 Welcome to the 11th meeting of the Welfare Reform Committee for 2015. Can I start by asking everyone to make sure that their mobile phones and electronic devices are on silent, or at least switched to airplane mode. Today's meeting might be slightly shorter than we had originally intended when we began the agenda for it. That is because we had originally hoped to invite Atos and Salis to appear before us today, ac yn dda yn ddweud, ond re cael ei bod yn ddynnu ffrindio rydwg ond dw i'n 23 wrth am 1 ddeunau. Ond oedden nhw'n cael ei wneud o'r agenda item one,quaddiant o'r Fflaen, gyda siaradau Cymru Cymru y Ddioged Cymru, sy'n cael ei fod yn meddwl am gweinio'r ffordd. Felly, rydw i fynd i'ch ei wedi fawr i'r gwaith i ni, a'i gael i ni o'r Fflaen y diogdau Cymru Cymru, Cymunedau y Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners' Rights, Jamie McDougall, Head of Social Security Policy and Delivery and Edward Dorr's Senior Policy Officer for Social Security Policy and Delivery Division. I'll pass over to you, Cabinet Secretary. Do you want to make any opening comments? I'll make a few brief ones, convener. I'll keep them brief so that we can get a chance for a wider discussion. Thank you very much indeed for the opportunity again to come in front of the committee. I think a lot has happened, actually, since the last time I appeared in front of the committee in terms of the welfare powers that are to be transferred to the Scottish Parliament. Can I say right at the beginning, and I want to emphasise this, as I did at the last meeting, that we're about to begin a consultation process on what to do with the powers and how they fit in with existing powers and so on. I'm very, very keen to ensure that this committee is involved in that consultation as a key participant and that we work together on all of this because I do think that if we can get a consensus in the Parliament on the way forward once the powers are transferred and how they fit into existing powers, I think that that would be beneficial, not least to the people who are reliant on these benefits for their wellbeing and their standard of living. I think that there are real challenges that we're all aware of ahead in terms of taking forward the powers from the Smith commission. The challenge is associated with austerity and dealing with the consequences of the UK Government's welfare reforms. Particularly, obviously, there is an emergency budget schedule for 8 July, when at least some of the £12 billion of additional reductions in the welfare budget being proposed by the UK Government, hopefully some of the detail of that will become clear and what the impact will be on the powers specifically that are to be transferred to this Parliament. Obviously, we don't know the details of those cuts at the present time. We haven't been consulted about them. I would hope that we would be consulted, but I suspect not. We are particularly concerned about the impact on women, children and people with a disability because we believe that these are the three categories of people who have been particularly adversely affected by the reforms up until now. Obviously, again, we will be interested to hear what the committee has to say about the additional reform stroke cuts and what impact they will have and how you respond as a committee to that. Ageno has been recent research from Inclusion Scotland and the Scottish Government showing the very real fears that people have about welfare reform. Last week, I wrote to the UK Government setting out their concerns on the £12 billion and on the future of the joint ministerial group about the transfer of welfare powers, and I am happy to update the committee on progress on those matters. There have already been a couple of meetings with the UK Government to discuss the transfer of the new powers prior to the general election, but progress has been a bit slow since the general election. Indeed, I have a planned conversation with the Secretary of State this afternoon to try to agree a way forward to reconvene the joint ministerial committee on the transfer of powers. Clearly, in the UK Government, there has been a change of personnel. The Secretary of State was the Minister of State, although I believe that he is going to continue, along with myself, to co-chair the committee. However, there have been changes at DWP and Treasury personnel, so that needs to be sorted out about who is going to represent the UK Government and then, hopefully, will reconvene fairly soon and get on with the job. Obviously, since the general election, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have both said that the Scotland Bill will implement the Smith commission recommendations in full. We believe that the Scotland Bill, published on 28 May, falls short in a number of key areas. Apart from modest changes to the welfare provisions, the policy reflected in the bill is pretty much identical to that published in January. However, the unanimous report of the Scottish Parliament's Devolution Further Powers Committee concluded that, in some critical areas, the UK Government's draft clauses fell short of the Smith recommendations. It is extremely disappointing that so little progress has been made in the four months since the draft clauses were published, despite a range of constructive suggestions and engagement by the Scottish Government. We have, for example, drafted and shared with the UK Government a full set of alternative clauses on welfare, which would have implemented the relevant Smith commission recommendations, but those have not been included in the Scotland Bill. The Scottish Government will continue to press the UK Government to amend the bill to ensure that it reflects the substance and the spirit of the all-party Smith commission. The greatest priority at the moment is to ensure that people have the opportunity to have their say on those new, as we prefer to call them, social security powers. I value the work that is being taken forward by a number of organisations, including the committee and the NGOs, in relation to that. I think that we can discuss in detail the consultation process, either here or offline, to make sure that we are being inclusive and the committee is satisfied that we are including all the key stakeholders, including and, in particular, those who are or could be recipients of benefits, because it is how they are affected that matters more than anything. A lot of work is going on behind the scenes to prepare for the new powers. Officials are met with a range of people and organisations from the UK Government devolved areas in wider field, and much more still remains to be done. However, I do believe that we will, by the end of the year, hopefully have a much clearer picture on what we want to do with those powers, hopefully on a consensual basis, and not just looking at those powers in isolation but looking at them in the context of all the powers that the Scottish Government will then have in relation to social security and how we maximise the impact of those budgets and powers to benefit the people that we are here to serve. One of the important reasons why we invited you here today is that we, as you know, committed earlier to having an inquiry in the autumn into how additional welfare powers promised under the Smith agreement might be used in practice, for example, how the new PIP would operate in other areas. At the time, you thought that that was a good idea, but you have just made it clear just how fast things are moving and how quickly you might see some change taking place. Do you still think that our proposal to have an inquiry in the autumn will serve a purpose? I do, convener, because I think that there are a number of issues here that will need to be fleshed out and will actually not necessarily be fleshed out by the time we get to the end of this calendar year, because once those powers are transferred you effectively have two welfare social security systems operating in Scotland. We will have the social security system being operated by the Scottish Government and the social security system being operated by the UK Government. The interaction between those is extremely important. For example, I am very keen that we try to get one delivery system for both systems so that people are not forced physically to shop around and can find it much easier to find out what they are entitled to, whether it is a Scottish Government programme or a UK Government programme. Secondly, the decisions and policy of one system will have an impact on the other. One example is carers allowance. We are keen to increase the level of carers allowance to equate to the jobseekers allowance, but a consequence of that with universal credit is that any additional money that we give to carers will be treated as income under the Department of Work and Pensions system for universal credit. That is one and just small example of where decisions in one system can impact what happens in the other system. It is a net effect for, in this case, carers that we need to look at. There needs to be a degree of co-ordination between the two administrations on an on-going basis. I just picked those as examples of the kind of issues that this committee almost has a watchdog role in looking at how the new system or the new ways of doing things are implemented and looking at their impact. I think that over a period of years, probably, there is a watchdog role for this committee to look at how the two systems are operating, what the impact is, each on the other, and particularly what the impact is on the end-user of the services. That is in addition to the policy issues. For example, at the moment, as you know, we have asked for two things in relation to PIP, which you mentioned, convener. The first is that we think that it would be sensible to stop the roll-out of PIP at the moment throughout Scotland, because we do not want to roll out PIP and then very shortly replace it with something else that we agree would be better in Scotland. That would mean that the new system would be better in Scotland. That would mean that these beneficiaries, disabled people, would have had three different systems operating probably within the space of about three or four years. I do not think that that is very clever and that it is very expensive. Secondly, the budget for PIP is likely to be reduced under current plans by 20 per cent. We have been arguing that the PIP should be