Official Report 466KB pdf
We resume with agenda item 3 on the Scotland Bill welfare provisions. I welcome the witnesses who are here to give evidence: John Dickie is director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland; Nile Istephan is vice-chair of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations; Bill Scott is director of policy at Inclusion Scotland; and Rachel Stewart is public affairs officer from the Scottish Association for Mental Health. Thank you very much for coming along and being prepared to give us evidence.
We will move straight to questions.
I will try to be as quick as possible. I want to cover two issues. One is the issue of whether we have the power to create new benefits and the other is on universal credit.
In its submission, the Child Poverty Action Group talked about the fact that the Smith commission’s report says:
“The Scottish Parliament will have new powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility.”
However, the submission goes on to say:
“The UK Minster for Employment noted during the Bill’s Committee Stage that the UK Government had never interpreted para 54 of the Smith Commission Report as intending to extend the range of areas in which the Scottish Parliament can create new benefits.”
Could you expand on your concerns in this area and talk about what has been published so far and what it means for the devolution or otherwise of the power to create new benefits?
Clearly, there is nothing in the bill that explicitly states that there will be new powers to create new benefits in all areas of devolved responsibility. My understanding is that that statement in the Smith commission’s report was interpreted in the draft clauses as simply focusing on the power to create new benefits in the area of welfare.
I think that further clarity is needed. We are not constitutional lawyers. The feedback that we are getting now, as the Secretary of State for Scotland’s letter made clear, is that the UK Government thinks that the Scottish Parliament already has the power to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility. That is not something that we were particularly aware of before and it raises issues of interpretation around how that works.
Clearly, what is behind all this is that social security generally is still to be reserved. In that case, when does a benefit in a devolved area of responsibility become a social security benefit and, therefore, something that would not be capable of being legislated on under the current terms of the Scotland Bill? That is perhaps an issue that is more for constitutional lawyers.
We feel that there needs to be much more clarity on the question of whether the Scottish Parliament has the power to create new financial benefits across areas of devolved responsibility. To us, that is not clear yet.
Do other members of the panel have clarity on this issue?
No—and I do not think that the UK Government has clarity on the issue, either. As you mentioned, it said at Westminster that it had no intention of devolving that power and then the letter from the secretary of state said that the Scottish Parliament already has those powers. Those things do not seem to fit together. If the latter position is correct, that could have been made clear in the Westminster debate. That would have been the time to state that the Scottish Parliament already has those powers and that there is no need to legislate. Instead of that, amendments that tried to clarify the position were knocked back.
It certainly came as a surprise to me that we have always had those powers, and I am sure that it came as a surprise to Government ministers too.
My question about universal credit is to do with an issue that was raised in Engender’s evidence but which I did not get a chance to ask it about. Engender is concerned about clause 25 on universal credit and the persons to whom and the time when universal credit could be paid. In particular, it is concerned about the requirement for the UK secretary of state to approve any changes to that payment schedule. It points to examples from Wales and Northern Ireland of cases in which delays have been caused. In its view, that creates dangers and risks, particularly for the physical safety of women.
Does anyone have a view on the statements by Engender, which I am sure you have read, about the general area of the devolution of universal credit and the veto, or otherwise, that might be in place?
I will have a quick go at that one. I think that clarity on that flexibility is important. If there is a need to secure payments on a more regular basis, that is important from the housing association perspective, because we believe that keeping people on the right side of their rent arrears is always better than trying to remedy the situation should they become heavily indebted.
It does not seem to me to be clear enough at this stage what powers the Scottish Parliament will have in that regard and, more important, what the effect of those powers would be, administratively. I suppose that you could have those powers nominally, but we would need to know what the implications of exercising those powers would be for the information technology systems and so on. If those powers are to be exercised, they must be exercised in a safe way so that people have the comfort of knowing that, when a decision is made, those payments will flow through in the intended way.
The SFHA has looked at devolution of welfare payments in Northern Ireland, and while Northern Ireland might have the nominal ability to do that, in practice there has been lots of tension between the Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK Government over the matter. The dispute has had negative consequences for claimants in Northern Ireland and it is one of the reasons why we have emphasised strong intergovernmental co-operation as an important feature in exercising those duties.
