 Good morning and welcome to the 27th meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Our main item of business this morning is a consideration of a statutory instrument, the social security miscellaneous amendment and transitional provision, Scotland regulations 2022 draft. The Scottish Government advises that these regulations make changes to the best start foods regulations, best start grant regulations and Scottish child payment regulations that set out the rules and eligibility criteria for best start foods, best start grant and Scottish child payment. I welcome Ben MacPherson, MSP Minister for Social Security and Local Government, who is joining us remotely today and I also welcome his officials who are also joining us remotely. We've got Nicola Burrell, who's best start grant and best start foods policy manager from the Scottish Government. Karen Clyde, who's solicitor for the Scottish Government. Janet Richardson, deputy director of client services delivery, Social Security Scotland and Marilyn Kemp, who's the Scottish child payment team leader at the Scottish Government. This instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited at the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. I remind everyone that the Scottish Government officials can speak under this item, but not in the debate that follows. I'll now invite the minister to make a short opening statement. Thank you, convener. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Thank you. I'm sorry that I can't be with you all in person this morning due to coronavirus, and thank you for your understanding in that. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you this morning the Social Security, Michelinius amendment and Transition Provision Scotland regulations 2022. Those regulations make changes to the best art foods regulations, best art grant regulations and Scottish child payment regulations. They also correct an administrative oversight identified in the Ukraine regulations, and that is required to ensure parity of access to benefits on arrival in Scotland and the rest of the UK, specific to people who hold Irish citizenship. Scottish child payment, best art foods and the three best art grant payments, that is pregnancy and baby payment, early learning payment and schoolage payment, colleagues will know are known collectively as the five family payments. Delivered by Social Security Scotland, they are five different payments that aim to provide support to low income families with the costs of raising a child. All five payments are intended to help tackling equality, improve outcomes and make a positive impact on all of the priority groups identified in the tackling child poverty delivery plan. Those regulations before us today support the focus that the Scottish Government has placed on tackling and reducing child poverty, as has the Parliament more widely. The main changes that we are making are to extend eligibility for the Scottish child payment to low income families with children aged 6 to 15. Secondly, the regulations are intended to increase the value of the Scottish child payment to £25 per child per week. Also, to allow Social Security Scotland to automatically pay best start grant early years payment and best start grant school age payment to eligible people who are in receipt of Scottish child payment. Those regulations before us today also widen the definition of kinship care across best start grant, best start foods and Scottish child payment to ensure that the regulations include all kinship carers with a relevant legal order or agreement with the local authority. That will ensure that kinship carers are included who are not related to the child but are known to them and have a pre-existing relationship with the child. That change will also help to ensure better consistency across the payments, something that I know the Scottish Commission on Social Security welcome. Draft regulations were referred to the Scottish Commission on Social Security in March and we received their scrutiny report in June. The Scottish Government response to the recommendations was laid in Parliament on 20 September. As always, I am extremely grateful to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for its scrutiny and recommendations. Finally, I would also wish to remind members that we laid regulations yesterday to introduce further ancillary provisions to ensure that the regulations that we are discussing today deliver on the policy intake effectively. I welcome this opportunity to speak with you all as colleagues and the committee and your considerations of the regulations and I look forward to any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for your statement minister. We are now going to move on to questions from members. As always, we will direct your questions to yourself and you can bring your officials in when you want to. I am going to turn to questions first from my colleague Jeremy Balfour. Jeremy, over to yourself. Good morning minister and good morning to your team. Thank you for coming along. I wonder can the minister detail a process for families who have a child who will be turning six before these regulations extend the age limit coming to force, i.e. a family could have a Scottish child payment award stop for a child whose sixth birthday is October 2022 and have to reapply in November, which is obviously difficult for the family and also administratively could cause issues. Had that been looked at and what is the solution? Considered. First of all, there are approximately 6,000 children that will have aged out to use the phrase in the 12 weeks prior to the launch date on 14 November. Approximately 3,000 children from this cohort will have their Scottish child payment claim ended at this point, with the other 3,000 children being from households who also have a younger child who are still in receipt of Scottish child payment. Social Security Scotland will be sending out a specific SMS, text message and or email to this cohort to tell them that they will need to reapply for their child as their child has aged out. The rationale and considerations around this approach are because our user research testing showed us that we need to keep our messaging simple and clear. The risk of unclear messaging is that some people who are eligible for Scottish child payment may not apply for it, and of course none of us want that. We want people who are eligible to apply. In particular, our testing showed that if we restarted payments automatically for some clients, many others would assume that they applied to them as well and they would have failed to apply and would therefore miss out. We decided that one straightforward approach should be applied to everyone, and, as I mentioned, we will be sending out a specific SMS, text message and or email to tell them that they need to reapply for their child as their