Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much, convener. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning. I welcome the focus of this inquiry and I put on record my sincere gratitude to all the witnesses who have appeared before the committee for a series of revealing and highly informative sessions.

I want to be absolutely clear about the Scottish Government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring that disabled people can access employment and that they can sustain and progress, not just in any employment but in fulfilling and fair work. I understand that the inquiry will consider the different elements, which is welcome.

Since we made the commitment to halve the disability employment gap, there has been substantial progress. At 30.2 percentage points, the disability employment gap in 2023 was at its lowest since our baseline year of 2016, when it was at 37.4 percentage points. That is the second smallest disability employment gap among the UK nations, with only England having a smaller gap, at 26.2 percentage points. Overall, that means that the gap has narrowed by more than 7 percentage points since 2016, and we are making good progress towards our ambition to halve the gap by 2038.

We continue to deliver the commitments that are set out in the fair work action plan across policy areas and in partnership with stakeholders, including disabled people’s organisations. That includes having delivered a public social partnership and the workplace equality fund, which provide support to employers to improve their knowledge and practices in the recruitment and retention of disabled people. We will commission independent evaluation and consider how to best build on and disseminate the learning from those initiatives to employers.

Through the no one left behind programme, tailored person-centred employability support is being provided for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions. We established a Scottish access to work stakeholder forum to allow stakeholders to engage directly with the Department for Work and Pensions to influence policy and the delivery of this UK Government programme.

Work is under way to look at how our health system can better support people to stay healthy in work and move from economic inactivity back into work. Work is progressing to develop Scotland’s first national transitions to adulthood strategy.

We are changing people’s lives for the better. However, there is still much more to do, including improving our evidence base so that we can better identify what is working and build on that. Other challenges include societal prejudice and stigma, employers’ concerns about getting it wrong and there being an older working-age population in Scotland than there is in the rest of the UK. To improve that, we must continue to work together with partners across sectors to make real improvements and create lasting cultural change.

The committee will have heard of some very positive examples, but it will have heard about variation and inconsistency, too. Variation will, to some extent, always be a feature of any locally administered scheme. We do recognise the value of a local place-based approach that is integrated with partners, including employers, on the ground, because this is all about responding to the needs and assets of a particular location. There will be variation, but what we want is variation that arises from a positive response to a location’s particular challenges and opportunities rather than variation that occurs through lack of knowledge of best practice elsewhere.

That is why we are taking this partnership approach. The collaborative way in which we are seeking to operate with local government—which is something that I am very much looking forward to—will help ensure that we respect the importance and value of local delivery, facilitate the sharing of knowledge of best practice and provide the level of consistency that we want, without in any way seeking to stymie innovation and an approach that is fundamentally place based.

The first thing to recognise is that meeting our ambitions on halving the disability employment gap will not be achieved by any one stakeholder, organisation, group or partner in isolation; it will be a collaborative approach.

As the committee will appreciate from the evidence that it has taken, collaboration is at the heart of the approach to address many of the challenges that we face, whether we are addressing the cultural and social barriers that exist, ensuring that our employability landscape is integrated and provides a person-centred tailored approach, or helping to facilitate the sharing of best practice and confidence building among employers.

Although I—the minister for employment—am appearing before the committee this morning, addressing the disability employment gap is a shared agenda across Government portfolios. Various portfolio areas have significant contributions to make to help us to achieve that ambition by 2038.

Crucially, spheres of the Government work in partnership with local government, which is at the heart of our approach to employability. We also recognise the important role that the UK Government plays. Reference is made to access to work, for example, and how we are helping to facilitate stronger engagement through that process. I take very seriously the substantial challenge that we still face.

I recognise the points that have been highlighted by the Fraser of Allander Institute in collaboration with the Scottish Parliament information centre, particularly on where progress has been made on halving the gap. That has been driven, in large part, by issues of prevalence and people already in work being classed as disabled. As such, we recognise that there is still significant progress to make.

