 Good morning everyone and can I welcome everyone to the 18th meeting in 2018 of the social security committee and I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones but some of us do use data, mobile, laptop devices to aid our scrutiny so that's what we're doing if anyone else sees us on that I promise they will not check our emails we have no apologies have been received I will move straight to agenda item one which is a decision to take items in private. The committee is asked to agree that item six, consideration of evidence that is taken in private, is the committee agreed. We'll now move to agenda item two, which is scrutiny of subordinate legislation. The committee will take evidence on the Public Services Reform, Poverty in Equality Commission Scotland, Order 2018. The Public Appointment and Public Bodies, etc. Scotland Act 2013, treatment of poverty in Equality Commission, and Scottish Commission of Social Security, a specified authorities order 2018. Can I welcome witnesses who are Aileen Campbell, MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government? Can I welcome you, Cabinet Secretary, and welcome you to your position? Good to have you here. You are joined today by two of your officials, Paul Tyler. Tyler Rallaf, my apologies, head of social justice strategy and Colin Brown's solicitor, Scottish Government. Can I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement before we move to questions? Thank you very much, convener, and likewise welcome you to your post on this committee. Thank you for the opportunity to seek the committee's approval for the draft, SSI relating to the Scottish Commission on Social Security and the new statutory poverty and inequality commission. As you said, I'm joined today by Colin Brown from SGLD and Paul Tyler, head of social justice strategy unit. I would like to thank yourself and the members of the committee for their continuing support of engagement and scrutiny as we work to deliver those important new bodies. Due to the straightforward technical nature of the SSI in relation to public appointments, I will also represent the interests of the cabinet secretary for social security and older people, Ms Somerville, in this matter and speak to both SSIs in this statement. First, the SSI would allow the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland to regulate the public appointments of both bodies. Prior to the relevant provisions coming into force, the SSI needed to be approved in order for the commissioner to be formally involved. As outlined in the accompanying policy note, it would be possible for Scottish ministers to make unregulated appointments. However, the appointments process needs to be as rigorous and as transparent as possible and the involvement of the commissioner for ethical standards in public life helps to achieve that. As the committee is aware, those public appointment rounds have now commenced. I understand that Ms Somerville wrote to the committee on 4 September with information on the Scottish Commission on Social Security appointment round, which is currently open to applicants and closes on 28 September tomorrow. The commissioner's code ensures that the appointment process is open, transparent and fair and that all appointments are made based on merit. Therefore, I hope that the committee supports the SSI. Turning to the order under the Public Service Reform Scotland Act 2017, this will allow the Poverty and Inequality Commission to consider a wider range of poverty and inequality issues than those that are contained in the Child Poverty Scotland Act 2017. The order is a pragmatic way of delivering a statutory poverty and inequality commission with a wide-ranging remit. It will improve the exercise of public functions in regard to efficiency, effectiveness and economy by allowing a single statutory body to provide a wide range of independent advice on poverty and inequality. That the commission should have this broad remit is something that Parliament and stakeholders clearly supported during the passage of the bill. As previously outlined during the bill scrutiny process without this order, the commission would only be able to focus on child poverty in line with the remit of the act. Some members will call discussing that back in January when this committee considered a draft order prior to further consultation. Following further consultation, we have made very limited changes to the draft order. The most substantive changes make it more explicit that lived experience of poverty or inequality should be among the skills available to the commission. As my officials advised during the informal evidence session in May, embedding lived experience within the commission is a key consideration, and we will seek to ensure that the member's appointment round actively encourages application from a wide range of individuals right across society. Other changes are stylistic, for example, to change references from section numbers in the bill to those of the act. In closing, I hope that the committee will support both the SSIs. I will be happy to answer any questions that you and the rest of the committee may have to assist your consideration and certainly look forward to contacting you in the coming months with details of the preferred candidate for the rule of the chair of the poverty and inequality commission, and to engage on consideration for the member's appointment round. I look forward to your questions. Are there any questions on either of the instruments before us? Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary. It is a question on the public services reform, the poverty and inequality commission order. I think that it is welcome that there is that increased emphasis that the membership should include persons who have experienced poverty or inequality. When we discussed in private with your officials, we spoke about one of the disqualifying criteria, which was that someone was disqualified if they had ever been made bankrupt or being the subject of a trustee. You can imagine that as someone with lived experience of poverty, perhaps going into bankruptcy or a trustee because of unemployment or something outwith their control that maybe we would want to have on this commission. I know that there are barriers to change that disqualifying criteria, but it was just to ask if there was any work on going to try and remove that criteria so that we could have someone in with that experience at least being open to joining the commission. Thank you for that. More generally, on the point about ensuring that we get a variety of voices to contribute to this, there has been a lot of work done to ensure that there is a broad range of ways in which we have attempted to try and ensure that people understand that they can take part in this commission. Things are under consideration about how we might make sure that the reach of that membership is as wide as it possibly can be. On the specific, around the disqualify criteria, I might ask Paul to comment on that particular point. The Child Poverty Act sets out that the insolvency is a bar to membership, but what I think that we discussed at the previous session was a debt arrangement scheme, whether somebody applying who was part of a debt arrangement scheme would be able to apply and we provided advice to the committee that our view is that they would be able to apply to become a member of the commission. Good morning, minister. I congratulate you on your appointment. You might be aware that it was this committee that really pushed for a statutory basis. I think that the committee did the right thing and I think that it should be commended for doing so, but I think that Angela Constance and her officials should also be commended for the way in which they responded to that at stage 2. That is why we are here. I was particularly interested in the passage of the bill and other members, I know, have shared a similar view that certain things should be specifically mentioned in the delivery plan. Two of those areas would be the single parents and people with a disability. I wonder whether you could give us some assurance about how the panel members that you are about to appoint in time will ensure that the committee will be able to address the specific mention in the act of an anti-povery plan for those with disability and single parents in particular. I echo the comments that you made around the work that Angela Constance did and the officials did to respond to the clear ask in requests from the committee around this being having a statutory fit. I think that part of the reason to be here today is to make sure that that commission is far broader in its remit than it would have been had it just been as narrowly focused on child poverty. Again, hopefully that will enable us to include the issues that you raised around disability and single parents. I hope that that gives it a bit of reassurance that the broader, wider remit allows us to make sure that we get as broad a remit within the membership of the new statutory commission to ensure that we get the range of voices that we need to ensure that we can tackle effectively or be held accountable to tackle effectively inequality amongst particular groups in particular and make the changes in the progress that we need to make on the issues of inequality and poverty. Jeremy Balfour. Good morning. I thank you for these. I wonder just going a wee bit further on the previous question in regard to how the interview process will take place. We had a bit of discussion with your predecessor on this, that for some individuals the kind of formal interview could be off-putting, intimidating, not everybody performs to the best in regard to that. I wonder what you and your officials have been thinking. Obviously it closes tomorrow and then we will be interviews. How will people who perhaps haven't been through that process of a formal interview, will there be changes? Are there any kind of thoughts around that? So that's the one for the Social Security, Scottish Commission on Social Security closes tomorrow and I understand that my colleague Shirley-Anne Somerville sent you the details in the pack for that and I hope that you managed to spread the word amongst your own contacts as well. On the basis of the commission on inequality, we're given consideration about how we might ensure that we get as wide a range of applicants as we possibly can. So again, any thoughts that you might have as a committee around how that might look and what that might look like and what other things might be done to support people who might not ordinarily view that as something that they would want to take part in would be welcome but we are