Chamber and committees

Good morning. I want to focus on prioritisation approaches. You have both already touched on that in the evidence that you have sent to us. Hamish Hamilton touched on the PBMA approach and the difficulties with it, and Duncan Black spoke about using a kind of slider to see what would happen in one place if more money were spent in another.

I am particularly interested in understanding IJBs’ approaches to situations in which they are faced with an in-year reduction in funding. We saw that in 2024-25, when the incoming UK Government took decisions that immediately impacted Scottish Government budgets in a way that then impacted local budgets. At that point, how did you decide where you were going to prioritise the spending, and what was the fallout from that? We have heard about firefighting this morning and decisions that had to be taken. Given the context of the delegated functions, your statutory duties and the strategic plan that you are working to, how do you prioritise spending in situations involving in-year budget reductions?

What is the long-term impact of the type of approach that we have discussed, involving year-to-year settlements, the requirement for more resourcing and the overspends that we see in different areas? I have heard from my health and social care partnership that there are major pressures in social care, so that is where the overspends are. Duncan, you have Glasgow City Council willing to underwrite and support the overspend in the homelessness budget at the moment. In the absence of that, how will you protect the mental health spend?

I guess that it is about community planning partners and everybody locally in an area working towards improving mental health and how that all joins up.

What I am hearing from you both—it is what we have heard from the rest of the witnesses, too, I think—is that there is an element of failure demand driving up ill health or exacerbating health conditions that then tip into worsening health conditions, which perhaps leads people to apply for benefits that they might not have applied for before. However, underpinning that, there is the cost of living, which also drives applications from people who perhaps would not have applied in the past. Is that a correct summation?

Earlier, we spoke a little bit about the proposed PIP reforms that were shelved. Do the witnesses have any views on the likelihood of significant eligibility changes to PIP happening in the near future? If such decisions are made, how can the Scottish Government plan for their financial impact?

Look at the big issue of winter heating allowance changes and the guddle that was the fallout; this issue is even more complicated given the passporting and the intertwined nature of that. From this committee’s perspective, how we help scrutinise the Scottish Government’s response to such changes, should they come down the line, is a huge issue.

I am going to discuss the increased disability benefits case load. It has already been touched on quite a bit so, in the interests of brevity, we will try to just tease out some more responses to it.

If you look at the narrative out there, the increase can be seen in some quarters as a terrible thing, and in other quarters as the best thing. It is our duty to look underneath the screaming headlines that we sometimes see in newspapers, which I think lead to a toxic discussion about it and, perhaps, knee-jerk proposed reforms.

Has any real research been undertaken to understand what is driving the increase in people applying for and being successful in receiving disability benefits right across the UK? We are seeing it in every place and we have touched on some of the reasons, but if anybody could add any more detail, it would be really helpful.

I have heard a young person who is in receipt of a high-level child disability payment question their own eligibility because of the narrative that is out there. That young person will not be an isolated case, and there is a broader conversation to be had about the toxic narrative.

I am finding the conversation fascinating. Paul Sweeney’s questions sparked off a thought in my head. Previously, I was community wellbeing spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. When we looked at how to end homelessness, we decided to approach it through rapid rehousing transition plans, which are similar to the things that Paul Sweeney was just speaking about.

I was going to ask about how we ensure that the strategy applies to all the levels where decisions need to be made, but you answered that when Paul Sweeney asked about who was responsible for that. My argument to health and social care partnerships was that they would need to release some of their funding, which, traditionally, did not include housing. My argument was that the strategy reads across everything.

How do we actually make sure that that happens? If every department is doing its own programme budgeting and trying to figure out the marginal analysis of that, how are those who are debating acute and preventative spend making sure that the read-across is there? I know that that is a big question, but I think that it is important.

I used to be a member of a community planning partnership and was involved with all the issues that we are discussing today. I am acutely aware of all the politics and the issues at play.

The committee has done a survey of integration authorities. In the integration authority that I was involved with when I was a councillor, things worked pretty well, and everybody was signed up to the same big aims, which meant that the decisions that were being taken aligned across the areas. However, we are now hearing from health and social care partnerships, including the one in Renfrewshire, that the current financial climate means that it is increasingly difficult to apply the principles in the Scottish Government’s guidance when they allocate resources. I can see that in the health and social care partnership in my area, as it is taking tough decisions that really do not reflect its overall aims. Do you recognise that? Would a PBMA approach make the process easier with regard to disinvestment, as it would use input from all the stakeholders to inform how that marginal analysis is done?