Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for providing evidence today.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.

09:11

Meeting suspended.

09:12

On resuming—

Based on what I have heard, I will try to turn the question around. Given that the majority of awards of funeral support payment already go directly to funeral directors, would removing the claimant choice entirely be proportionate to the scale of the issue that you are describing?

The next item of business is a round-table discussion on the funeral support payment. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. With us, we have: Adam Stachura, director of policy, communications and external affairs, Age Scotland; John Halliday, chair, Caledonia Funeral Aid; Jim Brodie, managing director, Brodies Funeral Services, who is also attending on behalf of the National Association of Funeral Directors; Gerry Boyle, regional manager, Dignity Funeral Directors; and Andrew Purves, chief operating officer and director, William Purves Funeral Directors.

The meeting is in a round-table format, which we hope will enable a free-flowing conversation. The committee is very much in listening mode today—because I told members earlier that that is what will happen—so, if you wish to speak, please do so.

We intend to address four main themes, and we have about an hour and 15 minutes, give or take, in which to do so. I encourage members and witnesses to be as succinct as possible in their questions and answers.

I will introduce the first theme, which concerns the issue of whether the funeral support payment is made to the client or the funeral director. I want to specifically address the effects of giving clients a choice about whether the funeral support payment is made directly to them or to the funeral director. From the information that we have received, we know that around 60 per cent of payments are already issued directly to funeral directors. However, we have also heard concerns from some stakeholders about non-payment and potential financial risk. I am keen to explore the scale of the risk and the extent of the issue, whether the evidence supports any structural change and whether there are any proportionate alternatives that protect bereaved families and funeral providers. My first question is, are we talking about a small minority of cases, or is the issue more widespread? Jim Brodie, would you like to come in on that?

09:15

That is okay.

Before we move on, I remind Jeremy Balfour that it he wants to come in he should first declare his interests.

Thank you for that information. Gerry, do you want to come back in?

That brings us to our final theme. I invite Alexander Stewart to facilitate that.

Does anyone else have any other questions or comments?

I invite Bob Doris to come in, and I think that Gerry Boyle wants to come back in. I am looking around the room to see who else has their hands up.

I am interested in what Gerry Boyle said about councils maximising their income, because, when Elena Whitham and I were sharing stories of our time as councillors—I was on South Lanarkshire Council—we discussed the fact that Highland Council had created a pet cemetery in order to raise revenue. Elena might remember that.

Good morning. Drug deaths are not abstract statistics. I lost my brother to a heroin overdose back in 2002, and that loss stays with our family every single day. My thoughts go out to every single family that is affected by drug harms and drug deaths.

I will touch on the work that we carried out with the people’s panel. We commissioned a people’s panel to consider the question, “What does Scotland need to do differently to reduce drug related harms?” Members of the public, some of whom had personal experience of drug use, heard from a wide range of experts on the issues that lead people to take drugs and the barriers that exist to them getting the help that they need. Members of the panel were supported by the Parliament’s fantastic participation and communities team to discuss each issue and come to a view on their recommendations.

I was pleased that the Scottish Government agreed in principle with all the panel’s recommendations and that action was taken to implement them. Some of those actions were measures that were introduced to ensure that more people with lived experience provide on-going support and aftercare in the statutory workforce. There was guidance to employers on how they can promote an anti-stigma approach, which is really important. There was work on a new alcohol and drugs strategic plan to enable services to refer to each other. There was also work to extend the approach and principles of the medication assisted treatment standards to cover all substances. Crucially, there was also work on providing multiyear funding through the Corra Foundation.

I also found it helpful—as did other committee members—to visit the Thistle prior to its opening and again five months after it opened. Those visits were informative and I was blown away by some of the things that it is doing, such as its engagement with the local community, which includes engaging with concerns, answering questions and addressing issues. We also heard about the range of services that it provides for the local community.

I will not say much more other than to say a huge thank you to the clerks for the amount of work that they have done in pulling everything together. The Thistle and the work that we are doing will not be a silver bullet, but it is clear that the facility has saved lives. It has been a privilege to work with the clerks and the committees on all of that.