 Welcome to the 31st meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have apologies from Collett Stevenson, our convener, this morning. We now move on to agenda item 1, decision to take a business in private. Are we agreed to take agenda item 4 in private, members? Yes. I agree to thank you. Agenda item 2, the Scottish Employment Injury Advisory Council Bill, which is the more evident in the session. This is a member's bill that has been introduced by Mark Griffin MSP on 8 June 2023, and it is currently going to stage 1 scrutiny. We have already heard from four panels and we will hear from Mark Griffin the member in charge of the bill next week. But this morning, I welcome a show on some of the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Kirsten Simonette, Lefevre Solicitor and the Riska Summers Policy Manager, the Scottish Government. You are all very welcome. Thank you for joining us this morning to either, as I could say. Cabinet Secretary, I believe you have got a short opening statement before we have two questions. Thank you very much and good morning, convener, and I very much welcome the opportunity to contribute to your evidence sessions on Mark Griffin's Scottish Employment Injury Advisory Council Bill. The committee will be aware that the Scottish Government intends to oppose this bill as we are committed to undertaking a wider range public consultation on our approach to replacing the UK-wide industrial injuries scheme with employment injury assistance. The results of that consultation will have a major impact on the Scottish Government's views on whether to replicate the UK Industrial Injury Advisory Council in Scotland. If there is a decision to replicate, only then can we, of course, then look at what that body would look like. As the committee will know, the industrial injuries disablement scheme is currently being delivered by the Department of Work and Pensions under agency agreement, which runs to March 2026. The committee will also be aware that there are particular complexities associated with replacing the scheme. It was introduced in 1948 and is delivered almost entirely using a paper-based system. Over 100,000 paper files relating to Scottish awards are currently held in a number of warehouses. This contrasts starkly with the largely digital systems that are associated with the benefits that have been devolved to date. It is therefore vital that we continue to work closely with the UK Government to work through those challenges in a way that protects the interests of current clients. While this considerably constrains our ability to make fundamental changes in the short term, I am committed to considering how employment injury assistance can best meet the needs of the people of Scotland who are protecting payments to current clients, which is, as always, our most priority. Mr Griffin's bill would introduce a Scottish advisory council without employment injury assistance being in place. Until Social Security Scotland is delivering employment injury assistance, we would not be able to make any legislative or operational changes in response to any recommendations made by this proposed council. The only way of making changes now would be to renegotiate the agency agreement, which would potentially put clients' existing payments at risk. It is therefore my view that it is not logical to introduce a statutory advisory council before our policy approach has been settled, both in terms of policy development and in terms of the best use of resources and value for money. That being said, I very much recognise the arguments for establishing a Scottish equivalent to the industrial injuries advisory council made by Mr Griffin and some stakeholders. I am also aware that many people would like changes to be made through employment injury assistance, including to modernise the scheme. Responses to our 2016 consultation demonstrate the wide range of views that people have about the current scheme, including those who want to see aspects of it maintained. The committee has heard many of those views from stakeholders in the course of its scrutiny of the bill, but it is important to clarify that this bill does not make changes to the criteria nor does it automatically mean that new conditions such as long Covid would be considered industrial disease. Instead, the bill largely replicates the functions of the IIC in Scotland, which the committee has heard extensive criticism of. It is also important to note that many areas that stakeholders would like to see reformed in relation to that benefit, such as occupational health and safety and employment law, are reserved to the UK Government. Therefore, it makes more sense to wait until we have a clearer understanding of the level and form of advice, expertise and scrutiny that are required before legislating to introduce an advisory body. That is why we have committed to exploring those issues through a public consultation. We have also committed to establishing a stakeholder advisory group to take forward the recommendations that emerge from our consultation. While I do not want to pre-empt the outcomes of the consultation, the group would be able to take forward the kinds of questions raised in response to Mr Griffin's bill. For example, the group could consider questions around long Covid and the gender disparity in the current scheme. The group could consider also the current provision of scrutiny and advice in the context of the existing UK industrial injuries advisory council and the Scottish Commission on Social Security. Her prediction is therefore that the question of whether to establish a statutory Scottish advisory council is best considered as part of our wider work on industrial injuries, alongside the range of questions stakeholders and recipients of those benefits expect us to consider. For those reasons that I have set out, convener, the Scottish Government will not be supporting this bill. I look forward to any questions that the committee has on this issue. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I think that it has been very clear that the Government does not support the bill. I ask whether the Government is open-minded to elements in the bill, because not supporting the bill is one thing. Open-minded to certain aspects of the contents of the bill is another thing. Are those being ruled out or are those being considered in the round as part of a wider Government consultation? As I try to lay out on my opening remarks, many of the issues that have been raised by stakeholders, and indeed many of the issues that have been raised by Mr Griffin will need to be looked at by necessity as we carry out that wider consultation on industrial injuries. That is why it is important that we look at those things in the round rather than one part. I would compare it perhaps, convener, to the fact that we are being asked by the bill to design a part of the jigsaw when you do not know what the whole jigsaw is looking like and what jigsaw you are trying to build. That is the challenge that we have, so there are a number of very pertinent issues that have been raised. I do not think that there is any issues with any of that being raised as part of the consultation. I would expect that very much to come up during our consultation process. Thank you. It is clear that the Scottish Government is going to have to think very carefully about the kinds of knowledge and expertise that will be necessary to advice ministers on social security for industrial disease and injury. Can you give us a little more information on the kind of knowledge and expertise that you think will be vital? We will need to have great knowledge and expertise, and that is why we want to hear from a range of people, whether they are scientists, occupational health professionals, trade unions or, of course, those who are already on the current scheme. That has been a defining way that we have always developed our social security system here in Scotland. With regard to any future advisory council, the expertise and knowledge required will depend on the shape of the employment injury assistance and what shape that will be. So far, if I can give one example, convener, the current membership of the IIC reflects the medicalised eligibility criteria for IIDB. You heard in your evidence sessions many criticisms of that criteria and how the IIC operates. If employment injury assistance was to depart from IIDB at any point in the future, the kind of knowledge and expertise that is required could be very different. I go back to the fact that it is very difficult to know exactly the type of knowledge that you would want to have on any council in the future until its role and remit is decided. That is why the membership should be decided when we know the role and the remit, and that very much depends on the shape of the benefit. I do work to go and ask about the worker voice and the voice of lived experience and occupational health in a moment, but in relation to the first couple of answers, cabinet secretary, I take it that we can infer from that that Scots would not be an appropriate vehicle to offer that advice or if it was to be Scots, there would have to be fundamental changes to the structures of Scots to be able to do so. Scots was, as the committee knows, well versed by meeting Scots in the past. They have a specific remit that they have been set up for. Of course, if we were to ask them to undertake anything different to that, that would require a change of remit and a change of expertise. However, I would hasten to say that, at this point, we do not know whether we would be suggesting a different type of council or a change to Scots until we know the remit. I would refer the committee to Dr Simpson's evidence in the session about whether, for example, Scots could have a subcommittee on that. That is but one area that could be taken forward. There are many other ways, but that very much depends on the type of benefit and you would then roll on to what the council would be, where the membership would be and where that would best sit. I think that one of the things that the committee became very aware of particularly a couple of weeks ago was listening to Lucy Kenyon, who is from the Institute of Occupational Health, and Professor MacDonald, who was speaking about the need to collect better and more robust data within the workplace in relation to emerging trends and issues with regard to industrial injury and illnesses. There is a gap there. Trade unions are clearly keen to be part of the partnership that plugs that gap and gets that data, so is occupational health. I have to say that there is a role for the health and safety executive. Unfortunately, they are not giving all-evidence to our committee, but they have a role to play. Can you say a little bit more, cabinet secretary, about which organisations and bodies you think have a significant role to play? First of all, do you accept that there could be a gap and which bodies, individuals and groups, do you think, could help plug that gap in terms of data and emerging trends in relation to such illnesses? I think that there was a number of interesting points raised by stakeholders in the evidence sessions around this. It is very important that we do look to see where there are