 Good morning, and welcome to the 21st meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have no apologies for today's meeting. Our first item of business for today is the decision to take agenda items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Our next item is an evidence session on the carers assistance, carer support payment Scotland, regulations 2023. Care support payment will replace carers allowance in Scotland. Next week, we will hear from the cabinet secretary for social justice and social security on these regulations. I refer members to papers 1 and 2, and I welcome to the meeting our panel. Fiona Collie, head of policy and public affairs, Scotland and Northern Ireland, carers Scotland, who is joining us in the room. Maggie Chawansa, chief executive of Meacop, Judith Patterson, interim co-chair, Scottish Commission on Social Security and Paul Traynor, head of Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance, carers trust Scotland, who are all joining us remotely. Good morning. Before we go ahead with our questions, there are a few things just to point out about the format of the meeting before we start. Please wait until I or the member ask him the question, say your name before speaking. Don't feel you all have to answer every question, and if you have nothing new to add to what's being said by others then that's perfectly okay as well. Members and witnesses online, please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you start to speak. You can indicate with an R in the chat box in Zoom if you wish to come in on a question. I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible. I'm going to invite members to ask questions in turn, and I'm going to start with Jeremy. Thank you for coming along. I wonder if I can start by asking Fiona and Paul a question, picking up something that you had in your submission. Both carers trust Scotland and Carers Scotland do not accept the Scottish Government's argument that extending payments might incentivise young carers to take on a larger carer role. Fiona, maybe I can start with you to say why not. There's no evidence that that will be the case, but we need to meet young carers where they are. We know that young carers have significant levels of care and responsibilities, and there seems to be no good reason to not support them. When I looked at some of the information around the young carer grant, for example, the numbers are claiming that they are relatively low, and it's based on 16 hours. Only a certain percentage of young carers will even meet the threshold for the new carer support payment on 35 hours, where a young carer lives in a household. There may well be an adult carer as well who may be claiming carers allowance, but, as I said, fundamentally young carers are already providing significant levels of support, and at the moment the proposals indicate that we wouldn't provide financial support alongside that. Paul, I don't know if you have anything you want to add in regard to what you put in your submission. I think that, just to re-echo what Fiona has said, it's unclear what the Scottish Government's evidence is for them to take the position that carers support payment to those aged 16 to 19 years old in full time on advanced education would incentivise young carers. We'd like to see how that decision was reached in a wee bit more information in relation to that. In 2022, in our young carer research, we found that 14 per cent of young carers were providing over 50 plus hours of care a week, and those around 36 per cent were providing between 20 and 49 hours per week. It's not really about incentivising, it's about recognising that young carers are already undertaking significant caring roles. They should be entitled to support as a result of that, because young carers are already undertaking significant roles, and they are reporting that that is a key issue for them. Thank you. I don't know whether the other two witnesses want to add anything at this point, or take silences. No, Ben. If I can move on then. The other issue, which probably all the witnesses argue, is that the proposed rules on education create unnecessary complexity. Again, let's wonder what the impact of that increased complexity might be. I don't know if Maggie wants to start on that one, or Paul. Paul, do you want to go first? I'm happy to speak on that one. Our view is that this rule of excluding only those aged 16 to 19-year-olds full-time non-advanced education does create a lot of complexity. As the current rules stand, all those unpaid carers studying at part-time level of any age in advanced or non-advanced would still be eligible for care support payment, as is still the rules currently for carers livings. Those studying at the same age studying full-time at advanced education level will be eligible for support, and those over the age of 20, regardless of their level of study, will be eligible for support. As the proposal currently stands, it creates a distinction between those in advanced and non-advanced education, and that can result in unpaid carers, young carers, 16 to 19, and non-advanced, to feel that their level of study is inferior, that they are undervalued in comparison to other young carers. A key point, which is made by Scottish Government, is care support payment as an income replacement benefit, and young carers aged 16 to 19-years-old in non-advanced education are not expected to be income earners, and support may be provided either through parents or guardians, through child benefit, as well as universal child tax credits, if they are on low incomes. However, we know that many young people aged 16 to 19-years-old in full-time non-advanced education—remember, that is not just school, that is also those studying under HNC-level at college—do supplement their finances by paid employment, and for many young carers and young adult carers' balance in paid employment, full-time study and caring responsibilities is simply just not possible. It is also really important to highlight that our research shows that student carers are four times more likely to drop out of college or university and study, and financial pressures have been identified as one of the key pressures for this. It creates an added complexity, which we think is unnecessarily unnecessary, and, as I said earlier, we would like to see the evidence around the rationale of how that decision to only exclude those who aged 16 and 19 in full-time non-advanced education was reached. Thank you. If you would like to add anything to that? Yes, I think just to add around the issue of non-advanced education. Across the piece with young people, we know that there are different things that they want to study, and there are different things that they want to achieve. Some of the things that would be described as non-advanced are qualifications and support to help young people to become job-ready, and I think that there is a possibility of them missing out completely around support and perhaps making different decisions, so that there is the possibility of unintended consequences from restricting the benefit. It is just about fairness and equity. You do not need to be doing something at an advanced level, or HNC, but you are doing something towards your future. For young people, we need to be supporting that, particularly for young carers. Thank you, Camilla. Okay, thanks very much. That was helpful. I am now going to bring in Ross McCall. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. The regulations as laid provide for full-time young carers and non-advanced education to access care support payment in exceptional circumstances, such as when they have no parental support. Is this sufficient? Does the eligibility need to be widened? One of my concerns is societal stigma, and what would your comments be on that, given that the process without parental support? How do we widen it, if there is a stigma attached and how do you combat that? I am looking at Fiona there, but I would not mind hearing from Paul and Maggie as well, if that is okay, especially on stigma. I think probably on this one that I would pass over to Paul, because I know that the Careers Trust and Young Carers Alliance have been doing a lot of work on that. We welcome the extension to those with exceptional circumstances, but to go back to the previous question, that adds an extra layer of complexity to the system. We are very much, as it says in our submission, and as we have done throughout the consultation process, we believe that the Scottish Government should extend care support payment to all unpaid carers in advanced and non-advanced education for many young carers who might be in situations that would fit in those exceptional circumstances. It adds an extra level of support, but it adds to the wider complexity. In relation to stigma, Social Security Scotland has the ethos of dignity, fairness and respect, and it is really important that it recognises benefits as an entitlement, and that young carers, if they come into the fold of entitlement for carers' support payment, it is about income maximisation, ensuring that they are getting the financial support that they need and deserve. It takes that cultural shift. For many of these children and young people, that will be the first time that they might be interacting with the benefit system as well. That requires support, it requires information, it requires a lot of outreach to ensure that these young people firstly know that they are eligible and also support on how they can apply and the processes for doing so as well. Thank you. I agree with what my colleagues have already said, but just to emphasise that, particularly to do with many ethnic young carers that we support, I think that already there is that cultural belief in some of them that it is their duty to be looking after their parent or grandparents. So, when they are interacting with, if they have to interact with Social Security in terms of accessing carers allowance or the care support payment, it is very important that the information is clear and that they are all supported to be advised that actually they can claim for this because there is a confidence thing as well and they can feel guilty and we have seen this in the experience that we are actually saying you need to do that because it will help you on top of your studies or part-time work, which they may be taking. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, can I just come back? I just want to, because I guess I have rephrased the question just slightly because my understanding would be that the complexities would add to stigma and I just really wanted your comments on that. Would you agree that that would possibly be the situation? I'll probably say yes and no in terms of probably how it's been set up, but actually I think the importance which I'll contribute to say is if there is information and clear messaging about what those changes are, that might really help to explain things and that they can understand that. The process has always been complex but also I think it's more complex when there are changes and people when they are not very clear about how to go about that. I'm now going to bring in Katie Clark. I'll direct my question to Paul in the first instance, if that's okay. Witnesses argue that the young carers grant should be extended to 19-year-olds. The Scottish Government is considering this, I understand. Is this a change that needs prioritised and if so, why? Definitely. I think that's something that really does need to be considered, so I think that as noted in our written evidence committee, if the policy is progressed as presented, we believe that it's deeply unfair that 19-year-olds young adult carers studying and filtering on advanced education will not be entitled to either carer support payment or young carer grant. That means that they will be the only unpaid carer group over the age of 16 that won't be entitled to any financial support at all. We don't believe that it's treating this cohort of young adult carers within those core values that I talked about with Social Security Scotland of dignity, fairness and respect. Instead, the immense contribution that these young people provide to their carer for person and to their wider society as a whole would be undervalued and without financial recognition. Those who are 19 create an anomaly if the regulations continue as planned. It's about fairness, it's about equity and also about that recognition, recognising young carers. I would say that that is a priority to be addressed for if the regulations go through as written. Fiona Hyslifan, I would like to come in on that. I think that that is an absolute priority. Obviously, the regulations for this benefit are being looked at at the moment but for the Government to bring forward amendments to the legislation around young carers grant as a matter of priority. It is a loophole that I am sure was not intended but we need to find a way to close it. I don't think that anybody else has indicated that they want to come in on that. I am going to move on to Mary McDare, who is joining us remotely. I am going to cover overpayments but my general observation is that there is much to do after safe and secure transfer. Carers Alliance has been around for a long time and it doesn't meet the needs of carers. Given the flaws that exist long-standing, has there been any efforts by the UK Government to consider major reforms? Fiona, I will pop that to yourself if you want to give your view on that. I think that there has been some work in relation and I know that our organisation at a UK level has been involved across a number of years in improving forms. The issue of overpayments is a challenging one and the House of Commons undertook an inquiry into it. The national audit office found that there were very few overpayments that were proven to be fraud. A lot of it was around things that earnings were slightly over, sometimes by as little as a pound or where people had fluctuating earnings. There is a real challenge here about getting this right from the beginning with carers support payment. We have a real opportunity as well because of the cliff edge in the benefit, carers can end up owing hundreds if not thousands in overpayments. We really need to get this right with the new carers support payment. Thanks Fiona, I totally agree with you there. The issue of overpayments is a real concern. Judith Scott made recommendations on this. Are you satisfied with the proposals to deal with overpayments from the Scottish Government? To some extent overpayments are an inevitable consequence of entitlement to being dependent on earnings. Scots took the view that to tackle it required redesigning systems and entitlement rules. We made a number of recommendations about the systems to mitigate the risk. For example, it is the first time that Social Security Scotland will have administered an earnings test like this. It is complex. Lots of new systems to set up. One of the most important things is to learn lessons and learn them quickly so that they can pick up the problems that are arising before they get embedded. We have already learned a lot of lessons from the UK system. We know what to expect. We know that having the right data feeds from HMRC to pick up changes in earnings, which is what causes overpayments by and large. The earnings are not reported and picked up and acted on quickly enough. Those data feeds are very important, but they are not sufficient. You also have to have the staff ready to act on the data and to act quickly. We have made a number of other recommendations on systems as well. The Scottish Government has accepted all of those. We are pleased about that. We would like them to go further when they can on making changes in entitlement rules. We understand why that is not something that can be done until after a safe and secure transfer. We do not want to agree that there should be a 2T system, but we think that, to mitigate those overpayments, it needs changes and simplifications, which are important to those earnings rules. Is there any other witnesses who have any comment or suggestion to make about overpayments? I think that the level at which overpayments are reclaimed is one of a little bit of concern. I think that we need to make sure that that is set at a reasonable level. To re-emphasise, the national office found that very few were fraud, very very few were simple mistakes, and I think that the new system should try not to be as harsh. If those are simple errors, it should not seek repayment. I think that setting an arbitrary level is perhaps not helpful. I think that that maybe needs to have a little bit of thought, because I re-emphasise very few are fraud. I am now going to believe. Sorry, I think that Rose would like to just come in on that. Yeah, thank you. Sorry to come in, but obviously you've raised some very valid points to both Judith and Fiona, because Judith, as you said, it's an inevitable consequence, and we're looking at how we can, in social security Scotland, make sure that we minimize this as much as possible. That then raises the question, what do we do if we have an inevitable consequence, and how would you suggest that we look at overpayments and what would we do if that situation occurs? Either Judith or Fiona, if you want to come back, because I know we're talking what we need to do, but I'd be interested to know what you think we should do. Yeah, we have made quite a few recommendations, so I think that what should be done is that the number of overpayments that happen in the first place should be reduced to a minimum. In other words, they should be designed out of the system in the first place, because the consequences for carers we know are distressing, to have a debt, and then to have to repay that over time, and to deal with the financial consequences of that is distressing for carers. And these mistakes are, they are mistakes, they're not deliberate. So I think designing it out. We did make a couple of recommendations, which have been accepted partially. So Fiona alluded to one, which is maybe a write-off of small overpayments. So the DWP will write off a small overpayment of £65. We're recommending that Social Security Scotland also write off small overpayments. £65 is actually less than a week's worth of carer support payment though. So is that the right level? Well, the Scottish Government says that they don't have the data, enough robust data to know how much it would cost to actually recover an overpayment, but it strikes me that £65 is perhaps set in the bar quite low, and it could be better for carers and better for Social Security Scotland to look at that, to look at that level. And the other important thing is that people have been told that they've got an overpayment and they have to recover it. At the moment they have no right of appeal. Now that doesn't sit very well with the rest of the system, generally speaking, and people that, you know, there is a right of appeal against any determination. In terms of people's rights to Social Security, that comes along with having a right to appeal, and there isn't one here. Now that's something that's being looked at, but we would, Scots, we'd like to see that changed and changed quickly so people can appeal. Okay, thanks. I believe Maggie and Paul want to come in on this, so can I invite Maggie in? Thanks. Thank you. My comments on the overpayments are, although, you know, there are recommendations to ensure that this is designed that, you know, there is minimum issues with that, but the concern is when people are having caring role and when they change or earnings change, they are trying to adjust whether it's to new employment or they're trying to be focusing on the caring role. So some of these things can be easily missed, and as Fiona said, it's quite a lone number. So, for me, I probably would like to suggest that if there was a way that there can be a degree of flexibility in how that is managed with individuals because, you know, one shoe doesn't fit or people have got different circumstances and situations, so maybe having a dialogue to ensure that people are already in distress situations, stressed and dealing with all sorts are supported in an empathetic and compassionate way while we're finding a solution with that and how long they're going to repay that so that they don't get into debt or if there is an option that that can be a return off because they're already, you know, producing hundreds and hundreds of hours and saving a lot of money for the government. Thank you. Okay, can I bring in Paul but can I just remind everyone because of the time constraints that we've got just to keep their answers as concise as possible. Thank you. You're on silent, Paul. Yeah, I completely agree with everything that Colleague said. The greatest majority of overpayments are usually due because the unpaid carers haven't notified DWP about information around earnings, around what's deemed as reasonable practical timelines. What I would just like to add is I think the onus needs to be on Social Security Scotland to ensure that there are systems in place that makes it easy for carers to declare their incomes and an understandable and clear information about how and processes for them to report on that. Okay, thank you very much. Can I just go back to Mary, if you get any further questions, if not, we can move on. Thanks, can we now just put in the audience one more further question? Obviously, there's a really good discussion there about overpayment but does the risk of overpayment outweigh the benefit of allowing advanced applications and advanced payments? And I'll pop it to everyone who can answer that, Paul. I think Fiona would like to come in on that. In relation to advanced payments, I think that the proposal around when a person can apply for carers allowance, it's carers support payment, still caught in the old language, is to reduce those advanced options and to me there's something around that there's a little sense for someone not to be able to put an application in for carers support payment, so I think that there's just something about making the system as simple as possible for individuals because carers are already dealing with enough. I don't think that they outweigh one another. I think that ensuring that people can make applications at the earliest point is critical. Thanks, Fiona. Paul, have you got anything that you want to comment on? No? Okay. Can we go back to yourself? Okay, thanks very much, Mary. I'm now going to invite Paul O'Kane in. Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel, and thanks for being here. I suppose I'm interested about future changes and pace in terms of future changes. We know that the business and regulatory impact assessment set out four policies once case transfer has completed, things around wait times, what happens after a person dies, those sorts of issues. I wonder if panellists would be able to comment on which of those proposed future changes or what changes more generally should be prioritised after case transfer and why should we prioritise in that way. I appreciate Paul O'Kane and Maggie O'Kane have been on the advisory group, so I wonder if we can start with Paul O'Kane. I think that it's difficult to say in which order is the right order to prioritise these aspects, because extending eligibility will ultimately ensure that more unpaid carers get support and recognition that both they need and deserve. There are presidencies across a really cat young carer grant, and the aspects of combining hours already exist within that policy. In some cases what we would like to see is a clear timeline from the Scottish Government around when are these future changes going to be made. There may be aspects of some of the changes like the introduction of the additional payment for those who care for more than one disabled person may be more complex than extending the run-on period when a cared for person dies from eight to twelve weeks. I would say that the priority should be to move those forward as quickly as we can to ensure that carers get entitlement that is extended to carers, and if some of those things are quicker to do, those things should be done in a timely way. However, what is missing at the moment, and I recognise that it's difficult at this stage, but we would like clear guidance of when that is going to take place. Where there are some things that I recognise that are a bit more complicated, like introducing the new payment for those who care for more than one disabled child, I appreciate that it may take longer to come in. I've no further comments to Eddie, I agree with everything that Codra said. Thanks. I don't know if maybe Fiona, you've got a view that I imagine may be similar. Yeah, I mean I think that the timeline is critical. I think that we need a clear plan, so that we are ready to go when safe and secure transfer has actually happened. I suppose that there are ones that are more simple, and I expect that it would make sense for some of those to move more quickly. Fundamentally, some of the things around putting more money in carers' pockets is critical. For those who are caring for more than one person, but equally around the earnings threshold, because we could make some changes, I believe relatively easily, by changing the figure for the earnings threshold, because at the moment it's about 13 hours at the minimum wage, and then you lose all entitlement. Even if we were to bring it up to that at 16 hours at the real living wage, that would put an extra £2,000 a year into carers' pockets. In some ways, the system would already be in place, so it would be about adjusting, well in my view, about adjusting figures. I definitely understand the attraction of trying to get the simple things like the run-on change very quickly, but I think that it's fundamental priorities. More money in carers' pockets. Timescales was my next question, and I think that you expressed the desire to see that happen as quickly as possible. The Government has said that it recognises that carers' support payment from launch will not immediately fully achieve all the aims for carers, and that their aims are intended to continue to guide the development of the benefit on an ongoing basis. That seems to me to be quite willy. I wonder what discussion that has been with the Government about the hard-and-fast timescales that people are looking for. I don't want to bring Paul back in at this stage, perhaps, just because you had started on this topic. Thanks, Paul. At present, I'm not aware of any discussion that I've had with the Scottish Government around timelines for when these changes will be made. All that has been said both to ourselves as a national care organisation and to the public is after a case transfer process, recognising that they have highlighted aspects that the Scottish Government has committed to introducing, including the commitment to the run-on, the commitment to add on the additional payment for those who care for more than one disabled person, and the overarching commitments to explore commitments to consider a range of other aspects. As we have highlighted in our submission, we would really like that some of those points that are in the commitments are accelerated, including addressing underlying entitlement as being a key one, that we would really want to see some movement on. However, within the list and even within Scottish Government's response from SCOSS and also from the consultation, it seems to be quite low down on the priority list as a longer-term consideration. Okay, thank you. Obviously, you mentioned SCOSS there, and I know that SCOSS has responded in terms of the broader aims in trying to achieve that, so I wonder if Judith might want to come in at this stage. Yes, that was very apparent that the aims of carers support payment are broader and more ambitious than carers allowance, which is essentially the aim of earning replacement. Carers support payment also aims to recognise the caring role by unpaid carers, and SCOSS talking to carers heard from carers that they didn't feel valued. They didn't feel their caring role was valued, so certainly from launch, those wider aims are not going to be achieved by carers support payment, so there will need to be more changes to achieve that aim. I would say that carers allowance is a structure of it as much as it was in 1976 when it was first introduced, so a review is well overdue. It is welcome to see that the Scottish Government has done a lot of advance work to be ready to introduce changes as fast as possible. I think that that work will mean that there is no reason why it could not happen more quickly after a 72-year transfer is complete, which should happen first. The only view that SCOSS took was that they designed the earning rules to reduce barriers to carers who want to work, should be feasible and should be a priority. We did not take a view about when other changes should be made, but it seemed from what carers told us that changes aimed at recognising the role where a priority for those carers that we spoke to. I am now going to invite Bob Doddison. The business and regulatory impact assessment associated with this piece of legislation says that there has been improved service from launch of this carers support payment. We have heard already that there is going to have incremental improvements and changes further down the line. I think that everyone understands that. At the start, what should that improved service look like from day 1? I know that Fiona Collie was trying to come in at the end of the last question, so we will take Fiona Collie first in that case. From day 1, what kind of improved service should carers expect? First of all, about simplicity, about being able to access the benefit and apply for it. The ability to apply in different ways is critical. We need to make sure that the right information is available, because that will be a change. There will be two different systems running at the same time, particularly when we are working with pilot areas. We need to make sure that we get the right information out to people about carers support payment. We need to make it as simple as possible. There is another bit of it that we think that we need to get better, and that is for those who have an underlying entitlement. At the moment, they can get a letter saying that they are entitled, but we are not going to pay you, but you can take that letter somewhere else. It is normally related to the pension service, and you may be eligible for pension credit, but there is something around that about making a simple system to enable individuals to assess their eligibility without a full application, for example. There is an agreement between the Scottish Government, Social Security Scotland and the pension service to be able to try and share information, because we want to make it as simple as possible. For people in state pensioners who are carers, they could be eligible for things. Even if they have a penny of pension credit, they could be eligible for council tax reduction, they could be eligible for help with their rent and other things, so we need to make some of those things as simple as possible. I think that you have strayed into my next question. I am going to ask that now, but after I have asked that, I will bring it to you and maybe Paul could come in after that, because I saw him nodding his head there for the best use of time. At the launch, carers will be signposted till their support. Some of the signposting will be there, but the provision of wider support is meant to develop over time, and I think that, if you want to call them, we will start to move into that kind of area. What would your priorities be for what a wider support should look like to make it meaningful for carers, if you want to call them? In terms of the wider income maximisation, it is absolutely critical. I am a little bit wary of signposting, because that puts a lot of onus on the individual. I think that there is more that Social Security Scotland themselves can do in terms of income maximisation, particularly in terms of local advisers about making sure that individuals are accessing the reserve benefits system, but also other supports that are available, so understanding and knowing that a carer centre is there and being able to make a formal referral, if that is possible. It makes more sense if we can make it easier for carers at every step of the journey. That is a very fair point. If you want to call them for clarity, I should say that it is signposting initially, but then that wider support should follow, hopefully, in short order. Paul Traynor, do you want to add anything to that? I completely agree with everything that Fiona said there. The only other aspect that I would add is ensuring that carers can get that information. Social Security Scotland does not provide advice on reserve benefits. One of the most underclaimed benefits, particularly for those with underlying entitlement, is pension credit. We would like to see that there is more information around carers, particularly for those who apply for carers allowance and are told that they are not eligible due to underlying entitlement, around wider support that is available to them, such as what Fiona highlighted. We also would like to see that information is sent to those who are currently in receipt of carers allowance or carers support payment much further than in advance before they lose entitlement for those approaching state pension age. We have heard recently from an older adult carer who said that they were only informed two months before they lost entitlement, that they were going to lose entitlement. As we know that the application process to apply for other benefits can be quite timely, we would like to see that vague to at least six months of those approaching state pension age underlying entitlement. They have the information in advance to make these informed decisions. That is something that Social Security Scotland could look to introduce as part of their communication process to carers under service. I think that Maggie wants to come in just before you go on. Maggie, my apology that I was not aware of that, of course. That is fine, thank you. I obviously agree with what Fiona and Paul have just said. I would like to come from also an equalities lens in that to make an improved service. It is essential that the information that is provided should be accessible, clear and ambiguous. If it is not for some of our equalities groups we represent with illiteracy issues or language requirements, it can pose a challenge of probably having heightened an insight. Information that is very important and, obviously, to make it very easy for them to access the services. That is a very helpful comment from Maggie, because my final question was going to be about whether we would expect additional applications with the Scottish carers payment. I note that, in the year 2526, we will be paying out £32 million more than would have done had it been the carers allowance at a UK level, so more money into the pockets of carers, which is a good thing, but only £7 million of that is in relation to the increased eligibility criteria. If you like, so for advanced full-time education applicants, for example, £7 million. The rest of that is assumed to be a cumulative impact of more people applying for the new payment. That goes on to Maggie's point about clear and accessibility. Do any of the witnesses want to say a little bit more about whether the new payment in itself will mean that people who currently qualify for carers allowance and carers allowance supplement who do not apply for it will be emboldened to do so. Is that an opportunity? I think that we have positive information around the new payment for carers. Inevitably those who may have not claimed before may come forward and claim. Equally those who are perhaps receiving the carer element under universal credit may consider claiming carers support payment, which would then make them eligible for carers allowance supplement. There are two strands to that, but I think that absolutely. I believe that Maggie wants to come in, but I am conscious of time. If you can be as concise as possible. I think that there is a real opportunity in terms of also increasing the uptake from managed ethnic communities. Will we know that at the moment there is a low uptake and so by providing good information and support, I think that there is a real opportunity to improve that? Thank you very much. I am now going to bring in James Dorman, who is joining us remotely. Thank you, convener. This is for Scoss. Do the regulations as laid accurately reflect to Scottish Government's policy intentions? Thank you for that question. It is the most complex benefit in our view to be devolved so far in terms of all the multiple interactions that there are with reserved benefits in particular, but there are also Scottish benefits now as well, so carers support payment interacts with young carer grant. We did see in the draft regulations in those areas in particular of interaction challenges to draft the regulations accurately to cover those interactions. As we identified those issues, we were talking to the Scottish Government as we went along through the scrutiny process and they were making changes where they could in response through the process and we had sight of those in terms of new drafts of regulations. That was fine. Some of the recommendations that we made, we did not see the resulting change although the Scottish Government did accept the recommendations that we made. They accepted it and in their report to Scoss very helpfully set out their response in detail, so it seemed to us that the issue was communicated and understood, but I cannot say that Scoss then went back and conducted a follow-up scrutiny of the regulations as laid. We have not cross-checked all the changes that the Scottish Government accepted and said that they would make in response to the recommendation and now do completely reflect the policy intention. At this stage, you are not quite sure if it is completely tied up, but I wonder if that is for yourself and the other witnesses. Is there any other issues in the regulations that you would wish to highlight for discussion with the cabinet secretary when she comes next week? I think that we have made quite a lot of recommendations and they have all been accepted either fully or in some cases partially, so I think that I am content that Scoss has made the case that we want to make. I think that the area of concern is probably around payment frequency, and currently individuals can receive weekly payments under carers allowance under the proposals as laid. It would only be those who are caring for someone with a terminal illness. That is important because those who will be safely and secure transferred will be given the option of four weekly or weekly, but they will not be able to change back. I think that we need to have some more thought about the flexibility for individuals to choose how a benefit is paid to support their family financial situation, so we have a few concerns around that. That is come to the end of our questions. I want to thank all our witnesses for taking part in sharing your expertise today. I am now going to briefly suspend the meeting to allow for witnesses to leave and to set up for our next item, so thank you very much for joining us today. Welcome back. Our next item is an evidence session on the pre-budget. I refer members to papers 3 and 4. Today, we are going to discuss budget priorities in general terms and explore the context for decision making on the Scottish budget. I welcome to the meeting our panel Chris Burr, Deputy Director for Scotland, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Emma Congrave, Deputy Director, Senior Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Fraser of Allander Institute. Dr Alison Hose, Researcher, Scottish Human Rights Commission and Bill Scott, Chair of our Poverty and Inequality Commission. I would like to thank you all for joining us today. I am now going to invite our members for questions. First one is me. In what ways do you think the impact of the cost of living crisis should influence the Scottish Government's budget decisions? I am actually going to put that to Emma Congrave. In terms of how the current cost of living crisis should impact on budget decisions, our approach to this would be to ensure that there is a process in place to understand what the priorities are for the Government and how the cost of living has impacted on those groups that are priority. Clearly, the most obvious example is around child poverty, given that we have the child poverty targets and many affirmations of how important this is to the new First Minister and others in the Cabinet. What we would be looking for in terms of the budget is that clear articulation through the announcements and with supporting analysis that shows why decisions have been taken, why more money has been put into some areas, that could be additional cost of living payments or increases to benefits, along with an explanation of what impact the Government will expect that to have on the people that it is trying to target. That is the key priority for us during this budget, because we know that there are such challenges in terms of the fiscal outlook that has to be a really clear approach in order to justifying and prioritising spend, be that for cost of living payments or any other new policies that come through the budget. On the flip side of that is where money needs to be moved around the budget. Some money may need to be taken out of some areas, that is understandable that the Government may need to do that at this time because of the pressures on the finances. Again, we need a really clear articulation and understanding of what the impact of that will be to ensure that there are not any unintended consequences in terms of the priority groups that the Government needs to focus on. I do not know if anyone would like to come in. I am going to invite you in, thanks. During the past year, the poverty and inequality commission and our experts by experience panel who are made up of people who have lived experience of poverty have been visiting local front-line organisations who work directly with people in poverty. We visited 20 organisations across 10 local authority areas, everywhere from Shetland down to the borders. What we have been hearing back is that they have never been under so much pressure in terms of demand, particularly advice services but also food co-ops, et cetera, anywhere where people could get help with the cost of living and the way that it is impacting on them. One of the things to emphasise is that the cost of living crisis is not over for those on the lowest incomes, far from it. Energy prices are still nearly twice the size of our two years ago, but the amount of help that is coming from the UK Government is far, far less than it was last winter. Those families are facing an extremely difficult winter, and the services that they rely on, those front-line services often provided by the sub-sector, are under huge pressure. Never before have we had this sort of volume of people who have felt that there is no way out. People are phoning up or coming in who are suicidal with the worry that they are facing about being unable to pay bills, unable to put food in the table for their children or to keep their home warm. What we need to see in the budget is exactly what Emma has been talking about—a prioritisation of help for those families who need it most. If money needs to be prioritised for that to be done and to set out why that is being done and where the money is being moved from and what the consequences of that might be, because we know that it will have impacts on other services. The programme for government was relatively quiet on what other support might be forthcoming, and that is why we are looking to the budget now to see how exactly that prioritisation of child poverty reduction is going to be addressed in the budget. I think that some very welcome announcements have been made in the programme for government about raising disability benefits and the Scottish Child Payment in line with inflation, but we need to see more. Some of that will have to be crisis management for those families, because the Scottish Child Payment has been a lifeline for many of those families, but there are other groups who have not received as much support outwith some of the priorities for the commission, but young single people, young couples without children, disabled people and older people have been left out of the help to an extent, because it is being concentrated on families with children. Some of those individuals and couples are in real difficulty, and we need help as well. I am now going to invite Paul O'Kee'an in. Thank you very much. Good morning to the panel. I am following on from that exchange around prioritisation in the budget. Last week, Neil Gray at committee said that the parental transition fund cannot be delivered as intended, so the £15 million that was earmarked in relation to that fund has been redirected to the fuel insecurity fund. I am keen to understand people's views of that reprioritisation. What does that say perhaps about government's priorities and is that the sort of direction of travel that we would want to see to start with Chris, if possible? That decision gives me two worries. The first is that the parental transition fund and the extension of employability services, which are announced in best start bright futures, are now both apparently canned. In that delivery plan, supporting parents into employment was seen as a good medium to long-term goal to help drive down levels of child poverty. That is certainly something that we would encourage and agree with, but to see those two areas now being put to the side by the Scottish Government is deeply concerning. We have heard warm words about that remaining part of the priorities of government, as of course it should be, but it strikes me that the Government is a wee bit stuck in this space. We keep saying to people like us, so where are the solutions? Those were solutions that have now been bent. To suggest that fuel insecurity is not a priority from the convener's first question, and as Bill has rightly highlighted, the cost of living crisis is not over. In fact, it is raging. I do not have any problem whatsoever with additional funds being put into fuel and security fund, of course, but are those the two competing priorities that we need to look at? The second thing is a more general worry, and this is not just from the Scottish Government. That is again an area where there appears to have been an apparently impassable divide between reserved and devolved powers. The Scottish Government has approached the UK Government about a particular thing. It has said that that will impact on people's ability to access reserved benefits. That may well be true, but we have a fiscal framework for dealing with how devolved areas will impact on reserved areas. I know that they were talking about doing this through local government payments, so maybe that makes it. It just strikes me that, again, we cannot have a situation where the reserved devolved line in areas where we are looking to support people who desperately need it and who we believe that this is a sustainable route out of poverty for parents of getting