 Mae hyn yn wych i'r ftrfeledig. Mae'r ddif glywodol einddfodd ar wahlingted wahanolte i'r P unchecko penderfynolf——anodwg penderfynfohol y Ad mamm Llywodraeth Y Prif wärwad, oeddo, o arddus iawn. A llwyddo i'r F Gerry Willan, a hynny'n dweud fitwi Lights Prince ond I I want everyone in the committee is agreeable to that. Thank you very much. Agenda item 2 is a work programme priorities. It's an evidence session in a round table format. A aim is to gather as much evidence as possible to inform this committee and focus our priorities for the medium and longer term aspects and sessions of the Parliament. Round table format really should allow us to keep the discussion flowing quite freely. If anyone wishes to speak, please perhaps speak through me, catch my eye or the clerk's eye, and it ensures that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute to the session as well. Keep the discussion moving fairly fluidly, and that's much better for everyone to be able to get as much information as possible. Can I just welcome our witnesses here today? The witnesses would like to say who they are. Ile McIntosh from Glasgow Disability Alliance. James Adams from RNIB Scotland. Craig Wilson from the Scottish Council for Volunteer Organisations. Laila Tyna from Disability Agenda Scotland, who is a coalition of leading disability charities in Scotland. I'm John McAllion from the Scottish Pensionals Forum. Thank you very much for coming in today and looking forward to your contributions. I also want to thank everyone for the written submissions that they have supplied. If I could just start off the discussion by throwing in a general question and people can come in after that to raise any issues that they want or any comments, but they may have the Scottish Government plans to bring forward a social security bill, we also understand the Scottish Government plans to bring forward a child poverty bill, so something over to this committee we'll be looking at and will be very interested in also. In light of this, what would you see being the key priorities of this committee? As you'll see from the written evidence that we've submitted, we reflect in the views of over 3,000 members that we've got was hard to identify a narrow list of priorities. The things that came through from the conference that we had recently from our membership was that the social security system, the values and the principles that have been expressed so far are very warmly welcomed by disabled people and the on-going engagement of disabled people in designing a fairer system and helping to implement those values will be very warmly welcomed as well in a system that would fit with other components that disabled people particularly rely on, such as social care, housing, employment and lifelong learning. Social security is part of a wider framework that could help to achieve that vision. John Swinney? I think that there's a kind of number of key priorities, but first of all there's the transition from these benefits coming from the Department of Work and Pensions to the Scottish Social Security Agency. No benefit claimant should suffer any deterioration in a situation and get the transition right has to be one of the big priorities of everybody concerned here. The second one is to make funeral poverty one of the priorities for this committee, because it is a real issue that affects thousands of people across Scotland who are forcing poor people into debt. The third one is that the one universal benefit that has been transferred from the Department of Work and Pensions, the winter furlough alliance, should remain a universal benefit. That's a very important priority for the pensioners movement. Thank you very much. Peter, your next name, Bill. I think that the way that you highlighted the connection between the child poverty bill and the social security bill is really important. I guess that it's towards the end of the short paper that we put in that we submitted. I think that a key task or a key challenge for the committee is to think about our new powers and our existing powers and how we use those powers to address poverty. Social security cannot end poverty on its own, cannot tackle poverty on its own, but it can make a significant contribution. I think that it's important to consider the scrutiny of the social security legislation as it goes through this committee in that context and your reflections and scrutiny of the child poverty bill. I would echo some of the things that John has just said, particularly around funeral poverty and what Ila said about engaging with direct users of all of those services is critically important for the committee to continue to do. We had a session with our members yesterday and the issue of funeral poverty came through very clearly on that. We'll be producing a report on that in due course. Thank you very much. Bill came in and then it was James. Thanks very much, convener. I think that I'm going to echo some of what's already being said, but we said in our own submission that we should be exploring the opportunities presented by those new powers to try and align policies and services and the child poverty bill and the social security bill, if we could think of them coming together because according to the new policy institute, 48 per cent of those living in poverty are either disabled people or people living with disabled people. For children, 40 per cent of disabled children live in poverty and 44 per cent of the children of disabled adults live in poverty. If you fail to address the problems that are faced by either the children and disabled parents or disabled children themselves, you're not going to solve child poverty, you're not going to half it, so you need to think in terms of all the policies being aligned so that you achieve your aims and ends that you're working towards for 2030. Thank you very much. James, do you want to come in and then create? There are a few areas that I'll quickly touch on. One is a general principle that John McAllian mentioned, which is that through the devolution of powers through the Scottish Parliament, it's important that groups collectively and individuals aren't demented by that devolution. For instance, we have to make sure that all the current groups that receive a certain level of benefit or access to employment from the current system don't end up having a worse deal. That also goes to individuals. There are some individuals that will have migrated from DLA to PIP already, so any alterations or changes, I have to try to make sure that they are not financially disadvantaged by that. A couple of specific areas for a blend per site include accessibility. There's a natural move to more online government and there's a whole range of benefits. Some currently, universal credit, fully apply for online, others are by phone, others are by paper. It's good to have some sort of consolidation of that, but for a blend per site folk, it's quite clear that having online applications is a barrier. We just urge the committee to look at how we would have accessible applications for all different groups. Through assessments, there are some conditions that medically aren't going to improve or be cured or be reversed, so why some would have to go through repeat assessments when they've already been medically told they're blind and that's not going to change. It just puts them through undue stress and also creates work for the departments where I'm to look at it. We're trying to find some way of removing that element from any process. Access to technology. Technology is one of those areas that is a wonderful opportunity for disadvantaged groups to try and get on to a level playing field. The speed of technology means that there's a risk that people can fall behind quite quickly and the cost of technology for people with site loss is extraordinary. Some of the cost, like a braille reader or a note-taker, went into many thousands of pounds. We would hope that any new welfare service could look at the cost of technology for disadvantaged groups to allow them to access employment opportunities, perhaps apply for benefits and perhaps live normal lives. The final thing that I'll mention is the role of advice. There are so many, there's a wide varied diverse population out there and it's really important that we get specialist advice on top of the general advice services that perhaps local authorities might offer. There's been large cuts local authorities, as we know, and it's 11 per cent over the last five years. That means that one of the areas that are under funding arguably are advice services. We're looking to see if there's some way of central government, perhaps