concerns in this area. I would point to, again, one of the complicating factors being that much of what has been talked about is reserved. Health and safety at work is reserved, and that creates a number of challenges. The IIC has an observer from the health and safety executive at every meeting. Occupational health and safety is not devolved to the Scottish Government, so it would be difficult to replicate that prevention role, raising a question about how a Scottish body would engage on the important subject of prevention. There is definitely a discussion that needs to be had. It is a complicated discussion, just due to the devolved reserved settlement. It is an issue that I am very keen to explore in depth. I will keep coming back to this, convener. That is why it is important that we look at the wider challenges that we have around, for example, how to work with the health and safety executive and how to work with agencies that are reserved to make sure that there is fit for purpose. I have very much heard what was said on this. I hear the concerns from trade unions and others on this, but that is why it is important that we look at this with a broader lens than this bill allows us to do. Cabinet Secretary, just before I pass on to me, what I will do shortly, just for my clarity and without getting into the wrangling between whether health and safety or occupational health should be devolved or reserved, irrespective of where those powers sit? Do you believe that there should be a clear role for the health and safety executive and there should be a clear role for occupational health as, of course, our trade union movement? Well, if you are talking about what would happen with our employment injury assistance, clearly the health and safety executive is one example that we will need to look at. With respect, convener, I will not suggest any solutions to that while we are still yet to carry out the consultation on the bill, but I very much do hear what you are saying about the suggested gaps that are there and the fact that we will need to work together. That is despite those being reserved because, regardless of where the powers lie, we will need to work together, as we have done with the DWP and the devolution of powers. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary and your officials. I think that it is keen to ensure that the aspirations of all witnesses are actually delivered on, as best we can, in the proposed bill. On assessment, do you believe that the bill meets those aspirations? I think that having read and seen some of the witnesses, my concern having listened to it, is that many of their concerns will not be answered by the bill. They have raised specific, quite rightly, concerns about the current council and the current benefit. They will not be, in my mind, resolved by the setting up of another council that sits alongside the current council, because much of what has been discussed is around the eligibility criteria, which do not change, and how an individual is assessed, which does not change. Nor does the bill change the medicalised nature of disability, as it is defined within the piece of legislation. My worry is that people think that the bill will solve issues, and it will not. They have rightly raised concerns that need to be addressed, but they will not be addressed by the setting up of a council, which, in effect, will not be able to make any changes. Nor will Scottish ministers be able to act upon the suggestions that the council, if it was put into being, would make to us. With other transfers, there have been minor adjustments to eligibility criteria. Is it possible that we could include a transfer? Can I widely accept as best-related cancers, for example, or a safe and secure transfer where we are going? I think that we need to be very careful when we are talking about specific conditions or specific disabilities. I have a concern, as we have watched the process of specific conditions being brought up, particularly with the greater suspect and not members of this committee, when it is brought up by a politician, of getting this council set up and it will be able to do something on this condition, which is important. Politicians should not be to determine the conditions that are part of a scheme. Our role is to set up the eligibility, to set up the process and then to leave it to experts and advisors to advise on what the changes should be. Again, I urge caution on those. We think that this is the solution to a specific injury or a specific condition being able to be part of a scheme. When it comes to what changes can be made, the committee will have heard me and my predecessors always talk about safe and secure transition. That is important, because our first responsibility is for those who are already on the benefit. If we are looking to make changes, for example, to eligibility, you run the risk of having a two-tiered system. We have had this discussion for every single benefit that has been devolved. That is inherently unfair. It is also inherently problematic legally because you would have one set of people being referred to by certain rules, and you would have another group of people being referred to by other rules. That is legally problematic, if I can put it that way. Therefore, the ability for us to make changes while case transfer continues is very challenging. I think that that is one of the other aspects that we need to look at. It is really important to always reflect on our responsibility for those who are on the benefit and our responsibility not to set up a two-tiered system with the legal challenges that that will present. Theoretically, some changes could be made. You are at that point very much talking about around the edges to allow those legal problems not to happen. At that point, you are tinkering around the edges of a scheme that many of your stakeholders have said is inherently and systemically unfair. Therefore, we will not again deal with many of the challenges and problems that they have raised during their evidence. Is the Scottish Government still planning to re-establish a stakeholder advisory group on industrial injuries, as mentioned in your letter to the committee? Yes, we do. That is very important. Again, I think that there have been suggestions that part of the role of the council that would be set up through the bill would be to advise on how a new benefit might look in the future. With the great respect, we do not need to have primary legislation and a council established to do that. We have, for every other benefit that we have had, had very successful stakeholder groups that have been established that would be able to take forward points in the consultation. I am presuming, certainly, that the people that have been suggested as those that would be on the membership of the council would be exactly the type of people that would be on that stakeholder group, but there would also, importantly, be others as well. We could have that stakeholder group in place. That will provide a way for experts and people with experience of the current system to feed into policy development, as we have done previously. Of course, that does that role until the new benefit is in place. We would move on to permanent bodies, as I have said before, so that the role and scope of which would be determined by what the actual benefit would look like in itself. We do not need a council to be in place to do that. The stakeholder groups can do that for us. I have previously asked for assurances that the Clive Bank's business group would be included in that advisory group. I hope that that will continue. Just one final question. In your consultation on employment and your assistance, do you envisage the co-principles of Mr Griffin's bill to be covered in that? Obviously, people can reply to absolutely anything that they want during the consultation process, but I have met Mr Griffin in the past to discuss that bill. I thank him very much for the conversations that we have had. I appreciate that he has found it frustrating that the Government does not support his bill, but I have certainly valued the time that we have spent discussing that. I think that what the bill's process to date has done is raise many of the issues that will greatly assist with the wider consultation when it does take place. He has gathered an exceptionally strong amount of evidence and stakeholder engagement, which would certainly be very welcome for us to allow us to have that in mind as we shape our way forward. The stakeholders who support the bill—although they might be disappointed that the Government is not supporting Mr Griffin's bill—have heard what they have said, and that is absolutely something that the challenges that they have brought forward will absolutely be taken forward in the wider consultation that we would do in the future. Does the cabinet secretary not accept that setting up a council now to do the work to inform the policy approach will mean that any changes are ready for implementation sooner? She has spoken about a stakeholder advisory group, so does she see that body as performing the same function in light of what she has just said to Mary McNair? I think that she accepts that the current scheme is not fit for purpose. She called it inherently unfair, and I am told that only 7 per cent of current people who receive the benefit are women. Whether that is the exact right figure or not, I am not sure, because it was quite difficult to get that information, but it is quite clear that the vast majority of people who receive the benefits are men, and that does not reflect where injuries lie. If she accepts that the current scheme is not fit for purpose, does she also accept that we really need to start the work to frame out what a new benefit might look like as soon as possible if we are going to get to a position where we have a satisfactory benefit? If she is responsible for a benefit that is not fit for purpose in the same way that we have seen with other social security benefits. I am not sure that, by that final reference, you are saying that we have benefits that are not fit for purpose at the moment. Perhaps it is not helpful to get into the current benefits. To a large extent, you have simply mirrored what is happening down south, which many of us hoped would not be the position that we would be doing something better, but let us not get into that discussion, because let us just focus on the injury benefit in the sense of whether it is fit for purpose. I am not referee. If the cabinet said what he wants to give a very brief response to that, because Katie Clark did mention it, but brief cabinet secretary, because there was a substantive question behind that. I will be brief, because we have an important thing, but I am afraid that that was an unfortunate dig on a system in which the client surveys for social security Scotland show an evidence that people have seen an inherent difference to and feel that they have a dignity, fairness and respect. Perhaps for another day, convener, I would more than welcome the opportunity to rebut that more fully. On the substantive point that we have, as I said previously, I have had the opportunity to lay out why a stakeholder group can take on the type of role that has been suggested