Chamber and committees

I am sorry, I did not quite catch—

My apologies, convener. Yes, work has been done on the additional costs, by not just the Scottish Government but many external agencies. I am happy to write to the committee with more information on that, if that would be helpful.

I remember the committee getting into this issue in quite a lot of detail when I sat on it, and to say that it is complex is an understatement.

The issue, as you have laid out clearly, relates to concerns about the fiscal framework and any knock-on effects. The previous cabinet secretary for social security wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in February last year to agree that an increase in take-up of reserved benefits to which an individual was already entitled fell outside the scope of the spillover provisions—which, as you will know, are also complex—and that the DWP would not seek to raise a spillover claim in that scenario. Where one of the qualifying criteria for a Scottish benefit is that entitlement is conditional on the receipt of a reserved benefit—in the main, income-related benefits—Social Security Scotland signposts clients to those reserved benefits. Indeed, that is particularly important in relation to take-up of the Scottish child payment.

Although Social Security Scotland does not directly promote reserved benefits as a matter of course, as we would regard that as the role of the UK Government, we fund advice services that give advice on all benefits, whether they be devolved or reserved, to try to maximise take-up and people’s incomes. There are on-going issues around the fiscal framework—indeed, the view that changes need to be made to the fiscal framework on this issue has been expressed a number of times—but that is as much of an update as I can give you.

An important obligation on us is the duty to promote benefit entitlement and uptake, and it would be nice if the UK Government did the same, because that would help.

Advice services are important, and they deliver huge gains for not only individuals but families and communities, given that the money that people get is quite often spent in local communities. The value of that is huge, and we see it as being key to ensuring that people get access to what they are entitled to and are then able to support their families.

We want to do more of that. For example, you will be aware of the work that has been done on co-locating advice services in places where people go, such as general practitioner surgeries and schools, to make things not only easier but perhaps less threatening. After all, if they are already in that place, they will not have to walk anywhere else. We need to do more of that. Those who work on the front line in the health service or other services really value the ability to signpost someone who might have turned up for health reasons but who has expressed concern about the impact of debt and financial worries on their mental health. The ability to signpost such a person to an advice worker is really important, and there is scope to do more of that.

Miles Briggs will be aware that there were exceptions during the pandemic, because of increases in the need for temporary accommodation and keeping people safe in hotels. Nobody wants unsuitable temporary accommodation to be used. We have given local authorities until the end of September to make sure that they are not using unsuitable temporary accommodation and officials have been working closely with the local authorities that told us that they have the biggest challenge in meeting that deadline.

It will not surprise Miles Briggs to learn which local authorities those are. The City of Edinburgh Council is one, and I have had some very constructive conversations with the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee convener, Kate Campbell. Despite the challenges, the council has taken some innovative approaches to try and use every lever at its disposal to increase the accommodation supply and work towards not using unsuitable temporary accommodation. The council flagged that meeting the end of September deadline will be challenging.

Other local authorities are in similar situations, but the vast majority are confident that they will meet the deadline. We are working particularly closely with the handful of local authorities—I am trying to remember how many—that will find the deadline difficult to meet. We will give them support to meet their responsibilities beyond the end of September.

I am happy to do so.

First, I thank all the parties represented here who have agreed to take part in the minimum income guarantee work as a kind of political overview and oversight, which is important in itself, because it is an ambitious thing to do. Having as much political consensus as possible on the principle is helpful. Creating a minimum income below which no one would fall is a different way of thinking about the support that people get. Of course, that is not just about the cash that people get—whether through work or support such as social security payments—but support in kind in the form of wraparound childcare or help with transport costs, for example.

Work has begun on that, and the expert group will be doing the heavy lifting on the detail of how that could work in practice. We think that we can make more progress on a minimum income guarantee than would be possible on a universal basic income. That is because, although a minimum income guarantee runs up against the tax and benefits system, doing it fully will give us some latitude to make progress and test some of the thinking about how a minimum income guarantee might work in Scotland without necessarily having full control over the tax and benefits system. We do not have that full control at the moment.

I am keen for us to get on with the work. I would like to get political agreement on some of the ideas that emerge from the expert group, which we could then test out. It is exciting. It will not be easy to do, and it will not be done a week on Tuesday; it will take some time. Again, I thank colleagues for their political support on that.

I think that we will be able to implement something. I am not sure whether it will be a fully-fledged, all-singing, all-dancing minimum income guarantee. We will be guided by the expert group, but I certainly think that we will be able to implement elements of it, and it might be that we do bits at a time. If the expert group recommends a change that could get us on to a stepping stone towards a full minimum income guarantee, we might be able to do that as part of a process of implementation.

If we could do that by the end of session 6, that would be good, and, yes, if it is possible, we will do that. If it is not possible to introduce a full minimum income guarantee, we would want to have stepping stones towards that. We will be guided by the expertise of those in the expert group. Paul Tyrer might want to say more about the work of the group.

Paul, is that additional money? [Interruption.] We might have to come back to you on that. I think that it is, but I want to confirm that. Is that okay?

That is a really important point. Almost a whole new set of volunteers appeared; they were people who had never volunteered before, but they wanted to look after their neighbours. A lot of it was very informal, but it nevertheless tapped into something very special and precious.

One of the challenges that we face is that, as the voluntary sector will tell you, there has been a bit of a fall-off in the number of traditional volunteers. Charity shops were closed for a prolonged period of time, and those who did their volunteering work in such shops got out of that habit or perhaps found other opportunities. As a result, a lot of charity shops are struggling. Indeed, when I spoke to people in some of my local shops last week, they said that they were struggling to find volunteers. We therefore need to play our part and send out a message to encourage people back into volunteering, including in more traditional settings, and ensure that they are supported.

It is a bit of a double-edged sword. We have work to do to ensure that we maintain the voluntary sector and all the services that it provides.