working with the third sector, with a CVO or whoever, to try and resource some sort of advice services that people could access in order to maximise their income opportunities in the benefit system. Thank you very much, Craig. Yes, so the CVO obviously represents many third sector organisations, so instead of looking at specific policy details, we're trying to look at maybe the broader principles that might inform a system that would work well and achieve the outcomes that people want to see. We've split that down into four key areas that we think the committee should perhaps focus their attention on. The first would be to continue to engage with third sector organisations who have the expertise and the networks that would be valuable to the committee in terms of looking at certain areas, more specific areas, and also as a conduit to the people who use the services as well in a more informal manner. So continuing to engage with third sectors, crucial. Linking employment with social security is another area that is very important. Many people that receive benefits and are involved with the Social Security Committee also work—sorry, not the committee—involve with the social security system also work. I think that we have to be mindful of that in terms of how they can engage with the system and also to aid the transition from social security to work and back and making sure that that's as swift and easy as possible for people. Learning from the past is obviously very important. The DWP is a well-established department and it's full of people who have very great ideas and have experienced the system for a long time, so it's important to continue to engage with them. For us, adopting a human rights-based approach is very important. There are rights that exist for people that are out there already and, if those are kept in mind and those are pursued at all times, the system that everyone wants to see can be realised. I'm just going to highlight a few points. Some of that is obviously going to echo what people have already said before, but just to pull out a few key things for us was firstly—this is an opportunity with the Social Security Bill coming through to address some of the concerns that people have had about existing benefits, but I think just to echo what John was saying and also James around taking time to get some of this right, because I think that there is concern, certainly when we've talked to people who are on benefits, disabled people, but also welfare rights advisors who are working within the system, that we don't want to have anybody having no—we don't want to have detriment to people with existing benefits, but also it's a complicated system and it's unlikely to become much more simplified, so if we're going to make changes, ideally we just want to think those through and give people time to work with them. As Bill was saying around poverty, there are anionably higher levels of poverty amongst disabled people and some of that is actually to do with the additional costs of being disabled, so there's some really good research that highlights that people on average have additional costs of £550 a month, so in terms of thinking about what the role of social security should be in terms of helping those people either outside of poverty or living an independent life, it would be worth just considering some of that. Thirdly, around the system itself, going back to some of the things that James was saying around assessments, so could there be longer awards, possibly even greater automaticity for certain conditions? We'd really need to think that through and how that works, but it would potentially save some resourcing of the assessments that's being put through and also some of the turmoil and stress that people face going through the current assessments. Lastly, highlighting employment, so for disabled people the employment rate in Scotland at the moment is 44 per cent, which is much lower than 73 per cent that it is for the general population and some of those people can't work, but actually there's barriers for people who do want to work and be in work and then also for people who are able to get a job, how they move in and out of social security so that it's not impeding them. Thank you very much, Laila. Can I just welcome Marianne Davies from the One Parent Family Scotland? Welcome, Marianne. Would you like to put in a contribution in regards what youth feel this committee could do to look at what should be our priorities as we're going through the social security bill and obviously the child poverty bill as well? Yes, we're very pleased to be invited today because we do think that the social security system is badly in need of reform. In fact, some of the powers that are coming to Scotland gives us an opportunity to treat people with dignity and respect and to support everyone to achieve their potential. We think that it's particularly important to look at the new social security agency and the model of delivery and how that would roll out and to ensure that it's administered at a national level and we have national standards for that delivery model. We feel particularly that single parents have been very negatively affected by welfare reform in general and it's predicted that single parents, rather than their children, are going to become ever poorer by 2020, so we felt it's important for the committee to look at the impact on family wellbeing of any new powers that we have, children's rights, and we do take a human rights approach to the benefits system. That's about protecting the income of children and families in using new powers to top up, to tackle that link with child poverty. Social security in the wider sense has to fit into the jigsaw of other policies, particularly around employability. We're very concerned about government plans for parents with children who are three and four to be required to move into work. We think that that's of relevance to employability programmes and some of which are coming to Scotland as well. The link that I mentioned in our paper is with sanctions and the infrastructure in Scotland of childcare. There are a lot of interconnected policies that the committee could make sure that there is a link in with those. Thank you very much, Mary. Any questions that the committee wishes to ask the witnesses or any comments that you want to make at this moment? Adam Tomkins, thank you very much everyone. I had three questions that are unrelated to each other community. I don't know if you want me to take one of them and then I'll come back in a little while. Perhaps I could start with something that struck me very forcibly in Peter Kelly's written evidence, which was very helpful, where he says that there are limits on the extent to which the social security system can address poverty. That struck me as being in accord with, rather than in discord with, some of the remarks that were made in the Joseph Rantry recently published a pretty comprehensive strategy on how to solve poverty in the UK, which I'm sure everybody in the room has been reading and studying, where I think the Joseph Rantry Foundation said that the strategy that we've used so many years of increasing social security payments as a principal means of addressing poverty has failed. I can't find the exact quote, but it's something to that extent. The first question to Peter is, could you react to give us your sense of what the Joseph Rantry Foundation is saying in this really quite striking report? Secondly, could you expand a little bit on what you said in your written evidence about there being limits to the extent to which the social security system can address poverty? Sure. On the Joseph Rantry Foundation report, I have to confess that, probably like many other people, I'm working my way through the full report, which is a pretty weighty tome, but we contributed to some of the evidence that they gathered around producing that strategy, and it is very helpful. To go on about what—to go further about our statement about the limits to the social security system, John Dickie from CPAG has often talked about the social security system having to do too much of the heavy lifting in terms of tackling poverty. We understand that there are other reasons why people are in poverty. It's their inability to be in work, or it's when they're in work, it's low pay, so there are limits on the extent to which our social security system can solve the problem of poverty. However, I think that there are real questions about the way that our social security system has almost retreated from taking on that role of seeing quite clearly that it has a role to play in tackling poverty. For many