having thoughts around making sure that we can have local awareness raising events, maybe ensuring that people can feel supported in their application. There are other ways in which we can probably tackle that particularly around the Inequality Commission for that lived experience and again we are happy to engage with the committee on any thoughts you may have about what might be necessary in order to get a broader range of voices to apply for the committee. I think that there's probably something that we need to think about more generally about how we encourage people and that if they don't get appointed in the first instance that that interest isn't lost or isn't lost to the wider contribution that they want to make to Scottish society. I think that that's very helpful. I suppose where I'm looking at beyond is beyond the application to once you've shortlisted people how are they treated at an interview stage that if it's the kind of formal four or five people behind the desk interviewing for some individuals that would just be a not a lived experience at all and they may not perform will be able to explain that and it's just what can be done in the next few months of Ironman. Yeah and we can take on board your points however I would point out that this is going to be a very explicit criteria for the application process that lived experience will be there explicitly and will need to be thought through about how that can be helped and nurtured along along the way but I think that's a big step in itself is having that as an explicit ask and criteria for the members of the of the new commission and it's for us to work out how we as the Government and for public in public life more generally help that to be to happen in reality as opposed to just being words on a on a criteria spec are there any other questions okay there are no other questions we will now move to agenda item three and normal agenda item three there might be a provision for a debate on the motions before and I feel we've had that exchange in agenda item two so I'll be content now to invite miss Campbell to move the motion s5m 13766 that the social security committee recommends that the public services before poverty and equality commission scotland order 2018 draft be approved is the committee content thank you oh apologies do I need to formally formally move the voices inside my head heard you move it but that's not enough for the official it's not caught in the official report the voices in your heads you've actually moved it let's do that again that the social security committee recommends that the public services reform poverty and equality commission scotland order 2018 draft be approved oh no okay and can I therefore ask you to move the social the public appointments and public bodies etc scotland act 23 2003 treatment of poverty and equality commission and scotland commission on social security a specified authorities order 2018 can i ask you to formally move that formally moved is the committee content to approve that thank you I won't get that wrong again cabinet secretary can I thank yourself cabinet secretary your officials for your time here this morning and can we suspend briefly before we move to agenda item four thank you very much thank you welcome back everyone we'll move on to agenda item four which is still the border legislation and the committee is invited to consider the council tax reduction scotland amendment number two regulations 2018 can I refer members to the cover note at paper two as it has done before the delegated powers and law reform committee by division through these regulations to the parliament on the grounds that there is a devolution issue the scottish government takes a different view for future regulations the dplr committee has suggested a way to resolve its concerns and has written to the scottish government accordingly the committee's role is to consider the policy at this stage is the committee content to note the instruments okay the committee is content to note the instrument and we will suspend once more briefly thank you okay we now move to agenda item five social security and in-work poverty agenda item five continues our inquiry into social security and in-work poverty and is the second evidence session the focus this week is on how the design of universal credit impacts on in-work poverty and we're happy today to welcome witnesses who are rob gowns policy officer citizens advice scotland victoria todd head of l itrg team low incomes tax reform group and kirstin mckakney welfare rights worker child poverty action group in scotland so thank you for coming along all three of you let me start an opening question the committee is looking very carefully at conditionality in relation to working families and how working tax credits been subsumed by universal credit will or won't impact in relation to that in work poverty there was a randomized control trial where the results were published recently in relation to the lived experience of all families in in that group and there seemed to be a disconnect because there seemed to be a report saying that the the sanction rate for trial participants was 2.4 percent but if you actually asked those on universal credit in that situation they were saying that 20 percent of them saw a reduction in their in their income so i'm just wondering whether you're you've the chance to look at that particular randomized control trial if you've got any comments to make in why that might be the case or if you haven't seen that trial could could you tell me what your experience has been or what your concerns may or may not be in relation to that in work conditionality and lower incomes as a result mr gowns i think in terms of of in work conditionality it's something that that we're kind of keeping a sort of a watchful eye out for because it represents something that's that's very near in the benefit system in that in that there's potential that that in what people would be subject to conditions and potentially sanctions there hasn't been a huge amount of sort of cases of in work people that we've advised who who have been been sanctioned um in terms of the the reductions i'm i'm not i need to to sort of go away and do a bit more or digging on what the what the discrepancy is there it could be that that someone's universal credit award is is sort of reduced for for other reasons for instance to to sort of repay um repa deductions to repay by debt or of payments or advanced payments um or it could be subject to to kind of the kind of the fluctuations and universal credit because of their because they're incumbent um to sort of go away and have a have a sort of a good a good look at the um the report of the study to to sort of see if okay what's going on are there any other comments in relation to that okay christin mcackie concur with um robby we need to do a little there is a lot more information that we might need to see before we could have a proper comment on it um i think the one thing that i picked up i've only read the summary of the study and not the whole thing um was that people's experience varied depending on who their work coach was and how much time the work coach had to spend with them and that's something that we've seen quite evident in relation to anybody's contact with universal credit is that experience very much depends on the work coach and their use of the discretion that they have and that's something that i think would can causes reason to be positive in some senses in relation to in work conditionality but it can also cause a concern as well depending on how the work coach uses that conditionality. Victoria Todd. I'd also echo we're very early in understanding what works for this group and obviously you know the trial was was helpful but the document notes that there was a number of limitations and that you will need to look at people over a longer period of time. I think also the type of people who are kind of in universal credit may not have kind of been in long-term work whereas when we get the tax credit people who are moving across that you know they've not had experience of dealing with HMRC in the way they'll have to interact with with the job centres so it's a real challenges to what might work in terms of those groups so I think it is early and we need to I think continue watching see how things develop and also evaluation and more trials of different methods I think will be really helpful. I mean I'm conscious that even if it is 2.4% sanction rate within the trial but there's that disconnect between the lived experience of 20% feel that incomes went down during that trial that's a significant concern obviously but also this was under the light touch approach so if you're conducting a trial under a light touch approach what does it really tell us about the full rollout of universal credit across Scotland can it be meaningful from that point of view? Mr Gowans? I mean I think in terms of I think we'd probably favour this sort of if there is a light touch approach that continuing for for people who are who are in work there's obviously sort of I'm not sure it's it's being people's people's interest to be applying sanctions in a in a draconian way if somebody is in work that some of the theory behind behind sanctions is that it's in some way sort of this sort of holds holds people's feet to the fire to look for look for a job if somebody's already got a job then that's that's not not likely to be to be effective I'd echo the points made around around work coach discretion I think that's that would be sort of important important to apply across the the universal credit regime because people's circumstances are obviously very different so so I think that it's to try and make it a sort of a totally black and white requirement for people in work of if you are not earning this amount then you should you should always look for for work for this amount of time is isn't going to be effective in in helping people to to earn more to get a to get a better job or to increase their hours okay I want to come back with the other witnesses to that what what light touch actually means so light touch means that for a single person a sanction won't necessarily apply if they're earning over 338 pounds a month now my math might be a little bit out but that's maybe 10 and 11 hours a week at minimal wage or something where you can you can avoid at the risk of conditionality and a sanction but once this the fully fledged universal credit rolls out it's going to be notionally 35 hours a week at the minimum wage so if there's someone out there doing 10 11 hours a week just now on universal credit no sanction or conditionality applying and then there's