 Good morning, and welcome to the 23rd meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have apologies from Paula Kean and James Dornan for today's meeting. Our first item of business for today is a decision to take agenda item 6 in private. Are we all agreed? Yn ystafell ar gyflentio baratau ysgolwyr ysgolwyrteroniad eich ysgolwyr ar gyflentio ysgolwyr ysgolwyr mlynedd y ffordd 2. Naes ysgolwyr ysgolwyr ar gyflentio ysgolwyr ysgolwyr ar gyflentio ysgolwyr ysgolwyr ysgolwyr ar gyflentio ar gyflentio tornes 2021, i dweud hynny i ddigartu i hynny gweithio of childcare costs for the recipients of universal credit when calculating their income for the purposes of council tax reduction scheme. It is an emergency instrument that came into force in June and coincides with an increase of the childcare cost caps by the UK Government. No motions to annul have been laid. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument on 5 September and agreed to draw the instrument to the attention of the Parliament on reporting ground for failure to comply with laying requirements. The committee also noted that it was content with the explanation that the Scottish Government had provided for the breach of the laying requirements. Do members have any comments on the instruments? Thank you, convener. I clearly support the instruments. It is worth just for clarity to put on the record why we have the council tax reduction scheme. The council tax reduction scheme at a UK wide base was abolished by the UK Government in 2013, and the Scottish Government moved at that point to bring in a Scotland-wide council tax reduction scheme. In that time, £455,000 per year has benefited from the Scottish council tax reduction scheme. On average, the Lincoln House has benefited £750,000. That is a £3 billion investment on low-income households in the past 10 years. If the negative instrument, which has been brought forward speedily by the Scottish Government, protects that key investment from the Scottish Government to the Lincoln family, I absolutely support it. We will note that on record for the official report. I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to the instrument. Are members content to note the instrument? Thank you. Next this morning is the consideration of an affirmative statutory instrument, the carers assistance, carer support payment Scotland regulations 2023. The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. At our last committee meeting, we took evidence from Meacop, Carers Scotland and Carers Trust Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance. We also heard from the Scottish Commission on Social Security. Today, I welcome to the meeting Shirley-Anne Somerville, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice. I also welcome her officials, Ewan Geddes, policy official Carers Allowance Case Transfer. Ross Frimley, Lawyer, Scottish Government, Legal Directorate and Jane Sterry, Policy Lead for Carers Support Payment. I have a few points to mention about the format of the meeting before we start. Members, unlike those of us who do not have any members online, so forget about that one. We normally do, that is why. Following the evidence session, the committee will invite—sorry, I am going to move on, apologies. I am going to invite the cabinet secretary to make an open statement. Unpaid carers, as we all recognise, make an immense contribution to our society. We also know that caring can be challenging for carers' health, wellbeing and our ability to have a life of their own outside of caring. That is why improving support for unpaid carers is a priority for our social security powers. Despite our fixed budgets and limited powers of devolution, we have transformed social security in Scotland, delivering a system based on our principles of dignity, fairness and respect. We launched Carers Allowance Supplement in 2018 to address the fact that carers allowance was the lowest of all working-age benefits, and we launched the Young Carers Grant in 2019, two benefits that are unique to Scotland. The draft regulations before the committee make provision for carers support payment, the 14th benefit provided by Social Security Scotland replacing carers allowance in Scotland. We have engaged extensively with carers support organisations in the wider public to design carers support payments so that it can meet the needs of the people who will use it. I am grateful to everyone who contributed their views and to the members of our Carer Benefits Advisory Group and the former Disability and Carer Benefits Expert Advisory Group in particular. Those regulations will remove barriers by extending entitlement to many carers in full-time education currently unable to get carers allowance, benefiting up to 1,500 more carers once our new benefit is available nationally. From launch, carers support payment will also provide an improved service and signposting designed to help carers access wider support in social security and beyond. Carers allowance is the most complex benefit that we have replaced in terms of its links with wider support, particularly the benefits that remain reserved to the UK Government, and I am grateful to officials from across the UK for all their hard work on getting this transition right. The regulations make provision for an initial pilot from the member in Dundee City, Perthyn Cernross and the Western Isles. As I set out in my letter to the committee, we intend to extend the benefit to additional local authority areas from spring 2024 and for it to be made available nationally from autumn 2024. That will allow us to test those improving links with wider support and deliver continuous improvements to our service. I look forward to coming back to the committee with further regulations in due course to make provision for the wider roll-out of this benefit. The regulations also provide for the transfer of benefits of carers already in receipt of carers allowance without any need to reapply and to ensure that those in receipt of carers allowance and carer support payment continue to get our carers allowance supplement in the same way during the roll-out and transfer period. As soon as it is practicable after case transfer is complete, we will start making further improvements, initially by incorporating the carers allowance supplement into carer support payments so that carers get their extra payments more regularly, extending support where a carer loses the person they care for and providing extra support for carers with multiple caring roles, a carer's additional personal payment. I would like to extend my thanks to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for their formal scrutiny of the draft regulations earlier this year. Their recommendations have been accepted and have strengthened the detail of the regulations before us today. In conclusion, I am grateful for this opportunity to assist the committee in its consideration of the regulations and, of course, I am happy to provide any additional information that the committee may require. Thank you Cabinet Secretary. We will now move on to questions. Our questions will obviously be directed at you, but you are of course welcome to invite any of your officials to respond should you wish to do so. I am going to bring Jeremy on the theme of carers in education. Good morning Cabinet Secretary and good morning to your team. It is always good to have you at committee. You may have seen last week that witnesses refuted the Scottish Government's arguments for excluding 16 to 19-year-old young carers in full-time non-advanced education for men who are able to claim a CSP. I wonder what the evidence I am last now for making that decision was. I did listen carefully to what was said yesterday, because it is an area where we want to ensure that we are supporting carers of all ages. The reason why we have completed the regulations as they stand before committee today is based on previous consultation work that we have done. For example, if we look to the concerns that we had from the feedback from the disability and carers benefit expert advisory group, they stressed that the importance of ensuring financial support did not inadvertently lead to some young carers finding themselves in unsuitable caring roles. We also, when we were consulting for the young carers grant, had similar types of concerns raised at that point as well around young carers having age-appropriate caring roles. The national carer strategy also looks very carefully at the fact that yes, caring can be a very positive experience for young people, but it can also put pressure on young people as well. I hope that that has explained where our rationale and our thinking has come from, but I listened very carefully to what was said last week and the fact that that has been raised as an issue. We are very happy, as a Government, to continue to work with carers organisations to see if further evidence can be collected, further work can be done with them, just to test that out more. That will not be in time, obviously, for the regulations going through, but I hope that the committee can be reassured that I take it very seriously. We are very keen to work with the stakeholders to make sure that we have some who are concerned if we put that in place, but others who are concerned if we do not put it in place. We need to try to find a way through that, and I am very keen to work with the stakeholders on that to go into more detail about the concerns that were raised last week. I have two brief supplementaries. Obviously, you are absolutely right to say that some caring is not necessarily age-appropriate, but people are where people are. Sadly, some people have the only choice to use a son or a daughter to help them or a sibling to help that sibling, and there is no-one else to do it. I accept that we do not want to push people into it, but sometimes people are being pushed into it, but no longer are going to get any financial assistance for that. Are we also not making a distinction between different types of education? We are saying that, if you are in my education, you can have money, and if you are in that form of education, you cannot. I am just concerned that we are making a foster comedy between different types of education, rather than recognising further education, whatever way you go is important. Forgive me if I picked up Mr Balfour wrong on that, but I think he said that they would no longer be getting support. My understanding is that these people would not be getting support under the current carers allowance. We are not taking away from someone just to be clear on that point. I recognise that we have had to look very carefully at the types of education. There are already different types of support that are there for young people who are in non-advanced education. For example, education maintenance allowance, which is not available elsewhere in the UK, and other types of supports are very important. I recognise that there are differing views on that. I recognise that there are concerns about the fact that, as Mr Balfour rightly says, we need to look at age-appropriate care, but people may be in that situation. We need to be very careful about ensuring that we are not leaving people behind as we go through this. I hope that I have laid out the rationale about why we are, where we are, with the regulations as they speak, and absolutely the Government's openness to continue to work with stakeholders, particularly in some of those areas where there are differing views and differing opinions about what Government should do. We need to try and find a way collectively through that. I am going to bring in Bob Dorris. That is not my substantive question, cabinet secretary, but I think that the committee would find it quite helpful if you would maybe get back to the committee with a much clearer definition of what full-time non-advanced education is, as opposed to advanced education, because I have read some definitions. They are not Government definitions, they are standard definitions that are out there. I sometimes struggle with that clarity, particularly in the college sector, on what counts as advanced and what does not count as advanced. That is not my question, cabinet secretary, but I find that helpful. I find it encouraging that the Scottish Government is not closed off to amending to look at the matter again, so that is welcome. Of course, it is not for the current regulations, but