aware of the greater administrative burden that is being brought on local authorities because of their handling of DHPs, and that obviously increases as the UC caseload increases. We are also calling and asking on the DWP to take active steps with us to support local authorities in delivering DHPs in a world where there is still universal credit until we move to that solution of abolishing the bedroom tax at source. I want to talk about LHAs. You will be aware that we have watched our sessions that we have had quite a bit of discussion around the impact of local housing allowance and the broad market rental areas in Scotland. The question this morning is what scope does the Scottish Government have to use its UC powers to amend LHA rates and the BRMAs? Have you considered using those powers? What costs might occur if we were to go down that rate? I appreciate that you would prefer the DWP to do it rather than yourselves, but if they do not, they have indicated that they are not going to look at the BRMAs particularly. I wondered what your positioning on it was. Although the Scotland Act powers give us some flexibility in how the universal credit housing costs element is calculated, using those powers in practice to change LHA rates would be very challenging indeed. Also, as we have no power over housing benefit, that would create a two-tier system in the private rented sector and a three-tier system overall with the mitigation of the bedroom tax on the social rented sector. Any change would not only be very, very expensive, but, of course, would still have to be delivered by the DWP. As we are currently working with the DWP to abolish the bedroom tax at source and are committed to introducing split payments in universal credit, changes to support for the private rented sector will not be feasible in the short term, if ever at all. Following on from the recommendations of the homelessness and rough sleeping action group, we have committed to analysing the interaction between the LHA rate and homelessness during the course of this year. It would make much more sense for the Scottish Government to stop mitigating those cuts and for social security to be devolved completely to Scotland. We know that the UK Government itself recognises that the freeze in LHA rates is unsustainable, so I would suggest that, because they know that, they unfreeze all of us now and ensure that we are not driving the most vulnerable people in our country into even more debt and despair. Basically, you do not see the Scottish Government doing anything around LHA and BRMAs at all. What would you like done if it was done by the Government? The UK Government has already said that they are going to lift the freeze, but what changes would you like to see around LHA and BRMAs? They need to lift the freeze and bring all of us back to a sense of reality. It is not just the Scottish Government that is saying this. Ms Ballantyne would find that every third sector organisation in Scotland and across the UK are saying exactly the same thing that I am telling you. I would like the UK Government to take a realistic stance on helping the most vulnerable people in our society. It would be absolutely the wrong thing for us to do to try and create a three-tier system that may not be able to work and which we would be dependent on the DWP in delivering. What we actually require is the UK Government to stop its social security cuts to take a long hard look at themselves and to ensure that the most vulnerable folk in our society are protected so that they should be unfreezing the LHA rates now and bringing them back in to some kind of reality. Can I ask the simple question? Use the word reality, are you wanting it at the 30th per cent isle, the 50th isle? I am actually asking you what you would like to see done to it. Where do you want it? I want it to recognise what market rates are in particular areas. We can argue about the percentiles here to the kids come home. What we actually need to do is to be able to put money in folk's pockets so that they are able to pay the rent in their place, whether they be in Aberdeen, Shetland or Dumfries and Galloway. That is the realistic position that we should be getting at rather than ripping £3.7 billion worth of social security cuts out of the most vulnerable people in our country. That was more of a statement than a natural answer to the question, but I will move on. One of the things that we have heard about is that anecdotally, the private lenders are not keen on letting tenants on benefits. I think that, certainly throughout my life, we have all seen the no-DSS signs that people put up. One of the questions that has come up is, can the Scottish Government do anything to prevent landlords from advertising accommodation as no-DSS? What can we do to encourage landlords to engage with people who are claiming benefits? One of the things that I would say from the outset, convener, is that the use of the term no-DSS in adverts in private rented sector properties is something that we disapprove of strongly. We very much sympathise with people who are struggling to find affordable rented property, who are in receipt of state benefits, individuals and families who have had to rely on what remains of the safety net. Although equality legislation, as Ms Ballantyne is very well aware, is still a reserved matter, it is within the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish ministers