for the council until a benefit goes live. We do not need a council, we have not needed a group set up to be able to advise us in this type of way for any other benefit. We have proven by the work that we have done on other benefits that we work well with stakeholders, we work well with those with lived experience to be able to design a benefit and can do that. It is important that that is done at the right part of the process, because, again, you need to do the policy development before you then look at what the actual system might look like and start building the system. Clearly, our experience has shown how you can devolve benefits and transfer cases and make up new benefits only available in Scotland with stakeholder engagement. I would certainly be very confident that those who have been involved in DACPIAG, for example, and others, have felt those have been exceptionally worthwhile committees that have really shaped the benefits that they have taken part of. On the aspect around women, that is one of the areas that really strikes me as an area where, certainly, it would appear that the benefit has inherent flaws in the way that it is set up, because it is very much based on a system that was set up for traditional heavy industries that were, obviously, mostly male in nature and the scope of the benefit has not changed. Again, I go back to the fact that, if that is something that is a concern, none of that changes if that council is set up, because the eligibility stays the same. It is the eligibility that is perhaps the problem that has led to the lack of women being able to come forward, not the fact that we need another council to do more research on other areas. There is an issue around women and the medicalisation of that rather than a social description of disability. There are systemic issues with that, which we will need to look at in that benefit. None of that will be solved or changed if that council is put in place. The point is that the council would be doing work to inform decisions around eligibility. Is that not something that would add to the policy process? For every other benefit, we have had stakeholder working groups. Dacbiag is the most obvious example, but there have been others where they have shaped the eligibility and the policy development. As we went through a process for every other benefit, we have had stakeholders, experts and advisers in place that have been able to shape the eligibility and take part in that policy development with us. We have not had to pass primary legislation to set something up, which we then do not know whether it would be of use in its current format when we have eventually set the benefit up to help us with shaping eligibility. There are other and more simpler ways of doing that that do not require legislation, and we have done that in the past. Surely the lesson that we have learned from previous experience is that if we do not start the work as soon and as quickly as possible, it means that we end up taking on the schemes that already exist for extended periods of time. Surely that is an opportunity, whether it is an advisory group or a council or whatever you call it, to inform that policy approach. Is something surely minister we should be trying to implement as soon as possible? What is her timeline? The timeline for this benefit has changed as we have set out in the past because we moved to include Scottish child payment into our work. The public announcements were made around the changes to timeframes to allow us to do the work on the Scottish child payment. That was the big change to the timetable that was included in that work. I am very keen to move forward with the consultation process early in the new year to seek views on how we will move forward with that. What then infers from the timescale for that depends on what comes from the consultation. Do people wish us to move forward with, in essence, a similar type of benefit than we have just now? That is a different timescale than it would be if people are looking for a completely and utterly different benefit, for example moving away from medical eyes to social definitions of mobility. The timeframe with respect does depend on what people want us to do when the consultation comes out about whether that is minor changes or large changes. On the basis that the consultation is saying that the work needs to be done to inform a new benefit, what would the cabinet secretary's timescale be on her stakeholder advisory group? What is that timeframe? How quickly will that work start? That is the question that I am asking. Will we expect the consultation to come out early in the new year? I would expect the work on the stakeholder group to also begin within that scope. I would want to consult people on who would be in that, not through the public consultation, but I would want to take advice. Obviously, if the committee has views on who would be on that stakeholder group, I would very much welcome that, but I do not see any reason for that stakeholder group to have to wait until that public consultation is over. That can begin to be worked on early in the new year, when we move forward with the public consultation. Thank you for that exchange. I am remissing myself not to say that we will have some other questions on the timescale coming up later, but those have been pre-empted. I should have identified that, convener, but we are where we are. I will put that on the records. We have two questions from our colleague Paul O'Kane, who is online. Just continuing along the lines of where Katie Clark left off in some ways, the committee has heard significant criticisms of IIDB. For example, Eam Tasker told the committee that it is no longer fit for purpose. Given those criticisms, is it still an option to introduce EIA, largely unreformed? Will the cabinet secretary recognise those criticisms and distribute it as acceptable to bring it in in its current state? I think that people will have their views during the consultation process about what the short-term measures might be and what longer-term changes might be. I have already made the points about the importance of safe and secure transition for case transfer. A lot of the discussions that Eam Tasker, for example, brought up were around suggestions about changes to eligibility and the fact that those could be taken forward at the same time as case transfer. I have already pointed to the challenges that that would bring given the potential introduction of a two-tier system during that. However, I do absolutely hear loud and clear the criticisms of the current system, and I am very sympathetic to those who would like to see changes through the new benefit when it is fully devolved and administered by Social Security Scotland. We would have to be realistic about the timescale that some of that may need. I will always go back to the fact that, if people are wanting us to make large-scale systemic changes to the actual essence of that benefit, that will take longer than keeping the core of the current benefit and making changes around the edges. However, I very much take the point that there are problems with that benefit and inherent problems with that benefit that will need looked at. They might not all be delivered overnight, but there are changes that we can make, as we have done with other benefits, on a journey to where people might get to. Again, I am open to that in the consultation to see what that would look like for people and how much time they would want us to take to make very large changes, which might be longer than some people would like. However, if they want to see big changes, that will obviously take longer to develop the policy for them. I think that it is interesting that the cabinet secretary is talking about the timescales and the length of time that it will take to do things in this space. The Scottish Government has made repeated commitments to bringing forward this consultation. It has been continually delayed. The committee was told that, in September, it would be this year. The last month of the year starts tomorrow. Where is the Scottish Government in terms of the process of formulating that consultation? Why have there been such repeated delays? What has stopped the Government from providing clear timelines on that? I think that I mentioned already, one of the aspects around timelines was very much initially because we put the Scottish child payment into the social security programme. That was an announcement that I made in my previous role around that. I have taken the time since reshuffle and coming back in to post to look at this very carefully. There are inherent challenges in this benefit, which are completely different to any other benefit that we have ever had. That has made me look at this again just to check where we are at with it. I cannot stress enough the challenges of moving a benefit, which is in a number of warehouses. I do not even think that we know how many warehouses the Scottish cases are in, but they are in paper-based format in a number of warehouses, not sitting in an easy, transferable way and absolutely not digitalised. Therefore, there are challenges to this, and there are costs to how we might want to do that. We need to look at different ways of doing this, because this is a very different system. We are absolutely committed to taking this process forward, but it has different challenges to it than any other benefit that we have had. They are expensive challenges, given the fact that this is a non-digitised benefit. The cabinet secretary has made that point a number of times. The issue here is that this pledge on a consultation is now three years old. Can the cabinet secretary give any sense of timescale? As I said, the last month of the year is going to start tomorrow. Clearly, he is not going to deliver a consultation this year, so is there any indication that when that is going to happen? I think that I have already said to other members that I would expect that early in the new year, with the greatest respect again to Mr O'Kane, as well as the announcement on Scottish child payment. Clearly, the work within social security has been impacted by Covid. When he talks about what has happened in the past three years, please bear that in mind as well when we look at what has been happening within social security during which time, of course, convener, we have continued to see the successful implementation and go live off a number of the most complex benefits that we have had in disability, but this one, yes, we do need to move forward to, but the fact that I am taking time to look at this since I came into post is because I recognise that there are challenges within this benefit that we do need to look at and that they will not necessarily be resolved in a simple fashion and that there are inherent problems to that that we will need to look at in great detail. It may finally, convener, yes. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has forecast that the spending on IADB is going to be £84 million this year, falling to £81 million in 27-28 million. Would the cabinet secretary recognise that, as there is a budget saving in that, that is because people are dying, so people are dying and not being able to make a claim? Would she recognise that that is a serious issue? The Scottish Fiscal Commission makes its forecasts based on the current eligibility of the current scheme and that is how it brings its forecasts forward, as it does with any benefit. Obviously, the Scottish Fiscal Commission cannot take into account any potential changes that could be made to eligibility until the Scottish Government has designed that benefit. Mr Kerr, I know that Mr Mason wants to explore the finances underpinning some of this and will come to you in a moment, John. Can I just check something, cabinet secretary? I keep talking about if eligibility criteria doesn't change, then outcomes won't change in terms of who qualifies and receives, whether it's the existing benefit or the new Scottish benefit. We heard a lot about this based on expert opinion in the reasonableness test within that eligibility criteria. We also heard that I currently have identified four conditions relating to long Covid that could potentially allow people to receive a benefit, and that has caught up with the process there. I suppose that the reason why I am putting that on the record is that what is it about the eligibility criteria that you think may need to change and may need to be looked at again, because it's quite difficult when politicians and processes rely on experts to make recommendations, and then there are recommendations that aren't always accepted, in this case potentially by DWP on behalf of the UK Government. What is it that we may have to look at again in terms of that eligibility criteria and whether it should always be expert led? I think that it is very important that those aspects are expert led both in the design of the policy but then, once the policy is in place, how that's implemented. I would point to some of the evidence that was given previously. I think that it was by Richie Allen, but forgive me, it may have been someone else when they talked about the fact that the current scheme doesn't fit with the social security charter, and there was a real desire from my reading, if that evidence, for not to copy something that embeds inequality and discrimination. I think that that was an important aspect that was brought up, and some of the aspects that I've mentioned already around the eligibility that is challenging is around the medicalised description of disability in this, which does not fit with how we do things in the rest of the devolved settlement on social security. I am aware that the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council has done a great deal of work on long code. I understand that the committee has heard evidence on that, and the fact that Covid has taken up a lot of their time, and the fact that they have been looking at that and have made recommendations to the DWP. I recognise that that has been there with the DWP for some time, and they have not made a decision on that. I have asked for an update from the DWP on when they expect to be able to make a decision on long Covid. I hear the frustrations that people have had about when the current advisory council makes a report and hands it to the DWP. Decisions are not made quickly, and that is a frustration. I would point to the fact that there is nothing in this bill that would change that, so people's frustrations about the timelines on those and the decision making would not change if the bill was enacted. Focusing a little bit on the financial side of things, there is clearly a financial memorandum, and we have asked previous witnesses about that. If the council was to go ahead—and I accept that the Government is not keen for it to go ahead—but if it was to go ahead, do you think that the figures in the financial memorandum are realistic? I think that it makes a number of assumptions around what the council would do and how it would operate. Again, I would go back to the fact that I do not know if they are realistic because I do not know what the benefit will look like that they will be advising on. All I can look at is what it suggests the council would do while it remains the DWP that is doing the benefit on behalf of the Scottish Government through the agency agreement. In that case, we would have a council that may or may not undertake its own research or may commission research that would give their conclusions to Scottish ministers and the DWP do not have to act on them. Again, I would query the value for money for that. The issue has also been raised in concerns about duplication as well around whether any council set-up would be duplicating the work of what is already happening within the current advisory council. Clearly, that would be a concern. The committee has also heard from a number of stakeholders that the proposed research budget is insufficient to make a meaningful impact. If there is a query about the amount that the council would get in terms of its research to be able to carry out good research, that is one point, I would also question even if it did carry out that research and came to conclusions, the DWP is in no way obligated to act on them, so there are some concerns around that. That raises quite a lot of points. One being research, which you have mentioned. I understand that at the UK level there is only £100,000 for research, which seems incredibly low, and this bill proposes £30,000. Do you get a lot of research for £30,000, as far as you know? No, Mr Mason, you do not. I think that part of the challenge with the set-up currently—again, the committee has heard from this—is that there is an expectation that a lot of the research or work is done on a voluntary capacity within the current council, which would not seem without pre-empt any consultations that the Government would take forward on that would not seem a sensible or professional way to move about making that expectation on people to do that as part of a voluntary work. The advisory council carries out a tremendous amount of research on that work, but, in essence, you do not get much for that money at all. I would query whether that is a sufficient number, and if that is the number that was given to the council, what, in essence, the Government or anybody else would be able to really genuinely get out of that process? Another cost that is mentioned is the IT and set-up and so on. We all know that IT costs sometimes run out of control. They are suggesting a set-up for IT of £50,000 and maintenance costs annually of only £7,000. Again, that seems quite low to me. I would point out, Mr Mason, that although that may be the case in other areas, costs have not run out of control in IT in social security Scotland. I take that as a concern around public agencies and large IT systems. Again, it is difficult to be able to assess that when we do not know what the benefit is. In fact, I would say that it was impossible because we do not know what the benefit is that we are actually trying to fit that into. I would not be able to say whether one way or the other, whether those are relevant costs or not, because this is, as I say, one part of a jigsaw that is yet to be designed. You have made the point already that even if a council was set up and recommended expansion of who could receive benefits, that would not necessarily happen for a variety of reasons. One of those is being cost. Say that the council was set up and recommended expansion of more women to get benefits, people with other injuries or diseases, perhaps stress. The fire service has been looking for cancer-related issues, teachers with stress, and different things like that. Where would the budget come from? It is clearly not in this bill, but the £84 million or £81 million that has been mentioned already, if that was to double, is that financially feasible? Obviously, I would stress that none of the changes that have been suggested would come from this bill, because the DWP is not obligated to act on any changes. However, if changes were to be made to include a greater number, the bill would go up from the Scottish Fiscal Commission's forecasts. That would have to come out of our block grant, the Scottish Government block grant, because we are making additional asks of the social security system that is not covered by the DWP. Therefore, we would have to find that out of our relatively fixed budget, as is the way in which we have made changes for every other benefit, which is that when you total all up a large amount of money, it is the right thing to do to make sure that we are delivering the type of social security system that we want in Scotland. However, as always, with those asks, I point out to the committee that they come with a financial cost that needs to be found from the Scottish block grant. I am also on the finance committee, so I do not want to overlap too much, but the finance committee is concerned about the number of organisations in Scotland. We are a small country and yet we are getting more commissioners, councils and commissions calling them what we want. Is it right to say that the Government is an assumption in the Government that we should not set up new bodies except as a last resort? Yes, and I think that there is absolutely a case-by-case basis for us to look at those aspects. If you are delivering something new, can it be done within a current body? Changing the remit of a current body, as I think that we mentioned, is some example that was given about changing the remit of SCOS but making it a sub-committee. We would very much have to change SCOS because it is set up for an entirely different structure and does not have the expertise on it to deal with those matters at the moment. That is one example where you could perhaps look at a current body rather than setting up a different body, because, as you quite rightly point out, Mr Mason, there are costs inherent in setting up new bodies that we need to take account of. If we can simplify that process or use agencies' bodies that are already in place, we should certainly look to do that in the first instance. Without pre-empting the consultation that is coming up, as far as you are concerned, it could be an option that all of those functions—the advice, the research and so on—could be fitted into an existing body rather than setting up a new one. We would certainly want to ask whether people think that it requires a different body or whether a current body could be adapted. Again, what that council would look like and where that might sit entirely depends on what we actually want that council to advise the Government on. It might be a very different benefit that we are looking at. Can I just ask one final question that is in relation to—I suppose that it is financial, but it is not directly related to the bill. I suppose that it is the financial exposure of demand-led budgets within social security that the new Scottish benefit will be subject to as well. You mentioned, cabinet secretary, that your officials would not contact with IAC and DWP about the long Covid aspects of the current benefit. Does that include financial modelling work for what the exposure would be to the Scottish Government financially over any agency agreement if the DWP was to accept those? That is the first part of the question, but what horizon scanning work is the Scottish Government currently doing? You can send me a writing if you want, cabinet