if you want to change the rule in the short term, which we appreciate you cannot do, would you prioritise extending the young carer grant, for instance, to 19-year-olds? There is definitely a gap that is created in the young carer grant, which could be another route to close that gap. I am happy to provide that information, as Mr Dorris requests. Clearly, we will need to make that very apparent and easy to understand for those who are applying, so that we are encouraging people, particularly at the edges here, and particularly where something is a bit new as well, which the eligibility to full-time advanced education is. I am happy to provide that to committee and I recognise that we need to make sure that we are doing that, particularly to carers, carers supports organisations as well as we move through, and that work will be on-going. On the issue of the young carer grant, it is again something that I recognise. Committee will be, I am sure, aware that, in essence, the eligibility in terms of the age where you begin to be eligible for carer support payment matches the situations for young people in full-time education that can access universal credit. If we think of all the income replacement benefits, the one that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament is carer support payment, but there are others. There is a sense to having all the income replacement benefits with that starting eligibility age, but I recognise the point that Mr Dorris makes around young carers grant and the eligibility around that as well. Clearly, when we were putting young carers grant in, we were not at the same stage of policy development for looking at carer support payment just because of the different years that we have been doing that in. As we progress with devolution, we need to make sure that there are no unintended consequences, no gaps, no challenges for particular age groups or particular parts of society that will come out of the incremental programme that we have. We are very keen to ensure that that is part of our on-going work of evaluating the carer support payment and the young carers grant that we do look at. Indeed, there may be other issues around young carer support grant and the carer support payment to make sure that we are developing a system that does not have any unintended consequences in it. I recognise again the evidence that was given last week around that and this is something that the Government will look at to see what we can do to support young carers. That is helpful. I think that we have a position where the Scottish Government would be happy to look again without any specific commitments at non-advanced full-time education and would be happy to look again about extending the young carer grant as complex and challenging as that might be. Obviously, nothing is going to happen in short order in relation to that. How would you respond, cabinet secretary, to say that there is still a group there that is potentially missing out whilst others would benefit? What support is available for that group of young carers? I recognise the issue particularly around young carer grant and the carer support payment. As I said, I am keen to keep that under review and will work with stakeholders on it. The aspects around young carers have mentioned some of the support that is already available in a previous answer to Mr Balfour, but I will give some examples of the access to support that there is. Of course, the educational maintenance allowance and households with 16 to 19-year-olds in non-advanced education can continue to get support from reserved benefits such as child benefit universal credit and child tax credits. There is support out there. Of course, as I said earlier, education maintenance allowance is only available in Scotland. That is an important aspect of the wider support that sits outside social security to try and support our young people. Again, we need to look at that in the round as we continue to develop the system about what is in social security, what is elsewhere and what is still reserved. We will continue to work to see if there is anything more that needs to be done in that area. I hope that the committee is reassured that there is still support out there for young people in full-time school education. Last time you were before the committee, we both agreed that, despite its antiquity, the industrial injuries disabled benefit had been left unchanged by successful Westminster Governments. I think that the same can be agreed for carers allowance. Obviously, there have been two main changes since it was created in 1976. I think that the most significant was to allow married women to make a claim. We have got a real big challenge that we need to get right to get a more progressive level of support for carers. Do you believe that the Scottish Government has got the balance right between safe and secure transfer and the speed of the change that is necessary to deliver a system that fully supports unpaid carers? I am going to cover again the issue of overpayments. Some of my colleagues might want to come in once I have concluded. Do you think that the change is proposed? Is there enough to reduce the number of overpayments and what more can be done after safe and secure transfer? It is very important. Those who have been involved in discussions on social security will have heard myself and my predecessors talk about the importance of safe and secure transition a lot. We are right to do that because when we recognise that those are individuals, perhaps in very difficult or vulnerable situations where we are relying on payments, one of our very first responsibilities is to ensure that we have a safe and secure transition, and that is why case transfer is very important. However, we also do not have a two-tier system in place where we have those who are making new applications, having different rules to those who have been in and are still waiting case transfer. That is a very unfair situation to be in. That means that there are points where we cannot deliver some of the changes that we would like to make as fast as people would like. I totally recognise that, but I think that we heard last week that many of the witnesses and the stakeholders overall have stressed the importance of safe and secure transition. The area around overpayments is a really important one. There are still aspects that we can do to try and improve the situation with the risk of overpayments, because that has been a long-standing concern about carers allowance as it sits within the DWP. I will give a few examples that may help the committee. One of the areas that we are keen to do more of than is done currently by DWP is to provide carers with more stable support to ensure that, if incomes go up and go down, we can do that in a way where that is averaged over a period. That will hopefully make it less likely that people will find themselves just out and out of the reach of eligibility, because, for example, of a bonus or an overtime, etc. The averaging is very important. We also have built in a system of alerts that the agency will use to get data from its RC to track carers earnings and a number of scheduled reviews that will be in place of earnings for self-employed carers to try and attempt to prevent as many overpayments. One more example of this is an important area that the committee took a lot of evidence on last week, which is around the fact that we will pay carers support payment four weekly in arrears, which is different to what happens by DWP, where it is three weeks in arrears and one week in advance. That can make it difficult sometimes to make the analysis quite as tight as it needs to be under carers allowance. Those are some of the examples in which we are still keeping to safe and secure transition, but, for what we are looking at within carers support payment, I hope that we can still make a difference to people around the risk of overpayments. I believe in a human rights-based approach to social security, and I am concerned that there is no right to appeal in relation to overpayment decisions. When will the Scottish Government change this, and will you accept its important part of our social security system? We are looking at options for introducing a formal right of appeal for the liability of overpayments. Carers can of course request a review of a decision of overpayments, on liability of overpayments, but that will be carried out by Social Security Scotland, and I do appreciate that there are stakeholders who have raised concerns about the fact that there is no formal redetermination of appeal rights, as you say. That is an issue that we need to look at, not just about carers support payment, but actually across all devolved benefits. The committee will be aware that we have taken forward consultation as a Government over overpayment liability, and the committee will also be aware that we have said in the programme for government that there will be a social security amendment bill later this parliamentary year. Full details of how we will approach this can be detailed in that bill. I hope that that provides committee with reassurance that we have already undertaken consultation on this. We will already recognise that it is an issue, and the committee Parliament will have, in due course, the opportunity to look at the proposed solutions on that, once the bill is before Parliament. Finally, you have charged the minimum income guarantee expert group to consider how the policy could assist unpaid carers. How do you do this rolling out? The work with the minimum income guarantee is very important to the Government, and it was very important in the programme for government. I had the pleasure of attending the first meeting of that group since I got into post yesterday and heard, for example, from people with direct lived experience of the importance of the Government moving forward with a minimum income guarantee. I am keen to look at that. The First Minister has asked that group to look at what can be done with carers up to the group to decide its work plan, but I am pleased to say that that was passed yesterday. There is a lot that could potentially be done in that. I hope that the final report, when it comes out from the group, can give assistance not just for carers, but overall for a minimum income guarantee. I think that the Government thinks that a minimum income guarantee, particularly around carers, would greatly assist them, because we know that there are challenges in that area. I am very keen to look at that, but, obviously, that report and what is made of it is entirely up for that group, independent of Government. Obviously, there is an interim report at the moment, but the asked specifically around carers came in after that interim report was published. Thank you very much. A few supplementaries. I am going to bring in Jeremy Balfour and then Bob Doris. I wonder if I can just go back to the appeal process. I may be wrong on this, so please do correct me if I am, but my understanding is that if someone puts in an application and is refused, they have no right of appeal either. Is that something that you will be looking at in regard to tidying up the system? That would seem to me unfair, but if I am wrong on that, which I think I may be, what is the right of appeal? There seems to be lack of clarity on that last week. I am happy to bring in Jane on that issue, if we can. In terms of a standard determination of entitlement to carer support payment, that would carry the same redetermination and appeal rights as other benefits where any determination is made on whether somebody should be awarded carer support payment. The timescales for redeterminations are also set out in the regulations to mirror the devolved disability benefits. Carers will have 42 days from a decision to request a redetermination, and the agency would have 56 days to carry that out. I was meaning to appeal to a tribunal. In the same way as the devolved disability benefits following a redetermination, if the carer is not happy with the decision that has been made, they would have the right to request an appeal against that decision. Those timescales are set out in the act, and they apply across all of the devolved benefits in the same way. That would help, and just for clarification, which tribunal would that then go to? The social security tribunal would be my understanding. See that all the more best. That's helpful, thank