Seòmar agus comataidhean

Simon, are you able to come in on that?

Support with rent in advance, including rent deposits, is provided through the discretionary housing payments. An individual may be awarded a discretionary housing payment for a rent deposit or rent in advance, or other lump sums for housing payments such as deposits or removal costs. For a property that an individual is yet to move into, if they are already entitled to housing benefit or universal credit—including an amount for rent in their present home—some local authorities will provide such support through schemes other than discretionary housing payments; for instance, as a budget loan.

Following an extensive period of review by the multistakeholder statutory guidance review committee, the Scottish Government has provided updated statutory guidance for the Scottish welfare fund. That revised guidance was published in April and states that decision makers can prioritise applications according to need.

Staff who deliver the fund should be able to recognise and appropriately respond to people who are escaping domestic abuse, and they must have an understanding of what constitutes domestic abuse, including coercive control and financial abuse. Staff should also establish good relations with specialist domestic abuse services. As I mentioned earlier, we are also working with organisations such as Scottish Women’s Aid via forums such as the Scottish welfare fund practitioners forum.

I certainly have. Yesterday, I took part in a four-nations discussion, during which I met my equivalents across the four nations. I specifically raised the issue of the housing pressures in Glasgow.

I am aware that the Westminster Government has put out tenders for asylum accommodation. The current contract, as you will be aware, is with Mears. That expires in 2029, I believe—although I am happy to have that fact checked. The UK Government has basically given options to manage accommodation and invest in housing in different ways, through central funding from the UK Government.

I know that Glasgow City Council has put in a bid, and I pressed the UK Government as strongly as I could yesterday to be cognisant of the pressure. We are seeing trends that, once people are given leave to remain, they choose to come to the central belt. We offer that provision under our new Scots refugee strategy, ensuring that people are welcome from day 1—although people want to be with people who are like them; they want to be in communities. Although we are very proud of the offering that we provide, additional resource pressures inevitably come with it.

I can assure you that I was doing that just yesterday—that is hot off the press, Mr Doris.

Absolutely. As I think I mentioned in my opening remarks, those matters lie in Ms Brown’s portfolio. I will absolutely do my best to give a good account, and I can certainly follow up on anything that I cannot explain today.

The civil legal aid system is, in general, effective in delivering help to those in need. However, we recognise that there are some challenges in relation to certain types of cases or locations. To go into the detail a little bit, the issue of solicitor availability, for instance, is being explored by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Since 2014 or 2015, there has been a large variation in the number of grants of civil legal aid at council level. The local authorities with the largest increase include Shetland Islands Council, Perth and Kinross Council and West Lothian Council.

There is an increase in the number of applicants instructing solicitors outside their own council area. It is important to remember, however, that we cannot compel private solicitors to undertake work. Nevertheless, the Government has continued its investment in the legal aid system.

There were many elements to your question, so I am happy to be reminded of anything.

Absolutely. On the principle of equalities, I recognise that reform to the legal aid system is needed. We want to ensure that the system is responsive and user centred, and that it works effectively towards the delivery of the outcomes that we want in a way that we would expect of our public services. That has to be done transparently, and accountability has to be embedded across the system.

We have published “The Vision for Justice in Scotland”, which is a three-year delivery plan. It contains an action to engage with key stakeholders to inform and shape future legislative proposals in relation to the reform of legal aid. I am aware that, in February this year, the Minister for Victims and Community Safety published a legal aid reform discussion paper, which sets out the areas of work that will be undertaken to improve legal aid in the short, medium and long term. In the programme for government, we reiterated the commitment to take that forward.

Absolutely—you have raised a good point and you are right to reach out to the relevant minister on that.

I cannot add much more, because so much of that process is about the ethos of engagement. As I have said before, that involves taking a consistent approach and ensuring that training cuts across the range of people who come into contact with survivors. The approach must be consistent, because the women involved are in a traumatised state and their situations are often complex. Being able to navigate across all the systems is important. I reiterate that the Government is absolutely committed to enabling such an approach. I have outlined the various training initiatives that are available, which we are ensuring are consistent for any service that a woman might come across.

The committee will be aware that the equally safe in practice framework was published by Scottish Women’s Aid during the 16 days of activism in 2024. The Scottish Government, Scottish Women’s Aid and other partners continue to promote and develop that approach. Those in Scottish Women’s Aid are the experts in that area. We are not doing this in isolation; we are working with the correct partners that have the relevant expertise and ensuring that all our practice is informed by them.

That is a good question. As a teacher, I have taken an interest in the cost of the school day for a number of years. About 10 or 11 years ago, the school in which I was teaching took part in the pilot to assess the cost of the school day, and we saw that the effects that that cost can have on children and families, and on their experience in general, were quite remarkable. There were compounding factors for those with protected characteristics and those in households where they were experiencing domestic violence.

I take that issue really seriously, and I absolutely recognise the pressure that is placed on families, which is not helped by the cost of living crisis. We took action to create an emergency fund to address school meal debt, and that fund was increased from £1.5 million to £2.8 million in response to the demand from local authorities. A total of 30 local authorities applied for support through the fund, and we have taken steps to issue payments totalling £2.8 million, as I just referred to.

The member will be aware that local authorities are responsible for the management of school meal debt, and we expect them to use their powers to support families appropriately. COSLA has published good practice guidance; our expectation is that councils will follow that guidance, and 30 out of 32 have done that. I would be very interested to see what barriers prevented the council that the member mentioned from applying to the fund. We will continue to support dialogue with all local authorities, including West Dunbartonshire Council.

The Scottish Government received a letter from the DWP on 3 July last year, noting the receipt of the policy design specification and reiterating the complexity of the ask. The letter listed some of the challenges of delivering the policy, including the potential barriers, the cost of carrying out the impact assessment of the policy and the challenges in delivering it in the near future. The Scottish Government has acknowledged that letter.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice met Sir Stephen Timms to discuss the review of universal credit. She highlighted the importance of the split payment policy and the need for the universal credit review to include a gendered analysis of it.

We remain committed to working with the DWP towards the delivery of split payments of universal credit.