secretary, in relation to where you anticipate without prejudging any new eligibility may look like, what you anticipate the financial exposure would be to the Scottish Government going forward. I am minded that if Scotland does the right thing—as we absolutely should do, cabinet secretary—and the UK does not change anything, that will link its financial pressures on a Scottish budget. It is not directly connected to the financial memorandum of the bill, but there is most definitely a correlation between what the aspirations of the bill are and the financial exposure of the Scottish budget and the Scottish Government. Is there anything more that you can say about that? Clearly, when it comes to demand-led budgeting within social security, that is a challenge for us. With respect to, for example, long Covid, if the DWP were to make that change, the DWP would make that change for part of their system, and therefore we would receive block grant adjustments for that. I am not concerned about any changes that the DWP makes to increase, because that would be part of the understanding that they have increased their levels of eligibility and cases, and therefore we would expect the same. In effect, the impact should be reasonably neutral. The difference comes when we make changes up here that are not included down south and that inevitably puts major pressures on our budget out. I would be happy to provide committee with the current update on just how much above the block grant we provide to social security because of the changes that we have made to the current devolved benefits and the new ones that we have brought in. On the horizon scanning, no, convener, in essence, we have not gone into that in great depth because that would very much depend on what the benefit would look like. It could be quite a large number. It depends really on what comes out of that consultation. Obviously, the financial implications will be something that we would stress, as we always do in consultations when people are looking to things that come with a cost that needs to be found out of the Scottish block grant. I do not think that there are any other questions from colleagues—no one is catching my eye, mind you, I am not looking at them. We will end this evidence session. I thank you, cabinet secretary, supported by your two officials. We appreciate your attendance this morning. I will just suspend briefly how we change panels for our next session. Welcome back, everyone. When I move to agenda item 3, our next item of business is an evidence session with Dr Sally Witcher, the former chair of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, commonly known as SCOSS. The purpose of this session is to gain further insight into what lessons can be learned from the Scottish social security system going forward. I warmly welcome Dr Witcher to the meeting and for accepting our invitation. For all the work and effort that you have put into designing and supporting the Scottish social security system up until this point in time, we put our thanks on the record to you. We understand that you have an opening statement before we move to questions. Dr Witcher. May I start by thanking the committee clerks and convener for their action to mitigate the risks for me as one of many people who remain at high risk from Covid thereby enabling me to be with you today in person? I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk to you about my reflections on my formal role as chair of SCOSS in the context of a career spanning 30 years in which social security has been a recurrent theme. My learning concerns the strengths, weaknesses and such like arising through the innovative development of Scottish social security as discussed in my article for the Journal of Social Security Law. Key to this are the constraints arising from the many interdependencies between reserved and devolved benefits. I was truly sorry to resign from my role as SCOSS chair last year. My commitment to the goals for devolved social security and the important role of SCOSS were undiminished and recognising that there has been much valuable innovation, my assessment of what Scottish Government can realistically achieve though has considerably reduced. I'd highlight the following points. The high level architecture of the new system set out in the 2018 Act was remarkably coherent and could by a set of principles spanning all stages of the process from policy development to delivery to continuous improvement. These were translated into practice by an enforceable charter and people with lived experience have been integrated throughout the development and implementation of the system in highly innovative and valuable ways. But there are always going to be significant challenges to maintaining coherence and simplicity when translating policy into legislation delivery and impact in a turbulent, short termist political environment, rapid churn of key players and changing end-us in needs often attributable to failures in other areas of policy but also of course the COVID-19 pandemic. Much complexity is added by the multiple interdependencies shackling Scottish Government to a Westminster Government, pulling in a very different and in my view cruel and destructive ideological direction. Far from the complete autonomy over devolved benefits at which was anticipated and still I fear sometimes expected devolved benefits serve as passport for reserved and vice versa. Scottish Government is tied to Westminster in terms of budget where the Westminster accepts differently framed devolved benefits as passports for reserve benefits, the ongoing need for respective delivery systems to exchange information on eligibility. Westminster could pull the rug from under the devolved system whenever it chooses and has shown clear signs that it well might. Meanwhile, if Westminster tightens eligibility for reserve benefit that can have impact for access to devolved benefit and Scottish Government cannot do anything that would increase Westminster expenditure without meeting that cost itself. That plays out and discusses scrutiny role not just ensuring new devolved regulations fit with the rest of the devolved system but also with UK benefits too. It is a unique model as a body with potentially wider application, a way of inserting much needed expertise, continuity and potentially has wider application. It means that knowledge is directly inserted into the legislative process in what is otherwise a very fluid environment. It will never be independently able to determine its own work plan but must remain independent from government and parliament via this committee but closely connected to both. SCOS is not just another stakeholder for this committee and the strong relationship is helpful to both. I regret that due to secretariat challenges we weren't able to give more time to the social security charter co-designed by people we lived experience. It has been a very effective tool in setting social security Scotland standards and culture from the bottom up but it has been underutilised in my view and in some ways perhaps misunderstood. Clearly since I left my role there have been a lot of developments. The bill is obviously one of them and it's great to see some sensible recommendations that address some of the governance issues that I have highlighted. There have also been challenges as I suspected there might be in the rollout of ADP and we have the independent review of ADP pending and other devolved areas of responsibility obviously still to roll out. All will be impacted by the sorts of challenges and constraints I've outlined yet there remain significant ways in which Scottish Government has made and still can make a positive difference to the lives of claimants if not on the scale some of us would perhaps have wished. I welcome your questions with some trepidation as I'm no longer on top of the detail in the way I was. I am not immersed in this area and thoroughly out of practice at appearing before committees so with that caveat I hand back to you. Thank you. Thank you Dr Richard. Very helpful opening remarks. I hope one of my colleagues will return later in the evidence session in relation to the financial challenges and the relationship between devolved and reserved benefits but I want to have those cudjos as an opening question. I'll be a bit more geekish about it. I think in the predecessor committee to this one when it was the social security committee that I used to chair one of the things we used to appreciate was reports by SCOSS that made quite significant recommendations to government and how they can prove the roll out and deliver a whole variety of matters. By and large and I would say this that seemed to work well those recommendations were robust there was clarity and government not always but by and large seemed to respond positively and constructively to do that now I'm a backbencher of government Dr Richard it suits me to say those things but have I captured that accurately is that one of the things that have worked well or are is there more that needs to be done to support SCOSS in doing that role going forward? I think SCOSS was always very concerned to ensure that the recommendations it made were realistic and sometimes that led us to some unpalatable conclusions but it was also important that we were kind of careful about waiting too far into the policy terrain decisions that were needed to be rightfully the matters for political judgment. Most of the recommendations were accepted and I think it has most definitely shown its worth as a key cog within the social security environment. In my time there were significant challenges as I itemise in my article around support and the nature of resources rapid very rapid turn of temporary staff in the secretariat which did hamper what we were able to do and that was unfortunate. It wasn't necessarily through lack of effort on the part of officials. Scottish government has in civil service has much like DWP from what I can remember when I was working there incredibly cumbersome processes and it's very hard to kind of make them work fast when you need them. Because of the way we were set up there was a very difficult position I found as chair of a board that had very little direct line, no direct line responsibility for the secretariat. We could not, in fact I wasn't even allowed to be on the selection panel for the secretary. Effectively it's like having a board of a body that couldn't be involved in recruiting the chief executive although officials did their best to make sure I was involved where that was possible and for the first recruitment I was though I probably shouldn't have been. So that was really difficult because as a board of a separately constituted body you have responsibilities, you have governance responsibilities, you're responsible for delivery but we had no levers constitutionally to drive that. That was all within the gift of Scottish government and if they were for whatever reason unable to deliver there was nothing that we could do about it but I as chair felt responsible. That was not always a comfortable place to be. I was very pleased therefore when I made, shall we say, suggestions that some of these issues might usefully be addressed, that these were heeded, that a