There are administrative issues to do with how that power would be followed through and whether the computer systems would allow payments to be made easily and more frequently, and then there is the issue of intergovernmental co-operation between Holyrood and Westminster to make that happen.
Rachel Stewart, what is your point of view?
Universal credit will not be applied to many of the people we support until quite far down the line, because disability is so far away from the delivery of universal credit. We are hoping that, by the time our service users are receiving universal credit, all the kinks in the system will have been ironed out and the transition can happen smoothly.
We are very concerned, because disabled women are more likely to suffer from domestic violence and sexual abuse. It is therefore absolutely essential to keep payments in place for people who are fleeing that type of treatment.
I understand the point about a veto for all time, but an effective veto for somebody in that situation is a period lasting weeks, not six months or a year.
That is my concern and I think that you are expressing the same point of view. Can I just be absolutely clear that it is the possibility of delay in the practical implementation of changes that the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliament might wish to make that is the crux of the issue?
Yes.
The administrative powers offer real opportunities to do things differently, but expectations that this will become a shared area of social security delivery need to be managed. There will have to be agreement between the two Governments, and it is important that that is done in an efficient and timely way.
There are also issues around what is administratively possible in ensuring that payments reach the main carer in situations in which there are power imbalances or domestic violence within a household. A universal credit claimant gives bank account details and the money goes into that bank account, so there is only so much that the system can do to ensure that the money reaches the right person in the household. I sound a note of caution about that. There will be opportunities to do more to ensure that universal credit money is paid at a frequency that makes it easier for people to budget, and that it is paid to the person in the household who is most likely to use it to support and provide for their children. It is not a catch-all fix.
I accept that, but I hope that you will accept that the only example that we have at the moment is the Northern Ireland example, and Engender makes it clear that it is concerned about the delays that have been experienced in Northern Ireland as a result of the complex processes and does not want that situation to be replicated here.
Absolutely. The key to all this is genuine commitment from both Governments to make the process as effective and efficient as possible and to respect the policy decisions that are made, wherever the policy responsibilities lie post-devolution.
Is that what you mean when you say in your submission that we need to take care
“to ensure devolution is not a cover for further cuts”?
What do you mean by that?
10:15
The situation is not clear yet—understandably, in some ways. The issue is about devolving responsibilities to the Scottish Parliament and about how benefits will be administered post-devolution under the responsibility of the Parliament here in Scotland. We are keen to flag up at this stage that we think that the benefits should be legislated on and administered at a national level, with policy responsibility remaining at a national level. There should not be further devolution to local authorities, as has happened in England with social funds, for example, where cuts have been made to the value of social security support.
There is a need to ensure that, as powers are devolved in important areas of social security such as sources of income and financial support for individuals and families, there are clear national systems in place to provide accountability and minimum standards, with systems of review and appeal in place so that people can challenge decisions. We think that that is best done at national level. We will be lobbying for the Scottish Parliament to protect, if not enhance, the value of those areas of social security that have been devolved.
I wonder whether that segues into the points that I was going to raise.
It does, but it also relates to discretionary housing payments. I call Stuart McMillan first, but I will come back to you, Mark.
The Inclusion Scotland submission highlights the fact that
“80% of the Scottish Households affected by the Under Occupation Penalty contain a disabled person”,
and you highlight the challenges around the clause concerned. Can you provide any further information on that, please?
Information on?
Regarding that 80 per cent and any further challenges that clause 22 would mean for families and households.
It is about eligibility for discretionary housing payments. At the moment, the bedroom tax can leave people with no housing benefit. Clause 22 says that a discretionary housing payment cannot be paid to somebody who is not in receipt of housing benefit. A large proportion of people who are currently in receipt of DHPs are disabled people and their families, so if that restriction remains in place, it is likely to have a disproportionate impact on disabled people and their families.
There are also restrictions on housing benefit because of the benefit cap. As we know, the cap is being lowered, which will begin to affect more families. Although disabled people and their benefits are exempt from the benefit cap, there can be an effect on their families. If a disabled person is being cared for, premiums might go into income support, housing benefit and so on, so they could get caught by the benefit cap, lose housing benefit and be refused a discretionary housing payment.