this work coach sitting there and the work coach has to decide when is it reasonable for that person to be on the 35 hours at minimum wage or equivalent first of all do you think that's a reasonable condition to have within the universal credit system and secondly do you think what coaches have got enough knowledge skills training and time to use their discretion in a manner that's actually informed to the local work environment and the local needs of the clients so a lot in that Victoria Todd do you want to go first just coming back on the on the threshold so and i can follow up in writing but my understanding is that in terms of this trial that the only people in the trial were those who were earning above the 338 for a single person because if you are below that i think it's called the administrative earnings threshold and then you would be in the intensive work search groups if you're above the 338 that the purpose of the light touch group was to see if you could take those people more towards the 35 hours at minimum wage and that was my understanding of kind of how the trial works can i just come back to you on that then i find a study where you get a sanction rate of 2.4 percent because if you actually pick a client group where they're above the threshold for for for sanction and 2.4 percent are still been sanctioned that would seem a bit odd yeah i mean my understanding is that that there were sanctions within this trial and those people were above the 338 so they were between the 338 and the 35 hours at national minimum wage and sanctions were part of the part of the trial and i think as rob said you know it's a very different proposition giving sanctions to the people who are already working and doing some hours then done for those who are maybe out of us so there's a lot of punishing people for going to work rather than support to them but that might just be my comment how i asked about the the work coach so you get work coach sitting there they've got many many clients they have to decide what's reasonable in terms of the local jobs market as their jobs out there childcare perhaps for families the effectiveness of the bus routes they've got to piece all that together they've got to say to a client well we think you can be doing more hours and earning more money and you're you're not doing enough or they say we appreciate you are where you are that's a pretty highly skilled time consuming job are you confident they have the knowledge to do that kind of thing i think the the role of work coaches for from a literary perspective has been something that's concerning us um and if you look at the um haven't got them to hand the figures from the nao report as to how many um cases each work coach will have so in march 18 it was 85 um people per work coach and it's expected by 2024 to be 373 um claimants per work coach and i think we certainly have concerns as to how you know you would deal with that volume and i think with this trial one of the things that was noted is that they had the time and and the resource to spend with these people and so what will happen when you've got the migration and and many more claimants per work coach to consider all of the factors you've just uh you've just outlined it's definitely a worry as to whether they can cope with that okay thank you before i move on to alice rallan for the next question do you have anything to add on that customer character yeah i think just in relation to concerns about the work coaches as you've said that people will be expected to um to earn the national minimum minimum minimum age of 35 hours a week there will be discretion to vary that according to people's circumstances but as we've already seen work coaches it can be a bit of a lottery as to which work coach you have as to whether or not that is varied or not and the discretion can vary considerably from some work coaches insisting that people do do things for 35 hours a week and to some just saying just check him with me every couple of weeks by phone in relation to the time that the work coaches have we already know that that's an issue with their current workload and we have people who are leaving notes in their journal for the work coaches and just not getting a response and that's before this workload has ramped up and in terms of the in-work sanctions we have a concern about people's ability to continue to work if they have been sanctioned because that obviously will impact on their ability to pay their rent which can threaten their housing situation and also their ability to pay childcare and if you can't pay for your childcare you can't go out to work so I think that's our main concern in relation to that. Okay thank you very much that's very helpful Alice Rallon. Thank you convener um well as the convener has said there is something instinctively counterintuitive about the idea of of a system that might find somebody for not being a high enough paid job but I mean put in that initial suspicion to one side and I wonder if you can say something more about the group you described as the intensive work search group and what evidence there is if any to show that people in that group are being motivated or incentivised into higher paid work through this system through the limited amount of data we have just now. I think that the evidence is limited and we don't have evidence to that effect at the moment I don't think. I think some of the evidence that we do have is that people are being put off claiming universal credit because of in-work conditionality. People who might receive a small amount of universal credit on top of their wages are choosing just not to claim so that they don't have to engage with the conditionality but I'm afraid that's as far as our evidence goes. Rob Gaines, did you want to add? I think we were being in a sort of similar position as far as our our evidence goes as well and I think typically people will come to a CAB for advice on a benefits issue. I think if they've then moved into sort of higher paid work and weren't receiving universal credit anymore they wouldn't necessarily come in for advice. That may be why we're not sort of seeing a great deal of it, it would be a note of caution. I think generally as a sort of universal credit rolls out further particularly to people who are currently receiving tax credits I think it would be quite interesting to see the extent to which people will will claim universal credit because there's need to be a sort of a view amongst some tax credit claims. They're not necessarily claiming benefits and this is something that's sort of quite separate and that universal credit does bring with it, bring with it conditions that tax credits don't have so I think that that's something that would be a sort of an interesting thing to to sort of watch out for as it rolls out further. I don't think I can add anything to what you said. Do you want to follow up on that, Alasdraall? Well, just look at here at evidence that's been made available to the committee studied by Wright, Stewart and Dwyer around social security in Scotland, which concludes that several low-paid workers on that study are resented being subjected to in-work conditionality and reacted to that by relinquishing the housing related and low-wage supplements available through universal credit in order to avoid in this estate of compulsory additional job searches and the 10th job centre plus. I just wonder how that squares with your own experience even if only anecdotally and whether you feel that's a fair picture or not and what the consequences might be perhaps for vulnerable people who find themselves in that situation? I think it's possibly kind of too early to say with with any certainty because, as Rob said, we've got the tax credit population, they're still in tax credits by and large and we're waiting for those to come across. Obviously this trial was only with a fairly small number of people so I think it's watching way to see how things might develop and how people might react but I think you know we would share the concerns that Rob mentioned particularly about the tax credit population because you know you can make a tax credit claim and then for a whole year have really no interaction with HMRC which is very different to the regime under universal credit and that may well put some people off if the amounts are small. The other thing I want to ask about related to that was around you mentioned the experience or the varied experience of work coaching if you like, face to face, some of it only over the phone. Presumably there are, this is going to apply to a lot of large swathes of rural Scotland such as the areas I represent on the islands where there really is little opportunity for face to face and people rely almost entirely presumably in some places on telephone contact and so on. Are you able to build up any picture of potential inequalities around the country depending on what access people have to those services? It's definitely a challenge. Historically there was a large group of people in remote rural areas who would sign on by post for instance. One of the things that DWP have been exploring is that it's something that they've discussed with ourselves is whether it's possible to have people remotely attend the job centre via Skype or video conferencing. That might be something from community hubs, it might be from CAB for instance if that's the place that's most convenient for local communities. I'm not sure the exact status of that pilot is but it's definitely a challenge in that people are not always able to access a job centre that's within convenient travelling time. I think that we all understand that universal credit has changed since it was first introduced and the UK Government suggested at first that no one would be worse off under universal credit but we know that there have been a lot of cuts particularly to work allowances. I'd like to understand from the panel if you feel that it is still the case that universal credit can and does make work pay and if not how it can be changed to make sure that that is the case. I think that for a small number of people we do have case studies where universal credit has made work pay. We have cases studies of people who have no housing costs, who are in work, who might previously not have been able to access benefits on top of any work that they were doing. I have to say that those cases studies are far outweighed by the number of people who are worse off in universal credit. The kind of things that we are seeing is the application of the work allowance, which means that people earn less before their universal credit is cut. We have also seen things such as the monthly assessment