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Agenda item 2 is our child poverty inquiry. We welcome our first panel. Tam Baillie is director of policy at Barnardo's, and John Dickie is head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland. We have not received any apologies, so I presume that Robert McGeachy of NCH Scotland has been delayed by transport difficulties or an unforeseen event and that he will join us. Marion Davis is manager for development, policy and training at One Parent Families West of Scotland, Peter Kelly is director of the Poverty Alliance, and Douglas Hamilton is head of policy and research at Save the Children.
Good morning. I thank the witnesses for coming to the meeting.
In our written evidence, we said that concern exists that the mechanisms are not currently robust enough to allow local authorities to demonstrate how their increased spending flexibility is impacting on children and families that are experiencing poverty. Therefore, we are keen to see the single outcome agreements and the process that is involved being developed and improved so that there are much clearer expectations and there is a much clearer ability to demonstrate the impact of policy and services on children and families that are experiencing poverty.
It is helpful to start with single outcome agreements, because they are now the driving force behind implementation of Government policy, although it is a bit early to say exactly what will happen with the single outcome agreements. We and others have been looking at them to see how clear a profile is given to poverty. I think that although most of the single outcome agreements will mention poverty and measures to tackle it, fewer will mention child poverty. By taking an interest, the committee could ensure that child poverty features in single outcome agreements. As John Dickie suggested, some work might remain to be done on developing useful indicators.
Have any of you done any work to assess the published single outcome agreements? How many have mentioned or targeted this issue? Are you happy or sad—or despairing—about them?
We are in the middle of assessing them right now. I wish we could produce a paper showing all the mentions of poverty and child poverty, but that is a mammoth exercise. There are 32 single outcome agreements, and we are not the only sector that is interested in them. However, that kind of analysis will offer the kind of information that will let committees become much more informed in respect of the questions that they should be asking of central Government and local government.
Are you doing that work together?
Yes.
Obviously, various organisations could be funding that. When do you expect the exercise to be complete?
Within weeks, we will have an idea of the mentions of poverty across the board, and an idea of which councils specifically mention child poverty. However, I am reluctant to say that there will be a published document. We have to be careful and sensitive when local authorities are putting together single outcome agreements. The agreements are dense documents. Mr Tolson mentioned taking a holistic approach: many of the measures that local authorities would regard as tackling child poverty will not fall just into the child poverty category, but will affect education, income maximisation and a range of other issues. It will therefore be complicated to do a detailed analysis of the documents.
John Dickie has talked about taking a consistent approach to considering single outcome agreements, and Tam Baillie has said that we have to consider what is being done across a range of policies in the single outcome agreements. The committee might have a critical role in the coming years, when it considers how to hold local authorities and the Scottish Government to account, in finding out how the spending within single outcome agreements is allocated and how it is child poverty proofed. That will be a key role, and CPAG's suggestion of some kind of toolkit to help local authorities is very useful.
We will talk about maximising income and about benefits later in the morning. I am anxious that we do not focus too much on one area at the expense of others. Much of the evidence that we have received from your organisations focuses on local authorities delivering services such as child care, education and so on, which are very important.
The Scottish Parliament information centre has done analysis of single outcome agreements that indicates that, on average, only 12 per cent of the national indicators feature in the SOAs. The witnesses have said that we need consistency across Scotland and that we must recognise the crucial role of local government. A critical issue for your organisations, which want to deliver services and support families throughout Scotland, is that there is tension between avoiding a postcode lottery and respecting local flexibility. How will that be done? You say that single outcome agreements are "dense documents". If they are dense documents and it cannot be done, does that suggest that the process is wrong?
We would like a mechanism in the agreements to ensure that local authorities are able to demonstrate what they are doing to tackle child poverty, and the impact of what they are doing. Such a mechanism is not part of the current thinking.
With respect, what Tam Baillie said—John Dickie said it, too—was that the means through which national policy would address child poverty in Scotland would be the single outcome agreements, but you are saying that there is not currently a mechanism in the process to do that. National indicators are a very small part of the agreements and the Scottish Government says that it is the role of local government to deal with those matters. Is the danger that we will lose the strategic focus on child poverty or any poverty measures as long as such an approach is taken?
There needs to be a consistent policy throughout Scotland. It is a question of how much flexibility central Government would be comfortable with in single outcome agreements.
There is total flexibility.
We are in the early days. It remains to be seen what will happen in the second round of single outcome agreements. There may well be a call, perhaps from the committee, that child poverty should feature in them: it may well be the kind of issue on which you could make representations to central Government, although central Government would still have to take a view about the degree of difference between single outcome agreements, not only on child poverty but across a range of policy matters.
I will back up Tam Baillie's point. How it will be done is exactly the sort of question that the committee needs to ask the Scottish Government and local authorities when they come before the committee. Our recommendation is that there should be a local outcome on tackling child poverty in every single outcome agreement.
I apologise to Jim Tolson, as I cut him off and did not allow him back in. Marion Davis wants to comment.
Lone parents are the focus of Westminster policy changes in the welfare reform that will take place in the coming years. We have city strategies in certain parts of Scotland, some aspects of which will merge into single outcome agreements and strategies. We would be interested to know about the contribution that the welfare to work strategy makes to the national picture. The aim nationally is to eradicate child poverty and to move 70 per cent of lone parents into work. How do we measure that locally? Glasgow has a high percentage of lone parents. How do we measure at local level how successful the coming together of the welfare to work strategy and the Scottish Government's workforce plus strategy to support lone parents in moving into work have been in tackling child poverty? That is a challenge, but it is important. If Westminster and the Scottish Government have a joint agreement to eradicate child poverty and one of the main ways in which Westminster intends to do that is to move lone parents into work, it is important to know how we measure that.
In relation to the single outcome agreements, Tam Baillie was right to say that it is difficult to get a hold on child poverty when 32 different local authorities are reporting on it and each authority has a certain amount of flexibility. That is a challenge for you and for us.
One of the questions that I am sure we will be asked is whether we have the right local indicators to ensure that we make progress on any number of policy areas—the one in which we are interested today is child poverty, of course. As long as there is flexibility in that process, we as a nation might get smarter at measuring our performance.
The witnesses have gone some way towards answering my supplementary question. Single outcome agreements might bring into sharp focus certain cross-cutting issues, such as child poverty. In the past, local authorities carried out a number of stand-alone initiatives on child poverty and regarded them as what they did to tackle it. Now, we have the single outcome agreements—the witnesses will say that the local authorities' approach to tackling child poverty should be woven through those agreements. Do they present an opportunity—intended or otherwise—to ensure that all 32 local authorities work with the Scottish Government to tackle cross-cutting issues that affect our communities, such as child poverty, gender equality and racial equality?