We are concerned about the restriction on the ability of the Scottish Parliament and local authorities to make discretionary housing payments when they view people as being in extreme need and want to keep them in the houses where they currently live. For a disabled person and their family, that might be a physically accessible house, where they can get about. Instead, the discretionary housing payment might be refused, and the person could lose their tenancy and suddenly be put into an inaccessible house. The person’s care needs and what the local authority has to supply daily might rise astronomically, because they might no longer be able to bathe or go to the toilet themselves in the house where they end up.
The Child Poverty Action Group’s submission discusses discretionary payments in relation to clauses 23 and 22. With regard to clause 23, your submission says:
“Failure to refer to this group in the Scotland Bill 2015, and put beyond doubt the protection of families under exceptional pressure as a priority group in their own right, could put the health and wellbeing of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable families at serious risk.”
Can you provide us with some more information on that?
Yes. There is an opportunity here to fix something that, as far as we can understand it, was an oversight in the original section 30 order giving the Scottish Parliament the competence to set up the interim Scottish welfare fund and then to pass the Welfare Funds (Scotland) Act 2015 and put the fund on to a legislative footing. The order did not refer to families under exceptional pressure as a distinct priority group in their own right for occasional financial and other assistance and support.
In practice, the Scottish welfare fund has developed in such a way that families under exceptional pressure have been treated as a priority group, but the fact is that they are not. They are not named in the devolved legislation, because the Scottish Government does not believe that the Parliament has the competence to ensure that families under exceptional pressure are a priority group in their own right. At the moment, the people in those families also have to be qualifying individuals—in other words, they have to be at risk of homelessness, leaving or going back into institutional care or otherwise living an unsettled way of life. That is an additional hurdle or criterion that those families did not have to face with the UK social fund in relation to community care grants, and as far as we understand it, it was not the intention behind the interim Scottish welfare fund and has certainly not been the practice of the fund itself.
As I have said, there is an opportunity to put that right and ensure that the Scottish Parliament has the competence to ensure that families under exceptional pressure can be a priority group in their own right for support under the Scottish welfare fund. That is the amendment that we are seeking, and it would give the Scottish Government the power to go back and amend the 2015 act to ensure that this group is very clearly an eligible priority group in its own right.
Finally, on the issue of discretionary housing payments and the bedroom tax, which has already been touched on, do you believe that the bill will give Parliament the power to eradicate the bedroom tax once and for all?
Picking up on Bill Scott’s point, I do not think that it will be eradicated totally, because of the constraint that a person needs to be in receipt of housing benefit before they can receive a discretionary housing payment. As the bill is framed, discretionary housing payments cannot fully mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax.
Looking into the future and assuming that universal credit is fully rolled out, the powers over the housing element of universal credit will provide a route for abolishing the bedroom tax. However, that is still some way off. As for what will happen immediately once the powers come to Scotland, discretionary housing payments in themselves will not be able to mitigate the bedroom tax fully, because the bedroom tax will reduce some people’s housing benefit to zero and they will still be short of what they need to pay their rent.
I should point out that, when it budgets for discretionary housing payments, the Scottish Parliament will also have to consider the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which is going through Parliament and which will freeze housing benefit for the next four years. After all, if the housing benefit bill does not meet people’s needs, the discretionary housing payments will have to be higher.
That point certainly needs to be considered in the wider discussions on the financial framework.
As far as the efficacy of DHPs in mitigating the bedroom tax is concerned, I have to say that it strikes me as an overly cumbersome way of addressing a particular issue.
We can put a lot of time and effort into clarifying how discretionary housing payments can help to mitigate the impact of another policy or approach, but if it is about giving full autonomy to the Scottish Parliament and it is the Scottish Government’s and Parliament’s intention to remove the operation of the bedroom tax from Scotland, then DHPs are probably not the best route for doing that. It leaves all sorts of opportunities for confusion and misunderstanding, because agencies have to be able to access people to assist them with and support their applications for DHPs, and there is their renewal and the bureaucracy of the payments. If the intention is to remove the bedroom tax from Scotland, DHPs are probably not a very efficient way of doing that.
What is your recommendation?