review has been carried out, has come up with largely very sensible recommendations and the changes in the bill from what I've seen will go a very considerable way to addressing some of the governance issues. Meanwhile the secretariat has been much expanded with permanent staff so my feeling is that Scotland should now be well equipped to carry its role forward and that is going to be very important because we achieve what we did despite the lack of support and in the face of difficulties rather than with those driving us forward. Dr Richard, it's not often a witness committee identifies the problems and in the same response gives the solutions and says they've been delivered all and once. Thank you. Can I just ask one brief further question and I may come back in later depending on time but within the paper that we read ahead of today's committee you were quite keen that expertise get captured within SCOSS was used proactively as well as reactively so other than scrutinising regulations and legislation and making recommendations for what should be tweaked and what should be changed and what should be altered and what could be clear all that kind of thing I think you're talking about a much more proactive role in relation to there's a pattern emerging here in relation to this area of devolved or even the interaction devolved in reserve social security matters a piece of research a bit of proactive work in relation to that would be helpful and that's something currently SCOSS can't do because it's not able to do or is not resourced to do but you mentioned that in your paper could you see a wee bitty about that and then we'll move on to some colleagues to come in for some other questions. I'm not entirely sure I've answered the question so please stop me if I've not got the right answer stick. I think it is a problem for the way governments are structured the way they work the way the civil service works the way politics works that there is very little continuity people gain expertise they go convener you are a rare exception in coming back but generally speaking people gain expertise and they go away and somebody else comes in and they've got different ideas and so on what is really lacking in that complex area like this is that kind of consolidation the institutional memory if you like of expertise that is what and the strategic oversight both sort of looking back and forward but across at the same time and that is what SCOSS I think brings brings to the table I do think that there could be scope for it to do more proactively the charter potentially opens the door for that with more resourcing that it now hopefully has because it is able to proactively initiate reports on matters contained therein but it isn't quite in my view as open as the equivalent powers for the social security advisory committee in Westminster which can quite independently of anything just decide it wants to go and investigate something and it can do that the charter is very explicitly focused on the role of Scottish government and social security Scotland but as I outlined in the paper and just now what they cannot cannot do is very much impacted by DWP and other players and so there's some challenges there about quite how through the charter you're looking at that bigger picture of underlying factors when the commission has no direct relationships with say DWP officials and I can't imagine that DWP officials would be terribly keen to have that relationship with us so I don't know if that answers your question was that what you were I think it does I think the important thing was you laid it quite clearly what the limitations are but what the opportunities are going forward and you've kind of left it hanging there about that relationship with the DWP officials and that is something that absolutely does need to be developed I wouldn't explore that further because there's a whole room of colleagues wanting to come in to ask questions I don't want to dominate. Jeremy Balfour good morning to me and good morning Sally sorry I'm not with you this morning person but thank you for the evidence you've given so far. Sally you were around when we were putting through the original bill and one of the questions we asked at the time was in regard to the charter and whether it should have some legal authority behind it now the committee at that point said no is that something you think we should revisit does the charter need a legal basis so that people can challenge it in some way or is it working as it is at the moment? That's a really interesting question and my one of the things I think is important about this charter is it does have more teeth than most charters which frankly are not worth the paper they're written on in my humble opinion but whether it is and there are enforcement measures in there via the commission and also by reporting to the parliament this is where an area where I think perhaps the charter has been underutilised it is potentially a vehicle through which for example this committee could be asking questions and holding social security Scotland and Scottish government to account that is something perhaps to consider. I have no at the moment fixed views on whether legal backing would be essential or add value I think it does need to be made meaningful and if the mechanisms in place which frankly I don't feel have been fully tested yet don't deliver that that level of enforcement the teeth is promised then yes I do think legal enforcement is definitely something that is worthy of consideration. I think you're on mute. You are on mute. Yes I was hoping to come off mute thank you for that. Can you run just a couple of other quick areas I think you've addressed this with the community already but obviously I think the timescales you were have been asked to respond to consultation documents was a challenge again I wonder if you could just outline how that works and did you feel you had enough time to respond to particularly the ones on regulations that were very detailed? Yeah it very often was a challenge yes but then the legislative timetable was a challenge and the intervention of the pandemic didn't help matters because a lot became sort of back load and then the the year after lockdowns it there was a huge amount of business coming our way. I think it's challenging to the extent that I'm trying to be realistic here yes in an ideal world scos would certainly have more time probably governments would have more time and committees would have more time but we're not living in that world and we have to be realistic. Although it said in the act that that scos should be given the time it needed the reality was that if there was a legislative timetable imperative for some regulations to be done by a certain point that was going to happen whether we reported or not and if we didn't if we missed the boat we could still report but it would not have the impact that it that it would have done so I think that is certainly the aim that scos should be given as much as much time as it needs perhaps with better planning they might be I don't know because I know officials tried it but there are pressures as to why that became very hard but trying to avoid conversions it's not necessary probably was not necessarily one set of regulations with that inadequate time it was that you get a whole bundle coming together at once so you're trying to deal with several all with their own timelines and that was where it became really really challenging. Thank you and that's my final question dally is obviously you've mentioned we've got a new bill coming to commit itself for consultation at the moment and if you could make one change of your experience what would you like to see in the bill that's not there at the moment? Well you are assuming that I've actually read which I can just apologize to you because I suspect there's more than one change you would like to see but one and I apologize for cutting across it I think that's well you're kind of assuming Mr Balfour that I have read the bill in depth scrutinised it and actually know what's in it to some extent in order to form a considered judgement I regret to tell you that isn't the case I have some some thoughts on what I've seen but I am not in a position to go into that level of detail without and I would and I don't want to because if I may I do not feel that in a sense that my the Scottish reputation and by hopefully my own is that I'm not going to give you off the cuff answers for things and I don't feel a quick to answer I'm happy to kind of go where look at it and come back with an answer to your question having given it to you consideration but I prefer not to attempt to answer it here and now if that's all right with you thank you. Thank you Dr Witcher, thank you Jeremy it will move to Katie Clark. I have to say I think this paper is really really helpful in terms of reflections on your experiences and you've spoken about the less than glorious track record from Westminster on social security benefits and I think it's fair to say that many of us have quite high expectations of what might be possible in Scotland and indeed in your paper you talk about those high expectations bumping against implicit and explicit constraints so I suppose as somebody may be looking at outcomes one of the surprises despite what the cabinet secretary said earlier is the frustrations and the experience of many claimants who don't actually feel that the experience in terms of the outcomes is that much different they're still having to wait lengthy periods of time for benefits and and sometimes you know those benefits are not granted so there's two categories I suppose this creation of new benefits things like the Scottish child payment and then there's the migration of existing benefits so in relation to the latter what would you say are the lessons learned about our experiences so far about how we do that better so that we're not just mirroring what comes down comes from down south and how we maybe speed up the process to get to a better outcome I know a lot of that's about money but if we maybe put money to one side on the basis the aspects that aren't about money okay let me just make sure there's a lot in that question and I want to make sure I've understood it so you're asking about expectations around both delivery and what is delivered I think I'm asking what you think the lessons that have been learned over the last few years are so that when when we're looking at migration of benefits we perhaps do it better in future and there's a quicker process to get to an outcome that might be a better outcome okay I think that that's I think the constraints I refer to in my paper have a have major roles to play in different different respects but there is another one which is to do with the the scale of the task where it concerns setting up a new delivery system from scratch as well as a new a new lot of benefits for it to deliver um the reality and I and as I said my career in in social security spans I was thinking it goes back to 90 I know I don't look this old 1989 was when I first entered this realm and I remember when DLA was introduced I remember the unmitigated shambles that that that that gave that that ensued and I remember that then chief executive of what was the