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My understanding is that local authorities have the power to write off debt of any type if they choose to do so, provided that there is no expectation of recovery. Obviously, ministers do not have the power to require local authorities to write off debt. Any decision making has to be done on the basis of individual circumstances. Even if resources could be found, in the current climate, given the reliance of local services on council tax collection, taking a wholesale approach would be a very difficult message to send out. We have to be very cautious about that.

There is also work going on in the Improvement Service, which is trying to improve the way in which council tax is collected. We have the council tax reduction scheme in Scotland, which means that no one should have to meet a council tax liability that they are unable to afford. I guess that our role in the reduction scheme has been to try to ensure that people on low incomes are not required to pay a council tax rate that they cannot afford. The reduction scheme has been important in that way—it has benefited a lot of people and helped them to avoid falling into arrears.

I will hand over to Tom Arthur in a second. If there are recommendations from the committee on good practice and not such good practice, it is important that COSLA and local authorities hear those. I would point back to the Improvement Service’s report “Collaborative Council Tax Collection”. It is not the most interesting of titles, but it is an important report, which highlights the existing good practice by some local authorities in improving council tax collection outcomes and the way in which that system operates. The fact that the Improvement Service has got involved in looking at what good practice is demonstrates that local authorities recognise that there is an issue there.

We would certainly encourage local authorities to look at that report and its recommendations. However, if the committee can add weight to that with its own recommendations—if there are some for local government and COSLA in particular to look at—that may be welcomed.

Thanks, convener, for inviting us to the committee, alongside Kate Forbes, to help you to explore the impact of the resource spending review on social justice and social security. Tackling child poverty is our national mission and, of course, it is one of our four resource spending review priorities. When we published “Best Start, Bright Futures: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022 to 2026” in March, we set out our actions to tackle child poverty, including increasing social security support, taking action on employability and fair work, and investing in more warm affordable homes.?

The resource spending review underpins key actions to tackle child poverty, including in relation to childcare, transport and employability. Notably, it commits more than £23 billion for social security payments that will provide direct support to more than one million people in Scotland each year. That includes almost £1.8 billion for the Scottish child payment, which will increase to £25 per eligible child per week when the payment is extended to under-16s at the end of the year.

Modelling conducted as part of developing the tackling child poverty delivery plan projected that, with progress to date and the package of measures planned, around 17 per cent of children will live in relative poverty in 2023-24, 60,000 fewer than when the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act was passed in 2017. That will drive child poverty in Scotland to the lowest level in 30 years, against a very challenging backdrop. Importantly, the actions set out lay the foundation for the transformation in our economy and public services that will be required to meet the 2030 targets and set Scotland on a path to sustained poverty reduction.

As we navigate the cost of living crisis, these interventions, currently and over the next four years, will be all the more vital in supporting household incomes. Through the budget for 2022-23, the Scottish Government has allocated almost £3 billion to a range of supports that will contribute to mitigating the impact of the increased cost of living on households. That includes work to tackle child poverty, reduce inequalities and support financial wellbeing, alongside social security payments that are not available anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

The resource spending review provides a multiyear funding framework, which will bring to life our tackling child poverty delivery plan and provide direct support to those who need it most. I look forward to hearing your questions later.

You make an important point. As you will be aware, we see it as a duty of the Scottish Government to ensure that people access the social security benefits to which they are entitled. You will be aware of the second benefit take-up strategy, which was published last October, I think, and which set out how we are working to ensure that people can access the support to which they are entitled. At the heart of that is a recognition that benefit take-up is part of the bigger picture of maximising income, which is so important at the moment, given the cost of living issues.

We are investing £10 million over the current session of Parliament to increase access to advice in accessible settings. That includes expanding the welfare advice and health partnerships through location in general practitioner surgeries, which is working well. GPs and other health staff can signpost people to a service just down the corridor to find out what they might be entitled to. A person might be at the doctor because of worries about debt and money, which are impacting on their mental health. We are joining the dots there.

Obviously, we encourage the UK Government to take a more joined-up approach to the promotion of benefits. We will seek to work with it where we can because a number of reserved benefits, such as universal credit, are gate-openers to supports such as the Scottish child payment. Therefore, we encourage the UK Government to do more, particularly at the moment, on promoting and raising awareness of what people might be entitled to.

I reiterate the point about the £3 billion—every pound is a prisoner, as the saying goes. We already provide support to households that is not available anywhere else in the UK, particularly to low-income families. The consequentials that Miles Briggs refers to are those from the household support fund, which was routed through local government in England. We already provide a range of supports—some of which are routed through local government—that are well in excess of that.

I do not want the impression to be given that money is being spent on supporting low-income households in England but is not being spent on such support here in Scotland, because we have already gone well beyond some of those supports. We continue to consider what more we can do within our financial constraints.

Thanks very much, convener.

I am acutely aware that households across the country are facing a serious cost of living crisis and that those on the lowest incomes are being hit the hardest. Many of those households are likely to then carry an increased burden of debt.

As I said earlier, through the budget for 2022-23, the Scottish Government has allocated almost £3 billion to a range of supports that will contribute to mitigating the impact of the increased cost of living on households. That includes work to tackle child poverty, reduce inequalities and support financial wellbeing, alongside social security payments that are not available anywhere else in the UK. It includes investing £83 million for discretionary housing payments, including £68.1 million to mitigate the bedroom tax and an additional £14.9 million to mitigate the damaging impact of other UK Government welfare cuts.

In response to the crisis, we took the decision to uprate eight Scottish benefits by 6 per cent and to invest a further £10 million in our fuel insecurity fund to support households at risk of severely rationing their energy use or self-disconnecting. Our Scottish welfare fund provides a vital and important safety net to those who are most in need. We have committed £41 million to that fund this year. That offers significant financial support for those living in Scotland, and it will provide a protection for those on the lowest incomes.