child has aged out, so we will be doing that for the particular cohort reference. I hope that that will be assured. I am just slightly confused that if we know who these individuals are because they are sending them a text message, why couldn't we just automatically road over? You know who they are because of the age of their birthday. You are sending their parents either a text or email, so why is it not possible to say to that whole number of individuals that you continue with the benefit that nothing has changed? It is important to recognise, as I said in my first answer, that we also need to consider the wider context of individuals who are still applying for Scottish child payment and how we want to encourage them to apply. The user research shows—this is being based on that research, this decision making process—that if we were to automatically engage the cohort in an application process that continues their payment, that would lead to a wider consideration of others who may be eligible thinking that they would be automatically registered for Scottish child payment, and that would mean that those who need to apply and wrongly thought that they may be automatically enrolled would then not apply. We have to balance the situation between the needs of the people who are aging out and the wider cohort, the wider context of us wanting people to apply for the benefit. The decision was made that, while we would not undertake a process of restarting automatically Scottish child payment for children who have recently turned six, we will do is proactively contact them and emphasise that they need to apply. I am not quite sure how to follow the logic of that, but she will be it. The second question is, I can the minister give us a wee bit more information of what discussions she has had with Social Security Scotland in regard to the number of staff that they have working at the moment and in regard to the processes and procedures in place so that the Scottish child payment will be up and running appropriately. I think that there is an estimate of 200,000 more children are expected to qualify. Are you confident that there won't be the delays that we saw over the summer with other benefits and are there an appropriate number of staff in place? That is a very important question and I will bring Janet Richardson in shortly, but, first off, I would just emphasise to Mr Balfour and the committee more widely that Social Security Scotland is well prepared for the extension of the Scottish child payment with the necessary staff, processes, training and support all now in place or scheduled imminently. As Mr Balfour has rightly emphasised, we can't expect a large influx of applications once the benefit is extended under the 14th of November should Parliament pass its regulations. To help manage that, at the same time, we are also introducing improvements to reduce manual processing of Scottish child payments applications, and we call that straight through processing. That should impact positively on processing times. Straight through processing is the increased automation of the processing of Scottish child payment applications. That will mean that, once the payment is extended to individuals responsible for children under 16 from the 14th of November, a high percentage of applications should be processed automatically without any manual intervention required. The system will carry out all of the same checks that a client adviser would perform, meaning that clients will not be treated differently if their application is processed by the system, which is for clarity. Only eligible cases with no outstanding actions or checks to be completed will be processed through payment by the system. If a client is not eligible or fails any of the automated checks for any reason, then their case will be picked up by a client adviser to be processed manually. Any client who is awarded Scottish child payment where the decision is processed by the system will have the same redetermination and appeal rights, just for clarity, as a client who has a decision made by a client adviser. We are being very clear that no application will ever be denied by the system. We have proper checks and balances. A combination of organisational preparation through staffing and training and making sure that the agency has properly stood up for the anticipated increase in demand from the 14th of November, combined with straight through processing, will be a good client journey for the people of Scotland. Janet, I do not know if you want to add anything beyond what I have said. Thank you minister. Good morning everyone. I hope that you can all hear me and apologies. I seem to have a not very stable wi-fi signal this morning, so I will try and be quick. Minister, you probably covered everything there, but just in response to Mr Alff's query, yes, we obviously did have some processing challenges this year, but in addition to the information that you have just provided minister, we have recruited an extra 300 full-time equivalent people to help us through that Scottish child payment two phase, so they are now either in training or consolidation, so we are fully prepared for. In the announcement that you made in regard to this, you said, or you have a document from Scottish Government said and I quote, given the large number of children forecasted to be newly eligible, that people applying for the first time might need to wait to get their award. What analysis have you done of how long people will have to wait? What is the expected processing time and that message seems to be slightly different from what we have read in the document from what you are saying to committee today. So, is there going to be no delay, or if there is a delay, how long will that delay be? Again, I will bring Janet in shortly from agency in terms of being on the ground, but I can tell you that there will be a processing period for people after application, but what I am emphasising to committee today is that the straight through processing together with the increased workforce that Janet Richardson has just emphasised to you will mean that applications will be processed as quickly as possible and some through many, many, many rather, through the automatic processes, and that will have a very positive impact on the client experience in waiting times. Obviously, the level of demand is still somewhat unknown, because we are not clear on how many people will apply in that first week from the 14th of November, but of course we are projecting what we think will be the position, and we would want as many people to apply as possible, and of course that is the overarching message from the Government and the Parliament and more widely. We are prepared to process applications as quickly as possible, and I will pass over to Janet now to give a further indication on the timescales for that. Thank you minister, and