Work Programme
The next item on our agenda is the social inclusion work programme. I thank Robert Brown for the work that he has put in and for his paper. It is significant that we are discussing this today, as there is some discussion about the role of the banks in Scotland not being terribly helpful in dealing with exclusion. Robert has often flagged up issues of financial exclusion when we have discussed poindings and warrant sales.
After listening to a radio item on the subject this morning, I thought that I would suggest to the committee that we get some representatives of the banks to come to give evidence on the impact that their role might be having on poorer communities. We may discuss that after discussing Robert's paper.
This paper follows on from an earlier paper of mine, from a discussion that we had at an earlier meeting, and from a subsequent meeting that Alex Neil and I had. That was a useful meeting and Alex had a lot of good ideas, not all of which are noted here. There was a further meeting involving me, the convener and officials.
We have a time problem—it will be difficult to fit things in when we have discussions of warrant sales and housing stock transfers coming up. The suggestion is that we should start with a comprehensive seminar from the Scottish Parliament information centre. To get things kicked off, that could include input from organisations such as One Plus. We will also try to arrange one or two meetings in which committee members—although perhaps not all of us—will go to different areas, for example Ferguslie Park. I was also keen to consider the way in which colleges fit into this issue; we have had an invitation from the Glasgow Colleges Group.
We could use those discussions to identify the main themes that we want to work on, without making any immediate decisions on any inquiries that we might want to undertake. Any inquiries would probably not happen until later in the year. Having said that, we might want to consider fuel and food poverty; and we might want to consider the social inclusion strategy audit—especially the accountability of the Executive's social inclusion targets. Those are ideas that we can firm up after we have had the initial seminars and visits, the purpose of which would be to get a flavour of the issue to get us started before the summer recess.
In your paper, you give a list of groups from whom we could get briefings in May. I have been contacted by people in a poverty action group in Dundee, who are part of the Communities Against Poverty Network. They are anxious to establish a standing relationship between representatives of poor communities and this committee. That might involve quarterly meetings, at which they would come to discuss social inclusion issues. They even raised the possibility of getting ad hoc membership of the committee. I know that there are problems with that—it has been discussed in the conveners' liaison group and it is precluded by the Scotland Act 1998—but people are trying to find ways round it.
When the Communities Against Poverty Network comes along, I wonder whether we could discuss whether there could be an umbrella group of people who work with poor communities—not just that one group—and whether that group could be given a permanent standing relationship with this committee so that we are always informed by what poor people at the grass roots think, rather than just by what professional advisers from academia think.
Absolutely, John. I have met that organisation and we discussed that. The conveners' group is beginning to explore the relationship between committees and outside bodies, and that could be important for our committee. A range of stakeholders and organisations wish to have such a relationship with us; I have received representations from some of the women's organisations on that issue. We should certainly hear from those groups; but we need to consider developing relationships in the way that John suggests. When I get the chance, I will perhaps circulate some of the details of what is going on in the conveners' group, so that people know about that.
I also met that organisation. If we think of this committee as the one that is meant to be dealing with issues of inclusion, we have to be inclusive ourselves. We have to be wary of reinventing the wheel in the committee; we could use organisations such as the Communities Against Poverty Network to access areas. Rather than us saying that we should be going to X, Y and Z, it could volunteer to do that, and it has a network that could provide us with contacts.
I am not quite clear from this paper what we are trying to do, although I think that what Robert is saying is that we just want to get a flavour of some of the poverty issues before we undertake an inquiry.
Our timetable is unlikely to allow us to carry out a full inquiry before the summer recess. We will want to kick off with some preliminary work, so that we can give higher priority in our autumn programme to poverty issues than was possible during the previous period, because of pressures on time.
If we are considering an overview, we should not spend time evaluating "New Life for Urban Scotland", because that has been done. The mapping exercise would be useful; it would give an overview of what has been done and where. We should not be too general or vague.
A housing bill is to be introduced, and we identified fuel poverty as one of four major issues at the outset. We should bear those facts in mind and, although we might get a general overview during May and June, we should be more focused. An inquiry into fuel poverty would inform our subsequent work on the housing bill.
I do not disagree with much of what Fiona Hyslop said.
All members' diaries are stretched, so we must focus on the matters on which we will take evidence and on which we can make a difference.
I have not had much to do with the Communities Against Poverty Network, but I take on board John McAllion's point about an umbrella group to deal with such issues. The Scottish local government forum against poverty is not made up only of people from local government; people from groups in poorer communities are also included.