transferred before the budget cut so that we can then decide whether we want to continue with the new system. The current planned levels of benefit for PIP or, as some of that, it can be better targeted to more disabled people, for example. Those are examples of the kind of issues that the committee needs to be highly involved in. I think that there is still merit in an inquiry and maybe a slightly different remit from what was originally envisaged. That is helpful, cabinet secretary. I know that you watch the work of this committee closely and you will have seen from last week's evidence in relation to our inquiry into the impact on women of the social security changes. The example of any increase in carers allowance and its impact because of universal credit. Importantly, some of the contributors last week started to talk about what they wanted to see happening. Also, in relation to how they interact with current powers and policies. Have you given any thought to anything that you heard last week in relation to how our current system of support for women through the services that are currently provided can be enhanced or progressed further with the new powers that you expect us to have? Well, there is no doubt that women, children and particularly disabled have been particularly impacted by the welfare reforms and cuts. I therefore think that how we address that situation is a top priority. However, one of the things that I am determined not to do is to pre-empt the consultation that we are about to launch before the summer recess. I think that it would be wrong of me to do that because I actually do think that we want to listen to what people are saying before we actually start to comment on whether one particular option is better than another. The one thing that I will say is that whatever we do we have got to give priority to trying to improve the situation for women, children and the disabled because they have been particularly adversely affected. However, at this stage, if I start providing a running commentary on every new idea that comes forward during the consultation process, I think that that would be unfair to the people who are making a contribution. I think that my job at the end of it is once we have got all the feedback is then with my officials to go through all of that and then come forward with a set of proposals which hopefully can gain consensus. However, we are monitoring very carefully what people like last week, what is being said and the ideas that are coming forward. As well as the actual benefits and the targeting of benefits and the level of benefits and the regularity of payment of benefits and in the case of housing benefit to whom it is paid, all of these issues are extremely important. However, the other thing is how the benefits system actually delivers its services because there is no doubt in my mind at all that one of the major problems for people is just the sheer number of benefits centres they are dealing with. I mean, I think I mentioned the last time I was here in one case I actually sat with a constituent and dialed six different benefits centres and was then referred back to the first one before we actually get a solution to the problem. Now, that costs me about £7 or £8 in my mobile phone, which I paid in expenses, but somebody who is on benefit, if you are on jobseekers allowance and barely getting just over £70 a week, you cannot afford £6 or £7 on your mobile phone to shop-round benefit centres. So, that is a kind of example of the kind of thing, I think, if we take that kind of agro out of the system, we will be doing everybody a big favour. I will look up to the members of the committee to ask questions if they want to. Kevin, do you want to go first? Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary. Last week we had a number of organisations around the table and they expressed an opinion that they would like to see. They would like to see the sanctions regime devolved to the Scottish Parliament and, in particular, a number of folk highlighted the disconnect between devolving employability programmes but not the conditionality and sanctions regime. Is that something that you would support? Would you support their view? I think that the sanctions regime, as it is currently administered, is very harsh, it is very inhumane, and I think that it is causing enormous poverty and causing people to get into debt that could be avoided. The purpose of the sanctions regime is to punish, if I can use that word, people who are not genuinely looking for a job. Let me say right away that I have no truck with people who try to defraud the system or who try to manipulate the system and do not play by the rules. I have got no sympathy for those people whatsoever. I think that they then bring the whole system into disrepute and that is not beneficial to anybody. Having said that, the number of people in that category is very small. I think that the vast bulk of people who are on benefit are genuinely in benefit because they cannot find a job or they are not fit to work. I certainly, in my experience, spoke to people on universal credit as well in Inverness. The reasons for some of the sanctions are absolutely absurd. I have seen people sanctioned because they were a few minutes late for an appointment. I was actually told in Inverness, under universal credit, you have got to either spend 35 hours a week on a computer looking for a job or 17 and a half hours looking for a job and 17 and a half hours volunteering. Somebody was threatened with sanctions for volunteering more than 17 and a half hours. That is an absurdity. Other examples were somebody going for an appointment at the job centre and at the very last minute the babysitter could not make it. As a result of that, they could not make the appointment, phoned up and explained the circumstances. They were then sanctioned. What happens when people are sanctioned? First of all, their money is cut off. In most cases, they are not actually told that their money has been cut off. They only find out when they go to catch their money at the bank. That is additionally for an indefinite period. The number of people that I have had at my constituency surgeries, and I am sure that everybody else is the same, has gone into enormous debt. Even going to money lenders in order to make ends meet is very significant indeed. I think that the sanctions regime needs, as it stands, to be completely scrapped. I am absolutely in favour of saying to those who refuse to look for a job for no good reason that we are going to deal with them and we are going to take action to try to ensure that they do look for a job. I think that the extremities of the sanctions regime are extremely damaging. Ironically, at the end of the day, it could possibly cost the public bus more money than it saves because you end up with people who become destitute, who then require local services in terms of housing or the social work department or welfare rights or a range of other services. If you did an exercise, you would probably find in a number of cases that by sanctioning those people for entirely the wrong reasons, we actually cost the public bus more than we save. I visited Aberdeen Council for voluntary organisations yesterday and their cash in your pocket team were giving examples of difficulties around the sanctions regime. I think that you are right that it probably costs more to do it this way and the state has to pick up all of those additional costs. One of the things that was said is that we have a situation where folks are sanctioned. Often that sanction is overturned, but by that time the damage is done. Another debt is accrued. Folks will get their money back but they won't get any interest in that money. How do we ensure that a system that we set up if we get the powers over sanctioning as well? How do we ensure that we create a fair system? At this stage, I am not optimistic that we will get the powers over sanctions because, as things stand at the moment, the indications are that that is not going to be the case. First of all, you start from the basic. If you look at the policy of the Department of Work and Pensions, and I have spoken to the head guy in this, the policy is that the people who are sanctioned are the people who are genuinely not looking for work. Not people who genuinely couldn't miss an appointment because the babysitter couldn't make it or were genuinely late or for rather very good reasons couldn't turn up. The first thing that I would do is abolish the targets that DWP officials have for sanctioning people because I think that that is driving a lot of the inhumanity in the system. The first thing that I would do is abolish those targets. Secondly, I would enforce the rule that the only people who are sanctioned in any way are people who are genuinely not looking for work. You give them the opportunity to correct their behaviour. When I say the word sanction, I wouldn't be a sanction in terms of immediately drawing their money and not telling them that their money is withdrawn because you've got to look at the consequences of that. As I say, the consequences could be far more damaging than is currently the case. I think the previous situation where people were, as it were, warned, they got a warning, sometimes they get two or three warnings, and then at the end of that period, when they absolutely refused to do anything, that's when action was taken. I think that that would be a much more humane system, while at the same time making sure that people genuinely look for work. But I think it is fair for society to say if you're not going to look for work and you're fit to work and you're just going to abuse the system, then we're not going to allow that to happen. But at the same time, you can't punish that person's kids or their spouse because of that. So you have to be very careful about how you do it. You have to be humane and you have to be proportionate, and it has to be effective. So I think the previous regime, which, before those sanctions, the current regime of sanctions was introduced, the previous regime was closer to what was a better system than the existing system. So you're talking about no targets, which I think this committee would agree with. The DWP, of course, denied that there are any targets, but we have plenty of anecdotal evidence that there are, and you're talking about a more personalised service tailored to the individual and what's going on in their lives. How can we have that personalised service if there is that disconnect between employability services, which we are likely to get with the transfer of powers, if we don't have the control over the sanctions part as well? We've made it very clear. Leave aside my position on the constitution. Just from a practical point of view, it seems to me that the current suite of powers being transferred is wholly inadequate. You either transfer the whole suite of relevant powers or you end up with the kind of mess that we're in danger of ending up with two systems, which could actually end up contradicting and undermining each other. And sanctions is a very good example of that. So my view is that all the welfare powers should be transferred to this Parliament. If it's good enough to have the ones that are being transferred, if you apply the same logic to the other powers, then logically they should be transferred. And that would avoid a lot of the problems, I think, that are going to arise under the current proposals, which have already mentioned a number of them. And it would allow us also to tailor the social security system in the way we want for the needs of people in Scotland. Because clearly we, I think, it's fair to say, would do things very differently and one of the ways in which we would do things differently, I think one of the problems you know is, let me give you three practical problems people genuinely looking for work have. Number one, finding access to a computer for 35 hours a week. A lot of people in these low income groups just don't have access to a computer and it's very difficult to get access to a computer in many areas particularly in rural communities for 35 hours a week. Secondly, as I said earlier, they're dealing with people that can't even see eye to eye because they're dealing with these call centres all the time and I don't think personally there's any substitute for an eye to eye contact with people who've got problems with their benefits. I'm not saying you have to do that every week to pay out the benefit but people who've got problems and they should be able to see someone and talk to someone. And the third thing is, in the moment, we've got a very diverse system between the people who are responsible for administering benefits and the people who advise clients on what benefits are entitled to. Now I personally think we should look at co-location of the people who administer the benefits with the welfare rights organisations because I think then you would get much more rounded service, people wouldn't need to shop around and we could get a bigger bang for the buck in terms of the money we're spending on welfare rights and more people assisted. And I think it would prevent a lot of claims going to appeal for example, problems could be nipped in the bud much quicker if there was co-location. I'm not saying the same person because I think it has to be two separate people and two separate organisations but if they were co-located so that you could check there and then with welfare rights that what you've just been told is right and you're getting everything you're entitled to then I think that's quite a preventive measure in terms of preventing problems. And it's one of the areas that I personally want to look at is the co-location of these services. Thank you very much. Thank you, convener. Clear to be followed by Christina. Thank you, convener and cabinet secretary. If I could just run to the issue of the impact on children, we took a one-off evidence session on the effective in children services budgets and what came through was that it was a sanctions regime. Low-paid work was put in incredible pressure on families. It was in case of mental health in families. We also took evidence from Bernardo's last week who said that instead of in the perfect context I've been able to do early intervention and work with children that they're much more likely to be dealing with crisis at the moment. All to do with the push of the savings and the WP being pushed out to other services like the third sector, like social services, like those other areas. Personally, I think that it's morally reprehensible that we're sanctioning anyone who has a child to look after. I just wondered if you and the Scottish Government are considering doing any substantive work on the cost to society, the more general cost to society, the effects of not being able to do that early intervention work for young people and the effect that poverty will have in the long term in Scotland? In various parts of the Government we're constantly doing impact assessments and evaluations, and of course we also rely on outside organisations who do their own work, provided they're reliable and respectable organisations. But what we'll do is, alas Jamie, just to give you an indication of some of the work that we're actually doing or will be doing and have done in terms of looking at impact assessments of policy changes. As the cabinet secretary said, we've got various studies going on, which I think you've seen recent reports on about the impact of the current welfare reforms. Those will be updated when we know more about the scale and where the further £12 billion of cuts will fall. Those are long-term, longitudinal studies and a lot of the impacts are not clear straight away exactly what the impacts they have, and some of them are much longer term. Those are apparent with the limiting up-rating type of cuts, so it might not be apparent very quickly. Over the long term, the more that you keep down and limit up-rating against inflation and everything else, it becomes increasingly worse. We're quite happy to send the committee a list of the studies that are being undertaken both by ourselves and by other parts of the Scottish Government, which are affected by this policy area. I want to pick up on the point that my colleague Claire Adamson has just made and extend that a wee bit. We heard from a number of organisations within the committee and outwith the committee, but have fed into this whole debate. Closing up for society and gender, people like that, who have talked about the gendered barriers within the current system. You and I, Cabinet Secretary, have fought a long and tiresome battle in Lanarkshire for equal pay for some of the people who work in our local authorities, most of them women. I just wonder whether the Scottish Government has taken what can be nice since it has taken off gendered barriers and whether it has taken any action to try to break down those barriers. It's very much the forefront of all of our thinking. The First Minister has given a heavy emphasis to the need to ensure gender fairness, balance and equality. We will apply those principles rigorously in any policy development that we undertake in relation to that. We are looking at the evidence. You have had some of the evidence in terms of gender barriers. We will look at ways in which we can break down those barriers and have gender equality. Clearly, there are areas where women are not always treated as fairly as men. In some cases, it might be attitudinal. In other cases, it might be just in terms of how some of the benefits are being applied. However, wherever the barriers are, we want to break them down. In fact, that would make a very useful addition to the remit of the inquiry that the convener referred to at the beginning. It is to make sure that any new system that we are introducing tackles the gender barriers and takes them down and makes sure that we get equality between men and women in terms of how the whole system works. Cabinet Secretary, I really appreciate that the figure that we have in front of us is that 85 per cent of all welfare reforms are impacting on women, especially women with children. Women who are either out of work or in low-paid jobs. There are two aspects of welfare reform that I want to discuss with you. One is the benefits cap, which I will come back to. The other one is universal credit. One of the things that we hope from Smith is the devolution of universal credit, but the administration of universal credit and one of the real concerns of that, especially in households where the women are low-paid, with a situation with domestic violence or things like that going on in the household, where the universal credit would be paid to the one householder. Would there be any room within a Scottish system, should you have that power, to ensure that it is the key person and not just the man who gets paid the universal credit? That is a fundamental principle of applying equality. You would not automatically pay it to the male person in the household that you would pay it to whoever was the appropriate person. You need to define the appropriate person. One of the benefits of child benefit, as introduced by Barbara Castle all those years ago, is that it was paid to the mother. That was positive discrimination in favour of mothers. It was done for very good reasons because they ever showed in a lot of cases where the male member of the household picked up the child benefit and the mother never saw it in many cases. That was done for very good reasons. There has to be very clear indications of when and to whom you pay it, under what circumstances. The three immediate changes to universal credit that we have asked to be able to make as soon as possible are number one, just to formally abolish the bedroom tax in Scotland, because we are paying for the abolition anyway, so we might as well abolish it. Again, I actually think probably if there was an exercise done, the bedroom tax is probably costing more public money than it is saving because it costs about £24,000 to £40,000 depending on the circumstances to make somebody homeless. One person becomes homeless because of the bedroom tax. That is a lot of bedroom taxes for a lot of people. The second major immediate change that I would like to make for the flexibility to do so sooner rather than later is to allow people to be paid a weekly or fortnightly and not just monthly. I do not think that the way that the computer systems have been set up, I do not think that it is possible to do it weekly, long term. Twice monthly? Twice monthly, so fortnightly basically, because I think that people are finding it difficult to manage on a monthly basis, especially if they have been used to weekly payments. The third immediate flexibility is to pay the housing benefit directly to the landlord under the old system. 96 per cent of housing benefits were paid directly to the landlord and the number of people who get into trouble because of non-payment or into debt, because of non-payment of their housing benefit was tiny. I think that everybody has agreed that it was a far more sensible system than what we have now. To be honest, I think that the Department of Work and Pensions is beginning to roll back a wee bit on this policy. I know that it has been done for good intentions to make people responsible for their own actions. That sounds great in theory, but in practice a lot of people are getting into debt because they are using their housing benefit payment to pay for other things, which is perfectly understandable. Feed the family, buy shoes or whatever for the kids for school and all the rest of it. I think that going back to the system whereby you pay it to the landlord, unless the beneficiary explicitly exercises their right as 4 per cent debt under the old system, they will be paid directly. I think that that would be beneficial to women as well, by the way. Absolutely, I agree with you. Last week, I asked some questions about the proposal to reduce the benefits cap even further, and how that impacts on low-paid women. There are women who are in minimum wage jobs, who have not worked around about the school day and who are having top-up benefits in order to survive. I noted last week that Lord Kerr in the Supreme Court had ordered a judicial review of the benefits cap on the impact on children of having adequate food, clothing, warmth and adequate housing. I wondered whether you welcomed that judicial review. Given my addendum to that question last week, it was about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a possible withdrawal from the ECHR and the Human Rights Act and the ability of anybody to challenge them. When we get to a system where the fundamental needs of children are not being met, how can we remedy that? We cannot continue mitigating a bad system, so how can we remedy the system that it supports young people in that way? That is my point. It is very difficult for us to remedy or to mitigate it because, quite frankly, we do not have the resources to mitigate it. Of course, we do not have the powers to override the decisions of the UK Government in these matters. That is another reason why I would like to see all those powers transferred here, because I think that we would take a much more humane approach to those matters than is perhaps the case. I understand, again, the rationale for a cap, but the cap is a very crude instrument. I think that it has unintended consequences, which are damaging to the most vulnerable sections of our society. I personally would not apply the kind of crude cap that we have at the present time. I have to say that a much better system was what we used to have in this country, which was earnings-related benefit. That is the same in most continental countries, where the amount that you are paid in unemployment benefit or sickness benefit is earnings-related. There is a cap on it, because if you are earning £200, you are not going to get the same share of £200 as you are going to get of £20, if you are earning £20. The earnings-related benefit system that we used to have in this country, which is fairly common in the continent, in my view, is a far better approach to dealing with those issues than crude instruments like caps. I think that it satisfies a lot of headlines, but it has a lot of hidden consequences that are very damaging particularly to children, disabled and women. Do you use to support the judicial review and would you be against any withdrawal for the ECHR? Do you mean that the argument policy is very clear in that we are utterly opposed to any withdrawal from the convention or any backtracking on the human rights act? I will be aware of reports in The Guardian this week that David Cameron has refused to rule out cuts to disability benefits, and said that he is not going to make any more further cuts to child benefit. What implication does that have for Scotland? Not just for Scotland, it would have a huge implication across the UK for disabled people. The level of poverty amongst disabled people is far higher than the general level of poverty amongst the general population. If you look since we are talking about welfare to work as key to all of this policy being driven, the ability of disabled people to get into employment is about half the chances of the broader population. People with learning difficulties have only about a quarter of the chance of getting into employment that the general population has, so those people are very, very disadvantaged in life. We have to rectify those disadvantages, particularly by getting them into appropriate employment and reasonably well remunerated employment. Until we can do that, they should be entitled to a good standard of living under the benefits system. It is not their fault that they are disabled. It is not their fault that they are finding it extra difficult to get a job. It is not their fault that they are having to rely on the state for the entirety of their income. I suspect that the way in which that is going to be done is not by reducing the disability benefit but possibly by taxing the benefit. Again, I would have thought that that would be very... First of all, I do not think that I will raise much revenue if the tax is fair because there are very, very few disabled people probably earning enough, or getting enough of an income to pay tax in the first place. Secondly, again, tax is a very crude way of doing it because the reason people have these disability benefits is because it is based on need. They need more benefits than somebody who is simply unemployed but not disabled because you have additional expenditure, additional living costs if you are disabled. Clearly, the current system where you have got would be higher levels for mobility and care and lower levels. That is designed that in itself recognises that people have different degrees of need. Therefore, to start to undermine that would be a very aggressive step. I totally agree that people will be affected right across the UK. I think that the tenor of my question was given that some disability benefits are going to be devolved to the Scottish Government given that, as you have identified, the talk is of taxing disability benefits. What are the implications for us if we mitigate some of the... or try to improve the benefits for disabled people? The UK Government could then take away that through time. Again, we would need to be very cognisant of that because there is no point in us paying out money that then lands back in the Treasury in the form of income tax. We would need to design a system that avoided that happening while maintaining the standard of living of the disabled people were trying to help. In terms of the vetoes, which the Devolution and Further Powers Committee has highlighted, how concerned are you that those vetoes will stop you doing exactly what you have outlined there? I'm very concerned because, quite frankly, Ian Duncan-Smith has fought this tooth and nail. If in law he has the power to veto, my view is that he'll use it. I think that Ian Duncan-Smith would use the power to veto. Therefore, we want to see in the Scotland Bill the power to veto completely removed so that there is no huffing and puffing, there's no dubiety about what the law states. It should not have the power for a devolved responsibility. It should not have the power to veto full stop. We would expect, hopefully, that amendments will be carried during the course of the passage of the Scotland Bill to rephrase and, hopefully, to substitute the relevant clauses for the clauses that we have already suggested to the UK Government in which, disappointingly, had not been included in the Scotland Bill that was published last week. In your introductory of the match, you mentioned there'd be two separate social security systems in Scotland if this goes ahead. Will there be an interface where it would all come together or a simplified forum where you wouldn't have to fill in separate forums? We are already hearing lots of evidence around how difficult those forums are to complete. Has there been any work done around that? We have agreed in principle in the Joint Ministerial Committee with David Mundell that, at no time during the transition or thereafter, should anybody who's reliant on benefits lose out in any way or have any period during which they're not paid benefit as a result of the changes that we're making, I absolutely think that it would be common sense for us to have a system whereby, at a policy level, we consult each other before finalising policy to look at the impact or unintended consequences the policy decision by us might have negatively or otherwise on the social security system operated by the UK Government and vice versa for them to consult us on any policy changes before they make them so that we're absolutely sure that we're not making decisions that then very quickly might have to be reversed because of unintended consequences. Similarly, as I said earlier, we need to make life easier for the claimant, not more difficult, and therefore it seems to me not just collocation between the benefits administration of the Scottish system and collocated with welfare rights. I actually think that the UK system, the Scottish system and welfare rights should all be collocated so that people have a one-stop shop that can go to and get whatever benefits, whether it's a UK benefit or a Scottish benefit or advice on their welfare rights, just all in one location. I think that I would make life a lot easier for these people. I agree with you on that. I suppose what I was trying to get to was that, would it mean that there'd be two separate computer systems where we've heard in the past about, you know, when there's different systems set up and then the computers don't talk to each other? So would it still be the same computer system, even though the actual security benefits would be different so that, you know, they're only filling in the one forum and that can go in and then they don't have to fill in another one if they're claiming a different benefit, which is actually administered by the UK DWP? Initially, during the transition, it will be exactly the same computer systems and we have officials talking to each other about that, but clearly if we