Chamber and committees

My apologies if I was not clear enough to the convener earlier. It ties in to the work that I just spoke to Ross Greer about—the work that is going on as we draft the next child poverty delivery plan and as we go through our budget and spending review processes. As part of that, we are looking across Government—social security being quite a small part of that—to see the differences that policies could make.

That is the type of work that is being undertaken as we deliver the tackling child poverty delivery plan, which will be published next year. Of course, we need to take account of the decisions on that as we move forward with the budget. That is the type of work that is being undertaken on those measures to compare one policy to another.

If we look at the aspects around free school meals, it is clear that the Scottish Government remains committed to universal free school meals in primary schools. We are working on the pilots for those children in secondary 1 to 3 who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment. We are not moving forward with universality for primary 6 and 7 pupils at this time; we are targeting provision to those in receipt of the Scottish child payment, because, given the financial context, we have taken the decision not to have universal free school meals but to target it to those who are in poverty. I suggest that that demonstrates that the Scottish Government has taken a very difficult decision not to move as fast as it would like on universal free school meals, because it has targeted the level of expenditure for P6 and 7 and for the pilots to those who are in poverty.

We are still committed to universal free school meals for primary-age pupils. What has changed is the timescale for delivery. The levels that we have in social security are targeted. You point to the 2018 act, which is targeted at those on low incomes, those who are disabled and those who are carers. There are parts of Government policy in other portfolios that are universal because the Government has taken that decision. I am sure that there is a debate to be had among our stakeholders and others about universalism, but the Government has tried to give people the important reassurance that we would not take entitlement away from people.

The matter has another important aspect, which came through very clearly at the round-table discussion that I had with DPOs and other stakeholders: the number of people who are coming forward for disability benefits because of mental health or other conditions that they previously had not been supported to apply for, or because stigma in society had prevented them from coming forward. I heard very compelling evidence from contributors at that round table that many people are now coming forward for mental health reasons who would not have come forward in the past. Although they were eligible for benefits in the past, they did not come forward.

There is then a question of whether that is a good or a bad thing. I think that it is a good thing if stigma around poor mental health is reduced, so that people can have open discussions and get a benefit to which they have always been entitled but never felt they were able to achieve. There are changes in our societal discussions around some disabilities and conditions that have seen a particular increase in certain case loads. I would add that aspect to the discussion.

Another aspect, which I alluded to earlier, is the fact that the spend on, in particular, adult disability payment and child disability payment, is preventative. If we were to reduce the amount of support that we are giving to people, would we then see an increase in demand on our health services or on our social care services, for example? There is a need for us to consider the implications of reducing a benefit on, for example, the health service.

Another area attached to that is that, if you reduced the eligibility for disabled people, you would also, by default, reduce the eligibility for carers benefits, and many unpaid carers in our constituencies would then not receive the financial support that they currently receive. Although I do not have the figures to hand, we can provide to the committee the discussion—which the committee will be well aware of—about the contribution that unpaid carers make and the impact that it would have on our health and social care if they did not do what they do. So, it is about the important aspects of what would happen within health and to those unpaid carers if we reduced expenditure on social security. We can provide further information on the issue after the meeting.

It was initially a Jeremy Balfour amendment, but then it was a Scottish Government amendment. We will have to check the record to see how that vote went. We were already required by statute—the 2018 act—to increase certain benefits, but Parliament voted to extend that universally.

Yes.

Again, we would separate the £36 million from what currently happens with the benefits. Ian Davidson could furnish the committee with further details about the current discussions with the DWP. The type of information that we need is, for example, the benefit on which an overpayment has been made. That will assist us in our approach to tackling that. Until we get that information, it is quite challenging to hypothecate that money—to say where it will go.

I hope that it is useful for the committee to point to the work that we currently do. The agency already undertakes that type of work to enable it to deal with overpayments in instances of both error and fraud, which are treated differently, as I hope that the committee agrees that they should be. We will continue to do that work, which, in essence, provides a guide to the types of work that could then be done to recover some of the £36 million. To be clear, the DWP would not have recovered the full £36 million in any scenario, because there are different success rates for recovery across various cases.

We need information about the £36 million. What we do to recover the money will be based on the agency’s work. David Wallace can go into further detail about how we do that for different benefits, if it would help to provide the committee with examples. We take those issues very seriously, but cases are dealt with differently depending on the individual context.

As I say, part of the challenge around that figure, which David Wallace mentioned, is that many of those cases will still be in train. We would start off with the initial approaches to recover that money, and if it is not possible to do so, the case can move through the process. David might want to provide some further information on that.

I will always challenge the agency—as the agency will challenge itself—to improve those numbers.