yes, as you have outlined there, that is difficult for us to predict depending on the numbers, but what we have committed to is that we will keep clients updated every two weeks on where we are with their claim, and we recognise that particularly with this opening so near to Christmas people will be concerned about getting their money by then. It will depend on what information we require to get for those clients, but we will do everything we can to get those payments as quickly as possible, and we will keep people up to date with what is happening on their claim. Of course, when we make that decision, it will be backdated to the date of their claim, should there be any delay. I have a couple of questions round about changes to the linking period. Were there issues arising about how the linking period was working in practice that made the change necessary? In what circumstances would there be a long delay between a client losing entitlement and Social Security Scotland making a decision to stop Scottish child payment? Thank you, convener. I will bring Merlin Kemp in at the end here if there is anything further he wishes to add. First of all, what is in the regulations is what we intended to happen all along with regard to the linking period. The intent was that the agency could re-award Scottish child payment by making a determination without application within 12 weeks of someone losing their Scottish child payment award due to no longer being entitled to a qualifying benefit or no longer being responsible for the child. The most likely scenario where that could happen is when someone loses their universal credit entitlement for a short period of time. We knew that that could happen under universal credit, so we did not want someone to have to submit a brand-new application just because they lost universal credit for a month or two. That could also apply where someone temporarily does not have responsibility for a child. Unfortunately, what happens at the moment is that the 12-week linking period applies from when a decision is made on a change in circumstances. In practice, there can sometimes be a long delay in a change of circumstances taking effect, and that change being notified to Scotland. That can mean that the agency automatically re-awards Scottish child payment after the client has not been eligible for a much longer time period than the originally intended 12-week period. The change in the regulations that we are seeking to make is consistent with the original policy intent to ensure that individuals are not automatically awarded Scottish child payment after long periods of eligibility. That change will allow for proper checks to be carried out to ensure eligibility and check for any other changes of circumstances. In what circumstances would there be a long delay between a client losing entitlement and Social Security Scotland making a decision to stop Scottish child payment in those circumstances if a client is late in reporting a change in their circumstances relating to the qualifying benefit or responsibility for the child to Social Security Scotland? That would result in their losing entitlement to Scottish child payment or where there has been a delay between the client reporting that change to DWP or HMRC. An example of how that can happen in practice would be a client reporting that a child left to a household in one year ago to go and live in another household, for example, but they are now living black, living with the household as of today. In those circumstances, it would be appropriate to end the claim with an effective date of one year ago when the client was no longer responsible for the child and for the client to apply for Scottish child payment again for the child at today's date. I appreciate that there is a lot of detail there. I hope that we have articulated that in a way that is helpful for the committee. I will just bring in Marilyn Kemp and if there is anything further that she wishes to add. Hi everyone, I hope that you can all hear me. I think that I will much to add to that. I think that the minister has illustrated the kind of circumstances where it could happen, the original policy intent and how what happens in practice does not quite align and has given me an example. I suppose that it is to reiterate the point why that is important. It is important that clients do not inadvertently accrue significant overpayments because we do not want to be having to chase large overpayments. It is also important, from a due diligence point of view, that people are not automatically re-enrolled on Scottish child payment after long periods of time. That is not just in the best interests of Social Security Scotland in terms of student and public money, but it is also to make sure, for example, that other changes to circumstances have not happened in the meantime, which could even include bank details and things like that. You could end up in a situation in which you are trying to pay money into a wrong bank account or something like that. It is really about trying to make sure that we are able to do that due diligence. Social Security Scotland has access to systems and CWP information, for example. Information on universal credit tends to go back only a few months. Once you go beyond those kinds of time periods, it becomes harder for Social Security Scotland to do more automated checks, which make it a bit more streamlined. Thank you very much for explaining that to us. I will move on to questions first from Deputy convener Natalie Dawn and then to be followed by Emma Roddick. Natalie Dawn, thank you very much convener and good morning minister and all officials. It is clear from a number of organisations and individuals that the increase to the Scottish child payment is really welcome when we have seen and heard a whole host of evidence to support this. I think that this Parliament is clearly ambitious in its aim to impoverty and it is disheartening when this ambition is prostrated by UK Government policy. It is clear that the assistance offered by the SCP may be limited for some families due to the threshold rules around universal credit. Has there been any discussion with the UK Government or the DWP regarding the impact of the increased Scottish child payment and the potential that this could create a cliff edge as I know that some people might breach the universal credit threshold and what has been the result of that? Thank you, Deputy convener. It is important matters and why the constructive dialogue that we have with UK Government at official level and I have had at ministerial level in my tenure as minister is important because there are constant considerations between the reserved benefits and the future of those benefits and any changes that may be made to them as well. We are delivering in Scotland with our devolved powers. The evidence that we have to date regarding the