Social Justice Committee, 12 Dec 2001

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Official Report 186KB pdf

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Social Justice Annual Report 2001

We are a little behind time. I hope that members will bear that in mind when they ask questions. The Executive intends to make available a more detailed briefing in the new year, but there are some points on which we wanted to touch today.

You stole my opening line. Why should I suffer alone in reading the statistical analyses? The committee should join in. There is a wealth of ability in the Scottish Executive. I have benefited enormously from the technical briefings that help us to understand the report. It might be beneficial to the committee to go through the briefings instead of arguing about how the figures are established and compared. Perhaps the committee could have a special informal session with the officials and the statisticians.

If we took up that offer, we would also want to consider how to proceed. There is a difference between an informal briefing and public scrutiny of Executive activity. However, I think that I can speak for the committee when I say that we would welcome a briefing.

I would not want to undermine the committee's formal scrutiny of the process. My point was about education. We could then move on to formal scrutiny.

So you are saying that if we can reach your level of understanding, we will be able to ask you harder questions.

Ouch.

We have some general questions.

Have the results published in the 2000 and 2001 social justice annual reports led the Executive to change policies or programmes or to introduce new ones? How often does the joint ministerial committee on poverty meet? Have you been able to identify any policies that the Westminster Government has changed following representations by the Executive at those meetings?

As you know, the social justice annual report was meant to put a focus on social justice policy and its implementation, to enable us to get detailed evidence of progress or lack of progress. Obviously, we are in only the early days of the publication's life and we want to make more progress with it.

One indicator that is not moving in the right direction and which concerns us is the number of 16 to 19-year-olds who are not in education. The report shows that that target group was not properly on anyone's agenda and was the subject of no agency's performance target. Since we identified the area as a cause for concern, we have put in place partnership working to try to have a range of people making an effort on that.

We are working with the local enterprise company network and the careers companies on performance indicators. We are trying to get away from the old system, whereby people creamed off the people who were most ready for work. We are trying to ensure that people have targets that recognise the work that they do on the hardest-to-reach group. That is where the challenge lies, as the report shows.

Another indicator that had not been noticed as much as it should have been is the number of children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That area needs attention and we are working hard to obtain more data. I know that Glasgow City Council has committed £5 million to dealing with the matter.

The Scottish Executive gave £5.3 million to authorities who were major users of temporary accommodation. Although we have not yet got figures for authorities' use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for children, we know from our informal approaches to Glasgow City Council that, because it has put resources into preventing families from being placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, it has been able to cut the number of families in such accommodation from 50 to four. That happened because the social justice report included the issue as an indicator—it was a milestone.

Is that money from the councils' budgets or has it come from the Executive?

We gave the councils £5.3 million.

Were they allowed to spend the money only on tackling that issue?

The £5.3 million was given to local authorities only for that purpose.

We allocated the money because we want to tackle the targets that we have set.

You asked about issues that have arisen as a result of the joint ministerial committee. The meetings relate to a raft of work and one of the initiatives has resulted in the partnerships against poverty, which try to work with a range of agencies to raise benefit uptake among older people. The Scottish Executive has been heavily involved in that work.

You asked what influence the Scottish Executive had had on UK policy. We have been heavily involved in the UK national action plan on poverty. That has resulted in interest in our social inclusion network, which involves discussions with relevant interest groups. Damian Killeen from the Poverty Alliance recently told me that he had been invited to London to discuss his involvement in the social inclusion network.

You will be aware of Glasgow City Council's poverty trap campaign, which addresses the fact that the benefit system makes it uneconomical for people to take advantage of the Scottish Executive's good initiatives to encourage people into work. Glasgow City Council has lobbied hard on the matter. Has the Scottish Executive done likewise through the joint ministerial committee? Is it possible to ensure that the benefit of Scottish initiatives to support people into work is reinforced by work on the benefits system?

One of the spin-offs from the joint ministerial group has been a series of bilateral meetings. Jackie Baillie had one recently with Alistair Darling and George Foulkes and Iain Gray has some in his diary. I would need to check whether the matter has come up. I recently discussed it with Jim Coleman, who has been leading the work at Glasgow City Council. There is a submission that I will take to Ian Perry from the City of Edinburgh Council, who has also been working on that. We have been talking to Glasgow City Council and the City of Edinburgh Council about how they are working through the social justice annual targets; as part of that they have been in discussion with Alistair Darling.

Fairly detailed discussions are going on now. There is still work to be done, but the issue is on the agenda and progress is being made.

My question relates to the basis of reporting. The baseline years for the individual milestones range from 1996 to 1999. I cannot understand why there is not uniformity. If we take a specific individual milestone, for example child poverty, we find that the baseline has changed, even within the space of a year. In the 2000 report, the baseline was 1997-98, but in the 1999 documentation that was produced, the baseline was 1996-97. A cynic might say that that was just so the Executive could take advantage of a perceived drop in child poverty.

