Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Official Report 962KB pdf

---

Topical Question Time

---

Scotland’s 999 Emergency Telephone Service

To ask the Scottish Government what it can do to increase the resilience of Scotland’s 999 emergency telephone service, in light of United Kingdom-wide technical issues over the weekend that rendered the service unusable for many users. (S6T-01482)

The 999 call platform is a UK-wide system that is operated by BT as an integral part of the UK telecommunications network. Responsibility for all telecoms infrastructure is reserved to the UK Government.

Scotland was not disproportionately affected by the issue. Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Ambulance Service promptly implemented business continuity arrangements, which helped to manage call handling and reduce the likelihood of a substantial call-queue build-up or excessive wait times for callers.

Because of the scale of the incident, the Scottish Government’s resilience room was activated for the incident’s duration. We have made clear to BT our concerns about the incident, and we await the outcome of the formal inquiry that Ofcom initiated on 26 June. That should allow us to better understand the cause of the failure, the full impacts and any lessons that may be learned.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that helpful update, and I thank the call handlers and emergency service workers who responded so quickly to events.

On the outage and resilience, has the cabinet secretary had any direct conversations with BT or Police Scotland in the past 48 hours about initial thoughts on what the cause was? I understand that, for obvious reasons, there will be a full-scale inquiry into that.

As a result of the 999 outage, the 101 service stepped up to take and respond to emergency calls. That is a relief, because just nine months ago the Criminal Justice Committee took evidence from Police Scotland’s deputy chief officer, David Page, who said that the service was under existential threat. Thankfully, the Government responded to that warning. Given the importance of the 101 service, will the cabinet secretary commit to on-going investment in it and confirm that it will continue to exist in its current form?

I reassure Mr Greene that, throughout Sunday, I had several conversations with my resilience officials, who also took part in the UK COBRA meetings to relay any concerns that we had in Scotland. Since then, we have had—by chance—a four-nations meeting yesterday, at which all ministers who deal with resilience were present. There is certainly a shared understanding of and shared support for Ofcom’s inquiry into BT’s activity.

As for specifics about the UK-wide outage, I draw to Mr Greene’s attention the statement that BT made:

“We’re nearing the end of a full, internal investigation and expect to share the findings with government, the emergency services and Ofcom ... by Thursday.”

The internal review will examine

“the technical aspects of what triggered Sunday’s incident, the process of moving over to the back-up system and the timings of communications to the emergency services, Ofcom and government. In the interests of transparency, we will share the key findings publicly at the same time, subject to the removal of any information that remains confidential for critical national infrastructure”

purposes.

I am glad that Mr Greene acknowledges the improvements in the 101 service. That certainly coincides with the views of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. The Scottish Government will continue to ensure that arrangements for the 101 service, as operated by Police Scotland and scrutinised by the Scottish Police Authority, work well.

I thank BT for the information that it has provided, which is now on the record. We cannot overstate the importance of our 999 and 101 services or the importance of the public having full confidence in them and getting through when they need to.

However, that trust has been eroded in many circumstances. Over the past five years, nearly 2 million calls to 101 have been abandoned by the caller, and waiting times for 999 and 101 calls have risen significantly. Last month, the longest wait for a 101 call to be answered was one hour and two minutes. That can be coupled with the recent unfortunate scandal in which we discovered that calls had been allocated fake call signs and had not been responded to at all. All of us in Parliament know the tragic consequences of call handling going wrong.

I seek reassurance that members of the public can have full confidence that all our blue-light services will be there for them when they are needed, and that robust infrastructure is in place—from the technical and resource points of view—to deal with emergency calls.

What is clear from Sunday’s unfortunate events is that the Scottish Government’s resilience arrangements worked well—as did the business continuity plans of all our emergency services, who deserve our grateful thanks for that.

I turn to Jamie Greene’s specific points on Police Scotland’s call-handling service, separate from the UK-wide outage for which BT is now being investigated. We continue to be hugely grateful to Police Scotland and its staff. It is worth remembering that it receives more than 2 million calls each year, and that it continues to prioritise 999 calls. The most recent figures, which are from April this year, show that Police Scotland has an average answer time of six seconds for 999 calls, which is in line with the times of other large forces across the UK. In this year, up to the end of March, the average time that was taken to answer non-emergency 101 calls was four minutes and 27 seconds. As I mentioned in my earlier answer, the SPA closely monitors Police Scotland’s approach.

A number of improvements have been made. Police Scotland has highlighted that a number of actions on public-engagement system improvement and staff support have been adopted to strengthen performance further. However, it is a matter on which we will all continue to be vigilant. It is also one that has been helped by the increases that have been made in police funding, year on year, since 2016-17.

We can take further assurance from the HMICS review of the service’s contact assessment model, which has highlighted a number of successes in that area.

I would be grateful for concise questions and responses.

The downing of the phone line is a huge concern. I welcome the measures that the cabinet secretary has outlined to ensure that, in emergencies, access to care is always available. Will she outline what additional steps are being taken to raise awareness among members of the public of other means of accessing medical attention in non-emergency or non-urgent situations?

