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Thank you. Kirstie Henderson, is there anything that you want to add?

Thanks for putting that on the record. Craig Smith?

Jeremy Balfour has a supplementary question. I ask that he hold on to that while I bring Katy Clark back in to finish her line of questioning. Jeremy can then ask his question, after which he can continue with our next theme.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2024 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee.

Although there are no apologies this morning, I note that the convener, Collette Stevenson, is unable to attend in person but is hoping to follow the meeting online. In those circumstances, she has asked me to step in and convene the meeting this morning, which I am happy to do.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. We need to decide whether to take agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. We also need to decide whether the committee’s consideration of the evidence that we hear on the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill should be taken in private at future meetings. Do we agree to take that business in private?

Members indicated agreement.

The next agenda item is our second evidence session on the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, which is currently at stage 1.

The bill will amend the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 to make changes to the Scottish social security system. Last week’s evidence session provided a general overview of the bill. Today, we will focus on the concerns of specific groups of potentially vulnerable clients who would need support to navigate the system.

In the room, I welcome Craig Smith, who is the senior policy and research officer at the Scottish Association for Mental Health, and Kirstie Henderson, who is a policy officer at the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Welcome, and thank you for coming.

Online, I welcome Claire Andrews, who is a legal rights officer in the RNIB’s legal rights service, and Allan Faulds, who is a policy information officer at Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, which is known as the ALLIANCE. I thank our online witnesses for joining us.

I will address a few housekeeping matters, as we always do at this point in the meeting. It would be helpful if witnesses could wait until I or another member of the committee asks a question before coming in. However, if you wish to come in, feel free to draw that to the clerks’ attention online or, if you are in the room, catch my eye. We are not trying to dissuade anyone from speaking, but, if you want to make the same point as we have heard from someone else, do not feel the need to do that, because we have time constraints. There is no need for every witness to answer every question. Will those asking questions and those answering them please try to do so as concisely as possible? That is something that I am particularly bad at.

We move straight to questions, and I will start. The first theme that we will consider is the ability to challenge decisions, which is in part 3 of the bill. What sorts of things should be considered as “exceptional circumstances” to justify a request for redetermination or appeal being more than a year late? That is about the time bar of one year for requests, unless there are exceptional circumstances. What should the time bar be? What examples do the witnesses have for what you would like to be deemed as exceptional circumstances? Kirstie Henderson, would you like to go first on that?

Do you want to come in and reflect on that, Claire? That would be welcome.

That is all very helpful. We move to our next line of questioning, and I bring in Katy Clark.

Does anybody else want to come in on that?

Thank you. That is all very clear. I apologise for demoting one of our witnesses and misnaming the organisation of another witness. We are off to a champion start. Your answers to questions have been far superior to my introductions. I will move on with my questioning.

We have heard concerns about clients feeling a bit pressured into withdrawing a request for redetermination or appeal. Does the policy memorandum offer sufficient reassurance on that point? Again, I default to looking first for an answer from the people who are in the room.

Your ask about a cooling-off period is very clear. Irrespective of whether such behaviour is on the part of the DWP or any other organisation, that seems highly inappropriate and unprofessional. Are those reports anecdotal, or is such practice widespread? It is wrong either way.