years now, I think, we have developed a UK-wide social security system that, I think, is the main reason for being, has been to encourage people to move into the labour market. Many of our programmes, particularly our core benefits, so things like employment support allowance, jobseekers allowance, have over a very long period of time—this is not something that has happened in the last five years, 10 years or even 20 years—this has been a long-term trend where the emphasis on our social security system is to move people into work. That is fine, it has that role too, but what we have paid less attention to is the role that our social security system can play in alleviating poverty and helping to lift people out of poverty. Obviously, we are getting a limited range of powers in Scotland, some really important ones, and when I say limited, that's not to diminish their importance, particularly around disability benefits. However, as we develop our system, one of the things that we have to think about is how we use that to address poverty within those limits, but how we use it. One of the things that is absent from the consultation paper that came out at our members' meeting, which many of them identified, is that the issue of adequacy of those benefits that we will have delivered to Scotland is not mentioned. There is some discussion about uprating, which is useful, which is good, but how do we move towards a system where we can say that the benefits that are being delivered in Scotland are contributing towards an adequate income? I am sorry, that is a very long answer. I just want to follow in on some of the remarks that were touched on by a number, in particular by Craig Wilson, about a rights-based approach. From a language point of view, responsibility does not also come into that, because no one writes unless someone has a responsibility in respect of those rights. From a language point of view, the voluntary sector, for example, is not so much in the sense of a legal right or entitlement as it may be in respect of benefits from a Government department. Talking about responsibilities, I agree that that is important because it goes beyond simple legal responsibilities, but also as a society we have a responsibility as individuals for each other. That brings in the voluntary sector and others who do things not necessarily because they are legally required to, but out of a sense of responsibility towards each other. Indeed, in respect of the social security system itself, if the concept of responsibility is brought into the language, it can also help to improve the attitude towards those who seek to rely on the system when they need to. I would say that it was fair that, in any contract, there are rights and responsibilities on both parties, but approaching it from the angle that the state has some responsibilities under international conventions that has signed up to basic standards of living for people, those rights are inherent. If the system itself is not able to deliver those, that is obviously a challenge. However, the human rights-based approach is more a guiding principle towards creating a system that works well and fulfills the things that people want to see in terms of dignity and respect. It is more of a framework and I can point some of the members to that framework. The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development has done a lot of work on that and I have tried to break it down because it is quite a lofty concept, but the principles behind it are good and it can lead to a system that provides the best results for people. I think that there obviously has to be an element of responsibility involved, but I think that the vast majority of people enter the social security system because they have to and they go into it with the best intentions and do not necessarily wish to be there. I think that if the system that is in place is working for them, then hopefully they will not be there as long as they would otherwise have to be. If anyone wants to come in on this specific, even though our question is to a specific person, others who have an interest. I think that Bill wanted to come in on that particular one and Mary did you want to come up in that one? The issue is that human rights are absolute. It is the state that has responsibility and most of the benefits that we are talking about in terms of disability and carers benefits place no conditions on the individual to seek work or anything like that. Those are employment support allowance and job seekers allowance, which are entirely other benefits that have been retained by the UK Government. The UK Government is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. That convention, in one of its articles, says that everyone who is a disabled person has a right to an adequate income to meet the basic needs that arise. We do not deny human rights to serial killers or child murderers who are incarcerated in our prisons. We do not say to them that we do not eat, we do not feed, we do not get heat, we do not get light, we do not get a roof over your head. We are denying those basic rights to some of our most vulnerable citizens who are dying as a consequence that cuts to the benefits. It is not me saying that. It is the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, which has found that people are committing suicide because they have lost the benefits through the work capability assessment. As a civilised society and a signatory to human rights conventions, it is us who have the responsibilities towards those people. We should not be denying that by saying that we replace responsibilities on them. I would also like to address Adam's point, because I think that we need to address the employability gap between disabled people and non-disabled people. It is even larger if you look at non-disabled people's employment rates rather than the general population, because it is over 80 per cent now in Scotland for non-disabled people, 44 per cent for disabled people. We need to think how, again, we use the new powers that we are getting to try and maximise people's chances to secure employment who want to work. That means not denying them the basic benefits that help them to do that. The problem is that, as things are continuing, 47-48 per cent of those on higher-rate mobility are losing that entitlement as they move across from disability living allowance to personal independence payment. One in three of those people use their higher-rate mobility to lease a mobility vehicle, and one in three of those people use that mobility vehicle to get to and from work. Without that mobility vehicle, they lose the means to get into their job and place their employment in jeopardy. That is why a social security system should be designed to support people to achieve their full potential, rather than punishing them for being born with an impairment or acquiring an impairment later in life. That is why we would ask the committee, when they are looking at the bills that are coming before it, to think how it can maximise the potential of the Scottish population and see that social security is an investment in the people that you are making the payments to so that they can live full and active lives, which is what they want to do. Thank you, Bill. Mary, do you want to come in? Yeah, happily, I have read the GIRF report on the train on the way here. What it does say is that, in the UK, there are 13.5 million people in poverty, and of those 35 per cent, 35 per cent of children are in poverty. Not just that, but we are moving towards a trend whereby by 2020 that is going to increase. As you said, it is not just the benefits system. The point is that it is low wages, it is insecure jobs and it is unemployment and it is lack of skills. What it does say is that one of the key issues is an ineffective benefits system error, delays, that comes across a lot in the advice that we give to people. It is confusing, it is hard to engage with, people are not treated with respect. As Peter said, the level of benefits, especially in work benefit, caused a high percentage of children in poverty to live with a parent who is in work for people seeking work. As Bill pointed out, people who cannot work because of health and disability, the levels are not acceptable. When we look at the bits that we are going to gain and that are going to be devolved, we want to avoid and steer clear of the mistakes that are made in the Westminster system and an opportunity to use a rights-based approach where the state does have a responsibility to ensure that there is no explosion of food banks of which there is around 50 or 60 in Glasgow. When you ask people