to encourage equal opportunities and the observance of equal opportunity requirements. We can confirm that preventing use of the blanket term no-DSS was discussed with the industry in developing the new regulatory regime for letting agents here in Scotland. That new regime includes a statutory code of practice and compulsory training requirements. The code sets out the standard that is expected of letting agents operating in Scotland and how they manage their businesses and provide the services that they do to people. The code includes an overarching standard that requires that all letting agents must not unlawfully discriminate against a landlord, a tenant or applicant. In addition, letting agents must have undertaken training on equality issues before they can be entered into the Scottish register of letting agents. It is hoped that those measures will strengthen the regulation of the letting agent industry here in Scotland and will raise standards where that is needed to help to build a more effective sector that meets the needs of all. I would say again, convener, that in terms of the general thrust of that, although we can put in place all of that regulation in terms of dealing with letting agents and others, the key thing in all of that would be to see equality, a reserved matter, devolved to this Parliament so that we could take even further action when it comes to that kind of discrimination and other discriminations that we see. Can I just check then? The legislation that you are talking about refers to letting agents, so that will not cover private landlords, people who rent out their properties and they manage themselves. Is that correct? All of those folks who let out using letting agents, which is a huge amount of the sector, in terms of individual private landlords, what I can and will do in every occasion is discussed with the Scottish Association of Landlords and Others around their obligations and all of that. I come back to the crunch in all of that, and the scenario that Ms Ballantyne seems to be trying to avoid all day today is that the vast bulk of that power, the equality powers, rests with the UK Government. The UK Government should act in that in terms of equality legislation. However, what I would like to see are those powers devolved to this Parliament so that we can take even greater action to rid our country of that kind of discrimination. On equalities, I am Mrs Ballantyne, not Ms. I was asking a couple of questions, I was not avoiding anything. Can I just pop up a couple of things around that? I do not want to misrepresent the Scottish Association of Landlords, but I think—that is always the dangerous thing—that the sector would be more likely rather than less likely to let to UC tenants if the rent component of universal credit went direct to landlords. I am pretty sure that that is an accurate representation of where they were. We have had that discussion already about Scottish choices and everything else. I am just wondering if the Scottish Government has given particular thought about how Scottish's choices apply in that default and opt in and opt out, particularly in relation to the private sector. Given concerns that we are hearing about, there have been less likely to rent to UC claimants at the moment. I certainly would not be wanting to put words in the mouth of the Scottish Association of Landlords either, convener. I would say that this is an area that I am willing to discuss with John Blackwood and others within SAL to see if they are finding these difficulties. In recent meetings with the Scottish Association of Landlords, we have covered other topics and not necessarily this one, but that is something that I am willing to explore with them to see what the situation is and to hold evidence that they are getting back from their membership. I also have to double-check that I captured that accurately. Are there any other ways of using the social security system, be that the UK Government at a reserved level or the Scottish Government? I accept a much more narrower scope of powers that we could use the system to encourage the private rented sector to be that around rent deposits. I know that there are rent deposit schemes that run throughout the country, but they tend to be relatively low-level deposits. Sometimes private landlords are looking for two, three, four or five-month deposits, and that can be a barrier for a lot of people accessing the private rented sector. Is there a way that we could use the social security system a bit more innovatively to support people into it? As you pointed out, there are a number of schemes that are run by local authorities across the country in terms of deposit guarantee schemes. They work well in many places again. It is something that we talk about in sharing based practice. I do not think that this is necessarily a matter for the social security system per se, but it is something that we can discuss further with local authorities. I am sure that you and others around the table are well aware of where the schemes are working well in various parts of the country. I know that they do not exist everywhere, but it is something that we should encourage. The Scottish Government's written submission shows that 2,800 households in Scotland—the majority of them families with children—are subject to the benefit cap. That was an issue that was raised with us when we visited organisations and individuals in