considerations around a cliff edge, there is a constant balance between the UK Government has to consider with regard to universal credit and incentives to work and supporting people and the balance between the requirements in universal credit and the number of working hours that an individual undertakes. Where our consideration around cliff edges has been more of an area of consideration that we need to keep in mind as we go forward is with regard to the impact on secondary nurse, for example. The evidence that we have to date from our interim evaluation of Scottish child payment is that it may reduce barriers to education and the labour market for recipients. That is positive, including paying for travel to interviews, a new job or college. We recognise the potential for the design of Scottish child payment to influence people's engagement with work, but there is no evidence at present of significant effects to date. However, we will always keep the issue under review as we make decisions about operating or as we review Scottish child payment more widely in the future. As set out in our gender pay action plan, we are acutely aware of gender disparities in the labour market and particularly the barriers that women and especially women with children face in obtaining and progressing in work. We need to keep those at the forefront of our mind with consideration to our family family payments as well. The Scottish Government analysts will continue to monitor available data to assess where possible Scottish child payment impacts have a wider implication on the gendered impacts of the labour market. Those are both the interaction with universal credit and UK Government policy and are more widely considered about access to labour market. Of course, Scottish child payment is something that we need to collectively consider. Following on from that, I understand that the consultation, which is closing today, I believe, is for views on various social security changes, including changing the legal basis of the Scottish child payment from a top-up benefit to a standalone benefit. I think that that would make it easier to address the problem of the cliff edges that it would be legally possible to pay Scottish child payment to people who are not getting reserved benefits. Can the minister advise what policy options are being considered on this front? As a member emphasised, our consultation on that is still live and closes today, and we encourage people to contribute it. Once that closes, officials will require some time to consider the feedback and policy options. There are challenges in this space with regard to how we deliver in the future, both from considerations around what powers the Scottish Government has and technical capabilities for delivery. However, we are keen to make improvements where we can, and we will aim to publish a response to the consultation in early 2023, which will set out some of our next steps. As part of policy development officials, I will consider whether there would be a benefit in modifying the legislative footing on which Scottish child payment is based, and that is certainly something that we need to do. On a slightly more general note, and maybe less technical, can the minister outline what impact overall extending and increasing the Scottish child payment and the other measures that we are speaking about today will have on the Scottish Government's national mission to tackle child poverty? There is a lot that I could say about that, so I will try to be as brief as I can. However, the decisions that we have taken have been made to deliver our second tackle on the child poverty delivery plan. We have also sought to go further and faster where we can be mindful of the cost that families face in the current situation, with the cost of living pressures and challenges and the levels of inflation. Of course, the story of the Scottish child payment is a good case in point in that regard, in that less than a year ago, the Scottish child payment was payable at a rate of £10 a eligible child under six. However, a manifesto commitment increased the rate to £20 by the end of this Parliament, and in fact we delivered that at an increase in full in the first year of the Scottish Government during this parliamentary term. Extending Scottish child payment to under-16 and increasing it further, we took the decision to increase it by an inflation busting 25 per cent from £20 to £25 to bring this increase forward by four months from April 2023 to November 2022. Those are significant interventions. A rate of £25 per week per child enhanced and extended Scottish child payment could lift 50,000 children out of poverty, producing overall child poverty by an estimated 5 per cent of points in the next financial year. Of course, that is something that we should all welcome and we need to be focused and passionate about achieving. Of course, that sits in the context of the other work that we are doing to tackle child poverty in Scotland, such as offering free school lunches during term time rather to all pupils in primaries 1 to 5, saving families on average £400 per child per year. That will be extended to primary 6 and 7 pupils during the course of this Parliament. We have massively expanded the provision of fully funded high-quality early learning and childcare, increasing school clothing grants to at least £120 for every eligible primary school pupil and £150 for every eligible secondary school pupil from the start of the 21-22 academic year and, indeed, recently launching a free bus travel for under-22 scheme and a number of other interventions. The Scottish child payment rightly has attracted attention and focus because of its innovation as a policy and its clear focus and application to tackle poverty. It is also part, along with our other devolved social security benefits, a wider set of policy interventions to help to reduce poverty and to work towards meeting our targets and to help people in the current financial position over the cost of living pressures and the challenges that so many households are facing. I could say a little more, but I will probably leave it there, convener. I am going to move on to questions from Emma Roddick to be followed by Pam Duncan-Glancy. Emma. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. As you mentioned, that these regulations are increasing the Scottish child payment to £25 a week per child and I understand that this payment and other measures are unique in the UK. Can I ask how much money is provided when the five family benefits are taken together and how that compares to support available elsewhere in the UK? It is an important question because, as I said, the Scottish child payment is part of a number of payments from Social Security Scotland that are providing significant additional quantum of support for families. Taken together, the Scottish child payment best start grant pregnancy and baby payment, early learning payment, school age payment and best start foods could be worth over £10,000 by the time a family's first child reaches six and £9,700 for subsequent children by the end of 2022, so a significant additional quantum of support. That compares to less than £1,800 for eligible families, first child in England and Wales and under £1,300 for subsequent children. The difference of more than £8,200 between what people receive in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK highlights the Scottish Government's major support in the early years for low-income families and our determination to provide assistance. Following on from that, the UK Government has made some decisions recently that have impacted on Social Security Scotland. What has their actions and inactions had on our mission to tackle child poverty? Could we go further if the ambition being shown in Scotland were matched by the rest of the UK? Unfortunately, I say that genuinely with disappointment that the UK Government's welfare reforms have reduced the income of the poorest households in Scotland, pushing households into poverty. Indeed, some of those policies such as the benefit cap and the two-child limit are targeted at households with children and have had casework of people who are being more challenged because of those policies, as I am sure other members around the table have today. That is in contrast to the Scottish Government's commitment to tackle child poverty, which is evidenced in the regulations that we are considering today, which, of course, focus to a large extent on the game-changing Scottish child payment, which was braided by the Scottish Government and implemented by the Scottish Government. That is the contrast. Of course, there are other aspects, not just with the Social Security where the UK Government could do more with regard to employment law, for example, the minimum wage levels that are reserved to Westminster, and other aspects of employment law if changes were made with a focus on social justice at a UK level, a bigger difference could certainly be made. Has the Scottish Government done analysis into the impact of welfare reforms? Are there figures that quantify the impact on people in Scotland if key UK welfare reforms were reversed? Yes, there has been analysis done, and the Scottish Government estimates that reversing key UK welfare reforms made since 2015 would increase the incomes of the poorest households in Scotland by over 10 per cent in 2023-24. That would bring around 70,000 people out of poverty in Scotland, including 30,000 children, if the UK Government took action. Such action would include the reintroduction of the £20 per week uplift to universal credit, because the removal of that was the biggest overnight cut in benefits since the creation of the British welfare state. We in stating that would move the most people out of poverty overall, although reversing historical reforms would have larger impacts on child poverty. The total cost of reversing the cut to universal credit and other reforms, including getting rid of the two-child limit, the removal of the family element, the removal of the benefit freeze and changes to universal credit workload allowances in the taper rate, would be around £780 million per annum to the UK Government. Reversing the reforms would increase disposable income for households with children with the lowest 10 per cent of incomes by around 11 per cent and for households in poverty with children by 10 per cent. There is a huge amount of difference that could be made, and I could say more about the issues with universal credit. The key message is that the UK Government could and should be doing more in this space, and with our limited resources and powers in Scotland as a devolved Government, we are doing all that we can to make the difference, to mitigate where we can. Of course, there is a lot of mitigation that has happened, but it is also to be innovative and proactive by introducing and increasingly extending the Scottish child payment, for example, as well as a number of other devolved benefits that are making an impact for families in Scotland. There is, of course, more that could be done, and we constantly look to ask what more we can do with our limited resources and powers, but certainly where we can make a difference, where we can be proactive in that space. I think that those regulations are before us to show that very clearly. Thank you very much, minister. I am going to move to questions from Pam Duncan Glancy to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Good morning, minister, and to your officials too. I will start on a point of agreement, which is that I too do not believe that the UK Government has done enough to support people during this cost of living crisis, and I completely agree with the minister on that. The areas that I am interested in are around the promotion of EMA as a follow-on to Scottish child payment. I know that that has been touched on already, but I wonder, minister, if you could set out what you are doing to make that process as automated as it could be, or, in fact, if it is automated entirely? First, I recognise that it is a good thing for the benefit of all Scotland that the EMA is in place in Scotland, whereas that is not the case in other parts of the UK. Whilst we in the Scottish Government cannot guarantee that all the creation of the Scottish child payment will be eligible for the educational maintenance allowance of the EMA, we have considered the likelihood that those turning 16 may transition on to EMA rather, and we are working to ensure that relevant signposting is in place for those people. We are developing an insight-driven communication and engagement plan, which will be a live document that will be continuously reviewed and updated, so we are developing it ahead of the roll-out, and it will be reviewed and updated. We have included an objective in our communication strategy to raise awareness of the EMA as a form of support for those ageing out Scottish child payment at age 16, and we are currently working on the best approach to achieve this objective. The EMA is currently promoted in schools, as well as online and via local authority websites, and we are working to ensure that any promotion of the Scottish child payment in schools is conscious of the links to the EMA and complements any existing engagement that is already carried out. It is a point that is well made by the member and the committee. I hope that my answer assures that there is both consideration and action under way in the space, and we certainly will be focused as a Government, as our partners have mentioned, on making sure that we do help people to access the support of the EMA once they age out of Scottish child payment. I feel that, in part, that still sounds quite a bit like there's a reliance on the