Never. That is why we want the statisticians to have a discussion with members. I have been working my way through this and I can tell members that there are statistical explanations. I cannot say anything smart to clarify that. I want to talk about the different baseline figures, and then I will let Linda Rosborough talk through the technical issues.

We are trying to measure the impact that the devolved Parliament has had in certain areas. We have had the debate about distinguishing between the impact of the Westminster Government and that of the Scottish Executive many times in Parliament. We think that it is appropriate for the Executive to be held to account for the policies that we bring in, so we have tried to distinguish between the years since we took power and the years prior to that. That explains why certain figures relate to 1997.

Why do you go back the way, if that is the rationale?

Because 1996-97 is our first year, if I remember correctly. I will start and then let Linda Rosborough, who is more on top of the details, clarify. If we are considering the impact of the Westminster Government, the baseline is 1996-97; and if we are considering the impact of the devolved Administration, it is 1998-99.

But you went back the other way—that is what I do not understand.

The initial "Social Justice …a Scotland where everyone matters" documents, which were published a couple of years ago, contained the suggestion that the baseline should simply be the most recent data that was available. The work on the milestones was done at a time when we had no data for many of the indicators; our understanding was fairly rudimentary. When we considered the matter in more detail the following year, the decision was taken that, for indicators that were essentially reserved—where the main policy levers were in the hands of the UK Government—we should look for indicators that had as their starting point the time when the UK Government came to power. In the devolved areas, the baseline should start when the Executive came to power. So, we are roughly aiming for 1997 for the reserved areas—

But you go back to the Tory years for the indicator that I mentioned.

No. In May 1997, when the Administration came to power, it inherited the 1996-97 position. That is the starting point. The UK Government uses exactly the same basis in "Opportunities for all: Tackling poverty and social exclusion". We use the same indicators.

It is the changing midstream that I find difficult.

As far as people's level of satisfaction with the response goes, I think that we have got as far as we are going to get with that one. I am sure that we will pursue it further later.

Children and young people feature strongly in the social justice targets. I am interested to know what the Executive's definition of a young person is, particularly because so many of the milestones relate to young people of varying ages. Is there a reason why there is no standard definition or age for a young person? Do you think that as a result of the First Minister's commitment to putting young people at the heart of Scottish Executive policy, considerable efforts will be made and emphasis will be placed on achieving some of the difficult milestones and targets that the Scottish Executive has set itself?

There is an explanation for the different definitions of a young person. The definition relates to what the milestone is about. The reason why the milestone that targets young people leaving education refers to 16 to 19-year-olds is that that is where the gap in provision is. It is legal to smoke at age 16, so the young people whom we are targeting in the milestone that targets smoking are aged under-16.

The definition and age of a young person reflect the key target that we are trying to achieve. There is no point in monitoring smoking in the over-16s. The thinking behind the report is targeting problems where they start. That is broadly agreed to be an acceptable model for measurement.

Karen Whitefield made an interesting point about the increase in emphasis on children and young people. We strongly welcome that. In the report, we have tried to be honest about the areas in which we think that we are not making progress. There are some intractable problems, which have to be resolved. As I tried to say earlier, the report gives us an insight into some of the agencies and organisations that are not delivering and which need to deliver if we are going to achieve some of the targets.

The report says difficult things about schools, LECs and us in relation to some of the work that needs to be done. We acknowledge that we need to consider teenage pregnancies, smoking and underachievement at schools. We need to consider why certain children are leaving without qualifications and are falling off the edge of the system. We need to take that seriously, focus on it and deliver our targets. If there was a push from the centre to say that there needs to be more delivery and less aspiration, that would be useful for the social justice report.

I invite Cathie Craigie to comment and remind her that we are running against the clock.

I will be quick.

I look forward to the briefing session that the minister mentioned. One of the Executive's 10 social justice targets is:

"Achieve full employment in Scotland in the modern sense of opportunity for all".

Will the minister educate us this morning and tell us what that means?

I might pass over to Linda to give a technical definition.

I thought that Margaret Curran was referring to me.

That might be a step too far in consensus politics; I meant Linda Rosborough.

The target reflects a changing economy and a changing work force. Full employment used to be measured according to the idea that someone was in a permanent job for a long time. The modern economy does not work like that. People shift jobs and come in and out of employment with much greater regularity. As I understand it, that can sometimes lead to the odd statistical blip, because there is greater movement within the system.

I will get marks out of 10 for that.

My understanding is that, even when there is full employment in the modern sense, there will be a certain level of unemployment, because of the effect of people moving jobs in a modern economy.

Fifty years ago, we would have measured unemployment slightly differently. We can talk about that at the statistical briefing as well.

If jobs are there, but people are not taking them up, would you say that that is opportunity for all?

