Chamber and committees

Good morning, minister. Thank you for being here and for your answers so far.

My question is on exactly the same line as Pam Duncan Glancy took. I will make a final point in that regard. I hear what you said about the training and support that the members of the chamber will have. However, if they identify a potential issue, will there be the opportunity for them to signpost people to further support and advice from Social Security Scotland? From the information that they have, they might identify opportunities for the individuals to apply for benefits that they are not claiming, even though they are eligible for them. How do we close the circle by linking what is, as you said, a taxation system with the social security system, which should provide support?

I apologise if I missed you talking about this, minister, but can you give us an update on the regulations to introduce our own public sector equality duty, which the Scottish Government has been talking about? How do you see that work progressing over the next two years? We want the regulations in operation in 2025.

I appreciate that. You have shown clear intent to make those connections, which was clear from last week’s evidence session. There was a question about the ability to know what a figure in a column means for people on the ground. Everything in between is important, but it is the outcome that matters.

Following on from that, you talked about meaningful and lasting change. We need to track the figure on the spreadsheet to the outcome on the ground, but we also need to make sure that everybody who needs to be involved in those decision-making processes is involved.

Rachael Hamilton mentioned siloing, and Rob Priestley talked about portfolio analysis. I understand why analysis is done in portfolios; you have to choose some way to chunk it up, tease it apart and make sense of it, but how do we ensure that we guard against the right hand not knowing what the left is doing in relation to decision making that leads to outcomes?

Do you see particular areas of weakness? In your 2021 report, you talked specifically about the relationship between unpaid carers and people who draw on unpaid care to function—never mind to gain employability, but just to live. Are there other areas of particular weakness or, if not weakness, areas that we should be mindful of ensuring that we focus on to get that joining up?

There is also the impact of—I was going to say, “doing the wrong thing”. I do not mean that uncharitably, but I refer back to Colin Smyth’s point about single-year funding. We have been talking about multiyear funding for decades now, and we are still talking about it. Your comments are really helpful and they give us something to dig into.

Ashley, you spoke about something that I see fitting into the social model of disability when you said that people’s employment chances start long before they leave school. I suppose that one of the challenges is to educate society as a whole so that people understand what they are entitled to and what support is out there, and to help employers to understand how they can upskill and what they should be doing legally, never mind ethically or morally.

Will you unpick that a little more? How are we not getting the right support either for people who need employment support or for people who provide employment to know what they can and should be doing? How are we not getting that right?

You said that the reality of what is happening on the ground is not matching the expectations. Is that a capacity issue or is it to do with understanding? Why are businesses going into schools but not galvanising any continuity or any relationship?

Good morning. Thank you for joining us and for the information that you have given us so far. I have two broad areas of questioning, which touch on things that Colin Smyth and Fiona Hyslop have picked up on.

Emma, you mentioned the strategies and plans that we have and you said that the “No one left behind” scheme was seen as an answer to all questions and challenges. Your October 2021 report contained key recommendations on ensuring that reforms of strategies, plans and social security benefit design and the national care service all work together. Over the past 18 months, have you seen the progress that you expected to see in that linking, overarching and working together at that level?

It makes me wonder what the follow-up strategies are based on, if not that solid scrutiny. It comes back to collecting data in the first place and then its interpretation.

There are different schemes for disabled-positive employers, with accreditations and so on. Is there a role for formalising that in a more coherent and standardised way across business sectors in order to support employers to understand what they should be doing and what they could be doing very easily?

Good morning. Thank you for joining us and for your comments so far. I want to delve into more detail on questions of accountability. Angela O’Hagan, in your opening remarks, you said that there is a clear need for much stronger or deeper scrutiny of Scottish Government decision making. Ali Hosie, in your previous answer, you talked about the linkages between the programme for government, the national performance framework and other policy frameworks and how those assist or otherwise our understanding of the realisation of rights.

I will start with Ali. Will you comment on those linkages with the NPF and the programme for government? Do they aid our understanding of what human rights outcomes we are seeking to achieve? If not, what could we do differently?