you. Okay, thanks very much. I'm just now going to bring in Bob, and then I'll bring in Rose McCall. Thanks. Can you hear just very briefly, cabinet secretary, where we are talking about overpayments, you mentioned, I think, information and data from DWP and the need to share that in a timely manner. It begins in a little bit more about how that's going, whether there are some challenges there, whether those challenges involve being able to model what the level of overpayments may look like for this new Scottish benefit, or just getting in real time any additional income that an individual household may have that would be taken into account. So, when I say just a little bit overpayments and info sharing the DWP, I'm keen to know just a little bit more about that. Sure, and I'll bring in officials if they think I've missed anything key on this point as well, but this is one of the areas that really gets to why this is the most technically complex benefit to introduce, and that's because there has to be continuous linking between DWP and HMRC information on that. That's why the way that we're doing the roll-out is so important to make sure that we have a pilot to test those links, whether it's a manageable number of cases, and we move forward with the national roll-out so that we and the DWP and HMRC can all test that it's working effectively. One of the other reasons why this is challenging is that there is modernisation work going on within the DWP around their systems for carers as well. That's a really important part of work for them to be doing, but it means that we are trying to latch on to a system that's also changing, so that brings with it additional challenges, can we put it like that, but the officials are working really well together on that, and I think that that is very important about the level of work and the understanding of the complexity and the fact that this is not just a joint process in terms of getting a system set up and allowing case transfer, but this is going to be a continuing joint process between devolved and reserved parts of government, but that is working well. It is not simple by any manner of means, and I'm sure that programme colleagues within the directorate would think that I'd understated that level of complexity, but I hope that the committee appreciates that work and also the fact that it is going well in terms of the continuing engagement between all those levels, so I have no concerns over that at this point. Of course we will have to keep up that level of engagement as we move to systems going live and actually testing them with data, but that's why we're taking the rightly cautious approach to how we're rolling out with pilots, just as we did with CDP and ADP. Thank you. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much indeed and good morning everyone. I want to say thank you for the full and frank answers you're giving us here today, so that's very helpful. I was looking through my notes, and Judith Paterson stated that overpayments are an inevitable consequence of the process, and I appreciate everything that you've given in the answers already regarding overpayments, but what also came up was that Social Security Scotland will not seek to recover overpayments of less than £65. So what's the Scottish Government's response to views that that should be set higher? How are we going to monitor any possible overspends or any budget concerns that may come from that if we do look at any variances on the £65? Again, a very important point for the agency and for the Government to look at on this. Overpayments are an inevitability of the system as it stands at the moment, because it is exceptionally complex. In the future, the Government may, I'm sure, wish to look at how we can simplify some of those processes, but that is not for the short term. We need to get the case transfer right and we need to make sure that we have a system that's delivered on some of the priorities that I've already mentioned. In the meantime, where there are overpayments, I do recognise that there is a concern from stakeholders about that level. What I would reassure committee with, and this isn't just about care support payments, it's about all the ways that the benefits are dealt with, is that the financial circumstances and the personal circumstances of individuals, as far as they're known to the agency, are taking into account as they look to overpayments. That is not an automatic aspect where there is no communication that happens. That's a very important part of the dignity, fairness and respect aspect that goes wider than carers support. The £65 is in line with the current DWP level, and that's based on the costs of overpayment recovery. That, in essence, means that that would outweigh the amount that you would recover from it. Now, because social security is a relatively new agency, we don't have the data within the agency to determine what the costs of recovery would be. It's an area that Government agencies are keen to keep under review to see whether there are changes that should be made to the overall policy of payments. Of course, that would include carers support payments, as part of that as well. Okay, thank you. That will then follow on, obviously, as to how we then monitor that going forward. Thank you very much indeed for the answer. Thank you again. Cabinet Secretary, can you give us a timetable for the completion of case transfer and the introduction of further changes to carers support payment? The agency agreement that we have with the DWP runs out in March 2025, and we have no concerns over that timeframe at the moment. Obviously, the case transfer begins a few months after our pilot, and the level of cases that we do by case transfer will grow incrementally, so we'll start small again to ensure that we're testing everything out, to make sure that there's no concerns or anything about that transfer that is making it difficult for carers themselves. All carers will have started the transfer journey by the end of 2024 and completed that transfer by that March 2025 date. So, in essence, we start not long after the pilots, we'll begin to scale that up after testing that process, and all carers will have had notification about case transfer by the end of 2024. And just in your discussions with Social Security Scotland, obviously there have been some delays on other areas. Are very confident that we have enough staff to be able to meet that target? So, the aspects around workforces are clearly looked at very carefully by Social Security Scotland to make sure that the staff are in place. One of the aspects that is different for every benefit, but there are lessons to learn, is how that case transfer process works. Carer support payment is more complex, but that's again exactly why we start off the small levels of case transfer. We test that out and make sure that the assumptions that are being made around workforce are correct and then the agency can flex if models have, for whatever reason, incorrect or we've got something out of kilter on workforce. At this stage, we're very confident about that, but because of the way we're doing this, there is the ability of the agency to flex sure that it requires. Good morning. Last week, Paul Traynor suggested that addressing underlying entitlement was quite low down that priority list. What is the Scottish Government's approach to this issue, so to the issue of underlying entitlement? That is a very important issue that I recognise that has been raised by carers and comes under the catch-all of the fact that allowance carer support payment is an income replacement benefit and so is the state pension. We have a number of benefits that are effectively seen to be there in essence for the same purpose, an income replacement benefit, but it is still important for people to apply for carers support payments, even if it's to just have that underlying entitlement, because it is a gateway to allow them to access other support. Some of that is obviously still reserved, so we will be very keen to move forward with encouraging and doing more to encourage people who would have underlying entitlement to move forward with an application so that they can access that other support that is out there. The aspects also around carers support payment being in effect extended to those that are already receiving some other income replacement benefit. I recognise that that has been a call. What I would say to that is that that is a major change that would be undertaken. As committee is aware, there is no major change that in social security doesn't come with a hefty investment required. For context, there are around 80,000 people who are eligible and get a carers allowance payment. There is another 40,000 who just have underlying entitlement. If the ask is for all those people to also get a carers support payment, that is a significant investment that would need to be undertaken. I recognise the fact that that is a call that is asked for, but changes like that would need to be undertaken after case transfer. Clearly, when Government, Parliament and stakeholders have all had a very open discussion about the affordability and sustainability of that, particularly when there are a number of calls that people are quite understandably asking to be made after case transfer is complete. I hope that that gives the context about the scale of what it would mean to make that change. You have explained the context very fully, but do you think that the comment that it is quite low down the priority list is fair, is that accurate? What we have tried to do is do what we can within the system while case transfer is on go on and give some of those examples. I have given the examples of what we intend to do once case transfer is complete. Those are the priorities about additional payment for caring for more than one person, etc. There are a number of calls that have been made on Government around carers support payment changes. We just have to look at those. As we do with all aspects, we certainly cannot do them all at once before case transfer. For the significant ones, they come with a significant cost of touch, so we will have to look at it as Government, as Parliament when we are looking at any changes about how those aspects can be funded. I totally recognise that as a priority for people to look at, and there are calls to that. I know that they are aware that it does not come with a significant cost as well. It is not that it is a low priority, but we just need to make sure that we are doing what we can in the short term to fulfil the priorities that we have laid out for after case transfer. Of course, we will have to keep up with discussion about the other aspects, but that is only one of them that people would like us to bring in that are additional to what has already been proposed by the Government. The Scottish Government has consulted on increasing the earnings threshold. Why is that not one of the priority policies for change after safe and secure transfer? This is one of the areas that cannot be done until after case transfer. I have given details earlier, so for the sake of time I will not go through them again, on how we are trying to get better at ensuring that we are looking at average earnings. There are also the aspects that we are looking at as well around the fact that a carer, if someone goes over the income threshold, their award will be temporarily stopped and reinstated without application rather than suspended, which gives individuals more rights. There is another aspect that we are already looking at for that. The earnings threshold for carer support payment will have to align with the carers allowance until transfer is complete. We are continuing to look at the responses to the consultation about future changes. The earnings threshold is, of course, again a very important one, but within apologies for repeating it, but it is an important point. It will all have to be done looking at how affordable and sustainable improvements are as part of the Scottish budget, which is enlarged and fixed. Cabinet Secretary, I will go back right to the beginning for you. You alluded to trying to make the process as easy as possible, especially when it came to young carers and filling in that process. That follows us on to how we can make sure that the process is available and clear for all carers as it is accessible and for information to apply for carer support