periods, causing big problems for people in terms of fluctuating incomes. For example, if you have received two payments in one assessment period, it may be the case that it has seen that you have had both of those, and then in the next period you get no payment. That could mean that you could be subject to the benefit cap, even though you have continued working throughout. Because of the date of your payment, it has seen that you do not have enough earnings to escape the benefit cap, but it also means that it makes it really difficult for people to budget according to how much universal credit will they get depending on their payment date. I would like to say that, in the last evidence session, you heard from people who were saying that it is probably an overall mixed picture that some people gain and some people lose. The one thing that I would like to say about the work incentives and something that Litrig has been saying from the beginning is that you cannot just look at universal credit in isolation. If you look at it from the claimants' perspective and looking at what they have in terms of cash every week available to them, there are more factors that you need to take into account than just the taperate of universal credit. It is interaction with passported benefits. When you move into work, will you lose the passported benefits? You will have increased travel costs. When we talk about does universal credit make work pay, there are a lot more factors that we have to think about than just universal credit, which is a mixed picture anyway of itself. I would certainly echo both of those points. The changes particularly to the work allowances have impacted how much universal credit can make work pay. There have been a number of studies in terms of how relatively generous universal credit is compared to the previous systems. Last year, our two CABs in East Lothian and Musselburn Haddington did a study of all the people who came in for advice on a benefits issue and compared what they would be if they were claiming universal credit compared to the legacy system. For the people who were employed or self-employed, 18 per cent saw no change in income. 18 per cent income would increase, and that is by a median of just over £18 a week, and 45 per cent decreased by a median of £39 a week. It can vary, but it is certainly not always the case that people who are in work would be better off on universal credit compared to the previous system. Do you have a view on how universal credit compares to working tax credits when it comes to supporting people on low earnings? I guess that there is probably, as I am looking at it, that some will gain and some will lose in terms of the support to increase earnings from the job centre. That is not something that would have existed under the tax credit system. In terms of ease of claiming, there has always been issues with payments of tax credits, because the system requires people to estimate their earnings over the year, which is then reconciled at the end. There can be differences if people's circumstances have changed during the year. That can sometimes be the case with universal credit if people's earnings fluctuate month-to-month for the reasons that Kerstin McHackney outlined. There is a range of different ways of looking at support. There may be some pros to it, but there are potentially a few pitfalls as well. Does anyone else have a view on how they compare supporting people with low earnings? I think that some of the things that we have noticed are the real-time information. Should, in principle, make it much easier for universal credit to get information about people's earnings without them having to report and avoid things like having to guesstimate what your earnings are going to be? In fact, we have seen times where the real-time information has not been accurate, and that has caused huge problems for people's universal credit in that the two do not match up. We have had difficulty persuading DWP to accept the client's information that they may have through bank statements and things like our wage slips, rather than information that has come direct from HMRC. We have also seen issues in relation to childcare. Either the childcare element is just not being included in universal credit awards accidentally, but the issue of having to report your childcare costs after you have paid them, so that people are being expected to pay for their childcare costs before they can be reimbursed for them. That is obviously a barrier for people with low incomes. As with tax credits, you could say, this year, I expect to pay x amount on childcare, and that would be included in your award. In terms of the comparison with working tax credit, it is hard to directly compare because universal credits are obviously including all the six benefits. Tax credits obviously had those hours thresholds that encouraged people to try and get to 16 hours, for example for long parents and other groups, or 24 hours or 30 hours. Beyond that, the incentive was not as strong. With universal credit, because we do not have those hours thresholds, I think that some of the research that I have done has a shift in terms of where the incentives lie at different hours groups. I think that with childcare, under universal credit, it is more generous. Childcare supports them under tax credits because they get 85 per cent compared to 70 per cent. It ends up as a mixed bag of results that depends on the circumstances of the person. Just for the benefit of members, all members, hospital members now, Michelle O, do you want to speak as well in this? Every other member wants to speak, so I will just ask you for a little bit of patience, Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, convener, and good morning. I just wanted to go back to the point and pick up the community at the start about the sanction and how that may be developed over the last two or three years. I visited two job centres in my region in the past two weeks and talked to them about sanctions and how they work. The evidence that they are giving me is that it has changed maybe in the last couple of years that there is, if you like, a lighter touch that claimants will be getting a number of letters and phone calls before any sanctions are started. Have you picked up a change in how it has been dealt with locally in regard to that, and is that a positive move and how could it be improved? I think that it is fair to say that, although there are still issues with sanctions, it is nowhere near the problems that we had back in 2013-14, where it was probably the biggest issue and the biggest concern that CABs would have in terms of the frequency of sanctions, the fairness of sanctions and whether it is individual circumstances or account. It certainly seems to be the case that a lot more of the client's circumstances are taken into account now compared to then. We do not receive as many reports about problems with unfair sanctions as we used to, so there seems to be a change made over the past few years. I agree with Rob in relation to job seekers allowance. We have seen a huge reduction in the number of sanctions and, as Rob said, we do not see the sort of ones that we might have thought have been unfair before. We have noticed an increase in the number of sanctions for universal credit, and that is partly because there are a larger number of people in universal credit who are subject to conditionality than there were previously. For example, if somebody is waiting for a work capability assessment under universal credit, they may still have conditionality attached to them. If you were waiting for a work capability assessment for employment and support allowance, you generally would not be expected to do anything in relation to looking for or preparing for work. What we are seeing is where the work coach discretion comes in. Some work coaches are not applying conditionality pending a work capability assessment, but some are, including a work search for up to 35 hours a week, and people who have been declared unfit to work by their doctors are finding it difficult to comply with those conditions and have had sanctions as a result of that. In relation to other issues, in relation to universal credit sanctions, we have seen a couple of cases where there was a delay in notifying the failure that somebody had failed to do something. Because of that, they experienced a sanction for a longer period of time. It was the kind of thing that had they been notified at the time, they might have been able to rectify quite quickly, but because there was a delay by DWP notifying them, the sanction applied for about 26 weeks. Can I seek clarification just in regard to your around the sanctions in that the people who have these conditionalities put on them, if they are not meeting that conditionality, are they given a warning before any sanctions take place? I couldn't be absolutely sure in relation to that. I think some of the cases we've had, it's people who have been quite vulnerable, who have experienced mental health problems, found it quite difficult to engage, and who have been repeatedly sanctioned, so whether they have been warned or not, I couldn't be absolutely sure. I suppose that the question around that is, if someone is not willing to engage with the system for whatever reason, they may need support on that, but if they are not willing to engage with the DWP, that is different from someone turning up 10 minutes later and suddenly being sanctioned. I suppose that what I'm trying to work out is, are the DWP trying to help in regard to that by sending either texts or letters or phone calls before they go into sanctions? I think that some of the concerns that we've had is that some of the people who have been very well, it's become being quite apparent that they're quite vulnerable because of mental health problems and that we don't think adequate steps have been taken in relation to them being a vulnerable person, so it may be that there might have been a text sent, but there haven't been enough steps taken to protect that person as a vulnerable person. So what extra steps would you pretend to help a coach around that? How would you deal with that then? It's recognising whether the conditionality might be appropriate. If somebody is being repeatedly sanctioned while they are waiting for a work capability assessment, there may be questions to be asked about whether the conditionality for that person is appropriate. Does this person have the appropriate support put in place to engage with the system? Can I just check? It was mentioned earlier that the workload of a work coach was 85 clients and that was anticipated to rise to 373 clients. If