benefits agency a bit like Social Security Scotland set up being hauled in front of committees in news night and whatever having to account for it the reality of the matter is that setting up a new system takes time then may well and I think it's important that that time is taken I do think safe and secure transition is the priority in a way it's impossible to to have another one because of the agency agreements you've got to do that first if you then whilst you're trying to transfer also try and change what is being delivered you're trying to run two processes at once people transferring was also perhaps applying for the other benefit or a change benefit and that is immensely immensely challenging um delivery wise and in a way I suspect the bit of that is what has happened with the ADP roller as well as the scale is relatively straightforward well much more straightforward to deliver a high quality person scented process at small scale the reason why larger systems perhaps don't have that so well is because it takes more time and more results you can't you can't kind of have your cake and eat it always and some of the things that's the very good things that Social Security Scotland is trying to do um is will take more time more it will maybe from a purely you know budget bottom line basis maybe cost a bit more but the outcomes ultimately will be better so I think they've experienced some challenges I would caution I think one of my frustrations and I understand the frustrations of politicians and recipients I really do because I also feel that but I also my practical brain and what I know is that trying to go too fast is going to cause even more problems that said I am not into them into the kind of nuts and bolts of Social Security Scotland systems I cannot say whether there are other ways to do it I am aware they have put in place some some changes to those systems and they are starting to deliver some results but I think you'll have to pick that up with them so I don't know whether that answers your question yes it's given a perspective um so that that's very helpful thank you okay thank you Katie mary mickner thank you good morning dr witcher um you mentioned in your your blog um how you accepted that doing away with the 20 meter rule was not possible at that point can you share with us any kind of further dilemmas about this issue and we're going through that just now obviously we're looking obviously at the employment injury assistance support and obviously it's remained unchanged since 1948 so um we could share your views that'd be great yes I'm at the time I think the main challenge was around kind of what I've been talking about trying to make a change to the actual benefit that was going to be delivered whilst also transferring a load over that was going to cause a lot of challenges which could be quite well but impossible very hard work um so it is about how these constraints impact now I've listed in my paper um my article different types of constraints so much of this is is kind of tied so and in a way what this committee's role is and scos's role is is to try and tease out where there is realistic room for maneuver and there often is but you have to burrow quite deeply sometimes which is why I think there have been some positive changes to things like ADP but there are practical reasons sometimes and for me it's and I suspect for for you as well it's where what you really passionately want to see hits up against practical realities of what it what can be done in the real world um and having to kind of come to terms with that and that was my experience with with that we quizzed officials thoroughly um we we and and also ministers to try and find out whether to try and find a way forward on that and we had to conclude it couldn't be done now maybe in the future but not now so that that's me is that you ready yep oh sweet john mason thanks very much I mean maybe a bit on the same theme you talk about it's been a story of high expectations bumping up against implicit consequently rendered explicit constraints and I was just wondering how much of the constraints are financial constraints is it I mean you've talked quite a lot about bureaucracy and process and all of that but is is one of the major constraints lack of finance it is one of them but I think another very key one is the way in which I've said reserved benefits give rise to eligibility for devolved ones uh and vice versa um so thinking for example I mean what I was looking at recently um was the response the government UK response on the work capability uh assessment consultation and in that there is a paragraph which makes very clear that this is an interim measure but in due course their aim is to is to basically use the PIP assessment so the question I would have around that is if PIP for which ADP is the equivalent is to become a route into or aligned with eligibility for a reserve benefit as in universal credit type benefits what does that mean for ADP if it were to be made more generous and would DWP regard that as a passport to the reserve benefit because in effect you'd have an inequitable system if PIP was less generous and ADP was more and both granted access to you know the same things within universal credit for example that becomes problematic it becomes inequitable and it's very and would people have to go through a separate assessment to access effectively a PIP assessment on top of an ADP one it's things like that it's to do with how how whether DWP accepts more generous in terms of criteria benefit serving as passports for reserve benefit and what happens if they don't so that that's I think a very key issue I think officials and SCOS always had to have an eye to well certainly officials to whether what they were doing was going to be acceptable to DWP now that wasn't at all I think what people understood when the system was set up it wasn't my understanding for sure maybe I was over optimistic but I do think that these sorts of constraints are very real it also there are constraints for example if I think things like when the Scottish child payment was introduced that relied on DWP providing information so that that could be extended now if they didn't do that the whole thing got held up so there's a lot of different ways in which these these things interconnect finance is certainly part of it so if if if the Westminster decides to cut eligibility and budgets that is going to be through to Scotland and as far as I'm aware Scottish Government doesn't have a whole lot of money down the back of the sofa to play with and again we have to be realistic about that yes I mean that's kind of emphasising quite a lot the relationship between hollywood including government and parliament and everything and Westminster so and that's not something we can obviously control so I mean I did notice that you yourself you said you uh you warmly welcomed and reciprocated the keenness of the chair of Westminster's ssac to liaise regularly with scos I don't know if that's still continuing now that you're not there but that sounds positive but I mean do you think there's anything weak Scotland can do we can do to improve the relationship with DWP or is it just going to be one of these things that fluctuates over time I think it again it's very hard to say I think you're right it will fluctuate over time it may even be contingent on personalities I think as you know officials may work together well but they're they're obviously answerable to ministers who will have different agendas and and very and I and I think there's a cultural divergence within between the direction of travel for DWP ministers and the UK government and what the Scottish Government is trying to do with this system based on fairness dignity and respect I think it's just if something for this perhaps has given you to be mindful of the scos in the early days we had very good relations with the chair at at SAC the new chair was less seemed to be less keen to engage with us there may have been entirely good reasons for that I can't comment and I have no idea what that is now but that is a very important relationship in my view and it is an area where if it works well it can be immensely valuable I think to both there and our scrutiny but my sense is that the DWP ministers frankly are not very interested in in devolved social security it is not uppermost in their minds or even possibly in the back of their minds and the ramifications of what they're doing for devolved social security I suspect it's not something they're frightfully bothered about I would like to be wrong I look forward to being proven wrong on that okay that's also helpful another comment you make is despite such constraints and policy changes Scottish government has thankfully been able to diverge a long way from Westminster is that more about how we do things rather than the actual content generally speaking it is you have a lot of leeway in terms of how um and I didn't want that you know you should not underestimate the importance of that the experience of people engaging with DWP processes is pretty horrendous a lot of the time that certainly shouldn't be the case with social security Scotland despite its recent difficulties and the charter is a way of trying to drive standards and there is accountability around built into that as we've discussed um in terms of what it delivers it is more it is more compromised yes it's much more constrained um and I think part of the skill in this role and in the scos role was this thing of trying to work out is ducking and diving testing out little kind of routes little possibilities asking a lot of questions well could we do it like this or why don't we do it like that or have you thought why is it done like this challenging what what it has to be realistic but also to challenge what realistic means um in order to try and find scope for innovation and I think the way the system is set up the involvement of people with lived experience because as I said in my article if it doesn't work for the people on the sharpen what's the point what are we all doing this it is for them that this whole thing surely is supposed to benefit and they are the ones that know whether it does um it's a very important perspective and I think that is actually a very important feature of the devol system um which is not present in the in the westminster one and I think it shows thank you and hello thank you very much indeed for the information I'm kind of bopping up a little bit here so um because I've got questions based on answers that have come back from other questions a couple of questions to go to uh my colleague mr mason um you referred that um some of the hope in the initial stages of setting up scores or how it would or could be in the early days really hasn't hadn't quite come to fruition um given that there was those challenges you actually think that the devolved benefit system is as good as it could be given that you've highlighted that it hasn't quite met maybe the aspiration that you first had yes I think in some ways in many ways I think what has been done on devolved social security has probably made very good use of the unexpectedly limited room for manoeuvre that Scottish government in effect really has with scos yes I think there