Health and Sport Committee, 04 Mar 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Official Report 246KB pdf

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Welfare Reform Bill

The next item on the agenda is oral evidence on legislative consent memorandum LCM(S3)18.1 on the Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently before the UK Parliament. I welcome Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health and Sport. She is accompanied from the Scottish Government by Emma Sinclair, who is team leader in self-directed support, and Graeme Bryce, who is a policy co-ordinator on equality. I invite the minister to make opening remarks, which will in the usual fashion be followed by questions from members.

I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to explain the provisions of Westminster's Welfare Reform Bill, on which we seek consent for it to legislate. The main purpose of the bill is to further reform the welfare and benefits systems to improve support and incentives for people to move from benefits into work. The bill also includes measures to provide greater choice and control for disabled people. It is on that element that we seek the Scottish Parliament's consent.

The Scottish and Westminster Governments are committed to increasing for disabled people choice and control, which are important elements of independent living. We want to enable disabled people to make choices about how they live their lives, and to have the control that many non-disabled people take for granted. The bill's right-to-control provisions will help disabled people to have control over their lives by giving them a right to control certain services for which they are eligible, and it will allow for the new arrangements to be piloted.

The relevant provisions in the Welfare Reform Bill relate to further and higher education, training and employment, independent living and participation in society. Not all services that could be covered are included; for example, community care services are excluded from the bill because legislation exists to enable disabled people to control, through direct payments, budgets that relate to community care.

The right to control will be delivered through regulations. The provisions in the bill include a power to enable the appropriate authority to make regulations that specify precisely how greater choice and control will be delivered, and the support and services that may be included. The Scottish ministers are the appropriate authority for provisions that would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, if they were included in an act of the Westminster Parliament.

The Scottish Government believes that it would be appropriate to take advantage of the enabling legislation that is being promoted at Westminster, while exercising specific responsibility for determining, through regulations, those devolved funds that will be eligible for the right-to-control mechanism. A legislative consent motion is required because some of the bill's provisions apply to devolved areas such as education and training. Other provisions confer new powers on the Scottish ministers.

As I have said, the right to control will support the move towards independent living in Scotland, which has widespread support from disability organisations and from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Independent living is strongly supported by the Scottish Government and in June last year we announced our plans to develop an approach to independent living in Scotland.

I invite the committee to support the measures that I have outlined, which are addressed by the legislative consent memorandum. I am more than happy to provide any further information that is required and to deal with questions.

Thank you very much, minister.

The minister mentioned pilots and test sites. Where in Scotland will pilots be run? What effect will that have on the running of services in Scotland?

I am happy to answer that. I wrote on 17 December last year on that very point to Tony McNulty, who is the Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform. We are keen for a site in Scotland to be included among what are described as the trail-blazing sites to test the best way to implement the right to control, because it is clear that there will be complexities around reserved and devolved budgets. It seems to make sense for there to be a Scottish test site so that we can test whether any difficulties arise and consider how they might be ironed out.

Last month, I received a response that said that there will be trail-blazing sites only in England. I am not happy with that, so we have decided to raise the issue at the next joint ministerial committee on 11 March. There is a big opportunity for a test site in Scotland to build on the test sites that have already been established. It would be a really good fit. We certainly want to pursue that with Tony McNulty, and I hope that our discussions will have a satisfactory conclusion.

I appreciate that direct payments for community care are excluded because legislation on that is already in place, but if we want to get people out of benefits and back into work or education, and to give them more flexibility, choice and control in their daily lives, I am sure that you will agree that it is important that, as part of that package, they have access to direct payments.

I will be diplomatic. In my experience, councils are not always keen to support people in making that move towards direct payments. The uptake of direct payments across Scotland has been slow and fairly limited. As the minister, what can you do to encourage councils to be more co-operative and supportive, and to ensure that more people are aware of direct payments so that they can have the control, choice and flexibility that we are talking about?