If you are talking about the spirit of the Smith commission and Scotland having complete autonomy, the powers should be fully devolved. If the Scottish Government wishes to remove the operation of the bedroom tax from Scotland, that should be the requirement rather than seeking to mitigate the tax through another route.
Discretionary housing payments will not be payable if the DHP has to be made because the person has been sanctioned. Again, sanctions are impacting disproportionately on disabled people. Obviously, all the people who are sanctioned on employment and support allowance are, by definition, disabled people, because they have either a long-term health condition or an impairment. A significant number—more than 20 per cent—of people who are on jobseekers allowance are disabled people.
More than 50 per cent of the sanctions that are imposed on those who are on employment and support allowance are overturned on review or appeal, but in the meantime the person has lost their benefits. That means that, because a discretionary housing payment cannot be made, they could also lose their tenancy. If they become homeless and have a mental health condition or a physical impairment, for example, that obviously becomes an extreme situation for them to cope with. Because of becoming homeless, many people suffer relapses in their condition, the condition becomes much worse—drug and alcohol problems can obviously arise as well—and they have to be hospitalised.
I think that it is wrong to restrict the Scottish Parliament’s ability to say that a discretionary housing payment can be made in the interim while a person is appealing a decision or having it reviewed. Ultimately, there is really no decision until the review or appeal has taken place.
Rachel, you began to tease out some of the issues around future interactions between policy differences at the UK and Scottish levels. The Smith commission did not recommend that housing benefit should be devolved, but you have just described a circumstance whereby a UK Government policy decision would have an impact on discretionary housing payments in Scotland. Our primary job is to ensure that everything in the Smith commission proposals is delivered, but it is also part of our responsibility to examine interactions between policy differences. It would be helpful if you could give us a bit more detailed information on that at some point following this meeting.
I would be happy to do that.
I certainly had not picked up on the issue—I am not sure whether committee members had—of interaction between a policy lever in one place and a lever in another place, and the potential impact of that. If we have time today, I want to look at that issue. However, in the meantime, I am going to Mark McDonald for a question.
My question is on clause 19 of the Scotland Bill, particularly as it relates to definitions of disability and carers. The written submissions included a number of comments on the restrictive nature of those definitions. From your perspectives, what difficulties do you see arising from their restrictive nature? What would you prefer to see instead? The Engender Scotland representative on the previous panel essentially agreed that, if we are to have true devolution, what should be in the bill is an expression of the right of the Scottish Parliament to determine who qualifies for disability and carers benefits.
We would support the statement that it should be for the Scottish Parliament to decide the definition of disability. When a bill has two different definitions of the same thing, which is the case with regard to clause 19 and—I think—clause 26, that is not very helpful. It might mean that, based on those restrictive definitions, people would qualify for one benefit but not for another.
We are a member of Disability Agenda Scotland, and we want a much more social view to be taken of disability—one that takes account not only of a disabled person’s condition, but of how they can approach their life—rather than a medical view. At present, what is in the bill is restrictive. We are concerned about the effect on people’s benefits, especially when it comes to fluctuating conditions such as mental health conditions.
10:30
The Smith commission was very clear in the statement that it made in paragraph 51 of its report. It said:
“The Scottish Parliament will have complete autonomy in determining the structure and value of the benefits at paragraph 49”—
the devolved benefits—
“or any new benefits or services which might replace them.”
We think that the definitions of the terms “carer” and “disability benefit” are restrictive. In relation to disabled people, the bill says that a payment cannot be made solely on the basis of someone having a particular condition, yet under the disability living allowance rules and the attendance allowance rules someone who undergoes regular dialysis would automatically qualify. The bill is saying that, in future, the Scottish Parliament will not be able to ensure that they automatically qualify for benefit.
Similarly, someone who is born with severe visual impairments—someone who has no eyesight or virtually no eyesight—automatically qualifies for the mobility component of DLA, but in future they will not automatically qualify for any new benefit that replaces it. The powers are being fettered before they have been devolved.
There are restrictions on the number of hours for which someone can be in education and still receive the carers allowance. If the Scottish Parliament wanted to have an employability initiative to get young carers into work after they have left school, the bill would restrict their ability to maintain the carers allowance support that they currently receive in the event that they chose to go to college to get additional qualifications and skills. We think that, in imposing such restrictions, the bill is at odds with the new employability powers that are being devolved.