them into employment. We cannot have governments not able to make decisions on behalf of those people in an effective way, so those would be my two memories about it. I know that Dr Hosey wants to come in, but I saw my nodding as well. I am just keen to understand that prioritisation, your view and perhaps following on from Chris's final point there about are these challenges surmountable? Can we do more in that reserved devolved space? I will come to Dr Hosey first of facts. Thank you very much and thank you for the invitation to speak today. I think that following on from what my colleagues have said, in relation to prioritisation, we are about to bring in the human rights bill. One of the aspects that comes with that is looking at your minimum essential needs, meeting those minimum essential needs, and it provides a framework for looking at how you prioritise. It is important that within the living cost of living crisis that we have at the moment that we have to be flexible, we have to continually be looking at what we are prioritising but it has to be around that framework. We have to meet essential needs, and that is not our starting point at the moment. In making those decisions, it is not the commission's position to say that you should be spending x per cent more on this or x per cent more on that, and later down the line it would not be the court's decision to say that either. Our position is that it is not sufficient what you are doing in this area and you need to be looking at doing more. In that, we have this commitment to maximising our available resources. We have to use our resources that we currently have efficiently and effectively, but we also have to commit to looking at all other alternatives. That includes looking at taxation and looking at how we generate resources. Instead of always starting, there was not anything in the preparation questions today around are we generating enough resources, are we looking at taxation as another option as well as prioritisation. My feelings on the issue around prioritisation and the movement of funds. I agree with Chrison that this is the second year that we have seen some sort of late-on movements of money when it has become clear for whatever reason that they cannot be delivered as envisaged or other priorities have taken over. My concern is that the policies have been put into budget documents and action plans and without having been put into work to find out if they can actually be done. That relates to one of the points in my briefing to the committee about how often we see money being allocated to funds without there being much detail at the time of the announcement and what that fund is going to do, what the details are underneath it. That means that it allows sometimes, and I am not against funds being allocated, there are some very good funds out there, but it does mean that you can make an announcement without having to have gone through all the workings. That is a concern in terms of the policies not being able to be delivered. It looks like something is being done, but nothing is happening at that moment in time. As we have seen, sometimes they cannot be followed through. That is the main worry, I think, from thinking ahead to the next budget. If we have the same kinds of announcements over a fund to do this, without that detail behind it, it is hard to have a lot of confidence in what will be achieved. The issue around reserved and devolved benefits, areas of powers, we have seen this over the past few years in a number of areas around uncertainty. There are lots of grey areas in terms of what will be the implications if the Scottish Government went ahead with a policy that may infringe on reserved areas. It is concerning that this happens, although it is understandable, particularly around some of the issues of employability, employment and social security, because there are both reserved and devolved powers in the same area. What it usually means is that no one can say with full confidence exactly what is going to happen. The UK Government will not say exactly if it is going to try and rein back money, but there is always a threat there. It does slow down the policymaking process and makes lots of decisions hard to take with certainty. It feels like we need a much better way of resolving those issues with the UK Government quickly. It is understood upfront what the implications are, and a proportionate view is taken of what should happen as a result, but we are not in that position at the moment. It is concerning. Two very quick points. I fully agree with everything that has been said already, but particularly on Chris's point that in terms of the approach to tackling child poverty, you need a balanced approach. You cannot rely totally on social security, and therefore employability is one of the big key strands of trying to move people into well-paid work where they can escape poverty on a long-term basis rather than dealing with the fact that they are on a low income because they are either unemployed or underemployed. Moving that money from one pot to another is very important at the moment, but so too is employability. That was a solution that was favoured very much by the people at the Sharpen. That came from parents themselves, the idea of the parental transition fund, and that is why it is abandoning one of the solutions that it has come up with. A very similar fund operates in Northern Ireland, so we are back into this disagreement about how social security operates. Northern Ireland has almost complete control of its devolved benefits. We do not, because of the overlaps with the reserved benefits. We need to resolve that so that real, genuine solutions can work for the people who know what they need in terms of support, and they very much favour that. That means delivering that support. It is a real shame that it has been dropped. Finally, we need to work out a way that the Scottish Government needs to tell us how it came to those decisions. It is not clear to the commission how one thing is prioritised over another. What other options were considered and why were they discounted? At the end of the day, it is important to know that in terms of setting your budget, you can see the decision-making process. You can see that they looked at whether it could be moved over there, unfortunately it could not, or whatever. Then we have a clearer understanding of why they felt that it had to go into fuel and security fund rather than back into employability in another forum. I am now going to invite Jeremy Balfour in. I wonder if I can move this on. Obviously, we are looking at this coming budget coming forth, but we also have to look beyond that. 2728, the Scottish Fiscal Commission tells us that we are going to have a deficit of £1.3 billion within that. I suppose that we might start with you Emma, but I can jump in. How do we start tackling that deficit now, or do we just leave it and push it down the track? If we start tackling it now, how? You have got two minutes. I think that it would be very risky to be pushing it down the road and hoping that maybe certain more beneficial economic news comes down the track, which helps to close some of that gap. The Scottish Government is very aware that they need to be thinking very carefully now about how they have the right processes and contingencies in place to ensure that there is no choice but to be able to close that gap and to know how they are going to do it. The point for us and for those outside of the Government and for the Parliament is understanding, as I have already mentioned, how the decisions have come to us. We fully expect that there are going to have to be some really difficult decisions made in how to close that gap. There may have to be a change in direction in some of the policies that are currently offered on a universal basis that may need to change. There may need to be changes to allocations to certain services. We expect that there will need to be those type of decisions made. Fraser Vallander does not have a view on what the rights are wrongs of this. It is more that we are very keen that there is a transparent process in place to ensure that the pros and cons have been thought through and that it is very clear to the country what decisions have been made and why. I think that that is the best way that you can actually make those difficult decisions as well. If people are seeing a service taken away from them, maybe some better off households that kind of understanding that that has had to happen because the money needs to be better targeted. That needs quite a lot of potential leading time for people to understand the situation rather than things being done at the last minute. We would hope to see that kind of grown-up conversation being part of, from this budget onwards, in light of what the fiscal gap that we are looking at. Transparency is absolutely critical to that. People being able to understand why decisions are being made helps to understand how to take a fair process, how to make sure that decisions are understood even if they are not enjoyed. Starting from the perspective of what we are trying to achieve, what outcomes do we want to have? How do we see that we are going to achieve those? How much is that going to cost and how do we generate the resources to achieve that? We need to start from that and work backwards and we need to be grown up about the decisions that we are going to have to make. I think that it is also about looking at how we generate resources. That is part of the difficult discussion in terms of looking at things such as council tax and wealth tax. There are areas that we are not currently doing enough that need to be explored as well. Presumably in three broad terms, we either take money from another budget, we cut the social security budget or we raise more revenue. I do not know why you would include the social security budget as one of the binary choices in that. What we have just now is the debate that the whole Parliament needs to stand up to. If the deficit is in 27-28, there is an election between then and now. Every party in this Parliament, whether in government now or not, will have to face that up. We face a debate as a Parliament and as a society, because there are lots of things that the Scottish Government is spending money on now. Could public services be more efficient? Are there little budget lines that we could all quibble about? Definitely. Do most people in this Parliament think that we need a better social care system? Yes. Do most people in this Parliament think that we need a better childcare system? Yes. Do most people in this Parliament think that we need to support people's mental health better? Yes. We have a debate to have in Scotland—at the same debate, frankly, that has happened in the UK—about the level of public services that people expect and how we contribute towards those. Does not general taxation be one solution to that? Does not need to be. We can look at contributions to different services. We can have universal provision of the service, but different people will contribute to that in some way. I think that we need to get into those issues. I know that there are pesky economists like Emma who will pull me up on things like that. However, we are spending an awful lot of money on treating the symptoms of poverty. For example, we did cost of living polling earlier this year, which showed that of the parents who have reported a decline in their mental health because of the cost of living crisis, 30 per cent of them have said that it is because they are worrying about providing for their children. Families do not have enough money. If those families had enough money, we could bear down on the cost of mental health support that those families would need. Ultimately, if we want to start to close those gaps, we need to have an honest debate about the level