why that is, one of the main reasons is because of the benefits system. Aside from the parts that we are having brought to us in Scotland, it would be useful if the committee kept an eye on what is still with Westminster and what is happening and what is impacting on children in Scotland. There will be such massive increases in child poverty, no matter what we can do. We need to put pressure on Westminster to reverse some of the cuts, universal credit and some of the changes that are about to be implemented. I know that it came up at the last meeting, benefits for two children and the benefit cap. We still need to be feeding back experiences locally to Westminster about the hardship that all those things are causing. I think that everyone would agree that there has to be a balance between rights and responsibilities. The role of the voluntary sector is obviously critical to providing the proper social security in this country, but we have to be careful about the balance between volunteering and people being paid to look after or to provide work. The integrated health boards, which are just starting up in Scotland across the country to provide health and social care for older people as well as others, are virtually telling us that they are facing unprecedented levels of cuts in their spending. The temptation is for local authorities and other public sector bodies to cut down on the amount of paid work that covers those people and to use unpaid volunteers to take their place. That would be a major error, I think, in the part of any social security system. Volunteers are wonderful to do a wonderful job, but they must not take the place of properly qualified, properly paid healthcare assistants, social workers and so on. There is a danger that we are eroding the public sector and pushing unpaid volunteers into its place, and that is taking us back the way that it is not taking us forward. Alison, you wanted to come in, and then Laila, you wanted to come in? Probably particularly to Peter and Bill. We have discussed a lot in this committee already the need to have a social security system that is based on the principles of dignity and respect. Obviously, that is not all about money. Reducing repeat assessments would be a big step towards that. Perhaps James can tell us how often someone who is blind recovers their site. Clearly, there is a massive need to reduce assessments that are obviously costly, time-consuming and so on. While we are discussing dignity and respect, Peter made the point that we cannot have dignity and respect without adequate cash. Let us be serious. The poverty alliance raised the issue of top-up powers and new benefits in their submission, and I think that you felt that they have not been much discussed yet. Bill, you were making the point, too. People in Scotland are already suffering from this transfer from DLA to PIP. What new powers and top-up benefits would you like us to look at? I think that some people still want to come in on other issues. We have a list of people still waiting, so we do not mind. We will come back to that particular one, because I think that it is a new area. Pauline, you wanted to come in. I am very interested in the answer to that. I think that there is so much to consider here, so I am just trying to get home in that kind of area. The first question that I have is the disability agenda in Scotland. You are suggesting that there should be greater automaticity in the system, and that some people should have their benefits for life. We need to have a bit more information about the percentage of people who would apply to that, because it would not apply to everyone. What I am really interested in is to get to the stage where I will have to think about the design of the system pretty soon to boil that information down. It seems to me that there are policy questions that Alison is really asking about, which I am interested in knowing the answer to, but then there are questions about how we design a system that has less assessments, which has automatic entitlement, reduces the errors in the system and reduces delay. It seems to me, as I throw that open, that that can only be achieved if there is some level of prescription in the social security bill itself, which we have not seen. I am just interested to know if anyone is given consideration to then how does the legislation then reflect what we are trying to achieve here, whether it is a system that is whatever you want to achieve, whether it is a rights-based approach or have more automatic entitlement. Do you think that there has to be a high level of prescription in the bill to achieve that? That is a very good point. It rounds up a lot of the various issues. Can I bring in two more and then we can direct the question to Eilard? I called you later, sorry. Eilard, you wanted to come in and then Ruth wanted to come in. I wanted to underline Bill and Peter's responses to a couple of the earlier questions around how the social security system is limited in tackling poverty in and of itself. That is definitely underlined by experiences that our members have shared with us. Particularly as Bill underlined, the levels of poverty that disabled people face and the percentage of people in poverty who are either disabled or in a household with a disabled person is very high. A lot of the other barriers that disabled people face contribute to that, which is a key reason why we would like to urge the committee to ensure that the social security bill complements and works well with other powers existing and new, particularly around the employability support powers that are also coming into Scotland, albeit with a very reduced budget. As it stands, employment support services for disabled people at the moment through the job centre are not always specialised. There has been a real move away from disability employment advisers having to have any kind of specialist insight or qualification in that area. The people who are eligible and targeted by those services are the people who are closest to the labour market already. At Glasgow Disability Alliance, who we support through our employability, which is not statutory funded, is people who have a wide variety of other skills and contributions to make, which links well with what Gordon had asked about around the language of responsibility. As Bill said, there has been a real move towards that, which means being limited to paid employment. For a lot of disabled people, disabled people are much less likely to leave school with qualifications. There are attitudinal barriers and access barriers that stop qualified disabled people from getting the jobs that they are very capable of doing. The social security system currently puts barriers in the way of people being able to gain experience through volunteering without that impacting on their benefits. The language that is being proposed at the moment around supporting people to fulfil their potential and to participate in society, that is the language that we really strongly support rather than specifically responsibility, which when couched towards the individual in terms of social security has become stigmatised in a lot of the attitudes that we see in the media following a lot of Westminster reforms that suggest that people who are claiming benefits are irresponsible, whereas a system that supports people to participate and make a whole range of contributions, whether it is in their families, communities, volunteering or paid employment, is a system that can build a much stronger community across Scotland and make best use of the resources that disabled people have to contribute to disabled people and others as well. Ruth Davidson wants to come in. Bill from Inclusion Scotland speaks about the impact of the loss of motability vehicles and you touched on it there. Certainly, in my constituency and my surgery, I have seen first-hand the utter distress that a loss of those vehicles have caused. I would like to hear a little bit more from other folk around the table about that specific point about how taking away those things impedes people's ability to take part in society, essentially, as you say, to volunteer or move to employment if that is something that would suit them. James, do you want to come in? Just following on from Gordon's comment about the rights and responsibilities, about three in four blind and part sight people of working age are not in work, and that is a consistent figure. In economic times that are good or bad, there is a very high level of unemployment rates among blind and part sight people. Some of the social security benefits are there to enhance the opportunity to be included