The carers allowance amounts to about £3,000 a year, yet it involves 35 hours of full-time care a week. A carer would still have to provide that amount of care to continue to qualify for the carers allowance. If that care were substituted by the local authority, it would cost five to 10 times as much for the local authority to provide the same service. Carers, regardless of their age, provide huge benefits to the state by providing unpaid care, but the bill will mean that they will be able to better themselves by getting skills and qualifications only if they do so by spending less than a certain number of hours on that. We think that the Scottish Parliament should have the discretion to set where the limits will be and that it should have full powers over that benefit.
Can I tease that out a wee bit? In effect, you are saying that there has been a long-standing convention at Westminster whereby under-16s do not receive carers allowance and that, even if we in Scotland decided that we wanted to pay an allowance to under-16s in such circumstances, we would not be able to do so.
No. You would not be able to pay an allowance to someone who was under 16, nor would you be allowed to pay one to someone over the age of 16 who was in regular education.
That is helpful.
We are talking about quite a small number of hours—about 16 hours a week, I think. Carers allowance could not be paid to someone who was at college.
The definition in the bill says that a “relevant carer” is someone who
“is 16 or over ... is not in full-time education, and ... is not gainfully employed”.
The use of the phrase “not gainfully employed” raises some questions.
Currently, people can receive carers allowance provided that they do not earn more than a certain amount or work more than a certain number of hours—I cannot remember where the distinction lies—so to simply define it as “not gainfully employed” creates some difficulties beyond the current stipulations under carers allowance.
What seems to be being transferred—perhaps John Dickie or Nile Istephan can comment on this—is the administrative ability to alter the amount that is paid. There is no policy flexibility in relation to how the payment is applied or defined or who receives it. That strikes me as an anomaly in the definitions.
Even as it is currently defined, there would be important opportunities for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to improve people’s access to disability and carers benefits and their adequacy, so I would not want to overplay the point. However, I echo what others have said. There is concern that we are freezing in time a view of what a disability benefit looks like and its structure, and the same applies to benefits for carers, meaning that future Scottish Governments and Parliaments will not be able to develop new approaches to supporting people with disability and carers in a broader way based on their needs and, potentially, trying to support people into work or training.
The example that we have used is that we might want to provide support to disabled people with lower levels of disability who would not meet the quite high thresholds that are locked into the bill as it is currently presented. The impact of those people’s disability may be largely financial; it might not require additional supervision or prevent them from doing their day-to-day activities, but it might impose an additional cost.
It is not clear why we are locking in the current structure of disability benefits and carers benefits when Smith says, as others have mentioned, that the Scottish Parliament should have complete autonomy in developing the structure. That is not possible as the bill is currently framed, as far as we can see.
You talked about locking in the current structure. The legislation will not take effect for a period of months, and the implementation stages will follow that. We know that, in the intervening period, about £12 billion-worth of welfare cuts will be implemented, which could radically change how some benefits are structured and defined and radically shift the goalposts. The structure may not even be restricted to the current landscape, as you say. It may be restricted to a future landscape, which would further restrict the flexibility of future Scottish Governments.
There are two different issues. First, if the definition of a disability benefit in the Scotland Bill is not amended, it will not change, which will constrain what the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government can do in relation to disability benefits. Secondly, if the scale of cuts and changes to disability benefits continues as it is, the system of support that is in place at the point of devolution and transfer, which the Scottish Parliament will pick up responsibility for, will be much diminished. Those constraints are built into the Scotland Bill.
Everybody is talking about £2.5 billion-worth of benefits being devolved to Scotland, but if the transfer from disability living allowance to personal independence payments goes ahead as scheduled—we cannot know whether it will—we will lose £350 million to £400 million from that budget alone.
Is that the global sum or the Scotland-specific sum?
It is the Scotland-specific sum. That is what we will lose. Again, that will restrict the Scottish Government’s scope and ability to define a disability benefit and who it is payable to. There will be a much smaller pot or budget to work with, so the scope for innovation will be much reduced.
Thank you. Let us move on to the area of employment support. Linda Fabiani has a question.
Bill Scott has used the word “restrictive” a few times to describe things, and it strikes me, from some of the evidence that you have given about employment support, that it is restrictive for certain types of folk who perhaps need help. I would like you to expand on something that is in your submission. We know that the Smith recommendation on employment support has not been implemented, because, under the draft clauses, it is now limited to the long-term unemployed entering a programme of development. You say that one of the key groups to suffer consistent poverty is those who circulate in and out of low-paid work. That strikes me as being obvious—we all know that—but we are getting powers that we cannot use to assist one of the groups that we know could really do with some help.
In fairness to the UK Government, it says that you have powers to intervene in that area already. However, if you wanted to create a new programme to specifically address that issue, clause 26 would prevent your doing that. That is what we find difficult. A lot of disabled people who are lucky enough to have jobs—only about four in 10 of those who are of working age do—are in entry-level jobs or low-paid employment, and they often get only seasonal employment and are in and out of low-paid work for most of their working lives. However, you cannot intervene to break that cycle because the periods of their unemployment do not last for a year, so you will never be able to address that.
Even if we carried on having specific small programmes, initiatives and so on, we would not have the power to really get to the root-and-branch issues that underpin the problem.
Yes. Those who are in low-paid work are now the main group of people who are living in poverty—it is not just those who are unemployed who live in poverty.
I am interested in the access to work scheme. Yours is not the only submission that says that it is a shame that that scheme is not being devolved. Can you tell us a wee bit more about it?
Access to work was not specifically addressed in the Smith commission recommendations one way or another. Access to work is a programme that supports disabled people who are entering employment and which helps people who acquire impairments, or whose impairments become more severe while they are in work, to retain employment. It can pay for adaptations to the workplace, personal support, software and computers for people who suffer vision loss, for example. Its total budget across the UK at the moment is about £105 million, which is quite small, and the amount that comes to Scotland is only about £6.5 million to £7 million of that. So, it is not a huge amount of money to be devolved but it could mean that workplaces that were already adapted could be adapted for disabled workers who followed the first disabled worker in.
The scheme can make a real difference by opening up workplaces to disabled people, and it makes a huge difference in allowing disabled people—people who have strokes or who acquire impairments later in life—to get back into the workplace relatively quickly. In terms of employability, it is one of the things that you should have in your toolbox to address the physical and informational barriers to being in a workplace that people face, but it will not be available in any Scottish employability scheme, which seems wrong to us.
10:45
We called for access to work to be developed, and we were very disappointed when it was not included in the Scotland Bill. Only 4 per cent of people who receive the access to work grant have a mental health problem, yet they make up the biggest group of people on employment and support allowance. About 50 per cent of people in Scotland on ESA-WRAG—the work-related activity group—are there because of their mental health problems. Having a more aligned benefit could be very beneficial, and the access to work grant would help those people at the point when they are moving into work. It could also be helpful for those with anxiety issues, as money could be provided for their transport to work; for example, they could use that money towards taking a taxi if they are unable to take a bus, which would keep them going to work. The money could also be used for mental health awareness training in workplaces. Indeed, there is no reason why it could not be, because it is simply a pot of money that is used to support people with disabilities in the workplace. The training could have a knock-on effect for people who do not have a diagnosis.
People mainly drop out of work as a result of stress and ill-health. The grant could help to transform workplaces. We are working with the anti-stigma movement, through the see me campaign and so on. Employers say that they are reluctant to take on individuals with mental health problems, because they do not understand the issues. Therefore, moving the access to work grant to Scotland would be beneficial.
Last year, the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee investigated access to work. It found that the system was overly centralised and hard to access for the disabled. According to Liz Sayce, who recently led a review on employment support, the grant is the best-kept secret.
Is that the grant that local authorities administer on behalf of DWP?
It is administered by Jobcentre Plus
Is it?
Yes—and that is why the UK Government says that it should not be transferred across.
Okay.
I think that what you have said is absolutely right. I hope that I am not the only person here who did not understand how the scheme worked—I see that no one else is admitting to that. [Laughter.] It is a lesson in itself that we do not know about it.
It is a very flexible benefit. As I said, it provides people with support to get into work; it can also provide on-going support for transport, as Rachel Stewart said, and for personal assistance at work. It is absolutely essential. Several of my colleagues at Inclusion Scotland could not work without access to work support.