individual again to apply. Is there a reason why there couldn't be an automatic follow-on that I'm not aware of? There are two different systems. I'll bring Janet Richardson in a moment, but there are different systems. Of course, there are longer-term ambitions, not just within the Scottish Government, but with colleagues in local authorities and other public service providers, to, from a digital perspective, make the journey and the access of support as easy as possible for people in Scotland, and that's an on-going piece of work. However, in terms of any automation in this space, it's not—because the EMA isn't delivered by Social Security Scotland—it's not something that can be implemented within the social security system. However, as I've emphasised, there's already action under way and partnership under way to help people to be aware of the EMA and how to apply and to encourage them to do that as the agent of Scottish child payment. Janet, I don't feel that I've added anything to that. Thank you, minister. I don't think that I can add anything to the automation part, but just really to emphasise that our local delivery and national engagement teams within Social Security Scotland will be promoting this or making sure that people are aware of this as much as any of our other benefits. They are out with stakeholders and partners, making sure that as much information is available as can be. One final follow-up. Thank you both for that. Are there plans to combine the delivery? Could you elaborate on that slightly? Are there plans to combine? You say that the payments are made by different organisations. Am I right? Is that what you said? There are no plans at present to bring the EMA within Social Security Scotland. It's not a social security benefit, but as there is on a number of different areas significant engagement between local authorities and Social Security Scotland and different aspects of the public sector delivery landscape. One of the important things in recent years is raising awareness of what Social Security Scotland does with partners and making sure that we're working as collaboratively as possible. This example of the EMA is a good one of where, in order to get support to people that we want people to have, there is a degree of engagement required between different aspects of the public sector. I hope that my answer will assure you that there is proactive engagement happening already to make sure that people are aware of the EMA and how to apply and to encourage them to do so. I hope that you will continue to look at the issue. Thank you. If I combine it with one of the questions that I have in the other theme, to be quicker later, can I ask a follow-up? It's a good example of one that I was going to ask. Thank you, convener. On that, I know later that we're going to come to issues of processing and you say in the policy note that there's going to be a development of existing signposts and referral pathways. Can the minister set out what those are? Because having done various bits of engagement, I'm not aware that there are referral pathways between Social Security Scotland and other public sector organisations, including the NHS and possible local authorities, in the same way that DWP has those referral mechanisms. Does the member mean in a safeguarding capacity? My understanding in conversations with various people working locally, there isn't that referral system that you can use from the DWP, for example, to another agency where it would make a direct referral, but within Social Security Scotland that direct referral option is not available. It sounds somewhat like there's a more manual sort of work around where someone would say, you should speak to and then Social Security Scotland might go the other direction and say to their clients, you should speak to this agency or the other agency, but there's no automation of that referral process or directly recognised referral process, if that's clearer. I'm not sure how directly relevant this is to the regulations, convener, but I'll bring Janet Richardson in a moment and elaborate as much as I can at this juncture to the member. I'm happy to pull up on this point if that would be helpful. I would maintain that the level of collaboration between Social Security Scotland and partner agencies, whether that's the NHS, local authorities or more widely, is strong. There are a number of aspects to consider with regard to the sharing of information and data protection, which I'm sure members will appreciate. We need to be extremely careful about and mindful of, but there are issues of safeguarding that the agency is engaged in and considerate of. That's an important aspect of how we support clients in the application process and know widely where appropriate. Janet, I don't know if you want to add anything to that and I'm certainly happy to give an undertaking to follow up to the committee and to the committee and convener yourself and the member on those points if that would be of benefit. The member is quite correct in that that policy is not fully in place yet, but we are developing that sign for posting of referrals policy, which will allow us to do that procedure that you've referred to as DWP do. We expect to help that in place hopefully next year. At the moment, very much our process is where we will sign posts or we will talk to clients about benefits or the things they may be entitled to, and we will refer them to those organisations and work with those organisations ourselves, but we won't do those direct referrals just now, which we have talked about, but that is to come hopefully in 2023. As the minister said, we can get more information about that outside of this meeting. That would be helpful. Thanks very much and I think that any further information that can come forward to the committee on that would be appreciated, minister. I'll move to questions from Jeremy Balfour, then to be followed by my colleague Fousal Toudry, who joins us remotely. Thank you. I have two questions, minister. As the deputy convener said, there is a consultation which comes to an end today, but I'm just wondering, when you were looking at the Scottish child payment, why did you not go for a standalone benefit or a new benefit under the powerful act? What was the reason not to do that at the very start? Of course, the creation of new benefit from memory would require further engagement with the DWP and considerations around working with the UK Government. I'm sure that the member will appreciate that I was not the minister at the time of the creation of the Scottish child payment and I will bring Merlin Kemp in the moment if there is anything further that he would like to add. I think that it is important to recognise that we are also seeking to provide support as quickly as possible in the period of the pandemic and also to provide additional support to help families with additional needs and to tackle poverty. There was a consideration around experience and making sure that the most appropriate power was used to deliver a strategic solution to help people with Merlin. I don't know if you want to add anything on that. I have read up on the discussion with previous colleagues and there were position papers that were publicly available on the Scottish Government website. It was a combination of a new payment that was delivered quickly. The top-up powers that were used to get payments delivered quickly. One of the key benefits of the top-up powers is that we have a very efficient, especially compared to other social security benefits, application process. We can do a lot of the checks on behalf of clients when they apply to check whether they have universal credit and the child element of universal credit. That makes for a streamlined application process that has a real benefit to clients as well. However, as has been discussed, there are limitations to the use of top-up powers and that is why we have got the consultation to consider further developments in the future. My final question is that one of the regulations that you have not mentioned is that you are now taking away the requirement for SCP to be paid within four weeks of getting the application. The draft policy note again said in April, and I quote often that the deadline cannot be met due to high-volume claims that Social Security Scotland managed. Obviously, that was back in April. We are now nearly in November. Had that changed, how are you confident that people will get the payment within four weeks of that application? If not, with respect to Social Security Scotland, it is already well-getting a letter saying every two weeks, but what people want is money in the bank account. Why is that regulation gone that you cannot guarantee payment within four weeks? As emphasised in my previous answer with regard to processing times, and I will bring in official colleagues in a moment if there is anything further that they want to add, but there is a strong commitment from the Scottish Government and from Social Security Scotland as a delivery agency to pay people as quickly as possible. There was a consideration around whether the four-week period was appropriate, and that is why we have sought to make this change in those regulations. However, there is a strong focus at delivery level on why we want to get money to people as quickly as possible. I will bring in Janet, if there is anything on that, and Karen. I do not know if you want to add anything from an SGOD perspective. I am not sure that I can add much to what you have already said to the minister, but to remind you that a large percentage of those clients will go straight through processing, automation process, which will make the payments quicker. There will be some clients that we will have to do manual intervention, but hopefully that will be smaller, so the resources will be able to deal with that that comes through in a timely fashion, but we will keep clients updated and we will do everything that we can to make sure that people will receive that money as quickly as possible. We do understand why they need that money, but Karen, I do not know if you have got anything to add. I do not think that there is anything that I can add to the minister. We will move on to our final question, which comes from Faisal Choudhury, who is joining us remotely. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I think that most of my questions are answered, but I just have a small question for the minister. Has the Scottish Government considered the impact of the cliff edge on social mobility? Thanks, Mr Choudhury, for that question. I did talk about this earlier in my answer around the cliff edge to Natalie Dawn. There are home-going considerations on the impact of the Scottish child payment and clients' engagement with work, but there is no evidence of significant effects to date. Is that you, Faisal? Yes, that is me. We will now move on to agenda item number two, which is the formal consideration of motion S6M-05966, calling for the committee to recommend approval of the Social Security Miscellaneous Amendment and Transitional Provision Scotland regulations 2022. I remind everybody that only the minister and members may speak in this debate. I invite the minister to speak to and move the motion. Thank you, convener, urge colleagues based on our discussion today and what I said in my opening statement and more generally to support these regulations, particularly the uplift and extension of the Scottish child payment will make a significant difference for a lot of our constituents in this challenging time. There are various times in the course of a Parliament where MSPs can make a difference for people, and I would suggest that this is one of those moments. I strongly urge colleagues to support these regulations and both the increase and the extension of Scottish child payment and the positive impact that we will have from any household in this challenging time. I will now look to members if they have any contributions that they want to make. Clearly, we will be voting for the regulations. However, it is worth putting on record just 3.1 procedure and 2 in regard to these particular regulations. I think that the minister will know, because when he sat in his committee, I used to make the same point. I think that it is unfortunate the way that the procedure is set up for us that you are asked to vote on something immediately after taking evidence. I think that we have to look at how that actually is proposed scrutiny. If there had been things there that the minister wanted to go back and reflect on, or we as a committee wanted to go back and reflect on, we would have been asked to make that decision immediately. I think that this should still be a week in between the regulations being discussed with Government ministers and then a week later the regulations will be voted. I appreciate that it is not the minister's role—he may not want to comment on that, but I think that it is worth pointing out that there is a lack of scrutiny there. I suppose that, in regard to the regulations themselves, I heard what the minister said, but I still cannot quite understand why those who are going to fall into this category of the October birthday could simply not be transferred automatically. I do not see the logic of, if suddenly somebody was going to be transferred, somebody else would not apply. I generally do not see that. I do worry that there will be people that will drop off the system and will miss out on money in regard to that. I think that that is a slight concern, and we will have to wait and see what happens in practice. The second issue, as I have raised a number of my questions, is in regard to when will those payments actually be made. It seems to me slightly strange that we