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As I said in my previous answer, there is a responsibility across the Government to support the fair work agenda, whether in respect of transport, childcare or education. It is the job of all those areas to support the fair work agenda.

Your question is good, but the person-centred approach must identify barriers in the local context then work with local partners to knock down those barriers. We all represent areas of Scotland; our local employment partnerships should be delivering person-centred approaches, as fair start Scotland, which is a national initiative, does. They should be identifying barriers and working with partners to knock them down. The benefit of a person-centred approach is that it identifies the individual’s barriers and works with local partners to knock them down.

That work is being led by the education and equalities ministers and we are keeping a watching brief on it. I have not had direct involvement with the bill as a minister, but the work is at quite an early stage; we are waiting for feedback from the other ministers. The bill will indirectly impact on employability issues, so we will look at that closely.

The Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training, Jamie Hepburn, has answered questions on that in Parliament in the past few weeks. I refer the committee to his answers; he laid out how that is being addressed and is leading on it. There is a lot in his answers to Parliament about the interaction between supporting young people with disabilities and developing the young workforce and the skills agenda.

In answering that, I have to refer to the fact that many of the issues are reserved to the UK Government. The access to work scheme is probably the most obvious source of funding for employers, and it is quite substantial funding—I would have to check the figure, but I think that more than £60,000 can be made available to adapt workplaces to allow access to work for disabled people. That is a UK Government responsibility; it is not the Scottish Government’s.

That scheme has a very important role, and I understand that one of the issues with it is simply to do with raising awareness among employers that the support is available from the UK Government. Maybe the Scottish Government could play a bigger role in raising awareness. That funding is not our responsibility, so we cannot take responsibility for it per se, but your point is valid. We want employers to know that assistance is there and that it is substantial.

The answer to your question is that support is available and that it is a UK Government scheme. We have funded specific projects on working with employers, but the financial support for individual cases is through the access to work scheme.

On the culture in workplaces, your point about career progression is important. Again, that is a cultural issue for employers and it could take us into reserved areas. There are on-going debates about mandatory reporting of figures on disabled employees. I do not know whether that would include figures on managerial positions and so on, but there is a debate about mandatory reporting for employers, which is a reserved issue. UK ministers are looking at a number of issues just now. I know that a House of Commons committee in 2021 carried out a similar inquiry to this one on the disability employment gap. I do not know whether the committee has seen that.

Yes. I am happy to take that point away. If that is what organisations have raised with you, we will certainly take that on board. I am happy to discuss that with such organisations. I meet them quite regularly and I make visits around the country, so I know that good stuff is happening. However, clearly if there are issues, I am happy to find out more about them.

We are aware of that, and it is part of our thinking in the fair work agenda. Under devolved responsibilities, we are very limited in what we can do on the disability pay gap, but we want to look at ways of involving the fair work agenda. I think that the House of Commons committee that I mentioned looked at the issue, as well. It did not press for mandatory reporting on pay, because it felt that that might disadvantage disabled people in getting on to the first rung of the ladder or getting into the workplace to start with. I am sure that there are a lot of debates on that.

All that I can say is that the issue is part of our fair work thinking and that it is, again, a complex issue to address. We can only address that through fair work and influencing people and employers; we do not have legislative power over the issue.

I am happy to give a further update to the committee. I will speak to finance colleagues.

Of course. Projects such as the one that you mentioned are extremely important, but I make the point that every project and organisation that comes to us sees itself as a priority and as being very important. It is very difficult to strike the balance.

When I write to the committee following my appearance today, I will be happy to incorporate that.

We have given a commitment to introduce the strategy in this parliamentary session. I think that work on it is imminent. As I said, my ministerial colleagues will give evidence to your colleagues on the Education, Children and Young People Committee on progress and will respond on the Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill.