 Good morning and welcome to the 24th meeting of 2023 with the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business this morning is a decision to take items 5, 6 and 8 in private. Are members content to do so? We will now move to our next item of business. This is our third evidence session on the bankruptcy and diligence Scotland bill at stage 1. Today we will hear from creditors. I welcome Andrew Fraser, president and Roderick Macpherson, honorary secretary, society of messenger at arms and sheriff officers. I also welcome Cheryl Hind, council revenues manager and Elizabeth Macrossan, senior transactions officer, City of Edinburgh Council. Just to let you know, the questions will be directed to your organisation and if you can decide among you who will be answering the question, that would be helpful. I will start with one of the proposals in the bill, which is to require banks and others who are subject to arrestment requests to provide information about why arrestment has been made unsuccessful. We have heard some evidence from banks who say that this would be too onerous, a duty to place on them, but I wonder if Edinburgh City Council could first of all say if they would find this information helpful if it was a requirement for banks to share when it has been unsuccessful. From an efficiency of process point of view, I know having listened to the evidence from previous committees, at the moment we don't know if a customer is actually with a particular bank and they could maybe have an order sent to them and it's not even their customer. So, if we were aware when an order failed, that was because they weren't their customer, it would allow our debt partners to streamline their process. At present, what they use is almost like an algorithm, knowledge of the local area and what banks and customers in these particular areas tend to use, so it's built up over time. From my point of view, it would probably be more efficient because you're asking the appropriate bank and also the other side of the coin would be if you know an arrestment has failed because there are no funds in the bank, then it also would streamline the process. When the knowledge is built up over time, it's only the banks that we know that those customers are members of that will be asked, not three or four different banks. So, would the local authorities tend to put in a lot of requests at the same time, they've talked about the volume that they would create because they get bulk applications? We use a debt partner who would do the arrestments on our behalf and it's their knowledge that I was speaking about at the start that they would know that a particular part of Scotland, for instance, tends to use a particular bank and that would be the first bank that they would request the moneys from. I don't know if that answers you. That's helpful. There's a supplementary question to that. Is it a successful process to go through? That's the way in which it goes to a collection agency. Is this route, or are you dealing with people who have resources in the bank? Is it a useful tool to be using? Is it successful? Our partner chooses which form of diligence is most appropriate for a particular customer. Obviously, the levels of earnings in the bank has increased. That, in itself, helps to protect the debtor. Knowing that someone doesn't have the funds, it would mean that you wouldn't keep asking the same question and perhaps use a different diligence route to engage with those customers. However, to be clear, for us, it takes a lot of engagement before we would pass a case to our debt partners. Early engagement is always the first point for us in making sure that our citizens have access to assistance to be able to help them with their debt before it gets to that stage. It is quite far down in the process before we would pass information to our debt partners. Can I come to our other witnesses? Do you have any views on what the proposal would result in? Would it lead to additional cost, or do you have any concerns about the proposal? First of all, I thank you for inviting the Society of Messenger's Times and Sheriff's Officers. You introduced us as representing creditors, but we don't. We are the officers of court and we have a huge experience of creditors, large creditors and party litigants who come to the offices of our members wanting to have documents served or decreased and forced. Some of our members work very closely with councils such as I here represented, but we do not represent creditors. We are also very grateful and perhaps I had wanted to tell you that I might have been one of the small number of people, I suppose, who had given evidence in front of a Scottish Parliamentary Committee in two different centuries. Thank you for inviting us for a very long time. What I have discovered by looking at my 25-year diary is that I actually turned up on the 11th of January in the year 2000, but we are very grateful as a society for the involvement that we have had from the very earliest days of the Scottish Parliament. The work of the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc Scotland Act 2007 created a revolution in the law of arrestment. Before arrestment was an incoate diligence, it did not of itself transfer the arrested fund from a debtor to a creditor, but the work of the Parliament created what many of us think to have been a huge step forward in allowing for the automatic transfer of arrested funds through arrestment. One of the things that is lacking from the changes that were made in 2007 to the primary statute, the 1987 Dettors Scotland Act, is that, although arrestees, usually banks, have to let the creditor know within three weeks how much has been arrested, they do not have to tell them if nothing has been arrested. From a creditor's point of view, they want to know what has been the outcome of that particular arrestment. What an officer of court will tell them at the moment is that, if you have not heard within three weeks, nothing has been arrested. I think that many creditors would prefer to be told that nothing has been arrested and would prefer to get as much information as the law provides for the RST to disclose in the especially privileged circumstances of an arrestment being served lawfully. The debt advice and information package is a key tool for communication with debtors. Are there other ways that its use could be improved? I mentioned at the start about early engagement. For us, it is about collaboration with as many agencies as possible, including our own advice shop, and making the website as accessible as possible with information that will arm people with what they can do, should certain things happen. Most of our communications that go out, whether it be via email or letter, have links to the support mechanisms for citizens. Our advice shop, the one that is within the council and also colleagues within the Citizens Advice Bureau, has links to the information that we have to support citizens. In addition to the debt advice pack, which would be provided to people, early engagement will mean that it will get access to as much information as possible, including whether it is a benefit that it could potentially access, or whether there are reliefs and exemptions that they are not claiming that they could be due. Assisting people before it gets to the stage where it is overwhelming is the key message for us and making sure that everybody speaks to each other to get the best for citizens. We are looking at where there are gaps in that information flow. Where do you see the gaps? How could this be improved? I guess the gaps could possibly be if someone has not. They are not in the place to be able to speak to someone and we are talking about early engagement and they are not in a place to be able to engage part of the bill is to do with the moratorium. It is talking to other agencies and making sure that, although they have a particular professional role in that, it is also signposts and folks to help at early stages. It is all about education and making sure that we all have as much information as possible to assist citizens. Just so that I can get in my own head the sort of dimensions that we are talking about here, how many arrests do you deal with in a year, just roughly? I probably need to get the information direct from our debt partner, but it is very low numbers. Certainly they did a piece of work for us when the levels changed from the 500 and upwards to see what the implication would be, but it is not the first action that they would go to. I think that you would talk in low percentages of our caseload that it would be a bank arrestment. I do not know whether you want to comment on that. Perhaps, if I could suggest that Andy would answer that question. Excuse me. First and foremost, the debt advice pack itself has to be improved. The information has been contained and it is trying to get people to read. Although, to you or I, it is possible that a small leaflet is getting people that are in debt to read and make use of the information, I think that that is a challenge in itself. I think that it would support absolutely people receiving the advice packs at the outset of a core action. Many times they only receive it after the decrease has been granted, the die has been cast, as it were, and there is a state where they are possibly not in a good state of mind to deal with it at the start of an action. Having all the information would be much more useful to them. You are talking about not being a big thing to read, but people have a block against reading it. Is there a way past that? That is above my pay grade, I would say. That is my opinion and the opinion of many of us is that the debt advice pack itself has to be improved, has to be more concise. You said more concise. You were talking about a fairly modest leaflet a few minutes ago. How can we make it more concise? I do not have an answer for you in that respect, but getting people to read something like that is sometimes a challenge in the real world. In your experience, that has been a recurring problem. Let me move on to something else. The Scottish Government intends to use regulations to introduce information disclosure orders and to add inhibitions to the options that are available under summary warrant. Do you support the introduction of information disclosure orders? If so, how will they improve the diligence landscape for creditors? The inhibition is one method of being able to secure funds. The detail of that particular answer, Elizabeth, who is one of the technical people within the team, had gone into detail, because she has a law degree as well. I am very impressed with the fact that she knows more about the bill and the inhibition. Do you want to comment on that? I cannot speak to the policy journey behind the bill. I can speak to the customer-facing interactions that I have on a day-to-day basis with our customers. I know that we have moved on from the DAAIP pipe, but if I could add something to that. I noticed that there is only a 16-page document, but there is nowhere mentioned in this document on pamphlet how a person would go about applying for a moratorium. It does not alert them to the fact that there exists a moratorium currently. It is only mentioned briefly on page 15 of the pamphlet, and I think that that is something that could certainly be improved on in the wording of that pamphlet. As far as obtaining a certificate of resources, I think that that would be very useful to creditors. Although we do have some measures in place already when we conduct due diligence before deciding what action to take against a debtor, we have resources such as the Registers of Scotland, the credit agency reports that we can access. They are not always very thorough in terms of telling us how much somebody has in their bank account. That might certainly be useful because that can be relayed to our sheriff officer partners before they even consider doing a bank arrestment. For example, why go to the cost of conducting a bank arrestment if there is no money in the bank account? If we know that information ahead of time, that could be very useful. However, I am just a little bit concerned about privacy issues. If a creditor or anybody has