they're missing vulnerable people right now with 85 clients, what's going to happen when they've got 373 individuals with their own stories to tell and their own vulnerabilities? Should we anticipate much more of that kind of thing? I think that we have to bear in mind to be fair in relation to 373. A lot of the people will not have very little communication with their work coach. It may be that they're receiving universal credit, they're already, they've known work conditionality attached to them, so it'll be some of the people who will come over from the working tax credit load already who don't have that much communication with the HMRC. I would agree that we are very concerned about work coach's workload. They are struggling at the moment to communicate with the clients that they have just now. As soon as that's ramped up, it will be difficult for them to keep on top of that, and there is more chance of people being missed in that kind of situation. You have to really know your clients, and the more you have, the more difficult that is. Pauline McNeill. Good morning. Two lines of questioning. The first is in relation to those who are in work and in receipt of working tax credits, and the second question is in relation to what needs to be fixed about the universal credit system. You'll be aware that those who are currently in work and who are in receipt of working tax credit, when they move to universal credit, they will be subject to conditionality, which they previously weren't. It suggests that using the benefit system to encourage people already in work to increase their hours and pay is unprecedented internationally, according to OECD. The Social Security Advisory Committee has said that the scale of the challenge is enormous, and on the back of that they welcome the cautious test and learn approach. I just wonder if it really is necessary in your opinion to upset what has been a successful system? The working tax credit system with child tax credit system for those on low income has helped so many families who have kept children out of poverty. Now, if they switch to universal credit, which they will have to think by the end of December, and there is conditionality attached to that, it just seems to me that we are creating more problems than the work that we are solving here. I wondered what you thought. Any comments on that, Mr Burns? I think that you are absolutely right that it is not something that there seems to be a lot of experience of around the world. Probably what is advocated with in-work progression and work conditionality is that, if it emerges that it works, it is great. The concerns that we would have about, as you have outlined, is introducing that at the same time as you are introducing what is the biggest reform to the social security system, since the social security system was created in rolling out universal credit itself. It would be something that we would certainly take a long-term and slow approach and not trying to rush it. Effectively, it is a different skill to add to the work coaches skillset at a time when the number of clients is increasing. It is right to take a very cautious approach to in-work progression and conditionality. Any support to help people to progress in work is a positive thing. However, in the way that it has been done in relation to universal credit, it is only looking at one leaver in terms of trying to encourage people to progress through work. However, it is not necessarily looking at the availability of work, what type of work there is for people, what restrictions people might have on their ability to increase their hours. For example, if their lone parents and people with caring responsibilities are restricted by the very nature of their family circumstances and the amount of work that they can do, it is vital that we are still able to support people with an adequate income who are not able to increase their hours of work. However, it is also not looking at the availability of things such as childcare locally and transport locally. It is one of those things that, if we want people to increase their hours and progress, we need to have a much more holistic view. It cannot just be viewed through the lens of social security. I will echo what Kirsty said. You need to have a whole view of all the different factors. What I would say about tax credits is what I touched on before. Within the tax credit system, there were certain incentives at different hours points, and that is different under universal credit. More work needs to be done to understand how universal credit is working in terms of the work incentives, before we start rolling out all of the work conditionality and thinking about that as well. It is new, as you said. There has been one study in the US where it showed that you can help people to progress with some intensive work who are already in work, but it is very new. We have a very different population, but doing everything together, as Rob said, is a huge challenge. Would it not have been easier just to leave that side of things alone? I think that it will be a big shock to a lot of people who do not think that they are in the social security system because they are working and they are paying their taxes and they are working hard and they are getting a bit of help from the state because they have children or because they do not earn enough. To include that group in the universal credit system is, because we have already explained some of the difficulties that need to be fixed, even if you support the idea of it, but by December it just seems to me—I would like to feel there are much bigger voices saying, hold on a minute, why should those people be subject to conditionality? What is the reasoning behind that? I have got to see those concerns about that group of people. I wondered if you thought more needs to be done to maybe highlight that. I think that more needs to be done to understand whether in-work conditionality will make a difference for that group. I think that those trials—it was a very small trial, so they need to continue doing that work to see whether it does have any positive outcomes and also to understand the challenges. From the work coaches, I have had conversations with their concerns about having conversations with tax credit claimants. People who are already in work and feel like they are trying really hard are in a very difficult conversation to have. How can you expect it to go any other way than being a negative experience? People now who have problems with their working tax credit come to their MSPs and we have a hotline and we phone them. We can sort it, but that is all going to change. I cannot see the positive aspects of changing the system, because conditionality implies that, if you do not meet the conditions, you will lose some of your tax credit, whereas at the moment, as long as it is your earnings, so it seems to me that there has got to be a downward trajectory for that group. I cannot see that applying conditionality can only go one way, could it not? I would say that some of the claimants who have met in the job centres who have been part of this trial some of them did have positive things to say about it because they welcomed the additional support that they would not have gotten to tax credit. We are not talking about claimants, we are talking about people who are already in work who will be subject to it. People who are already working, who would have been claiming tax credits, but because of their area that they are now in universal credit, some of them have had some positive experience of having support from the work coaches to increase the number of hours or to look at other options, to have training. The stories that I have heard are not all negative in that respect. That is helpful to know. Is there any work being done that you are aware of? If you are in work, it seems to me that if you speak to anyone who is in work and they want to get a new job, it is quite hard because you do not want to tell your employer that you might be moving on and you are required to do it because you are trying to forget your employment. Is there any work being done around how you actually progress to more hours, a different job? I guess that this is what the system is supposed to do, is to encourage and motivate you to do better and get a better paid job, but it is easier said and done, would you not agree? You are absolutely right that it is easier said and done. I think that if you spoke to some local job centres, they would tell you that they are doing trying to do work in order to support people. We have also heard people who have appreciated the support that they have been getting in work. I think that again it depends on which job centre you are with and who your work coach is and what your experience of this will be. Some people are simply being told to increase your hours or to ask your employer for a pay rise, but whereas other people are genuinely getting support and training, they would not have otherwise had access to it. There is a lot needing fixed. I hope that you agree with that, when some of the evidence that you have given the committee about the out-of-sync aspects of it. Do you have a list of things that you think need to be fixed? Do you have top three, for example, of things that should be fixed? I presume from what you are saying that you think that it can be fixed. I have deeper concerns on that personally, but I would be interested in your evidence on that. Yes, we do have a list. Some of our key things would be to increase the work allowance to remove the two-child limit and the benefit cap. For the period in which people have their advances that they do not have to pay them back, because you have the five-week wait at the beginning of a universal credit claim, you can get in advance and you are given a year to pay that back, but it is causing people financial hardship over a longer period of time rather than that kind of initial crisis period. That is probably our three main asks. Any other aspects that we are talking about? For us, the area that we have been doing most work around is the self-employed, so we would like to see some changes around how you measure income for the self-employed, because currently the monthly assessment periods do not reflect the realities of self-employment. The minimum income floor is likely to lead to people coming out of self-employment or, indeed, not starting self-employment. I echo the points that Kirsty has made around increasing the work allowances and putting the money back in that was taken out of the system. Lately we have got a long list of issues that we think should be fixed at the universal credit. If we pick three, it