They provide an opportunity but, at the moment, tackling child poverty is not working through the single outcome agreements. We recommend that there should be a local outcome for it in each single outcome agreement. If we had that, the agreements could be useful for comparing approaches across authorities so that they could learn from one another, and share experiences about how they might achieve the outcome and reduce the numbers of children who are living in poverty.
I was interested in Marion Davis's observation about the Westminster strategy of taking 70 per cent of lone parents off welfare and getting them into work. On what objective evidence is that based? What objective evidence is there regarding whether it is better for the long-term welfare of children, particularly pre-school children, if they are nurtured at home by their mothers—their parent, to use a neutral term—than if they are in child care while the parent is at work? I ask Marion Davis to comment on that from the perspective of lone parents; perhaps other witnesses might like to respond for other groups that suffer from child poverty.
A lot of research shows that families in which the lone parent is in work have a higher income and therefore a lower level of child poverty. The challenge lies in lone parents moving into work sustainably. We would like lone parents to have a choice—to decide whether to move into work or not and whether their doing so would be in the best interests of the family.
You have spoken about research that shows that families in which the lone parent is in work are better off. Is that measured in terms of income? Is there any research covering wider issues, including nurturing and general wellbeing? I appreciate that income will be higher when the parent is in work, but what about the wider issues around the nurturing and wellbeing of younger children, in particular? I am talking about their getting a good start as they first go to school, and other qualitative aspects.
If you find one piece of research saying that children's wellbeing improves if their parent goes to work, you will find another that says that there are negative effects from their being in child care at a young age. The jury is out on that question. The key is to have choice and to assume that parents know what is best for their children. If they are going to move into work, it needs to be well-paid and sustainable employment: after all, a high percentage of children who are in poverty live in families in which there is a parent working. We need to get that right.
Barnardo's is a child care organisation, so children's development is at the heart of our concerns. Marion Davis is right: routes into employment are often the best way to get families—especially young families—out of poverty. There needs to be a link with the early years and early intervention framework. In freeing up and removing barriers to employment through providing child care, we have to consider the quality of that child care and the child's education. I hope that, whatever else comes out of the early years and early intervention framework that the Government is currently working up, specific mention is made of the quality of care that is provided to our children and the support that can be given to families in those early years. There is a definite tie-up between freeing up families for economic activity and maintaining a balance in providing good care for our children.
To return to David McLetchie's point, living in a low-income household over a sustained period damages many children's wellbeing. That needs to be the focus. Helping lone parents, or any parents, back into work should be about ensuring that the work is sustainable—as Marion Davis suggested—and decently paid.
The context is that we have one of the highest employment rates in the world, but also one of the highest child poverty rates. When we talk about supporting people and removing barriers for those who can and want to get back to work—there are too many barriers, such as child care or a lack of quality jobs—we must remember that, too often, removing barriers will not be the solution to child poverty. We must remember that we need an adequate safety net for those who are not able to work, perhaps because they have made a positive choice to care for children or are affected by disability or ill health. We must consider how to provide services and financial support to protect those families from poverty.
We will have an opportunity to discuss that shortly, but John Wilson has a final question on the single outcome agreements, after which we will move to questions on income maximisation.
My question is along the same lines as David McLetchie's. Although Jim Tolson's initial question was on the single outcome agreements, Marion Davis and one or two others have mentioned the issue of how we bring together the work in a Scottish context when many of the levers that could bring people out of poverty through income do not rest with the Scottish Government. I seek advice from the panel about the measures that should be put in place to help alleviate child poverty. Through the single outcome agreements, we can have a wraparound policy at local level, but what measures would you like to be put in place that would make the difference that would raise children out of poverty?
I am reluctant to go into that, because I want to finish the discussion on single outcome agreements. Alasdair Allan was going to lead us on to that wider issue. However, I ask the witnesses to respond to John Wilson's question by relating it to single outcome agreements, perhaps by giving us a view on child care provision, the free school meals pilots or the working for families programme. We will then move on to benefits and income maximisation.
I will give a brief answer and others can pick up on the details. To tie in the answer with single outcome agreements, there is a role for Westminster, local authorities, the Scottish Government and the Parliament. We recognise that several players are involved and that not all the levers for tackling child poverty are in one place. That is the context within which the Scottish Parliament and Government need to find their role and consider how they can make the biggest difference.
I strongly support Douglas Hamilton's comments. To get to the very roots of child poverty and make a real difference, it is vital that the UK and Scottish Governments work together, along with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and local authorities. Joined-up working was flagged up in the Scottish Affairs Committee report, and I hope that this committee will take that up and identify practical ways in which the different agencies and Governments can work together.
I have a couple of things to say about how Westminster and Scottish Government policies affect lone parents. As welfare reform in relation to child poverty moves along, the changes that are being made have not taken into account the Scottish institutional landscape. In making welfare reform work, it is key that child care and skills support are in place for lone parents so that they can take up employment opportunities. For example, legislation requires local authorities in England to provide child care to meet the needs of not just lone parents but other parents who want to move into employment and education, but it is different up here. England also has extended schools provision, whereas Scotland's child care strategy is taking a slightly different route, although Glasgow has made some announcements about its recent plans. It is a challenge.
Johann, do you feel the need to ask something?
First, am I right in thinking that your preference is for compulsory indicators? If so, would it be reasonable to expect the Scottish Government not to accept single outcome agreements that did not contain indicators? Indicators are not compulsory at the moment, so at what point should they be made so?
My understanding of the spirit of the agreement between local and central Government is that none of the indicators will be compulsory, and that it will be left to local authorities to decide what indicators are put into the single outcome agreements. However, if we are going to take a consistent approach to tackling child poverty in Scotland, I would expect to see that in each of the single outcome agreements.
What if it is not? I presume that an equality impact assessment would provide such consistency.
If it is not in the single outcome agreements, we will have to dig a bit deeper into them, because it might be tucked into other policy initiatives within an holistic approach. However, we would like child poverty to be specifically mentioned as part of the indicators.
We are looking to local authorities and the Scottish Government to agree that authorities should be able to demonstrate the impact that policy, services and spending are having on children and families who experience poverty. They should also be able to demonstrate by way of agreed indicators the progress that they are making in tackling child poverty.