a right to go and ask how much that person has in their bank account, could they not raise objections in terms of whether that is a breach of my human rights, my right to privacy and all that? It is a good idea. It would be useful for creditors. I do not think that debtors would like it very much. The disclosure of information is the biggest improvement possible in the work of the Parliament so far as the effective use of diligence is concerned. It was part 16 of the 2007 act. It was enacted that there would be a system for the disclosure of information in circumstances where parties who had gone to court and had obtained their decrees wanted information that would allow them to enforce their decrees or their documents of debt. Since 2007, no system has ever been commenced for the disclosure of information. I mentioned that we are not the creditors. The creditors' agents, officers of court, are neutral between the parties, but when a party litigant comes to our office and says, I have been to court, I have gone through every step in the procedure and the sheriff says, I am entitled to be paid this. Now you are telling me that because I do not know where my data has a bank account, because the data does not own a house, because the data is not carrying on business and has business assets, there is nothing that you can do at the moment to enforce my decree. From that point of view, I can certainly say that there is a great longing for a system of disclosure of information. In the old days, when there were only the clearing banks, if people wanted to be able to carry out a bank arrestment, they would ask the sheriff officer to arrest with the main banks. There are so many banks that it is impossible to think that people would pay for all those different fees for arresting with different banks. It depends on the quality of the information, whether a creditor who has obtained a decree is going to be successful or not. That is if the debtor does not choose and voluntarily makes payment. To have a system for the controlled access to information about where bank accounts are maintained would be a fundamental step taken by the Parliament in allowing for the precise enforcement of decrees. Just one last brief question. What impact will the addition of inhibition to the summary warrant options have? Do you think that it will make things better or worse for debtors who own their home? At the moment, what we see is that we have got inhibitions in place. We remind citizens that they are in place because they can choose to pay funds at any stage. What they have is possibly people not paying until they are leaving a home in some circumstances because someone has died and that is when the asset is sold. It is a long extracted period of time. For me, it is about supporting a person to be able to continue to pay for services and so on. It is a long time between lodging, inhibition and renewing it, but annually reminding them that they do not need to pay until the asset is sold. On balance, you know that there will be funds there, but for councils, certainly for collecting money for services, it is a balance. If we do not collect funds, we cannot provide other services such as bin collections. It is making sure that you have the right balance between appropriate diligence action and collection. Inhibitions serve a purpose, but they are not the catch all for everything if someone owns their home. I am personally not very happy with the idea of an inhibition being sought just on the back of a warranted account. I do not have statistics to hand, but we have many thousands of quite sure accounts that are currently at the stage of warrant and have been passed to sheriff officers for collection. Seeking an inhibition is like a next step forward. It is usually a warrant that is given within the wording of the decree that is awarded to the creditor. Our usual practice is that once we have a decree, we immediately look to obtaining an inhibition, but there is no point in doing that if the person does not own any heritable property. To allow our sheriff officers to make that decision, there would be a huge cost if they were charged with trying to find out whether the debtor does own heritable property that an inhibition would have an effect upon. I feel that the warrant stage is a little too early in the process for that to happen. It is quite an advanced type of diligence, so we only enter into that after, as I have mentioned before, due diligence. We check things such as what is the make-up of the household, whether they are young children in the home, for example. We would not want to encourage somebody to sell their property in order to settle their debt. It acts as a form of security. If the person is financially able to move to a smaller property, that inhibition would still have an effect because it is a personal diligence that applies to the individual person and not to the property that they currently live in. However, I am quite actively involved in obtaining inhibitions, but I feel that doing it just on the back of a warrant is just a little too early in the process because there are other interventions that can happen before we get to the stage of seeking inhibition. First of all, you do not require a specific warrant to serve on an inhibition. It can be served on any ex-facier decree. Those are not used randomly, and it is quite correct that they would not be used in a lot of cases. Obviously, a lot of people with low council tax may be council tenants who do not own any heritable property. However, it is a further way to seek the security over the debt. I think that it would be supported across our profession as another option, given how limited our powers are at the moment. If I may come back to the question of information disclosure orders, would that be just to add in something that Roddie mentioned? We have reached a position with the powers that we have at the moment where there is no longer access to justice for creditors. That has become more and more apparent, given the implementation of the simple procedure rules, where more and more party litigants are raising their own court actions. They no longer have a solicitor guiding them. They often do not seek any help from money advice that is in advice. They go through the courts and arrive at our doors. We go through the process and help them as much as we can, which I can assure you is extremely time consuming, dealing with somebody who has no idea or perception of the legal process. We are the first people who tell them, as Roddie says, without a bank account, without earning employment details. We cannot recover your debt, walk a mile on another man's shoes, put yourself in that position. If you are looking for a decree against somebody who has reached a stage in this country without information disclosure orders, where decrees from our courts are unenforcable because of lack of information, we would hope that, if information disclosure orders are brought forward, the next step has to be for HMRC to be accountable to obtain employment details for people. There is no other country in Europe, as far as we are aware, where a court decree after a hearing is unenforcable. Good morning to the panel. I want to ask about other aspects of reform. It is a very narrowly focused bill. There are issues that are perhaps not covered by the bill that we have heard raised by other witnesses. Specifically, we have heard calls in relation to the minimal asset process bankruptcy. At the moment, individuals can only apply for this once every 10 years. We have heard some calls that that period should be reduced perhaps to five years, or the time that it has been removed altogether. I am interested if anybody has any particular view on that as a potential addition to the bill. If you have no view on it, that is absolutely fine. Perhaps I could add my personal point of view on this. I would be concerned about allowing someone to apply for a minimal asset if it is reduced to five years. I do not mean to say that in a condescending way, but we all know that there are people in the world who have never really learned how to deal with their financial affairs. It might be an educational thing. It might just be their upbringing. There are certain people who will apply for one of those minimal asset bankruptcies, and they can run up new debt very quickly to quite a high level within five years. How many times would they be allowed to do that? For every application that is made, that is debt that is written off. For a local authority, for example, who is very reliant on trying to recover debt and income as much as possible, that is a huge loss to us when there are other measures that might help to encourage that person to make a payment arrangement, for example. I think that every five years is a bit too... Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Are there any other areas of bankruptcy reform either covered in the bill or which are not in the bill that you think should be highlighted? I'm sorry, it's a very open question, I know, but Mr McPherson. Thank you. Our society has given, in its evidence, a very narrow aspect, but it's a very practical point. That is because it is necessary, with a bankruptcy action, to serve the document on the person personally, at least under the first deliverance of the court. Only personal service is acceptable. There is a very narrow window provided by the law at present for the service of a bankruptcy petition, no more than 14 days before the hearing and no fewer than six days before the hearing. I think that most sheriff officers find this really quite an extraordinary position to be in. We can understand that it's important for such an important appointment as a bankruptcy hearing at the court that a person receiving the document should have plenty of time and, therefore, a minimum of six days, we can understand. Why should there be a requirement that the person is not given too much time? In no other circumstance do we have a position that we are unable to serve a document until a certain date has arrived. Our submissions mention the difficulties of us covering rural areas and the islands of Scotland and being able to arrange a visit which fits within eight days and can often be followed by the journey and the news that the person is on holiday and won't be back for another week. It makes us suggest, please, to the committee that you might look to widen the period in which it is competent for the service of a bankruptcy petition. That's a very practical point. Thank you for raising that. I don't have Edinburgh council or anything to add. Thank you, convener. Colin Smyth, be followed by Maggie Chapman. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. Can I raise a number of questions about the mental health moratorium working group? The working group has recommended that only those in compulsory treatment should be able to access a mental health moratorium, which is quite a narrow criteria and it's narrower than the definition in England than Wales. Can I ask if any of the panel have a view on this approach that they would like to share with the committee? If we may come to Edinburgh council first of all, and I'm replying to Mr Smyth's question, could you address how you would deal with a creditor who had mental health problems at the moment if you were a debtor? Obviously, there is a moratorium in place at the moment that people, regardless of whether it's mental health, can access. It covers everybody. I'm aware that it's a narrow review for the mental health moratorium for a particular group of people. I'm not in a position to comment on the criteria because I'm not a mental health professional, but for us it's about once a decision has been made, the support that's in place for those citizens and our other citizens to be able to support them in taking forward access to information and support to allow them to make choices. Sorry, I've lost the thread of what you asked there, Colin. Just following up on that point, you talk about the current standard moratorium in place at the moment, nor that provides at the moment a six-month window. Obviously, that's increased from six weeks previously. There's a big debate as to what that timeline should be now. Is that six-month period an appropriate period for the second phase of the mental health moratorium, which, last week, our witnesses said should be the case? In the work that you do, do you detect that that period of time is sufficient? Because I was coming here today, I had a meeting with colleagues from our advice shop just to see how often they have put in place or recommended a moratorium for our citizens over the last year. For them, the time that they recommend someone to go for that is if there is diligence action on the horizon. Rather than at the beginning, I know that some agencies automatically apply for the moratorium for a citizen. It's not necessarily the case that they need it at the beginning, so that probably would be into some of their time to allow them to make appropriate decisions on the direction of travel for them. Is that a long enough period of time? Having listened to the evidence that some of the previous committees, if someone is in a mental health crisis at that time, are they in a position to even listen to some of the information that's given to them to start the timeline effectively? I guess that without statistics to be able to back that up, I'm a bit loath to anecdotally provide that. I think that there needs to be evidence to say this is why and here's the access and lots of other channels being looked at as to whether or not there's a blocker in a particular advice sector or is it because they're not able to access appropriate NHS services to get them into a place to be able to speak about things? That's a bit of a non-answer for me because I think that it needs to have facts around it to allow us to make effective choices for people or suggestions. May I add something here? I realise that the moratorium that is currently available is designed to serve a particular group of people, mostly people who perhaps are not in any kind of mental health crisis, they're just unable to deal with their death. That six-month moratorium gives them a period of time to consider what statutory-based death solutions they might choose to follow, such as entering a DAS, for example, or perhaps assigning a trustee. That six-month period is to give them time to consider all of those options, but that new moratorium is based on a completely different premise. That is for people who are unable mentally to deal with their death. As we all know, there's a huge range of conditions that could be considered mental illness, just from basic anxiety to depression to all-out psychosis. A period of six months to help somebody to deal with those issues might seem rather short, because in my own experience of dealing with mentally ill patients, it can take a lot longer than six months to resolve some of those anxiety issues. Some of them might even last a lifetime. I know that in England, they have an extra provision of a 30-day breathing space, for example, at the end of the moratorium period. To my mind, that wouldn't work, because the initial phase of the moratorium, six months, is to help somebody to seek medical assistance to get over their mental health issues, if they ever do. Adding on to 30 days, I think that in England the idea was just to allow, once they've been removed from the moratorium, to allow them time to get their financial affairs in order. If you have built up debt over 10 years, for example, you're not going to be able to get your financial affairs in order in 30 days, so I don't think that particular extension is very useful. Much better, in my view, is during the moratorium period that there are people in the background who can assist with the financial aspects of that person's difficulties whilst they are receiving treatment. It could be as simple as perhaps increasing powers of attorney and it would be great if somebody could have power of attorney to handle that person's financial affairs. I realise that a person has to have mental capacity to grant a power of attorney in the first place, but many people will have that capacity if they've not reached that severe level of mental distress. The two aspects can be dealt with at the same time during that moratorium. I also have a bit of an issue with the compulsory treatment order being a requirement to access this moratorium. I try to put myself in the shoes of a person in this situation. I would consider it perhaps humiliating and insulting. I don't know. It smacks a little bit of the sort of sentences that are handed out in some criminal cases where people are subjected to drug rehabilitation orders, for example. It smacks of a coercive system that may not always be appropriate for many of our debtors—most of our debtors, I would say. A very decent people who are very keen to pay all their bills and pay their council tax might just have come across a brief period of instability. Perhaps they've got a bereavement in the family or there's illness or whatever. The last thing that that person would be inclined to want to do is to be subjected to a compulsory treatment order. It smacks of somebody being sectioned, perhaps detained in a mental institution for a period. I just have a bit of a problem with that whole concept. Obviously, somebody in that circumstance would be in phase 1, which would last as long as the compulsory treatment order. However, somebody who has not had compulsory treatment order would only have that six-month period, so it is your concern that that six-month period may not be long enough for somebody to deal with their mental health problem. That's true. When people are receiving treatment for mental health issues, I believe that it can take a lot longer than six months to resolve those issues. In fact, it might even take a lifetime. Perhaps there is an option to extend the moratorium period to allow them to continue with their treatment, but only whilst there is provision in the background to say to somebody with the power of attorney to perhaps keep their financial affairs running while they are receiving treatment. It also comes down to a dignity thing. If I were that person, I would feel ashamed and humiliated if I thought that my debt was left sitting untouched for six months. Perhaps if the moratorium period was extended, that debt is still sitting there. It's not going anywhere, but if there is somebody else in the background through the money adviser system who can take over the role of making a payment arrangement, for example, or applying for direct deductions from benefit if the person is entitled to benefit, that sort of thing. At least the debt is being addressed, and that is all to the benefit of the debtor who is going through this crisis and who needs somebody to be taken care of their financial affairs on their behalf. I can make some progress, Mr Smith. I'll move over to Maggie Chapman before by Brian Whittle. Thank you very much, Ken. Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us this morning. I'm wanting to continue Colin Smith's line of questioning around the mental health moratorium. Cheryl, earlier you highlighted the importance of early engagement and early engagement with the debtor, the ability of the people that they are speaking to to sign post to appropriate information. Given what we've heard and Elizabeth, your comments just now are helpful, how do we make sure that people who are—or how do we make sure that you have the tools you need to support the people who are in that crisis point, whether it's the pre-moratorium phase or the moratorium phase itself? What is it that you would be looking for in this legislation to enable you, either in terms of information, in terms of powers or in terms of that sort of capacity for direct engagement with debtors and creditors might be the council or might be thought someone else? For me it's about education and that's not something that you can put into a bill and making sure that people have the information and that it might seem small but that you've got the appropriate processes that are efficient to use the resources that you've got to support those citizens and that everybody's doing it in a collaborative, joined up way. I know I've said early engagement so for us, as a council, we've got lots of touch points that we are having with our citizens on a daily basis. We work very closely with our advice shop and we will put a referral through if we need for one hour's citizens and they will then take them through the appropriate support that's there for them. That's our advice shop but we also have a collaborative group with our citizens advice colleagues and making sure that we're doing things in a joined up way. Also the institute that we are part of revenue and rate and bill valuations is a subject that they talk about and the improvements service are there as well and making sure that councils, all 32 of them, talk about and support and do it in a joined up way so as many people as possible having conversations it's not necessarily the case that you need to put something in legislation it's about education and making sure that the information is clear and concise back to Andrew's point about the debt pack and also different medias. I know that certainly for us when we're doing training it could be a video because a lot of folks access a video in a certain way rather than having to read and it's making sure that folk have got access to be able to use the information in a way that they understand if they're not able to that the support is there for them. Okay thanks that's helpful. One of the one of the things that the working group the mental health moratorium working group has recommended is that obviously the moratorium which that six month period could kick in after some of the medical treatment for that crisis crisis care but that would involve stopping of debt enforcement to freezing of interest and stopping creditor contact. How would this affect your current engagement with debtors? How would it affect what would change in the way you were able to interact with them? So it's about having the appropriate systems to record that information we're not in a place to be able to decide whether or not that someone fits into that criteria so we would be part of the process if we are I'm assuming we've been received some form of notification to say that a citizen is experiencing this and that they are in this mental health period we would then have systems in place that would hold any contact with that citizen for the set period of time. Okay thanks. How that moratorium and the timing of it would affect the people you interact with whether they are in areas or creditors themselves? Well thank you for your question and our profession is very sensitive to and supportive of the work of the Parliament in looking to create a mental health moratorium and in our evidence we've just briefly said that you need to create a system which works in practice to be practical so it needs to be clear for those of us as the that's the officers of court so that we can we understand exactly the situations in which we will find ourselves and it also needs to be equitable amongst the different stakeholders so just a little little point if a person in terms of mental health diagnosis would seem by a certain a certain way of looking at what the mental health moratorium should involve would certainly qualify but this person may have granted a power of attorney this person might have a guardian this person might have business advisers who are able to assist this person might be possessed of great of great wealth and in terms of of of being fair to all the stakeholders we present this point if there is a party that has the power of attorney the the attorney's job is to make sure that the assets of the person are dealt with as that person would have wished to have dealt with and that that person would have wished debts to be paid and therefore if a system were to miscarry to such an extent that it could be said that the debtor has the million pounds on deposit at the bank and the creditor happens to be a small tradesman who has been through court and has a decree for 500 pounds and that creditor is prevented because of the moratorium from ever being paid that would be so far from being equitable so there are I think some gray issues to be to be considered about