Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning and welcome to the 13th meeting in 2022 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee.

I should say first of all that we have had a change of committee membership, and I want to welcome to the committee Paul McLennan. He replaces Marie McNair, whom I thank for her valued contribution to the committee since its establishment.

Agenda item 1, therefore, is a declaration of interests. I invite Paul McLennan to declare any relevant interests.

Agenda item 2 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much for that, and welcome on board.

Agenda item 3 is evidence taking from two panels of witnesses on the Scottish Government’s “Best Start, Bright Futures—Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026”.

With our first panel, the members of which all join us remotely, we will focus on evidence from anti-poverty groups. I welcome to the meeting Marion Davies, who is director of policy, communication and strategy at One Parent Families Scotland; Peter Kelly, who is director of the Poverty Alliance; Claire Telfer, who is head of Scotland at Save the Children; Alison Watson, who is director of Shelter Scotland; and Bill Scott, who is chair of the Poverty and Inequality Commission. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Before we kick off, I want to mention a few housekeeping points. Please type an R in the chat function if you would like to come in on a topic, and I ask my colleagues in the room to direct questions to specific witnesses. We will be tight for time, as we have two panels, but we want to hear as much from you as possible, so I ask you not to endeavour to get everything you want to say into your first answer. You will have several opportunities to speak. Please bear that in mind.

I invite Pam Duncan-Glancy, who is in the room, to kick us off with questions on our first theme.

I will bring in Emma Congreve and Philip Whyte on that point, but I ask you to be brief, because members still have other questions to ask and we are running out of time.

We move to our last theme. The last set of questions will be from Natalie Don.

Bill Scott has outlined the stark reality that we face and the need to look at “Housing to 2040” and the outputs from the social renewal advisory board, as well as considering how we decarbonise and the district heating systems that will be in the offing. We also need to consider the draft national planning framework 4 and 20-minute neighbourhoods. We need to think about how all those issues link together to address poverty and specifically child poverty. There is that golden thread that we need to pull together.

I will hand over to Pam Duncan-Glancy.

Who would you like to start on that?

That takes us full circle to the mainstreaming equalities agenda and the need to embed good practice at every level and in every area of work.

We move on to questions on theme 2, which is about the evidence base and modelling, and theme 3, which is about coherence and targeting. Pam Duncan-Glancy will start us off.