in society, to be part of their community, to be able to get out and about. It is much more than just an employment opportunity. What is the cost of somebody having a reasonable opportunity to be included in society? That is something that is very hard to put a figure on. Conditions have different needs, but that is something that should be thought through by the committee. Just on Pauline's comments about the automaticity, it is very difficult to try and be prescriptive about what particular conditions are going to be permanent. We have advanced medical technology, things do change very rapidly. Perhaps there are some cases where people can have improvements in their condition, but there could be evidence that is brought to committee from a medical side. There will be people who can work out professionally medically what conditions are not going to be changing anytime soon. Perhaps those could be where the prescriptive list might be if you want to go down that route. It might not be in the legislation that you have put it. Perhaps you could have somebody where that would be considered in a regular time period to allow that to be monitored. It would not be reasonable to give somebody automatic entitlement benefits when they are able to participate because that condition has had some kind of treatment that has improved them. It needs to be looked at, but there is a need for some level of automatic entitlement. Llywydd, you want to come in then, George? I was just going to come in back to Pauline's question and comment and what James was saying. What we, in our written submission, had put in about automaticity is that it is not going to cover everything, but it could be a way. I would say that it needs to be looked at further, but it seemed to be one thing that had come up that there could possibly be a list for some conditions. That would not cover everyone for disability benefits. However, it would save some assessments and where people meet certain conditions that they move through the system a bit quicker. I think that it has come up already. For instance, certain types of sight loss but other conditions are very unlikely. Short of medical breakthroughs or technological breakthroughs, they are not likely to change. There could be some responsibility on the onus on the individual should their condition change that they report back. That can be looked at again. It could be that it worsens, for instance, and that they report back on that. However, that is why we are driving at an automaticity, that it would be a tranche of some people who are looking at disability benefits, that this might fit for them, and that there would probably be a catchall of looking at assessments for other people is the thinking on that. We can share more as we look at that in more detail, and I think that, as James was saying, we might be potentially looking at that from other people as well to consider how that might work in practice. George, you want to come in? Yes. I was going to ask on the fact that it has been quite interesting. If we get those new powers, everybody automatically wants to say that we will use them. We will find a way to make life better for the individuals involved. However, I have been quite impressed with some of the evidence that I have been receiving, both last week and this week, from the fact that a lot of the groups are saying that we need to get this right and don't go rushing in. I personally think that that is probably the way to do it, because we only need to look at the devastation caused by the system by Westminster currently to see that we need to get this right, and only having 15 per cent of the actual social security powers shows that we have a vulnerable group of individuals here that we have got to work with and we have got to make sure that we protect them and get it right. However, I am interested in the fact that, in the evidence that we have got, written evidence and disability agenda Scotland, you say that improvements need to be made and are well managed, taking the time to get it right. I am also interested in what Glasgow disability alliance has to say, because you had a round table with 38 round tables, and some of the evidence that came back was, again, that the Scottish Government needs to end a degrading DWP approach to assessment, but you also said that on-going involvement and investment in disabled people and DPO is working in co-production. Is this not the way that we should be going forward? Should we, unlike previous times, we should be working with the groups around those tables to try and create what do you need, what, how can we make it better, as opposed to saying, well, that's the rules, you just deal with that? I don't know, there's quite a broad scale there, but if anyone can just give me some ideas. We'll build, we'll want to come in on his names, and then Ayla. Very much in response to that, in our own submission we say that I think we need to go further in engagement. Engagement is good, but it's generally asking people, general principles, what should we do. The people that use the system know it intimately because they're subjected to it regularly, and we should be involved in them in the planning and decision making about the new system. That means that disabled people are at the table with civil servants, etc. On the new disability benefits commission that's being established because disabled people should be having a say in how that benefit is structured and delivered. Again, you can only test it in delivery once it's there. I totally agree with you, we have to get it right, but even with the best will in the world we will not get 100 per cent right, and we will need to tweak it as we go along. That's why I think a disability benefits commission could be really useful in doing that. It's also asked about what the loss of mobility might involve. I think it's not well understood outside the health professionals who look at health inequalities, but social isolation kills people quicker than cancer or heart disease. Depriving somebody not only means to get to work, but it means to have contact with friends and family, with a local community, etc. It's just devastating, and it isolates them in their homes and makes them prisoners there. We need to think through what the costs are of that. We look at benefit as a cost, but we don't look at the costs to the health and social care system that arise out of people becoming mentally ill, and physical conditions become worse if people are not active. On longer awards, we need to move towards that for people with lifetime conditions. The health impact delivery group NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government established it. It consulted with GPs, OTs, physiotherapists, psychiatrists, addiction workers, public health practitioners, etc. They said that they are not being asked for medical evidence by atos or maxima or capital. They are not being asked for it. Therefore, decisions are being made without the people with the knowledge of how the conditions affect the disabled people being asked for medical evidence. As GDA, I have argued, we should move towards a single benefit across the course of the lifetime, because that would make it much less complicated. We currently have DLA for children under 16, personal independence payment between 16 and 65 and attendance allowance for over 65, three benefits to administer and three benefits with totally different entitlement criteria. How complex could we make it? If we are starting from scratch, one benefit, much less assessments, the old DLA 70 per cent of assessments were carried out paper assessments, not face-to-face assessments. Under personal independence payment, 95 per cent of assessments face-to-face assessments cost three and a half times as much as the old assessment system. We are using money to pay for assessments that could be going to or to support disabled people. There are things that we can do within the existing budget to improve the benefit that is there. I answer a question before it is asked. Less than 1 per cent of disability benefit claims for DLA and PIP are found to be fraudulent or overpayments arising from error. That is the lowest in the social security system, the lowest fraud rate. We are treating 99 per cent of people who have done nothing wrong and are making legitimate claims, as though they were fraudsters. That drops them off their dignity and respect. Again, we can address that in any new system. We need to begin to ask the right people the right questions. It is not always GPs. It is sometimes an OT that is carrying out a care assessment. It will sometimes be a psychiatrist or physiotherapist