Seòmar agus comataidhean

A very good morning, and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2024 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have received no apologies. Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take agenda items 5 and 6 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Dr Robertson, did you want to come in there?

As members have no other questions, I thank you very much for undertaking that research and presenting your findings to us. It will be very useful for the committee’s on-going scrutiny of benefits in Scotland and for future inquiry work.

That concludes our public business for today. We will move into private to consider the remaining agenda items.

The next item is our third evidence session on the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. The bill amends the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 to make changes to the Scottish social security system. Today, we will focus on the concerns of carers of potentially vulnerable clients and the concerns of clients who have a carer.

I welcome to the meeting Fiona Collie, head of policy and public affairs for Scotland and Northern Ireland at Carers Scotland, which is one of the national carer organisations; and Vicki Cahill, policy and public affairs lead for Alzheimer Scotland. Thank you for accepting our invitation and joining us today.

Before we start, I will mention a few points about the format of the meeting. Please wait until I or the member who has asked the question says your name before speaking. Do not feel that each of you has to answer every question—if you have nothing new to add to what has been said, that is perfectly okay. I ask everyone to keep their questions and answers as concise as possible.

Without further ado, we will move to questions, the first of which comes from Bob Doris.

I apologise, because I introduced you as Christy when your name is actually Chirsty. My humble apologies to you, Chirsty.

The research that you have given us is really useful for providing insights into the hidden and extra costs of disabilities. Do you, as researchers, have any suggestions on the best way to approach further research on that?

Thank you. That is very helpful.

We move on to theme 3, on overpayments, which relates to part 4 of the bill.

We now move on to theme 5, on information for audit.

Chirsty, I believe that Jeremy Balfour was offering up your services again for further research. I now invite Bob Doris to come in.

Thank you. That concludes the evidence session. The committee very much appreciates your joining us today.

Next week, we will continue to take evidence on the bill with a panel of witnesses focusing on part 7, which concerns recovery from compensation payments.

I suspend the meeting to allow the setting up of our next item.

That is helpful. I will open questions up to committee members.