Chamber and committees

I absolutely take that on board, Mr O’Kane. You will be fully aware, from the evidence that I have given to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, that I am committed to supporting and challenging my colleagues and providing support for them in relation to overarching equalities themes. I believe that Ms Brown will appear before that committee next week, when she will be able to provide further detail on legal aid reform. Beyond my overarching commitment to embedding equalities, I do not believe that it would be appropriate for me to delve any deeper into the issues, but there will be that opportunity next week with Ms Brown.

Are you referring to legal aid funding?

You raise an important issue. I do not know whether any of the officials would like to comment, but I can take the issue away. I apologise that I cannot give you a fuller response with regard to social security, but that sits in the cabinet secretary’s portfolio. If you would like a further response, I am more than happy to take that away.

I will have to get back to you once I get that information.

There would be costs associated with free legal aid, but I will give a brief answer on that. If free legal aid was given to the person at risk, to ensure that there is equality of arms, we might also need to give free legal aid to the person who is causing the risk. An application for a civil protection order might be part of a wider family case—it could be about child contact, for instance. If there was free legal aid for the civil protection order element, that might also need to be extended to the whole case, which would further increase costs.

From my understanding—this is not my portfolio area, and you quite clearly say that it is complex—there are intersecting threads that need to be unravelled and carefully considered.

Yes, I am always happy to write to the committee. As I said, I was aware of the wide scope of the evidence session today, and I was ready to do that.

The DWP’s child maintenance system is, of course, reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government does not hold the full powers over social security, so our ability to make changes is somewhat hindered, but we welcome the UK Government’s plans to carry out a complete review of universal credit. It is a common view that universal credit has been failing the people who need it the most, so we hope that the review will address the issues that the Scottish Government has raised in the past. As I said, we are always ready to work with the UK Government in order to achieve that goal.

I have mentioned that the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice met Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister for Social Security and Disability, to discuss the UK Government’s planned review, and she highlighted some of our key concerns. The cabinet secretary will be writing to Sir Stephen Timms, but it is also within the scope of the committee to write directly to the UK and Scottish Government ministers, because the issues are in that reserved and devolved space.

Absolutely—you have raised a good point and you are right to reach out to the relevant minister on that.

I cannot add much more, because so much of that process is about the ethos of engagement. As I have said before, that involves taking a consistent approach and ensuring that training cuts across the range of people who come into contact with survivors. The approach must be consistent, because the women involved are in a traumatised state and their situations are often complex. Being able to navigate across all the systems is important. I reiterate that the Government is absolutely committed to enabling such an approach. I have outlined the various training initiatives that are available, which we are ensuring are consistent for any service that a woman might come across.

The committee will be aware that the equally safe in practice framework was published by Scottish Women’s Aid during the 16 days of activism in 2024. The Scottish Government, Scottish Women’s Aid and other partners continue to promote and develop that approach. Those in Scottish Women’s Aid are the experts in that area. We are not doing this in isolation; we are working with the correct partners that have the relevant expertise and ensuring that all our practice is informed by them.

That is a good question. As a teacher, I have taken an interest in the cost of the school day for a number of years. About 10 or 11 years ago, the school in which I was teaching took part in the pilot to assess the cost of the school day, and we saw that the effects that that cost can have on children and families, and on their experience in general, were quite remarkable. There were compounding factors for those with protected characteristics and those in households where they were experiencing domestic violence.

I take that issue really seriously, and I absolutely recognise the pressure that is placed on families, which is not helped by the cost of living crisis. We took action to create an emergency fund to address school meal debt, and that fund was increased from £1.5 million to £2.8 million in response to the demand from local authorities. A total of 30 local authorities applied for support through the fund, and we have taken steps to issue payments totalling £2.8 million, as I just referred to.

The member will be aware that local authorities are responsible for the management of school meal debt, and we expect them to use their powers to support families appropriately. COSLA has published good practice guidance; our expectation is that councils will follow that guidance, and 30 out of 32 have done that. I would be very interested to see what barriers prevented the council that the member mentioned from applying to the fund. We will continue to support dialogue with all local authorities, including West Dunbartonshire Council.