that is working more closely with a person that can tell you exactly how that condition affects them. We certainly have more lifetime awards or certainly much longer awards than we currently have. One GP said that they had been phone called by a PIP assessor and asked about manual dexterity. He had to point out that, as a person was a quadruple amputee, they were not going to regain the use of their hands. Nobody should be seeking medical advice like that to support a claim that they should have taken the claimant's word. Thank you very much, Bill. Peter, would you like to come in? I will go back to some of the points that Alison Pauline raised earlier. It was about dignity and respect. How do you achieve that in the system? What are some of the elements that you need to put in place to achieve that? It picks up on some of the other points. The use of top-up powers. You started from how do you achieve that adequacy. I know that, at the last session, the issue of topping up child benefit was raised. I imagine that that will be raised many times in the future. We would certainly be supportive of that. It is clearly expensive, but it goes back to the question that Adam Tompkins asked at the start about the role of the system and the use of new powers. How do we use them to address poverty as well as securing dignity and respect? We think that that is one way in which we could have a significant impact on poverty reduction in Scotland by making use of those new powers in respect to child benefit. We need to look creatively at how we use powers in other areas. We are just at the start of doing that work. Again, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation material points to some areas where we might have to focus our thoughts. Bill has discussed in some detail the fact that disabled people are at significant risk of poverty. We also need to think about adults. A lot of our attention is focused on families, quite rightly, but single adults are a growing part of the population. We also need to think about the type of housing tenure that people are living in, so that we know that people living in the private rented sector are more likely to be in poverty now than they might have been in the past. Those are all things that, as we develop our policies and as we develop our social security powers, we need to be mindful of. There are just two very quick points, hopefully, on how we begin to achieve dignity and respect and how we make those principles real. We have talked about automatic entitlements. That is one way to make real those principles of dignity and respect. There has been some work done by DWP to look at automatic entitlements. Paul Spicker has made some references to it in some of his draft response to the social security bill. Paul has said that it is not straightforward, but there is potential to look at how we can introduce more automatic entitlements. The other aspect of that is data and how we better use data in our system to ensure that people have entitlements. Glasgow City Council is small, probably, compared with what we are discussing here, but it is making better use of data to ensure that people who are entitled to school clothing grants get them and do not need to apply for them. How can we use data more creatively in the operations of our new system to better deliver benefits to people automatically? Finally, we are picking up on the points around co-production and Bill's points very forcefully at the end around genuine involvement. That is how you achieve dignity and respect by involving people who have first-hand knowledge of the problems in the system. That does not necessarily mean slowing everything down. We need to take our time and get things right, but we also need to have a sense of urgency about that. Bill has put that point very forcefully. I just wanted to pick up on a comment made by Alison Ann George that feeds into the idea of dignity and respect. Obviously, speaking to the service users directly is hugely important, but I think that the role of third sector organisations as facilitators of that should not be overlooked quite often by bringing people directly into a situation like this or speaking to people in the civil service or in government can be quite intimidating. I think that allowing people a space to speak openly and without fear is important to get the best evidence. Using the third sector as a channel is an important thing. That ties into co-production. That is where the dignity and respect should hopefully come from by speaking to those people directly and finding out their experiences of the existing systems and what they would like to see changed. Moving away from just the policy of social security, there is also the delivery of the system on the ground and ensuring that the staff who will deliver the systems are made well aware of people's needs and treat them with empathy instead of suspicion is very important. I would also say that it is important to recognise that no system is completely flawless despite your best efforts to make sure that the system is perfect. There will be errors, there always are, and for people who do come up against those, there should be adequate provision of advocacy, it should be encouraged, it should be accepted that there will be faults somewhere along the line and that that should always be open to people and they should be made aware of it. Finally, just as a final point, if it is important for everyone that dignity and respect is in the system, there should perhaps be some way of measuring whether that has been achieved and you might want to look at how that could be measured and where it should be benchmarked from. I very much give another task to them that they have as well. And thanks to George as well for picking up on the power that genuine co-production could have in influencing a system that delivers dignity and respect for people and everyone else for underlining that. I think that it is worth perhaps sharing with the committee some of the comments that were made by 400 GDA members who gathered to speak with Jean Freeman and the warmth and proactive feeling that was in the room has been commented on by many of our members that the engagement process to this point has seemed a lot more genuine than often people have experienced and that people are very keen to answer to your question, Pauline, to see values of co-production embedded in the social security bill would be a really good start to continue that through. In terms of implementing dignity and respect, people who responded to the conference that we were having spoke about being made to feel like they were begging and that the process has been dehumanising. Many, many, many people spoke about being treated as if they were at it and that this is the default within the current system. People felt that the forms are set up to try and trick you and to try to trick you up. People have been described as lazy and treated and feel that they are treated as if they are not normal when they are claiming their entitlements. Another factor being that people found it quite rare to be given straightforward and clear information about what they were entitled to. They felt that it is almost like a mystery that you have to try to puzzle out and unlock for yourself, especially when you do not have a little access to support to go through that process. I think that involving disabled people and people who are entitled to social security in the whole process, including design and oversight and scrutiny, is a way to monitor whether that is changing. Another key thing that came up in almost every one of the tables that we were discussing at was that the system used to be made more accessible and that forms need to be streamlined and made much more accessible and straightforward. As Bill was saying, the old DLA forms seem to have become a lot more complicated than that. That is a real barrier to people getting what they are entitled to. On the lines of dignity and respect, and looking at possible ways to use the topping up powers, there are other factors such as social care and the charges that people can face for social care. They could be receiving everything that they are entitled to and then have everything beyond housing costs removed from them if they choose to have social care that they need. We have many DLA members who cannot afford to pay for the care that they need, so they cannot basically live their lives, they cannot do anything or go anywhere or contribute in any of the ways that they could be contributing in, because the rate that they are taxed at for their social care needs can be up to 100 per cent of their disposable