what is fair between the different stakeholders but from the point of view of appreciating the stress that a person may end up feeling under in a debt situation we're very mindful of that and we'd also like to call to your attention the fact that there are different stress levels involved in the different diligence that the law has provided and I think the most stressful of all would be the execution of an exceptional attachment order which in this was made the law in 2002 and would involve the if necessary the forcing open of a dwelling house the officer of court going in and valuing and removing assets from the house. These procedures are so very rare I can say well that was in 2002 I've never carried through an exceptional attachment order they really are exceptional but the fact is if someone is anxious about what might happen if sheriff officers come to call and this is all part of the reason why they want the mental health moratorium the exceptional attachment order is definitely at one extreme of the spectrum of how intrusive it is but I just ask you to consider the effect of the bank arrestment the bank arrestment involves no visit to the person's house it involves the visit by the sheriff officer to the bank a letter from the bank to the person reporting on whether an arrestment has been carried out and that a certain sum of money has been attached you know that of course the Parliament's work has been to set a minimum a minimum level of deductions that can be taken there needs to be a minimum protected minimum balance of a thousand pounds in a bank account which isn't being operated for business purposes so the my my extreme scenario of the debtor with mental health issues who has a million pounds in the bank the act of an arrestment to allow the tradesman to be paid the 500 pounds out of that sum on deposit I would suggest is on a completely different level of stress from the prospect of a sheriff officer coming with a power of entry to go into a house in the exceptional circumstances provided by the law since 2002 for exceptional attachment orders and to be fair to all the stakeholders I'm sure the committee will bear this in mind thank you that that's useful but but I mean you started your comments by saying you know it has to work in practice and and I think if we were to have gradations of of levels of fairness within the mental health moratorium that might become unwieldy and I'm also mindful of that those extreme hard cases not necessarily being how our laws what you know that they shouldn't necessarily be the baseline for for where we make our laws so there's one one final question just around this and maybe Cheryl Cheryl or Elizabeth coming coming back to you just a question around that that process of interaction between money advisors and debtors and creditors I suppose do you see the sort of level of of debt repayment necessarily changing as a consequence of the mental health moratorium merely just being delayed do you see that that has been being the consequence of this I don't think the level engagement will be delayed because the at the moment we work really effectively with our citizens in my opinion and also our advice shops opinion and the joined up approach you know for us and that's the key and making sure that people regardless of what stage they're at have the access to information so it wouldn't delay anything because people would be supported effectively at the moment and the early warning signs before someone comes to you know the point where their debt has reached a certain point that there will have been lots of interactions with us and support from possibly key workers okay thanks I'll give it that clear thank you Brian model thank you given a good morning to the panel and thank you for being here I'm illicit really intently to to the answers you've been giving to some of my colleagues and I was really going to ask around the mental health monitor was working groups recommendation that a mental health monitor would be applied for via a money advisor strikes me mr mcferston because one of the things I was considering here is is what we don't talk about is the creditor and there are certain circumstances where the creditor is the one that that maybe is being done here but in your particular scenario you said there are somebody sitting with a million pounds in the bank you know with a tradesman we look at a five hundred pounds which happens often it strikes me that it's hugely unlikely that that person would be seeking a money advisor so I'm not quite sure that that scenario would arise but I think that the what was concerned around the fact that it has to be applied for through a money advisor my concern here is that does that money advisor sector have the capacity to deal with that and do they have the skillset are they are they trained to deal with the ability to recognise you know people in a mental health situation and then they have to then be able to access you know mental health and mental health services so I suppose you know I'll come to you sheriff I could in the first instance this sector have the capacity because we're making laws and regulations based on ideal ideal situation we're not and this is by far from an ideal situation so back to the practicality does the sector have the capability? Having spoken to my colleague yesterday it's whether or not they would have the experience from a professional point of view to identify you know a set criteria for the moratorium so they would need to be comfortable with the skillset and the training if it was that group of staff to be able to decide to be able to assist these citizens effectively so it would be a mental health professional in my this is my personal opinion that would decide that this person meets this criteria and then where do you go from there because not every single person that is in a mental health crisis has debt so it's on a case-by-case basis I would suggest I did ask my colleague yesterday how many referrals she had made through in the last year for the normal moratorium and that would be at present folks who are potentially suffering a mental health crisis and it was less than 10 that they had made through in the last year and knows certainly from evidence on the committee on the 13th colleague had mentioned in England it was 2% of the moratorium caseload it depends on the size of the caseload in the first place so I couldn't really comment on whether or not folks would have the capacity to be able to deal with a mental health moratorium it's mainly around the training on whether or not they would be in a position to identify these citizens as fitting into that criteria but at the moment everyone receives assistance regardless of mental health. I think that that's very helpful. My concern here is that mental health is such a sliding scale and we have a significant rise in poor mental health and it's not and from my experience people with poor mental health can be very good at hiding it and so people go to college or to university for three four years to be able to recognise this. My concern in what's being asked here is that it's many advisers who are being charged with recognising that and that's the point I'm really trying to push here is that recognition and then the ability to call in you know we should have the ability to call in mental health experts you know where do we sit with that I don't know if anybody else would be able to come in with that one but where do we sit with it with comfort with that particular issue. I'm going to bring Kevin Stewart in a sec I think the proposal is that someone would have to be in receipt of treatment it would have to be and that's the reason why the choice isn't going to be to restrict because of the difficulty of defining but do you want to say anything additional to Brian Whittles before I bring in Kevin Stewart? I just briefly say you're right of course my example with a million pounds in the bank is an extravagant figure to mention but I would have thought people perhaps with substantial amounts on deposit would still be looking for a money advisor particularly where the money is as it were spoken for for dealing with funding for perhaps perhaps for a care package for a care home there may be all sorts of situations in which people with a largest amount on deposit are still very mindful of the money running out and that there may be the situation where again getting back to the example the decrease being granted for payment of 500 pounds what what is equitable if it proves impossible to be able to proceed with actually asking to be paid that 500 pounds because of consequences of a mental health moratorium. I'll be very brief. First of all to Ms Hind and Ms McRoss, I'm very pleased to hear you use the term citizens rather than customers because it annoys me when councils refer to citizens as customers but my very brief question is around about those front line staff who are immensely important to you in terms of picking up difficulties. Are your front line staff in Edinburgh trauma informed if they had trauma informed practice training which can often be immensely useful in terms of picking up some of the points around about mental health difficulties that folk may have? It's certainly one of the tools within the box that we have. We've got an extensive training programme for our staff to be able to recognise regardless of the point of contact whether it be face to face or on the phone. I guess an example would be Alzheimer's as well that's some of the training that our staff undergo so annually what we have is a training programme and it gets added to depending on the feedback that's coming through to say whether or not there's a particular aspect that we feel that we're just not getting there on or there's something new coming through to allow us to support our citizens more effectively so it's not one size fits all depending on the front facing or if it's over the phone so it's different skill sets that you have to be able to use but yes that is something that we take forward as part of our training. Thank you very much. Brian Whittle, do you wish another question? Just very quickly, if I could. The fashion monitorum to the bill argues that there'll be no significant costs to the local authorities as a result of a mental health monitorum. I can see hidden costs there. I wonder if we know what your consideration is around potential costs of the bill to councils. Obviously from a council point of view being able to effectively collect and spend funds for us as a council is key and there needs to be the balance between collection as I said previously and taking into account individuals circumstances for our ability to pay. The hidden costs I guess that it is unknown at this time for me having read through. I couldn't and maybe this is perhaps my lack of knowledge with the state on the maturity this at the moment on what those you know costs could start to unravel. Budget wise for us as a council we need to be mindful of its public funds so you have to consider what the impact of that would be to be able to support citizens effectively in delivering this for them. I guess for me I'm saying I can't really comment on what those potential hidden costs could be. Sorry I can't really answer that. I can just ask the final question. Myrtle Fraser raised the minimum asset process as the reduction in years is another policy area that we might want to explore. The other area that's being raised with the committee is bank arrestments. The allowance for bank arrestments went up to £1,000. It's a proposal that wage harassment should also go up to £1,000. Doff Edinburgh want to comment on what impact the changes to the bank arrestment made and if you would be supportive. Obviously it's a case that wage harassment should be increased to £1,000. I don't personally have an opinion on that one. There is a schedule that the sheriff officers use to determine how much can be taken from someone's earnings based on what their earning level is. I don't know the figures to hand but I'm sure consideration could be taken as to what does that person's income support. Does it just support them? Does it support their household, their family? Do they have young children? I don't know if there's a room there for flexibility in terms of how much is arrested or if they have to stick to the strict figures that are on this schedule. I'm not quite sure who produces that schedule, but it's a certain percentage of earnings. I don't know if the sheriff officers have any view on that. I understand that it's around £550 as protected for wage harassment while banks are £1,000. It's certainly £1,000 for banks. To me, that was just put forward. It's a nice round figure. I certainly haven't seen any statistical evidence to say that it's the correct figure. It may well be the correct figure, but to our knowledge there's no statistical evidence to support that £1,000 and therefore the same for earnings harassment. Is it the right figure? Who knows? It certainly seemed to just run through that £1,000 was accepted. In terms of the point about whether earnings harassment can be varied, that is talking about complicating matters. You can say, yes, I'm a married man with children and I'm supporting two, three children and a wife and a house, therefore I should have x amount allowed to take home my pay in only a smaller amount. What happens if you're not married, if you're supporting kids out with your family home? What happens if both of you are working? If you're working, your partner, wife, husband has a larger income. To start dictating trying to work out how you vary earnings harassment, that certainly has to be one figure. We would think that that is the only workable answer in that respect. However, whether that's £1,000 is an enormous debate and I don't think that that debate was properly made at the time of the change for the bank harassment. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you to the witnesses this morning. I'll now briefly suspend the meeting while we change over our panel. Our next item of business this morning is an evidence session on the independent review of the Skilled Delivery Landscape report by James Withers and I welcome James Withers to the committee. I'll be grateful of members and the witness could be as precise as possible with questions and answers. First of all, if you want to just give an update on since the report was published in June, how you feel about the Government's response to it and if there's been any discussions with Government over the summer around implementation? Sure. Okay, morning everyone. Thanks, convener, for the invite this morning. Back in May, the report was published. I had a meeting with the Skills Minister last week as a kind of update as to where things were. I think that I'd probably characterise my view of where things are as I've been pretty heartened by the response. There were some initial moves around commitments to single funding body, around the future of skills planning, and I think that from my perspective was quite good to hear before recess, so there wasn't a sort of vacuum over the summer. But I think that my sense is that Scottish Government ministers are taking their time to consider all the implications of I suppose what I've set out in the report. I'm very conscious that I've landed there with a significant reform job. I had some critiques of the skills system as it stands just now, and I think that the complexity of the system means that the reform itself will be complex. I suppose just to keep my answer concise, there were reforms in delivery elements that I felt were needed, big structural reforms in how the whole system is set up, but probably more than that, cultural reforms in how we think about a learning system as a whole and to try to move beyond what I concluded was a real chasm and divide, a false divide that exists between education on the one hand and vocation on the other. It's a significant reform job that I think will take a few years, but my gut feeling is that the response has been heartening in terms of support for the direction of travel, but it will take some time to work through the detail. Okay, thank you. I do recognise that the report made a point of saying that it's not a real view mirror, that it's not an appraisal of past performance, but what you said this morning is significant critiques of the system. We all need for cultural reform, for big structural reform. Do you think that those reforms are overdue? Has there been a lack of direction leadership from government or from other agencies? You've painted a fairly, you know, it's a critical report and it's fairly significant the structural reforms that are outlined. Do you feel that those are overdue and that there's been a lack of attention from government in those areas? The review was evidence led. I've had experience of the skill system for 15, 20 years, but through a fairly narrow lane of business view and an employer's view, and it became very clear to me starting to work how complex and how broad the system was and how complex the customer base was, what I would say is in the hundreds of people I interacted with within the review, I didn't meet a single person either within the system in terms of delivery responsibilities or as a customer of it who felt the system was working optimally. I think in terms of the direction that's going because of the scale of economic transformation I think that's coming to Scotland and I suppose the world in terms of race to net zero, digitalisation, automation, AI and all the impact of that, that even if the system was working optimally, I don't believe it would be fit for the future that's coming. So I think that there has been a lack of leadership from government. The system has been allowed to evolve. I think that systems evolve naturally themselves, but they don't reform themselves. I think that there is no clear description of what good looks like from the system. When I started the review, my first question was if we're going to build a system for 10 years time, have we agreed what good looks like and in reality there were many different definitions of that depending on what part of the skill system you were in. So I think that there has been too passive an approach by government over years to allow the system to evolve and it needs much clearer leadership and a much clearer vision if all parts of the system are going to work collectively and they're not doing that in my view that they're all working within their own individual area and they don't view themselves collaboratively as working as a single system. I would say that there's a terrific amount of good in the system. I met nothing but passionate individuals who were keen to make a difference in terms of skills delivery. However, the way the system is structured and set up has embedded a fragmentation. Colin Beattie to be followed by Michael Chapman. I know that in your review you note that setting out how to implement your recommendations was really beyond the scope of the review. Nonetheless, obviously you've been immersed in this and you have a very good in-depth knowledge of the whole system. What do you see as the biggest single barrier to successfully realising the vision for Scotland's skills system that you've outlined? I don't think that there's a single agreed vision or definition of success for the system, so I think that there's no north star that everyone has pointed towards and whether you speak to those who are involved in colleges or universities or those involved in delivery of apprenticeships and training, they'll have their own different view of what success looks like. Even strategic guidance letters that go to government are focused on individual agencies and what they're expected to deliver, and that makes sense, but it doesn't treat them as though they're part of this coherent system. Saying that implementation was beyond my remit sends a little bit of a cop out, and in a sense what I did was take a whole system review. My concern was in previous attempts to reform other parts of the public sector. It's very easy to go down rabbit holes of short-term efficiencies, of headcounts. My view is the need to step back and look at the system as a whole and think about what it should be trying to deliver for the customer base. The downside of that approach is that it doesn't get into the nitty gritties or the practicalities of how you move functions between one part of the public sector to another. However, to your question, a very clear definition of what success looks like is critical. For me, the system has to consider itself as a single learning system, not a system that is built around a huge fork in the road, whether you either go down education learning route or you go down a vocation skills route, because I think that that is leaving people behind. I think that what you're saying is that there is no one single barrier to the implementation of realising the vision, but it might be different for different component parts. If that's so and if the vision is different for the component parts, if that still leads to fragmentation, there should be one vision. The barriers should be fairly self-evident within that. How do you avoid the fragmentation that comes from your university, your skills development in Scotland and so on? How do you see that coming together? I suppose that this is really where the structural reform comes in. I saw five very clear moving parts to that. At the moment, funding is split across two different agencies, qualifications are split across at least two different agencies with others feeding into that. We've got university and college qualification development set up entirely separately to our apprenticeship framework. To me, it's not a surprise that apprenticeships remain distinct from the core learning system. They're over here, shoved into a separate agency, with separate annualised uncertain budgets, cap numbers and not embedded into the heart of the system. That was my view around that. There should be a single funding agency covering all post-16 learning. There should be a single qualifications body, so there's going to be a new qualifications body that should give you beyond just what happens at schools but into apprenticeship development and other vocational training. Enterprise agencies need to take the crystal clear lead in terms of business support. At the moment, if you're a business, if you're looking at workforce development, you might go to your local enterprise agency, the job centre, you might go to local authority, you might go to SDS. Having clarity on what different agencies have responsibility for across the entire system for their particular element to me was critical. The system was incredibly complex and I heard a lot of evidence from people bewildered by the complexity. I was not inherently concerned about complexity because I think that the system needs to be complex because the customer base is incredibly complex. People of different ages, aspirations, backgrounds, barriers, different parts of the country, the issue was not complexity, it was a lack of clarity and confusion as to who was doing what even within the system itself. I don't think that I met anyone within the skill system that had an old view of every moving part of it. Just to bring you back to the original question, it was about barriers. And what barriers are there to realising these changes? I think that the barriers for realising these changes, aside from being clear on what the vision is trying to achieve, are probably similar to other elements of public sector reform. I think that it needs time and tolerance. I am not entirely sure that those are two things that are offered very often in terms of public sector reform because they desire to see benefits quickly. I don't think that the benefits of this will be seen particularly quickly, they will be longer term. I think that the lack of short term wins and benefits will be seized upon by those in the system who are opposed to change. I think that that is part of the critical barrier and it will require a strong ministerial and political stomach and hopefully cross-party support in order to drive it through. I see that the barriers are political more than an ability to build a system that can be done because other countries have systems that work in different ways. I didn't see any lift in place elsewhere for Scotland, but I have no doubt that we have the