of provision that people expect. We need to significantly reduce poverty, or we are driving demand into all those public services that are already struggling. We have got into a really unhealthy debate about whether social security is the right thing to be spending money on. Our social security system in the UK at the minute is fundamentally inadequate. People are hungry in this country because of it. The UK Government bear an enormous amount of responsibility for that. This Parliament has stepped into some of that space with things like the Scottish child payment. That is a good thing. I think that it has to be borne in mind that the statutory targets that exist for reducing child poverty were not just set by the Scottish Government. They were set by this Parliament and unanimously by the Parliament. Every single party and every single member in this Parliament supported the child poverty reduction target. If we are to stand a realistic chance of meeting those targets, the Scottish Government will need to raise additional revenue because there is no way that it can even meet its current service commitments with the budget that it has. Revenue will have to be raised. That is essential going forward. We want good public services. All the points that Chris has made about the enormous costs to the NHS of poverty and local authority support services in terms of poverty. We often get reflected back to us as non-economists. What we do differently. That is a question that is better asked to the Scottish Government. It has the resources to say what the impacts will be in terms of reprioritisation, because that is also going to need to take place. Unfortunately, the commission is in the best place to say what a cut in the justice budget will do in terms of increased crime. That is something for the Scottish Government to answer. Our expertise lies in reducing poverty. Unless you pay for those things, poverty will not be reduced. That is what we would reflect back to you. We need to have a serious conversation about the level of taxation that is needed to provide good public services and address the scourge of poverty in our society. We have previously provided advice on reprioritisation to the Scottish Government. The Scottish Attainment Challenge Fund, for example, we have asked the question, might it be better spent directly in reducing child poverty rather than indirectly through allocation in individual schools to various things? I look again at concessionary travel. I have had concessionary travel for seven years now. I do not need it. I will be honest. I do not need concessionary travel. There are a lot of people who are working now who were not working before and who do not need it. That money could then be reprioritised to help low-income families to get to work, because the costs of getting back and forward to work are one of the barriers that people face, particularly part-time workers, who can face £20 to £30 a week just in bus fares to get back and forward to their place of employment. If we could help them with that, it is one of the things that might help them to move into work or take on more work than they are currently doing. We need to think hard about reprioritisation, but we also need to think hard about taxation both local and wealth taxes to be considered. If we are going to generate the sorry income that we need for poverty reduction programmes. I am sorry to leave the point here, but we are really tight for time. I am really keen to hear from the panel and obviously to allow the members to put questions to use. We have got to about 10.55, so just to make you aware of that. Thank you, convener. I shall endeavour to be as concise as possible. I want to look at Scottish Government's policies and budgets and impact that has had in relation to reducing, or dare I say, stopping an increase in child poverty levels. Can I disaggregate those things? Policies that are working and the budgets around those policies because they interact with each other and are not quite the same thing. Maybe a couple of witnesses could put something on the record about the impact that the policies and the budgets of the Scottish Government are directing towards tackling child poverty and the impact that they are having. Maybe Mr Burt first, perhaps? Sure. In terms of things that are working, the Scottish child payment is working. It is significantly reducing child poverty. Some people will give you various different numbers, but it is probably 4 or 5 per cent at the moment. We do not see that reflected in the numbers yet because there are obviously other factors that play in, but it will significantly reduce child poverty. That is a really good thing. Child poverty has been going up over the last few years. If it gets it going back down again, great. The other, which is a bit more worrying in this budget, is around housing. When Joseph Rowntree Foundation did an excellent report on poverty in Scotland 2019, housing and investment in social housing in Scotland has had in keeping poverty levels lower than what we see elsewhere in the UK. Those are two areas in which Scottish Government investment has made a significant difference. Mr Scott has made eye contact with me. I think that he wants to come in. All I do is echo Chris on that point. The Scottish child payment has made a significant difference. We will continue to make a significant difference, but we cannot lie totally on social security to reduce poverty. That has to be emphasised. That is going back to the employability question. I think that there are questions that have to be asked as to whether the employability spend is doing all that it should be doing in terms of moving the people who are in genuine poverty into work or into better paid work. We should continue to examine whether that is good spending and whether we are trying to move people into well-paid work. Is it efficient? Are we getting value for the money that we are putting into those programmes in terms of reducing poverty? That should be the question, because there is a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of people who are already very close to the employment market and who are moving back into work. Those are not the people who need that support. Sometimes it takes longer to work with people who face multiple barriers. We need to look at the programmes through that lens. Housing is the other big one. It makes a huge contribution to reducing poverty in Scotland. We need to continue to discuss social housing. I hate cutting across you, Mr Scott, but my convener will have my guts for garters if I don't try to keep questions moving, because I apologise. I have another question that I wanted to ask me, which is in relation to this. When it's a challenge of financial context, a change of approach has to be taken by the Scottish Government, because we don't have the budget for every year in part of the policy programme that would impact on child poverty. Given, for example, one suggestion that I have made if we can't increase the Scottish child payment significantly above the £25 per week that we are already giving, poverty doesn't impact uniformly across the course of a year. Could a summer supplement Scottish child payment make a difference for the lives of young people and families living in poverty? Is there another policy approach that you would like to recommend? If you can throw that one out, you can support that one. Is there other approaches that the Government could take within a tight financial budget that could have a direct and significant impact, hopefully relatively speedily? There are different ways that you could structure benefits. It's a cumulative impact of quite a lot of different things that will make the difference to households, and the Scottish Government is getting better at modelling those things, but you could start to look at, for example, different payments to go to different types of households, or those that are in severe poverty, those who are in destitution. I think that there are some of the areas that you could look at if you want to increase the cost effectiveness of policies, but that would be one area. Just a very quick point on looking at what has had an impact over time. We are still lacking a lot of the robust evaluation evidence that would allow us to assess the effectiveness of policies such as childcare and employability. There is very little evidence that links that directly to child poverty, and we need that to be able to work out what to do next. In your submission, you state that, in relation to child poverty, we need to see much more focus on delivery of policies that have an evidenced route towards realising the targets, rather than small allocations in different pockets that will not make a demonstrable difference. Can you explain in more detail how the Scottish Government should do that? Is there a danger that the approach might focus on policies that are easy to measure, rather than potentially more impactful policies that are difficult to measure? First, in my previous answer, there is the cumulative impact of different policies that will have that overall impact on getting people with quite complex circumstances above the poverty line. They are not on their own to get them over that poverty line, but the contribution of different elements such as a bit more on the council tax reduction scheme, a bit more on the Scottish child payment, a targeted childcare offer. You can model all those things. They are difficult to do, but they have some very complex policies that are brought together in order to understand the impact. The issue that I have got over allocations of small pockets of money into funds is that none of that modelling has happened in those circumstances. The detail has not been worked through to look at how effective the money that is going to be spent through that fund is going to be at getting people over the poverty line into that cumulative effect that that will have, along with all the other policies that are already there. That is the issue that I have. It is not a very good Scottish welfare fund. It is very well directed. It is more 10 million here and 20 million there, which sounds really good on paper, but it does not always have that follow-through in terms of what the impacts are going to be. We should not just do things that are easy to measure, but we can be a lot better at measuring some of the things that we do. In terms of the first part of the question about the more focus on an evidence route, can you maybe speak a little bit more about that in terms of what that actually means for the Scottish Government? In the approach that they have already started in terms of the best start part futures—I think that is the right name—in terms of doing the modelling exercise that they started. We also did that in the Fraser Valland Institute in collaboration with the commission. It is actually being able to look at the cost effectiveness that the number of children brought out of poverty per pound spent. You have to add everything into the pot in terms of the policies, look at different options, look at different scenarios, do that kind of options appraisal, which is inbuilt into the training of all Government economists to find the best and most cost-effective route forward. I think that the time for that has come—that really direct and focused exercise because we are now really close to 2030-31 in terms of meeting those targets. The time for pilots, experimentation—they are great, they give us lots of evidence, but we really need to start spending that money at scale if those targets are going to be reached. The next question is to Alison. Given the constrained fiscal framework, to what extent would you prioritise further above inflation increases to the Scottish child payment? I think that this question perhaps falls more in the realm of the economists, it is sad