will be to ensure that people who have poor digital skills are still able to access universal credit. That might be through the phone or in person. As Kirsty McAnkley said, we are addressing the issue with the five-way wake at the start of the claim. If somebody is given an advance payment that they do not need to pay that or, at the very least, that the deductions are reduced at a much lower rate at the moment. That can be up to 40 per cent. We have observed that, although we are seeing less problems with the gap in income at the start of the claim because people are taking advance payments, that in some way kicks the can down the road because they need to repay that over the first few months. They are on a reduced income for quite a period of time. The issue will be around fixing some of the issues with rent arrears and we will be publishing a report in that in the next couple of weeks, which I am happy to send to the committee. The first question is about tax credits. At the moment, I think that what we are getting back from you is not quite sure. There are some winners and some gainers, but you are concerned about what happens when everybody else on tax credits migrates over, which is by December. Is that right? The tax thing is due to start in January and it will gradually increase numbers with the bigger numbers coming from October 19. I think that one of the real concerning things that I have heard this morning that someone said—I think that it might have been yourself, Kirsty McKechnie—was that some people may decide not to even apply for universal credit because their perception at the moment is that they are not actually in the benefits system, they are getting help with their tax credits through that system and they do not see themselves as being part of the benefits system. I think that there could well be people on the basis of what they perceived to be the stigma and perhaps even some of the negative stories that they themselves will have heard about universal credit may stop them even applying for universal credit. As leading welfare organisations, are you putting in place any monitoring or studies to pick up how much that occurs among that population of people on working tax credits at the moment? And also those who do choose to move over to universal credit, what impact on their income there is because, probably when you asked whether her perception as mine would be that there will be more losers than winners, but it would be really helpful to have the evidence of that as we go forward a year down the line, 18 months down the line and as key organisations who are in the field and are picking up and perhaps have the capacity to do that because of the people coming through the door for help, are you going to be monitoring that so that perhaps in a year's time we can get evidence back about what is actually happening on the ground with that population of people on working tax credit? We basically have an on-going monitoring system in terms of what people come for advice about both in terms of the advice that is given, but our COB advisers will send us any cases where they see that there is some sort of social policy issue there that affected them. That would be the sort of thing that they would send through to us, and it is certainly something that we will be looking out for as well as the other issues caused by the migration and, in particular, if it was in people not to apply for universal credit or if somebody was to miss the letter telling them that their claim would be closed and that they would have to apply for universal credit if they are missing out. That is some of the things that we have fed back in evidence on the managed migration process, because it is fair to say that that is a major concern of ours about how it is going to be done. With managed migration, that is the process of people who are on tax credits or other legacy benefits being invited to claim universal credit. Those regulations are still being consulted on, so we do not know exactly how that process is going to work. What I would say in terms of the winners and losers is that it is a more complex situation because there are people who can move now under what we say is natural migration because of a change of circumstances. When we talk about the winners and losers with universal credit, I think that we often refer to that group. Under the managed migration process, there has been a commitment given that people should not lose out as a result of that move to universal credit, so there will be something added to their universal credit called transitional protection. If their universal credit is lower than what they were getting on tax credits, they should, in theory, get a transitional protection element to make that difference up. However, that will then be eroded or lost. How long does that transitional protection last? It lasts until something happens that would either reduce it. For example, if you have another child once you are in the universal credit system, the universal credit award will not go up until you have used up the transitional protection, so you will not see an increase when you add the child, for example, or if you separate from your partner that would end transitional protection under the proposals. Is that not a bit concerning? Some of the decisions that people will make in their lives could be influenced by the worry of losing the transitional protection. To me, particularly in relation to that relationship issue, there could be abuse issues. Is that a concern that you would have? Yes, it is something that we flagged up in the literary response to the consultation. I think that it is just very complicated that the proposals around transition protection, when you lose it, and if we think that our discussion about work incentives, understanding what will happen if you take more hours or all of those factors, makes everything really complicated. I think that it is going to be a challenge to explain it to people and for people to understand how their changes will impact. I see that Pagan Scotland already has the early warning system monitoring the impact of changes in the benefit system. We take information from our advice line, and we also ask front-line workers with direct experience working with clients to feed in information. From that, we have been monitoring the impact of universal credit quite closely over the past few years, and we provide information that evidence sessions like today. We also work closely with DWP to report back on the administrative side of things. We can see already that natural migration means that people are quite a bit worse off. We have picked up that there will be mass migration and people will have transitional protection then. In the meantime, there are a number of people who are losing out already. One of the case studies that we used was an example of a couple who married and one of the partners had been on tax credits. Unfortunately, her partner was terminally ill. She knows that she will be at least £40 a week worse off under the universal credit claim than she is underneath the tax credits claim. That is what has happened to her at the moment. There is a surprising number of people who have gone through the natural migration process. Obviously, there will be lots more under the mass migration who may get the transitional protection, but just to reiterate that change of circumstances, we have seen the change of circumstances triggering the universal credit claims. I think that that is definitely a concern in relation to transitional protection going forward. Thank you. A question about the monthly assessment period as well. Someone mentioned earlier on about the concerns about the monthly assessment period and the budgeting difficulties. Obviously, many of those people will rely on services provided potentially by local authorities, the welfare fund, discretionary housing payments and advice services such as your own. Do you have any evidence around the impact on local authorities of mitigating some of that and clearly what might be coming over the horizon in terms of concerns with the mass migration? Is that a concern? Have you done any evaluation of what you think, in terms of what local authorities may be setting aside in budgets or the impact that there may be on their services? Have you done any analysis of that? I guess not analysis of what local authorities are doing on that particular issue. On the issue itself, it is a problem that exists within the design of universal credit for people who are not paid on a monthly basis. If somebody is paid for weekly, then at some point in the year, they would end up with two payments in their assessment period, so they would often take their income too high to receive universal credit. Similarly, with people who are paid weekly, people who are on a zero-out or fluctuating arrangement. In terms of the figures for the Scottish welfare fund, I am not sure that they disaggregate them down to that level. It is certainly something that we have seen clients who have needed to make an application to the Scottish welfare fund because there is a gap in their income or the income is fluctuated as a result of when they have been paid or how that interacts with universal credit. There is some impact there, but I cannot give you an exact figure. We have not done any formal analysis, but I think that the early warning system highlights that the issues with universal credit are clearly a driver to people using the Scottish welfare fund. You can see the figures from Trussell Trust about the increase in use of food banks when an area has gone to full service. It suggests that people are experiencing income crisis, and that obviously has not a knock-on impact on local authorities and services. I just wanted to come back to an issue that he touched on before, which was advanced payments and the recovery rates for advanced payments. An advanced payment is given to someone because they are an absolute desperate need. They have no choice. They have low income and nothing to support the family. I just wanted to ask what your experience has been on the impact of those people who have had no choice, who have had to take an advanced payment, and what the impact has then been on them going forward throughout the course of the 12 months that they have had to repay that advance? I think that one of our particular concerns would be, as I mentioned earlier, the kind of rate that those advanced payments are then deducted back because it can cause hardship to people over a number of months while those payments are deducted. One of the particular issues that we have recently done, and I have done a piece of work in it that I can