building blocks to build the skill system, which would be a competitive advantage for Scotland. I think that the barriers are most likely to be barriers similar to other areas of public sector reform. Thank you for being here this morning and for all the work that has gone into this report. I want to pick up on points that you have mentioned around the possible complexities of our future economy. You mentioned AXA, AI, digitisation and all that. One of the challenges is that, as you have just outlined, nobody has an overview of all of the moving parts. If we take something like net zero, we have so many different streams coming into the net zero skills and training space, and so many different possibilities as well. I hear what you said to Colin about implementation wasn't your game, but how do you think we can ensure that we get an implementation that aligns in some ways? I'm minded, as you were speaking, of the work of Marianna Matsukata and the sort of challenge-based and mission-based approach, rather than government department-based. How is it that we can actually move into that overall systems-based approach that takes account of the different ages, demographics and geographies in the net zero space at the moment? What are the things that we need to be looking at? There are some real challenges around the net zero space, because I heard reference multiple times, almost every day that I was involved in this, to green skills. You then ask what are those green skills and there's a gap there, so there's a real need to understand what we're talking about in that sense. The other thing is, because I don't think anyone can predict, we can have a good go at it, but anyone can predict with real accuracy what our economy and society is going to look like in 10 years time because of the scale of change that's coming. Therefore, I think that we need to focus on a workforce that is going to be agile. I think that there are building block skills, whether they're called micro-credentials, meta-skills, whatever the jargon might be, but the ability to build problem-solving communication, innovation, and those core skills will be critical. To me, the one thing that I would predict is we're going to have multiple different types of jobs that are required to be filled by multiple different types of people. My concern about the skills system at the moment is that there's something of a war between those who advocate for full-time education, the so-called golden pathway to university, and those who argue why we're warehousing people in years of endless university education when we need to knock them into the workplace as soon as possible, whereas, in reality, we're going to need both of those things. However, the way the skills has been set up—you have agencies that advocate for those different parts—I met all of them, and they would make a compelling case of why we should be taking funding from one part to another. I could have taken a very easy step and just said that we need more money for apprenticeships, but if you move money from one part of a fragmented system to another, you're still left with a fragmented system. The other thing—this is a really difficult illness that I've put on government—is the need for better prioritisation. I think that there are probably two, three, four national priorities in terms of skills development that Scotland needs to prioritise. From that, I think that we should be asking all regions to respond to that, but beyond those top two or three—I've copped out by not naming them, but I think that that's when ministerial leadership, political leadership and parliamentary leadership come in to identify what those priorities are, and there will be judgment calls on that. Beyond that, release the regions and local areas to crack on and give them greater autonomy and control of the funding to determine what particular priorities might be in their areas beyond those bigger national priorities. Can I just unpick that a little bit? I might ask you to name what might be a priority area. One of the challenges is if we have—is there a danger that we replicate the same kind of compartmentalisation and silo effect that currently exists by doing exactly that—you over there can do this, you over there can do this, and yet actually we need them to be talking to each other. We need to break down all of those silos, and we see it in macroeconomic structures like the European Union, where there were specialisations of economic activity that has led to weaknesses now. I'm wondering how we ensure that we don't reproduce that in the skills space, whether it's net zero, whether it's AI or whatever it is in Scotland more generally. It's absolutely a risk. Most people support prioritisation until you realise you're not a priority or you pick the wrong priority, so there are absolute risks in that. One of the tensions within the system was this tension about what should be done nationally and regionally, and I'm sure it's true across a whole number of areas of public sector delivery. My view is that Scotland will have some competitive advantages or opportunities or distinct workforce challenges that require a national approach. From that, the execution of that national approach may tweak slightly different in regional areas, but for me what I saw—I take the college sector as an example, and I was blown away by that sector. I had an outdated view of the college sector. I hadn't spent until I did this much time inside our colleges. I thought that they were a phenomenal asset, and yet they're so often constrained. A national agency will need permission to determine whether they can shift some apprenticeship places from one framework to another. They're often rooted in communities connected to businesses, connected to the schools. It strikes me that if those institutions are there receiving not far short of £1 billion a year, we can trust them to determine some of those priorities beneath the big national, big-ticket items. A very, very quick final point on your point, I think that that's been a frustration for many of us around the definition of green skills and the definition of what low-carbon or net-zero jobs actually are. It's not necessarily in construction, in energy, in those kinds of industries. We can be talking about care, we can be talking about the more vocational elements that you were highlighting. Is that an opportunity for us to try and bring the vocation versus the golden pathway that you described together in a way? I think so. For me, there's a real need for more work-based learning opportunities from as early an age as possible. My remit wasn't really to look into schools, but I felt that I couldn't do this review without doing it. I had to look at career services in schools, at how a foundation apprenticeship works, and I actually worked fairly closely at times with Louise Hayward who is doing the review into qualifications as well. It strikes me that I just don't see this distinct divide between vocation and education. If I took a graduate apprenticeship, I think it's a poor name for what it is, because it doesn't describe what it is, but degree apprentices, as they call them, south of the board, which is a better name for it. That's a classic example where you're bringing the world of work and the world of tertiary education together through a single vehicle, which I think is a fantastic vehicle. The fact that there are universities down south who will do more in a single year than all of Scotland combined suggests that we've got greater potential in that area. That brings those two worlds together and not seeing them as somehow separate. Brian Whittle is followed by Colin Smyth. Good morning, James. It's good to see you. I'm really interested in this area, I have to say. Just to follow on from Maggie Chapman and talk about the green economy, I would throw in the blue economy as well, if you don't mind. I think that we all recognise as a massive opportunity for Scotland in terms of the skills development. My concern is that we're not weaving those potential skills and the potential for our pupils into our schools. For example, the construction industry is saying that we need an extra 22,500 tradespeople and engineers by 2028 to hit 2030 targets in the realities. That's not going to happen. The reason it's not going to happen is that I believe is that we're not weaving, we're not, when we talk about the green skills, they speak to a lot of people that think that that's planting trees rather than software engineers and engineers and whatnot. We also have the, again, really pleased to hear you talk about the FE sector in the way that you do, but we also have an FE sector where they have unfilled apprenticeship places and then we have engineering companies screaming for engineers. We're not bringing the two together. That's basically where I'm going. Where did you have a look at how we are weaving what the future needs are into our education system at the earliest possible opportunity? It's an absolutely critical area. This is where I saw the potential to much better embed a truly national career service. It's interesting when I spoke to colleges who would be, some would be overwhelmed with demand from people wanting to go into the beauty industry or hairdressing. I met the commission on land-based learning who didn't have that same demand for people to get into forestry. There's a whole piece around that. You can't be what you can't see. Everyone goes to hairdresser. You see that as very real. Not everyone has experience of an engineering firm or jobs. I think that the ability to build career service, which is not just about—my recommendation was that the SDS loses a significant number of its functions but recasts itself as that careers agency, which is not the same as doing everything but provides momentum to really embed it into communities and local areas. That means providing greater opportunity to see what the career and economic opportunity will be for individuals. I think that there is a gap between what people see at school in terms of career options and what the opportunities are in the workplace. If they could see that, I think that it's more likely that they will eventually be that. I think that that disconnect is really challenging. The final point would be that this whole area around skills has probably felt a little bit death by review, because there's been the Muir report, there has been Graham Smith's brilliant work around careers, I've done my review, I think that what Louise Haywood has looked at around the future of qualification and curriculum is really interesting, where beyond having individual subject hires and qualifications, there would be potentially more general Scottish diploma, baccalaureate in Scotland, but the third part, a work-based and community-based learning, I think would provide the opportunities to raise greater awareness of the future in engineering, green jobs, blue economy jobs as well, and that disconnect exists. I spoke to school pupils who would still view the career service as the place that you are sent if you are failing academically, and that is where our system is still failing. With an agency with that as an arrow focus, I think that there's more chance of getting that right, as challenging as it is. Thank you. I'm also interested in the idea of where there's a national framework and how that devolws down into local economy. The obvious one would be the transition from oil and gas into green economy, and that's very much a northeast, you would imagine, is where the predominance of that's going to be and how they make the decisions up there. The other point that I was going to ask around was that I was with a group on Monday who, working with disenfranchised children at school, who now go to school two days a week and go to them three days a week. It's a really complex landscape out there. How do we create a national framework that allows all that really good work still to happen? I've talked about national prioritisation, so I won't mention that again. What I've suggested is that the functions of skills planning sit within the Scottish Government and come out of what is a mix of Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland. That requires