Thank you. Alasdair Allan will lead our next set of questions on income maximisation.
Various estimates have been offered of the number of families with children who would be lifted out of child poverty if they claimed the benefits to which they are entitled. Do you have an estimate of how many families would be affected if that happened?
I cannot say how many, but it is clear that full, or improved, take-up of benefits and tax credits would have a significant impact. We said in our submission that the official evidence is that £70 million-worth of tax credits goes unclaimed each year and that 20 per cent of families are missing out, so a significant amount of money that should be in the hands of families to support their children is not being received by them.
I support what John Dickie said. A lot of effort goes into highlighting benefit fraud. It would be good to see a bit more effort going into highlighting the lack of uptake of benefit. That would maximise take-up.
The wider impact of boosting the incomes of families and ensuring that they have the money to which they are entitled is that that would allow children to participate fully in their education. Although this evidence is anecdotal, it concerns a recent local authority case in which a welfare rights team was sent in to see a family whose children had been truanting from school. The children had been off school for a long time and, despite many interventions, the problem had not been tackled. The welfare rights team found that the family was not getting the benefits and tax credits to which it was entitled and that it was in severe financial straits. The intervention not only got the family the money that it was entitled to but led to the children's return to school. The welfare rights intervention did more than simply boost the family's income; wider positive benefits were also achieved.
How patchy is the current provision of welfare and income maximisation advice in local authority areas? Should there be a statutory obligation on local authorities to provide such advice?
The situation is definitely patchy. Different authorities deliver advice in different ways, whether by way of authority-provided services or the voluntary sector, including rights advice services. Showing that such advice is available to families in its area should be a key part of a local authority's demonstration of what it is doing to tackle poverty, and it would enable the authority to ensure that families get the income support to which they are entitled.
We have just completed the third of three large-scale consultations with people who are experiencing poverty. Perhaps the most consistent message that has come out of that is the need for better advice and information to ensure that people access the benefits and services that are available to them. That relates to the issue of the patchiness of services. Unpublished work that we have done in the Borders shows that there is a big problem with people accessing information in rural communities. Also, work done up in Stornoway shows that a relatively small investment in advice services has had an incredible impact.
A recurring theme of Save the Children's evidence throughout this process has been the need to ensure that services reach those who need them most. Quite often, the poorest families—the ones that are the most vulnerable—are the ones who miss out. That applies equally to benefits advice and income maximisation support.
I would like to reinforce what others have said about welfare benefits, but also talk about income maximisation. The quality of advice and information that people are given is important. Through consultation with lone parents, we have discovered that income maximisation advice has to be long-term advice, particularly in relation to tax credits. One of the reasons why lone parents fall out of employment, and often get into debt and so on, is that their tax credits fall dramatically in the second year, because the calculations are based on their having been in work for a year. It is important to have, for example, really good benefit take-up campaigns, but it is also essential that we have a longer-term view in relation to financial planning.
I appreciate that it is not your job to make life easy for local authorities, but would a more far-reaching programme of income maximisation throughout Scotland reduce some of the pressure on local authority social work departments and so on, which would mean that they could provide better services?
Evidence shows that boosting incomes through benefit take-up not only benefits individuals and families but has a wider positive impact as a result of increased spending in the local community. In fact, I know of research that has modelled the creation of jobs around those additional resources.
With regard to the lack of co-ordination, we might agree that it is everyone's responsibility to raise awareness and maximise benefit uptake through campaigns, but why should the Scottish Government be responsible for funding a campaign for a UK benefit? Has that been a problem? How would the burden of such responsibility trickle down to local authorities, which might take on a statutory or major role in funding awareness or take-up campaigns for UK benefits or benefits in general? How do we achieve co-ordination and ensure that all authorities accept their responsibility in this matter?
Why should the Government do it? Because it can.
Why has it not been doing it?
The Scottish Government and local authorities have the power to tackle child poverty in Scotland. At the core of this inquiry should be an examination of what we, the Scottish Government and local authorities can do to make a difference and how we can push it through. As John Dickie has just made clear, evidence suggests that income maximisation and benefit uptake can form an important strand in tackling child poverty in Scotland. Tackling those issues is devolved to the Scottish Government and is within the remit of local authorities, so if they can do it, they should do it, because it will have a significant impact on tackling child poverty.
But why is the Scottish Government not doing it and why has it not done it?
Perhaps we should come at the issue the other way round. The fact is that we can and should do it. I do not particularly want to talk about where responsibility should lie, but we are talking about UK money that can be maximised by efforts in Scotland to the benefit of families that are most in need. It is a cost-effective way of getting more money to some of our poorest families.
There is also a specific Scottish dimension, with the increasing importance of the interaction between benefit and tax credit entitlements and devolved sources of financial support. For example, parents who want to return to study are entitled to student financial support, which is a devolved matter. However, that has an impact on their benefit and tax credit entitlements. Likewise, the take-up of kinship care allowances, which are a devolved source of financial support for vulnerable families, has implications for entitlement to benefits and tax credits. The working for families programme exposed a similar situation, with attempts by local authorities and partnerships to provide additional funding for child care places having an impact on families' child tax credit entitlements.
But that still raises the question of why we have not had one.
The point is not that we have not had one; it is more about doing things better and more consistently and ensuring that we provide the right resources.
I hope that this evidence session will highlight some good practice.
We have heard a lot about the complexity of the benefits system and, as John Dickie's previous response highlighted, the interaction between UK benefits and devolved services and benefits. How good are the information and the information technology network that agencies and advisers use to advise people on their mandatory entitlements and discretionary benefits? Is there a basic software kit or whatever you might call it—I am not very good on IT issues—that welfare rights advisers, money advice advisers, agencies and so on can access? Can you enter a set of circumstances, ask all the pertinent questions, and get a printout that tells you whether someone is entitled to certain benefits, or may be entitled on a discretionary basis to other benefits, so that you can take it from there? Is such infrastructure in place with regard to providing advice?
Citizens Advice Scotland has a reasonable second-tier infrastructure in place to support front-line advice bureaux. We provide second-tier advice and training and information to front-line advisers. However, it is often difficult for advisers to access that support. There are cost issues, and it is difficult to free up time for advisers to go on training courses to gen up on new developments. They are often under pressure, and there might not be cover to allow them to go on training courses to gain an understanding of the latest developments in benefits and tax credits.