decide to redesign some of these welfare powers and why get them, if you're not going to make them more effective and more efficient and more targeted at the people who need them, then clearly through time there will be changes that will need to be made. But I think that it shouldn't be beyond the wit of us or the Department of Work and Pensions to make these changes in such a way that there is no detriment to the claimant and we're not making life even more difficult for the claimant. I think that if there's any difficulty with that, it should be behind the scenes rather than the claimant having to worry about the difficulties. I don't know if Jamie wants to add to that. If I may come in. From our work with DWP so far, what's become clear is that the current social security system is not connected, so all the different benefits that people claim don't talk to each other. There are situations where you have to phone up to get a forum sent to you, which you fill in, which then gets sent somewhere to be scanned in, to be sent back to the same place, to be then entered manually into a computer system. That's common across different benefits. It's not a system that's currently well connected, so I think taking that as a starting point and then adding in our own systems, there's a lot of opportunity to improve how those benefits operate. I mean a good example is a constituent in the same year two weeks ago who had been claiming her husband has developed dementia and she put in a claim for disability living allowance, which is a 40 page application. She got confirmation from the DLA centre that they had received the application form, but because of his age had passed it to the PIP office. She didn't hear any more from the PIP office, so she phoned the PIP office and said that they hadn't received it from the DLA office. She said, well, could you phone the DLA? She said, no, you have to phone the DLA office manager. She phoned the DLA office manager and the DLA office manager told her, no, no, it's the PIP office manager that she had to phone. She phoned back to the PIP office manager and basically ended up with her having to completely resubmit the application. They were denying her the benefit from the date when she submitted the original application on the grounds that they had no proof of it, but they did because the DLA had confirmed it. I've now ended up writing as an MSP to Ian Duncan-Smith saying that this lady should be paid the PIP. She's been awarded PIP but not from the original start date. She should be backdated to the original start date because their system is a shambles, total shambles. That's evidence that we've been getting in the past few weeks. On sanctions, if you're being paid through universal credit, that will include your housing benefit, so if you're sanctioned, you lose your housing benefit. Is there any plans to extrapolate the housing benefit from universal credit? I think that we agree with the Labour Party in this position that housing benefit should be kept separate from universal credit. I think that one of the reasons why universal credit is proving so difficult to implement is because of the complications of including housing benefit quite frankly. At the moment, the UK Government's position is that housing benefit will remain part of universal credit. I think that there was a report yesterday in the Observer newspaper of a report that has been published on Sunday by the Resolution Foundation saying, another body saying that they're going to have to redesign universal credit otherwise as it stands administratively. It's just unsustainable. It's so shambolid. In there, I don't believe the housing element can be sanctioned in universal credit. The risk is that if you receive your universal credit as one package, you don't distinguish between what's the housing element and if your job seekers allowance disappears then what's remaining you choose where to spend it. Technically, the housing element shouldn't be sanctioned. We'll check that out. Again, the consequence of that is that people A might not understand that if they're sanctioned and they then end up spending their housing benefit on day-to-day living in those circumstances and thereby getting into debt in all sorts of other problems. It's another example of where, as things stand, it really is unsustainable. On sanctions, where we've heard about lots of examples of how you've had them as well, it's the inconsistency across the country and how these are being rolled out and how they're affecting people. On training, is the Scottish Government going to increase that? Is it looking at improving the training of individuals who are actually dealing with the public and their claims, particularly around appeals? There seems to be lots of different assessment on people's actual health conditions. They don't seem to be properly trained on how they deal with that. That would be part parcel of looking at the delivery mechanism we're going to use. Partly the consultation will be how should we administer these benefits. At the moment, for example, as you know, local authorities administer housing benefit on behalf of the Department of Work and Pensions. They also administer council tax benefit as well. They administer other benefits such as grants for school uniforms, EMA and a range of other things. There are some benefits, effectively, although they're not called benefits, that we administer ourselves. For example, through the skills development agency or a range of other organisations. Then there's the new powers. What we need to do as part of the consultation is agree what is the best way to deliver this. As I say, my prejudice is to have one delivery system and more than one delivery system to make it as easy as possible for the individual. The training of staff, the location of staff, the recruitment of staff and all that would be part and parcel of that, taking that forward to the immigrant. Clearly, one of the discussions we have to have with the Department of Work and Pensions is the staffing issue. If we are taking over these responsibilities, then there will be a staff implication for the Department of Work and Pensions. Clearly, issues such as too-pay will come into the discussion and so on and so forth. Generally speaking, we want to make sure, on an on-going basis, that the staff responsible for administering benefits are trained to the highest standard. Annabelle Ewing Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will pick up from your comments a moment ago to Margaret MacDougall. You will be aware of the Highland Council pilot, which is interesting in relation to developing an electronic application that helps vulnerable tenants and enables landlords to electronically submit an alternative payment arrangement. That seems to be proving very positive. Is that something that you would encourage other areas to investigate? Yes, absolutely. I think that we have to be innovative in all of this and to make it as easy as possible for everybody to administer the system. The more that can be done online, particularly people living in the Highlands in remote areas where it will be difficult and expensive to physically even go into the nearest village in some cases, let alone go to Inverness, I think that we want to encourage the things that work and work well Annabelle. Clearly, when they work well and there is good practice, you would want to roll out the good practice. No need to reinvent the wheel 32 times. On the issue that has been raised by colleagues this morning, it has also emerged evidence about to whom the universal credit payment is made. Do you think that there is merit in almost a social audit or social assessment of the household to try to determine who is the most suitable recipient of the payment? I think that you want to not build a mountain to deal with a molehill in the sense that if you did that in every household that would be a very expensive and laborious affair and maybe subject to a lot of legal challenge if you did it to that extent. However, we need to develop a methodology for identifying where the universal credit is paid. Let me put it this way. We go out of our way to make sure that it goes to the mother to the wife rather than to the husband, for example. A very good example is where there is domestic abuse. I want to make sure that the woman has the payment rather than the man in those circumstances. However, how you do that needs a lot of thought and a lot of more research before we get into the nitty gritty of that because it is quite difficult to determine and can be open to challenge. The other thing is that this is always the difficulty with all those systems and we should not underrate the importance of transience. I had a constituency case that I was dealing with yesterday. The constituent has been living in six different addresses in the last seven years. That is not entirely untypical. There is a lot of mobility around different addresses with people involved. Whoever system needs to be very robust because of course there is transience in the sense that people move into and out of employment. The status this week might be entirely different from the status next week or last week. That is where the system needs to be very robust to deal with all those possible changes. I do not have a ready-made answer to the specific question that you asked other than that there is going to be the need for a robust methodology for doing that. I was interested in your comments about your opinion on an earnings-related benefit system. Has any work been carried out by the Scottish Government to cost that for Scotland? No, not in any detail because clearly it is not in the cards at the moment. We would not have the power at the moment to implement it anyway. I was encouraged by your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, when I was pursuing the point of when we have a system of devolved welfare provision and reserved welfare provision, your idea of a co-location. I am encouraged by that. Am I correct in saying, cabinet secretary, that the Scottish Government would not wish to be deploying budget to replicating premises costs or systems costs if you could in some way make that more efficiently partnered with existing services? If you look at what we do at the present time and the money that we spend, for example, on welfare rights across the country, we are spending on mitigation. It is over £100 million a year. If we can find better ways of spending that money more cost effectively so that the beneficiary are the claimants, then all the better. I think that prevention is always better than cure. If somebody can immediately check that they are getting the right benefit from somebody who is independent, if they so wish to do so, then that is better than going home and then going through a falder all about how do you then get it rectified, having to put in appeals and all the rest of it. I think that we want to have as little money in administration as possible and as much money as possible on the pockets of the claimants. Finally, cabinet secretary, is that important area being explored between the Scottish Government and the UK Government? It will be. It is not in detail yet because we are still at the stage in terms of managing the thing at a more strategic level. Once we have that done, we will go into some of these nitty gritty issues. Officials are starting to talk and have started to talk about some of these issues, but at a political level, David Mendele and I are still dealing with some of the strategic issues and then we will get into more of the nitty gritty stuff. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. If you do not mind, I will ask you one question just for clarification. It is in relation to an issue that you raised around the bedroom tax. We took evidence on this, as you know, and at the time we heard from local authorities, it chimed with the points that you made about the additional cost, which has been incurred. You spoke specifically about the danger of increasing the cost for those who are evicted, but there are additional costs in the administration of the DHP system for mitigating the bedroom tax. Given that we have heard that evidence, whether you had taken on board those concerns from the local authorities who pointed out that the additional cost of either finding from other budgets the money to do that or to transfer staff, which left other departments short of staff, have you given any consideration to that and there have been any discussions with local authorities on how to address that problem? Maggie Burgess has been in discussion with local authorities, not just in terms of DHP, but overall in terms of the administration of the Scottish welfare budget. We will continue to have those discussions. Our budget has just been cut by £107 million this year in-house, so we are struggling in terms of the money that is available. Obviously, we do not have a large secret stash of money that we can help everybody with, but we recognise in some cases that there is a genuine issue there. Looking longer term, it is another very good example of where we are administering the Scottish welfare budget here, we are administering housing benefit there and council tax benefit and EME and all the rest of it. If we can get to a situation where the administration is much more streamlined so that people can see every aspect of all the benefits that they are getting, whether it is DHP or EMA or whatever, that is where I personally would like to try to get to strategically. I think that it would be far more cost effective and secondly it would be far better understood by those who are able to claim. That would be the best outcome altogether. I know that you will update as things move forward and we will take forward your inquiry in the autumn, which we hope will be able to add to the work that is on going, but thanks for your attendance this morning. I will suspend the meeting for a few minutes to allow the cabinet secretary to leave. The second agenda item this morning is in relation to Parliament Day in Craigmiller. On Monday 18 May, the committee hosted a meeting in the Jack Cain Centre in Craigmiller in Edinburgh to listen to residents' experiences of welfare reform. The meeting was part of the wider Parliament Day that was being conducted at that time. Around 50 people attended the event who had directly been affected by welfare reforms or had some involvement in the administration of support for those who were involved. Some of those who attended were accompanied by representatives of local support organisations. The session was organised around a series of tables hosted by members or other committee representatives. You will see in papers that a note has been produced which draws together the output from each table and some themes that emerged overall. This document is currently being produced in an easy read version and will be distributed to all those organisations that attended for onward transmission. I would like to give the committee the opportunity. Those members who are there or those who have seen the report and want to ask questions about what they have read about the experiences that we picked up from those who attended at Craigmiller, it is one of the worst-hit areas in Edinburgh in terms of welfare reform. That message came through quite clearly. I would like to put on record the committee's thanks to all the organisations that worked with the Parliament's outreach services and our committee clerks to help support people who came along on that day. Does anyone who is there want to kick off, or is there anyone who wants to ask a specific question about the paper that we have in front of us? I thought that it was a very informative event. I felt that it was a very relaxed event. Everyone seemed comfortable in the setting and I thought that the way it was put together was very good. It was a mixture of experiences in the room and the table that I was sitting at. I had people with various engagements with the DWP, Social Security and Welfare, which made it very informative. There was also a volunteer from the cab, who was a service user, but a volunteer at cab, who was very well informed about some of the pressures that are coming to the third sector. Some of the people on my table were also supportive of voluntary organisations from the area, who were also able to contribute quite a bit to the discussion. I am not sure that we learned anything particularly new from it. It just reaffirmed everything that the committee has been doing on this area. I reaffirmed some of the testimony that we have seen from people at the committee about just how difficult people are finding their lives under the current regime and how nervous they are about looking forward to what impact it might have on them in the future. I agree with that point, Margaret. I totally agree with what has already been said. I think that it really did bring home just how much stress people are under. I just felt that a lot of people, when I was at the same table as Heather, people really felt quite stressed. One of the girls said that she was stressed just to come along and meet us. It brought home just how stressful all the meetings and appointments that they have to go through and all the hoops that they have to jump through the effect that has on their mental health. The table that I was at was dominated by people who were supporting people who were going through the system, either working on behalf of organisations or workers for people. It was quite evident that the amount of pressure that has been put on organisations to try and support those who are being impacted has become unbearable in some respects. Not just the volume but the technicalities around what people have got to work with in order to try and support someone now because of the way that the system has administered. The amount of pressure that puts on the individuals and then puts on to the organisations came through quite strongly. I have heard that from some of the third sector groups that have come here to give evidence and have told us about the impact that is having on those organisations, but to hear it from people who are working directly with individuals gave me a sense of just the change in the pressure that has been brought or that those people are experiencing. Although we have heard lots of evidence about how it was impacting on organisations, I think that it was important for me to hear just how it was impacting on individuals who are part of those organisations and I think that that was something that I took away from it. Does anyone who has seen the paper want to ask any questions about it? I am content that that is something that we can use as we go forward and we will get this out and circulated as widely as we can. Agenda item 3 is our cab visit feedback. We agreed at our meeting on 10 March 2015 that members would undertake visits to Citizens Advice Bureau either in their local areas or in areas suggested by CAB Scotland. The purpose of the visits was to learn about the work of the CABs and what their clients present with them by listening to the experiences and sitting in on welfare benefit advice sessions. Each member visited a cab during May and June, and visits were arranged from Police at Easterhouse to Lewis and Harris. As all the visits have now been completed, I would like to give members the opportunity to comment on the visit that they undertook if they think that there is something that they could bring to the discussion. First of all, I would like to thank the folks in Stornoway who were very accommodating. One of the things that struck me during the course of my visit was how meticulous the folks at the cab had to be in dealing with folks and helping them fill out forms. As we have heard and seen before, some people are unwilling to tell the true story and always want to present themselves at their best. I will give you the example of one where a woman was asked if she was able to cook. The answer was, yes, I have no difficulty in cooking. The CAB person teased out a little bit more. I can cook but I have to sit down when I am cooking. I also feel nauseous when I am cooking. All of this was dragged out over a period of time. The end scenario was that a woman could cook but with a huge amount of difficulty. After the process was done, often she could not eat because of what she had gone through. The forms themselves are extremely easy but do not tease out those things, which are absolutely vital in making sure that any claim is absolutely right. A hats off to the folk at the cab who managed to tease out a whole lot more than they would have if it had just been a straight yes, no answer to questions. Beyond that, one of the things that came to light during my visit to Stornoway was the difficulties that there are in terms of appeals or tribunals