Over the past three years, NHS 24 has been completely transformed from a predominantly out-of-hours primary care service to a 24/7 system-wide service that provides triage to patients who require either acute or primary care intervention, and ensures that they are signposted to the appropriate service. Public messaging regarding NHS 24 services runs on social media, along with communications campaigns on television, radio and digital platforms to promote such services in the run-up to busy periods such as bank holidays. There is also the NHS Inform website and the NHS 24 online app.

---

Adult Disability Payments (Reported Delays)

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported delays in processing times for adult disability payments. (S6T-01488)

We know that 53 per cent of adult disability payment decisions were made in under four months, but we also know that many other applicants are waiting for too long. Social Security Scotland is taking urgent and concerted action to speed up the process. The focus is on getting decisions right first time. Statistics show that that approach is working, with only 6 per cent of people asking for redeterminations.

People can also be assured that Social Security Scotland will backdate all payments to the date of application and will continue to deliver this benefit in a different way, through supporting people to apply and collecting information on their behalf. Under the previous system, people had to do that themselves before applying.

Things are getting worse, not better. In Scotland, the average wait for processing adult disability payment applications more than doubled between September 2022 and April 2023. People have been waiting for an average of 19 weeks for a decision, which is more than double the average waiting time for people in England and Wales who are applying for personal independence payments through the Department for Work and Pensions.

That is an unacceptable position. We do not even have a full picture of the longest waits, and many members around the chamber will have mailbags full of stories of the inordinate waits that people are experiencing. We need granular data to be able to show the full picture of the situation in Scotland. Will the cabinet secretary agree to publish full data, so that we understand the scale of the problem and can measure her responses against it?

There are recent statistics not long published that look at the adult disability payment processing times. I urge caution about making a comparison with the personal independence payment, because they have very different application processes. I made reference to those points in my original answer. There is an obligation for Social Security Scotland staff to work hard to ensure that they make the right decision first time, which is shown by the fact that only 6 per cent of people are going for redeterminations, whereas, with PIP, for example, 25 per cent of people were going to mandatory reconsiderations and many were going to appeal. There are, of course, some people who are not able to go through that quite oppressive system. I therefore urge caution on that point, because many PIP decisions are overturned under reconsideration or appeal.

I point to the issue of supporting information, because there is an important difference between the systems. Under PIP, the client—or customer, as the DWP likes to call people—has to collect supporting information themselves. As we developed the Social Security Scotland agency and its processes, people told us that that is a very burdensome and onerous task, which is why it is the responsibility of the agency to gather supporting information. Sometimes, that takes time, but it is important, and I hope that Paul O’Kane is not suggesting that we change the process and put the burden back on the client, as with PIP. Social Security Scotland will endeavour to do that as quickly as possible, which is why it is taking concerted action to speed things up. Its staff will endeavour to get supporting information themselves, rather than it going through the client.

The cabinet secretary speaks about concerted action in order to speed things up, and it is clear that that is what must happen. In recent months, a range of issues have been exposed relating to the ability of Social Security Scotland to deliver its core functions, including the soaring cost of the information technology budget, people waiting for more than an hour to have their call answered, people being cut off on the phone and people being unable to access the website. We were promised a better and fairer social security system by the Government through the creation of Social Security Scotland, five years ago, but people are still in need and should not have to wait so long. Will the cabinet secretary outline for members what direct action she will take to get a grip of the problem and bring the waiting times down? Will she commit to bringing a clear plan to the chamber to ensure that the processing times are sped up?

I will give one example to explain why the cost of the IT budget has increased. If members compare it with our initial estimates, they will see that we were not, at that time, planning to deliver the Scottish child payment. The IT system has now been delivered to ensure that that payment is gaining traction across the country and making a difference to people’s lives.

I have been in the chamber on a number of occasions recently, talking through some of the points of change that are already being undertaken by the agency. There is an end-to-end process review being undertaken, and some procedures have already been put in place. Again, I have spoken in the chamber about changes that have already been made to the application process. I have talked about the fact that the agency is drawing more on the expertise of in-house health and social care practitioners to support case discussions earlier, allowing people to have their decisions made earlier. In addition, a number of changes have been made to the way in which the agency handles calls, including through staff who can be deployed from elsewhere in the organisation to help to reduce processing times.

I believe that the chief executive of Social Security Scotland is due to appear before the Parliament to go into further detail on that. I have already discussed with him that it might be useful for him to provide an update to all members in the Scottish Parliament to reassure them of the work that is being undertaken and to ensure that we are open to suggestions about how this can be improved.

People who have experienced a delay when applying have understandable concerns about the prospect of losing out on payments while they are awaiting a decision. I have heard what the cabinet secretary has said today, but, to be crystal clear, can she confirm that in cases in which delays have been experienced, the Scottish Government will ensure that those who are eligible will be paid from the date on which they applied?

I am happy to again give the reassurance that people’s payments will be backdated to the date of application.

That concludes topical questions.