payment, especially when English is not the first language. How do we ensure that it is as smooth and as simple a process as possible to reduce the amount of stress on carers when they are going through the process? I would be intrigued to know what your comments are on that. As we have done with all devolved benefits, there is a great deal of work that goes in working with carers to make sure that we are getting the information right that they require and the application form right as well. As the committee will be aware, all the benefits are available either online, by telephone or using paper forms. In a very important difference that is available in Scotland, it can also receive assistance from local delivery service as well, and that will assist people in their home or in a community setting if they require additional help. Also, the local delivery service is very important for the fact that it is already embedded in local communities. It will have connections to local carers groups, connections to those who provide advice in the community. Again, it can be that bridge between a young carers group or any carers group to allow people to come in and directly help. There is a recognition as well that there are some communities who do not necessarily recognise themselves as carers, who do not perhaps have the same expectation that the state is there to support them. We are very keen to make sure that we are working with different organisations to make sure that we are having our information in different languages, making sure that we have easy-read formats out there and making sure, particularly through local delivery, that we are making that connection. It is fine to have everything available in local community languages, so what do you do with that? How do you make sure that it is there for people to read and that they are then supported? That is where the real benefit of local delivery comes in, is not just having that available but having those links with the local community to then encourage people. I hope that that reassures what we are trying to do on that aspect. The final question, cabinet secretary, will come from myself on the wider support. Last week we heard suggestions about things such as income maximisation and referral to carer support services. Will that be included? Will it be if and when, if you could comment on that? That is something that can be a very important difference about how we deliver social security here in Scotland. It is recognising that an individual who is coming forward and is eligible for carer support payment would potentially benefit from further knowledge about what other support is out there. From launch, there is work that has already been undertaken and we will continue to finesse for the notifications that come through in your award letter for the online content to signpost carers to what else is happening and what else is available out there. Links that are available as soft stocks within the application, even to help carers who might not be entitled to the benefit but may require further support as a carer out there. We are also looking at information around adult carer support plans, young carer statements and so on. Signposting is very important, but we know that signposting is only one step on this and there is more that can be done. We are keen to further develop that as the agency continues its growth and recognising its important place within our community. I have mentioned local delivery. That is very important about the links that they will have, as I mentioned to Ros McAll for local groups. There is also the aspect of continuing to learn, continuing that national stakeholder engagement with carers' stakeholder groups, with the agency to continuously check about seeing if we are getting that right and if there is more that can be done. That is an added task on the agency that is not done within the DWP setting, so that is an additional task on social security staff. It is an important one because we need to see the carer as an individual rather than an application form. Therefore, what does that individual need as they are moving forward with us as well? I hope that that has explained some of the examples of what we can do online, in the application form itself, even for those who are not entitled to the benefit and what local delivery can do too. We are now going to move on to agenda item number 4. It is the formal consideration of motion S6M-10324 that the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that a carer's assistance, carer support payment, Scotland regulations 2023 be approved. I invite the cabinet secretary to speak and to move this motion. I now invite contributions from any of the members. Jeremy, would you like to come in? Thank you, cabinet secretary. Obviously, we will be supporting these regulations this morning. However, the point that I have made on numerous occasions and I will make again, I do think that the process itself is slightly flawed that we take evidence from yourself and then immediately we have to then vote on them. I do think that, as a Parliament, we have to look at if there had been something you said today that completely caused us concern, we have no option but to vote either for or against, and you, as a Scottish Government, have no time to reflect on the questions that we have asked. That is a procedure issue rather than a sustained issue. I think that there is still concern in regard to some individuals, particularly in certain education settings, that are being left behind now. I know in your answers, cabinet secretary, you said there were varying views around that. I think that the evidence that we have taken as a committee is that there should be that payment made. I am grateful that you have said that you are going to look at that again. I do hope that we can perhaps look at this sooner, rather than later. I think that the danger is that, once we pass regulations as a Parliament, we then move on to the next thing and we leave people behind. I do hope that you will take what we have heard and what you have heard seriously and that some amended regulations could be brought forward within this parliamentary term. I have been interested to know if that is the timescale that you are looking at if you were to bring forward changes. I also look forward to seeing the proposals in your bill later this year, which will deal with the overpayment issue and the right of appeal on that. Again, we have taken evidence on that. I think that we all recognise, as someone who benefits from unpaid care, the massive role of unpaid care is to play in our society. Often, those individuals would not necessarily want to do it but are put in a position that they have to do it because of their family situation, geographically or just how their family is made up. I welcome what we are doing here as a Parliament. I think that it will make a difference to individual lives. As you said, what we do not want to do is leave anyone behind in regard to that, so I would welcome, perhaps in your summing up the timescale that you would be looking at in regard to at least thinking about when there are any changes. I think that this gives me the opportunity to say that clearly, those regulations will put more money into the pockets of more unpaid carers in Scotland than ever before and it will provide additional service and support. What is not to like about that? I warmly welcome those regulations. I think that it puts unpaid carers in Scotland, the best-supported group across the UK. We also have to go beyond that, of course we do, and I was encouraged to hear the Scottish Government's already looking at what next, as well as the very complex delivery of this Scottish carers payment. That is encouraging as well, but I would also put on the record that I think that this committee has a partnership and a scrutiny agenda with the Scottish Government, so it is not just a matter for our committee approving to those regulations and then us moving on to the next thing. I think that we should also be following through the success of the pilot and the full roll-out and returning to this as a committee. I warmly welcome this, it is the right thing to do. It is a good news story for Scotland but there is still so much more to do and I agree with Mr Balfour that we are not going to shirk away from the scrutiny of this as the pilot rolls out and we embed this new payment in Scotland. Has any other member got any comments or contributions? I am now going to invite the cabinet secretary to sum up and respond to the debate. I think that Mr Balfour's first point is not an issue for me but for committee, but it is noted and I recognise it from my previous times at committee as well, but I leave that for the committee to discuss should they wish to do so. The aspect around education settings, I do recognise as an important one for all the points that Mr Balfour has raised within the debates. It is something, as I said earlier, that we will look again on. I am not in a position at the moment to give a timetable to when that would be, but I recognise that that is something that has come up within the committee's evidence and we do need to look at that. I do not see that as one of those aspects that the long term requires to be after case transfer aspects. I hope that that gives a rough timetable for it without giving promises that I cannot keep because it is not just about consultation with stakeholders. It is also the requirement for us to look at what requirements that would need to be made, what changes would need to be made within the agency's programme and processes and what would have to be done to ensure that the system would be able to take care of any changes should we brought them forward. As Mr Balfour is well aware, none of these things are simple and none of these things, when it comes to a change in processing, can be done by any means overnight, but I hope that that gives him a reassurance that it is something that I intend to look at in due course. Thank you cabinet secretary. The question is that motion S6M-10324, in the name of Shirley-Anne some will be approved. Are we all agreed? The committee will report on the outcome of the instrument in due course and I invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to approve a draft of the report for publication. Are members all agreed? Thank you cabinet secretary and thank you to your officials as well. I am now going to briefly suspend the meeting till I for the setup of the next agenda item. Welcome back and our next item is an evidence session on the pre-budget. Last week we discussed budget priorities in general terms and explored the context for decision making on the Scottish budget. Today we will focus on more specific budget priorities covered by our remit and consider what a wellbeing economy would mean for those areas. I welcome to the meeting our panel, Paul Bradley, policy and public affairs manager at SCVO and Alison Davis, business manager at Cihilia. Thank you very much for joining us today and I invite members to come in with some questions for you. First of all, I invite Bob Doris. Thank you. Good morning Paul and Alison. I should say thank you to Alison and Cihilia, who have got a wonderful facility in my constituency of Meir Helen Springburn and the really great work that you do there. Mr Balfour would like to put these things on the record. Clearly, both are witnesses of a real insight into the impact on the voluntary sector of the cost of living crisis. I know that you could probably talk at length about that both of you, but if it is as concisely as possible you could put some of those challenges on the record this morning, like some follow-up questions to that. We will be Mr Bradley first. Of course. Thank you very much for inviting us along today. Before I go into some of the figures and the impact, it is important to remind ourselves of the role of the voluntary sector in Scotland. I know that this committee will be very familiar and as MSPs you will be going out into constituencies and meeting many of them. Obviously, voluntary organisations cover a lot of things, but very often they become the voice of the forgotten people who are less able to act but most impacted by the decisions that this Parliament and the Scottish Government take. They really are at the heart of our communities, whether it is things like community care or employability programmes, overseeing, maintaining programmes for the halls and museums and galleries, that staff and volunteers are going beyond at this moment in time, even when they themselves are really facing some significant challenges with their own cost of living crisis. That is further exacerbated by the funding challenges that you will hear from me about today. I think that you heard from Bill Scott at the last session who had said that the Poverty and Equality Commission had gone out and seen 20 organisations and all of them were saying that we have never seen pressure like this, we have never seen demand like this and that is reflected across the entire sector of those who are delivering front-line services. The figures speak for themselves. Nearly all voluntary organisations in May reported rising overheads, around 94 per cent of organisations, and that is usually down to staffing and energy. 71 per cent of organisations in May said that they were experiencing financial challenges and that was up from 67 per cent at the time of the last Scottish budget, so things have worsened. Half of those who have said rising costs and having an impact on their finances have said that that is having an impact on their ability to deliver their core activities and services, and that is a real issue across the board. If you look at sector finances just now, we have had the pandemic, we have now got a cost of living crisis. You will hear from me today about years of underfunding and poor funding practices. One third of organisations reported in May that they are now using their reserves to top-up services and pay staff decent wages, and half of those who are doing that say that the usage is unsustainable. That is not a surprise given that around 60 per cent of organisations, 60 per cent of charities in Scotland have less than six months' reserves, that is not long-term sustainability. That is just getting through each year the best they can. I think just to finish, these challenges are not new in the slightest. My first evident session at SCVO was in 2019 to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, I think that was its name back then, and that committee recognised, and I quote, a clear need to investigate how the third sector is coping under tougher financial conditions. I am very familiar with that report and I haven't seen the changes that were called for by that committee in relation to funding practices and fair funding and multi-year funding, and that is four years ago now. To finish, I think that the sector's efforts have been vital here, but we cannot mistake that short-term perseverance and the human cost that it has on the workforce and on volunteers for that long-term resilience. I hope that, if we can see from the budget, not just acknowledgement of the sector, always acknowledged for the work that we do and that is fantastic, but what we need to see is progress on funding and progress on seeing the voluntary sector as a true partner in the delivery of public services. That is very clear to Alison Davis. As a heliw for those who do not know about support swimming from racialised communities, we have mental health issues resulting from gendered abuses and are unable to access mainstream services. The reason they cannot do that is because of illiteracy, limited English language skills, severe and complex trauma, not knowing their rights, not knowing systems and services or how to access them. We have a specific niche group. We support just over 1,000 women each year from over 50 national backgrounds. They are some of the most vulnerable. Their children are often at risk and they are often at risk themselves. At the end of 2020, we saw a loss of 80% of our funding because of a variety of issues. Brexit meant that we lost very large European social fund and European regional development fund monies and because of contracting on a competitive level with very large mainstream organisations. We thought that that was fine because we could rely on income generated from our Edinburgh childcare, which was burgeoning, and then, of course, Covid hit. Covid lockdown vastly increased demand for our services and hugely reduced our ability to deliver them. We saw a quadrupling of demand in Glasgow and a doubling of at least an increase of 110% in Edinburgh. Increasing demand of women who cannot go anywhere else. We are funded to support women who cannot go anywhere else. To give you some idea of what that means, the cabinet secretary was just talking about their very laudable efforts to make their services open to all, accessible to all, and they have consulted with Sahilia and with our service users at some lengths. However, our service users cannot access any of those routes, so we only support women who cannot access any of those routes apart from through interpreters, and we would always urge caution against the use of interpreters. I can go into that at some length, if you wish. I am rather more concerned about how we, as a society, gather information on how to reach or what we would consider to be easy to ignore service user groups. Without service user groups, there is a range of issues that come up. If we are looking at the implementation, the delivery and the evaluation of human rights model funding, equalities, delivery, etc., there are a variety of things that need to be considered. For example, reliance on census data for information on our service user group. The census is, by definition, 10 years out of date, and now it is longer because of Covid. It is unaccessible by most of our service users because they come from backgrounds where authority is scary. As I have said, they are often illiterate in any language, and they have low-level English language skills. There is no baseline information. There are assumptions, for example, that European migrants are white, and one in four of our Sudanese service users and one in five of our Somali service users have come from another European country having received refugee status there. Again, we can go into that pattern of migration. It is really important to have sehiliau there because we can pick up on those anomalies, on routes of migration and needs, etc., which other organisations by definition cannot because of the way that we operate and we are funded. What is particularly special about us is that we are generally under the radar, we do not advertise what we do, and we have a gendered analysis of our approach to supporting new Scots communities and racialised communities. If the only routes to reaching these very vulnerable women who have already got severe mental health issues, whose children have got severe and complex trauma, vicarious or direct trauma, with huge repercussions for long-term educational outcomes and employability, etc., etc., if the only vehicle for reaching these people are organisations like sehiliau, and I would argue very much that we are the only organisation reaching this specific group, then funding is absolutely critical. The funding has to be predictable and it has to be consistent. We provide heavy end services and we do not know whether we have got funding next year or the year after. We have now no long-term funding. Feeding into the understanding of the needs of the client group, of the client group itself, racialised communities are often seen as homogeneous. Mrs Khan from Pakistan is seen in the same way as Mrs Khan from Sierra Leone and yet the risks attached to them, their children, etc., are very different indeed. We live in a world that is a point of shame where I do not often answer the phone but at least three times every year I pick up a phone and there is somebody on the end who is a highly educated professional who will say, can I refer somebody to you and I say, well, where is she from? Oh, she's from Africa. I said, well, which country? And then there's a pause. Well, she's from Africa. I say, okay, what language does she speak please? Another pause. Well, she's from Africa so she must speak African. I said, well, help me here because there's 700 languages in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of 54 countries in Africa and it will be the language that she speaks, which will give the biggest indication of whether the child is at risk of FGM or not. So it's having that kind of fine-tuning and a little bit more basic knowledge about New Scots communities in the mainstream, which is a stumbling block. Miss Davies, I feel guilty for stopping you because I could listen. This is really important for the committee to hear. But I suppose I need to direct it back to budget scrutiny, but really powerful in the committee. We'll absolutely consider this in the round more generally. So thank you for that. I suppose because it is budget scrutiny, both of it needs to be to clear the absolute challenges and financial pressures on the ground and the lack of certainty. So the Scottish Government's got some budget decisions to make. So how do you believe they should prioritise funds? How they should generate those funds or how they should re-prioritise from one funding stream to another? Now, I don't expect a hugely detailed answer unless you wish to give it, but just in general terms, do we need to increase the amount of money that we take in by raising additional revenue? Do we have to prioritise this area at the expense of another area? How do we realign the budget to deal with the real-cost pressures that affect the voluntary sector and your clients? Maybe Mr Bradley first. Yes, there's about half an hour answer to that. I know better. I will try to be quick. We would agree with the Scottish Human Rights Commission who spoke last week about needing to maximise available resources and SCVO. We kind of stay clear of conversations around taxation, primarily because people in our membership, organisations in our membership and non-members who have expertise in tax. What I would do is encourage the committee to look at the new report that's come out, the case for fair tax reform from a range of charities. I think that we're not close to the modelling, but the IPPR have taken a lead on that. I can't speak for it here because I'm not close to it. I think that it's an example of the sector playing a really key role in these debates and discussions. So if the committee isn't able to look at that today as part of pre-budget scrutiny, I recommend ensuring that organisations such as that are part of those discussions. I think that there's two things here. Yes, there's always a demand for more funding for voluntary organisations, but what I really want to focus on here just now is the money that's already in the system that isn't being used, that's sitting there, that's being... We know organisations that are still waiting for their funding five months into the new financial year and have received no communication from the Scottish Government. There's a lot of talk about lack of finances and no money available and challenges around that, and we fully understand that, but it has to be a real concern then to this committee, to Parliament, to the Scottish Cabinet that there is funding sitting there, money sitting there that isn't going to organisations at the time it should be. So that has an impact on the service. Can I just say, Mr Bradley, and I know how we need to be worried because time really is moving on, I think the committee would relate a distinction between money that's been allocated but not provided to that organisation or money that's sitting there unallocated because those are two separate things. So if you could address that and then I'll bring Ms Davidson before my colleagues get a chance to come and continue the question. Of course. So we know of organisations that have received a kind of vague intention to fund well into the financial year and still haven't received confirmation of funding. So it's not about payment of funds, it's actually confirmation of funding. So payment of funds is an issue as well, late payments after getting that confirmation, but there are organisations sitting there just now who are waiting for the Scottish Government to confirm that they will be receiving funding for this financial year and we are almost halfway through this financial year. Which is really important to draw to your attention, but you're not talking about unallocated funds that have not been received as what you're talking about, Mr Bradley. Sorry, I'd be helpful if Mr Bradley answered. Yeah, I'm saying that this is unallocated funding, it's not been offered to, it's not been