Seòmar agus comataidhean

Over the past year, there has clearly been an increase in the number of people who are employed by the agency, and costs have spiralled upwards. Are you concerned by that? Are issues relating to whether Social Security Scotland is able to keep control of its budget and have the staffing that is required being raised with the agency?

I have one final question, which goes back to staffing. My colleague Emma Roddick pointed out that there has been a positive pick-up. Do you have any information on where those individuals are coming from? Are they local people from Dundee? There used to be the story that everyone was moving from the DWP to Social Security Scotland—I suspect that we will never know whether that was true. Do you look at where people have come from geographically or with regard to their previous job?

I think that we dealt with some aspects of the issue under a previous theme, so I hope that we can move on quickly.

There has always been a slightly strange relationship between the design of the system, which has been done by the Scottish Government, and its implementation, which is being done by the new—I do not know how long we can keep calling it “new”—agency. Do you know how many people from the Scottish Government are still working on the design and the practical putting together of the scheme? If so, do you know what the cost of that is? Obviously, the agency does not carry that cost, but it is a cost that is related to social security.

As you said, convener, many of my points have been covered in previous questions.

Auditor General, you talked about the risk with regard to staffing and implementation of the larger benefits. My question is very general. Are there any other things that the committee should look at and monitor in the next couple of years?

Good morning, and thank you, both, for coming to a meeting on a Monday morning.

I have a couple of questions just to establish where we are at the moment. I think that the last contact that the audit team had with Social Security Scotland and the social security programme team before the report was published was in February of this year. Can you give us an update on what contacts you have had with them since then? Is there anything to update us on around that?

Yes.

That is helpful and it leads on to another quick question. We have had the pleasure, as a committee, of visiting the offices in Dundee on a number of occasions. It is a fairly large building. As we come out of Covid and people go back to the office, will you look at whether the Dundee building is good value for Social Security Scotland when it comes to whether it is being used and how many people are working there?

I will push on that a wee bit. I think that what you suggest is all very sensible but it is only the best medium-term solution. My question is—given that I do not think that using a boat is a solution for anything except for an extremely short period of time—do you think that there is a short-term answer to the problem?

That is helpful, and I agree with your analysis of the situation. As we come out of Covid, the issue is that the number of disabled people who are unemployed has gone up compared with the pre-Covid figure, and that is true across many other parts of the world, so it is not just a Scottish issue. However, the percentage of disabled people who are unemployed is now much higher in Scotland than it is, for example, in England. My concern is that those who are particularly disabled and want to get back into employment will not get those services. Is it your analysis that the figure is likely to grow higher and that more disabled people will be unemployed in the next six to nine months because they are not getting the holistic support that they need to get into employment?

I have just couple of questions, Deputy First Minister. How did you make the decision to cut that budget, and what effect will it have on encouraging people to use public transport rather than their cars?