that are held off island. A great amount of difficulty sometimes in folk travelling to Inverness, particularly if they have specific disabilities, which means that they can not be jolted or anything like that during the course of travel. Travelling across in the ferry can sometimes be a bit difficult in normal circumstances. I think that there needs to be a real luxe by ourselves in terms of where those difficulties may arise, whether it exists in Orkney, in Shetland too, because I think that some folk are missing out in terms of the service that should be there for everyone because they have these difficulties in terms of travel. Particularly travel with a disability. Maybe we should write to not only the other cabs in the western islands, but also to all in Orkney and Shetland to see how often these kinds of difficulties arise. That's a good point, Kevin. I think that we should try and identify that. Is anybody else want to draw in on that, Christiane? I attended the service in Dumfries, which covers the whole of Dumfries in Galloway. I, like Kevin, want to pay tribute to the staff there who were extremely accommodating and very impressive in the two interviews that I sat in on. My experience reflects some of the points that Kevin has already made. I sat in on an interview of a person with a severe mental illness in physical disabilities who was being transferred from our DLA to PIP. The adviser was helping her with a form. It was very clear to me that this woman would have been completely unable to fill this form in herself. In fact, the only reason she was there is that she historically knew this benefits adviser, and because of her mental illness she didn't go out and she was frightened of people that she didn't know. It was just a stroke of luck for her that she knew someone who worked in the Citizens Advice Service. Going through the form, again the point that Kevin made about people who have disabilities or illnesses, the general culture is to encourage them quite rightly to be independent and take pride in what they can do. When it comes to those forms, they could be doing themselves a disservice if they tried to say, I can do this. In the case of this lady travelling, she couldn't go out on her own because she was agriphobic. Although she was physically able to walk to a car or whatever, she couldn't go out on her own. Similarly, the extent of her mental health problem meant that she had to be in quotes to do things such as washing, cooking and eating, because she had a very severe mental illness. The other thing that I was concerned about, which Kevin raised, was that I sat in this interview in Dumfries. I was pointed out to this woman that unless she got a letter from her GP asking for her to be treated as a special case so that she could have an interview near her home or maybe no interview at all, she would just be at the mercy of having to travel quite far distance to conduct the interview. That could have been Carlyle, for example, and it could have been very early in the morning. According to the Citizens Advice Bureau, there would be no allowances made for the fact that there was a long travel distance, so it could be 9 o'clock in the morning in Carlyle. There was no way that she could have done that. What concerned me was that the interviewer gave her a standard letter for her doctor, but she had to personalise it and get it to the doctor, and the doctor had to send it off. I was concerned that, given the extent of her illness, that that might not happen, because she certainly would not have been able to fill in the form by herself. The forms are too complex and they do not make alliances for people's particular circumstances. I have got an issue about travelling to interviews. The other interview that I sat in on was a completely different thing. It was really an elderly lady who did not know the benefits that she was entitled to. When she sat down with the adviser, it was quite clear that there was hundreds of pounds that she was not claiming. The lady had just happened to go and drop in on her path. She had recently developed another illness, and she was entitled to it. In the course of the adviser going through her circumstances with her, it was apparent that, for years, she had not been getting what she was entitled to. It made me realise the importance of services such as Citizens Advice, which, in Dumfries and Galloway, has unfortunately had a large part of its funding cut and has had to lose some of its advisers, which is really bad at this particular time. On the elderly lady, the point that was made by the Cabinet Secretary about co-location of services that really brought it home, that that lady had had that advice at an earlier stage. She would have been in a much better position because she was really, really struggling. That would be my experience of it. Thank you, Christina. I went along to Hamilton, who is a Citizens Advice that I know very well and have worked very closely with her. Sometimes she has great support to me in my office. I went along for the drop-in session. The staff did not know what was coming through the door. Lots of different things came through the door. There was a very untypical case that came through the door. It hinged on the issue that seemed to be an issue that we have all identified. Certainly, a number of the cases that came through the door that day was inaccurate information coming from agencies, whether it be the DWP or other agencies on their behalf. This was a woman, an EU national. Her and her husband worked in low-paid jobs. He had had an accident at work and was unable now to work. She had claimed tax credits. She knew from the calculation that they had given her too much. She needed help to sort it out because she could not then see herself in debt to the Government in that respect. It was how the adviser handled that. He went through all the calculation with her, confirmed with her. Given that there was not a huge communication barrier there as far as language, because the English was very, very good, but still the way that we would describe a situation or whatever, how we use language, was very, very apparent that the adviser was very aware of not using some of the other lines that we would use, like getting on like house and fire or stuff like that. That did make a difference to that person's understanding, but what really hit home for me was that this was an individual who worked very, very hard on a low-paid job and now looks after her husband, who had been given the wrong information and realised that straight away and wanted to help to remedy that. It is sometimes the opposite of what we see. She was in the door saying, and the opposite I have to say from some of what the right wing media say that some EU nationals do when they come to this country. That was another element to it. The professionalism of the adviser and going and seeking all of that out and reassuring her and saying, we will get this sorted, then led to a number of phone calls, because it was a Friday. Couldn't you get anybody to answer them? He took it as far as he could at that point, and the lady then was advised and gave an appointment to come back in the middle of the next week to try and sort it all out. That was just a very, very unusual and untypical case, but the typical element to all of the cases I see in that afternoon was about people giving inaccurate information that led to decisions being taken and being made that caused problems and had consequences. I visited Perth Citizens Advice Bureau on 5 June and, having driven through monsoon conditions, you are going to get your tuppans worth, because I felt the visit was not only very interesting but a report was justified. I thank the three people I met who were the manager, Sandy Watts, the deputy manager, Christine Maguire and one of their professional advisers, Andrew Scobey. What they gave me was a very good briefing note, so with your permission, convener, if I could just pass these round. I wasn't able to meet any interviewees. I don't think there were any when I arrived, but one or two appeared during the two hours I was with the bureau and I think they were very reticent about having any outsider present while they were being interviewed, so I wasn't able to sit in on any interviews. The first thing that really emerged from our discussions was geography, and I think that this is akin to what you were talking about, Kevin, because you'll see from the briefing that this is a vast area and its diverse character are the remote rural communities and then there are more densely populated areas. For example, DWP has a presence in Perth and a smaller presence in Blair Gowry, so that's a pretty vast area and access for claimants can be an issue. In addition to that, I learned that the PIP assessments take place in Dundee, but the ESA assessments take place in Perth, so again geography is relevant to all of this. One very interesting feature to emerge was that CAB perceives DWP as having a reduced advisory role, more focused on supporting people back to work. While that is commendable in its own right, the question has to be asked, where are claimants to get advice? As others have indicated and as the cabinet secretary said this morning, the referral points, and I was given a list of them, who to contact and a whole list of phone numbers, are simply not going to be practical or affordable for many claimants. The other issue to emerge was that, given that the perception is that DWP is performing a reduced advisory role, CWACAB proportionately is now getting a much heavier caseload in terms of giving advice and pointed out that not only is there more volume but the nature of the advice is much more complex. The deputy manager, Christine McWire, said something that I think is certainly worth repeating. She said, the bureau where the icing on the cake, the bureau are now the cake, which I thought was a very telling observation on how the role of CAB is changing. That led to a discussion around the claimants' commitment. Perth, citizens advice bureau of fuel, should be a partnership agreement between DWP and the claimant, explicitly spelling out the obligations and responsibilities of DWP and those of the claimant, including the consequences of breaches. In relation to sanctions, there is a far better understanding of when and how sanctions might be applied and what will that mean. In conclusion, just to reaffirm her important provision