to my right. From a right perspective, we are really based on an economic system that requires inequality, where it is built on inequality. From inequality and extreme poverty within society, it demonstrates that we have human rights violations. The poverty is so inherently linked to poor housing, poor health determinants and poor educational outcomes. Those all need to be viewed as potential human rights violations and issues with human rights. The Scottish Government has the obligation to try to deal with that. I would again challenge this go-to prioritisation at the expense of looking at the difficult question of resource generation. Poverty is so multidimensional that the degree to which the evidence demonstrates that the Scottish child payment is sufficient is a route to adequately and effectively tackle and dramatically reduce poverty. I think that, as other colleagues have said, there is evidence that that has had an impact, but is it a silver bullet? That is where the lack of evidence about other approaches. For me, we need to have more information. We know that things such as school meals have an impact on children. You could argue that more nutritious school meals could have even more of an impact. We know about the quality of school provision, about availability of school materials, about the impact of learning support in schools. There are lots of different aspects, and those all need to be measured coherently. Just increasing the amount of the actual payment without addressing all those other issues, I cannot give you an answer to that. I need to see more evidence in terms of, as Emma described, looking at all those different ways and what is going to contribute to the outcome that we want to see. I will say that direct payments are known to be one of the most dignified ways of providing support, but in and of itself it won't solve child poverty because the structural deficits in children's lives are much deeper and wider than can be solved by just financial support. I think that, with the state of public services that Chris mentioned before, 15 years of austerity, they are no longer able to provide the support to deal with those wider inequalities. All of this is important. I am now going to invite Mary McLear, who is joining us remotely. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thanks for your time. The programme for government committee to inflation-linked operating of some benefits referring to increasing the Scottish child payment, funeral support payment, and all disability carers' benefits in line with inflation. Do you expect all devolved social security benefits to be upgraded by inflation? Just for completeness, do you expect the UK Government to upgrade all reserved social security benefits by inflation? I will pop that to Bill. That is what the people who are living at the sharp end need. The very least is an upgrading in line with inflation. The adequacy of universal credit needs to be addressed right now because the £20 uplift that we experienced during the pandemic, when that was lost, plunged many, many families back into deep poverty. As GRS research has shown, the numbers and the proportion of children living in households living in deep poverty now where they cannot afford essentials has grown. Universal credit should at least be able to meet the needs for those essentials—food, energy, roof over your head, et cetera. If it is not doing that, then it is failing to provide the security that social security is supposed to provide. In your written submission, you say that, with regard to disability benefits, it will clearly have a significant impact on the Scottish Government budget, and the UK Government failed to commit to a real terms uplift in those payments. Can you expand how that impact will be significant? Bill said that there were members of the UK Government talking about that they did not want to bankrupt ordinary families yesterday. They are already making them hungry through the inadequacy of the social security system. As Bill has said, our analysis from earlier this year showed that poverty has deepened in the UK since the turn of a millennium. One of the groups worst impacted by that have been disabled people. There is a longer term, a longer term bit of work that we need to do about the adequacy of disability assistance. It is supposed to cover the additional costs of disability. There is lots of at least anecdotal evidence out there that it is not. From the budget perspective, it is the biggest line on Scottish social security funding. If the UK Government fails to upgrade in real terms, then it causes a big problem for the Scottish Government, because it is already spending more per head than the UK Government on those payments already. I hope that the UK Government will do the right thing, and it should and in the Scottish Government need to follow suit. Finally, equality, opportunity, community and new leadership. The First Minister stated that the Scottish Government would have to target every pound that we spend and invest in order to get the maximum value, ensuring that it reaches those who need it most. How should the Scottish Government determine who needs it most? I will just pull it back to you, Chris. As I have said, we rightly focus on child poverty because we know the trauma that that can cause in young people's lives, which then plays out throughout their life. We are absolutely right to focus on child poverty. However, if you look at, say, the people who are having to rely on food banks, et cetera, that is often working-age single people and, again, disabled people. Emma and Dr Ozi have put this more eloquently already. We need to have much better insight into the decisions that we could make, who are the families who would benefit most, who we are going to prioritise in the immediate time, and take it from there. Sadly, there is no right answer. There is no silver bullet, but there is a heck of a lot more we could do. I really wish there was, Chris. Anyone else wants to come in, just to put a hand back to the convener? It is a tricky question, but it is also worth—when we ask the question who needs it most—that there are different categories of vulnerability that can come from your lack of access to a right or to a service. It is not a natural condition of the individual, but the condition that you are being subjected to because of a particular situation. You could be vulnerable because you are homeless, you could be vulnerable because you have a lack of access to food, housing and education. The lack of access to a right puts you in a place of vulnerability. That is one aspect, and we need to understand who those people are so that services can be better targeted. However, the second part of that is that people can be vulnerable because of the conditions that they are in. We know, for example, that people in care, people who are deprived of their liberty, women and children who are fleeing domestic violence, are vulnerable because of their circumstances. Back to evidence, we need to have more evidence about the people who are vulnerable. That will change over time. There will be consistent, but there will also be changes. With the crisis that we have with the cost of living, more and more people are finding themselves in positions of vulnerability. We need more evidence and we need to listen to—we have an incredibly strong civic society in Scotland who are shouting from the rooftops about who is vulnerable and who is in need of more support. We need to be looking at the many, many submissions that your committees receive, that the Government receives, that tell us over and again and help to inform that evidence base. With many of the decisions in budgetary allocations, it is difficult to disagree because there are merits with decisions left, right and centre, but we need a framework for that decision making. The issue around understanding who needs it most, we also need to have an adequate way of looking at this, as I said before, at the minimum core, defining it, measuring it, seeing who is or is not receiving that minimum level of service provision. I am going to quickly bring in Bill Scott. It would be remiss me not to mention the six priority groups and six priority groups of families. Those are lone parent families, families with disabled adults or child, larger families with three or more children, minority ethnic families and families with children under one. Lastly, families with a mother under the age of 25, 90 per cent of all the children living in poverty are to be found in one of those families. There is a way of prioritising who needs the help most in terms of child poverty, but I echo Chris and saying that some of the people who are suffering from some of the worst impacts of deep poverty just now are young single people, disabled people and so on. That also needs to be prioritised in terms of protecting those who, at the moment, are facing not just choices between eating and eating, but just continuing to live, because that is what the calls to the helplines are telling us. I am going to bring in Ross McCall. We have already skirted on this, but I would like to add a bit more detail to your bill and also Emma, if you would not mind just a wee comment. In the submission on raising revenue in addition to prioritising spend, the Scottish Government will need to raise additional revenue to make full use of its devolved tax powers, is what you put in. I would be interested in what you can explain in your reviews and what the Government is not currently utilising its tax powers and what your tax working group is considering. I also put to you that there is a tax structure at the moment, which might and can be used within devolved tax powers to change that structure, so I would be also interested in whether that would be something that it is worth looking at. So a little bit of a mix in there, but Bill and Emma, if you could come back on that. At the end of last year, the commission established a tax working group made up of members of the commission, but also experts appointed to it from out with the commission and members of her lived experience panel. Then we called in expert witnesses both from within Government, tax experts from private and public sector, etc., and took evidence from them throughout the year to try and come up with some recommendations to Government where additional revenue might be secured to feed in to child poverty reduction programmes. So we're nearing the end of that process, we'll be publishing next month, but I'm able to say some of the general thoughts and findings of the tax working group. We started by looking at how effective the current arrangements are and whether they were progressive, and our conclusion is that largely it's Scottish Government's tax policies are progressive, and that they make a difference because the additional revenue being raised and the spending choices that have been made have tended to benefit lower-income households, so they are redistributive. But we think there's scope for more, and we really think that much more needs to be done because the fiscal sustainability challenge has already been pointed out, but also the scale of the ambitions in reducing child poverty demand that more resources are going to have to be put into those programmes if you're going to stand any realistic chance of meeting them by 2030. So in broad terms we think there's limited further scope for tinkering or making adjustments, small adjustments to council tax bans and things like that. The scale of the challenge is much bigger and you're absolutely right. We need to look at not just tweaks to the current system but a redesign for the short and longer term, and part of that will relate to local taxation because that's one of the areas where it's easiest to make changes, but we need to get those changes right for the medium and longer term, and