Leith a few weeks ago. There is part of DHP funding that is notionally allocated to the benefit cap. Have you had any figures on how many capped households that covers? Convener, I do not think that I have that to hand, but I will maybe talk a little bit through that, and I may be able to find figures. In terms of the benefit cap itself, it has obviously had a major impact on the families that Ms Johnson has spoken about. There has been some very good practice in some local authorities. At an early stage, authorities are working proactively on spotting those families who are likely to be affected, by that cap, and trying to move them, in some cases, from quite expensive private rented housing into the social sector. I applaud the authorities who have moved in that way, and I think that that is something that we should be encouraging all authorities to do. In terms of statistics themselves, which are broken down in some cases into local authorities, which I think would be better if we sent to the committee rather than me reading it out. In Scotland, what we have as a whole among families to whom the cap is applied through housing benefit as opposed to UC, 89 per cent contain children, 77 per cent have three or more, while 64 per cent are lone-parent households. Both lone-parent families and those with three or more children are priority groups, as Ms Johnson will be aware, outlined in our tackling child poverty delivery plan. Nearly 93 per cent of all who are affected by the benefit cap contain children, and many of those families have a significant proportion of larger families. The majority of households affected are within the social sector, but one-third in the private sector. We have collated some of the available DWP data on the benefit cap in Scotland through using a number of measures. All of that is broken down into local authority level, and rather than me reading all of that out, it would be best if I sent it to Ms Johnson, because it is a little bit complex in terms of the table itself. That would be very helpful. Certainly two of the young parents I met spoke of being served with a notice to quit simply as an impact of the cap and potentially finding themselves in temporary accommodation, which it does not save anyone any money. There are long-term costs and damage there. Can I maybe respond to that? This goes back to the original point. What we would like to see is local authorities acting proactively in those kinds of situations and helping families to move from the likes of very expensive private rented accommodation to housing in the social sector. That is helped greatly. I do not want to talk about individual local authorities necessarily at this moment in terms of what they have done, but that best practice, I can assure Ms Johnson, we have been trying to get other local authorities to follow. It is best for them, it is best for the families, because acting in that proactive manner stops us having to deal with crisis and stops us having to deal with the likes of having families in temporary accommodation. I know that the minister will be aware of the situation that is particularly acute in different parts of the country. That was a meeting that took place in Edinburgh. The pressures are well understood and the work concerns are raised. Sometimes that social housing could take young parents away from family and friends. I appreciate the minister's comments and that there is a work on going to make sure that this does not have any worse impact than it has to. Are local authorities in the Scottish Government able to reach out to families impacted by the cap to help them to apply for reserve benefits that might confer a cap exemption? Again, convener, knowing some of the work that is going on in certain places, one of the key things in all of that is income maximisation for those families. There is good work going on in that regard in many parts of Scotland. We obviously want to ensure that, as we move forward in all of that, whether it be social security or whether it be housing or any other area of government, we want to make sure that best practice is exported so that people are doing their level best for those folks who are the most vulnerable. Again, convener, if it is useful to the committee, we can provide examples of some of the work that has gone on in certain places around all of that. It is not just local authorities that are involved in income maximisation. As I said earlier, housing associations and key anchor organisations often have some of the very best money advice services out there, and they do the best that they possibly can to help those folks who have been affected by the benefit cap and other cuts to social security. If I can go back to Ms Johnson's first point and then I will hand over to the cabinet secretary, because obviously the Government wants folk to spend as little time as temporary accommodation is possible. It is somewhat daft that folk are being moved from settled housing because of those cuts into temporary accommodation. Again, that is something that the UK Government needs to take cognisance of in terms of the formulation of what, to me, is a particularly daft policy. However, in terms of trying to lessen and eventually eradicate the use of temporary accommodation, that means delivering more homes. Of course, as the committee is aware, in this Parliament, our pledge is to deliver 50,000 affordable homes, 35,000 for social rent, the