Chamber and committees

Just before I bring in Evelyn Tweed, I should note that, as the minister might know, we did some work on the issue last year before we started our broader inquiry. As part of that, we visited representatives of All In Dundee, which is a consortium that is led by Enable Scotland. Minister, you were asking for good examples of where funding from the no one left behind programme has managed to bring organisations together. I highlight that consortium, which offers a complete employability package and supports a number of people; it might be something that you would be interested in taking a closer look at.

However, one issue that the consortium highlighted to us raised, I suppose, questions about a postcode lottery in provision across Scotland and about unmet need. That brings us back to the data question: do we have an understanding of how many people need to find employment in order to meet the target? Other organisations that have done work on the matter suggest that 6,000 to 7,000 people would need to find employment in that time. Will the work on data cover unmet need? Do you have concerns about there being a postcode lottery? Has the devolving of the no one left behind money led to good provision in some areas but perhaps a lack of provision in others?

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2024 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. We have received apologies from Colin Beattie and Brian Whittle.

Our first item of business is an evidence-taking session on five Scottish statutory instruments relating to the Tied Pubs (Scotland) Act 2021. I welcome Tom Arthur, the Minister for Employment and Investment. He is joined by officials from the Scottish Government. Aileen Bearhop is head of industry growth in the food and drink division, Deborah Cook is food and drink policy manager and Mairead McCrossan is a solicitor.

Before I invite the minister to address us, I note that the minister wrote to the committee on 30 May with reference to some concerns from the sector about the code. The letter also noted the minister’s intention to lay amending regulations to address the points that were made by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee in its report. That amending Scottish statutory instrument will also extend into 2025 the date on which the Scottish pubs code comes into force.

I invite the minister to make a short opening statement covering all five instruments.??

Kevin Stewart has questions linked to that.

If Gordon MacDonald will excuse me, I have a quick question. Getting down to some of the practicalities, one of the recommendations that I have heard involves job coaches being more widely available, which is something that the Government could drive. We used to have the workplace equality fund, but it closed. The last period for the fund was in 2021, and we heard some quite positive feedback about it. Do you see anything that replaces that or provides that level of support?

When it comes to the practical things that people were looking to the Government for, we had a workplace equality fund, which was a good thing, but it is no longer there; another practical thing is to increase the availability of job coaches so that, when people start employment, they are given support. The idea is for that to be more easily and more widely available.

We heard evidence about the gaps in the education of young people with disabilities—at school, and the college sector spoke about it as well—and the impact that that has had on their employability skills.

That brings us to the end of the evidence session. I thank the minister and his officials for attending. I briefly suspend the meeting as we move to our next item.

The next item of business is consideration of the draft Protected Trust Deeds (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. The committee has received representations from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland setting out its concerns about the draft regulations, which members might want to ask questions about.

I welcome to the meeting Ivan McKee, who is the Minister for Public Finance. The minister is joined by Scottish Government officials Amy Burns, who is the protected trust deed team leader, and Graham Fisher, who is a deputy director in the legal directorate, and by Fiona Henry, who is the policy development manager at the Accountant in Bankruptcy. I invite the?minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, minister. As you stated, there is a disability employment gap and we have made progress since 2014, but how can we make further progress to ensure that we meet the target? We have heard evidence that there has been an increase in people who are already in employment who declare as having a disability.

We have also heard that we have made quite a lot of progress with people with physical disabilities, but evidence from the Fair Work Convention and from the Fraser of Allander Institute suggests that people with learning disabilities are not making the same progress. Are you confident that policy decisions are responsive and flexible enough? We have made progress and do not want to plateau. How do we reach our target? Where else do we need to make changes and investment?

We have an idea of what bodies are involved. The larger point with regard to who they are is that membership is weighted towards creditors and only two money advice sector bodies are represented. We raised concerns about unintended consequences and the degree of consultation that has taken place.

Before I bring in Kevin Stewart, I have a follow-up to Murdo Fraser’s question. The fair start Scotland funding was replaced by the no one left behind funding. It is difficult to compare the figures, because the no one left behind funding is devolved to local authorities, and the Institute For Public Policy Research has raised questions around transparency. Both sets of figures tend to show a reasonable amount of job starts, but the numbers tail off for people still being in employment after three months, six months and 12 months: the numbers reduce. We can get a decent amount of people in work, but how do we keep them in employment? This is about retention. The first question was about barriers to achieving the target. Do you recognise trying to retain people in employment as being a feature of supporting people into employment? What can be done to address that?

Our next item of business is an evidence session with the minister on the committee’s inquiry into the disability employment gap. This is the final evidence session. I again welcome Tom Arthur, the Minister for Employment and Investment, who is joined by Stephen Garland, who is a senior policy officer and Clare Reddington, who is deputy director for employability, both from the Scottish Government.

I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.