That said, it is also important to recognise that, with regard to our interim targets for the employment rate of disabled people, we met our interim 2023 target of 50 per cent a year early. We have set ourselves a target of 60 per cent by 2030, so we are making progress there.

We are working on addressing issues around measurement and data, whether in the shared measurement framework on employability services or on the fair work evidence plan that we published earlier this year. We recognise that we have work to do to address gaps in data and evidence, and I think that that speaks very much to your point about the challenges of disaggregating particular types of impairment and the recognition that, within that space, there can be quite significant variation in outcomes. Again, we will work in partnership and collaboratively with employability services, employers and our skills and education systems to ensure that we provide as much support as possible and collectively help to address the broader cultural and societal barriers that exist.

I completely accept and recognise that point. I do not think that any of us in our capacity as elected members engaging with organisations in our respective constituencies and regions would not have had those conversations. I have engaged with organisations in my ministerial capacity in previous roles, so I recognise the challenge. To the greatest extent possible, I recognise the broader uncertainty and challenges that we face in the overall budgetary position, which is just owing to the way in which the public finances and fiscal framework operate in Scotland. I want to work to provide as much certainty as possible, because I completely recognise and accept the legitimate concerns that are raised. The uncertainty has consequences, and I want to work to help address that.

When I read the Official Report of your initial evidence session on 1 May, I was concerned by the references to the conversations that the committee had recently had with young people about their experiences. I accept that there was variation, but I know that a number of members in that meeting highlighted concerns that young people who had given evidence had expressed to them.

The first point that I will make is that I take that very seriously. I am also acutely conscious of the importance of a young disabled person’s first engagement with work and employability, as well as the importance of discussion of work. It is extremely important that we get that right. Therefore, where approaches are identified as being effective and successful and are leading demonstrably to material improvements and good outcomes, we absolutely want to ensure that they are widely disseminated and understood.

I ask Claire Renton to comment on the existing structures that we have in place to ensure that best practice is shared as widely as possible.

I cannot give you a specific timescale for that because, ultimately, that will be determined by the progress that we make with the consultation. I anticipate that we will consult over the summer and into the early autumn. That will be followed by the usual process that we go through with a consultation and the publication of a response. At that point, the regulations would follow. I hope to be in a position to introduce regulations in the late autumn. I do not want to overqualify every remark that I make this morning on the matter, but that will be contingent on the progress that we make.

Our aim is clear: we want to be in a position to bring a revised code into force early in 2025. I hope that that is an aspiration that everyone shares. Naturally, I would want to do that sooner, but I am conscious of the need to have focused engagement, because part of what has led us to the circumstances that we are in is the fact that we have not had the number of opportunities for further engagement that we would have liked to have had, because of the processes that intervened following the passing of the Tied Pubs (Scotland) Bill three years ago.

On that last point and the direct challenge that you have put to me, how I listen, as a minister, is absolutely crucial. My approach is that I will, of course, engage directly with the various representative bodies and non-governmental organisations, but I also want to engage directly with people with lived experience to hear—unmediated—their views.

With regard to how we are achieving that within the broader structure of delivery, I come back to the local place-based approach that we have spoken about. We want to ensure that the voices of lived experience are at the heart of that approach. That is consistent with the Scottish approach to service design, which is focused on the priorities of fairness, dignity and respect, for which Mr Stewart has, I know, been the staunchest of champions in all the roles that he has had.

That is of the utmost importance to me, because bringing that expertise to bear allows us to ensure that we have a culture in Scotland that is inclusive. It also leads to better outcomes. On many occasions, involving people with expertise and experience allows us to arrive at the right answer—the correct conclusion—far more quickly than we would have if we had relied on people who do not have such lived experience.

I do not underestimate the challenge involved in getting a complex series of services to operate in such a way that the experience for the user is seamless, holistic and person centred. That is what we must deliver across all our public services, and that is what I want to be delivered in employability.

