Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you for your submissions and for joining us. I would like to put on record again my thanks for the work that you have all done, particularly in the past year and a half, which I know has been a really difficult time for the sector. I appreciate the work that you do.

My first questions are for Myles Fitt. In your latest data, you have noted a 138 per cent increase in visits to your mental health web pages. Why do you think that is? What are you hearing through your bureaux? Could you tell us a bit about the model that is being used to deliver services online or by phone, and the importance of a hybrid approach, if, indeed, that is what you are hoping to do going forward?

Thank you for your responses so far, which have been helpful.

Could you tell us a bit about the recovery fund that went to specific local authorities? Are you aware of how that money was delivered and distributed? What were the criteria? When the additional local authorities were made eligible for that funding, do you know whether additional funding followed that or was the original amount spread out further? I would like to hear from Ian Bruce and Eoin MacNeil on that.

It is important that we get right under the skin of the issue not only because what you have said about the UN’s warning about women’s equality, but because of the impact that the situation is having on women, as we all see in our constituencies every day. We need to get ahead of the issue, so thanks for helping us to do that.

My questions are around the impact on unpaid care. I have spoken to a number of unpaid carers, before the pandemic and since, and their stories are bleak and can be pretty grim. Will you tell us a bit about your assessment of the impact of the pandemic on unpaid carers? Can you also cover the impact that the reduction in health and social care services has had on people’s expectation that women will do unpaid care? Are there any particular groups of women—for example, younger women, disabled women and lone parents—who have, in your experience, ended up doing more of that unpaid care as a result of services shutting down and so on?

My colleague Pauline McNeill said in a meeting of the Social Security Committee in the previous parliamentary session that there needs to be quite a bit of scrutiny of the proposals and understanding of shared care and that there therefore needs to be comprehensive guidance. SCOSS has highlighted that there could be potential human rights issues if the level of discretion is increased. Can you set out why you have left the detail on the types of circumstances to be taken into account to Social Security Scotland and have you given it any direction about what the guidance would include?

That is reassuring. I am pleased that there is not an arbitrary cut-off for overturning. Thank you for that.

I think that, if we are to get to a much more automated system that is less reliant on individuals having to talk to too many people at once, we probably need to tighten up the process of referral to other agencies. I note that you are now part of the tell me once programme. What are your plans to address the capacity of staff to refer on to other agencies? What can you learn and what do you know about the tell me once process? I know that it is used when someone dies, but is there anything in it that you can replicate for use at the other end of the scale, so that, when people apply for their benefit, they need tell a state organisation something only once?

Thank you for your answer to the previous question. It was very helpful and I look forward to seeing your written submission.

How are you ensuring that the ethos of eligibility will change from the current system of personal independence payment to the new system of adult disability payment? What are you doing with your workforce to make sure that it is a different type of process?

How long do you expect to be spending money on the agency agreements? If you were delivering those benefits through Social Security Scotland directly, would your spend on the agency agreements be like-for-like in terms of your administrative costs, would you be able to deliver slightly more cheaply, or would it be more expensive?

Yes, thank you.

Yes, I am asking mainly about how you will work with people. We have heard a lot about eligibility—I presume that the adequacy of payments will come further down the line, and that will be a whole other session I am sure. In the meantime, how are you making sure that the process, whether through application or transfer, and in particular around the child disability payment and the adult disability payment, when that happens, is better than it currently is with the DWP?

Thank you for joining us. You raised the issue of the data. Could you give the committee an update—either now or in writing—on the data from the DWP that is required for the wider roll-out? It would be good to hear about that. I am also keen to know a bit about why, in the first place, it was decided to go for a first-come, first-served basis for the payments.