Is that access directly available to a potential claimant? Is it possible for someone to go to their local library, enter their circumstances into a computer, press a button and get answers about the benefits that they are entitled to, or is that only available where there is a network of advisers who have access to the type of information and software that you have described?
Various tools can provide a basic benefit check, so it is possible for individuals to do that. However, such tools must be treated with caution. Because of the complexity of the system, we recommend that people see an experienced adviser to discuss the financial support that they might be entitled to.
That is crucial in relation to moving into work. If someone does that without expert advice, they might make a decision based on flawed information. A lone parent, for example, whose income level is crucial to feeding their kids would want to base their plans on getting the right information from an expert.
It can be complex, in that there is a lot of duplication. The voluntary sector delivers benefits advice, local authorities make calculations with regard to particular housing benefits, and the Department for Work and Pensions deals with routes back into work. Perhaps the committee can make some recommendations in that area.
Robert McGeachy made a good point about the uptake of benefits. We are all aware that there are national targets to eradicate child poverty. Would maximising the take-up of benefits be enough to eradicate child poverty, or do we need a longer-term approach that involves moving people through training and qualifications into work, and trying to lift families—and therefore children—out of poverty that way?
The straightforward answer to your first question is no. Barnardo's, as a national organisation, has called for an additional £3 billion to be allocated through the child tax credits system, and for a streamlining of the benefits system—we have heard at length today about its complexities. We believe, as does the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that that would allow us to reach the 2010 target. The UK, Scottish and local government contexts have been mentioned today. It would help if the committee pressed for child poverty to be on the agenda at joint ministerial meetings, so that the policies work in harmony. We also have to consider the overall benefit levels for some of our poorest families.
The answer is still no. That is not to say that it is not an important strand—it is absolutely important. Maximising the income from benefits and tax credits to which families are entitled will have a significant impact. However, as I have said, there are issues about low pay and children who are living in poverty whose parents are in work that must be addressed as part of the overall strategy for tackling child poverty.
"No" was the answer that I expected. However, the issue is complicated. Robert McGeachy might wish to comment on that. We must ensure that an holistic approach is taken, as some members have mentioned. Douglas Hamilton makes a good point about the need to provide reasonably paid employment—not just any employment—and the training and everything else that goes with that to help to lift families and children out of the poverty trap.
Marion Davis has said that only 44 per cent of lone parents take up the tax credits to which they are entitled. I accept that support mechanisms need to be in place. I remember Strathclyde Regional Council's benefits take-up campaign in the 1990s, which aimed to maximise the take-up of benefits by families. Nevertheless, does the panel agree that, instead of spending lots of money in chasing what it sees as benefits fraudsters, the Government should use some of that money to ensure that the agencies that are supposed to deliver benefits actually go out and deliver them?
As you say, the Government needs to do what it can to ensure that benefits and tax credits reach those who are entitled to them, whether they are in work or out of work. Nevertheless, we will still need an independent infrastructure of advice workers who can advocate on behalf of individuals to ensure that they get the benefits to which they are entitled. It is not an either/or situation. There is a role for central Government—currently the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs—in ensuring that people are aware of their benefit entitlements. However, there is also a role for advice services at a local level in ensuring that people take up their entitlement as they become aware of it.
The issue is partly about the way in which we view the benefits system. Rather than call it welfare, let us call it social security, as we used to. We see it as, somehow, an add-on of the welfare state rather than as a core part, like education services or the health service. We think about it differently, so people have to argue the case for what should be a right—their entitlement.
I have one more question on the tax credits system. We rely heavily on the working families tax credit to provide an income top-up to people who are out working. Given some of the issues that have been raised about the tax credits system over the past couple of years—including, as has been mentioned, the fact that people seem to get more money in tax credits in the first year than in the second—will the panel comment on the complexity involved in claiming for, and calculating, tax credits? Does anyone on the panel have an opinion on how the tax credits system could be modified—we cannot modify it, but we can suggest how it should be modified—to bring maximum benefit to the people who receive tax credits? I understand that a claimant whose income changes during the year can find that some of the money is clawed back the following year.
As I mentioned, Barnardo's has called for an additional £3 billion so that we can streamline the methods of payment and ensure better targeting of the most needy families. We have done some complex modelling of how, at least in our estimation, that would allow the poorest families to get out of poverty. I would be more than happy to share that information with the committee later rather than take up time just now going into all the complexities.
Likewise, we have done a lot of work in pushing the UK Government to improve the administration of tax credits, and we have seen some real progress on that front. Again, we could provide more information—I do not have the details to hand just now—on how we have pressed hard to bring about the recent improvements that we have seen. Those have perhaps not gone far enough yet, but we are working on the issue.
Engagement between the Scottish Government and the UK Government is key. The issue is what the Scottish Government does with that information, given that the matter is reserved.
I am interested in the notion of the importance of advice. The provision of such advice probably goes beyond telling people just that they are entitled to benefits X and Y; we need to draw on many other things, such as the experience of how we support such families. I agree that the complexity of the system is an issue that must be addressed at the UK level. Rather than deliberately create disincentives to applying for benefits, we should ensure that people are able to access the benefits that are available.
We have not tracked it in formal research, but we have received clear feedback on it. A key issue that arose at a recent conference that was attended by 150 welfare rights workers from across Scotland was the pressure caused by a lack of resources at local level. The pressure was greater in some areas than in others, but cuts and squeezes on funding were having an impact on people's ability to deliver services.
I am suggesting not that the voluntary sector lived off the fat of the land for years but that now things are tough. However, you say that your work is a key part of addressing child poverty, so you would expect funding to be sustained, if not growing. It would be very important to inform the Scottish Government and local government if the trend was in the opposite direction.
Absolutely. We feed back the information that we receive, and that brings me back to the issue of how we can improve the single outcome agreement mechanism between the Scottish Government and local government, to ensure that national ambitions and commitments—on income maximisation and on boosting the take-up of benefits and tax credits, for example—filter through to the funding of services on the ground that can deliver the support to fulfil those national ambitions and commitments.
The discussion has brought us almost full circle—we are back on to the discussion of single outcome agreements that took place at the beginning of the meeting. As I said then, it is early days. However, one thing that the committee could usefully do would be to encourage the Scottish Government to monitor the impact in particular areas. We are talking about child poverty, and it will take a while for some movement in services to take effect. We can relate anecdotes, but that is not really satisfactory; some proper research is required at national level on the impact on specific services across the board.
But you would not expect to have less money to do your work.
No, but there are winners and losers. Certain areas of service development in our organisation are growing as opposed to suffering from cuts. Proper national research is required.
Your groups campaign for the poor. However, there have been tax cuts for businesses and the council tax has been frozen, and the poor do not benefit from that. There are arguments about how much benefit the poor receive from free prescriptions, and there are arguments about the universal provision of free school meals. Some people are in acute poverty, and arguments arise over the universality of some measures. What are your views on the priorities shown when substantial amounts of money are spent on cutting business rates rather than on cutting the rates of children living in poverty?
Our organisation does not have a position on cutting business rates, but I will say this: levels of child poverty this year are pretty much the same as they were last year and the year before that. The policy developments that you refer to are not having an immediate impact on the lives of children living in poverty.
I will try to answer the question on tax cuts. The Poverty Alliance would certainly be in favour of redistributing wealth, although how that should be done is open to question. Tax cuts at the Scottish or the UK level are probably not widely held to be a good way of redistributing income to the poorest.
Likewise, we do not have a position on business rates. However, I reinforce what Peter Kelly has said about inequality. It is important to consider inequality and poverty and not only total child poverty.
A lot of our discussion seems to have returned to where the different levers to change things lie. Obviously, Westminster has responsibility for the benefits system, but there are also levers in Scotland. What has been said underlines the need for dialogue between the two Governments at the highest level to address child poverty.
One way of looking at the issue is to consider countries—particularly the Scandinavian countries—that have much lower levels of child poverty, and to find out what they are doing. There is an issue. Those countries invest much more money in the social infrastructure that protects children and families from poverty—I am talking about investment in child care and education, and benefit safety nets that genuinely protect children. Investment is required. We need to find more resources to provide such infrastructure, and those resources should come from those who are most able to pay, so the tax system should be examined.
There is a correlation between levels of inequality and health outcomes right across the board. The more unequal our society is, the more our citizens suffer from poor health outcomes. I know that we are concentrating on child poverty today but the levels of inequality in the UK have not shifted very dramatically. If we do not look at them, they might well have a dampening effect on any of the measures that we take. That is just another issue that we need to take on board if we are really to tackle child poverty in the UK.
On Tam Baillie's comment, inequality in society has widened during the recent past rather than remaining static.
As I think I said earlier, it is too early to say. We need properly researched information—it would be useful if the committee recommended that. If there is a particular concern about money advice, it might well form part of that research brief. People need to take a national view of the problem, just as they need to take a national view of child poverty and its profile within single outcome agreements.
I think that we are coming to a bit of squeezing time. Bob Doris has a question.
We are talking about the best way to use the money that local authorities get. This might be a good time to put on the record the fact that they have had a 13 per cent increase in their funding, and voluntary sector organisations have had a 37 per cent increase, at a time when the Scottish Government has had an increase of only 1.4 per cent. It is important to put all that in context.
I have a couple of points on that. First, local government and the Scottish Government have powers to make additional payments directly to children and families, but that must be done in a way that will not disadvantage them. We must consider ways in which to do that. I agree that it is counterproductive to give people money from one budget if it is taken away from another one. We need to provide assistance in a way that does not impact on benefits.
Can I ask a quick follow-up question, convener?
You were going to lead off with the employability questions.
I might let that slide and allow someone else to lead on that if I can ask this question.
Okay.
Would the panel members like every pound that is lost through the tax and benefit system because of local authority or Scottish Government initiatives to tackle child poverty to be brought back to Scotland? In other words, if income support or housing benefit is lost because of such initiatives, would the panel members be keen for that money to be brought back to Scotland and given directly to local authorities for initiatives to tackle child poverty? Should the DWP return the money to Scotland?
That highlights the point that, although the Scottish and UK Governments are committed to ending child poverty, it is vital that ministers work together to ensure that, when additional supports are considered or introduced, they provide genuine additional financial support for children and families. We must work to find out where, perhaps unintentionally, benefits and tax credit regulations cut across other payments—such as kinship care payments, which Bob Doris mentioned—or vice versa, and then find a way round that. We must push for changes in regulation to allow vulnerable families and families in poverty to get the maximum benefit from new sources of financial support. To me, that is about the Governments working together. They both have a clear commitment to ending child poverty, and providing additional support to families is essential to delivering that, so they need to work together to find a way round those problems.
John Dickie said that tax cuts would not make an awful lot of difference to families living in poverty. To clarify, were you thinking of income tax? Was your point that a couple of pence off income tax would not make much difference to most of the families that we are talking about.
I am not an expert on the taxation system, but we need to proof any changes to taxation—whether income, council or business tax—to take into account their likely impact on families' resources and on the available resources to provide the social infrastructure that protects children and families from poverty. We need to be careful and proof taxation policy for its impact on child poverty. That would be our approach. Having said that, it is fairly clear that additional resources are required to provide the necessary child care and education services and the benefit and tax credit safety net. Those extra resources should come from those who are more able to pay. Too often, families and households that are in poverty pay a disproportionate amount of their income in tax. We must consider shifting that and getting more resources from those who can afford to pay.
That takes us neatly on to employability strategies and whether work pays. We have concentrated for a while on maximising benefits, which raises issues about dependency and the poverty trap. People think that they cannot afford to work or that it is not worth while for them to do so. We should consider how to deal with that.
There is a lot of scope there. I do not have the figures at the tip of my tongue, but I think that about a quarter of people who are directly employed by the state in Scotland are paid less than £6.50 an hour. That comes from the New Policy Institute, so you can double-check my figures. There is therefore scope to address low pay within the public sector, and that seems to be within the ambit of the Scottish Government.
I certainly endorse what Peter Kelly said with regard to low wages. We said as much in our response to the anti-poverty strategy—that the Scottish Government could take the lead on the local authority wage settlement. The Government could give a lead on the overall wage packet that people take home.
In connection with the living wage campaign, which Peter Kelly spoke about, it is interesting to note from discussions with COSLA representatives dealing with the current wage dispute that it has not been possible to tackle issues affecting the lowest-paid workers, because of equal pay legislation. It is a sweet irony that people at the top would complain that they were being discriminated against because we were tackling low pay.
I do not want to take up the committee's time scoring cheap political points; I would rather give due respect to the panel and keep to the pertinent questions. We are talking about equality. I would like to ask about equality for children with disabilities, looked-after children and children of asylum seekers. What extra efforts can the Government make to help those particularly disadvantaged children in our society?