confirmed for voluntary organisations and therefore those organisations aren't able to spend that funding. So it's an intention, and I'm sorry, but it's an intention to fund but without the pound signs beside it saying how much that fund will be? Without written confirmation. It's a kind of intention, it's a, the line usually is we give an intention to fund subject to final approval and then the final approval doesn't happen for months and months and months and organisations need to have that written confirmation. And I'm sorry for being so panicked with that, but does the intention to fund subject to final approval, does that tell you how much they would get if that final approval is given? Does it have a budget line? That's the key thing in relation to the scrutiny. Am I trying to walk around trying to be clear? Yeah, sorry, I don't know if it's up my head but I can come back to you on that. Because it's not unallocated funds if there's a pound sign beside it and it's notionally allocated to an organisation. There's not money we can move around. So I missed Davies and then I guess that's my last opportunity. Can I just quickly come in and just say that obviously we've got until 1050 and there's still a lot of members wanting to come in and ask a question. So if your answers could be so concise and succinct, thank you. I think for many organisations in St Yphysiheria and I've worked in the sector for over 30 years, what we would need is consistent funding. Even if at the same level as it is now, if we had consistent funding for five years for 10 years, as long as we're providing quality services and we're demonstrating that, then we can bring in and we've said this to statutory funders in the past and it's worked. If you give us £100,000, we can bring in £3, £5 from other sources for every pound that you give us because you're giving us some stability. We can demonstrate business continuity and other funders will go along without, they will match where you fund. So that's quite critical and I think there needs to be a lot more in budget discussions, a lot more sort of even back of envelope cost benefit analysis is what happens if you do not fund the route to the most marginalised. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. I'm now going to invite Jeremy Yn, thank you. Thank you. I mean, I think the deputy committee has picked up some really interesting points and I was really interested in your response, Paul. I do wonder if you could provide any written examples of that to the committee. Obviously, well-guarded men don't want to be named, but if you did, it would be helpful to have some real life cases we could take up with the Scottish Government. Obviously, we are looking at this year's budget, but we also got to look to future years as well. The Scottish Physical Commission has highlighted that there is going to be a fairly major gap within this budget within the next two to three years with over a billion pounds there. I wonder, I know you don't talk about taxation, but I wonder in a more general terminology where you think we would be going in regard to how do we bridge that gap and have you any views or do your members have any views around that? As I said, on revenue raising, the sector definitely does have a view on that. I repeat that report to scrutinise and to share a copy of that paper if that is useful after this session. I think that we are fully aware of the tough financial challenges that the Scottish Government faces, particularly the looming deficit in 27-28. There is that revenue generation part of it, but it is also about how do you get the most out of the money that is already in the system. We welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to public service reform. That has come up again in the programme for government again. However, we feel that that needs to be a big focus over the next few years. I have just put in a severe response to the procurement reform post-legislative scrutiny. It is quite eye-opening to see just how such a glacial pace that reform is happening to procurement in Scotland is absolutely critical. 1.8 billion worth of funding goes to the voluntary sector through contracts in the last year. There is a real issue that we agree that there needs to be efficiencies and it needs to be effective. Those efficiencies cannot really start with cost cutting. It has to focus on what services we need to deliver the best outcomes and impact. At the moment, organisations are telling us that there is very little focus on impact and outcomes. Despite the fact that the sustainable procurement duty is coming, one organisation I spoke to said that they have to squeeze that into forms, bidding forms, because they are just not asked about it. It is all about costs. Until we get past that, until we actually start to think about how do we use our money most effectively to deliver outcomes and impact in communities, we do not think just about numbers of places in, say, nurseries, but actually think about what impact is that having on parental employment and so on, then we are going to be in the same situation. It does not matter how much funding you bring in, it is just going to add to a system that does not work in terms of delivering for people and communities. How should you be nodding away there? Anything you would like to add beyond that? The procurement system just does not work. We were funded solely by the City of Edinburgh Council in the past. It used to fund us to the level of 22 per cent through contracts. It went out to Tender and a white male-led organisation got those tenders. The footfall remains, but we just cannot bid in the same way. We have not got a team of people to put the funding tenders in. The measurements do not have a full equality impact assessment in them. They say they do, but they do not because of the reasons that I was talking about just now. It is about knowledge of the most vulnerable. What would be your preferred methodology of allocating money? I would look at consistency. I would look at quality, the delivery of quality, and I would want a genuine impact, a quality impact assessment right across the board. I think that there is a lot of wastage. Again, if there was consistent funding, even at a low level, that enables voluntary sector organisations to plan and to secure other funding. Thank you very much. Do you have any comments to make about the progress that the Scottish Government is making to ensure that its commitment to fair funding principles in investing in the voluntary sector is implemented and progress towards multi-year funding commitments is made? That is a really important question. We have seen progress in the Scottish Government talking to SCBO and other organisations. That is welcome. That is something that we asked for last year. In terms of actual progress in the funding situation of organisations, I do not think that we have seen any progress at all. Like I said, it is good to see the programme for government commitment. We start to hear fairer funding used across the Scottish Government a lot more, but we do not really truly understand what fairer funding means. There is no real definition around it. There is a mention of perhaps progress into multi-year or something around processes, but they have not adopted SCBO's fair funding package. From organisations, we are hearing that the Scottish Government is using the fairer funding term in meetings and discussions with them, but the reality of the funding is anything but sorts. As I mentioned, we are receiving vague intentions to fund and waiting months to get written confirmation of funding. Organisations are being asked to develop elaborate business plans, adding to the paperwork, but then receiving no feedback from the Scottish Government on those and silence. People are saying that it will be another week, another month and then silence. I have already mentioned the delays in getting that funding. I think that it is so important, even if it has been allocated already. If it is not out there and being used, there are people not being supported. All of this causes major delays in delivering services and issues of staffing and potential redundancy notices and so on, so it is just not good. The programme for government is committed to developing a plan. We are called for milestones to be transparent because we need to hold the Scottish Government to account on this. It was the convener of the Finance Committee who said that a similar committee to this, back in 1999 to 2003, published a report with similar issues, and we are still having these discussions. That progress should have happened six months ago when the commitment was made in the prospectus. For us, given that organisations are telling SCBO that this is their worst year in terms of their funding relationship with the Scottish Government, I think that that is six months wasted. Emma Congrie, who was in front of this committee last week, mentioned that there is a feeling that the commitments and policies are announced with no thought to how they are implemented. There is a concern that that is going to happen here as well. There is some work going on in terms of using things like the community capacity resilience funds to test two-year funding and some changes to the funding criteria, but that is scratching the surface. I would say that we have re-welcomed the positive engagement of the cabinet secretary, re-frank and honest conversations about the challenges. Many of the issues that we have been talking about are not necessarily political issues, they are operational issues. We have welcomed meetings recently with senior Government officials about those issues, and a commitment is there to work with us and have dialogue around those, and that is welcome. However, what I would say is that those operational issues have an impact on policy delivery. If the money is not reaching organisations or organisations are not certain about the funding that they are going to get for the year ahead, then they are not able to plan and deliver the services that they would want to. As we know, inflationary uplift is something that SCRO has been calling for, particularly in terms of support for the living wage. There is new conditionality that is coming. That conditionality is super important to pay in the real living wage, but there is not funding to resource it. There are lots of issues there that need to be looked at. What we want to see this year is that timely communication and payments would make a huge difference for this upcoming funding year. I do not think that there is a huge cost to the Scottish Government. We would also like to see the Scottish Government do more around testing implementation of multiyear across major funds and using that to think about a model for 2026. One thing that I would ask the committee or the encouraged committee is that I have been listening to evidence sessions this week and all the fair funding issues have been coming up, whether it is the Culture Committee, the Health and Social Care Committee, the Finance Committee. I do not know whether there is the opportunity, as conveners of committees, to come together to look at SCVO's fair funding framework and to think about how those issues are being reflected across parliamentary discussions. It was quite eye-opening for me to see that the issues are being raised across the board. Multiyear funding is critical. It needs to be linked to quality outcomes, but it needs to happen now, because the situation is so critical. I am really sorry that you explained those issues. As a committee, we will feed that back to the Scottish Government. Touching on funding and how it is allocated, reducing child poverty is a priority of the Scottish Government. How does the funding of the voluntary sector support tackling child poverty? Does that have any implications at all for how funding is allocated within your own budget? I am going to bring Alison in on that. It is massive. The cabinet secretary was talking about the accessibility of processes. It takes at least four hours to apply for universal credit with somebody. It takes a member of staff four hours to do that. At least any form online will take about four hours. The resource implications for that are massive. We have seen a massive increase in risk to children because of domestic abuse and mental health issues following the Covid lockdown. All measures are massively resource intensive to put in place. We are