biggest housing programme for decades. That will go a long way to helping with some of that. I can just add two quick points, convener. I think that it is very important when we have discussed the benefit cap to recognise that the benefit cap still applies to those who within the system are not expected to work. If the UK Government were to, even if they were insisting in keeping a benefit cap, if they were at least to take out of the benefit cap, those who are not expected to work, that would certainly alleviate some of the hardship, particularly for, as Mr Schuert has been saying, some of the most vulnerable within our community. There is a difficulty within the system that we are, in effect, capping people's benefits, but they cannot go out and work. They are indeed not even expected to go out and work by the DWP. If changes like that were made, again, the Scottish Government would not be having to try and mitigate against a fault within the reserved system, which would obviously free up funding within the Scottish block grant to, for example, be able to fund other areas within DHPs or anywhere else in social security. It is also very important to recognise that, if we are trying to assist through DHPs, it is only effective for those who are entitled to apply for it. The challenge is that we can attempt to mitigate against areas around the benefit cap and are indeed doing so, and local authorities are taking that forward. However, it only works if we can get the message out there that people should apply. Inherently, once again, the best way to deal with those problems is to deal with them at source and stop the benefit cap. Do not put people into the position where they are under hardship, which, again, the Scottish Government and local authorities are attempting to sort a work around to be able to assist some of the most vulnerable in our society. When we heard from Sheila Haig from the City of Edinburgh Council, she told us that it is difficult to get people to apply for a DHP even when they know what is available. I wish that this was not required, but what can we do to try and help people who may be entitled to make that application? I think that that ties into some of the areas that we are doing around the whole of social security around income maximisation, ensuring that people know that, if there is support out there, they should apply for it. It gets to the discussions that we have been having in other committees and deliberations around the stigma of applying, whether people feel that they can apply for those aspects. Just because someone is entitled to it, there is a whole myriad of different work that can go on at a local authority level and a Scottish Government level to be able to encourage that take-up of that and to ensure that people apply for it. I think that you are quite right to point to the challenge of having the scheme as not enough. It is ensuring that those who are. Again, the evidence that the committee has had will be exceptionally interesting as we move forward with our deliberations around DHP and take-up in general about how we do that in a way in which people are aware of it, encouraged to apply and supported to apply. If we get that right, we can make a difference to those people, but I go back to the point that that only works for a percentage. It does not take away the problem at source, which is what we really need to see to stop people jumping through hoops to try and get some entitlements to get them out of a very difficult position. Keith Brown, what do you want to come in there? Just to come back, if I can, it is a theme that is running through a number of questions and answers. Going back, first of all, to Mark Griffin's point, I apologise if I am getting this wrong. I think that the issue with Scottish choices is that we heard evidence which I recall the DWP saying that there was no difference. It was essentially the same work for them to apply Scottish choices or alternative payment arrangements. I understand what the cabinet secretary is saying. The amount of money that we are paying for this is worth it for us to get the outcomes that we are getting. I suppose the issue is whether the DWP is justified in asking for that money when they are also telling us that there is no difference as to how they administer the system. I know that the cabinet secretary is committed to looking again at the evidence. I would like to see some response to that, whether it is just the DWP plucking figures out there and saying that we are going to charge you this to do this. On the more substantive point, given all the problems that are with the system, and I think that the cabinet secretary referred to almost like a queue of different IT changes that are waiting to be implemented, and given the fact that Universal Credit was first mentioned at least seven years ago by Ian Duncan-Smith, and given how long the Westminster Government has known that this Parliament is going to have social security powers, is there not a major failure here to implement a system that is sufficiently flexible to do what we are often hearing, thrown about, will just mitigate it or change it? It is easy to do. While it is patently not, it is extremely expensive, the system seems really inflexible, and every little change to it seems to come at some huge cost. Surely there is a failure in the planning of the Universal Credit system. We heard, for example, in a previous