I think that I might have heard about the scheme.
I have one final wee question. Rachel Stewart’s submission says:
“SAMH notes that the Scottish Government could end up effectively administering DWP programmes without accessing real powers to transform them”.
Is that the crux of what we have been talking about today—the inability to be transformational on what we can do?
I spoke earlier about the impact of some of the other Westminster legislation. An element of that will have an impact on the administration of the work programme and work choice when they are devolved to Scotland in April 2017.
The roll-out of PIP is due to start in Scotland next month. It is a concern that many people who qualify for DLA will not qualify for PIP because they are not disabled enough to meet the regulatory requirements. Work choice is the specialist disability support programme into work, while work programme is more of a catch-all, and it takes people—both older and younger than 25—who are long-term jobseekers, and those who are on employment and support allowance and who have been transferred over from incapacity benefit.
If people lose their access to disability living allowance, they might just be filtered through on to a work programme and not receive the specialist support that they need. In that situation, even though they continue to have a disability, they will not get state support for it.
On administering the programmes, we have concerns because Jobcentre Plus will remain reserved and the filter on to the programmes will still be in Westminster. When I was preparing for today, I read through our submissions over the past year. They started off positive—
So did we.
But, as time has gone on, they have got less so.
We have gone into the detail there, but I want to ask, for the record, about employment support. On page 5 of his letter to us, under the heading “Clause 26—Employment Support”, David Mundell says:
“I ... believe that clause 26 delivers ... on the Smith Commission Agreement.”
Does it?
On page 25?
It is on page 5. He says in relation to clause 26—employment support:
“I therefore believe that clause 26 delivers a substantial transfer of powers to the Scottish Parliament and delivers on the Smith Commission Agreement.”
I need an answer on the record—does it or does it not?
We do not think that it does.
No.
Is that view shared by you all?
It is not a particular area of expertise for us, so I will leave it to those who are more knowledgeable to comment.
I want to get into the detail of the interaction issue a bit more. This point is not directly related to the evidence that you provided, but there was an announcement recently from the Scottish Government that, from January 2016, 16 to 19-year-olds would become eligible for a weekly educational maintenance grant.
Do you consider that the bill as currently drafted would allow payments of that kind to be extended to individuals who are receiving in-work support on programmes such as the work programme or work choice? You may need to think about that and come back to me. The issue is the interaction. If we are doing things in Scotland, what are the implications from a UK perspective? Does that involve too much detail to go into at this time?
There is too much detail in that particular issue, so I would need to go away and look at it.
There is the whole issue of getting Governments to work together to ensure that the different levels of support that are available through different levels of government—local government, the Scottish Government and the UK Government—work together to improve the overall support that is available to individuals and families.
Perhaps an example of where that interaction has not worked over the past few years relates to kinship care payments. We had strong policy intent in Scotland to provide additional support to kinship carers, but the way in which that has played out in practice has meant that, in many cases, kinship carers have lost entitlement to UK benefits. It has become a hugely complex, tortuous business for kinship carers.
The situation could be resolved by any level of government. Local authorities could just raise the rate to make sure that they are paying an adequate foster care allowance rate of payment to kinship carers; the Scottish Government could require all local authorities to do that; and the UK Government could change the regulations on reserved benefits to ensure that people did not lose their entitlements to UK benefits. The situation could be resolved but it has not been; it has been left as it is. The result has been that kinship carers are left out.
That is an example of where a devolved responsibility and UK responsibilities are interacting and where there has been a failure to find a solution that protects people. As we go forward, there are lessons to be learnt from that experience.
I have another couple of areas in my head that I will not explore with you today because it would put you on the spot a bit too much. However, if you do not mind, I might write to you about some of the other areas of potential interaction to ask what you think the implications might be, so that we can get a bit more clarity on some of these jagged-edged issues.
I will pick up on John Dickie’s comments and indeed the comments in the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations submission about the transition, which is already difficult.
The process does not seem very transparent. There seems to be a lack of clarity, a lack of involvement and a lack of scrutiny in real, probing terms. Different Parliaments and different committees are examining the process, which is challenging. It has been recognised, certainly in the federation’s submission, that intergovernmental relations are essential. That chimes with some of the committee’s concerns.