Particular groups suffer disproportionately and we know that certain groups, such as the ones that you mentioned, are more likely than the rest of the population to live in child poverty. The answer is to ensure that we have adequate universal provision of services, but that alone is not sufficient. We also need to target initiatives at particular groups who suffer most and who need that assistance most. We have suggested that there should be outreach services for those families living in severe poverty and that a more flexible approach within those services should be developed. That is how it has to be done—we have to recognise that particular groups need additional support on top of the universal service.
There are two sides to the argument. We have talked a lot today about providing additional support to families, but the caring responsibilities in some families are such that the route to employment is just not practical, particularly in families in which there are disabilities. That is why it is important that, as well as providing additional support for people to get employment, we acknowledge that employment is not the way forward for the parents of some children. Therefore, the levels of benefit and support that they receive should be adequate.
The point is well made and reflected in some of the written evidence that we received. We are running out of time so, unless the witnesses want to add something more, I ask for their co-operation in moving quickly to a couple of final questions.
Marion Davis might want to respond to my question. I visited an employability project that is run by A4e. The organisation runs a variety of projects, but the one that I visited is a voluntary project that helps single mothers, among others. It was emphasised to me that it has to be voluntary, that it cannot look at those whom it helps as statistics of people coming off benefits and that it has to look at the overall family situation when helping mothers with young children move from benefits into work. I offer Marion Davis an opportunity to put on the record the issues and pitfalls of helping people who wish to get back into work voluntarily, as opposed to being compelled to do so.
Lone parents are a key target group. Their challenge is that not only are they the sole breadwinner, they are the sole carer. There need to be special schemes to help them to move into work, such as the one that you mentioned. I said earlier that our organisation feels that it is important that lone parents decide when it is right for them to move into education, training or work. Research shows that 80 per cent of lone parents want to take up employment opportunities if they can ensure that their child or children are well cared for. That is our point of view and we lobby on it.
We have received many submissions on the issue of child care. Should access to child care be universal? What do you mean by "flexibility"? Would that include holiday periods, such as the summer holidays, which can be a challenge to people? Should child care be free to everyone? Should it be subsidised? What kind of provision should there be if the service is to meet the demands that we have heard about? I will take three responses.
We would argue that a child care system that protects and supports children and families, enabling them to lift themselves out of poverty, should be provided universally and free at the point of delivery. However, that is not going to happen overnight. We want the Government to set out its strategy for getting to a position in which child care that is free at the point of delivery is available in all communities to families who need it.
I agree with the point about universal provision. What do we mean by "flexibility"? It is ensuring that the child care meets the needs of the parents and the children by providing it at the times and at the points in the year when they need it and in the places where they need it. It is not having a service that provides child care between the hours of 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock, which would be tough luck on parents whose shift pattern is 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock. It is about learning from what happened with the working for families fund, which introduced some of the services. It is about providing child care that is appropriate to the needs of the parents and their work patterns, so that they get the child care when they need it.
Tam, can you give me a plan? What are your demands? For how many hours a week should child care be available? I am not asking for something aspirational—what is your plan?
I think that we should talk about child development, not merely child care.
We do not have enough time for that.
The picture is complex. We already have a mixed market and a commitment to improve early years services. There is an excellent opportunity for us to consider how we can get the right mix of good child development services and allowing parents to access employment when it is appropriate for them.
John Wilson will ask the final question.
I hope that the answer will be yes or no. Does the panel think that we will meet the 2010 target on child poverty?
It will be extremely difficult to reach the 2010 target to halve child poverty within the current policy set-up. Nevertheless, that will be achievable if investment is made over the next year or so. There is still a possibility of reaching that target. That is the clear message that all our organisations are taking down to the UK Government at Westminster.
Does anyone dissent from that view?
No.
Thank you for your attendance this morning. We look forward to working with you throughout the committee's inquiry.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome our second panel of witnesses. From Glasgow City Council, we have Margaret Doran, the executive director of education and social work services; and, from Falkirk Council, Fiona Campbell, the head of policy and performance review and Andy Hamilton, the corporate policy officer. The witnesses' written submissions have been forwarded to members, so we will proceed to questions.
A particular aspect that interests me is how the single outcome agreements will impact on eradicating—or otherwise—child poverty. What forms of support for the delivery of services to help tackle child poverty do you think should be provided within local authorities? What specific measures should be in place to ensure that the Scottish Government and local authorities are held to account on single outcome agreements? Do you have any concerns about the impact of the removal of ring fencing on initiatives such as working for families?
On your first question, the United Kingdom Parliament's Scottish Affairs Committee's inquiry into child poverty showed that there has been an unprecedented level of investment and support for social inclusion and child poverty. Clearly, there is evidence that that was making a difference, although the report also recognises that progress has slowed down.
The single outcome agreement has provided an important focus over the past couple of months. By making us look seriously at priorities, it has rejuvenated certain partnerships, as it has made clear that we cannot do everything. In Falkirk, the single outcome agreement involves our community partners—it is not just a council agreement at this stage. Through discussion and development of the agreement, partners have understood why certain priorities are important to people in our area. Fundamentally, our community planning partnership is accountable for the delivery of the single outcome agreement to people in the Falkirk Council area, who have set our priorities through the vision for the area. The community planning partners have thought seriously about what we need to do to deliver those priorities and have set them within the single outcome agreement.
Does Andy Hamilton have anything to add?
Just—
I should say, Mr Hamilton, that you should respond only if you feel the need to.
We felt that the working for families programme was a very effective model locally. We were in the second raft of authorities that received the funding—we got it for two years—and it helped 239 parents get into sustained employment. Because we felt that the model was valuable, the partnership has decided to continue it under the fairer Scotland fund, which means that it has not been affected by the removal of ring fencing.
I welcome those comments. Indeed, I am sure that the single outcome agreement has been well received by most local authorities, including Glasgow and Falkirk, although it is a work in progress and very much in its early stages.
The issue for us is how we measure child poverty at a local level and get statistics that actually make sense and allow us to understand, analyse and find solutions to the problem. Our single outcome agreement contains proxy measures such as benefit uptake and indicators on income and attainment. However, we have found it difficult to try to reflect some national figures at local level. As we say in our submission, it would be helpful if the agreements contained local proxy measures that could be used by all local authorities.
Was that a yes or no to Mr Tolson's question? Is tackling child poverty a headline priority in your single outcome agreement?