really struggling. We have a parenting programme that is groundbreaking because it is a problem of women not being able to deal with children with additional support needs and high levels of stigma in communities. Carers allowance services are not being applied for. Support services are not being accessed. Diagnosis is not being made. People are not being registered as disabled. That process takes a lot of time, explanations and support in first languages. We have sporadic funding for that. A lot of our service users think that health visitors are linked to their home office. If they do not do the right thing, they are going to get deported. It is about how intensive that is and that that has increased massively since Covid and with the move to online applications and to remote working, which makes it very difficult. To explain that, often, somebody who is working remotely will say to one of our case workers, well, is the service user in the same room as you? We say no. She cannot give consent then, so she cannot get a service, and that can be emergency maternity services as well. I do not know if you want to come in, Paul, on my question. I would just say that, under a short time, many of you will be familiar with the poverty alliance and we have a challenge poverty week coming up. I think that there is a case in point of organisation that demonstrates the importance of funding organisations in this space, bringing in lived experience into policy development and collaborating and campaigning for improvements in things such as the Scottish child payment. We saw that last year. We will see that again this year in terms of their campaigning. Poverty Alliance for Challenge Poverty Week has come up with five key asks, and one of those asks is back in SCBO's call for fair funding. They recognise their members ahead of the anti-poverty summit that the First Minister held wanted fair funding to be a key item on the agenda. It reflects what poverty alliance is hearing from its members about the dire need for longer-term funding and more support for grassroots organisations. Those organisations play a crucial role. We have just heard from Alison about the specialist skills that they have and the ability to bridge the trust gap between communities and public authorities, as well as marginalised groups. The poverty alliance has a number of innovative ideas and solutions that it could put forward to the Scottish Government and to this Parliament to improve and tackle poverty. The fact that it picked fair funding for foreign organisations speaks a lot about the importance of that across the sector. At the previous committee meeting, the committee heard that, in addition to reducing child poverty, there are other groups of people suffering from poverty, young single people or the people who also need further support. Would you first agree with us, and how come the Scottish Government seeks to take that into account in its budget's decisions? Alison, I do not know if you want to go first to change your mind. It is very difficult. I would go back to consistent funding. It does not have to be more funding necessarily, although more funding would be good but consistent funding, so there is a framework of statutory funding to build with the funding and income around. I would say focus on the under-fives. From our experience, that is where the risk is. That is where the change can be made. I say focus on the under-fives. I would also say that we have a really well-informed equalities impact assessment for everything. That means stepping back, for example, and saying, do not spend money on huge interpreting contracts for the police and for the NHS, because the police and the NHS say that they do not really work for the most vulnerable. Think of the user Sahilia model. Sahilia would not need to exist. Think about bus travel. We have funding from the poverty alliance that enabled women to go to health services, to access health services, to go and learn English, all sorts of things that they could not do otherwise. I would agree that child poverty should be a priority, but minimum basic needs need to be met. It does not matter what circumstance you find yourself in, what community you are from or who you are. We, as a country, should be focusing on that, and voluntary organisations have a huge role to play there. I guess what I would say is that addressing poverty is, and we just heard in the last session a really good example, addressing poverty is about putting more money into people's pockets, but there is also the exclusion aspect around this. The role that the voluntary sector plays in ensuring that people feel connected in their communities is vital, whether that is for the halls, museums, groups. Listening to the culture committee the other day and hearing from voluntary organisations in that part of the sector about really bleak challenges that are ahead of them, and one example that they use is around charging for entry to these different venues. That is a real example. If you take funding away, if you do not support certain parts of society, that also has an impact on people living in poverty too, those who are on smaller wages. We need to look at the whole system, but I agree that it is difficult and it is not. It is very easy for me to sit here and say that we need to do that. It is a lot harder for Governments to be able to do that, but I think that we just need to be really, I think that it is the impact assessments understanding decisions taken in one area, how they affect other areas, and that is really important. It links that transparency point of view. The Government has got some really difficult decisions to make. No one is denying that at all. More transparency around how those decisions are made makes things easier. Yes, we might not like it, but we can better understand how those decisions are made and why they have been taken at this point in time. Thank you, Camilla. Okay, thanks very much. I am now going to invite Katie Clarkin. Thank you. The Verity House agreement signed by COSLA and the Scottish Government includes commitments to agree a new fiscal framework governing how local authorities funding is allocated. What implications do you think that that will have for voluntary organisations working with local councils? I will maybe bring Alison in first if she has got any thoughts. I think that it is really important, but again, I sound like a stock record unless those decisions of allocation of funding are going to be informed by a full understanding of equalities and the actual needs in the local communities, it is not going to be effective. Yes, it is laudable, but we have to have that baseline of knowledge. That would be your concern. Paul, have you got any thoughts? I agree. I think that it is welcome. We want to see local authority and Scottish Government talking, and that is what has got to this agreement, so that is positive. The voluntary sector is not party to that, so I think that anyone who is not, probably I am clear on the detail and what it will mean in practice, but my understanding is that it could be wrong, so correct me if I am. However, there is not really a focus on more funding coming from the Scottish Government, and if local authorities are going to face a funding shortfall, that is going to really knock on effect to voluntary organisations. The Accounts Commission has said that local authorities and communities face a stark future, and if it is going to be grim for local authorities, then it is probably going to be grimmer for voluntary organisations as well, particularly voluntary organisations that are working on those preventative services, usually largely anyway, non-statutory services that are the first to go, but then if you make cuts to that, it has a knock on effect to statutory services, and more people need to access that emergency support as well. I feel that it has come up again several times, but we know this at SCBRO as well, that all the invisible cuts have been made. Further cuts will have an impact on services, and it will impact on people, whether it is those who are accessing those services or those who are working in the voluntary sector as well. Yes, there is a positive step in terms of those relations, and we need those positive relations between local government and national government, so that is really welcome. However, we are looking from the sidelines and seeing what is going to happen here and what does this mean for us. It does things like ring fencing, for example, reducing that, and it does not impact the voluntary sector. Those are the kind of things that we will be looking at, and we will not want to make assumptions about that, but we are watching that space at the moment. Do you envisage any benefits, Paul? We just really do not know. There is just a real lack of optimism speaking to organisations in the voluntary sector that are working in local areas and communities about the possibility of improving funding, better funding arrangements and better relationships with contracting authorities. The challenge is that we are not party to that agreement. There was previously an accord between the voluntary sector, the cosler and the Scottish Government, and I think Solace as well, back in 2010 or around that time. Something on paper does not mean much to us at the moment. It is what happens, the reality over the next couple of years. It is the mechanism of how that funding is allocated as well. If it has to be through tenders that are cumbersome to complete and so forth, it will probably exclude those organisations that reach the most vulnerable. That is helpful. Paul, in your submission, you state that the contribution of the voluntary sector to the vision for a well-being economy remain largely unacknowledged. Would you like to explain that in more detail? Of course. When we are talking about that vision and the role in the economy, yes, we are talking about the Scottish Government and others, but it goes beyond that. It goes beyond the SVO saying this. It was the former chief economist to the Bank of England that said that UK-wide estimated value benefits of the charity set to voluntary set is around £200 billion, but in national counts it is about £20 billion. There is a huge difference. It is a real challenge to look at the value and monetise things like volunteering. Volunteers Scotland have done that and have said that about 1.2 million volunteers equates to about £2.8 billion to the economy. Obviously, there is all the informal volunteering, too, but the reason I start with that is because there is this perception that we give money to the voluntary sector to do good things. It is not an investment. I do not think that it is healthy that we should monetise everything. I think that it might have been yourself in the last committee that said, you know, is there a risk that we only focus on things that we can measure? I think Andy Haldane from the chief economist has said that that is exactly the problem. That is why we are forgetting about the voluntary sector across the UK, but because that is the nature of where we are at, there is work under way to look at this. DCMS UK Government funded a project to do a feasibility study on looking at aggregating RNS data. I think that the Fraser Islands Institute is working with that team to try and get Scottish data into it. What our ask is around this is ensuring the thinking about Scotland specifically, that the national performance framework includes for its review in 2028. We will not get it in for this round, but for the next one, we include an indicator about quantifying the sector's economic contribution to Scotland so that we can track and measure that. In terms of that lack of recognition, if we look at the NPF, for example, there is no mention of the voluntary sector, third sector or charities throughout. There is a mention of volunteering, but I believe that last time I checked a couple of weeks ago, the Scottish Government has taken a decision to remove volunteering questions from the Scottish Household Survey every other year, so they will only be asking every two years. I have just mentioned the economic contribution that makes that. That is something that we should be monitoring yearly. That might have changed since two weeks ago, but I think that it is important. The fair work and business outcome is no mention of the voluntary sector in any way, shape or form, despite the fact that the data and indicators