a consistent regional template for skills planning, not for regional skills planning to be done by government but to have a consistent approach to it, because I don't think that Scotland is big enough to justify having lots of different frameworks for how we do skills planning. The question is, where do you do that skills planning? That's not an easy one to answer. My instinct says that our city region areas, our eight kind of city region, city real partnership areas are potentially the vehicle to do that. They need to get a proper representation of people around the table. I heard from some colleges who weren't around the table, SME businesses as well, often feel they weren't around the table, but I think that those kind of, if they're the right geographic areas, are the best model I've seen yet for potentially doing that. I think that if we can trust those partnerships, who in many cases don't have a constitutional body as such, they are a collaboration of people, if we can trust them with steering billions of pounds of investment, capital investment things, I think that we can trust them with the skills planning that sits alongside that as well. Colin Smyth, followed by Murdo Fraser. Thank you, convener. Good morning, James. I'm interested in the boundaries of city region deals, given that in my area the border is in two, including one in the north of England, but I won't go in there at the moment. I want to highlight the issue that you raised about the cluttered landscape, with obviously several organisations often having over lapping responsibilities in that lackable and stop shop for the customer base, but you don't suggest decluttering the number of players in the landscape. Instead, you recommend that collaboration is built into the design of the bodies. How do you do that, given the fact that we were here before with Enterprise and Skills Review in 2016, and that interagency competition is probably even worse now than it was before that review? You're right. I suppose there was no bonfire of agencies within my review. It was about much greater clarity into what their roles were. In a sense, they are much narrower, tighter, clearer focus for Skills Development Scotland in one area, which is careers, and they do brilliant work in delivering that at the moment. That was an example where I felt there was an inherent conflict in Skills Development Scotland's ability to deliver impartial skills of us, while at the same time being the advocate and delivery agent for one part of the skills system, which was apprenticeships. To provide proper impartial advice to people of all ages on skills, you need to have no skin in the game on any part of that particular system. In a sense, there might be a great naive call that collaboration will just happen between bodies, but I come back to my point about the crystal clarity on what the whole system is trying to achieve and then getting people in their lane in a way. Funding dealt with by one body, qualifications by one body, careers by one body, business support led by one body, skills planning led by one body, and then it requires an inherent amount of collaboration. I'm not sure amalgamating them all into a giant agency would necessarily deliver that collaboration. I think that that's a cultural point more than it is about a structural point. Probably, the minister has been very robust in holding agencies to account in terms of how they are delivering that skills system. I would say that I took it as read in my review that the three institutions that the Mure report had recommended to establish in terms of education that that was set. Ministers had announced that. If I had gone for that real amalgamation, I would have had to stretch well into areas probably that reviews had done before. My view was that if we get the cheeser prize of clarity first of all, then that would address a huge amount of the issues that are there in the skills system at the moment. That's not to say in 10 years' time someone's doors chapped and asked whether we should be amalgamating agencies even if their roles are clearer. How do you—there will still be agencies that will have effectively overlapping responsibilities—that's a nature of the enterprise network, for example, South of Scotland, Scottish Enterprise—that they will still have it, even local authorities will still have an element of overlapping responsibilities. How far do we need to go? Do we need to change those responsibilities? Is there any other mechanism that we can put in place that ensures that, at the very least, somebody takes a lead? Often, the experience—for example, for regional economic partnerships—is that several organisations have similar responsibilities but nobody leads on it. How do we put in the mechanism? What mechanism do we need to put in to make sure that we actually get somebody delivering and taking the lead on that when they have that overlapping responsibility? Some of those responsibilities are quite general and they are not often specific. In the context of skills planning, my view was that the responsibility to ensure that skills planning happens sits with Government. The population of a skills plan—a regional skills plan—is devolved down to, in my view, a city region. However, the prize of having greater autonomy over funding, the prize over having greater autonomy over establishing educational provision in an area, is won by demonstrating that you have a clear regional skills plan and, crucially, a clear delivery plan. That plan would require to say who is going to do what when. Having that clarity on who does what would, in effect, win you this prize of having greater autonomy over funding, which largely does not exist at the moment. My hope would be that that would act as a catalyst to provide greater clarity as to who does what. However, I completely accept that there will be overlapping responsibilities for what an enterprise agency and a local authority does. In terms of the enterprise agencies, my point was that they should be the first port of call for workforce development and business. At the moment, what happens is that you have SDS having that responsibility. Scottish Enterprise has a broader responsibility for business innovation, but where does the line stop between workforce innovation and workforce development and business innovation? It was becoming too blurred. Even the enterprise agencies would say that there was not clarity or sufficient collaboration in terms of how they were with Skills Development Scotland to try and work through that. Without that good collaboration, the overlaps have become barriers rather than good opportunities for strategic collaboration. I will go back to some of the answers that you gave to Maggie Chapman on the question of apprenticeships. There is a lot in your report on apprenticeships and apprenticeship funding, and you have already expressed your view on graduate apprenticeships, which are really exciting development for people who want to experience work but also get a qualification. One of the frustrations that I find when I speak to employers is that they are offering apprenticeships who feel that they are not getting any sort of support from the public sector in terms of funding. When I speak to Skills Development Scotland around this, they recognise that and say that there is a large oversubscription in terms of apprenticeship places. I heard what you said about funding, but it is fair that apprenticeships have become the poor relation in terms of the skills landscape. Do we need to do more to trying to level up the funding for apprenticeships? That is where the whole parity of steam question comes in. I think that they have been the poor relationship. Not so much the statement on funding, although I think that there are real issues around funding levels and the ability to meet the demand that there are in terms of how we view apprenticeships. If a foundation apprenticeship is brilliant but with a terrible name, we will put that to one side. If we consider that as an option, a level 6 foundation apprenticeship has the same parity of steam as a level 6 hire. We call them different things. They are treated differently by different people. Pupils and parents have a perception that it is what you do as one of the better, second best options if you are not going to be firing to university. There is a real issue around culturally how we perceive apprenticeships. Where there is an ability to do more is to stop hiving off the whole apprenticeship system into a separate agency with separate funding. That cements the separation of that from the learning system. That should be for me embedded into the heart of qualification development in the same way that secondary school qualifications development and other forms of vocational training are developed. I think that funding should sit in that same agency. I would like to see universities having the freedom to utilise their core funding that they get from SFC to deliver degrees either through apprenticeships or through full-time study. Why we have that separated off, capped, uncertain? It seems to me that it is not surprising that they are seen as a separate other thing that you can do over here if you do not follow the mainstream. If we want to change that and make it the mainstream, we need to put it into the heart of it. That would be my view. There are real challenges around funding. It was not for me to take a view on the future of tuition fee funding. However, when you have £1 billion going into free tuition fee, it massively limits your ability to do other things with the £3.2 billion in total that is spent in skills, but it provides greater flexibility to use funding. Crucially, in local areas, if there is demand for apprenticeships giving freedom to institutions to build provision and use funding to try to tap into that, greater trust and autonomy for them to do that, I think that that would be a good thing. I might start freeing up this. We need more apprenticeships and more work-based learning, but I did not, for me, it was too simplistic to put more money into apprenticeships because the current system would deem that as taking money from university or college full-time education provision and putting it into apprenticeships. To me, that would continue the spirit of fragmentation and that these two worlds are two divided. That is really helpful. On that issue of funding, did you look at the apprenticeship levy at all and how that is allocated? One of the things that I hear from employers who are UK-wide is that, south of the border, there is much more transparency around the apprenticeship levy and how they can access that. In Scotland, that seems to go into the block grant and I have asked parliamentary questions to try to understand how much of that apprenticeship levy money comes down to funding apprenticeships. It is like getting through TRECO to try to understand that. Were you any more successful in trying to understand where that funding goes? In all honesty, I did not spend much time on the apprenticeship levy. I viewed it as a policy question, so I ducked it in a sense. In my experience of it, so I go back to my old job and businesses, it is certainly cloudy at best as to who is paying it and where it goes. My wider concern about the apprenticeship levy is that it has probably dented some faith in the business community in the wider-skill system, but I think that if we can provide a clearer system, a stronger career system too, which truly emphasises the opportunities across a whole different set of industries and different type of roles, we can build greater employer engagement in the system. At the moment, I think that there is good employer engagement in apprenticeship development frameworks. I think that SDS has done that well and they have had the Scottish apprenticeship advisory board that has done that as well, but it is only one part of the system. Building a better business voice in shaping the entire learning system hopefully will help to overcome some of the scars that certainly are from an apprenticeship levy system of which there are certainly business Scotland and they do not have a huge amount of faith that they have paid into and got their value back out of it. Kevin