I do not think that we have used the phrase "child poverty", but the outcome of a number of aspects of our single outcome agreement would be a reduction in child poverty. Instead of simply saying that we will alleviate or eradicate child poverty, we need to find out how we measure such things and ensure that we are achieving such aims.
That brings us back to the cross-cutting theme that we discussed earlier. Although our single outcome agreement contains a specific commitment to reducing the proportion of children in poverty, it relates to five of the national outcomes, including tackling inequalities in health, particularly those that are caused by childhood poverty; improving educational outcomes, including skills for employment; spreading the benefits of improved economic performance; and tackling youth crime.
What you said fits neatly with Alasdair Allan's line of questioning on income maximisation. As you said, we discussed the issue earlier, but we have further questions on delivery and the local authority role.
As the witnesses know, we discussed income maximisation for families in poverty with the previous witnesses, who came from the voluntary sector. Can local government do more to help people maximise access to the benefits and tax credits to which they are entitled?
We highlighted the issue in our submission, particularly with regard to the work that council services undertake. That said, our evidence may not have reflected the support that we give to the voluntary sector and the essential services that that sector provides, including on income maximisation.
Have you any idea of the impact on families in your area who live in poverty if they were to access the benefits and tax credits to which they are entitled? Do you have any figures for that?
We know that 17,000 inquiries were made to our money advice service last year, as a result of which more than £6 million went to families by way of additional benefits. We also know that 24,000 inquiries were made to our local CABx, as a result of which £8.1 million was generated for families. The amount of money is significant. As I said, during a four-week period, health visitors giving low-level advice obtained £28,000 of benefits for families in need.
I wanted to ask about the consequences for local authorities. If families are lifted out of poverty in the way that we have been discussing, are there knock-on benefits for local authorities because of a decrease in some of the pressures on social work and other services?
Inevitably, the call for certain services decreases. However, to go back to a point that was raised earlier, there is a balance between considerations of poverty and considerations of inequality. The local authority and our community planning partners should not just provide information and advice in order to help people get money; we should also provide an holistic service to support families. My colleague mentioned the working for families initiative. That initiative tries not only to get people back into work as a means to an end, but to support people so that they can sustain that work and can stabilise what might be a chaotic lifestyle. That will allow them to benefit not only from work but from wider community activities such as arts and sports, which can help them to become more rounded members of their communities.
An area that Glasgow City Council has excelled in is its work with the DWP and Glasgow works. We have recognised that a way of getting people out of poverty is improving their employability and getting them into work. Pathfinder projects have set up local integrated working consortia arrangements, and the impact has been significant. The DWP and Glasgow works agreed targets: that the employment rate would be raised to 67 per cent by May 2009; and that some 12,000 residents would come off the three main benefits of jobseekers allowance, lone parent income support and incapacity benefit. Having targets is important, and people are all working towards them.
I wanted to ask about targets and the measures that are used to assess progress. I was particularly interested when Margaret Doran said that 30,000 children in Glasgow were at point 1 of the index of multiple deprivation.
What we are saying is that we cannot see the issues in isolation. It is a question of looking at a single outcome agreement on a cross-cutting basis and not just looking at health outcomes, for example. Educational outcomes are related to other outcomes: there can be all sorts of reasons why children are not achieving in school that relate to health, addictions and so on. We cannot look at a single outcome agreement and just see adult addictions as a health issue to be addressed by social work. Adult social work services that deal with addictions need to work with the children and the family to address the issue.
That point is well made, but is the index of multiple deprivation to which you referred not a cross-cutting index that takes into account health, education and so on? If so, it would seem a useful measure. To go back to my original question, is it included in the single outcome agreement as a measure of the improvements to the wellbeing of children on the cross-cutting basis on which the index is apparently compiled?
As policy officer, Fiona Campbell is better placed to speak about that. However, my understanding is that the SIMD is the Scottish Government's official tool for identifying small areas of multiple deprivation in Scotland. To be precise, it divides Scotland into 6,505 small geographical areas called data zones, each with a median population size of 769. They are ranked from 1, which is the most deprived, up to 6,505, which is the least deprived. There are 37 indicators of deprivation across seven domains: current income, employment, health, education, geographic access to services, housing and crime.
The Scottish index of multiple deprivation has been used for a number of years to identify what have been called areas of deprivation or areas of priority treatment. It is used to examine urban areas only—it does not examine rural areas—and it covers only areas where there is a concentration of deprivation factors such as unemployment and ill health. A large amount of people who suffer from poverty and deprivation do not fall within the data zones that cover the worst 15 per cent of areas in Scotland.
What should be used as a universal standard—the baseline—for measurement throughout all 32 local authority areas?
As I said, we have included a range of measures within our single outcome agreement, including reducing the concentration of deprivation within our council area and the number of people who are claiming particular benefits; increasing household income; and examining educational attainment and health inequalities. Although those are local indicators and priorities, they will give us a measure of whether we are improving life chances for children and their families. Those indicators might be quite different from those used in the area next to us and in Glasgow City Council, so it is difficult to compare like with like.
Unless it has radically changed, the Scottish index of multiple deprivation covers the whole of Scotland. However, we need to recognise that there is an issue with regard to living in a community in which there is a significant concentration of deprivation. By definition, the data zones and the numbers are small, but the index includes at least one rural indicator and a homelessness indicator. It is not used only for urban areas.
The Scottish index of multiple deprivation has changed over a number of years. It is—or was initially—based on the census information, with certain weightings, but it has changed every couple of years. Since Falkirk Council has been in existence, we have found that the index has changed at least three times in relation to weightings and the way in which indicators were set. Although the index covers rural areas, it does not pick up the deprivation that we found in our rural area because of the small numbers involved.
The index covers 6,000 data zones, so it would pick up a concentration or a pattern within a field. It is not a complete indicator of everything needed to support individual families—that is what the benefits and welfare system is also used for. There is a difference between talking about the data that were used and how those data were balanced and measured, and saying that the index as a measure of poverty and deprivation does not cover the whole of Scotland. It does not exclude rural areas: there is a specific rural indicator. Unless the index has changed since May 2007, I think that it explicitly includes an access to health indicator, although I am not quite sure what it is called.
The Scottish index of multiple deprivation was produced in 2004 and 2006, and will next be produced in 2009. The 2004 and 2006 versions are consistent and cover every local authority. They can be downloaded from the Scottish Government's website. There is an interesting chart at the back, which shows every authority in Scotland.