therefore a quick fix isn't the way to go about it, so we will be favouring a revaluation of properties because none has been carried out since 1991. If we went ahead and made changes to local taxation, some of the people who should be paying more would not be paying more because we haven't revaliwd, and some of the people who shouldn't be paying more would be paying more because their properties have been built at a certain time or were valued at a certain time, so we need a revaluation to be carried out urgently so that we can have a proper basis for looking at local taxation in the round and making plans for the medium and longer term to raise proper levels of funding from local taxation and to meet local service demand. We also need to see some evolutionary further powers through agreement with the UK Government, focusing on powers that are complementary to those that we already have. I'm sorry to talk about it, but I'm really interested to hear what Emma's got to say. I think I've got the gist of what you're saying, but if I don't get a chance to say to Emma, then we're going to have to move on. Very quickly, we would favour devolving powers over savings and dividend income so that we close off one of the ways that we can avoid paying income tax on earnings by putting into a company rather than paying yourself a salary, but I'll let Emma come in. I won't add much. We are involved in the tax advisory group that the Scottish Government has set up to look at some of those things as well. I'll touch on one point. We've talked a lot about evidence today and how we need more evidence. In one place, there is a lot of evidence around council tax and the choices that could be made to make it more progressive. That can't be done without a revaluation, because it totally undermines and makes the system potentially... It starts to undermine the whole purpose of the system, so we very much echo that that needs to be done. Now moving on, I'm going to invite James Dornan, who has joined us remotely. Again, we are really tight for time, so can we be as concise as possible? That's me being told. The committee has recently received evidence highlighting concerns about transparency of the budget. Have there been any improvements in the transparency and what more needs to be improved in the budget process? I would say that there have been some improvements over time. A number of us are involved in the equality and humour rights budget advisory group and a lot of our recommendations through that, through how to improve and make more useful the equality and humour and fair Scotland budget statement, I think it's called, have been taken on board. I also mentioned in my submission that we're aware that there is more being done to look at modelling and presenting the distributional impact of both tax, social security and spend. We're looking forward to seeing the results of that in hopefully this budget, certainly in the future. There is more that can be done. I think I would refer you to comments made in for my colleagues at the Finance Committee for some of the technical details on that, but we have spoken quite a lot about the presentation of data. I think that one final point would be that it can be quite difficult to navigate through the budget documents to understand what is new spending and what is existing spending that is either continuing or is just being re-announced. We would really appreciate a much more concise budget document that concentrated on the new decisions that have been made for that financial year. Do you think that that's a realistic plan, given the financial and time pressures on preparing the budget? Yes, I do. A lot of the work for the budget is a year-long process. A lot of the decisions that come through in the budget documents will have been through a policy making process beforehand, so a lot of those analyses can be done in advance. Of course, there are the time pressures with the UK budget or the UK details for the Scottish budget only coming through a few weeks in advance, but a lot of the issues that we have around transparency could be prepared in advance. Therefore, when the final decisions can be taken in those final few weeks, it's all ready to go. It's not an issue around those time pressures from our point of view. It's an issue with the approach taken to writing and preparing the budget. Thank you very much for that. I've got a question for Dr Hosey. The Scottish Human Rights Commission makes suggestions as to how the committee can practically take a rights-based approach to budget scrutiny. Can you outline the main points that the committee should be considering taking this approach? I will do it if I have the liberty just to quickly add to that last question around transparency because that's a key area of our work. We are currently repeating the open budget survey of the Scottish budget. We did this process four years ago, and in May next year we will be publishing our results, which at the moment show in the draft form that there have been some progress made in terms of transparency of the Scottish budget. The positive for me is that the Scottish Government has committed this time round to engaging with the process and to committing to looking at the recommendations that we are going to come out with in relation to improving transparency, participation and accountability of the budget. Last time round the Government didn't engage with the process at all, so I think that it does show that there is a willingness to engage and that the fiscal transparency has been taken seriously. In relation to your question, in relation to taking your rights-based approach, you've obviously seen my written evidence and I tried to set out not the whole framework but the three steps that can be taken in terms of rights-based scrutiny. We look at what commitments do the Government have. At the moment we are signed up to a range of international treaties, some of those are going to be incorporated through the human rights bill very soon. What lies within those rights, what are the contents of those rights, what are the minimum obligations and what are we aspiring to progress over time in terms of rights realisation? Looking at the treaty bodies that critique the Government every four to five years periodically about their progress, what do they say that we are doing well and what do they say that we are needing to improve on? They highlight a range of areas across all of the committees, there's a lot of synergy in what they say, but particularly around economic and social rights we were presenting to the UN earlier this year and we highlighted a range of areas where we need to see improvement, particularly in and around poverty and inequality. Looking to what they say back to us and what we need to do, that's a key source of information as to what you need to be challenging the Scottish Government on in terms of their human rights record. Considering the resources that are required to deliver on those commitments before you're finally agreeing how the necessary resources are going to be generated, what are we trying to achieve, what are we not doing well and we need to improve on, how do we achieve that, what resources are required and how do we generate those resources. We've talked a lot about child poverty today and I think that that is a key example. The UNCRC reviewed Scotland's record recently and child poverty was yet again raised as a significant issue for the committee and we need to be asking, you need to be asking the Government, what are they doing in relation to reducing the legal duties that they've set themselves on child poverty? What are they doing? What are they going to fundamentally change about the way that they're currently budgeting to tackle child poverty to demonstrate that they will have an impact on that statutory duty? What evidence can they produce to demonstrate that the active impact these obligations have on budgetary decision making? So taking that evidence and applying it with the questions you ask of Government. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Under normal circumstances there's quite a lot I'd like to come back on, but given the time restrictions and given I'm scared of the convener, I'll just pass back. Yeah, that was the right choice, thanks James. Now finally going to bring in Paul O'Kane for the last question. Thank you. Thank you very much, convener. I suppose I'll return to a theme that I maybe started with or we heard some response on which was the engagement of people with lived experience and the public in terms of setting these priorities. Bill, obviously you talked about some of those priorities perhaps being revised. I just wonder how can we better hear what the public and people with lived experience have to tell us and prioritise their views of budget? Well it's fundamental to the commission's priorities that people with lived experience and poverty are not only involved in commenting afterwards, after decisions have been made because then it's too late, but actually involved right at the start in developing and designing solutions to the poverty that they face. So the budget is one of the key areas where they should be involved. There are real challenges to doing so. As we've already said, some of the budget documents are very opaque still and difficult even for people with technical experience to understand and pick out what is changing and what isn't changing. That's one of the things we think the Scottish Government could do better is setting out whether there are new areas to spend, why is that being done, what's that about, if there are reductions again, why is that being done, what are the likely consequences? Because if the other areas are largely unchanged, we don't really need to hear so much about them, but we do need to know where the changes are. But the Parliament itself has got a critical role in assisting the Scottish Government in that process and the citizens participation and public petitions committee have issued a report on embedding public participation in the work of the Parliament. I think one of the things you could do is look to how do we involve people with lived experience in pre-budget scrutiny work. Again, it's of fundamental importance to their lives what happens in the forthcoming budget. They should have some input into how the Scottish Government is prioritising spending. Can I just stop you there, Bill, because I'm keen to hear from Chris. I appreciate that Chris hasn't come in for a while. If you want to have your final say on that, Chris. Bill is right about the direct engagement of people with lived experience, but I'm sure that you all see that in your constituencies and areas that you represent. Are there third sector organisations and local public sector staff who will have deep knowledge of what's happening in their communities? When Emma was talking about evidence that is available for national decision making, that is a huge, untapped resource that we have. I think that our politicians in this Parliament are often much better connected to their communities than they are elsewhere. That's hard work, which you'll know better than me, but I think that as well being able to speak to third sector organisations who understand their communities better than anyone is another fruitful way of getting insight, which the Parliament can then use. That brings us to the end of our scrutiny session today. I want to say thank you so much for joining us as well. I'm sorry if we were so tight for time, but it's such a wide-ranging important topic that we're discussing today. What I've suggested is that I know that Ross had a question that he wasn't able to put forward in terms of the concept of wellbeing economy. I'm happy if you want to put forward any written submissions after we leave here today. Again, thank you very much. I'm willing this session today.