evidence session that some of the legacy systems at DWP go back to 1948 and comprise a paper-based system in a warehouse. What worries me is that the IT procurement in relation to Universal Credit has been a complete failure to anticipate the flexibilities that are required. On the point about the difference between what is proposed within alternative payments and within Scottish choices, there is a difference in the offer. In essence, from the DWP's perspective, I presume—and I certainly do not like to speak for the DWP in any way, shape or form—that the implementation from their aspect is the same. There is a difference in the policy and in the offer, but, in effect, from an operational perspective, you are either doing one or doing the other. I think that that is what they are getting at within that aspect of it. The challenge when you are looking at any changes to Universal Credit really goes back to the initial way that Universal Credit was set up and the difficulties that have been for the DWP over a myriad of years to implement Universal Credit because it was done in such a way that policy is set up very separate from operations and the policy and the operations. When they came together to present a system, it just does not work. That leaves them in a very difficult position of constantly trying to fix the problems. Some of the problems that they will freely admit to doing are because they have accepted that there is an issue. Some of them are just inherently unbuilt into the system and, at a political level, they believe that they should be there—for example, the five-week wait. There are areas in which there will be no change because, at a political level, they do not want there to be. There are areas in which the DWP does accept that there is a change because there are just, frankly, so many of them, then it is very difficult, particularly for the larger IT, and that makes it inherently inflexible. That is exactly why, when we are looking at what we are doing within Social Security Scotland, we have adopted an agile method to the project delivery to ensure that policies are working hand-in-hand with operations within the programme, that we are building that on an incremental basis. We are constantly learning and adapting before and then, obviously, after going live to ensure that we do not reach the same problems of inflexibility. Mr Brown is quite right to point out to the challenges of getting the DWP to do anything on the areas in which we are interested around the devolution of benefits. Quite frankly, it is a very, very small part of a much, much wider programme of work that it has just on universal credit. Never mind everything else that is going on within the DWP, and that makes it inherently difficult for the Scottish Government to see any traction with that, because we are absolutely not in charge of the timetable of when that happens. That is utterly down to the DWP about where we are and whether that timetable or slips. We have seen that within the bedroom tax, and the concern, obviously, is how quickly we will be able to deliver split payments. For example, another area in which the committee has taken a keen interest in, because, again, the IT solution has to be done by the DWP. There simply is no other way to do it. We have heard quite a bit this morning in relation to what the minister has been keen to understand to talk about impacts on those who are using temporary accommodation and families in relation to welfare reform. Has the Scottish Government made any assessment of the impacts of welfare reform on homelessness in Scotland? Is there an evidence base, not anecdotally, but is there an evidence base in terms of here are the welfare reforms, here is the analysis, and this is how it is impacted on homelessness, or the use of temporary accommodations? Is there something that you could provide the committee with in relation to that? I am sure that we can provide you with a lot of data. As you are well aware, there is a huge amount of data and evidence being gathered by neutral parties, by third sector organisations and others, on the impact of all those social security cuts and welfare reforms on homelessness in Scotland. I could refer you to the recent crisis report, which clearly pointed the finger at the rise in homelessness on the benefit cap, the changes to universal credit and the catalogue of other disastrous changes that there have been. We will provide you with data and all of that, convener. Obviously, as we move forward, we have got an ambitious plan here in Scotland to eradicate rough sleeping, to improve temporary accommodation and to hopefully end homelessness for good. We are making great strides in terms of the investment that we are making and the changes that we are making, which are making a real difference to people's lives here. However, we are doing all of that against the backdrop of all of those welfare cuts. I will not go into too much depth, but in 2018, the Government itself published a report on the impact of welfare reform on tenants in both the private and social rented sector. That was the third follow-up paper to the annual report on welfare reform, and it covers all of the impacts of welfare cuts in the housing sector. I am more than happy to share all of that with the committee. I think that that would be helpful. I do want to ask a little bit more about trying to be a bit more positive about if reforms to the social