are getting rid of this four-week guaranteed payment, which treats people with respect and dignity. I worry that we are moving away from that and the agency is moving away from that. We did see over the summer, particularly around best grants, a really quite a large delay in regard to people getting their applications processed and then the money that we are appropriately putting into their bank account. We have got, obviously, ADP being rolled out at the same time as well. We have seen delays and I have not really been reassured by the minister or by Social Security's Scotland Agency that we are not going to see these delays again. We are approaching Christmas. It is going to be a difficult time for many individuals and I am concerned that my money will not appear on my account at the appropriate time. I hope that I am wrong and we will no doubt come back to this and look at it once it actually happens. Clearly, we welcome the policy development under this, but in regard to the practicality of delivering it, I do think that the Government could have been slightly more ambitious and slightly more open and willing to help those who already have that benefit to continue with it. Thank you very much, Jeremy. Do you have any other contributions, Pam? Thank you, convener. Whilst we, in the Scottish Labour Party, welcome the Scottish child payment and the additional money that is allocated to that on the additional £5 top up a week, we also share some concerns about the delays to rolling this out in full, not just as a result of some of the acute issues that we may see over the next few months with the uptick in application, but also just because of the number of years that it has taken for it over sixes to access this payment. I understand that the minister— Thank you, convener. Pam, do you want to take an intervention? I will. I forgot that that was an option at this point. Yes, I will indeed. Thank you, Pam, do you want to say thank you, convener, as I know this frangin remotely, but I just want to clarify on that point that with regard to the implementation of the extension of the Scottish child payment to under 16s, the Scottish Government would like to have delivered that from day one of Scottish child payment, but it was actually our engagement with DWP and the need to get the required data from DWP and the pressures on their side and working with them in a way that we need to collaboratively that has delayed the process. I just think that it is both inaccurate and unfair for Scottish Labour to state that there has not been a determination from the Scottish Government to pay Scottish child payment to under 16s, as soon as possible, where it has been from the Scottish Government. That is why we implemented for under six days, as soon as possible. Otherwise, the whole Scottish child payment would have taken longer. The delivery of the policy to under 16s first and then to under 16s as soon as we could, with the requirement to have data from the DWP, it has been a position that was agreed in order to deliver the Scottish child payment as quickly as the Scottish Government could. Of course, Scottish Government created the Scottish child payment with powers that were acquired by the Scottish Government, making the case for more powers than the Scottish Parliament. That is important for the Scottish Government. I thank the minister for that possible statement, as opposed to an intervention. Despite my forgetting my surroundings in terms of being able to take an intervention, I could have predicted that that particular intervention was coming in. What I was about to say was that I understand that there have been some difficulties with roll-out. The minister said something quite interesting in his intervention where he pointed out that it is our engagement with the DWP to get the data that had been the issue. That inlies the concern that I have. I believe that both of our Governments should be engaging much, much better on matters of household finances, particularly in a time of cost of living pressures. I honestly think that we need to get to a position where both Governments can work more closely on that. I was also about to say that I am not too much interested in some of the negotiations between them. However, I am interested in the fact that thousands of children were not able to access that payment from the data at which the Scottish Government and others considered that it would be necessary for them to have. Had they got it at an earlier date, whether that be at the door of the DWP or the Scottish Government, had those families got it at that date, the last two years would have been significantly better for them. I just wanted to yet again put on the record my frustration about the roll-out to over sixes. I will finish where I started earlier, which is to say that, of course, we welcome any extra funding through the Scottish child payment that those families can get at this time, and we will be voting for the regulations today. Thank you very much, Pam. I have one small comment, but I think that it is something that we have to recognise as significant. That is just the expansion with regard to kinship care. I think that that is something that this committee has heard directly from those who deliver such care, who are fantastic people right across Scotland. I think that that will be a very—these regulations seek to make their lives and the children that they look after that much better. So, if we have got no other contributions from members, I will now invite the minister to sum up and respond to anything that he has heard. Thank you. In the interests of time, convener, I will not comment further, other than to say that I do welcome the support of colleagues despite their caveats, some of which I think are unfair. But in the interests of experience, I thank them for their support and I am glad that the Parliament will be supporting these regulations. The committee will be supporting these regulations today and look forward to them being implemented and the difference that that will make for many, many people. Thank you. Thank you, minister. I will just do the formal part of that now. So, the question is that motion S6M-05966, in the name of Ben Macpherson MSP, be approved. Are we all agreed? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you very much. The committee will report on the outcome of this instrument in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to approve a draft of the report for publication. Are we agreed with that? Agreed. Thank you very much. Thank you minister and your officials, and you, even despite Covid, to be here today to ensure that we can get these regulations in front of the Parliament as soon as possible. So, thank you very much. I now close the public part of this meeting and the committee is going to move on to private session to consider its pre-budget 2023-2024 draft report.