was more we could certainly have done however at that stage the charter hadn't really kicked in in as much as delivery was still small scale and therefore the need for that challenge and oversight maybe wasn't there at that time in the way I think it will be and probably is now given the scaling up and the increased complexity of different forms of provision being being delivered and and transfer as well so I think the charter is going it's up for review next year um and I think that's going to be incredibly important to hang on to the to the kind of ethos of it and the the of it being driven from the perspective of of the people using the system um and that it will come into its own uh and become a very an even more useful tool so in a sense scos did the essential work that it needed to do and I think did it to a very high standard and demonstrably added value it could have done more but the bits that it didn't do in a sense is not irrevocable and they maybe weren't the most important bits of the role at that time they will become more important I think going forward okay that's um that's very helpful thank you and a lot of the information you've provided today and including your your your review that was sent to us has been very helpful for me as somebody who doesn't have as new to reasonably new to the committee and doesn't have that systemic memory that you were talking about before um also another question that's sprung to mind I think it was from the deputy convener um when um you were stating earlier in this session that actually scos was now in a position where it could maybe handle um an increased in responsibility as far as as what we're looking to uh the cabinet secretary area on was of the mind that it was maybe not the right um way to to go about this so I was wondering if you could expand on your thoughts as to why you think it is the maybe a right place to to move forward and why the scos is the right avenue to to take on that additional responsibility are you talking specifically here about industrial injuries I am yes right okay so I suppose what I'd say on that is scos uh currently if part of the challenges I don't know what this benefit is going to be and until we know what it is we don't know what expertise we need in order to scrutinize it and make sure it's delivered as effectively as possible and and designed as effectively as possible but were it to be along the lines of the IIAB then a whole different set of of perspectives and skills and knowledge are going to be needed scientific clinical um a PDU myological word with that word is um and and obviously from employers and trade unions and I would say also obviously lived experience um but that is assuming and scos isn't hasn't got that it just doesn't that's not not what it's there to do is not what it was designed for if you were going to extend that you'd effectively just be you still have to have in effect what would be all that you needed for a separate body but sort of bundled in with what was already there I'm not even sure would be particularly helpful it wouldn't be helpful it would it would merge um and in a way that you still have very quite distinct roles in there that don't necessarily completely overlap that said I do think because scott has that more strategic oversight and this is one of a number of different kinds of provision one scenario might be that you have a structure where whatever new body is created scots and maybe the Scottish fiscal commission as if you like the third angle on this have some sort of structure through which they liaise to maintain that overarching oversight because I think that's pretty valuable but that's just a thought it's not something I've considered in depth but I can see a possible need for that but I can tell you now that if something that was basically via westerns were clever and approval that were introduced in scotland scots no it's not not the right body that's very informative thank you very much and thank you for your candor I appreciate it thank you thank you thank you can i just ask a couple of questions i'd said at the start that first time would come back and I suppose it's about the relationship between devolved benefits and reserve benefits I think sometimes the expectations on the scottish social security system is a bit more complex than we realise because there's an expectation that it will mitigate the worst aspects of the UK system so it could be the 455,000 households that get a council tax reduction in scotland that don't get elsewhere in the UK or the 83 million pounds that's been spent making sure households don't suffer the bedroom tax and to mitigate where it can the benefits cap so that's a direct bend on reserved issues doctor which if you like but also it has to be proactively progressive and I'm thinking about the 450 million pounds or whatever it is now on the scottish child payment which comes out of those funds as well but you said something very interesting as well doctor which was about almost the policy over spill so where if we are more generous is the wrong expression I apologize doctor which if we have different rules for scottish disability assistance for example and in more people qualify and it's a passported benefit then there's cost implications as well and that could be a chargeable that could be chargeable back to the scottish government as a bill effectively under the fiscal framework as well so as a committee and I think as I suppose as a nation we don't always understand the financial underpinnings of that so the concern I would have is it's difficult to see in the one place what the scottish government spends on mitigation of Westminster what we what it spends on other areas new to Scotland and what the cost implications would be of what is called policy over spill effectively that passporting impact do you have any reflections in relation to how I mean what I've said was it was a jumble of words that can sound quite complicated but how we effectively boil that down to a user friendly easy to understand analysis of the numbers in a consistent way every year so we use a committee scots and others can look at it and we can inform decision about what next of the scottish social security system because we are very ambitious but we have the money to pay for it as well okay right so any user friendly way of doing that is what you're asking okay let me think well I suppose what I would say I like very much your way you've sort of segmented the kind of expenditure on just like softening the worst impacts and the doing things differently and innovatively that are kind of like positive added value as opposed to just reducing the worst I think that would be very interesting that might be a kind of analysis because I don't know the Scottish fiscal commission to look at it wouldn't necessarily be for scots and I think it's fair to say I didn't mention Scottish child pain earlier that is an example of where Scottish Government has gone beyond the just trying to make it less awful it really has done something positive and different and useful there beyond that but it is very constrained for a number of reasons I noticed in the bill that there is a proposal to change the structure of that so it's no longer a top-up benefit if I've understood correctly I may not have I think that's right and how it is a standalone one I think that would be a really good idea although it was done the way it was for very good reasons um but yes I think there's it's very I think there's a job of work to be done here to to really communicate have a grown-up conversation with people out there and in the parliament about what is and isn't feasible and why yes to challenge it and I do think that this is a committee that is there to ask the awkward questions as indeed was scots and there are will be things that creative ways forward that maybe ministers and officials haven't thought of but very often it is going to be the softening the worst impacts that is not to be underestimated it is very useful to do that every little helps but it isn't necessarily I suspect what people envisaged when the Scottish government received the devolved powers it had higher expectations and I don't think it serves stakeholder well for overly aspirational claims to be made about what's possible I don't think it's useful to do that a helpful much as I understand that there may be political drivers for that that that's helpful I'm just talking to the record I think the cabinet secretary in the last evidence session said she would go in and write to the committee and and let us know what will be spent on mitigating UK benefits and what additionally spent and I think it was the gap between block grant adjustments and barrent consequentials and overall social security spend and I look forward to to that data but it's making sure we collect that data in an independent consistent user friendly way each and every year to allow this committee to identify trends and to work out as you said what is what is possible to do in the real world in relation to social security but as we're drifting on to finance committee territory rather than social justice and social security but that that's very helpful are there any other questions from colleagues before I I think as I should do allow Dr Witcher to make some final remarks if you wish to because as always with these lines of questions there's something you want to say that we've taken you down off in a tangent we've not been able to say it and make that clear and I want to give you that opportunity do any colleagues have any questions before I give Dr Witcher the final word no okay Dr Witcher over over to you thank you I'm not sure that I I'm not sure I want to listen to the sound of my voice for very much longer even if you're content to do that I think I probably said what I need to say if I may if there are further reflections I have following this I would like to write to the committee if there's anything specific you would like me to advise on or give a view on I'm open to do that bearing in mind that I'm not working on a paid basis I'm not here I'm not earning any money being here I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart but just say you know um but in theory you know I talked about accumulated knowledge I think I may have some that is helpful or could be helpful and I am very open to using that and and and putting it at the service of the committee and and Scottish Government if that is going to be helpful so please if you would like to draw on that I would say I'm very willing to assist Dr Witcher that's very kind of you I should reassure you we're not looking for some unpaid consultancy work or a unpaid expert advisory work I think what we've all identified on a cross-party basis is you have got an absolute expertise combined with lived experience and a fiercely independent voice and it's quite difficult finding individuals with all three rolled into one so we can keep some form of relationship going with the committee I think the committee would very much appreciate that so thank you very much for your time this morning and we will we will keep that contact going so that does end the formal part of this morning's committee and we'll now move into private session thank you very much Dr Witcher