security system can have a detrimental impact on homelessness. By definition, other reforms of how we use money within the system could have a positive impact on tackling homelessness. I certainly know from my experience in Glasgow before the winter night shelter closed in Glasgow had the opportunity to go along and see the work in action there. I saw Glasgow City Council's social workers embedded with the team. I was aware of other people after that saying to me that there are others who are rough sleeping who, for whatever reason, will not use that shelter. I know from my case load that there are people who will not use homeless, who are sofa surfing, who will not use temporary accommodation, particularly the working poor, because of the cost of it and the cost of even storing furniture to move into a furnished flat. It is punitive for what could be pretty poor quality accommodation. We are left with a picture that, despite a heck of a lot of good work and financial pressures, there is a lot of money in the system when you look at housing benefit, when you look at the cost of the temporary accommodation, and I do know that the homelessness rough sleeping action group had something meaningful to say around all that, wanting to get a stronger evidence base. There are moves afoot with the Scottish Government about how we could best use all those moneys in relation to temporary accommodation, potentially devolved here to Scotland fully, and to use that in a way that gets better outcomes for everyone. We are looking for positives, as well as negatives. How could we reform the social security system to assist? There are a lot of positives out there. You talked about the Glasgow night shelter, and we have yet to get all the analysis of the winter interventions, but because of some of the changes that have taken place in certain places with the likes of embedding of the right staff in those places, we are moving folk on quicker. Off the streets and into accommodation. I think that without going into too much depth here, I understand that from the Glasgow night shelter alone, on one occasion, somebody presented themselves at the night shelter and was actually in accommodation the next day, the accommodation that they wanted that they felt safe and secure in. That is a major move forward in ensuring that we join up services to do our very best for people. The entire ethos of the rapid rehousing and transition plans that we have asked all local authorities to prepare is to ensure that we have that joined up approach and that we do what is right for folks. My homelessness team is working very hard in looking at all the information that has come back in rapid rehousing and transition plans. Again, we are ensuring that best practice is going to be exported in all of that so that everybody is starting from a good base. All of that will require the bending of spend and using it to deal with helping people at the early stages, rather than dealing with all of that at crisis point for individuals and for families. You mentioned, convener, the devolution of housing benefit. The HRSA group in particular talked and recommended a devolution around housing benefit for temporary accommodation, which would allow us even greater flexibility to transform those services. Unfortunately, you heard from DWP officials last week that the UK Government was unwilling to devolve those areas of business. It is quite unfortunate the way that this is being done, because Councillor Eleanor Whitham wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions some time ago asking for the devolution of that. We have yet to receive a response, even though my officials have been on and on at the DWP, and yet it seems that Ms Rudd is quite happy for our officials to come here and say that there will be no devolution when we have not had a formal response as a Government. I can appreciate how unsatisfactory that is. I suppose that what I want to make sure that this committee does is to stay focused, that we are a social security committee. We are not the local government committee when we look at those aspects. I suspect that we have a strong interest in seeing how the moneys could be best used, and how those social security moneys could be best used. Despite the fact that you have had the answers that you do not want, although not directly from the UK Government, but via civil servants, we will continue modelling what is in relation to how you would best use those moneys, because you can get to a stage in which you say that you are not devolving the cash in the system that we could use more flexibly, but you can quantify the cash in the system that has currently been spent that could be devolved, and then you could model how that money could be better used. It then makes a powerful case to say that this is how this money should be spent, now please devolve it or get on and do the job and partnership with it. Is that work on going irrespective of the current refusal? Sure, convener. It is absolutely vital that we work together with partners to do our level best to make the changes that are required within the system. I have to say that the co-operation from local authorities and from third sector partners, as we have moved forward in implementing the HRSAG recommendations, has been absolutely top notch. The level of co-operation, information sharing and the spreading of best practice is top notch. What we are missing in all of