that are used there include voluntary sector employers. If we are not focusing on those and not recognising those, where is the attention about our contribution to fair work, to living wage, to gender pay gap? We want to see recognition of that sector in the fair work and business outcome, but also overall in the NPF. A couple of other things, innovation strategy. Yes, a few mentions of the third sector, but it really does not capture the unique contributions of the sector, things like medical research, contributions to regional economic partnerships, health and so on. I think that there was a piece of research last year from British Heart Foundation and Fraser Valley Institute that I think in 2018 charities contributed £122 million to medical research in Scotland, created 7,400 jobs, 7,300 jobs, so there needs to be more focus on that. One positive is that we have recently, or in the last couple of years, managed to secure a space for the sector on the National Strategy for Economic Transformation Board. We have one sector representative in that, but I think that it points to a challenge of people seeing the sector as being something to be represented by one person. We have been unable to get organisations involved in the many different strands of that, so we have set up a smaller group to support that person to try and take some of the load off them, but we need broader involvement. There is a false perception of the voluntary sector quite frequently. I have got nothing against people in church halls doing fire arranging, but that is the kind of picture that comes to mind when people discuss the voluntary sector. There is no acknowledgement that we have a massive impact on employment, that we are very frequently highly professional staff in highly professional organisations delivering services, critical services to very vulnerable people, and that gets lost. I have got loads of notes and you have given us a lot of information today, so thank you very much indeed. There is so much coming over about consistent funding, about performance outcomes, et cetera, but I am wanting to focus a little bit on transparency and participation, if I may. The evidence that the committee has received has highlighted on-going concerns about the transparency of budgets. Have there been any improvements in the transparency of the budget, based on what you have told me earlier? I am not 100 per cent sure that there will be, but I would be intrigued to know what needs to be improved if we could start with that, and then maybe a couple of other questions that might spring off that. Paul, can I start with you? Equally, if you could be sure, I would like to hear both comments on that. I think that it is a challenge for us to re-understand the Scottish budget each year, to understand flows and changes in budget lines and the explanations around that. If you see an increase in the third sector support budget line, we do not actually know where that is going or where it has come from, so that is a big issue. It makes it hard for us to be able to comment either way, whether it is positive or negative. If it is a positive thing, it is very hard for us to stand out and say that. That is really important. There is an issue around transparency around funding to the sector. We have an online system on Power BI that shows the level of funding to the sector. We go through charity accounts and publish all that, but the Scottish Government does not have that central resource to publish and say that X amount of organisations are funded by the Scottish Government and these different funds. Often, they rely on our data, which is a challenge. There are also issues around decision making. For example, we called for consequentials from the UK spring statement to be passed on to charities. That has not happened. Therefore, the charities in Scotland do not have any support over the winter, and charities in England do. That is a concern to us, but we understand that it is a devolved competence in which the Scottish Government has the right to choose there. However, the transparency around how consequentials are spent would really help to us to understand why, for example, that has not been prioritised. I think that it would help as well with the relationships with the Government and with Parliament, because if we can better understand the thinking from Government in why that has not happened, we can communicate that out. Other organisations in the sector can then come to their own conclusions about what that means, but without that transparency, organisations are left looking at Government thinking where is the support. I agree with everything that Paul said, but we are removed from all those processes. If Paul said that we do not really know, Sehiliau certainly cannot know. If you can imagine that with increasing demand and fewer resources, masses of our time are spent on fundraising. We have 29 different funders that they all have to be reported to, and I have to make sure that they are replaced all the time. That becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you are not sitting at the table, you do not know what is going on, so you cannot apply to the right things at the right time. That is great. There are financial time pressures and financial pressures in preparing the budget, so what would be a realistic scope for further transparency in that process? I know that that is a bit of a strange question based on both your answers, but Paul, primarily, do you have any insights based on what you know and people coming to you that we could take on board regarding that? I think that where budget lines are compared with last year to better explain what has either contributed to that increase or decrease, for example, I think that social enterprise is moving to a different part of government under the economic or business director, so there is going to be a huge difference probably in Ferted to support budget line, but we will not know necessarily how much that is, so certain other cuts or increases could be included and we would not know. It makes it hard for us to say whether or not it is a good budget announcement or not. Organisations across the board, whether it is mental health or care, they do not know from the budget whether it is going to be positive for their organisation, particularly because, as I said, organisations are not hearing until March. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. The last question is really regarding participation because obviously we should have that input, so should the Scottish Government involve the public in setting the overall priorities for spending and what is the realistic scope for meaningful public participation in more detailed consideration of budget decisions? Obviously everything you said really feeds into that, but let's flip it on its head and see if you can give me some detail on how we do that proper participation. Paul, sorry, I'm just looking at you directly, but I think where you're coming from you want to give me a direct answer? Yeah, obviously at SCBA we don't work directly with people and communities, and so our focus is on organisations, so you probably would expect me to say that those organisations are working very closely with people and communities of different groups as Alison's organisation is as well. I think there's that risk if you don't have that infrastructure in place, you don't have those trusted networks to be able to understand what the challenges are, then there isn't going to be the right number of voluntary organisations and the expertise and the sector to be able to provide those opportunities to either directly individuals' influence or to, through all their engagement work and research and front-line workers, be able to feed into committees like this on what's needed. Okay, sorry Alison, if I could ask you because what it's sounding like is that participation is not actually there at the moment but it's really difficult to bring in, I'd be interested from your own perspective, am I right in hearing that, and what would you say? I suppose we get consulted a lot and where possible we provide responses to consultations, but we don't get much feedback from that, so whether it's the public sector quality duty or the funding of violence against women organisations, we don't get a lot of feedback. We have from the cabinet secretary who's just left because they did a lot of consultation with us through Poverty Alliance, with whom we work very closely. Thank you very much, that's been very helpful. Thank you. Just before we finish up, Bob Doris wants to come in with a quick... Yeah, okay, well in which case I'll go for the shorter one rather than the longer one. Mr Bradley, you specifically mentioned in relation to the Verity House agreement that you thought it was 2010 that there had previously been a fund that the third sector was involved in. My memory of that is that it was the change fund for older people and it ran for four years, and it was £300 million. The key aspect of that is that it had to be signed off by the NHS, by local authority and the third sector in directing that cash. So in relation to the Verity House agreement, with the reduction in the elimination of ring fence, do you have any comments to making what the role of the third sector should be in relation to reduced ring fence? Given that in 2010 for four years we had a relationship where it had to also be signed off by the third sector? Yes, and I wasn't aware of that fund. The specific thing I was talking about was that it was an agreement between Cosler Solace and the voluntary sector and the Scottish Government. On the ring fence, it could be a problem for the voluntary sector. It really depends on the development of public service reform. If we carry on delivering services like we currently do, then that's an issue, but if we focus on outcomes and impact and the services that are going to deliver the most there, then I think there's a lot of opportunity for the voluntary sector because they do have significant impact and outcomes. That's probably what I would say on that, but I'm happy to follow up if you've got any other questions. We could be talking about different funds, Mr Bradley, but I thought that might have been the one that you're referring to. I'm out of time for my second supplementary. The Scottish Shale payment was mentioned and direct payments were mentioned. This year that will cost £405 million. If that was to increase to £40,000 from £25,000 that some campaigners are asking for. I have sympathy for it, but it has to be paid for. That would be an additional £250 million. That would be less money to spend in organisations such as the Helga, who are at the coalface, dealing directly with the most excluded in marginalised. Is there a balance to be struck between direct payments into the pockets of families very much in need and those small organisations at the coalface providing support because we can't spend the same pound twice? If mainstream services are fully informed, there would be more direct payments going to our service users and the Heli would need to exist. If we had a more adequately informed equality and practicement and then resulting mainstream service delivery, all the money should go to the direct payments, but that is not the situation that we are in. I don't envy it at all. As I said, it's a really difficult balancing act to have and reducing poverty is about getting money into people's pockets. However, as I mentioned, if you are reducing cultural opportunities and being able to visit places for free, those people will be excluded from those opportunities as well. It doesn't matter how much more money they have, there won't be a reward for those activities. We need to be a focus on the balance between prevention but also providing direct support to people. I'm not saying that it's easy, but people who have spoken to me as part of our procurement investigation have said to me that they don't feel that anyone is really looking at the whole system. No one is really looking at it at all and understanding that is a huge task, but they don't feel that change can actually happen. Thank you very much. I thank Paul and Alison for their contributions today. It's been very much appreciated. Next week, we'll hear from a further panel on the budget as well. That concludes our public business for today. We'll now move into private to consider the remaining items on the agenda.