Stewart, do you wish to come on with a question just now? I have just got a very brief question and it is round about the green skills aspect of this. We have touched on this already, that many of the jobs and many of the courses that we have fit in very well with the green skills agenda. Talking to an oil and gas company in the main last night to Scottish renewables, there is a direct move that could be undertaken between the work that they are doing now in oil and gas and renewables. Is there a recognition amongst the skill sector, whether that is the SDS, the colleges or the university, that that is the case and that some of the adaptation that needs to be undertaken is pretty small indeed? I think that there is broad understanding from the delivery part of the skills system of how that adaptation and that economic evolution will manifest itself. I think that there is still a two-week use of data and labour market intelligence and business intelligence to understand exactly what that will look like. I think that there are really good models out there that could be expanded. I have identified the Glasgow City Region Intelligence Hub, which uses really good data, not just churned out of a computer but informed by businesses on the ground as to what the skills requirements are versus the provision that needs to feed that. I think that there is still a lot of labour market intelligence, which is done centrally, does not speak to particular sectors and does not seem necessarily that accurate. I remember looking at that from my old job in food and drink. That is where, again, a greater responsibility, power and autonomy for regions and places to be able to determine how to respond to that. I think that that would be better. Broadly, I think that there is an understanding that this evolution is there and that there are probably some quick wins and steps to tap into that. I have taken a whole system review on that. I think that there are pilots and things that could be done to trial different things in different areas to hopefully provide a model for to follow. In terms of that data gathering, you mentioned the Glasgow aspect. In my own patch in the north-east of Scotland, the likes of opportunity north-east are doing similar things. The intelligence is good, the data is good, but do you think that some of our institutions are actually talking enough and, probably more importantly, listening to business and their future needs? Not sufficiently or in a way that represents the full business base. I think that there are some really good big business employers who also have the resources to engage with the institutions. I think that SDS has got some really good relationships with some of the bigger employers in Scotland. I think that the smaller businesses, medium-sized businesses even, I think that their voices are lost in the system. That is part of the reason why the DYW network has real potential to be accelerated and become that employer voice. I have other views within this about how the DYW network could potentially evolve, but I think that putting that employer voice into the heart of the whole system would be an inherently good thing. That is different from the system being set up to serve employers. One of my concerns is that I saw parts of the system looking as though it existed to serve the needs of business more than the needs of employees, users and learners of all ages. Again, that is a balance that is needed in there. I will have to leave the committee soon, I am afraid. Thank you very much, convener. I want to go back to apprenticeships that Murdo touched upon. You have got your 12 essential pillars for success for post-school learning and two of them relate to employers, which is great. However, I noticed in your comments this morning about the skills planning that you want to take from SDS and put it within the Scottish Government. You have got the apprenticeship approval group, which is made up of employers who are responsible for approving all Scottish apprenticeships. You have got the Scottish apprenticeship advisory body, in which your own report says that there is excellent work and influence in the shape of apprenticeships. How do we retain that employer expertise within the system if we are going to devolve it during the city regions? To me, that is where the DIY network is a real opportunity. SAAP has done really good work in helping to naturalise the concept of apprenticeships and inform their development, identify the framework that should be developed. Going back to my point, I think that the very structures that were required to build our apprenticeship family, which was a dedicated focus, dedicated agency and dedicated structures, my view is that now those same structures are holding them back. They are keeping them separate from the rest of the learning system and the rest of the funding system. By putting apprenticeship development into a qualification body, by putting apprenticeship funding into a funding body along with other types of learning, to me, that same principle applies to how employers shape the learning system. It cannot be about an apprenticeship group that is separate from the rest of the system. That is where the DIY could potentially have greater resource and focus on informing all parts of the learning system, including apprenticeships. For me, if I were the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board and my report had suggested that you be wind up, my message would be that, partly because of the work that you have done, that we want to see those same principles embedded across all parts of the learning system and in all parts of the country. I have also suggested that there should be above that DIY network, which, I suppose, is currently the DIY chairs group of that national employers board that can help to inform the national priorities that we were talking about earlier. I see it as the opportunity to really accelerate that employer voice, not dismantle it, but to put apprenticeships back in the mainstream, because they are too important to be carved out separately, I think. You mentioned developing young workforce. I was pleased to see within the report that you are having three Army barracks in my constituency that you talked about the armed forces and veterans and the need for lifelong learning and retraining, et cetera. Much of the system that we currently have focuses on young people in positive destinations quite rightly to break that generational unemployment situation that we have had over a number of years. Given the state of financial situation and public funds, how do we get the balance right so that we maintain the positive destinations for young folk, but we also are able to introduce lifelong learning in this reorganisation? Do you see efficiencies that would help that? I think that that is about ensuring a broad perspective on skills delivery. I would like to see the Y drop from DYW. I would like to see that to be a developing workforce network for people of all ages. I think that that is not because, as you say, generation youth unemployment is not still an entrangent issue in many areas, but if I look back over the past three or four years at DYW and the young persons guarantee, brilliant initiatives and brilliant focus, I think that a lot of that was predicated on a post-pandemic situation, which was going to be a generation of unemployed young people, which actually has not come to pass. That has not been the impact of the pandemic. Given that we are in a country with a shrinking workforce, O and S forecasts that our population is going to shrink faster in Scotland than any other part of the UK, immigration is not going to be the answer. It is more challenging now than it was when we were in the EU. The need for us to tap into every shred of potential of our people is more critical than it has ever been. I have seen a number of numbers here, but if we are in the region of 400,000 people who are economically inactive in Scotland who could be active—it is not long-term ill or unable to work but who could be active—that need to have an all-age focus is one of the most critical parts of the whole future of the system. Last point that I want to ask you about. You mentioned in your report that apprentices struggle to have their voices and opinions listened to within the system, but unless I have missed it, I have not saw how you think we should be able to address that. I spent time in a number of colleges and, certainly, apprentices moving through that process seemed to be well supported within the college network. I was quite taken with how that worked. I met them and how they felt that they were able to shape their immediate short-term environment of the course that they were on-going. The question for me is how they shape the future of that. I think that how you build structures and how you build that is open to some question or how you build that. However, if there is a DYW network working really closely, including DYW co-ordinators working hand-in-hand with careers advisers and current SDS advisers in school in being able to work with those who are going through apprenticeships, those who have come out of the back of it and those who might be going into it, then hopefully that might capture the voice. It was one of those that I felt could be strengthened. It wasn't a fundamental weakness for me in the system. There were other areas that were more flashing red lights for me than that, but I think that there is definitely potential to capture their views on their experience of the system and how they could be more attractive to them as well. I have a question. It struck me earlier when you talked about hairdressing and engineering and forestry, that they are very traditionally gendered roles and we know for discussion about modern repainters that there are more male-dominated modern repainters systems. You talked about the need for structural reform. Do you see the structural reform that we suggested in any way addressing inequalities in the system? How can we address issues of occupational segregation, particularly race and gender, but we can also apply the same to disability? You know that the committee has done a short piece of work into the disability employment gap. How do we address inequalities through the reforms that you have done? I spent some time with a whole range of, I suppose, third sector bodies that were either advocating for gender-based reform or represent marginalised communities. We talked about veterans reintegrating back out of military service. We talked with Ima Jackson in Glasgow about migrants coming to the country and how we properly profiled our skills and matched them to the frameworks that we have already. In saying that there is no single vision for what good looks like in the system, in the absence of that, I wrote my own. It was not perfect, but my view was that every individual in Scotland has equitable opportunity to access the learning that they need to thrive. For me, that equity bit is built right in the heart of it. I do think again that you can't be what you can't see comes back to that need for really state-of-the-art careers advice and provision in schools. My experience in talking to groups was that some of that gender bias or unconscious bias or reality in some of occupations was ingrained at a really early stage. How we talk about the opportunities will be important. I have also seen, post my review, some pretty amazing ed tech platforms that are being built. There is one called Global Bridge. There is one called Skills Miner that are matching people's skills and potential to jobs that are on offer in a way that is fuelled by AI and that is completely anonymous on issues of gender, race, background, age and all of that, which is a really interesting potential way of doing it. If there is unconscious bias, I am certainly sitting within any part of the employer community getting round some of that, so I think that some of that ed tech investment could be really valuable. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of today's evidence session. I would like to thank James Wothers for his attendance at committee this morning. I will now suspend the meeting and move on to private session.