this is a key partner who controls a huge amount of the purse strings who, if they came into play and worked with us, we would be able to do so much more in terms of transforming those services. Unfortunately, from what we have heard from evidence given to your committee last week, it seems that the UK Government is unwilling to devolve the area and to await the official response from the secretary of state. However, if they are unwilling to devolve, they should at the very least enter into dialogue with us on how certain changes could be brought into play to make a huge difference for the lives of so many of the most vulnerable folk in Scotland. I think that it would be helpful for our committee to be kept updated if there is any movement of progress, not in the devolution, if that is going anywhere, but in terms of that dialogue. Has it been quantified just how much money there is in the system in relation to housing benefit that has been used to support unsatisfactory networks of temporary accommodation and not doing a lot of the early intervention stuff that local authorities and government want to do? How much money is swirling about the system? That is a number that I give you off of the top of my head, convener. It would be unwise of me to take a stab in the dark in that regard. The local authorities themselves are spending significant sums on homelessness and the support of vulnerable people. We ourselves as a Government, as folks are well aware, have put more money into the system. In terms of the housing benefit number, I do not have that at this moment, but let us be honest, that is the biggest number. In order to do a complete transformation, it would be easier to do all of that if that money, that resource, was in play, but beyond that, to have a partner who is willing to discuss with us how changes that they could make, even if they were not going to devolve it, would make it easier for us to change the system for the better of the people here. It is not only an issue for us here in Scotland, it is also an issue, for example, for the metro mayors in England, all of that. I met the metro mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotherham, and the metro mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, during the course of last summer. Obviously, they have ambitious policies coming into play in terms of transforming homelessness in their areas. They will face the same difficulties as us in that regard, unless there is a change in thought from the DWP around about housing benefit. I hope that they will see sense, and if they choose not to devolve it, which I hope they do devolve it, if they choose not to, I hope that they will have a rethink of the system. Just before I finish this line of questioning, I alluded to the very high cost of temporary accommodation, some deeply poor quality temporary accommodation costing up to £1,000 a month. If you could get a detached property in parts of my constituency and pay the mortgage and stay in a lovely property, it would cost you less than some of the costs of poor quality temporary accommodation. I know that we are looking at that in the meeting recommendations around that. Do we know why the cost of temporary accommodation is so high in Scotland? Is it something about the way that the social security system is currently structured that makes it so high? First of all, I should say that the vast bulk of people who are in temporary accommodation here in Scotland are in mainstream social housing. Obviously, our ambition is to make sure that as many folks as possible who are in temporary accommodation to be in that kind of setting rather than anything else. That is why we have moved in terms of reducing the length of time that families and pregnant women can spend in unsuitable accommodation, and that is why we are making the moves to include everyone in that order to make all of that right. Obviously, as we move forward in terms of the funding and the costs of temporary accommodation, we need to build a new framework, and it would be so much better if the DWP were involved in all of that. We are currently doing a huge amount of work in conducting robust analysis of the existing funding models that are out there. That is based on data that has been supplied by local authorities and others. In working in partnership with them, we will design a revised funding model and determine how we go forward in that regard. We can set out in more depth our responses to HARSAG and how we are moving forward on all those fronts. I am sure that the committee is interested only in the aspects that revolve around housing benefit and social security as a whole. However, we are moving forward a pace in every sense of the word in ensuring that we get to the point of dealing with the recommendations and responding positively to the recommendations that were put forward by HARSAG. I will caveat that, convener, because, obviously, although the Government itself accepted every single one of those recommendations—all 70 have been put forward by the group—we did have to caveat six of them. Those are the ones where we do not have the powers over the benefits that there are. All of that is very helpful. I do not want to do the mission drift into aspects of housing and homelessness, but what would be helpful if you could drop the committee a note after this session where we are keen to capture how much housing benefit in the system does not