The SFHA attached some of the Calman proposals to its submission. Those proposals are quite old now but, recognising that, they include some recommendations about ad hoc committees and joint committees, about UK ministers and Scottish ministers appearing at various committees of the Parliament and about greater access. Would any of you like to comment on the record about that area of work and about how members of the committees—and, indeed, the interest groups—can provide the right level of scrutiny not just during the transition but going forward?
I will have a quick go at that question.
I think that you are right. Whatever people’s individual views are and whatever party-political views there are about the process, we are trying to think practically about how we can make what we have in front of us work as well as we can. Our concern relates to the questions that we have struggled with today, which are complex, and it feels to us that they are getting more complex as we delve further into them. In the meantime, some reforms are progressing, and we are struggling to understand how various policies, processes and benefits are interacting with one other. That is a struggle for us to keep on top of.
On the claimant’s perspective, an objective of some of the reforms is to simplify the system, but it feels to us that the system is becoming increasingly complex and opaque. Possibly the end result somewhere down the line will be that some of the issues will be clarified.
That experience has informed our call to halt the further roll-out of universal credit and to get some of the machinery right in intergovernmental co-operation. Whatever that intergovernmental co-operation ends up being, it needs to inform the processes and make collective decisions in the interests of claimants. At the risk of repeating myself, we do not want to get a system in which there are the difficulties that were experienced in Northern Ireland. We recognise that, in the interim, whatever the rights and wrongs of some of the changes are, they are awfully confusing to people in respect of knowing what they mean for them, planning their lives and going about their business.
That is a bit of a vague answer on the intergovernmental machinery, but the issue is really important.
I have a straight question. There are groups that report to ministers that meet regularly and talk about social security and exactly what we have spoken about this morning. What has your engagement been with them? Do you know when they meet? Do you know who is in them? How well have you been kept informed? How well are you able to influence what is going on?
Bill Scott probably wants to answer that.
I am involved in a lot of groups, but they are all Scottish Government ones. I have not been involved in any intergovernmental meetings whatsoever.
Scottish Government and UK Government officials meet, but you do not know anything about that.
I know that the meetings are happening, but—
But you do not know when and you do not know anything about the agendas, for example.
No.
It is important to bring in the voices of the claimants who receive the benefits and the organisations that work with them. A lot of negotiation is going on between the Governments just now, but the issue is about creating a framework in which those benefits will be decided and developed right into the future. We need to future proof that. We might get different views from people who are already on the benefits and the organisations that work with them. Their interests are different; they are not necessarily the same as the interests of the two Governments.
We are certainly willing to take part in those meetings, but that has to be at the right stage, which is an early stage.
I used to be a civil servant a long time ago—I worked in the Department of Employment—and I know that no end of buck-passing took place between the Department of Employment and the Department of Health and Social Security back in the 1980s about which was at fault when benefits went astray. The local authority was usually a third player in the ring.
We are now going to bring in an extra layer of complexity for people who apply to the system. They will not necessarily know who to go to for which benefit. We need to ensure that the structures do not let people slip through the cracks and that people who have genuine issues—mental health issues, communication difficulties or learning difficulties—know where to go to and can get help.
That needs co-operative work between both Governments, but it also needs the involvement of the third sector, for example—it knows those people and what issues they confront and how they can be addressed—so that systems can be set up to cope.
I remember that someone said that they regularly met a welfare reference group from the voluntary sector to inform the discussions. That might have been when the secretary of state or somebody from his office was here. I do not think that I have just made that up.
There is a Scottish Government welfare reform scrutiny group, which I think a few of us are on. It has not dealt with or scrutinised those issues.
I am convinced that the Scotland Office said that it was doing something. Can we look back and find out what that was said? I do not think that I dreamt it.
We will check whether Linda Fabiani’s recollection is correct and whether there is a reference group. If that was said, I suggest that we write to the secretary of state to ask who is on that group.
Absolutely.
I thank the witnesses for coming and giving us evidence. That was very helpful. The area is incredibly complicated, and there are lots of potential interactions between what the Scottish Government and the UK Government might do and the implications for each side. That is making our job very interesting.