send to the committee, is that if somebody has to further debt, for instance, historic tax credits for payments or council tax water arrears, that can be directed from their universal credit claim, and that can mount up and cause problems as well. That is something that I guess is two issues. One is that we think that there should be a payment that is based on non—that the client won't need to pay back at the start of a universal credit claim to bridge that gap so that they are not requiring an advanced payment, which is based on functions as a loan. The other is that the amount that is deducted from somebody's universal credit payment to repay debt should be reduced to avoid people being in hardship because their benefit payment is constantly reduced over a long period of time. What we have noticed in relation to advanced payments is that there has been a real switch in that we are routinely offered to people initially, and now they are routinely being offered to people, and so people are taking them. It is not necessarily with an adequate explanation of what that will mean in the long term in terms of having to repay, so people are offered at a time when they have put no money, a large sum of money. It is based on what is anticipated that they might get in relation to universal credit, so we have had quite a few people who have had quite a large advance when the natural factor award of universal credit has been much less than that, which accentuates the difficulty of paying back that large amount over that long period of time. It has also caused difficulty in relation to people having large amounts of money, given the large amount of money at a time when they really need it. Anecdotally, we have heard of it being an issue in relation to coercive financial control that sometimes a partner has been forced to take out the advance and then the partner has disappeared and she has been left to pay it back. It is not without its issues. I think that it has caused serious issues in my region. It has starked the difference between North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire, where South Lanarkshire full service rolled out six months ahead of North Lanarkshire. The issues are coming much thicker and faster in South Lanarkshire, with people then having to deal with the recovery of advance payments. It was the Hamilton Citizens Advice Bureau that showed me some of the case studies that they had where, because of the recovery of advance after housing costs, people had no money to live on. I think that it would be an improvement to the universal credit system if the DWP were looking at a minimum income that people should be receiving before any consideration is taken to recovering any advance payments. The idea of having to pay back the advance is simply putting people into financial difficulties. The idea of having a minimum income would be a good one. We have lots of case studies of people who, by the time they have had multiple deductions taken off, have very little left to live on. I think that a protective net around that would be good. It is not an area that we get a lot of feedback on, given the nature of our organisation. We are focused on certain areas of universal credit, but, just from some of the website queries that we had, I echo what Kirsty said, that people do not really seem to fully understand when they accept the advance what that will mean down the line. You are effectively offering this huge chunk of money at a time when the person is in real difficulties, so the temptation to take it and not really think through what that means has definitely come across, and it is a worry. Yes, it is definitely an option that could be looked at. I echo some of the points that have been made around in some areas. Advanced payments have been promoted quite heavily. In some cases, 100 per cent advance payments have been promoted quite heavily, which can cause some of the geographical variations that you are seeing and some of the problems for people who then have to pay back the equivalent of a month's universal credit payment over the year, as well as all the other debts that are coming out. It is something that can be looked at. Like Pauline McNeill, I am trying to get my head around how someone who is in work would benefit from universal credit as opposed to the system previously. We are told that universal credit is about making work worthwhile and making people make it count. However, at the end of the day, if you are sanctioning someone for not staying within the monthly assessment or everything that is going on, if you are sanctioning individuals, families that are on low incomes or trying to get by there for a reason, how is that beneficial? How is that going to help the work-y-thoughts of the people involved in the process? I just can't get my head around that. Probably the one area where universal credit is an improvement over the system is people who would work different amounts of hours and different weeks or would look to work more because that smooths the gap between things. However, I think that it is a fair point. It is something that is outlined earlier, if part of the theory behind applying sanctions to people who are unemployed is that it is essential to hold the feet to the fire to look for a job that does not necessarily apply when somebody already has a job. I think that a lot of the reasoning for sanctions is not engaging with the work-search process, which, if somebody already has a job, is not really going to be helpful for them. It is definitely at the very least a cautious approach that should be taken because going around sanctioning people who are in work is not going to be beneficial for a lot of people. There might be some more comments, but anything that you want to put on the record, Victoria Todd, our customer, can you relate to that? To reiterate what Rob has said, universal credit can be a positive for people who have got fluctuating hours or low hours. It used to be that there would be a cliff edge at 16 hours that you would no longer be entitled to jobseekers allowance or employment and support allowance. There was a bit of a gap before you worked enough hours to get working tax credit, so that is a group of people who will be supported. However, applying sanctions to anybody will not improve either their ability to look for work or to increase their hours of work. We have seen from the evidence that we have in relation to sanctions already. It tends to have an impact on mental health and physical health. It can have an impact on housing arrangements, which have an impact on your stability of life. Sanctioning will not help people to improve their work situations. I was just wanting to say that there was an interesting exchange between Victoria and Pauline on the fact that you said that claimants and Pauline are already working. You were both right, but the whole point was that they do not see themselves as claimants, they see themselves as people who are working. That is a major culture shock for them to be. Is it not the case that you are putting people into a system that really should not be part of that process? As you said, they are not people who are trying to look for work and everything else is already in work. Is that a difficult one to answer? There are some positives to bringing all the benefits together in this way, in the sense that there is a stigma of out-of-work benefits. If it was to work in the way that it was invisaged initially, then it would be much easier for people to transition in and out of work without having to apply for different benefits every time they had a change in circumstances. I think that because of the way that things have evolved, and now that we have things like the application of in-work conditionality, that does separate a group of people out from the system that is otherwise. I think that we are coming back to what I said earlier. It is too early to know, so this trial was really small with people having in-work conditionality. We do not know whether it will work in terms of helping people to progress in work. We do not know whether they will see it as a positive experience. There are all the things that these trials should be gathering evidence on. We have an evidence base to then answer some of the questions that you have had. Should these people be having in-work conditionality applied? Are there any positives? What are the negatives? How should it be designed? I just think that we do not have enough information. Can I just ask one final question? I asked the last panel about self-employed because it was something that I had not really thought of until that point, which is surprising because my father was self-employed most of his work life. I am aware of how fluctuating an income can be. There must be many people out there who are self-employed who are on that cusp. It is the difference between them having an income and not having an income coming into their family home. Again, I am having difficulty trying to work out how a monthly assessment for people who do not know what is going to happen day to day from a financial point of view. They have a rough idea, but things happen. Life is no easy. They end up having difficulties as well. Surely the monthly assessment for self-employed people is just madness? It simply does not work for people who are self-employed with fluctuating earnings, which lots of self-employed people have. We included an example in our submission to the committee that highlights the disparity between the employed and self-employed. Where you have an employed person and a self-employed person who are earning the same amount over the year, in this example, the self-employed person gets £2,600 less universal credit. That is just because of the fluctuations and because, in the months where they earn less, the minimum income floor kicks in and they are treated as having 35 hours times national minimum wage. Over the year, they lose all that universal credit. The surplus earnings rules, if you add those on top of the minimum income floor, make the person another £500, so it was nearly £3,000 worse off to the employed person. It simply does not work to have those fixed monthly assessment periods for the self-employed. If Mr Gowns and Chris McKaykney are nodding heads at those comments, we might. There are a few more questions about squeezing timers against us. Fel is that looking, Mr Adam? Michelle Ballantyne? Yes, just a quick one, for clarification really. When you've been talking about, we've been looking in work conditionality and you've said there are pros and cons and it's too early to really know yet whether it's going to work the way that it's meant to work. But when we