Ensuring that people have enough money to live on, that they are receiving all the benefits and entitlements that they should be receiving, and that they are appropriately supported around their debts are priorities for the Scottish Government. That is why we are committed to maximising benefit take-up, as shown in our benefit take-up strategy. We are investing more than £12 million this year to support free advice services to help people to maximise their incomes and manage their debt.

We know that there is more to do, which is why we have committed to increasing the accessibility of advice over this parliamentary session. We will continue to work with advice services to understand and respond to the on-going impact of the rising cost of living and to ensure that our limited resources support the people who are struggling the most.

Together, Brexit and the pandemic have created a perfect storm—the costs of getting materials from various parts of the world have increased, shipping costs have increased, the costs of raw materials have increased and labour costs have increased. If we put all that together, we can see the impact on goods and services across the board—the construction sector is no different.

A number of projects are still coming in under the agreed benchmarks. There is a bit of geographical variation, and we need to be mindful that costs get higher the further north we go, because of a lack of economies of scale, the reduced number of contractors and so on.

The minister Ivan McKee has been in regular dialogue with the construction sector to consider what we can do, but the issues are global, and it is difficult for the Scottish Government to change things dramatically. We are working with councils and registered social landlords to support them in keeping the momentum going.

Good morning. I am grateful to the committee for inviting me and the minister to give evidence. The Covid pandemic has had a clear impact on the wellbeing of children and young people. The true extent of that will not yet be evident. That is why the committee’s inquiry is important and why the Government remains committed to getting it right for every child.

We know that there are strong links between experience of poverty in childhood and poorer health outcomes across a range of measures. Not only that, but there are impacts on wider life chances, including on educational attainment. We want better for Scotland’s children. We have set in statute ambitious income-based targets to significantly reduce levels of child poverty in Scotland by 2030 and we have declared tackling child poverty to be a national mission. We are working to mobilise all of Scotland to drive the progress that is needed.

Across the life of our first tackling child poverty delivery plan, we have strengthened the financial support that is available for low-income families across the early years. That includes support through our package of five family benefits, including the best start grant, best start foods and the Scottish child payment. That package will be further strengthened from April with the doubling of the Scottish child payment to £20 per week per child.

We now offer the equivalent of 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare to all three and four-year-olds and about a quarter of two-year-olds. That is a critical investment in children and parents. We have also delivered new employment support that is built on the values of dignity and respect, and is providing the help that parents need to access employment without fear of sanctions.

We recognise that holistic whole-family support is essential to wellbeing in tackling poverty. To that end, we have committed to investing £500 million in whole-family wellbeing funding during this session of Parliament.

We also recognise the additional challenges that our care experienced children and young people face. By the end of this Parliamentary year at the latest, we will publish a single implementation plan setting out the actions and commitments that we will deliver to ensure that we keep the Promise by 2030.

We will also publish our next tackling child poverty delivery plan by the end of March. That will set out the transformational actions that we will take with partners across Scotland to tackle child poverty and drive progress towards the ambitious targets that are set by this Parliament.

In 2020-21, our investment targeted at low-income households reached almost £2.5 billion, including nearly £1 billion that focused on low-income families with children. Delivering on our ambitions on child poverty and child wellbeing will require changes not only in ways of working, but in investment. That is why our on-going resource spending review has outlined child poverty as a key priority.

I welcome the committee’s inquiry and the opportunity that you have given me and the Minister for Children and Young People to answer your questions relevant to our portfolios.

First of all, we have made considerable progress in implementing the first delivery plan, which includes the key supports that I mentioned earlier such as the Scottish child payment for children under six, the bridging payments for older children and the parental employability support fund. We are not starting from nothing; building blocks are in place.

However, we recognised the need to give the next delivery plan far greater cross-Government focus. We cannot tackle child poverty through social security alone. Although that can do some of the heavy lifting, we must also try to reduce costs, as well as increase opportunities for employment, because we know that work is a key way out of poverty, including child poverty in families.

Making that happen requires the whole of Government’s focus; it also requires partnerships across the rest of Scotland with local government, the third sector and the private sector. The focus is very much around those three pillars and what we can bring across the whole of Government in pulling that together. I have spent a lot of time in bilateral meetings with colleagues, and we have spent a lot of time in Cabinet discussing the issues. Basically, we are looking at every possible way in which we can make the interim targets achievable.

That is against a challenging backdrop in which cost-of-living pressures are building and in which the £20 a week cut to universal credit—the uplift had been given during the pandemic—is causing problems. We are doing absolutely everything that we can, but I cannot overestimate how difficult the backdrop is. However, we need to get it right, because we absolutely must give our children the best chance of having the life chances that they deserve. We are working hard to do that.

Tenants have rights and responsibilities—that is the first thing that we would all acknowledge. Strengthening tenants’ rights on the affordability side is a matter of considering appropriate controls on rent levels. There is an important consultation out about how that is done.

Rent levels vary across Scotland. We recognise that the housing market in the Edinburgh area, where we are sitting, is very different from the housing market for rent and purchase in other areas of Scotland. When we consider rent controls, different local circumstances must be recognised.

Affordability is important, and we must ensure that people can afford rents. The private rented sector will continue to have an important role to play.

“Housing to 2040” sets out the ambition for where we want to get to and shows that, if we get this right, there should be no visible difference between tenures. If we get the quality of property standards to the same level, get the rights and responsibilities correct and ensure that rents are affordable across all sectors, we can drive up the quality of standards. Good landlords have nothing to fear from the changes, because many of them already provide a good-quality service to their tenants. There is a package of measures.