Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, minister and officials, and thank you for coming. I will follow up briefly on my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question about the access to work scheme. That is one of those hidden secrets that a lot of people do not know about. I was interested in what the official said about trying to promote it more. Have you ever discussed a joint piece of work on that? I know that the money comes from the DWP, but it seems to me that many companies, particularly smaller and medium-sized companies, do not know about the scheme. Can you give us an idea of how the two Governments can work together to promote it better?

Maybe we can take that up in a letter.

The answer to my final question might be the same. Has any thought been given to, or has the independent review been asked to look at, how any divergence within the social security system would be dealt with in the fiscal framework? Again, that might be a question for the Treasury rather than for you.

Thank you for that and for giving us your time this morning. It is much appreciated.

Thank you—that is really helpful.

My final question in this area is on the differential between the number of disabled people in employment in Scotland compared to the number in England. In Scotland, a higher number of people who are disabled are unemployed than is the case in England, and the number is growing larger. Why might that be the case? What can we do about it in Scotland, as we come out of the two-year pandemic, when disabled people might be left behind? How can we get more disabled people into safe employment that gives them an opportunity to be promoted and to be fulfilled by doing real work?

I want to go back to the helpful answer that we got about how access to passported benefits—I will keep calling them that for the moment, as I think that we all understand what we mean by that—is assessed.

Have there been discussions between the UK and Scottish Governments about whether access to passported benefits could be assessed in another way if PIP was not used as a criterion? Have such discussions started at ministerial or official level? Could you explain how that could happen? If we had a divergence between benefits in Scotland relative to benefits in England and Wales, are there mechanisms that we could use to allow people to still get, for example, the £10 Christmas bonus that is available to those who are on PIP at the moment, which is obviously linked to a particular benefit. Could work be done on that or would that be almost too complicated to do?

That would be very helpful—thank you.

This next question is for Marsha Scott or Laura Tomson. It is on an issue that we could spend the next three hours discussing, so it would be good if you could limit your answers. As the convener said at the start, yesterday we had a very helpful meeting with the Lord Advocate on the issues around the criminal justice system. Obviously, there are massive issues there, some of which Marsha Scott has raised.

I realise that this is very simplistic, but if you could make one change to the system to make it more accessible and more accountable, what would it be? I know that that is a hard question to answer. I will start with Laura Tomson and Marsha Scott. If others have views, perhaps they could write to us.

Good morning to the panel, and thank you for coming to the meeting. I would like to ask a question about the criminal justice system and your experiences with the ladies or women whom you have dealt with, and maybe then ask a quick follow-up question. What needs to change to make the criminal justice system more accessible and accountable? What would make a difference to you?

This is a hard question, so it may not be an either/or and may be both. For the women who you are dealing with going through the judicial system, is it the conviction that is the most important thing or is it the sentence that the person gets afterwards, or are both equally as important? When you are dealing with people, are they saying, “If he is found guilty, I hope he will get X,” or, “I just want that person to be found guilty” or are they saying both?

I want to follow up a question with Carolyn Fox McKay. As males, we have to hold our hands up and say, “This is our issue; it is not a women’s issue.” As a father of two girls who are girl guides, I find what is happening in schools and in other settings to young girls growing up very disturbing.

I talked to colleagues around the table before the meeting and found that experiences of education and teaching on sexual harassment seem to be different depending on where you are in Scotland. Would you like to see a more uniform approach across the 32 local authorities, so that girls in Ayrshire, Inverness or Edinburgh get the same type of information and empowerment? Is that best done through schools, or are there other ways to do it?

Thank you. If there are any other comments that people would like to make or any other thoughts that they have, I ask them to put them in writing to us, because I am conscious that the clock is ticking.