income. When you are living on the poverty line or under the poverty line already, that is a real systematic problem in our whole system to tackling poverty. That is one thing. I know that the bill to abolishing the community care charges is being considered, so that is something that we very strongly support as a massive hurdle. Obviously, we have to wrap the session up at 11 o'clock at the latest, because we obviously have other businesses to get through them. I have to be in the chamber. Some members have questions as well. Layla, do you want us to come in? I will try and be brief. It was just to respond to a few brief things, so George's point about getting it right. I just wanted to respond to that, because including it in our insubmission, I thought it was really interesting and reassuring that people who are on benefit, disability benefits and also working within the welfare rights system, there is a sense of urgency and we do want to change it, but I think that point of getting it right and understanding what is possible with the powers that have been devolved and what has been reserved and always managing expectations as well within that is something that I think that a few people have said, but I think that it is important and just acknowledging that people have been quite pragmatic in a way, acknowledging that it is a complicated system, but want to be part of that and co-production is really important. I would add to co-production and involvement of disabled people that I think it would be really interesting to get input from people who work on welfare rights and advice services, because they have a similar perspective, but they are working within that system and sometimes know how they have managed to make things possible. Related to that is that point that Ila just raised when I was going to mention. Something that has come up time and again anecdotally and when we have been doing focus groups is the lack of transparency in the system, that people are having to ask certain questions or to know what questions to ask or to be feisty or to have support. Actually, it means that the most vulnerable drop through, because it is just not clear what is available and that expectation that you have got to fight for it isn't necessarily fair for those most vulnerable people. Lastly, a very couple of quick points, just because I don't think they have come up yet, is that Bill was talking about the potential for having one benefit and we have also been looking at that. There would be potential benefits for having one benefit and simplicity. Even if there wasn't one benefit through life instead of the three that there are now, it would be worth looking at changing the ages or at least considering that particularly for young adults. People who are moving out of education can come at a time where they are moving benefits, where there might also be changes at home, changes at school, college that can really impact and make it particularly difficult for people is what we are hearing. Lastly, related to all of this, whatever system is brought in, not everyone is going to get on a certain benefit, they are not going to. Certainly, various people have said to us, that is okay. If it is transparent and they understand why and there is an appeal process where most appeals go through, they can see that. They just didn't qualify. For those people, it might be signposting, improved advice or linking in with other services such as the welfare fund, independent living fund or other support, where possible, would really help. Thank you very much. Ben, do you want to come in and then Pauline? Thank you, convener. On the thematic point about creating a system based on dignity and respect, I thought that Craig Wilson from SCV will put it very well. Our ambition and our collective ambition should be to create a system in which we treat others with empathy and not with suspicion. In general terms, there are processes in which we can improve comment on sanctions and assessments. I know that some have been made already, but whether it is disability benefits around universal credit or ESA and GSA, the powers that are remaining reserved, I wondered whether, in that context, if any of you could elaborate more on how we do create a system in which we treat others with empathy and not suspicion at the front-line delivery in terms of where the services are accessed, but also around the processes that we can improve. Did you want to reply to that, Leilann? Two quick seconds. Is that okay? Really briefly, I think that some of it is about training. People having the right amount of training for different groups, so that front-line staff might not necessarily be atos, but people having the right training to do the job to assess people or if they are working with people to advise them on benefits, understanding different particular groups and maybe streamlining, for instance, are they aware of the right comms support or disability, would be part of it? Mark, you wanted to come in, then Mary, then George and then Pauline. Thanks, convener. It was a question for members of the panel about sanctions. Sanctions seem to be to hit people particularly hard in any of the food banks that I visited. Those have been the two big issues of why people are visiting food banks. Either they have had their benefits cut or removed, or they have been sanctioned, and they have no means to heat their homes or put food on the table for the families in the Government. Recently, I have made some comments in the press about engaging in non-compliance with DWP and not telling the DWP if a particular claimant has not attended a work programme or anything like that. Just to ask people around the table what they feel about the sanction system as it is, whether a non-compliance approach from the Scottish Government could work to alleviate that, or whether there is a different way of working, perhaps a cleaner way to make sure that people are not being sanctioned and really taking away their ability to feed their kids. Thank you very much, Mark. Mary Mawr wanted in, and then it was George, and then it was Pauline, and then everybody else. First of all, I want to echo the issues around stigma and judgmental attitudes. When we surveyed single parents, we were quite shocked that over 80 per cent felt that they felt stigma had been judged, and some of that would be about the myths around being a single parent, that they are all young single parents, whereas the average age is 36. What was more shocking was that, in terms of dealing with Jobcentre Plus, 60-odd per cent felt that there was a judgmental attitude towards them. I think that some of the backdrop to that is pretty much around the very work-first approach now to social security and the recognition that parents maybe don't get the recognition that, in terms of bringing up their children or volunteers, don't get the recognition of the contribution that they make to their community. I think that some of that is around attitudes in relation to what social security is all about. Secondly, around conditionality, single parents have been negatively affected by conditionality. On various fronts, not only losing benefit but there is an impact on behaviour. We have done a study around parents moving into work that is not appropriate, and the impact on family wellbeing, mental health, sustainable employment is very negative. We are very much welcome that, when powers come around, what was the work programme, that conditionality is not part of that. It is not found to have been successful and should not be part of any system that we are involved in that we reduce parents with children to have to go to food banks because they have been sanctioned. We are very much in support of funding for child benefit, universal benefit and high take-up. It is available at times of crisis when other benefits have not come through, when there is no money that you expect to have come in, child benefit is always there. We are very much in support of CPAG's research on that. We have not touched on universal credit and split payments. We have not come up at the last meeting, so I will not go into a lot of detail, but we are very much in support of the committee to look at that. We did an insight workshop for the Scottish Government with single parents, and they talked about what had happened before they split up with their partner and how the fact that, if the money was in the control of their partner, the impact that that would have on their family life and the wellbeing of their children would be pretty drastic. We were very taken with that. The majority of parents were very worried. In fact, they said that they would