We met in Stirling the other week, which was useful, but did we really engage with the people of Stirling? It might be difficult to arrange a committee meeting, with official reporters, but can we not meet one of the groups in the community for a discussion? Perhaps that meeting should be with an umbrella group, rather than with one that covers only one community. The Scottish local government forum against poverty includes representatives from a wide range of backgrounds—it might be useful to speak to it, as we are supposed to work in partnership with local government.
Surveyors and valuers are likely to be comfortable in a situation such as today's meeting, but community groups might be less comfortable. That is not to say that they would not come, but they might not be as relaxed. We should go to their environment and see—rather than just hear about—the matters that they want to discuss.
Members might recall that when we discussed Robert Brown's report in January, I mentioned a report from Glasgow Caledonian University's Scottish poverty information unit, which Martin Verity circulated. Robert Brown refers to gender issues in his second report, so I suggest that that unit be included in the second stage of briefings in May this year.
Robert Brown suggested that we consider Ivan Turok's report on the Glasgow-Edinburgh divide. I am not sure that that is particularly relevant. Apart from the fact that the report is outdated, it was felt that the comparison between Glasgow and Edinburgh was not a good one and did not teach us a great deal. I am not saying that we should not be aware of some points in the report, but I would counsel against giving it too much weight.
I suggested that we consider that report. Its authors wrote to us to ask to give evidence. The report deals with issues that we should consider.
To some extent, we had ruled out hearing from the authors, because we discovered that it was an interim report.
"Glasgow Poorer than Edinburgh Shock." That is not really headline news.
We must be absolutely clear what we are trying to achieve. There is consensus on starting a major inquiry into the social inclusion strategy in Scotland in the autumn. Between now and then, the purpose of visits and background reading is to familiarise ourselves with the key issues and players, and to do some preparatory work. We should work out the remit of the inquiry so that our objectives are clear. Until we have agreed that remit—as we did with the drugs inquiry—there is no point in talking to lots of people. The remit will give us a better idea of the questions that we should ask, the visits that we should prioritise and the information that we should read.
Having said that, I know that members will have read the information on fuel poverty from the Scottish warm homes campaign. We could consider fuel poverty as a discrete issue, and we should timetable it sooner rather than later so that we have something to say about it before the onset of winter.
I do not disagree that fuel poverty is a big issue, but I suggest that we speak to the umbrella lobby group who have been dealing with it for a considerable time. Let us speak to them in late April or early May, before our timetable is fixed and becomes difficult to change. They could let us know their agenda. We should involve them.
Those two positions are not necessarily mutually incompatible. I accept Alex Neil's point about focusing on the remit of the inquiry. Robert Brown would probably agree that people might want to do a wee bit of investigation before tying themselves down. That does not mean that we must wait until October before we decide our remit, but we should begin to process some of the preliminary work before the summer.
The housing bill is coming up, so we may need to organise a couple of sessions around fuel. We could also raise the fuel poverty issue in the context that Cathie Craigie mentioned. We could search out the community organisations for whom fuel is a big issue, so that we get a broad perspective.
I agree with much of what has been said. We must get a feel for what we want to achieve.
I would like us to look quite soon at credit and access to credit for poorer communities. Banks were mentioned today, but other organisations deal with credit. I was at the board meeting of my local citizens advice bureau in Airdrie last night. Since last December, it has dealt with £1 million of debt in Airdrie alone. That is a frightening figure and I am worried about such figures being reproduced throughout Scotland. Yesterday, I spoke at a coalfields regeneration conference about how miners' welfare groups can play a part as a focal point for the community in former coal mining areas. Such groups hope to work with the CAB to provide money and debt advice.
Credit is high on the political agenda and I would like it to be part of our work. The evidence that we heard on the Abolition of Poindings and Warrant Sales Bill showed that poorer communities and those who are most disadvantaged have the greatest difficulty in getting access to credit. Those people are forced to go to moneylenders and are subjected to unscrupulous deals. We could do something to help and include those people.
There is a common view that we need to get a flavour of what is going on in various areas, not least by talking to people in communities. That was what we had in mind when we discussed visits. If we were to go to Wester Hailes, for example, it would be to talk not to academics, but to local people. We have received several invitations to do that.
Three issues are emerging. One is the strategy and the social inclusion partnerships; that issue is complex and may take longer than others. The second is fuel poverty; we could include food poverty with that. The third is credit. We have to decide in what order we will tackle those three issues. We must firm up on that so that our programme is agreed before the summer and we can do the preliminary work in good time to fit in with our programme for the autumn.
Robert and I will try over the next few weeks to incorporate those recommendations into our timetable.
We should make a list of organisations to visit. We could go in groups of two or three, but we must get organised soon, as the visits will take time to arrange.
That is right. We should get the invitations organised. I shall include Glasgow Caledonian University, but I think that we are all agreed about the other names on the list.