look as if it has been used efficiently. We are keen to capture—let me finish at this point, Mr Stewart—just how much money there is in the system that supports temporary accommodation, which appears to be inflated, but it appears to be substantial costs. If we move towards a recommendation that says that we think that there is a significant amount of money in the system that the social security system could much better use to get better outcomes for those who have to go through the homelessness system, including living and temporary accommodation, we kind of need to know how much money there is in the system and how many people might benefit from that without us remotely being able to aware of what those changes would look like. We do have to quantify some of that, so it would be very helpful to the committee. We will endeavour to provide you with the information around what we know about housing benefit spend in Scotland. You saw me look there, convener. It was the use of the word efficiently, because in some regards there are going to be higher housing benefit costs for some individuals in specialised accommodation than there are in others. I get your point that you are getting across that you find it difficult, and probably the committee finds it difficult, to believe the cost of some of that accommodation. We will try to capture some of that information for you, and we will send it to the committee. I think that that would be very helpful. I have no further questions to any of our colleagues of any further questions this morning. I thank everyone, cabinet secretary and minister, and your officials for coming along and supporting our evidence session this morning. If there is any additional information that you want to give us, we are about to report shortly on that. If you can give it to your earliest opportunity, just allow us to get on with looking at our report on that. Thank you for coming along this morning. We will suspend briefly before we move to the next agenda item. When I move to agenda item 3, which is correspondence from the Finance and Constitution Committee, I can refer members to paper 3, which is a note by the clerk and letter from the Finance and Constitution Committee in papers 4 and 5, which are spice briefings relating to the matter. The Finance and Constitution Committee wrote to all subject committees on 25 March 2019, with the view to exploring a more co-ordinated approach with other Scottish parliamentary committees to develop the Scottish Parliament's scrutiny role in relation to the new powers arising from the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. It has asked for any views on three areas—legislation, common frameworks and international treaties. Paragraph 8 of the note by the clerk suggests what the committee may wish to say in its response. I might put that on the record shortly, but just before I do that, is there any comments that members may wish to make? I think that it's really important—perhaps an obvious point—that it shouldn't be just for the agreements that reach between the UK Government and the Scottish Government to rest with the Scottish ministers. I think that it's quite important that the Parliament has a role that I think has been substantially truncated and trodden upon during the progress of Brexit, but on an on-going basis, especially when the powers, if you like, have been agreed between the two Governments, the Parliament has a duty to have the maximum possible scrutiny—I think that anything that allows us to do that flexibly. It's probably less relevant for this committee than many others, I would imagine, but I'm very supportive of the idea that we have the maximum possible scrutiny. On the Seoul convention—I'm a wee bit cynical about that given that the UK Government's stated position in court was that this was merely a self-denying ordinance. I think that level of contempt has often been shown by the UK Government, but I'm generally very supportive of it. What has been suggested, and I would be content with this, in such circumstances, in responding to the Finance and Constitution Committee, the committee will be wished to support the recommendations of the DPLR Committee in its report on the Immigration and Social Security Coordination EU with the raw bill, and that is a matter of principle—I suppose that this is the key bit—that the Scottish Parliament should have an opportunity to scrutinise the exercise of any legislative power relating to devolved social security powers. Further, where the power in relation to devolved social security is to be exercised by a UK minister alone, it should only be with the consent of Scottish ministers, and finally, a process is put in place whereby the Scottish Parliament is able to scrutinise any proposal by Scottish ministers to give their consent to the exercise of the powers by a UK minister in advance of that consent being given. I know that clarity in relation to what that means. For me, that effectively means that this Parliament should in advance do robust scrutiny at all times, and I would be content with that position. I would ask members whether they are content to reply to Bruce Crawford, the convener, along those lines. Thank you very much. That has been the case. We now move to agenda item 4, which is to continue our consideration of evidence to social security support for housing, which will be conducted in private. I will now move into private session.