Seòmar agus comataidhean

I just want to follow up one of Bruce Adamson’s responses, if that is okay.

Bruce, you talked about the need to balance the rights to protection and to participation and autonomy. Can you tell us a bit more about how we ensure that the bill achieves that? Could amendments be made to the process for statutory declarations to balance participation and protection appropriately? Will you talk a bit about the presumption under the convention that children have capacity with regard to the courts when they reach the age of 16? That is the kind of early assumption that has been made. Should that approach be applied here? How could we address the bill’s differences from other legislation?

I have covered everything that I intended to, but it be great if I could have another question.

It is about section 195 of the Equality Act 2010, which both of you have mentioned. Do you think that the bill will have an impact on that section?

Good morning to the panel. I thank the panellists for all the evidence that they have given so far this morning and for the evidence that they submitted in advance of the meeting, and I again put on record my thanks to the organisations that have supported people and their membership throughout a really tough couple of years for all that they have done.

I want to explore the council tax and the public debt mechanisms that we have spoken about and to understand a bit about the experience of families just now. I will start on the theme that we have just been discussing.

I share Betty Stone’s concerns about the way that local authorities are pursuing debt. To be honest, I feel that I have heard from people this morning that there seems to be quite a bit of onus on individuals. As Karen Carrick said, the statutory duty is about ensuring that people access advice rather than ensuring that the advice is provided or funded. That really puts the burden of responsibility on someone who is in debt, and someone who is in debt is, by definition, struggling.

Could Karen Carrick or Paul Ferguson suggest anything that could help to shift the burden of responsibility to local authorities to improve the system, rather than to individuals to seek support earlier? I am not suggesting that we want people to seek support at the last minute, but I think that the burden of responsibility needs to change.

I have a further question about that before my last question on this theme. Is there any way to stop people needing advice services in the first place? Is there anything that can be done during the local authority revenue collection process that would prevent people from needing advice services and which would be a bit more preventative, such as telling people that they have a council tax reduction? Can you think of any examples of ways to prevent the need for advice?

Thank you. That is much appreciated.

Will Martin Canavan tell us a little about the experiences of the people who have accessed his fund recently? In particular, I was struck by your description of what you are seeing as not just relative poverty but absolute poverty. Will you tell us a little about that?

Thank you for allowing me to ask this, convener. It has just occurred to me that what has been described feels like people being project managers in their own lives. I note Betty Stone’s point about having to hold a business meeting to get things sorted. Is there anyone in either the local authority or a third sector organisation that could fulfil that role? I get the point about the warm handover. We absolutely have to do that, and I take Kirsty McKechnie’s point about all the different agencies, but is there anyone in the statutory services that you think could help by fulfilling that co-ordinating role?

Some of the evidence that we have suggests that data collection on council tax arrears and other public debt arrears could be improved. Can someone comment on that? It occurred to me that it would be good to know more about that.

I also have a specific question for Paul Ferguson on public debt in relation to social care charging. What debt you are seeing in relation to that revenue stream?

We have received some written evidence from Close the Gap, and other committees that I sit on have taken evidence from it in person, on the specific experiences of women who are experiencing significant debt for all the reasons that I know many of us understand. In particular, Close the Gap has highlighted the significant debt that is experienced by disabled women, black and minority ethnic women and, in particular, lone parent families. Will CPAG and Aberlour comment on what we could do in Scotland with the powers that we have to try to target resources to those groups?

Thank you for that. Sorry—in relation to the numbers that you mentioned, were you talking about the number of people who are in debt for that reason or were you talking about the number of people you are charging?