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I will move on to the issue of minimum core standards. We have heard concerns from the Scottish Women’s Budget Group not only in this committee but in other committees that cuts to employability could remove poverty-prevention measures and take targeted support away from disabled people, single parents and women. What conversations are you having with the Deputy First Minister on that?

I appreciate that and I thank the minister for her commitment to the EasyRead publications—or at least to come back to the committee to explain her approach to that.

One issue that comes up a lot is the interplay between the minister who has responsibility for equalities and the rest of the Government. You have outlined the way in which you do your business, which is commendable. However, I worry that other areas of Government are not doing the same thing. Last week, People First told us:

“For a long time people with a learning disability have been considered last, if we are considered at all.

That is true when it comes to budgeting decisions.

It is true for pretty much any decisions.

We are not seen as important, and our human rights are not protected as they are for other citizens.

We are not expected or supported to live our life like other citizens.”

I found that evidence and some of the other evidence from People First last week quite stark.

My colleague Rachael Hamilton also made a point about the Scottish Women’s Convention and women feeling that they have been overlooked in budgets.

What are the minister’s expectations of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy and other cabinet secretaries and ministers in relation to involving disabled people and others? How should they consider such issues as they develop budget proposals?

I appreciate that. However, specifically on the employability scheme cuts, have you made any representations to the Deputy First Minister about the timescales, given that a human rights-based approach would require a reduction in funding to be time limited?

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Thank you. That was helpful.

I will, indeed. I had forgotten that that is an option at this point.

Am I right in thinking that you said that the payments are made by different organisations?

Thank you.

We will come later to issues of processing, minister. You say in the Government’s response to the report by the Scottish Commission on Social Security that existing signposting and referral pathways will be developed. Will you set out what those are? Having done various bits of engagement, I am not aware that there are referral pathways between Social Security Scotland and other public sector organisations, including the national health service and, possibly, local authorities, in the way that the DWP has those referral mechanisms.

I thank the minister for that, although it was possibly a statement as opposed to an intervention. I could have predicted—despite my forgetting that I could take an intervention—that that particular intervention was coming.

I was about to say that I understand that there have been some difficulties with roll-out. It was interesting that the minister mentioned that it had been the Scottish Government’s engagement with the DWP to get the data that had been the issue. Therein lies my concern. I believe that both our Governments should be engaging much better on matters of household finances, particularly at a time of cost of living pressures. I honestly think that we need to get to a position in which both Governments can work more closely on that.

I was also about to say that I am not terribly interested in some of the negotiations between the Governments. However, I am interested in the fact that the families of thousands of children were not able to access the payment from the date at which the Scottish Government and others considered that it would be necessary for them to do so. Regardless of whether the fault lies at the door of the DWP or of the Scottish Government, if those families had got it at that date, the past two years would have been significantly better for them.

I again put on record my frustration about the roll-out to over-sixes, but I will finish where I started: by saying that we welcome any extra funding through the Scottish child payment that affected families can get at this time, and that we will vote for the regulations.

My understanding from conversations with various people who work locally is that there is no referral system to another agency. The DWP, for example, can make a direct referral, but that direct referral option is not available in Social Security Scotland. It sounds like there is a more manual workaround in which someone will tell a client that they should speak to Social Security Scotland or Social Security Scotland will say to a client that they should speak to one agency or another, but there is no automation of the referral process or even any directly recognised referral process. Is that clearer?