talk about the sanction side, and we've talked about obviously where it hits people Felly, ac yn gwrs, mae'n dda'r cymdeinatio ddod, ddod â'r gyfrifiad ddimnifig, drwy pethau gyda fawr, ac yn gweithio'r cyfrifiad ddim yn ei bod yn ddwych. Mae gweithio'r cyfrifiad yn dda, yn y brifau o leidio, yn y brifau gawn, ac yn gweithio gynnwys i'r sprn iawn, rwy'n gweithio'n ddod, nad oes yn cyfrifiad yr odd oedd y cyforedd sydd yn cyfleidio'r cyfrifiad. That's why the decisions are not very good. There does seem to be a gap where people fall through, where nobody can get hold of them and at the moment the job centres are not equipped to go out searching the streets and knocking the doors for them. I wonder whether there is something there about what do we do when somebody goes off the radar, because quite byddai'r pÙl yn éw gael i gael i wneud i ddau ymlaen. Rwy'n gweithio i ddau ei chweithio. Ond oes, gael pÙl yn ymlaen, ond hi'n rhan o bryd i ni i gael i ddaetharys rhywbeth, rwy'n gweithio i ddau i gael i ddaetharys rhywbeth. Mae'n ddau i ddau i ddaetharys rhywbeth a dd surprise i ddau i ddau o'r ymlaen, processing your evidence, David Robb to mention, that actually your records are the people that have issues that come to you, so you do not see the vast proportion that don't. But within those that you do see, what proportion are we talking about and what sort of percentage are being sanctioned because again in the visits to the Mae ddefnyddio mewn ffag送onoedd. Mae ac maesigh Donald Burhe. A��hau ffigureddauedd. Ardifiad, mae'r ffigureddau fe sym� ulw жeriamos ymafa eich cyntaf dros cael chi'n rhywun. Mae geselli, ride'i bedlai'r division blynyd i ganchyn Tech lining yw'r new incurtering Maen chi ni'n gwaith am y cyd-dymu'r cywun o'r gwneud y gallu cyfnodol, mae'n dda i gael eich codi gynhyrchu yn gyfawr ar y cyfnodol. Felly, mae'n yn gael ei bod yn gallu ei gwneud ar gyfer sydd fyddai i gyfieithio mae'r ddoll yn yn ôl i'r ddull, a beidio anghofent i arfer ond rai gwaith y gweithio'r gweithio'r ddweud iawnor o'r ddweud i gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r ddweud i gweithio'r ddweud, ond mae'r dweud yn gweithio'r ddweud i gweithio'r gweithio, ond mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r CAB adviser, byddai ar Simon Cowell, oedd yng Nghymru gydag gael gael gwaith gael gweithio'r ap�froses. Rydyn ni'n deall, rwy'n digwydd gael gael gweithio'r apif erbyn gael gweithio hwn o gweithio'r olfwladau yr hyn a'u gydag gael gweithio'r cymhwyllteidiau, a allwch i gael gael gwasanaeth yr hyn o gael gael gweithio'r hyn o byrwyr. Can I just one quick follow-up one? One of the issues that has been raised when I have been at the job centres is a significant concern by the job centres that people are not coming early enough because a lot of the commentary in the press and committees like this suggests to them that going is either a waste of time or that it would be a negative experience I spoke to one of two people who had gone in to the job centre late, and they commented back to me that it hadn't been as bad as they'd expected and had been quite helpful and they wished they'd gone a bit earlier. So there is some concern that people are not going as early as they should, which then creates problems in terms of their debt accumulation and the issues that we were talking about earlier, in terms of where they have to wait. They've already got to a stage where their finances are really bad and that just compounds the problem. I wondered if you'd come across any of that in terms of impact. In that situation, I don't see anyone really grasping that. Because that has been raised by Michelle Ballarty, it's maybe worth asking the question. On the other side, I represent Mary Helen Springburn. The Mary Helen job centre was closed, but that means that the job centre was the things that I found out. I have to say, slightly to my surprise, were some of the real positive relationships that were built up between the work coach and very vulnerable constituents of mine, quite often lone parents. A lot of time and hard work and trust going into that, when the job centre was closed, quite often they were sent quite far away to another job centre with a different work coach and they were back to square one again, and that relationship was pretty much destroyed. Have you seen some negative aspects in relation to that? The first thing to say about universal credit is that the first contact that you would normally have wouldn't be through the job centre, it would be through the online claim process, and that in itself presents a huge barrier to people. To access the online claim you have to have the ability to use, even with digital, access to Wi-Fi. It's not just a case of if you can go on and do a wee bit and save your application, you have to go through the whole thing in a one-hour or anything that you put in is lost if you step away from the computer. That's the first thing. In relation to people's experiences of the job centre when they actually get there, I would say on a whole that there's a very changed culture and people's experiences are much more positive. It's one of the things that we reiterate to people when we're training is that people have really positive relationships with their local job centre managers and if you want to get a problem with universal credit resolved, that's a good starting place. As you've mentioned, a lot of the local job centres have been closed and we have lost some of that local relationship there. I thought that was important just to balance out that. We're almost going to close the evidence session but I thought to show that they're obviously going to raise some really interesting questions that may fall up about sanctioning and work conditionality for those already within the tax credit system when they're migrated over and that there are some protections in there but if the family were to have another child, those protections would be eroded. If you decided to leave your partner for whatever reason, and I'm sure that you're obviously quite sensitively highlighted the number of reasons why you need to leave your partner but those protections are withdrawn. That would concern myself as well but I think that the third thing that we should raise before we close this evidence session is the idea that under the new universal credit system all the money goes to one individual in a household and none of us knows what dynamic there is in that household to the fact that one individual in a family home gets all the cash, effectively, from universal credit. Does that put some vulnerable people at risk and should we be looking at split payments? I want to come in on that. Kirsty McEachael, take it again. Just to really come back to Shona Robison's point about people making choices according to their benefit situation, it's something that we're seeing already, particularly in relation to domestic abuse situations, that the safety net just simply isn't there for people who want to leave an abusive relationship and in some situations we have seen people return to an abusive partner and this is not just about universal credit, it's about things like the benefit cap as well, things like the two-child limit, so that's definitely an issue that we are very aware of already. In relation to your second point about split payments, yes, split payment is an issue that universal credit goes to one member of the household without a doubt. In terms of how you then split that payment, that is turning out to be a really complicated issue and I do have some sympathy in the Scottish Government in trying to sort that one out because once you start to look at it, a 50-50 split doesn't necessarily help a household with complicated, complex needs. You might have somebody in the household with a disability, you might have somebody in the household who's paying the childcare costs, what do you do about the housing element? Yes, the fundamental problem is there, the single payment is an issue, how you then resolve it is very complicated and not as easy as it sounds. Is there anything to add to that, do you think? Yes, split payments should absolutely be something that should be looked at and I know that the Scottish Government is looking at it and it's following the changes made to the social security act this year that that's placing requirements to do that. I'd echo the point that it's very complicated in practice to look at. We've recently done a bit of work with the Scottish Government where we've done focus groups with CAB clients on how it might work out and what their attitudes would be to it. It's basically something that some people would prefer, it might be something that would address some of the issues with domestic and financial abuse, but it's very complicated to work at how you might do it in practice. Thank you. Shona, I'd followed your learning question. Do you want to come back in before we close the session? I think that it would be really helpful if you could provide us with some further case studies around those cases of particularly domestic abuse where decisions are being driven because of the changes that are being made to their benefits and also just I think the concern about whether transitional protection issues are going to just exacerbate that. So I think that any case studies in the here and now would be extremely helpful again. Okay, that would be great. Time is now against us to bring us I suppose back to where we initially started. It is an inquiry into universal credit and in work poverty. So I think that all these issues are very, very pertinent because you have as much money going into a household as you like, but if that money is not going to those in need in a household, then there is poverty in that household irrespective of the money going in. So I think that it's really important that we look at this. This is an ongoing inquiry. If there was something that you didn't get the opportunity to say today, please do write to us. If something else comes into your mind, please get back to ourselves and the committee clerk and just keep us updated, but are really worthwhile evidence session this morning. So I call three of our witnesses for your attendance this morning, but before I move from agenda item five, I should have said to me on agenda item one, of course, that we seek to take item seven in private. I'm sure all my fellow committee members realised that I hadn't said that, but I'm now asking for permission to item seven in private before we move on. Agreed? Okay. So thank you once again. That's just the house keeping it the way for us. I move to agenda item six, which has previously been agreed to taking private when I move into private session. Thank you.