put them off and go into another relationship. If you have a single parent who has had a bad experience and then discover that if they meet someone, that this whole thing is going to be a housing benefit to the whole lot, and they find themselves in another controlling situation, it would be a bit off-putting. However, our new system, we have to learn the lessons. The welfare fund is well in terms of how that has worked, and there have been some issues around how that has been delivered. Staff on or whoever is working in the new agency, training is going to be crucial. The poverty alliance has done training for staff about poverty awareness. That is really important that we have a system that has not got a sort of blame culture, that there is a more positive and involvement from people who are saving benefit as well. Not just engagement, as Bill has said, it is actually, you know, within the structure that there is an entitlement. It is a kind of elephant in the room this morning has been how you pay for all these different improvements that people want to see in the benefits that are being devolved. Take, for example, the social fund funeral payment, which is causing a crisis among people on low incomes and forcing them into debt and poverty. Only £4 million has been transferred from the Westminster budget to the Scottish Parliament's budget. How can that £4 million make a vast improvement? It cannot. I think that there has to be a public debate, and people have got to be honest and open. If you want to see improved benefits, if you want to see a better system, it is going to cost money. If it is going to cost money, where is the Scottish Government going to get the money from? There has to be a debate around the low-tax culture that has haunted politics in this country for generations now. People do not want to pay tax, they cannot expect to get a wonderful welfare system. That is the bottom line, and it is time that politicians address that publicly so that people can be told, yes, we will give you this, that and the other, but we are not putting your tax up. It does not work that way. I think that we have got to change that culture if you want to see real improvements in the system. I am glad that John came in at that point, because I was going to ask one of the questions that comes up regularly. I was in the committee the last time in the local government committee when we looked at funeral payments and funeral poverty with one of the bills towards the end of the last session. We can all agree that, regardless of our background, regardless of our finances, life is all going in one direction. We are all going to have the same kind of end of the day. One of the things that I would like to ask is that we found that, when we were taking evidence from the local authorities, the costs in funeral payments were dramatic. If I look at my constituency from Paisley and across the water and some of the Dumbarton shires, it was phenomenal, and you were just going across a bridge. You were almost a close community, and the costs in funeral payments were phenomenal. One of the things that was not really addressed at the bill the last time, but how would we look at that as we go forward? As I said, we are all heading in that direction, but it affects everyone. As an elderly population, it is one of those things that, because of poverty in general, we have older people who are not like they did previously, ensuring that they have cover for their funeral costs, but the thing is that it is so different in whatever area. Do you have any ideas how we could go forward with that? Or have there been any discussions in the pensioners forums as to what is the way forward? Obviously, the Scottish Government's own working party on funeral poverty has looked at that in-depth. I have some ideas. One of the suggestions that it is making is that there has to be a licensing system for funeral directors, and therefore the Scottish Government can impose a code of conduct as a condition of the licensing system. Part of that would be to be transparent about costs and to bring them down in local authorities and private providers of crematorian. In Dundee, we have got one crematorian owned by Dignity PLC, and it happens to be one of the most expensive places in Scotland. That is because there is no competition. Dignity PLC can do whatever it likes and can charge whatever it likes. You have to address those systems. It has to be done through licensing and through a code of conduct that everybody involved in the funeral industry has to abide by. You could perhaps get a basic simple state funeral that is funded through welfare payments for those who cannot afford it and cuts out all the extras that get pushed on to people at a time when they cannot make decisions because they are in crisis and depressed and so on. I think that the working party goes a long way to addressing it, but the working party's long-term solutions—a funeral bond and so on—will take a long time to put in place. In the interim, people will continue to be in crisis and continue to be forced into debt to bury their family. That short term has to be some kind of cover found for them during that period as well. I am glad that George Adam and John McAllan have raised the issue and it has become very topical recently. I agree that there is a sense of urgency about getting a solution, perhaps some of whom we could discuss at a later date. Perhaps I will also follow on from what John McAllan said about all the asks. I want to be clear in my head about some things here. I asked the question about what level of prescription is required in the forthcoming bill. It seems to me that there needs to be a fairly high level of prescription in my initial thoughts, and I agree that the only way that we could work our way through that is to work very closely with the third sector in that. If we have to achieve the principles of dignity and accessibility for free phone lines, which is an important aspect of that, and a better appeal system than the one that we have, advocacy, ways to measure whether or not we have achieved all that and some level of automation in the system, I would have thought that it has to be in the bill to some degree or we need to know what the relationship between the bill and the design of the system is. I think that there needs to be a lot of work. I would certainly like to discuss that in some level of detail. In my own mind, I want to be clear about all the asks, which John referred to. We have the power to top up benefits, and that is good, but I would like to audit a little bit if exactly he wants to add up all the asks so that we can have a look and have a discussion about what that looks like. Obviously, there are limitations to what we can achieve. Bill Scott mentioned, and it was also mentioned by Laila, that there are opportunities to merge benefits. I think that it would be helpful for the committee to have some information on if there are cost savings to be achieved from that. I think that that would be important to offset against the power to top up would be quite important. I would certainly like to see that evidence, because it makes sense to reduce the administration costs by merging one benefit, but we need to see whether that is a cost saving or whether that is an additional cost. I would be interested if that could be some follow-up on that. I am sorry, but I do not have time for any more questions and Mark's question about sanctions. Obviously, we can talk about that in later sessions or in the work programme. We are looking to get the consultation results back. It will be the end of this year. The number of issues that has been raised—I know that I attended some of those sessions—will certainly be not answered as such, but we will have evidence of the people who are on the ground there, who are receiving social security benefits, whatever. We will get that feedback and we can work from there. It is just trying to collate it all together. I think that sanctions is a huge, big issue from it. I also think that we have not touched on in-work poverty. I think that that is an area that we will need to look at as well. How do disabled people, people who are in work, have very low pay? How do they have meetings with social security or various other agencies? There are lots and lots to see, but I must admit that it has been a very, very interesting discussion. Perhaps I do not know if I have learned a lot, but I have certainly had a lot more questions anyway, and we will certainly be looking at that as well. Thank you all very, very much, and thank you very much for your contributions. We will now go into private session.