of advice and guidance, Perth has produced its own booklet, which is very impressive. It is called, in crisis, a survival guide. I have got a copy here if anyone wants to see it. It was a very helpful meeting, convener. I think that a number of issues emerged, both in terms of detail and in terms of general strands. I certainly hope that the briefing note plus what I have just been saying will help to inform the committee. I visited the Irvine carav office, which is just across the road from my office, so we communicate on a regular basis. I thank the staff very much for showing me around on the day and for the information that they gave me, particularly the operations manager, Alan White. There was a queue of people waiting to be seen when I went in, but there seemed to be quite a lot of volunteers as well. There are four staff in total. They have four different offices, including the open office on Arran as well, to take in the geographic spread. They also have outreach offices, and they do home visits if required. They feel that they provide a good service. They also work on a triage for the people who come in, so somebody interviews them to find out what exactly their issue is and then directs them to the most appropriate help or assistant on the day. The number of appeals that they are having has increased substantially. In the past two months, they have seen nearly half of the number of people that they had seen last year. They are expecting to see a significant increase in the number of appeals this year. What was interesting was that, on the employment side, they said on jobseeker sanctions that the numbers had fallen there. It was 102, 13, 14 and 49, 14 and 15. I am going to do some further research into that as to why that is. They were concerned that people just did not know that they could appeal against those sanctions. Annabelle was saying that there is less advice being given by DWP offices. That is something that I will have my office look into and check that out. In the Irvine office, it is pretty much the same as we have heard already. People are really struggling with the changes in keeping up with the forums and just knowing what they can do and the appeals that they have. I did sit in on an interview, but it was not related to welfare. It was to do with redundancies that a couple of women were facing. They did not know exactly when it was going to happen. I have to say that the volunteer was very thorough. He was very clear that he did not want to give out information that might be wrong. He ensured that he was going to check out the information before he would speak to them again. It was very worthwhile. They do a fantastic job. I understand that they also had further funding from the North Eastshire Council because they are doing more money advice work as well now. Before I come into the meeting, an email was forwarded to me by Perth to say that they have done four pieces of research and conjunction with Sterling. Could I maybe forward that to the clerk? It can be made available to members. I did not have time to look at it before coming to the meeting. I again reiterate the thanks to Sterling cab that I was able to visit for a morning with them. It was a drop-in session, the same as Christina's. They did not have anyone lined up to see me. It was just a case of two interviews. One of them was not welfare-related, but it was UK Government-related. It was a tax issue. The scenario of phoning multiple different lines, not being put through, being put in hold, was very frustrating for both the cab adviser and the person who had a problem, and they eventually were resorting to putting everything in writing because they couldn't get responses on the telephone help lines. The other one was thankful to the client who agreed to allow me to sit in. He was a very ill man with significant medical problems and significant pain. I had been in a relay effort for him to come in and sit down. It was a PIP application that we were going through, which took over an hour. He himself had dyslexia, so he was confused. He was confused about why he needed the form, because he was in the position of a medical condition that was not going to get any better. Obviously, he had been through all this process before. It was quite distressing. All the way through, the adviser kept saying, "...now don't worry if this fails, we'll help you with your appeal." I asked afterwards—I advised him about appeals—and he said that it was almost as if everything was being rejected right away. That was his impression. Almost every application, they were finding fault with it and people were having to appeal it, which seemed totally unnecessary, total over-administration. In the system that they were having to appeal so many of the applications that they indeed supported people in putting in, which they felt were perfectly adequate for the problems that were coming through the doors. I had a bit of a discussion, which is probably not relevant for here, about linkage with other agencies and how they were working with the council. All caps were under some of the financial pressures about being able to continue to provide the service that they do. It was really informative and fantastic. Two of the facilities that I got watched through were all the leaflets that they are currently handing out to people. Some of the special works mentioned the co-work that we were doing with other caps, such as Perth. It was very interesting for me, because I am not from a particularly rural setting. When I worked as a councillor in North Lanarkshire, I really had one cab to deal with in my area, but that is a cab that does have rural issues, which puts pressures on their budget in terms of being able to do home visits and the whole capacity issues there for supporting people that did not have ready access to public transport to come into Stirlingtown and go to the drop-in sessions. Very much a simple experience to everyone else. I visited the Easterhouse CAB, and although I am familiar with the CAB in Hamilton, I was struck by the scale and volume of the cases that they have to deal with in Easterhouse in comparison with my own area. Although I am aware of the increasing volume in my own area to see that the figures that they deal with in Easterhouse was quite an eye-opener, I was able to sit in on a PIP assessment, the process of completing the forum. What struck me was that the person who was looking for help was himself, I thought, very articulate and also very knowledgeable on his condition. It was something that he'd lived with for a long time since he'd had an accident at work about 20 years ago, so he was very familiar with all of his circumstances, the medications, the treatments and everything else that he required in order to complete the forum. It struck me from the initial information that he was able to give to the final information that, since his advice worker was able to extract, was quite marked. Had he completed the forum himself, it would have been a very basic amount of information that he would have provided. By the time that the person at the CAB had looked into the complexity of his illness, the circumstances around his home life and various other things that had impacted on all of that, it was a much more detailed and complex case than it immediately looked at the outset. The amount of information that is now going to go forward to the assessors is marked in comparison to what it would have been had he just put down the basic information that he came in with at the outset. The value of that person sitting for two hours taking that one individual through that process might be the difference between them obtaining the support that they need and not, and I think that that was crucial. Talking to all of the staff of management and the volunteers, they were all aware of just how much pressure they were under and how much it had changed, but it was remarkable how undaunted they were by how they just became more and more determined that they wanted to help the more people that were being impacted. I think that that was a great credit to them, that they weren't trying to find ways of shortcutting or trying to take the pressure off themselves, they just accepted it was coming towards them and were just finding ways of dealing with that so that they could help as many people as they possibly could. I think that that was to their great credit, so I'd like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to see that, to learn from them and to see just how dedicated they are to the tasks that are facing them. And it sounds as though everyone's come away with a very positive feeling about, I think we already had it from about CAB and the work that SIPs Scotland do in general, but to actually have the opportunity to see it first hand I think is something that will all take away I think. Just one more point that struck me is that Joan was speaking, convener, about the storm away situation. They have managed to come up with a partnership with GPs so that GPs' letters and all of the rest of it doesn't cost the client and the reaction from the GPs according to the CAB there is pretty, pretty good. I think that lessons could be learned from there in other parts of the country because if that kind of partnership was taking place everywhere that would probably lessen the impact on some of the clients by getting all of the information right at the first attempt rather than going to appeal. I think that hats off to the CAB and to the general practitioners on Lewis and Harris who seem to be getting this absolutely Scotland. I think what I'll do, I'll write to all of the SIPs Scotland but also to the individual CABs to thank them for giving us their time and supporting the work of the committee in the way that they did that. They think it was a useful exercise so I'll do that on behalf of the committee. I'll bring the meeting to a close now by pointing out, our next meeting is on the 16th of June when we expect to review the first draft of our Women and Social Security Committee report and also look at the work programme for the period after the summer recess. Margaret? Can we have these at all visits? Have we got them in that area? We have. Simon, do you want to do that? We'll close the meeting and then we can discuss it in private rather than discuss that. I'll close the meeting now and if we can have a quick chat about just how that's working out. Thanks everyone.