Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning to the minister and the panel, and thank you for joining us. I want to ask about targeted business support. How effectively has support for businesses been targeted in response to the pandemic? What information does the Scottish Government have about businesses that have fallen outside the criteria for support?

Yes.

I am pleased to hear about that work. It would be useful if you could keep the committee informed about any of these programmes as they are developed as well. I think we would all appreciate advance knowledge of that.

I want to ask, lastly, about how the DWP and Social Security Scotland have functioned and worked together during this period. We know that there will be significant work involving the Scottish Government, especially in developing proposals for changing the personal independence payment and DLA.

I wonder how that relationship is being built. I know that you and the Minister for Social Security and Local Government went to university together here, and I hope that positive relationships are being built at the Government level. How are the two organisations working together to make the transition as smooth as possible?

I think that none of us in either the UK Government or the Scottish Parliament want to see administration costs being the focus. The focus should be on getting money to the front line and to people who really need it. Is the exercise that we are seeing presenting unprecedented complexity for the DWP or is it similar in scale to previous benefit changes? Where are the increasing costs and the additional staff that the Scottish Government is now saying will be needed to administer the system coming from? What is in the system that is making this so complicated compared with other benefit changes that we have seen under the DWP?

Good morning, minister. Good morning to your officials, as well. Thank you for joining us today.

I want to start by looking at how the systems have worked during the pandemic. I think that we all accept that there have been unprecedented pressures put on the social security system. Specifically, how have the systems both within the DWP and in its working with Social Security Scotland been able to respond?

That is very good to hear. Further to that, now that we are coming out of the pandemic, I want to ask about future plans, before I move on to disability benefit reform questions. How is the labour market in Scotland recovering? How are key programmes that we need to help people into work—for example, the kickstart programme—being embedded in Scotland?

We are on theme 2, but we have ventured into a lot of theme 3 as well. I want to ask about the scale of resource that the DWP has had to commit to the transfer process—can you outline what that has looked like? We know of the additional and higher cost of delivering the social security system through Social Security Scotland. We hope that that will come in line with the DWP’s current projections, but what does that resource look like currently?

I appreciate that. I will take up your offer and will write to you about that.

To go back to Graeme Dey’s point, there are significant concerns among landlords in the private rented sector. They do not feel that they have had the minister’s ear with regard to what the impact on them will be. What plans do you have to include the sector as you draw up guidance? The devil will be in the detail, and it is important that guidance is developed that goes beyond what is in place in relation to the public health emergency legislation that the Parliament passed. The sector should be able to influence that. You gave Mr Dey a commitment that you would listen to the sector, but I would like an assurance that its suggestions will be taken on board in the guidance.

Good morning, minister and officials. I want to go back to where we started and the rationale for the measures in the bill. In a number of your answers, you have described different workstreams that are out to consultation or on which consultation will be launched next year. Analysis of the consultation on the bill shows that a majority of responders were opposed to the proposals. Why has the Government decided to introduce the proposals now when, next year, there could be an opportunity to look at the issues and potentially widen out the approach to include more housing matters? It seems to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast to introduce all these different measures at this stage, when there will be an opportunity to do it next year.

I want to move on to an issue that relates to the important points on preventing homelessness that Mark Griffin raised but which does not seem to have become a key part of what is being done. For example, with regard to responsibility for homelessness services, the City of Edinburgh Council is currently missing out on about £9.3 million of funding, because those services are administered by the council and not by the integration joint board. I have raised the situation about five times with ministers and have not got an answer on why it is being allowed to occur. I believe that the council is also still trying to get answers.

Why has something like that, which is really important, not been part of these measures, in order to try to fix that sort of problem, which we see across Scotland? I imagine that I will try to have that dealt with in relation to the housing bill, but lots of things have been highlighted to us, and it is only the specific issue that we are dealing with today that ministers have taken forward in this bill, when, in fact, there are lots of other things that we should be looking at.