I think that we are making good progress, but I am not complacent or ignorant of the challenges that we still face. To face them will require engagement from the top down, and I will lead by example in ensuring that that engagement takes place and, indeed, continues. I know that it takes place locally, and I will want to see it built on to ensure that the voices of lived experience are to the fore in how we design, develop and evolve our services.

I come back to my earlier point that, although “Employment” is part of my ministerial title, I have a listed set of responsibilities underneath that title and I might be speaking on behalf of the Government on halving the disability employment gap, delivering that will require—and this is happening—action from across Government. In taking forward this agenda, I will be engaging closely with colleagues in the education portfolio, particularly in the area where Skills Development Scotland sits, and colleagues with responsibility for children and young people, health and transport, just to name some areas, as well as engaging directly with business as part of our broader fair work agenda.

This is a priority for Government and for me, and I will be engaging constructively not only with all of my ministerial colleagues, but with Parliament and members. I want to ensure that all the learning that the Parliament can bring, with individual members sharing knowledge of the services that are available in their part of Scotland and the experiences of constituents who use them, is drawn to my attention, so that we can meet the ask that you have put to us, Mr Stewart, of ensuring that best practice is shared. Where things are not operating in the way that we would expect or in the way that they should be operating, we can work constructively and collaboratively to address the matter.

I will not repeat my comments about our work on data, but with regard to unmet need, in particular, we will be looking at those areas closely. I want to ensure that we can get as comprehensive a picture as possible; after all, we have set ourselves a target and we need to be able to measure it clearly.

We also need to be able to understand some of the driving factors underneath all this. I recognise the Fraser of Allander’s excellent work on the matter, but nevertheless it can be quite difficult to define and understand some of the factors at play. It is a process, and we are committed to constructive engagement to deepen our knowledge and recognise the roles that other organisations and stakeholders play in the process, too.

On the issue of variation, what is described as a postcode lottery is always an inherent risk when, in order to allow for a tailored response to the needs and circumstances of a particular area, we have local variation. We want to ensure that that variation is used in a way that is additive and positive, that it makes use of opportunities that are unique to a local area and that it does not lead to a situation in which people are losing out or missing out. We do that by taking a partnership approach, recognising the important lead role that local authorities have in each of their areas, while ensuring that, through the existing forums—Claire Renton mentioned the role that SLAED has in this—we take forward consistency and share best practice.

Again, we are engaged in a process. Parliament’s power over devolved employability services is still relatively new, and the no one left behind programme is still a relatively new policy initiative, although it is already delivering benefits—I know that the committee will have heard that in the evidence that it has received. However, there is still significant work to be done.

There is always an inherent risk of variation in having a devolved local approach, and we can work to address that. However, we all recognise that there is also a risk when we try to have a standardised one-size-fits-all approach, because that cannot maximise use of local opportunities and can sometimes lead to unmet need, because there can be a particular model that works for the majority but does not respond for other parts of Scotland. As you have heard, that is a particularly important issue in the context of the delivery of services in rural communities.

You highlight one approach that could be considered in helping to address the issue, as it sets the outcome but recognises that delivery will reflect local circumstances. I do not discount the point that you raise, but the priority for me right now, given what we have in front of us and the current legislative framework, is using the tools that we have at our disposal—the delivery vehicles such as the local employability partnerships and the no one left behind programme—to deliver employability in Scotland. I want to ensure that we continue to progress that collaborative, integrated approach, so that we can realise the strong and positive outcomes that will come from having a system that ensures that the individual who is using the service is treated holistically in a person-centred way and has wraparound support that recognises their multifaceted needs. That is what we have at the moment and I will work to ensure that we can continue to take that forward.

I will reflect on your point, and I will be keen to understand what the committee’s views are on the evidence that it has received and on how we can achieve consistency without stifling or restricting local innovation in practice. That is the balance that we need to strike.