That opens up an interesting discussion. Priorities certainly need to be identified, for example, using acute poverty rather than a general measure. Much of what has been said by both of today's panels indicates that our aspiration flows to where our first priorities are and that we need decent measures to tackle the worst cases.
Fiona Campbell can correct me if I am wrong, but was she saying that 750 people in a data zone is too many, or that there are families who are falling through the net? That relates to an argument I raised some years ago. For almost 30 years, Langlees in Falkirk was seen as an area of deprivation. However, private sector investment and an influx of owner-occupation have meant that areas of owner-occupation can be found sitting right next to areas of deprivation. Someone with a household income of, say, £10,000, might be living within yards of an estate where people are buying flats at £125,000 or £129,000, or houses at £200,000. The impact on the assessment of household income in such areas can be quite dramatic. Do we need more robust indicators in order to pick up people who may be falling through the net?
We are suggesting that there should be a balance so that the scenario that you mentioned does not happen. We should consider the index of multiple deprivation with regard to not only data zones but other measures as well. We should be considering not just concentrations of deprivation and poverty but how poverty impacts on someone because of circumstances other than geography or where they live.
Langlees is a good example. We will not know whether the house building in that area has had an impact according to the Scottish index of multiple deprivation until it is run again in 2009. The SIMD is a really useful tool for us. However, like all measures, it is a crude tool, and it is not the only measure that one would want to use.
How does the SIMD impact on local authorities' capacity to deliver services? Local authorities have to consider an individual's access to a school and the needs of the family of a child with a disability—there are indicators that tell local authorities how the school should reach out to such families. However, if a school is attended by a significant number of youngsters from drug-abusing, homeless or transitory families, everybody who goes to the school is affected. It is not just about the individuals; the funding for that school should recognise the challenge.
We can do several things. The index of multiple deprivation has been useful in identifying areas with a concentration of deprivation factors but, as I said, a whole load of people who are in poverty and deprivation are not in those areas.
The question of funding and resources is interesting. The number of children in Glasgow who are known to social work services is 10,000, and 30,000 children in poverty are at point 1 on the index's scale—9,000 are at point 2 and 8,000 are at point 3. Mainstream early years services, primary schools and secondary schools support those 30,000 or so children, who present complex challenges. It is clear that a gap in specialist or enhanced services exists. The only way through is to build the capacity of all the mainstream staff to understand better the additional support needs of children who are in those complex circumstances, which might involve addictions and all the issues that are associated with poverty.
Should the justice system rather than education services be responsible for that budget?
Absolutely. I have recommended that before.
We will move on to broader employability issues.
I was going to ask the previous panel about the next subject, but it is just as pertinent to the current panel. I am interested in more details on how you work with the Glasgow works partnership.
The committee would probably benefit from hearing from Jim McColl, who chairs Glasgow works, or its executive director, David Coyne.
I have a question about the level of throughcare that is available once capacity has been built. Once a parent has been provided with the necessary child care, the better-off calculations have been done and Glasgow works or one of the local regeneration agencies has successfully got them back into employment, are they left at that point or does a support scheme follow on? I am aware of a number of schemes in different areas that will stick with a family for 26 or 52 weeks. What level of support is available to ensure that once someone is back in the labour market, their employment can be sustained?
The working for families element of the initiative has appointed 10 mentors—two in each of the five community planning areas—who work with parents, and not just those who require child care, to give them benefits advice, financial advice and advice on going into training. If there is a gap between someone getting a job and getting their working tax credit, there is even a hardship fund to help with their bills. It is quite an holistic model of support that stays with people until the situation settles. That support is always available.
That is the key thing. Follow-up work could be done after a year or two years on targets to get families or parents back into the labour market to find out whether those people are still in it. The issue is when they should get a chap on the door from a mentor or link worker who will say, "It's two months since you got your job. How are things going?" Link workers or throughcare workers could take a personalised approach to supporting families in their unique circumstances to ensure that they endure in the labour market.
Is there a "Falkirk works"?
We have a workforce plus strategy and a partnership that is part of our community planning structure. A range of organisations, which are led by organisations such as Jobcentre Plus, is involved in that strategy. The council's employment training unit and our health service are involved.
I think that the Child Poverty Action Group said that 25 per cent of the public sector workforce lives with poverty pay. How many workers in Falkirk Council and Glasgow City Council are on poverty pay?
I do not have any figures on who is on poverty pay, but the lowest wage in Falkirk Council is above the minimum wage—I checked that with our head of human resources. However, that does not take into account part-time workers who may be the only earners in their households, for example. We do not have figures for them. That said, we have a commitment to ensuring that we are an employer of choice and an exemplar employer, and that people do not simply stay at the lowest wage level without any chance of progressing. We are considering a range of workforce development plans so that modern apprentices, skillseekers and people who are in part-time and lower-paid jobs can work their way through the organisation.
Is that work in its early stages, or do you have information on how people on lower pay are moving or progressing through the scales? Do you have percentages or numbers on whether there have been successful outcomes?
We are looking at workforce development plans for all our services and divisions to see how we can put that career development and progression in place. That work has started and is in progress.
That is worth exploring because a lack of opportunity for progression can be a barrier to people entering employment. Margaret, have you considered the matter in Glasgow?
I have not been involved in that, so I do not have any statistics for you—sorry. However, in Glasgow we have just been through the workforce pay and benefits review. The cost of that was considerable, at £100 million, but it shows our commitment to our employees. There was also a target to ensure that every employee had a personal development plan by June this year. That work should be completed by the early autumn.
The proposed percentage increase in incomes will do nothing to tackle the problems of low-paid people—we heard from COSLA people that the equal pay legislation actually works against doing something for them. It is strange. Anyway, we are where we are.
I was interested to hear Margaret Doran say that Glasgow City Council is getting young people into traineeships and modern apprenticeships. Under the regulations on the minimum wage, there are no set rates of pay for apprenticeships, although the UK Government has target amounts that it expects employers to pay. That raises the issue of employability.
Modern apprentices who come into the council are paid the rate for the job. As I said, our lowest spinal-column point is above the minimum wage. We also broker arrangements for modern apprentices and skillseekers to go into other organisations and we want them to get at least the minimum wage. In some cases, we pay an enhancement to modern apprentices and skillseekers. However, when they finish their programme and go into full and permanent employment, they sometimes lose money. That is an unfortunate consequence of our trying to do something to tackle the very issue that you raise.
As we have no further questions, I thank you for your time and participation this morning and for the evidence that you submitted. We are grateful.
Meeting continued in private until 13:16.