Chamber and committees

There certainly does not appear to be anything on the horizon that suggests to me that money will become available, although I am an optimist, as Mr Doris knows. If there is a change in Government at a UK level, I very much hope that it will not follow the financial constraints that the Conservative Government has set, that it will have a better working relationship with the Scottish Government and that we can take forward such discussions.

Mr Doris made one suggestion. I have a feeling that, if I was here discussing carer support payment, committee members would suggest ways in which we could spend that money on carer support, because there are—rightly—calls from carers organisations to do more on that. Mr Doris is quite right. That is certainly something that could be considered in the future. The financial situation for the Scottish Government would need to be substantially different, given the sheer scale of the mobility component. In such a case, I would then wish to consider, in discussion with the committee and stakeholders, how that money could be spent.

As, I am sure, the committee will appreciate, there is a long list of things that people would wish me to do, and, indeed, that I would wish to do myself if the money became available.

All the agency’s forms have been co-designed with people who would be applying. I remember going along to the process for best start grants way back in the day—we literally sat with women taking application forms apart and changing them. That was a process of continual drafting and redrafting to ensure that the form was fit for purpose. We still need to learn once a form goes live—we have made changes at that stage—but I can give that reassurance on how the forms are designed.

We have not concentrated on the length of the form; we have worked more on its usability. I appreciate that I am not answering Mr O’Kane’s question directly, but I can explain why. Through the co-design process, we have been asked to make the questions clearer and more spaced out, with examples given. We have also added images to the form, because people have told us that that makes it easier to complete.

The form is still being formatted. That work is not complete yet, but that is the type of process that we have been through before. In essence, the form may end up longer, but that is because it has been designed by the people who will be using it. They wanted it to be more spaced out, they wanted examples to be given and they wanted images to be put in, all in order to make it easier to use. We have been concerned with usability rather than length, although we keep the length in mind as we go through the process.

One caveat that I will give is that, when somebody applies online, they get only the questions that relate to them. If some answers suggest that another part of the form does not relate to them, they do not have to go through that part of the form.

The form is a work in progress, and we will be happy to share it with the committee once it is complete.

It is important that the committee is reassured that the agency has undertaken a great deal of work to improve processing times. I keep an extremely close eye on those and am in close dialogue with the agency on that subject. I welcome the changes that it has made to its processing to ensure that it is done more quickly.

I hope that the committee members who went to Agnes Husband house saw that happening in real time and heard discussed in greater detail the amount of changes that have been made and continue to be made. The capacity is very much there. The lessons have been learned and continue to be so. I am sure that the agency would be more than happy to host the committee again in the future, to talk through the further work that is being done on processing times or anything else, or when we get to the point of PADP being live. Perhaps not in the first week, though—I will allow them some time for that.

I would like to make brief opening remarks, if I may. As we are all aware and as we have discussed previously, the bill seeks to remove the section 2 definition of “woman” from the original Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. That follows the decisions of the inner house of the Court of Session, which were effective from 19 April 2022. The court decided that the section 2 definition was outwith the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and was not law and, accordingly, had no legal effect. At that time, our counsel told the court that we would remove the redundant definition. If the bill is passed, it will provide clarity by removing that redundant definition from the statute book.

I appreciate that introducing a small bill is unusual. As we have discussed previously, we looked to see whether the bill could be attached to planned legislation, but there was not a suitable vehicle. In addition, the change has to be made through primary legislation.

The bill is simply to clear up the statute book to ensure that it is not misleading. Removing the definition from the statute book will eliminate the possibility of any confusion for readers of the 2018 act who are unaware of the court’s orders made in 2022.

I was pleased to read the committee’s stage 1 report on the bill and that you were satisfied that it is a small, technical fix to clear up the statute book. We are content to recommend that the Parliament agrees to the general principles.

I am happy to consider that further.

We recognise from the evidence that stakeholders have concerns about that. Again, I want to provide them with the reassurance that we absolutely do not intend—in the bill or anywhere else—for professional advisers who act on clients’ instructions, such as welfare rights officers or those who work in citizens advice bureaus, to be made liable for overpayments.

It is very important that we reassure stakeholders, which I am happy to do today, as well as see whether there is anything else that needs to be done to tighten up the provisions in the bill. At the moment, I am content with how we intend to go about that. A full list of the people who fall within the definition of a “representative” will be set out in the regulations. It is absolutely not the intention to pull those who give advice, such as welfare rights officers, into that definition. I am happy to work with stakeholders to make sure that the reassurance is in the regulations.

I will bring in my colleague to answer that.

Part 6 did not form part of the full consultation, but we have tried to consult stakeholders who will be most impacted by what is proposed or who have the most obvious relation with clients who will be impacted. There has been targeted consultation, but it did not form part of the full public consultation on the bill.

I think that I said this in my opening statement but, if I did not, I record my thanks to the DPLR Committee for its diligence, as always, on the bill, and in particular on the issue that Bob Doris has raised.

I hope that I can alleviate the concerns that have been raised. It is vital that, when offences are created in legislation, the terms of each offence are clear and properly understood by those who might find themselves accused of committing the offences. To that end, it is our intention to carry out in-depth engagement with all relevant stakeholders, including from the insurance industry, before we clearly lay out the details of such offences in regulations.

One of the reasons for the approach that we have taken is that we want to ensure that there is further on-going consultation with those who will be directly impacted by the offences in the bill. We intend to ensure that the details of the offences that will be created align with the investigatory provisions, which will also be in secondary legislation and will apply appropriately to corporate bodies. We must ensure that the various regulations link up, are compatible with one another and are coherent. Of course, the Parliament will have the opportunity to reject the regulations if it does not appreciate what comes forward.

The approach that we are taking is not unprecedented. A similar power was taken to make provision about offences that are already contained in the 2018 act, so the approach follows on from that which was taken in that legislation in relation to offences.

You can claim it as a win either way. [Laughter.]