That is an issue as well, but it is not what we are saying; we are saying that there is greater movement in people's employment record, so the unemployment rate shows differently. Economists will confirm that they used to regard an unemployment rate of less than 2 per cent as full employment. The unemployment rate is regarded differently now because people who leave work and change work are recorded differently. That is the point. The other point is slightly different.

The point is that the phrase

"modern sense of opportunity for all"

implies that that is different from the traditional sense of opportunity for all.

But it is—that is my point. The traditional measurements are shifting. Get Gordon Brown here to explain it. Kenny Gibson would love that.

I am an economics graduate and I seem to remember that the measure of full employment depends on the structural strengths and weaknesses of a specific economy at a specific time.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. One of my concerns is that, for some of the Executive's milestones, there appears to be no real data to analyse. For example, the preamble to the "Every Community Matters" chapter of the report states:

"some groups face particular forms of advantage and discrimination - often called communities of interest. These include people from minority ethnic groups as well as people with disabilities and groups vulnerable to poverty."

However, the indicators in that chapter do not monitor the effect of polices on those groups. How can the committee and the public monitor the effect of Executive policies on such groups when performance information is not available?

We made it clear in the report that we do not have all the data that we want, but we are making every effort to obtain them. I would not say that there is no performance information data, as some data are available—although they are imperfect and more work needs to be done on them. Some gender issues show up a bit better in the report. I think, too, that there are specific data on disability. Linda Rosborough can confirm whether that is the case.

The data relate to the employment of disabled ethnic minority people, the over-50s and lone parents. Those data are disaggregated. We have a commitment to disaggregate. We hoped originally that we would be able to get a lot more data than we have been able to from the SIP monitoring and evaluation process. In practice, the data from that process were not of a high enough quality for us to use them in the report.

The statisticians jealously guard the quality of the report's data. They are bound by statistical codes that govern the quality of their data. Therefore, we can include only data of a quality with which the statisticians are happy. We cannot give disaggregated data that are not supported by quality data.

I tried to obtain the data from the Scottish Parliament information centre, but the Executive confirmed that figures on working children and pensioner poverty would not be divulged because it is unsure of their accuracy.

The Office of National Statistics—ONS—is undertaking a major neighbourhood statistics programme that covers England and Wales. Given the concerns about data accuracy, will the Executive commit funds to that project to ensure that coverage extends to Scotland? If not, how does the Executive intend to proceed on developing neighbourhood-level statistics and improving the quality of data?

That matter has come up repeatedly, most recently in the parliamentary debate on the social justice report. If I remember rightly, Cathie Craigie made a point about statistics, which I tried to answer briefly at the end of the debate.

Getting the data right is a big issue and, as Linda Rosborough said, it is a SIP-level issue. We are spending £7 million on the neighbourhood statistics project to get the data that we need. We are co-operating with what is happening in England and Wales, but we are doing our project differently because we have different needs in Scotland. We are right to use our kind of model. Linda Rosborough can give members more information on the matter.

We are investing £7 million in the project. The statisticians have put together a working group of people from different sectors to develop neighbourhood-level information that will cut across different sectors. We cannot use exactly the same methodology as the ONS because the rurality of small areas in Scotland is different from that in England. The working group is closely in touch with what the ONS is doing and is trying to achieve the same objectives with about the same level of resources, proportionately.

I have a point about the disaggregation of information down to a local level. North Lanarkshire Council, which is in the area that I represent, takes seriously the work that is required to respond to the social justice agenda. As well as trying to meet the Executive's milestones and targets, the council has set itself similar ones. However, the council finds it difficult to know where it should target its policies, because it cannot get local-level information.

I am pleased that the Executive is doing more in that area, but if we want to make the process work, everybody—the schools, the LECs and whoever—must play their part. We need to be able to identify who is letting the side down. Without local information, the council's job is doubly difficult. I urge the minister to give a commitment to do all that she can on the matter.

Absolutely. North Lanarkshire Council is doing interesting work. We need to spend money to get statistics that tell us where we need to prioritise. That will lead to greater accountability, some of which will be painful, because it will be obvious where the gaps are. We need to get the statistics to answer questions that it is proper for people to ask.

Thank you. Before we finish, it is appropriate to thank Margaret Curran and her officials for attending the meeting.

People will be aware that this meeting was deferred because of the uncertainty about ministerial portfolios. The committee wants to put on record its thanks to the former Minister for Social Justice, Jackie Baillie, with whom we had a close working relationship while working on the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. As I said before, bonding occurred then that will live with us for the rest of our lives. We thank Jackie Baillie for all the work that she did to support the committee's priorities.

We also welcome Iain Gray, who was not here today, to his new position. I am absolutely confident that he will work closely with the committee in the future.

I will warn him.

Meeting closed at 12:21.