That is a pertinent question. I remind members that local authorities have, since June 2003, had a duty to offer to all eligible people direct payments in lieu of council community care services. Before I say more about that, I point out that we should remember that, although Mary Scanlon is right that we perhaps do not have the uptake that we would want, and that compared to England it is still quite low, there was a 14 per cent increase in uptake from March 2007 to March 2008. There has been some progress, but I certainly want more.

One reason for the establishment of test sites in Scotland is to examine how we might remove some barriers, whether structural or attitudinal. The test sites are being established in Glasgow, Highland and Dumfries and Galloway to consider ways of, for example, integrating health moneys and to investigate how we can help local authorities to work with people to encourage and support them.

I will ask the self-directed support reference group, which is overseeing all this work, to review the operation of the legislation as part of its work on developing a national strategy for self-directed support. If it throws up evidence that we need changes—legislative changes or other changes—I am prepared to consider them.

There is some room for optimism, because there has been an increase in uptake, but it is clear to me from speaking to disability organisations and to people directly that they want more control over their lives, which we are determined to achieve. I am confident that, as a result of all the work that I have outlined, there will be a substantial increase in uptake.

Thank you. That is helpful.

Since when has the duty been on local authorities?

They have had the duty since June 2003.

Who is on the self-directed support reference group?

The group's members include the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association of Directors of Social Work, a number of third sector organisations and support organisations for disabled people. I can provide a list.

That is helpful. Mary Scanlon has mentioned an issue of which other members may have experience. Although it is not suitable for all people to receive direct payments, there are issues about people being aware of the option.

I should perhaps also have said that we are working closely with COSLA on the strategy—it is very much a partner in this work. In addition to the test sites, we are visiting local authorities to understand better any local circumstances that contribute to low take-up. The work with COSLA is important.

Thank you—that is helpful.

I do not know whether the minister remembers—I seem to recollect it, although I cannot be certain about my recollections—that we found during the Health Committee's care inquiry in the previous session that there were different levels of direct payments in each local authority. Was that the case and is it still the case? If it is, would you find out the level of direct payments in each local authority in Scotland? I am not sure about my facts, but I would like you to investigate that issue.

As I understand it, assessment of the person's needs would decide the package of care that the person requires. The package can be provided through local authority services or the equivalent resource can be provided through direct payments. Is that correct?

Yes—that is right. It is effectively the same as a community care assessment, so it is on the same level.

Payments will differ depending on the package.

I welcome the proposals; this is absolutely the right thing to do. However, I want to tease out the emerging thinking, because although I think that in principle the proposals are right, the devil will be in the detail. If, for example, there were direct payments for further education or higher education, I would be keen to know whether that would be new money or whether money that currently goes into the system would be taken out and provided to the individual. If it is the latter, I can see problems with people exercising their choice and some of the institutions will not have the money that they rely on to provide class-contact time. The transition will be important. Is your emerging thinking that there will be some money to oil the wheels of that transition?

We will have to consider such matters. However, when we consider how self-directed support and direct payments have operated in the context of community care, it is clear that the choice is between provision of a resource through local authority services and provision of the resource directly to the person, who decides whether they want to use local authority services as part of a package, employ a personal assistant or whatever. We are talking about the same resource. Local authorities have managed the process; some have done so particularly well. Fife Council and the City of Edinburgh Council have managed to secure a high uptake of direct payments without their services being undermined or destabilised. It can be done, and we expect other institutions to be able to take a similar approach.

If issues to do with resource or other issues to do with the proposed legislation emerge from the test sites and other work, we will have to consider them. However, the principle is about control. It is about ensuring that people have a choice between having directly delivered services and having an equivalent resource, which they can manage themselves.

There appear to be no more questions, so I thank the minister and her officials for their help. I am sure that members have read paragraph 5 of committee paper HS/S3/09/7/3, which explains that there is no required form of report that we must use. Paragraph 6 sets out the options that are before us. We must decide whether we want to comment on the LCM.

I suggest that we choose the first option.

That option is that the clerks produce a report in which we recommend that the LCM be agreed to. Are members content with that approach?

Members indicated agreement.